Gospel

Proper 21, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click here.

What did you see this morning on your way to church?

Did you see the clothes you picked out to wear, your pets as you fed them, your car as you got into it?

What about on your drive?  Could you tell me who you passed on the way to church?  What did they look like?  How old were they?

How about this, if you came to church with a friend or family member, without looking at them, could you tell me what they were wearing today?

We open our eyes when we wake up in the morning, but we can go through an entire day without seeing anything.  Especially something upsetting.

The rich man in today’s parable had a hard time seeing.  While he was inside his fabulous house, dressed in the finest fabrics he could buy, eating a sumptuous meal; a poor man named Lazarus was sitting outside the gate, covered in sores.

The rich man walked by Lazarus every time he left and entered his home, but he did not see him.  Sure, if you asked him, he could have told you he was there, but Lazarus was not someone he thought much about.  He certainly never considered offering Lazarus something to wear or to eat.

In the culture of the time, abundance was a zero sum game.  There were a limited number of resources, spread between people.  If one person had riches, it means another person did not.  If a person had riches, they were obligated to give alms to the poor, to balance out the distribution.

We don’t know whether the rich man gave alms, but he certainly did not give any to Lazarus.  To him, Lazarus was the lowest of the low.  For heaven’s sake, the text tells us that dogs licked his sores!  You can’t get much more pathetic than that.  Lazarus was not worth the rich man’s time.

Well, imagine the rich man’s surprise when they both die and the rich man finds Lazarus with Abraham in heaven and he in Hades! Even death is not a strong enough force to help the rich man see his situation clearly.  Even though he is in Hades, he still thinks Lazarus is a lower order of creature.  He does not address Lazarus directly, but instead tells Abraham to send Lazarus down to bring him a drop of water to help cool him off.  He sees Lazarus now, but only in terms of how Lazarus can be helpful to him.

When Abraham refuses the rich man’s request, the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers, so they might not suffer the same fate.  But once, again, the rich man is not seeing the situation clearly.

Abraham tells the rich man that even if Lazarus was sent to his brothers, back from the dead, they would not be impressed.  If they could not see the truth by reading Hebrew Scriptures, they would not see the truth if it was standing in front of their faces in the form of a resurrected Lazarus.

The implication here is devastating.  Abraham implies that by not seeing Lazarus, the rich man also did not really see the scriptures.  Or maybe it is the other way around, because the rich man did not understand the Scriptures, he was not able to see Lazarus.

This story asks us again, what do we see?  What do we understand?

When we read stories like this from Scripture, do we think they are directed as someone else?  Can we see ourselves in these stories?

I just finished a fascinating novel called The City & The City.  It tells the story of two cities, Ul Qoma and Beszel, that are right next to each other.  In fact, large parts of them overlap, so that one side of a street belongs to Ul Qoma and the other side belongs to the Beszel.   Because of past political tensions, the inhabitants of the cities are forbidden to see the city in which they do not live, even if that city is only feet away.  There are terrible penalties if a person breaches, and interacts with the other city.  So, from a young age, residents in each city learn to unsee.  Citizens are taught to look upon the other city without registering its activities, inhabitants or architecture.  The city remains a total mystery, even though it is close enough to touch.

In a lot of ways, I think we learn to unsee in our own cities, as well.  We learn not to make eye contact with beggars.  We learn to not drive through certain parts of town.

We learn to avoid certain bars and restaurants that host people different from us.  Like the rich man, we wear our fancy fabrics—our suede and cashmere.  Like the rich man, we dine on sumptuous food at Eno Terra and Blue Point.  Like the rich man, we read the scriptures, but we don’t always apply them to our lives.

Unlike the rich man, there is still hope for us.  Jesus shows us a new way of interacting with the world.  Jesus saw everyone.  Jesus went up to the weirdest, poorest, smelliest people and looked them in the eye and treated them with respect.  He listened to their problems and offered them healing.

Jesus transformed what it means for people to really see each other.  Jesus stripped away the hierarchy of what it means to be worthy and unworthy.  Jesus gathered people of all walks of life and expected them to dine together, to live together.

We learn to unsee because we are afraid.  We are afraid of getting hurt.  We are afraid of being embarrassed.  We are afraid of saying the wrong thing.

But when we are in relationship with Jesus, when Jesus is looking right at us and seeing us for who we are, we gain courage.  Jesus sees inside our fancy cars, and through our fancy clothing.  Jesus knows who we are underneath all that.  Jesus knows our shallow hopes and big insecurities and he loves us anyway.

And when we realize the kind of love Jesus has for us, we are freed to love others, to look others in the eye, even if they are different from us, even if their poverty makes us feel uncomfortable and threatened.  Because, when Jesus looks at us and really sees us, we understand that there is no us and them.  We are all the same in Jesus’ eyes.  We are all loved.  We are all Lazarus.  We are all seen.

Amen.

Proper 13, Year C, 2010

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Listen to the sermon here.

I am one of two sisters.  My parents, wary of the tensions that can rise between sisters, treated us extremely fairly.  If one of us got a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas, we both got a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas.  When I was ten, I received a portable stereo.  When my sister was ten, she received a portable stereo.  When I graduated from college, they generously gave me a silver Honda Civic.  When my sister graduated from college they gave her a silver Honda Civic.  You get the idea!

Their experiment was a success.  My sister and I have an extremely close, loving, supportive, non-competitive relationship.  But, even in this story of an extremely loving, healthy family, I still felt jealousy.  How you ask?  How could I feel jealous when my sister received the exact same presents that I did?  Well, you see, Marianne is my younger sister.  When I received that stereo, it only had a tape player, because my father thought CDs were just a fad.  My sister, four years younger, got the CD player.  And while our Honda Civics looked identical, my younger sister’s Honda Civic had automatic windows and cruise control.  While I was not caught up in a violent fit of jealousy, I could feel little pinpricks of covetousness for what my sister had.  (In the end, of course, things all work out.  Last year when we moved to New Jersey, I bought my sister’s 8 year old Honda Civic and now I have automatic windows and cruise control and she has the New York subway system!)

Competition between siblings is as old as the relationship between Cain and Abel.  There is something about that first peer relationship that makes us just a little crazy.  Especially if money is involved.

Our passage from the Gospel of Luke today is almost comic.  Right before this brother interrupts Jesus, Jesus has been speaking to the crowd about really lofty, opaque, theological ideas.  He has just said,

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

I picture Jesus saying those words in a booming voice and then looking around at the crowd meaningfully, hoping to see some nods of recognition.  Instead he gets a guy saying, “Hey—make my brother share the family inheritence!”

In retrospect, Jesus’ response is incredibly kind.  I would have been tempted to say, “Are you even listening to me, you jerk?”

Jesus, like a wise mother, does not take sides in the argument.  He does not ask to hear the details.  He does not ask the man to read the text of the will.  He does not cluck his tongue in sympathy.

Instead, Jesus tells a parable about a perfectly nice farmer who had a very good harvest and wanted to build more barns to store the harvest in, so he could just relax and enjoy the rest of his life.

That basically sums up our lives, doesn’t it?  We open retirement accounts and emergency savings accounts and 529s to save for our children’s education.  We become priests in the Episcopal Church and think about that nice pension we’re going to get starting in 2035.  Oh, well, maybe that part is just me.  I’ll be honest with you, I already know what retirement community I want to join.  Westminster-Canterbury rests in the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  You can start out in a free standing home, then move to an apartment, then to assisted living and end up in the Alzheimer’s unit, if you need to.  They have an art studio, a pool, a gym, a beauty parlor and a pretty tasty cafeteria.  I have it all figured out.  I’ll convince my best friends to move there and we’ll end our lives sitting on porches, telling stories, and playing bridge. My grandchildren, who will adore me and write me letters weekly, will visit three or four times a year.  And then one day, when I feel that I’ve lived a good long life, I will die peacefully in my sleep.  It’s going to be great!

Unfortunately for me, and the farmer, life isn’t that simple.  The farmer is not portrayed as a villain and yet in the parable God yells at him!  God says, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”  God reminds the farmer that all our frantic preparation is really for naught.

I can save all the money I want to, but that won’t stop me from dying in a tragic car accident, or getting MS, or having my husband leave me out of the blue, or suddenly having to take care of a sick parent, or giving birth to a disabled child, or having my grandchildren ignore me for the last twenty years of my life.

Money is fantastic for some things.  It can give us a roof over our head, and good food for every meal.  It can buy us clothes that make us feel good about ourselves and vacations that help us discover the world.  Money can pay for surgery, and special schools and therapy.

But ultimately, money can’t protect us.  Money can’t protect us from illness, broken relationships, disappointments, natural disasters.  Money can’t protect us from being held accountable by God.  And money can’t protect us from death.

No matter how much we acquire, we all end up in the same place.  And in that place, the currency we need is not money.  The currency we need in that place, when we stand in the presence of God, is love.  Love for God and love for our neighbor.

I have seen more than one family fall apart after the death of a rich relative.  There is something about an inheritance that brings out the worst in people.  That part of us that longs for the love and approval of the person who dies and the part of us that experiences greed, crash together in the worst of ways.  The brother that asks Jesus to adjudicate his dispute is missing his father, is feeling slighted, and just wants some justice.

But Jesus knows that is not what the brother needs.  The brother will not suddenly receive his father’s love and approval if the money becomes his.  He will not finally feel equal to his brother.  He will not be satisfied.  What the brother really needs to work on is his own heart and internal life.  The brother needs to get re-centered and focused on God.

Warren Buffet has famously informed his family that his vast fortune will be going to charity, not to them and I’m sure many of them were furious when they heard that news.  But in the end, I think Mr. Buffet is doing them a huge favor.  Without the money they will be forced to look into their own hearts.  They will be forced to figure out what their gifts and talents are.  They will be forced to work and be disciplined.  They will be forced to rely on others.  All these things are what help create a moral life, a life of love and respect for others.

The brother in our story today did not get the answer from Jesus for which he had hoped, but he got the answer he needed.

In the same way, when we ask God why we are unemployed, or why our best friend makes so much more than we do, or why our parent cut us out of their will, we are probably not that likely to get a direct answer from God.  However, if we ask God questions about the God’s currency, I’m guessing we’ll hear a reply pretty soon.  If we ask God how we can better love him.  If we ask God, how we can serve the poor better. If we ask God how we can show our families that we would do anything for them.  If we ask God where he wants us to serve him in this world.  If we start asking these kinds of questions, we’ll be amazed at the answers we receive and the life they bring us.

Amen.

Proper 10, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Listen to the sermon here.

Have you heard the story about Capt. Matt Clauer that has been circulating this week?  Capt. Clauer was serving in Iraq last year when he got a frantic phone call from his wife, Mary.  Together, they owned a $300,000 house, for which they had completely paid.  Mary was calling because she had just learned that their Homeowner’s Association had foreclosed on the house, because Mary had neglected to pay the HOA dues two months in a row, worth a total of $800. By the time he returned from Iraq, the house had been sold at auction for $3,500 and resold again for $135,000.  Mary and Matt are still living in the home, and fighting in the court of law to reclaim it.

If they were here today, they probably would have a thing or two they would like to say about neighbors.   I wonder how many of their Texas neighbors, members of the HOA board, are sitting in churches today, listening to the story of the Good Samaritan.   I wonder if the Clauers are in church this morning, hearing this story and wondering how in the heck they are supposed to love neighbors like theirs.

I wonder if any of you, thinking about your neighbors, are wondering how you’re supposed to love them?

That’s the thing about neighbors—they are just around all the time. In Charlottesville, I had a neighbor who always raced at least ten miles over the speed limit through the neighborhood AND who let his dogs poop wherever they wanted without cleaning it up.  He drove me crazy because there was no way I could get away from him.

And neighbors are problem enough, but what about friends and family?  They are really hard to shake off.

I wonder, if in the story, we hear today, whether the priest or the Levite knew the poor unfortunate soul lying in the ditch.  I wonder if they passed by and said, “Oh Frank.  Always getting into trouble.” and walked on by.  I wonder the intimacy, the neighborliness they might have had with our victim actually prevented them from helping.

As lovely as it was for the Samaritan to help this guy, helping a stranger is sometimes easier than helping someone close to you.  If an out of work alcoholic comes by the church needing a little help, we can graciously point him in the direction of several places that can be useful to him.  If I had an out of work alcoholic relative approach me, I’d probably feel a lot less gracious toward them.

When the person in our lives who is in trouble is close to us, we know that there is danger in our lives being disrupted.  If we enter into another person’s crisis, we run the risk of getting entangled in their lives, creating a web of obligations and favors from which we may not be able to extricate ourselves.

And yet, Jesus calls us to be that kind of neighbor.  He calls us to act like the Samaritan, even when we’re not breezing through a strange town.  Even when the person in the ditch lives next door and you well know you might need to pull him out of the ditch a second, or third time.

The Samaritan does set a good example for us in terms of boundaries to help us with these challenges.  The Samaritan does not take the victim home with him.  The Samaritan takes him to an inn, does what first aid he can, makes sure the innkeeper will check on him, and then leaves town.

The Samaritan does not appoint himself the victim’s social worker for life.  He sees an acute crisis and responds.  And then he goes back to Samaria.

Knowing how to respond to a neighbor, friend, or relative in crisis is really difficult.  But knowing what our role is can be helpful.  First of all, it is important to remember that we are not God.  Now, I know that can be difficult to remember, but just absorb it for a minute.  You are not God. Your role is not that of omniscient being who has the power to solve everything.  All we can do is our loving best.

If the crisis happens to our spouse, child or parent, our role may be to function as that person’s advocate, making sure they get to the doctor, to court, or to rehab when they are scheduled to do so.  If the person in crisis is a friend, our role may be that of listener—giving our friend a safe place to express all her fears.  If the person in crisis is a neighbor, our role may be that of practical help—mowing the lawn, bringing over a meal.  Our response will change depending on who is in trouble and what their circumstances are.  Sometimes our response will be pointing our neighbor in the direction of people who can be more helpful than we can.

Whatever our role is, the Good Samaritan challenges us to live out our faith. He challenges us to pay attention to the world around us.  He challenges us to respond to another’s pain, when it would be just as easy to walk on by.  He challenges us to live the way Jesus taught us to live: We shall love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our strengths, and with all our minds; and our neighbors as ourselves.

Amen.

Proper 7, Year C, 2010

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Listen to the sermon here.

I spent the summer I turned 21 in India, as a short term summer missionary with a group called Youth with a Mission. I had many interesting experiences, but the most disturbing was when our group was meeting some religious leaders in a slum in Bho Pal.  An older man pointed out a young girl—I would guess she was about eight years old—and told us that she was possessed by a demon and they were going to do an exorcism later that day.

Now at the time, I was coming out of a conservative American religious tradition that used the language of demons and angels periodically, but no one I knew had ever claimed to know someone who was possessed.

I was too young and inexperienced to say much of anything or to ask any questions, so I stood there, dumbfounded.

When I became an Episcopalian, I expected the language of demonic possession to fade into the background of our religious discourse.  And mostly, of course, it has.  But every few years, someone will come by a church of a friend, convinced they are possessed and ask for an exorcism.  Even I have been asked to bless a home the owners were convinced had some evil presence in it.

So, I frankly, don’t know what to think about demon possession.  I would like to think that it is outdated imagery based on a pre-scientific understanding of mental illness and epilepsy.  We all know how frightening it can be when a loved one disappears right in front of us, because suddenly they are overcome with symptoms of depression or schizophrenia or addiction.  We know how frightening it is when WE disappear to ourselves for the same reasons.  The experience of mental illness can certainly feel like one has been overcome by an outside malevolent power. But maybe there is another, more spiritual category in which we can be overcome.  We may never know for sure.  What we do know for sure is that Jesus demonstrated his power over the unknown by healing the man from Gerasene.

Whatever our understanding of what was plaguing the man from Gerasene, his story is a poignant one.  His choices were to live in community, but be shackled; or live freely, but alone.  The man keeps breaking through his shackles and is forced out of community, so wanders alone through the tombs.

When Jesus heals him, in an instant the man from Gerasene is brought from brokenness to wholeness; from solitude into community.

The eighth and ninth chapters of Luke show Jesus demonstrating his power over and over again.  He calms a storm, he heals the man from Gerasene, he heals a woman who has been bleeding for years, and he brings a young girl back to life.  Jesus could have continued doing tricks with the weather to show his power.  He could have caused tornadoes to come and whisk the Pharisees away when they bothered him.  He could have made double rainbows appear every time he made a speaking appearance.  Instead, Jesus uses his power over and over again to heal people.  He reaches out to people that are ill in ways that estrange them from their communities—the man from Gerasene who could not be in community because of his strange behavior, the woman who had a uterine condition that was considered unclean, the young girl who had already passed beyond all community into death.  He reaches out to those who are beyond community and heals them, bringing them back in the fold.

Jesus shows us God’s character through these healings.  When we are in relationship with God, God is at work in us moving us from brokenness to wholeness, from isolation into community.  Whether we have miscarriages that we feel like we cannot talk about publicly, or cancers in places we’d rather not name, mental illnesses that leave us not feeling ourselves, God moves toward us, never away from us.

Our illnesses do not separate us from God, even if we feel like they separate us from our families and friends.

Last week, I received a really nice letter from a woman who had come to one of our Wednesday healing services.  She was a visitor to the congregation going through chemotherapy.  We said healing prayers for her and in the letter, she said for her the service was an experience of both spiritual and physical healing and that she has recently been given a clean bill of health from her doctor.

Now, I have to admit, I was totally shocked by her letter!  I am so used to the church’s ritual of healing prayer, that I can forget that healing prayer can have real power.  But quietly, every Sunday, our prayer team prays in the Lady Chapel for those who need healing, and every Wednesday we pray and have Eucharist together.

The power in healing prayer is not the priest’s power or the congregation’s power, the power of healing prayer is the same power that Jesus demonstrated when he reached out to the man from Gerasene.  The power of healing prayer is that same power that reaches out to us when we are feeling our most vulnerable and afraid and alone.  Through healing prayer, God reaches out to us and begins to make us whole again, begins to draw us out of solitude, into community.

Even if healing prayer does not instantly heal our illnesses, the act of praying when we are ill or afraid or alone reminds us that God’s power is stronger even than the power of illness and death.  In children’s worship we occasionally sing the song,

God is bigger than the boogeyman.
He is bigger than Godzilla or the monsters on TV.
God is bigger than the boogeyman,
and he’s watching out for you and me.

The song is meant to comfort children who are afraid of what might be lurking under the bed or in the closet, but we grownups have our own set of fears that keep us up at night, and we, too need to be reminded that God is on our side and that he has great power.

Princeton can be a town of great isolation and great loneliness.  And I know in many of your lives you are going through difficult times.  I see God at work in Trinity moving people out of isolation and fear into community and love and I encourage you to reach out to one another and to be part of the healing work that God is doing in this place.

For Jesus is not done with his healing, he is still at work right here, right now, in our lives, exorcising the demons of our fear, loneliness, disease, anxiety, depression—all those things that weigh on our hearts and souls.

Thanks be to God.

Good Friday, Year C, 2010

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My favorite musical of all time is West Side Story.  I have watched the movie dozens of times and seen the play in the theater several times.  No matter how many times I watch it, though, I root for everything to turn out in the end.  I cross my fingers and hold my breath and think maybe this time Tony won’t kill Bernardo.  I think this time maybe Maria and Tony can hide safely away somewhere.  Maybe this time, Tony won’t die in Maria’s arms.

Of course, no matter how hard I wish for the outcome to change, West Side Story always ends the same way, with Maria’s heartbreaking speech as she holds the gun that killed her lover and with the Jets and the Sharks finally joining together carry away Tony’s body.

I experience a lot of the same feelings around Good Friday.  Maybe this time the Pharisees will listen to Jesus.  Maybe this time, Judas won’t betray him.  Maybe this time Pilate will actually take a stand and follow his instincts instead of caving to the desires of the crowd.

But both these stories always have the same ending.  Tony always dies because Laurents and Bernstein were following the plot of Romeo and Juliet.  And in a Shakespearean tragedy, things always end badly.

Our Good Friday story, though, is more than a story.  The Good Friday story was not written by an author to manipulate our emotions.  Jesus does not die because literary convention demands it.

Jesus’ death can seem inevitable, something that was always fated from the moment he started claiming to be God’s son.  All the circumstances line up that way.  He angers those in power, they create rhetoric around him, a friend betrays him, and then he ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Jesus can be seen as a victim, someone like Tony in West Side Story, who died unnecessarily, pathetically.

The only problem with this theory, is that the Jesus portrayed in The Gospel of John is anything but pathetic. Jesus knows that death is his destiny, and he walks toward it full of confidence that his death and resurrection are what is needed for humanity.  In John 16 he tells his disciples, “Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but he world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.”  Jesus gives his disciples a long final speech that sums up what is happening and gives them encouragement and hope for the future.  Immediately before his betrayal, Jesus prays a long prayer to God.  And this is not the cry for help in the garden of Gethsemane found in the synoptic gospels, this is a prayer full of confidence.  He prays that he may be glorified, but also prays for his disciples, that they might be sanctified and gain eternal life because of his actions.

Even though these disciples will betray and deny Jesus, they are at the front of his mind, and seem to be his primary concern.  Even on the cross, Jesus seems in control, making sure his mother is taken care of before he takes his final breath.

Jesus was not the victim of fate.  Jesus was in charge of his destiny.  Jesus actively made the choice to sacrifice himself for us.

He chose to die so that we could be redeemed by God.  He chose to die so we could be free to be in relationship with his Father.  He chose to die so we could receive the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Comforter.

Before he died, Jesus left us instructions.  In chapter 14 of The Gospel of John, Jesus is telling his disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit and he says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  So, if we want to honor his death we choose to take seriously those commandments to love God and our neighbors.  Because when Jesus redeems us for our sins, he doesn’t just send us on our way.  Once Jesus redeems us for our sins, we belong to him.

And when we belong to Jesus, we are expected to act a certain way.  And in our culture, which is so quick to judge and pit people against each other, there is no more radical act, no better way, for us to show our commitment to Christ than by loving God and loving our neighbor.  We can give each other the benefit of the doubt, we can engage in thoughtful conversation rather than screaming argument, we can reach out to the unloved, we can cross bridges of culture and understanding.  We can show to the world that we serve one who loves all of humanity—people of all colors, cultures and political perspectives—by loving one another.

We have those instructions from Christ, but even following Christ’s clear instructions cannot make us fully grasp Good Friday.  Christ’s sacrifice, given freely, is astonishing.  Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf leaves us in stunned silence.  There is a reason we keep silent vigil between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  Any other response is inadequate.

Amen.

Palm Sunday, Year C, 2010

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We have just read the entire Passion of our Lord.  But I want us to take a step back to Palm Sunday, to find ourselves with Jesus and the disciples, outside of Jerusalem, awaiting the final chapter of Jesus’ earthly ministry.

We are reading through the Gospel of Luke this year, and the Palm Sunday reading is a little different from the readings in Mark and Matthew. There are no palms, actually.  No hosannas, either.  And the crowd that cheers Jesus on is not the crowd of locals that will soon shout “Crucify!”, but a large group of Jesus’ own disciples.

These disciples have been with Jesus along his journey, they have heard him speak of Jerusalem and of his own death over and over again, and yet they are still caught up in the moment, caught up in the memory of all the wonderful things they have seen Jesus do.  Together, they praise God in one voice, shouting

“Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!”

The disciples love Jesus, and are glad that God sent Jesus to them, but you get the sense here that they are still wrapped up in the idea of Jesus as an earthly king who is going to rise up against the Romans and bring the Jewish people back to political power.

Jesus does not rebuke them, or try to finesse their expectations.  He knows that even if they have the details wrong, their impulse to praise God is a good impulse.

The disciples are going to go through a huge emotional and spiritual journey.  They are going to experience the death of their friend and king and have to reframe their entire experience with Jesus.  They are going to have to grieve the loss of what they thought would be, and experience the wonder of the risen Jesus on their own terms.

And, to me, at least, there is something really beautiful about Jesus allowing them to have their joy and their hope, even if the joy and hope is misdirected.  In fact, Jesus tells the Pharisees that if his followers did not praise him stones would cry out in their place.

Praising God, as Martha Stewart might say, is a good thing.  Jesus trusts himself enough, and trusts his Father enough, to know that Jesus’ death and resurrection will speak for themselves.  Jesus does not have to persuade or convince his disciples with words.  The very act of his resurrection will be enough to make them understand that Jesus’ kingship was never about earthly power, but about changing spiritual reality. For now, it is enough that his followers praise him and his Father.  Their praise does not have to express a perfectly formed and correct theological thought.

We, too, get wrapped up in hoping Jesus will do things for us in this world.  I’ve known people who swore God provided them parking spaces.  We all know sports teams, actors, and musicians who credit their award winning performances to God.  (My husband swears some of those shots Butler made Thursday night in the NCAA tournament had to be helped by the Holy Spirit.) People certainly said their prayers one way or the other during the last election and during last week’s Health Care Reform vote.  Those prayers may have been meaningful or superficial; they may reflect gratitude for something God has no interest in whatsoever! But the impulse to praise God, the impulse to give God credit for our successes is a good one.

When we praise God, we point to something true about God.  We point to God as creator, provider, caretaker, redeemer, savior.  And the more we praise God, the more we will come to realize that our praise of God can come independent of our personal circumstances.  The reality of God’s faithfulness is the reality of the resurrection.  God offers us new life whether we are getting parking spots or not, whether our sports team wins or not, whether our political party is in power or not.  Jesus’ death and resurrection apply to our lives no matter how rich or how poor we are, no matter how happy or sad we are. The good news of Jesus’ resurrection is so important to our souls that it transcends any other circumstances in our lives.

So, this Holy Week, we invite you to join us as we follow Jesus’ story in Jerusalem.  We invite you to experience the last supper, Jesus’ death, and Jesus’ glorious resurrection.  And we trust that whatever is going on in your life, the good news of God’s resurrection will make you want to praise God, too.

Lent 1, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

When I am feeling run down, I like to lapse into fantasies about destination spas.  Whether we’re talking about Canyon Ranch in Tucson or Mii Amo in Sedona, I day dream about their cloud soft bedding, private sunning decks,  hot stone massages.  (I think less about the healthy eating and the rigorous exercise, of course.)  The idea of getting away, of taking a break, of being taken care of, seduces me into wanting to leave my life for awhile.  I just know if I had a week or two at one of these magical places that promise physical, spiritual and emotional healing, that I would emerge renewed, peaceful, a better version of myself.

Man, am I ever lucky that as a Christian, I get a built in retreat every year!  And guess what?  You do, too!

Now, our retreat does not have pools bubbling with warm spring water, or gourmet meals for fewer than 350 calories.  But our retreat is free and it lasts a whopping forty days.

When you think about Lent, you might think about fish on Fridays and giving up something decadent for a few weeks.  But, Jesus’ temptation during his time in the wilderness invites us to experience Lent in a new and deeper way.  And a Lent experienced this way, might just leave us feeling more spiritually refreshed than any destination spa.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’ time in the Wilderness comes immediately after his baptism.  Before he goes out to preach and heal and perform miracles, he is led by the Holy Spirit to this time of testing.

The devil tempts Jesus in three ways.

First, he tempts Jesus, who is famished after fasting for forty days, to make bread.

Second, he offers Jesus all the political power in the world.

Third, he tempts Jesus to throw himself off of the temple in Jerusalem in order to prove that angels would protect him.

And while Jesus’ retreat in the wilderness was not a pleasant one—I do not think Canyon Ranch offers any sort of devil temptation treatment—his time in the desert prepared him for the rest of his ministry.

Jesus did not stop facing temptation once he left the desert.  Luke 4:13 reads, “[the devil] departed from him until an opportune time.”  Throughout his ministry, I’m sure Jesus was tempted to rely on his special gifts rather than relying on his Father.  I’m sure he was tempted to use his follower’s adoration as a way to pump up his own ego, rather than pointing people to his Father.  Jesus’ time in the desert made sure he faced these temptations in a dramatic way so that he would know how to handle himself when they came up in his day to day ministry.

We are faced with the exact same temptations.  Lent gives us an opportunity to face them head on, without flinching.

The devil may not tempt us to make our own bread out of the air, but all of us are tempted to rely on our own resources, to forget that God provides everything that is.  All of us face anxiety about how we are going to provide for ourselves.

The devil may not make us an offer to rule all the countries in the world, but all of us are faced with opportunities to abuse power.  Many of you are in positions of enormous power.  If you are a professor or a PhD student, are you treating your students fairly?  Are you jockeying for power within your department?  If you’re a person with employees, do you treat them with respect and dignity?  If you’re a parent are you taking your responsibilities seriously?  If you write or blog or Facebook, do you think carefully before criticizing someone publicly?

The devil may not tempt us to jump off the bell tower at Trinity to see if angels will come and save us, but all of us are tempted to let God or others bail us out on occasion.  Do you get in your car without putting on a seatbelt?  Do you occasionally cheat on your taxes a little bit, assuming you won’t get caught?  Do you drink a little too often, do you smoke?

This Lent, you have the opportunity to ask yourself these questions.  Really reflecting on these temptations will have a much bigger impact on your spiritual life then giving up chocolate for six weeks.  As Christians we are called not just to show up to church on Sundays, but to live a life of discipleship.  We are called to follow Jesus, even when that leads us into the desert.  Even when that leads us into an unflinching examination of our own lives.

Again, here are the questions to ask yourself.

  1. Where in your life are you not trusting God to provide for you?
  2. Where in your life are you abusing the power God has given you?
  3. Where in your life are you taking unnecessary risks because you think God or others will rescue you?

When you ask yourself these questions you are communing with Jesus in the desert.  Just imagine, Jesus asked himself the exact same questions and struggled with the same temptations we do.  We worship a God who understands our experience, who knows what it is like to struggle to live a holy and ethical life.

We honor that compassionate God by taking our lives seriously, by taking Lent seriously.

Lent may not come with mints on our pillows, horseback rides and free yoga classes, but living a holy, reflective Lent can change our lives and give us the perspective we need to face temptations in our lives the rest of the year.

Amen.

Epiphany 2, Year C, 2010

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

My husband and I planned our own wedding.  We wanted the wedding to be a low-key, fun affair, but it turns out that planning low-key, fun affairs for 130 guests requires an enormous amount of effort.

I traveled to vendor after vendor, choosing tents and lights and tables and chairs and table cloths and forks.  I did not think I was the kind of bride who cared about such things, but suddenly I had very strong feelings about whether the ribbons that were wrapped around the bridesmaid’s bouquet were white or pink.  It’s even possible to say that I got a little. . .controlling.  We may or may not have had several, extremely complex spreadsheets in which we recorded every detail of our planning.

We were able to control a lot about our wedding.  We were able to choose Memphis-style barbeque for the reception, complemented by Whole Foods vegetarian side dishes.  We were able to choose Whiskey Rebellion, the band that played bluegrass covers of such classics as “Cheek to Cheek” and “Sweet Child of Mine.”  By the generous offer of a friend, we were even able to choose an incredibly beautiful outdoor location for the reception that overlooked the rolling hills of Albemarle County, Virginia.

While there was a lot we could control, there was one thing that worried me.  The one thing I had no control over:  the weather.  I looked at almanacs.  I found the special wedding planner part of The Weather Channel’s website, I followed the weather as close as humanly possible.  Having an outdoor reception, I was afraid of two things:  heat and rain.

Well, sure enough, June 8th, 2007, was the hottest June 8th on record in Greenwood, Virginia, with the thermometer breaking 100 degrees.  As I was getting dressed in the air conditioned parish hall, I kept asking my bridesmaids, “It’s really hot outside, right?”  And bless their hearts, they just bold faced lied to me.  They even ran a perimeter of defense around me.  If anyone came into the parish hall, they immediately intercepted them saying, “Do NOT discuss the heat!”

It was so hot, that when you look at our formal wedding photographs, even though Matt and I are madly in love with each other, we’re holding each other with about six inches of space between us. Taking pictures, we noticed thick clouds rolling in, and sure enough, as we stepped into the car to take us to the reception, the skies opened up and huge drops of rain started to fall and the sky started to crack with thunder and lightning.  My worst fears were coming true.

The author of the Gospel of John doesn’t mention the weather at the wedding at Cana of Galilee, but the bride at was probably none too pleased that at her wedding, the wine ran out way earlier than they had planned.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ miracle at the wedding is the first public act of his ministry.  He and his disciples are invited to this wedding, as is his mother.  Mary somehow overhears the drama about the wine shortage and decides that this would be a good time for her son to actually do something about those special God-powers of his.  And while the grumpy interaction between Jesus and Mary is really fun to read, it does not explain why this story, of all possible stories of Jesus before his public ministry, was chosen to be included in the Gospel.

The jars Jesus has the servants fill up with water are jars that held water for purification.  You might remember that Jesus was berated by Pharisees because he did not make his disciples wash their hands with special purification water before they ate.  Well, here, Jesus makes a similar statement by transforming all the purification water into delicious, quality wine.  Jesus boldly flouts the Pharisaical rules and traditions around purity.

Imagine if you were visiting someone at Princeton hospital and you stopped by one of the many Purell stations, gave it a squeeze, and realized your hand was full of sticky crushed grapes, not hand sanitizer.  Imagine if when the acolytes ritually washed the celebrant’s hands here at Trinity, instead of water, out poured a nice Bordeaux.

Water and wine serve very different purposes.  Water is for keeping clean, keeping pure, keeping respectable.  Wine is for sensual enjoyment.  Wine is for celebration. And, of course, wine evokes the image of the last supper.

Jesus’ actions solved the problem of the breach of hospitality, but they also reveal an enormous amount about Jesus’ priorities.  Jesus’ business is to redefine the relationship between God and human beings.  No longer will it be necessary to perform complicated rituals, dictated by those in power, before one can have access to God.  Jesus’ business is to show the radical, abundant love that God has for us.

The poet, Richard Wilbur, wrote a poem as a wedding toast for his daughter based on this text that gets at this idea of abundant love. The first three stanzas read:

St. John tells how, at Cana’s wedding-feast
The water-pots poured wine in such amount
That by his sober count
There were a hundred gallons at the least.

It made no earthly sense, unless to show
How whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to sweet excess
That can without depletion overflow

Which is to say that what love sees is true;
That the world’s fullness is not made but found,
Life hungers to abound
And pour its plenty out for you.[1]

This is the hardest lesson for me to learn about God and probably why I preach about it so much!  Believing that the love of God is abundant and overflowing can be difficult to remember as we learn about the massive destruction of parts of Haiti.  Believing in God’s provision can be difficult when a person is looking for work, with no leads in sight.   I find it much easier to believe in a God who punishes us for our bad behavior, who wants us to live tightly controlled, pious lives.  But over and over again, Jesus tells us that is not what God desires.  God desires to be in a loving relationship with us.  God’s love pours out—for the people of Haiti, for those in our country who are out of work, for us, wherever we are on our journey.  We may not always be able to feel that love, but it is there, for us.

And while it is a shallow illustration, the weather at my wedding remains a metaphor for me, about God’s love.

The night of the wedding, after the rain stopped pouring from the sky and the lighting stopped threatening people’s safety and the electricity stopped flickering, the temperature dropped twenty degrees, the clouds parted, and the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen blazed across the sky.

The wedding pictures we treasure that day are not the stiff formal ones, but are photos taken during that half hour before the sun went down.  There is one of us against the red and purple sky and countless photos of people softly illuminated, gazing the sunset with wonder.  Without the heat, without the rain, we never would have had that gorgeous sunset.

No planning on my part could have created that moment.  Just as I could not control the awful heat and violent storm, I could not control the beauty that followed.  The sunset was pure gift.

I highly doubt that God was so personally invested in my wedding that he manipulated the skies for us, but for me the sunset is a metaphor for the radical, abundant, surprising blessings that God pours out for us throughout our lives, often out of the darkest places.

We could not have stopped the economic crisis.  No amount of control on our parts could have stopped the earthquake that has ravaged Haiti.  But I guarantee you, that even in the middle of despair and epic suffering, God is at work, redeeming that which seemed irredeemable, saving that which seemed unsalvageable, and pouring his abundant love out, even for the seemingly unloved.

And so, I return to Wilbur’s poem:

Which is to say that what love sees is true;
That the world’s fullness is not made but found,
Life hungers to abound
And pour its plenty out for you.

Amen.

[1] Wilbur, Richard, Collected Poems:  1943-2004, Harcourt Inc.:  New York, 2004, p. 136.

Advent 3, Year C, 2009

/ Sarah / 1 Comment

Rejoice in the Lord Always!  You brood of vipers! Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Do not worry about anything.  The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Our Epistle and Gospel readings are having a strange conversation today, aren’t they?

On one hand, we have the Apostle Paul telling the Philippians to relax, rejoice, not to worry! On the other hand, we have John the Baptist screaming “You brood of vipers!” at the crowds of ordinary people following him around. Nothing says Christmas Spirit like a bearded man in a hair shirt screaming insults at you!

At first glance, these readings may appear to have nothing to say to one another.  But, when we dig a little deeper, we can see that they are really dealing with the tensions and the hopes of living in a world in which the Kingdom of God is not fully manifested.

Our culture tells us the season leading up to Christmas is a fun, happy, kitchy time of the year to decorate wildly, eat foods we wouldn’t otherwise allow ourselves, and shop for gifts to demonstrate our love for others.  But we all know that Christmas is more complicated than that.  Christmas can also be filled with longing, regret, and grief.  Even the first Christmas story, THE Christmas story, had its own ambiguities.

The birth of Christ came out of great pain, pain that goes well beyond any discomfort Mary might have experienced, or the humiliation of being born in a stable.  Christ came into the world in God’s radical attempt to save humanity from the pain of its own brokenness.  People had longed to be saved from the war and heartbreak and frailty of the human condition as long as they had a concept for God.  Without that pain and alienation, there would have been no need for the birth of Christ in the first place.

The crowds that followed John around hungered for connection to God.  They longed to be liberated from cycles of brokenness in their lives.  Why else would they follow this strange locust-eating man around the wilderness? But that kind of liberation, that kind of connection to God, has a cost.

Prophets throughout the Scriptures have had the job of shaking humanity by the scruff of the neck and John the Baptist is no different. Inertia is a powerful force in the lives of human beings, and John’s job is to disrupt the lives of his followers so they can break free of that inertia and prepare themselves to receive the incredibly good news of God’s incarnation.

John the Baptist’s first words are harsh.  He calls the crowd vipers and tells them they cannot rely on their identity as descendents of Abraham to be saved.  He’s alerting the crowd that they will not be able to encounter God without experiencing some kind of change.  His words are so strong that his crowd is left very worried about what advice might follow.

Will John the Baptist ask them to sacrifice everything in their lives to encounter God?  Will they have to live extremely ascetic existences?  Will they have to join John as he wanders through the wilderness eating honey-dipped locusts?

John’s audience is alert, holding their collective breath, ready to hear John’s advice.

John’s advice is comically simple.   John tells a tax collector not to steal money.  He tells a soldier not to extort money.  He tells others in the crowd to share their cloaks if they meet someone who is cold.

John the Baptist doesn’t tell the soldier that he needs to leave the military.  He doesn’t tell the tax collector he needs to resign from his post.  He does not demand that these employees of the Roman state abandon their professional lives and their ties to the Roman government.  John the Baptist makes it clear that Jesus is coming for all people, wherever they are.  The members of the crowd surrounding John the Baptist are challenged to get their ethical houses in order, but they aren’t asked to abandon their lives.

So, although John the Baptist probably smelled funny and was definitely rude, he brought good news about the Kingdom of God to his followers.  Jesus’ coming into the world was not just for priests and rabbis and scribes.  Jesus’ coming was for all humanity-tax collectors and soldiers and every day people.  This news is joyful.  And this is where our Gospel and Epistle readings intersect.

When the Apostle Paul tells the community of Philippi to rejoice, he’s not chirping empty-headed platitudes.  Paul has been through hell.  He has been traveling for years, been ship wrecked, and now is arrested and in prison.  The people of Philippi are on edge because Christians at the time were a persecuted people.  They are afraid because their faith puts them in danger. Paul is speaking of a joy, and gratitude, and a sense of peace that is not bound by circumstances.  Paul is speaking of joy, and gratitude, and peace that come hand in hand with the kind of challenges and pain life brings us.

The joy of Advent is not an empty-headed happiness because we get to eat more sugar cookies than usual.  The joy of Advent is a joy that acknowledges the pain of our broken world while still rejoicing in the wonder of Christ coming into the world for even the most humble person.

The joy of Advent invites us to believe God will show up in our lives even when we are at our worst or experiencing our deepest pain.

In my last parish, the adult son of a parishioner died unexpectedly and suddenly. The funeral was very sad and very beautiful.  The family chose a Celtic service and hundreds of white candles illuminated the sanctuary.  After the funeral, several people came up to me and mentioned how moved they were by the hope in the mother’s eyes as she went to communion.  She was not happy, she was hopeful.  She grieved the death of her son, but she had confidence that somehow God was still with her and still with her son.  Even though her world had shattered, she had the expectation that one day she and her son would be reunited in the Kingdom of God, one day she would feel Christ’s peace.

Life is full of pain and disappointment, even in the happiest lives.  Christ reaches out to us, even in the midst of that pain.  Even when we’ve been betrayed or lost our jobs or have a child we cannot reach, Christ extends himself to us, just as he did 2000 years ago.

You do not have to leave your job or your marriage or this town to experience the joy of the incarnation.  You don’t have to go on pilgrimage or pray for a week straight or fast for a month for Jesus to find you.  Jesus calls each of us, wherever we are.  He calls us to prepare ourselves, but always in ways that are accessible to us.  As counterintuitive as it may seem, the God who created the entire Universe wants to be in relationship with us.  God wants to be in relationship with the brood of vipers right here in this room.

And because God reached through time and space to bring Christ to us, and because Christ continually reaches out to us, inviting us into relationship with his Father and our Creator, we join the Apostle Paul and we rejoice in the Lord, we pray with thanksgiving, and we welcome the Peace of Christ into our hearts.

Amen.

Proper 27, Year B, 2009

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Whenever I start thinking about money, I start hearing lots of voices.

I hear my Grandmother Kinney’s voice.  She grew up in the coal mining town of Hazelton, Pennsylvania during the Depression.  She never overcame her fear of not having enough.

I hear my father’s voice.  He is a big saver and nearly every car he’s ever owned was purchased with cash.

I hear my mother’s voice.  I think she’d be a little appalled that I was telling you these personal details about my family’s relationship with money.  Money is not something one discusses in polite company.

I hear Suze Orman’s voice as she tells her audience over and over again to have a six-month emergency fund saved.

On the other hand, I hear Carrie Bradshaw’s voice, too, making $400 high heels seem like a reasonable investment.

I hear the voices of my husband, my friends, priests, stewardship directors, financial advisors, pundits, celebrities-and I am a total sucker for the voices of marketers. Yes, that $12 bottle of shampoo does make my hair shinier than a $3 bottle! Yes, that $70 pencil skirt would make me look just like a character on Mad Men!  Yes, a roomba would make housekeeping easier! Yes, a right hand diamond ring would symbolize that I respect myself!  (You can relax, I did not buy myself the ring or the roomba.)

We all have voices that run through our head when we think about our own relationship with money.  Whether we are tight fisted, extremely responsible, don’t know how to balance a checkbook, or compulsively shop-those behaviors have come from those voices and how we interpret them.  We can’t escape the voices, but we don’t have to be enslaved by them.

The widow in our story today seems to have found away to move past the voices of anxiety and fear in order to hear the voice of God.

I have to be honest; this story makes me very uncomfortable.  The widow’s actions are antithetical to everything I’ve been taught about money.  I want her to put those two coins in her savings account!  I want her to accrue interest!  I want her to have security for her future!  I want the scribes to get off their high horses and take her under their wing.

But my attitudes about money stem from the very modern idea that my money is mine.  All those voices I hear-whether they advocate responsible saving or wasteful spending-assume the money is mine to spend.

The widow teaches us a different way.  The widow comes from a long tradition of assuming all that we have actually belongs to God.  The widow assumes that whatever money she has is just a gift from God, passing through her life for a little while.  The widow comes from a long tradition of thanking God by returning to God a portion of what he has given.

In the Old Testament, believers are asked to sacrifice to God the fruits of their agricultural lives-grain, pigeons, cattle.  This must have made deep sense to them.  Agricultural life is so dependent on outside circumstances-rain and sun and insects and soil-that raising healthy crops must really have felt like partnering with the divine.  Without soaking rains or bright sun, all of their labor would have been for naught.  They understood that their labor was connected to the earth, which was created by God.

Michael Pollan and others who think about food and health and ethics are happy to remind us that we Americans are far, far, far removed from that agricultural life.  Many of our children have never seen a farm.  I did not know that brussel sprouts grew on that funny stalk until last year!  Any of us who have read Food, Inc. or The Omnivore’s Dilemma know how disconnected we are to the very ground that sustains us.

The thing is, no matter how our income is generated, all of us can trace back the source of our income to Creation.  Mine is a pretty short line.  I get my income my ministering to human beings, who were created by God.  Even though very few of are directly connected to nature in our work, all of us owe our very existence, and the existence of our jobs, homes, spouses, friends, children and yes, even iPods, to God.  In fact, we owe our own existence to God.

We acknowledge this during the Rite I service, in the middle of the Eucharistic prayer, when we say:

And here we present and offer to thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee. (BCP 336)

One of my seminary professors, The Rev. Dr. Edward Kryder, taught us to leave the monetary offering on the altar when we celebrated the Eucharist, because when the collection of your money is brought up to the altar, it’s not just cold hard cash.  That money is a symbolic representation of our very selves-our souls and bodies.  When we put money into the offering plate, we’re putting the time and energy and passion we spent making the money.  We put our faith and our values and our belief in the plate.   If we just needed to raise money to keep the heat on, we would not collect the money in the middle of a Eucharist.

The church needs money, yes, but we as people also have a spiritual need to give.  We need to be reminded that we are not alone.  We need to be reminded that we were created and that our life is pure gift.  We need to be reminded that every dime that crosses our threshold is the direct result of the incredible decision of God to create this planet and all the abundance it has to offer us.

The theologian Paul Tillich describes God as the “Ground of our Being.”   I love this image, because it evokes a picture of God literally holding us up-of undergirding all that we are and all that we do.  Experiencing God as the “Ground of our Being” can be incredibly liberating.  I don’t know about you, but I find it all too easy to fall prey to our culture’s spirit of anxiety.  Our culture’s voice says that we aren’t complete persons until we are married with 2.5 kids enrolled in Ivy League schools, a big house in the suburbs, a vacation home at the beach, and at least one Lexus.  Our culture’s voice tells us that we should not be satisfied; we should not feel complete until our life is completely saturated by the material things that bring true happiness.  Our culture can even punish giving.  I have a friend who was audited several times because he gave too MUCH money away to charity!  The IRS was sure he was up to no good because he gave away more than they thought was rational.

We all know that our culture’s version of happiness is empty and fleeting.  By contrast, when we root ourselves in God as the “Ground of our being”, when we listen to God’s voice, we will hear God telling us that we do not need to be anxious.  We do not need to prove anything to anyone.  If we listen to God’s voice, we will hear that God loves us and wants to give us what we need.  If we listen to God’s voice, we will be able to look at our lives with new eyes, able to see the abundance all around us. Listening to God’s voice gives us such a sense of deep security, that we can open our hands and trust that what we give away does not diminish us.

Listening to the voice of God is what frees us from being enslaved by the other voices in our minds.  When we listen to the voice of God, we can understand more clearly which of our voices are destructive, and which of our voices are life giving.  When we are making decisions about money, and the voices are swirling all around us, making us anxious, we can take a deep breath and a moment of silence and listen for what God is saying to us.

God is not an afterthought when it comes to our decisions about money.  God is the very source -not only of our wealth-but also of our life and breath.  We can follow the sound of God’s voice, like sheep follow the sound of a shepherd’s voice-knowing the shepherd will lead safely through even the most difficult places.

Amen.