Readings are HERE.

I am off to the Bondurant BBQ tomorrow - no pigs, unfortunately. I am leaning more to preaching on that drama queen Elijah - oh poor me, no one to help, it is all up to me, Jezebel is after me (with good reason having killed off all her prophets), I did all you asked of me, God, and now every one hates me. wah, wah, wah -- finally he shuts up long enough for God to get a word in edgewise (still and small). Thunder and lightning and wind would have just increased his anxiety. God sends him back to find all the leaders God has been busy calling out while Elijah has been away.

All the readings have lessons of how we imprison ourselves in reaction to the blows that life brings. Elijah is a faithful prophet doing what he believes God is asking of him. In the scene before his escape into the desert he has a contest with the priests of Baal, the bulls are piled high to be consumed by holy fire. Sort of like an early day Bondurant BBQ!! The priests of Baal dance and perform their rituals but nothing - sort of like how we feel when we try to light wet wood with paper matches and no kindling. Then Elijah steps up and pours water all over the sacrifice, ensuring that they will know it is not his doing. Then "whoooompf" all goes up in smoke. Not content with this demonstration of the power of God - he kills all the priests of Baal. Jezebel is not "amused." She sends her soldiers to kill Elijah. This is where we pick up the story today.

He is exhausted, he feels alone - even though God has been providing for him all during his journey. The thunder cracks, the lightning flashes, the wind roars but none speak to him. Finally in the silence and darkness he hears God say "return."
Return to your work, return to yourself, return to God.
The man afflicted by demons, who we hear about in the Gospel is another example of someone being called back into "his right mind." He has become crazed by the oppression of The Legion - the Roman army. He has been chained and driven out of community to rave, naked, among the tombs. When he encounters Jesus he experiences a freedom of mind and spirit that brings him back to himself - the person he was born to be, created in the image of God. In this story - it is not the man who can't hear God speaking but the community. They become even more afraid of the man - they could deal with him as he was - raving and naked. Now he sits calmly at Jesus feet but terrifying to them. Think about the community under the rule of the Romans, not wanting to rock the boat and bring the wrath of Rome down upon them. A person in his right mind who refuses to be a victim causes the whole system great anxiety and reaction.

We see this in family systems where there is alcoholism. If you have been involved in the healing of AA or Al Anon - you know how distressed everyone gets when one family member steps out of their role and starts behaving in new healthier ways. We see it in churches when there has been abuse by clergy (sexual or financial or whatever). Everyone participates in keeping the secret and not rocking the boat. When one person speaks out against whatever is going on - he or she becomes the outcast - the bad guy. When we allow Jesus to bring his healing presence into our families and churches it is not always sweetness and pleasantness. Change, even healing change, can be painful - like a healing wound is painful but necessary.
Paul in his letter to the Galatians writes about being freed from our imprisonments. Much of his letter has been about the pains that the Galatian community has suffered but today we see the rewards - that in baptism we are no longer stuck in the prisons of social construction - class, race, ethnicity, even gender - and the church has been shaking in terror of his meaning down to this very day. Freedom in Christ is wonderful and terrifying.

We long for this relationship with God - as the Psalmist says:

As the deer longs for the waterbrooks,
so longs my soul for you, O God.
My soul is a athirst for the living God
when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?

It seems to be a case of be careful what you pray for! The destination is grand but the journey may have its hard parts - potholes and wild beasts, falls and terrors. The great thing is that Jesus is the beginning and the end, and our companion through it all - if we but hold out our hands.

There is a painting that often hangs in Sunday School rooms of Jesus outside the door - in the painting there is no keyhole or handle on the side where Jesus stands waiting - on our side we have the handle - will we open the doors of our locked hearts to Jesus - the Christ? Will we take the incredible liberating presence of God into ourselves and in our churches? Will we risk it? Can we hear the small still voice in the midst of the clamor of life? Say yes with Elijah and the man who was oppressed? Move out from the shuttered, locked up lives of our own making and move out to live the life in Christ?

Alban

Today is the 12th anniversary of my ordination to the transitional diaconate. It is always an odd sort of date. I never felt called to be a Deacon so making the vows of a Deacon all the while knowing that in some part of me they were not true felt like a lie. It was not the first time in my life or the last for this dilemma.
Alban was killed for putting on someone else's cloak and being mistaken for the other person. I wonder about that in the context of being ordained. He lied (by deed) to protect his mentor. The church and I lied because that is how it is done.
Many of us have worked to get the liturgies for ordinations changed so Deacons have one ordination and Priests another. The General Convention of the Episcopal Church has not passed that yet - but we keep working.

It is funny that what I felt to be my ordination to the priesthood happened that weekend. Many of my friends from seminary and most all my family gathered in Laramie for the ordination. Three of us were being ordained on June 22. The then bishop always did transitional deacon ordinations at the Cathedral. Family and friends gathered for dinner, cooked and served by classmates. Surrounded by all those who had traveled so far - from Boston MA to Portland OR, I suddenly felt "ordained." No bishop made it happen and I was still 6 months from ordination (by the church) as a priest. It was real and irreversible from then on. The community confirmed my call by their presence and in the sharing of a meal.


Here is a bit on Alban by James Kiefer
Alban 22 June 304

There were probably Christians in the British Isles already in the first century. However, Alban is the first recorded Christian martyr. The traditional date of his death is 304, during the persecution under the Emperor Diocletian; but many scholars now date it as around 209, during the persecution under the Emperor Septimius Severus. Alban was a pagan, and a soldier in the Roman Army. He gave shelter to a Christian priest who was fleeing from arrest, and in the next few days the two talked at length, and Alban became a Christian. When officers came in search of the priest, Alban met them, dressed in the priest's cloak, and they mistook him for the priest and arrested him. He refused to renounce his new faith, and was beheaded. He thus became the first Christian martyr in Britain. The second was the executioner who was to kill him, but who heard his testimony and was so impressed that he became a Christian on the spot, and refused to kill Alban. The third was the priest, who when he learned that Alban had been arrested in his place, hurried to the court in the hope of saving Alban by turning himself in. The place of their deaths is near the site of St. Alban's Cathedral today.

Prayer

Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Alban triumphed over suffering and was faithful even unto death: Grant to us, who now remember him with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

written by James Kiefer

Icon by Aidan Hart Icons

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!