Where is Home?

Sunday, June 17, 2007
Readings here.

Where is home for you? What does being at home mean? What are the signs that make you breathe "HOME?" For Naboth it was his ancestral land - his vineyard that his father and father's father and so on had planted and tended. Ahab wanted the land but even the offer of better land would not change Naboth's mind - because this was his home. Jezebel had Naboth killed so Ahab could have the land. Only death could break Naboth's connection to the land.
How many people in this world still have a connection to land that is so strong? One still finds family ranches like this. The Shoshone in Wyoming feel this connection to their land (what is left of it). Maybe you still live in the home where you were a child. Our kids have trouble thinking about us living anywhere but the house where they grew up - the bedrooms are still "theirs" and we still call them by that name. Some of us it in the same pew in church - and don't really feel settled if we have to sit somewhere else. For most people in the US and around the world this has changed or is changing. People move for jobs, or because of war, or to feed their families, or for adventure. Many have to move or like Naboth because otherwise they will be killed - because someone else wants their home.
The woman (who is not Mary Magdalene!) who anoints Jesus with her tears and her hair is looking for a different kind of home. A home for her heart. Those around her see her as the wild stranger from the streets. Jesus sees her as a beloved daughter. He offers acceptance of her as she is, allows her to touch him, sees the love in her, and reflects back the love of God for her.
How in this transient world can Holy Communion be a home of the heart for people in Rock Springs. This is our challenge as we gain new members - can we make room or will those who have been here longer feel dispossessed? Will newer members find a place to offer their gifts here?
Lots of questions - I pray we will learn the answers as we journey together.

Procrastinating my sermon prep by taking Internet quizzes and bloghopping - thanks Eileen at your new location

ARRGGH - St. Pat tagged me - 8 things and 8 people - this has been around my blog friends' sites so not sure I can find 8 more - join in if you want to help me.

Padre Mickey (who btw has a great story on the first woman bishop in Cuba) is at it again: spreading memes. He's a carrier!

So this one's in eights. Padre Mickey sez I have to follow the rules, which are:

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.

2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

MY EIGHT THINGS
1. One of my favorite movies is Smoke Signals

2.My other favorite movie seen on late night TV is The Guns of Navarone

3. I love to watch baseball - am watching the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta right now as I struggle with this meme.

4. I used to collect baseball cards - wish I still had them.

5. On the baseball theme - I am still a Brooklyn Dodger fan. (never found another team after they left NY)

6. I turn the bedspread down on motel beds before sitting on the bed.

7. I used to have a radio show - Legislative Reports (Wyoming Legislature)

8. I eat Wheaties (Breakfast of Champions) most every morning.

Tagging?? Hmm?? still thinking. HELP!!

Celebration of the life of Jim Kelsey

The heart of ministry: the death and life of Jim Kelsey
By Herb Gunn June 09, 2007 (Episcopal News Service) Ecclesiastical orders melted at the church door in Marquette, Michigan, on Friday, June 8, as 600 people touched by the life and stunned by the death of Jim Kelsey, an Episcopalian in the Diocese of Northern Michigan, gathered for his funeral. Concurrent services were celebrated at his former parish of Holy Trinity in Swanton, Vermont, and at the cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Also celebrated on the same day was a funeral mass at St. Joseph Church in Lake Linden, Michigan, for Michael Charles Wiita, the second man killed in the June 3 auto accident. The father of Wiita's fiancée, Jessica Slavik who was injured in the crash, came to Marquette to sign Kelsey's guest book and extend the family's respects.

At Kelsey's funeral, there was no liturgical procession for the nearly three-dozen bishops who traveled from across the Episcopal Church and sat with family or friends in St. Michael Roman Catholic Church. Save the presider, Bruce Caldwell, bishop of the Diocese of Wyoming and Kelsey's close friend, and the deacon, Teena Maki of Northern Michigan, no one wore vestments and there was no special seating. Some priests wore neckties with others in street clothes.

Gene Robinson and Fredrica Harris Thompsett spoke:

Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire also spoke of Kelsey's work at the margins of the Church and his passion for justice.

"How did Jim come to have such a passion for justice?" Robinson asked. "Jesus listened with his heart, and in doing so, he touched the untouchables, he drew in the outcast, he raised up the downcasts, and he loved those not unloved by society but those unloved by themselves.

"Jesus and Jim listened with their hearts and then believed the truth that was spoken and then reached out," Robinson said.

Fredrica Harris Thompsett, faculty member at Episcopal Divinity School, rose to speak to "a powerful legacy, the abundance of grace in our midst at this tender [time of] heartbreak and celebration."

Speaking directly to Kelsey, Thompsett said, "You incarnated among us an unpretentious grace."

She credited Kelsey, who has a twin brother Steve, for learning to share space even before birth, and said, "We were reminded by your presence, Jim, that flexibility, making room for another, inviting other ways and sharing space are connected to ministerial vitality.

"I know of nobody who is better, Jim, than you at playing in the fully inclusive waters of baptism," said Thompsett. "Your legacy paradoxically reminds us that one person can make a huge difference, especially when that person insists on working along side and valuing others."

In days and years ahead, she said, many others will extend and pass on Jim Kelsey's legacy, "a shared mission of vitality among the baptized. What an abundant legacy of grace. What a truly amazing grace has been revealed for each of us to carry forward in days ahead."

More HERE

WIDOWS - 2 Pentecost, Proper 5
Sunday Readings HERE

The Son of Life meets a son of death --
there is something about Jesus that sucks the death out of people.

For a widow, the death of an only son is a tragedy beyond just the loss of a beloved child. Women without a husband or son were the lowest of the low in society - forced to return to their families' homes - they would live a life beholden to anyone who would take them in. The gift of life given by Elijah and Jesus was life for the entire community. Widows in the Bible symbolize all who have lost everything and are forced to rely on others for support and nurture. Our care of the "widow" shows our true discipleship.

EARTH BISHOP MOURNED: A tribute to Jim Kelsey

Jim Kelsey: A video tribute by Earth Keepers.
Click HERE

The world has lost its Earth Bishop.

Episcopal Bishop James Kelsey of the Diocese of Northern Michigan was killed in a traffic accident on Sunday June the third 2007 while on one of his many journeys to spread the word of God.

Bishop Kelsey was returning from the far eastern Upper Peninsula when his life was cut short.

No person was dedicated to environment and interfaith causes like Bishop Kelsey.

This video was taken a day before his death as the Episcopal Bishop met with Lutheran and Presbyterian pastors to discuss a new interfaith environment endeavor called the Turtle Island Project.

Bishop Kelsey was always the first faith leader to volunteer to help with numerous interfaith environment projects sponsored by two Marquette, Michigan non-profits - the Superior Watershed Partnership and the Cedar Tree Institute.

For the past three years, Bishop Kelsey had been a strong supporter of the Earth Keeper Initiative that involves 9 faith traditions with 140 churches and temples across northern Michigan.

Bishop Kelsey was with the Earth Keepers from the beginning - and was one of the original nine faith leaders to sign the Earth Keeper Covenant in 2004 - pledging to protect the environment and reach out to American Indian Tribes.

On Earth Day 2005, Bishop Kelsey helped collect over 45 tons of household poisons like insecticides and drainer cleaner plus tons of car batteries.

Following that first clean sweep, Bishop Kelsey said "we are delighted with the results of the Clean Sweep project throughout the Upper Peninsula."

Bishop Kelsey said the first clean sweep was "a sign of the commitment shared across our faith traditions to be faithful stewards of the Creation into which we have been born, and which sustains our lives."

Bishop Kelsey said "I think it's a really remarkable thing that this particular initiative has crossed boundaries that usually don't get cross in terms of different faith traditions."

More about Jim Kelsey at HERE

Sunday, the world suffered the loss of one who loved extravagantly. Jim Kelsey, bishop of Upper Michigan or "the U.P." as it is often called died in a car wreck. I could not take it in when the news came across my computer screen. Someone who was so alive in this world is now not.
Many tributes are gathering around the Episcopal Church. You can add yours HERE.
The hard thing for me at times like these is the distance of cyberspace. Although far flung friends stay in touch with email and blogs, there are times when I need to gather with other friends and just hold each other and weep. Nearby family and friends care but if they did not know the person it is not the same as those who have memories of the person to share.
Jim was someone who radiated the love of God to all around him. He was quick to laugh at nonsense (of which there is a lot in the Episcopal Church) and to mourn the waste of time and talent when we get so involved in our own importance over others. Although a bishop - he only saw that as a role to support others, it was never his intrinsic identity. His baptism was the most important rite for him.
Episcopal Cafe has many links to read more about this most amazing person.
For me I am thinking about a time when Jim was a Trainer for the Education for Ministry Program and we were at a training of trainers. We were doing a "futuring" workshop, thinking about what the future would be like by starting at a date in the future and "remembering" how we got there. Our group was playing with the idea of a world where no one could speak and people who where highly intuitive and knew other ways of listening were teaching the world how to communicate.
Our talked about how "could you believe it" in those old days they had contests to pick out the most beautiful - whatever that means! "Now" we could hear what all beings were saying - rocks, trees, bread, tables, animals. And how we were not really speaking but hearing each other on a deeper level. The discussion got wilder and wilder. We were laughing so hard - but somehow it was so memorable to me.
One part that I remember to this day was when one of us talked about how the BREAD gave the sermon last week in church. It told of its birth as seeds, gathered, milled, baked, and broken -- sharing its life with us. The willingness to give itself to us for strength and to satisfy our hunger.
I guess that reminds me of how willing Jim was to welcome people to the Diocese of Upper Michigan to learn about Baptismal Ministry and to go on the road to share a way of being church that encourages all to become the people they were created to be in the church and the world. He was a person who offered his experience to both pique and satisfy our hunger - our yearning for a meaningful life in the Spirit.
We will miss his lightness of being and I will miss a friend.

From Linda Fleming of Baggs, Wyoming

Life is short and precious
And we do not have too much time
To gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us.
So be swift to love
and make haste to be kind.

TRINITY SUNDAY - more

Today we will baptize 3 people during our Trinity celebration. I think baptism is our acceptance of the invitation from God to the dance of faith. For the baby we will have to teach him the steps, for the child we will learn to be more playful, and from the adult we will learn the gifts she brings. Our community is ever changing as we dance in and out, around and around with the Spirit, the Christ and the Creator ever present all in all.

TRINITY SUNDAY
Readings are HERE

Notes towards a sermon:

A word often used to speak of the Trinity is Perichoresis - in English "dancing around."

Here are some quotes from various centuries of people trying to describe this mystery of God experienced as three yet one:

"The Godhead is, to speak concisely, undivided... there is one mingling of Light, as it were of three suns joined to each other."
-Gregory of Nazianzus (4th cent. A.D.), Fifth Theological Oration, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson), 1994, p. 322.


"Theology makes explicit what the heart has always known. Let God be defined not so much by holiness and sovereignty in which loving relatedness is incidental, but by the dance of trinitarian life...When we render God in this way, not only atheists might come to love Him, but even Christians..."
Clark Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press), 1996, p. 47-48


"The incarnate one is the glorified God: 'The Word was made flesh and we beheld his glory.' God glorifies himself in man. That is the ultimate secret of the Trinity. The humanity is now taken up into the Trinity. Not from all eternity, but 'from now on even unto eternity;' the trinitarian God is seen as the incarnate one. The glorification of God in the flesh is now at the same time, the glorification of man, who shall have life through eternity with the trinitarian God...God remains the incarnate one even in the Last Judgment. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center, p. 105)


"And that, by the way, is perhaps the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions: that in Christianity God is not a static thing--not even a person--but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance." (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 152).


"Have you an infant child?...You have no need of amulets or incantations, with which the Devil also comes in, stealing worship from God for himself in the minds of vainer men. Give your child the Trinity, that great and noble Guard."
-Gregory of Nazianzus (4th cent. A.D.), Oration 15, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson), 1994, p. 365.


"Worship the Trinity, which I call the only true devotion and saving doctrine."
-Gregory of Nazianzus (4th cent. A.D.), Oration 43, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson), 1994, p. 405.

The Trinity has been described as a mountain approached from various sides - looking like 3 different mountains but when viewed after climbing to the top - seen as One. Or perhaps like water in its various forms: ice, liquid and steam - all the same substance but having very different appearances.

Bill Loader reflects on the reading from Romans: "So for Paul peace is about being in a right relationship with God, not as some distant judge nor as someone who is trying to draw us up into himself, but as one who is expansively living love out into the universe. We will have peace as we ride the flow of God's compassion out into the universe in our world and context. This is not a matter of following carefully
defined oughts, ancient or modern, but of being inwardly connected in such a way that we have an orientation which unites our joy, our intentions and attitudes and our actions. The more we allow ourselves to be loved the more we are free to ride the flow."

A country western song captures the idea for me:

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

UPDATE: Pentecost sermon Listen HERE Scroll down to sermon. It will be up for a week.

PENTECOST - more

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

What would this speaking and hearing many languages look like in Jackson, Wyoming? What are all the languages spoken here? Visitors come from all over the world - every continent. Standing at Old Faithful I have heard at least 10 different languages being spoken nearby. Among those living in our community the main languages are English and Spanish - how does each hear our message of witness? Besides these languages, there are the languages of the generations. How can the message of Christ be heard by the youngest to the oldest person in Jackson? St. John's has messengers who speak the languages we find in our midst. The Latino Resource Center assists those whose language of origin is Spanish to learn the language of Jackson Hole - not just words but the language of economics, community services, and employment. Can St. John's offer the words of our faith? The leaders of the ministries with children, youth, and adults speak a specialized language to convey our faith to one another. The Browse N Buy speaks a language of clothing and goods that offers quality merchandise to stretch budgets and a way to put items to use rather than to the dump. Young adults and others face a confusion of financial messages - staggering under increasing debt loads - do we have members that could offer to speak a word of hope for them?

Could the fire of the Holy Spirit enlighten us to see how we might speak the words and actions of our faith in the streets of Jackson Hole? I believe you have begun to do this and I challenge you to see new opportunities of witness. The church has reorganized to support this witness - it is no longer a small church in a small community. Different ways of being church are emerging - not better or worse - but different - sometimes the fire of the Holy Spirit is a bit painful but it is fire that refines us to learn once again how to be Christ's body in the world.

Alleluia, alleluia - let us go forth rejoicing in the power of the Spirit!

Thanks be to God, Alleluia, Alleluia!

PENTECOST

Readings for Sunday are HERE

Have you ever had that experience where it is only in retrospect things make sense? Maybe it is lessons taught to you by a parent or teacher that only make sense when you are raising your own children? Maybe it is a book you read at one point in your life that only became clear in another phase of your life? Maybe was an event with others where you had one idea of what it was all about only to discover later with more experience that you were totally off track?

This is the situation for the followers of Jesus in our Gospel for today. Our lesson is just part of 4 chapters of John where Jesus is having his final session with his followers. He has washed there feet and now is doing one last teaching of his reasons for being in our midst. They are obviously not getting it. Philip starts out with "just show us." Jesus says - "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?" I project as sense of frustration and real sadness by Jesus - we have been together for 3 years and you still, still, do not know?
Jesus plunges ahead anyway, with talk of them doing greater things, of them learning more after he is gone, of believers being given greater knowledge when they are ready for it, always coming back to if you love me keep my commandments. Don't worry about the future, don't be afraid, you will have peace - the peace that passes understanding. Those gathered around Jesus just seem to look at him with unseeing, uncomprehending stares. What a friend of mine calls the disciple's look - "HUH?
Jesus continues to exhort them and pray for them for 4 more chapters before turning to continue his walk of faith to the cross and beyond.
The lesson from Acts picks up the followers of Christ later. Luke finds them gathered together waiting, praying, and studying. Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas sone of James, certain women, Mary Jesus' mother, and Jesus' brothers. 120 of them - mostly women, some men. They have choses someone to fill Judas Iscariot's place in the 12 and they are "constantly devoting themselves to prayer"as it says earlier in the book. Jesus has ascended and left them with:

"But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."

So they are gathered - trying not to be afraid but not knowing what this thing is that they are supposed to be receiving. When

"suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability."

Suddenly they understand in a way that was not possible before - they see what Jesus was trying to tell them, they see what it really means to be a disciple, the heavens open to them in that moment. It is breathtaking. Nothing is impossible for this little tiny, seemingly powerless band of women and men. Stunning. Words could not describe it. Their heads seemed to be exploding with the knowledge and understanding.
It will take them the rest of their lives to fully comprehend but the doors have blown open and they are out in the streets staggering around with the power of it all.
From our view here in the 21st century, as the inheritors of that continuing fire of the Spirit, do we feel that power and fire? We come each Sunday to be fed from the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and in our community. Like the early disciples we often "see through the glass darkly" - dimly perceiving something we see manifested in certain lives that we want for our lives. We want a life of meaning, we want that peace at the center of our being, we want to reach beyond ourselves in service to the world. How can we nurture the flames from that earliest Pentecost?
The first disciples teach us what to do.

1. Gather and support one another.
2. Devote ourselves to prayer and study of the Bible and those who have gone before us in faith.
3. Serve one another and the world in Christ's name.
4. Obey Jesus' commandment to love one another.
5. Witness and teach our faith to others - by word and deed.
6. Invite others into our community and make them feel welcome when they come.
7. Remember we know only in part - all is not revealed to us, sometimes we have to wait for more information before moving ahead or making judgments.
8. Open ourselves to the power of the Spirit to strengthen us and empower us to do the work we are given to do.

These are the basics of Christian community. In our day there may be new ways of incorporating these principles but the heart does not change. Love God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul and your neighbor as yourself. Love God, Love Others, Love Self - simple and yet a lifetime of growing in faith. Take the first step as we said in the opening prayer:

O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Image from Asian Christian Art

MOTHER'S DAY

According to Wikipedia the "Mother's Day Proclamation" by Julia Ward Howe was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Written in 1870, Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.
Today, the proclamation is included in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition.

Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.