The Pharisees weren’t such bad guys. It’s easy to ridicule them, to laugh at them. After all, they are often the targets of Jesus’ harshest retorts and we, having 20/20 hindsight can snicker and say, “How could they have been so blind?”
But you know we often wear the same blinders as the Pharisees. They were appalled that Jesus ate with sinners, unclean people, and tax collectors! Don’t we all have that friend—that person your other friends just don’t ‘get” that person who maybe doesn’t quite fit in? Others may never understand her, but you do, you see something they don’t and so you continue to hang out with the outsider. You see them differently than others. You see beyond what may appear on the surface. For whatever reason you’ve taken a closer look-- you’ve opened your heart to theirs and they’ve open their heart to you. Out of that trust comes friendship. A friendship you wouldn’t have if you hadn’t taken the time to listen, to look and to fully see.
But to those who haven’t taken the time, your friendship with this person remains incomprehensible and hard to take. It seems wrong.
To the Pharisees, Jesus’ actions—his choice of friends, his teachings and his apparent disregard for the rituals of the Jewish faith—were incomprehensible, hard to take and wrong. Jesus was taking everything they loved, everything the held dear, everything they knew and messing with it. When all that you hold dear, all that is familiar and comfortable is threatened, its really easy to become hopping mad.
We in the Anglican tradition, in the Episcopal church are all too familiar with such feelings. The ordination of women, the “new” prayer book, the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson. People walked out the doors of this Cathedral because of such changes. Every denomination has these upheavals, every religion, every organization. Changes move us out of our comfort zones, and in this fast paced always changing world, comfort zones are important…comfort zones can be, dare I say, sacred.
Sacred cows. We all have them. Families, societies, religions, and parish churches in downtown Buffalo have them. The Pharisees had them too. A sacred cow is simply something which a group has determined to be untouchable, tamper proof, free from editing. Sacred cows generally develop over time and when asked to explain the origin of the sacred cow, we often just shrug and say “well we’ve always done it this way.” Because what matters isn’t how or why it started, what matters is that the action, whatever it is, has been sanctified through tradition.
Our liturgies are full of such traditions. Regardless of the original purpose, our liturgical actions, so familiar to us, have taken on the aura of sanctity.
A great deal of what we do here on a Sunday morning was at one point functional. Processions became a way to move large groups of people from one place to another in an orderly fashion, Sanctus bells helped mark actions happening just out of the congregation’s view, candles provided light before electricity, etc. Over time, though, these actions moved from functionality to sanctity.
But you see, many of these things are enhancements .Our worship is enhanced by candles, music, beautiful vestments and this glorious building. Enhanced. Not validated. Not necessary. Enhanced.
We set aside this place this time and these ceremonies—these instruments of our faith-- to be nourished in our faith, strengthened to do the work God has given us to do.
We get into trouble when our special clothing and music, our candles and bells, our incense and chanting becomes the end instead of the means. We get into trouble when we confuse our rituals with our faith.
And that is exactly what Jesus was saying to the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. Washing of hands is a way to respect God, to consume the gifts of God with reverence and humility. But washing of hands is not what makes something holy. What makes something holy is our full and complete faith in God and the trust that all we need is available through God. To be truly holy we must open ourselves up to that trust, we must release the stranglehold we have on our hearts and allow the Love of God to take up sole residence deep within us. If, after doing that, we engage in rituals to keep us focused, to place us in a holy state of mind, fine….but we must begin with our faith written on our hearts, for if we don’t begin there then our chanting, our kneeling, our processing, our vestments, our vessels and our glorious surroundings become, to use the words of our patron, St Paul, “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,” not signifying much of anything.
Jesus wasn’t against ritual, Jesus was against rituals that miss the point, rituals that usurp instead of enhance the Holy.
As I wrote this sermon Friday morning, the services for both Lt. Charles Mc Carthy and FF Jonathon Croom were being held around the corner at St. Joe’s. What I witnessed as each funeral cortège carried their bodies to the cathedral was a ritual which was steeped in the Holy, much pomp and circumstance, signifying something. A ritual which displayed the brother and sisterhood of firefighters the world over, a ritual which helped me remember that nothing is as holy as a person who will run into a burning building to save his brother or sister. Those firefighters who lined the streets in downtown Buffalo on Friday know what is sacred, they know what is Holy-- the rituals they employed to honor the lives of their comrades, helped us all to see the Holy. No doubt Jesus, heartbroken with the rest of us was also pleased, for these men and women clearly get what ritual is all about.
Jesus was telling the Pharisees then and is telling us now---don’t lose sight of the forest of faith for the trees of ritual. For it is the act of meeting the holy, it is the act of opening ourselves fully to the presence of God, which is sacred.
AMEN.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Are You Going to Eat That?
Sermon for Pentecost X
Last Sunday I was having brunch with old friends. Our table bustled with the joyful noise of family: Cousins poking each other, sisters laughing, a mom and dad overseeing the whole display, brimming with glee. I was privileged to be part of this gathering, not being related in any technical way with the group. But there I was, invited into this family, through love. At the end of the meal, my friend Mark reaches over and, with a piece of toast, sops up my leftover egg. In some circles this may be considered crass or rude, but it wasn’t. No this was an act of love. An intimate act of familiarity between good friends. No worries about social mores, of what others may think---just one person being drawn to something the other has. This wasn’t a hostile acquisition. This man, whom I love like a brother, reached across in the familiarity of old friends and absorbed what I had left. It was one of the most intimate and loving acts I have ever witnessed. We laughed about it remarking, “he just couldn’t stand seeing that leftover yolk sitting there, he had to eat it.” Mark was drawn to what I had and, in our mutual love, he felt comfortable enough to take it. And I felt comfortable enough to give it.
While much grander than any egg yolk on a breakfast plate, God’s love also pulls, beckoning us to partake.
The German theologian, Karl Rahner describes this attraction, this pull, this being drawn toward as fundamental to our human nature. As Rahner sees it, the Holy Mystery which is God, indescribable, unidentifiable, difficult to grasp, is so attractive to us that if we just stop trying to explain, quantify and tame it allowing ourselves to be taken in to be drawn, we will find rest in the loving embrace of God.
The problem is, according to Rahner, while this draw toward the Holy Mystery is part of our human nature, within our DNA, so is our desire for definition, prescription and certainty. We may feel a tug toward God but before giving into that pull we want to dissect, inspect and diagnose it.
That’s what was happening in today’s Gospel , smack dab in the middle of what is known as John’s “Bread of Life Discourse.” Jesus is explaining that he isn’t just some itinerant preacher from the backwater of Galilee, son of Mary and Joseph….no he is God’s Son, God in the flesh sent to us by our creator who is so drawn to us, so wants to reach us that he came to walk among us, to bring us home.
It’s easy as we hear these gospel excerpts to get caught up in the earthly image the words depict: Jesus’ flesh is the Bread of Life, a bread we must partake of to enter into eternal life with God. Not an easy image—it never has been. The early church was often accused of cannibalism—I think it’s easy to understand why. To this day it’s a popular way for detractors to condemn Christianity in general and our own Anglican belief in the Real Presence at Eucharist in particular, but to get caught up in that minutiae is to miss the point.
As Biblical Scholar Ray Brown states: The Jesus of John used language of this world to refer to the realities of the world from which he came.” (pg378 Intro to New Testament).
Jesus is using language we are familiar with to try and explain God. To try and explain a mystery so incomprehensible, so impossible to describe that whenever humans have tried to put words to it, we’ve failed. Speak to anyone who has had a near death experience----they try to explain a bright light, a peacefulness beyond anything they’ve ever known…but in the end they admit--words fail them. The ancient Jews knew the inexplicableness of God so well so they would never attempt to speak the name of God... They knew then, as we know now, that comprehending God’s full nature is beyond us. God’s love is so immense and so all encompassing we cannot tame it, we cannot hold it and we cannot describe it.
And therein lies the tension so clearly described in today’s Gospel reading.
Jesus is talking about all things heavenly, but he is heard with ears firmly encased in all things earthly. Jesus states that he is the Bread of Life. Not the bread of Moses, not the bread of bakers, or the bread of grocery aisles, but the bread of God, the bread of eternal light, the bread of a love so great, so immense, so massive it defies description, breaking free of the constraints of language, it knows no bounds.
Yes, Jesus is the Bread of Life but to receive this bread, to eat of it always we must embrace God in the person of Jesus Christ, allowing ourselves to be caught up in God’s mutual draw: our draw toward God and God’s reaching out toward us. To be caught up in this love means we must empty ourselves of our inhibitions, our worries, our doubts and come to the altar of God to be fed--fed with a love which we don’t earn, a love we needn’t understand and a love we can’t define….a love which, when we let go, will wash over us, a love we can sop up with the toast of our souls, a love which. when we’re open to receiving it, is a never ending meal of sacrifice and thanksgiving nourishing us as nothing else can.
In a few moments we’ll break bread together, presenting ourselves at this altar full of failings, full of questions and full of fear. Leave those here and walk away filled with the Bread of Life. A Bread which, while incomprehensible to each and every one of us, nourishes us in ways we cannot imagine yet so desperately crave.
Amen+
Last Sunday I was having brunch with old friends. Our table bustled with the joyful noise of family: Cousins poking each other, sisters laughing, a mom and dad overseeing the whole display, brimming with glee. I was privileged to be part of this gathering, not being related in any technical way with the group. But there I was, invited into this family, through love. At the end of the meal, my friend Mark reaches over and, with a piece of toast, sops up my leftover egg. In some circles this may be considered crass or rude, but it wasn’t. No this was an act of love. An intimate act of familiarity between good friends. No worries about social mores, of what others may think---just one person being drawn to something the other has. This wasn’t a hostile acquisition. This man, whom I love like a brother, reached across in the familiarity of old friends and absorbed what I had left. It was one of the most intimate and loving acts I have ever witnessed. We laughed about it remarking, “he just couldn’t stand seeing that leftover yolk sitting there, he had to eat it.” Mark was drawn to what I had and, in our mutual love, he felt comfortable enough to take it. And I felt comfortable enough to give it.
While much grander than any egg yolk on a breakfast plate, God’s love also pulls, beckoning us to partake.
The German theologian, Karl Rahner describes this attraction, this pull, this being drawn toward as fundamental to our human nature. As Rahner sees it, the Holy Mystery which is God, indescribable, unidentifiable, difficult to grasp, is so attractive to us that if we just stop trying to explain, quantify and tame it allowing ourselves to be taken in to be drawn, we will find rest in the loving embrace of God.
The problem is, according to Rahner, while this draw toward the Holy Mystery is part of our human nature, within our DNA, so is our desire for definition, prescription and certainty. We may feel a tug toward God but before giving into that pull we want to dissect, inspect and diagnose it.
That’s what was happening in today’s Gospel , smack dab in the middle of what is known as John’s “Bread of Life Discourse.” Jesus is explaining that he isn’t just some itinerant preacher from the backwater of Galilee, son of Mary and Joseph….no he is God’s Son, God in the flesh sent to us by our creator who is so drawn to us, so wants to reach us that he came to walk among us, to bring us home.
It’s easy as we hear these gospel excerpts to get caught up in the earthly image the words depict: Jesus’ flesh is the Bread of Life, a bread we must partake of to enter into eternal life with God. Not an easy image—it never has been. The early church was often accused of cannibalism—I think it’s easy to understand why. To this day it’s a popular way for detractors to condemn Christianity in general and our own Anglican belief in the Real Presence at Eucharist in particular, but to get caught up in that minutiae is to miss the point.
As Biblical Scholar Ray Brown states: The Jesus of John used language of this world to refer to the realities of the world from which he came.” (pg378 Intro to New Testament).
Jesus is using language we are familiar with to try and explain God. To try and explain a mystery so incomprehensible, so impossible to describe that whenever humans have tried to put words to it, we’ve failed. Speak to anyone who has had a near death experience----they try to explain a bright light, a peacefulness beyond anything they’ve ever known…but in the end they admit--words fail them. The ancient Jews knew the inexplicableness of God so well so they would never attempt to speak the name of God... They knew then, as we know now, that comprehending God’s full nature is beyond us. God’s love is so immense and so all encompassing we cannot tame it, we cannot hold it and we cannot describe it.
And therein lies the tension so clearly described in today’s Gospel reading.
Jesus is talking about all things heavenly, but he is heard with ears firmly encased in all things earthly. Jesus states that he is the Bread of Life. Not the bread of Moses, not the bread of bakers, or the bread of grocery aisles, but the bread of God, the bread of eternal light, the bread of a love so great, so immense, so massive it defies description, breaking free of the constraints of language, it knows no bounds.
Yes, Jesus is the Bread of Life but to receive this bread, to eat of it always we must embrace God in the person of Jesus Christ, allowing ourselves to be caught up in God’s mutual draw: our draw toward God and God’s reaching out toward us. To be caught up in this love means we must empty ourselves of our inhibitions, our worries, our doubts and come to the altar of God to be fed--fed with a love which we don’t earn, a love we needn’t understand and a love we can’t define….a love which, when we let go, will wash over us, a love we can sop up with the toast of our souls, a love which. when we’re open to receiving it, is a never ending meal of sacrifice and thanksgiving nourishing us as nothing else can.
In a few moments we’ll break bread together, presenting ourselves at this altar full of failings, full of questions and full of fear. Leave those here and walk away filled with the Bread of Life. A Bread which, while incomprehensible to each and every one of us, nourishes us in ways we cannot imagine yet so desperately crave.
Amen+
Friday, August 7, 2009
Volunteer Opportunity for Youth
Wing Fest 2009 seeks help for Kids Fun Zone-
Wing Fest is happy to partner this year with WNED on the Kids Fun Zone and a fantastic special event on Sunday of the festival weekend. In keeping with the long-established literacy theme of the Kids Fun Zone, we are looking for help before/during/after the big Electric Company "main event" at noon on Sunday, Sept. 6 (the national circuit tour is the 5th stop on a 20-city launch of the "reinvented" Electric Company); and for all day on Saturday with a Sesame Street theme and many kids' activities in the "zone" tent for Ready-to-Learn, Sesame St. and Electric Company. Contact me here with your availability and contact info (name/address/ph/email); or for questions and/or more info/donations...
We are seeking:
--Volunteers! Mature 16 years or older; or mature 12-15 with a parent/chaperone--please notify if less than 18 yrs of age and provide parent contact info
We are looking for about 10 volunteers per shift for the Kids Fun Zone area (four hours if possible, minimum 2 hours please) and up to 50 volunteers during the "main event" on Sunday on the park stage
There will be a volunteer orientation at WNED Studios (140 Lower Terrace) from 4:30-6:00 on Thursday, August 27.
If you'd like to volunteer, but can't make the orientation, sign up for a slot and we will send you an info "packet"
--WNY Literacy agency info and giveaways (fridge magnets, key chains, DVDs, stickers, etc.--you know: CHOCHKEYS!)
--Books for kids' book give away. We anticipate needing about 1500 books (new or gently used) with a preference (where possible) for (age 0-12) Sesame St./Think Bright themes like all Sesame St., Martha Speaks, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Super Why, Arthur, etc. Also, books through teen age.
Tasks and activity centers will include:
Set-up and tear down for zone and "main event"
Electric Company Tour event registration
Runners (main stage and kids zone for "main event")
Post "show" interactive audience activities and redirection from ballpark to kids fun zone
Craft table/activity assistance (Monster Mural, picture frame decoration, word games/coloring, jump rope/ball bounce with rhyming songs, prize wheel, crown decoration)
Face painting/tattoo application (adhesive!)
Book give away table monitors/supervision
Please send in your numbers/names/contact info and times for sign-ups weekly so we can track our needs and keep filling slots for full coverage! email me at lva.sherry@gmail.com or fax to the studio at 845-7036 to attn: Pat Ragin.
Can you let us know what you might have in the way of chochkeys, books and service lit asap--with quantities?
If you can think of others to who might be a source for volunteers, please fwd this message and let us know who to contact to follow up.
Finally, if you are serving families, can you help us to publicize the Kids Fun Zone? Let us know if you can post a flyer...we'll send to you via e-file. We are hoping for good weather and a great turn-out!
Hoping to see you at Wing Fest 2009!
Wing Fest is happy to partner this year with WNED on the Kids Fun Zone and a fantastic special event on Sunday of the festival weekend. In keeping with the long-established literacy theme of the Kids Fun Zone, we are looking for help before/during/after the big Electric Company "main event" at noon on Sunday, Sept. 6 (the national circuit tour is the 5th stop on a 20-city launch of the "reinvented" Electric Company); and for all day on Saturday with a Sesame Street theme and many kids' activities in the "zone" tent for Ready-to-Learn, Sesame St. and Electric Company. Contact me here with your availability and contact info (name/address/ph/email); or for questions and/or more info/donations...
We are seeking:
--Volunteers! Mature 16 years or older; or mature 12-15 with a parent/chaperone--please notify if less than 18 yrs of age and provide parent contact info
We are looking for about 10 volunteers per shift for the Kids Fun Zone area (four hours if possible, minimum 2 hours please) and up to 50 volunteers during the "main event" on Sunday on the park stage
There will be a volunteer orientation at WNED Studios (140 Lower Terrace) from 4:30-6:00 on Thursday, August 27.
If you'd like to volunteer, but can't make the orientation, sign up for a slot and we will send you an info "packet"
--WNY Literacy agency info and giveaways (fridge magnets, key chains, DVDs, stickers, etc.--you know: CHOCHKEYS!)
--Books for kids' book give away. We anticipate needing about 1500 books (new or gently used) with a preference (where possible) for (age 0-12) Sesame St./Think Bright themes like all Sesame St., Martha Speaks, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Super Why, Arthur, etc. Also, books through teen age.
Tasks and activity centers will include:
Set-up and tear down for zone and "main event"
Electric Company Tour event registration
Runners (main stage and kids zone for "main event")
Post "show" interactive audience activities and redirection from ballpark to kids fun zone
Craft table/activity assistance (Monster Mural, picture frame decoration, word games/coloring, jump rope/ball bounce with rhyming songs, prize wheel, crown decoration)
Face painting/tattoo application (adhesive!)
Book give away table monitors/supervision
Please send in your numbers/names/contact info and times for sign-ups weekly so we can track our needs and keep filling slots for full coverage! email me at lva.sherry@gmail.com or fax to the studio at 845-7036 to attn: Pat Ragin.
Can you let us know what you might have in the way of chochkeys, books and service lit asap--with quantities?
If you can think of others to who might be a source for volunteers, please fwd this message and let us know who to contact to follow up.
Finally, if you are serving families, can you help us to publicize the Kids Fun Zone? Let us know if you can post a flyer...we'll send to you via e-file. We are hoping for good weather and a great turn-out!
Hoping to see you at Wing Fest 2009!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Today's Sermon
We’ve all seen it, some of us have done it, some of us have had it done to us. A parent and child are in the grocery store and the child is talking back, whining or is engaged in a full blown foot stomping, ear piercing temper tantrum. The parent is displaying amazing restraint, exuding a deadly calm as they say, “You know I love you, but right now I don’t like you very much.” In most cases, the love of a parent for a child is unconditional….but the like? Oh that’s conditional…there are times we really don’t like the one’s we love.
Is God, as the ultimate parent, any different? Considering scripture in general and today’s readings specifically, I don’t think so. I know God loves us, but I’m not sure God likes us all the time.
For the most part God liked Amos—
He was a reluctant prophet—God communicated with him through visions and Amos, instead of ignoring the difficult message he received, spoke of it-- for although reluctant, he was obedient, so when given a task from God, Amos followed through. The visions were clear to Amos: God was none too happy with Israel. Established ramrod straight as if on a plumb line they had gone askew and God, well God was disappointed, angry and perhaps at wit’s end. Right then, God didn’t like His people too much.
So God sends this tree dresser, this gardener, a regular guy out to tell the truth: God loves you but God doesn’t like you so much right now. And as the reading tells us, “the land couldn’t bear all his words.”
The people didn’t like what they heard. The people liked being loved, but they didn’t like being held accountable. Sometimes it is really hard to accept love—because with love comes great responsibility, responsibility to nurture that love, to respect it and to heed its demands. So they shut Amos out, they despised him, they rejected him—for they didn’t want to hear what was being said. …they didn’t want to hear that with God’s love comes expectation.
In today’s Gospel we have another instance of not responding to God’s love, of not wanting to listen, resulting in God not liking us too much.
Herod is a sad sap. Remember this is not the Herod of the nativity story, the fearless and rigid ruler who, realizing that a threat to his power had been born, vowed to kill every male child under the age of two just to be certain his rival would never touch him. That Herod was ruthless and sure of himself. This Herod? Not so sure of himself. Herod feared John, he knew he was a holy man for what he heard from John, while perplexing, was somehow appealing. He was drawn to John’s message--but while Herod was King of the land—a man to be respected and feared--he certainly didn’t wear the pants in the family. So although he liked John the Baptist, he feared his wife more, so John was imprisoned—not killed as Herodias desired, but no longer free to roam the Jordan valley with his message of deliverance. John was saved from death and Herod’s wife was placated.…until that fateful night when Herod, so taken with his daughter’s beauty and talent and eager to show his guests what a gracious father he was, offered her anything her heart desired. Then and only then, when faced with the prospect of losing face in front of his guests does Herod follow through on Herodias’ deep held desire: to have John killed. His heart burning with John’s words Herod throws it all away just to look good at a party. By denying what he was feeling about John—by saying no to the gift of John’s prophecy and then by killing him, Herod has rejected God. Herod has taken God’s love and simply said, ‘no thank you.”
We all do that, we deny love in order to save face. Peter did it, Herod did and you and I do it. Every time we sleep in on a Sunday morning instead of coming to church, or stay in front of the tv instead of helping out at Friends of the Night people, every time we decide not to volunteer when asked, every time we don’t pledge, we are denying God’s love. We may achieve a short term gain—extra sleep, more money in our pocket or time in our schedule, but in the long run? In the long run we are poorer for it. God doesn’t like us much when we choose a short term gain over the long term peace and love God offers.
While we can never match the fullness of God’s love, isn’t incumbent upon us to spread the love we do have? Isn’t God’s love, as bestowed upon us a clarion call to love one another? We must, as recipients of great love offer great love back.
Herod couldn’t do that—even when face to face with a prophet, face to face with a messenger from God, his heart burning with a recognition that this man brought him something no amount of fame fortune power or prestige could give him couldn’t do that. He rejected the love of God and killed the messenger, all for a few moments of temporal glory.
Israel in the days Amos, wouldn’t accept God’s love. They doubted, they feared they lost their faith and in so doing, they made God mad. Not mad enough to remove his love, but mad enough to make them mighty uncomfortable . God still loved them, but they were too caught up in the here and now to remember that love and to spread it.
We’re no different.
With God’s love comes great expectations. We must let our hearts burn with recognition, we must set out to love and serve the Lord in all we do. We must gather here proclaiming God’s love and then leave here, refreshed by God’s grace, to show the world that love. For that is what God likes, a people who know they are loved and in turn love each other in His Name. And as the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in downtown Buffalo New York that is our task—to respond to God’s love by working, living and loving in His Name. Amen.
Is God, as the ultimate parent, any different? Considering scripture in general and today’s readings specifically, I don’t think so. I know God loves us, but I’m not sure God likes us all the time.
For the most part God liked Amos—
He was a reluctant prophet—God communicated with him through visions and Amos, instead of ignoring the difficult message he received, spoke of it-- for although reluctant, he was obedient, so when given a task from God, Amos followed through. The visions were clear to Amos: God was none too happy with Israel. Established ramrod straight as if on a plumb line they had gone askew and God, well God was disappointed, angry and perhaps at wit’s end. Right then, God didn’t like His people too much.
So God sends this tree dresser, this gardener, a regular guy out to tell the truth: God loves you but God doesn’t like you so much right now. And as the reading tells us, “the land couldn’t bear all his words.”
The people didn’t like what they heard. The people liked being loved, but they didn’t like being held accountable. Sometimes it is really hard to accept love—because with love comes great responsibility, responsibility to nurture that love, to respect it and to heed its demands. So they shut Amos out, they despised him, they rejected him—for they didn’t want to hear what was being said. …they didn’t want to hear that with God’s love comes expectation.
In today’s Gospel we have another instance of not responding to God’s love, of not wanting to listen, resulting in God not liking us too much.
Herod is a sad sap. Remember this is not the Herod of the nativity story, the fearless and rigid ruler who, realizing that a threat to his power had been born, vowed to kill every male child under the age of two just to be certain his rival would never touch him. That Herod was ruthless and sure of himself. This Herod? Not so sure of himself. Herod feared John, he knew he was a holy man for what he heard from John, while perplexing, was somehow appealing. He was drawn to John’s message--but while Herod was King of the land—a man to be respected and feared--he certainly didn’t wear the pants in the family. So although he liked John the Baptist, he feared his wife more, so John was imprisoned—not killed as Herodias desired, but no longer free to roam the Jordan valley with his message of deliverance. John was saved from death and Herod’s wife was placated.…until that fateful night when Herod, so taken with his daughter’s beauty and talent and eager to show his guests what a gracious father he was, offered her anything her heart desired. Then and only then, when faced with the prospect of losing face in front of his guests does Herod follow through on Herodias’ deep held desire: to have John killed. His heart burning with John’s words Herod throws it all away just to look good at a party. By denying what he was feeling about John—by saying no to the gift of John’s prophecy and then by killing him, Herod has rejected God. Herod has taken God’s love and simply said, ‘no thank you.”
We all do that, we deny love in order to save face. Peter did it, Herod did and you and I do it. Every time we sleep in on a Sunday morning instead of coming to church, or stay in front of the tv instead of helping out at Friends of the Night people, every time we decide not to volunteer when asked, every time we don’t pledge, we are denying God’s love. We may achieve a short term gain—extra sleep, more money in our pocket or time in our schedule, but in the long run? In the long run we are poorer for it. God doesn’t like us much when we choose a short term gain over the long term peace and love God offers.
While we can never match the fullness of God’s love, isn’t incumbent upon us to spread the love we do have? Isn’t God’s love, as bestowed upon us a clarion call to love one another? We must, as recipients of great love offer great love back.
Herod couldn’t do that—even when face to face with a prophet, face to face with a messenger from God, his heart burning with a recognition that this man brought him something no amount of fame fortune power or prestige could give him couldn’t do that. He rejected the love of God and killed the messenger, all for a few moments of temporal glory.
Israel in the days Amos, wouldn’t accept God’s love. They doubted, they feared they lost their faith and in so doing, they made God mad. Not mad enough to remove his love, but mad enough to make them mighty uncomfortable . God still loved them, but they were too caught up in the here and now to remember that love and to spread it.
We’re no different.
With God’s love comes great expectations. We must let our hearts burn with recognition, we must set out to love and serve the Lord in all we do. We must gather here proclaiming God’s love and then leave here, refreshed by God’s grace, to show the world that love. For that is what God likes, a people who know they are loved and in turn love each other in His Name. And as the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in downtown Buffalo New York that is our task—to respond to God’s love by working, living and loving in His Name. Amen.
Friday, July 10, 2009
From General Convnetion
The General Convention of the Episcopal Church is meeting in Anaheim CA for 2 weeks. Periodically I will cut and paste some testimony or news coming out of the Convention. Below is something I received through the Episcopal Peace Fellowship today the "Catherine" who is speaking is not me. If only I could be that eloquent:
Episcopal News Service today reports testimony is overwhelmingly in favor of moving beyond B033 with new legislation.
A YAP Speaks:
Resolution C028 (or: Weddings and Wakes)
On Thursday afternoon, I testified before the Liturgy Committee in favor of Resolution C028, which would direct the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to prepare additional, gender-neutral Book of Common Prayer rites for the celebration and blessing of marriage. My thoughts went roughly like this:
I am a proud Episcopalian, and I am also proud to announce my recent engagement to my partner of five years. We've set the date for 2011, and we want to be married in the Church we love - so, members of the committee, I'm counting on you.
I come from a sprawling Irish Catholic clan, for whom Vatican II is still a radical concept. My family has always treated my partner and me kindly, but with caution and restraint, and this is what I expected when I told them I was engaged. I did not expect my many cousins and aunts to greet the news with an outpouring of joy, but to my astonishment and delight, that is exactly what they did. Finally, I figured it out: They may not understand my sexuality, but they do understand weddings - and this, I think, is the critical lesson to our communion of believers.
I ask you today to submit yourselves to that same startling joy. Marriage is a good thing. It's a sacrament, a blessing, and a cause for celebration, and I believe opening its doors will draw our church together, not tear it apart.
Remember, I'm an old Irish Catholic - we party hardest at weddings and wakes. Please make this decision in time for my wedding, rather than my wake. Thank you.
Catherine
Episcopal News Service today reports testimony is overwhelmingly in favor of moving beyond B033 with new legislation.
A YAP Speaks:
Resolution C028 (or: Weddings and Wakes)
On Thursday afternoon, I testified before the Liturgy Committee in favor of Resolution C028, which would direct the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to prepare additional, gender-neutral Book of Common Prayer rites for the celebration and blessing of marriage. My thoughts went roughly like this:
I am a proud Episcopalian, and I am also proud to announce my recent engagement to my partner of five years. We've set the date for 2011, and we want to be married in the Church we love - so, members of the committee, I'm counting on you.
I come from a sprawling Irish Catholic clan, for whom Vatican II is still a radical concept. My family has always treated my partner and me kindly, but with caution and restraint, and this is what I expected when I told them I was engaged. I did not expect my many cousins and aunts to greet the news with an outpouring of joy, but to my astonishment and delight, that is exactly what they did. Finally, I figured it out: They may not understand my sexuality, but they do understand weddings - and this, I think, is the critical lesson to our communion of believers.
I ask you today to submit yourselves to that same startling joy. Marriage is a good thing. It's a sacrament, a blessing, and a cause for celebration, and I believe opening its doors will draw our church together, not tear it apart.
Remember, I'm an old Irish Catholic - we party hardest at weddings and wakes. Please make this decision in time for my wedding, rather than my wake. Thank you.
Catherine
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Parable: Cracked Open
Sermon Preached on Sunday June 14, 2009
Parables as Jerome Berryman, the creator of Godly Play our church school curriculum says, are difficult to engage and we need to be ready for them. You see parables, when we’re ready to hear and explore them usually tell us just what we need to hear.
Parables are, at their core, morality tales which are dynamic stories, designed for us to re-visit again and again, each time taking a little something else out of them, something different, something more. What we need to hear, not necessarily what we want to hear. Oftentimes they remain closed to us, inexplicable, meaning nothing more than what the story says on the surface---regardless of how hard we try we don’t get it, the insight they’re designed to engender just doesn’t happen. Jesus encountered that a lot as he exclaims, “you mean you still don’t get it?” It’s not uncommon to stay on the top layer of the parable and move on, none the richer for it.
This week I was staying on the surface of the Gospel, ready to preach a fairly typical sermon about how the kingdom of heaven, God’s grace if you will, is like the mustard tree—a large shrub spreading all over and when its gained a foothold? Impossible to move.
But just as Berryman says in Godly Play, sometimes parables crack open and surprise us.
The seeds described in today’s parable, the growing and the mustard are pretty persistent—we’re told the growing seed sprouts and grows without the planter doing anything ---he sleeps through the whole process, and the mustard seed, smallest of all the seeds sown grows into the largest shrub on earth. These seeds have odds stacked against them, yet they prevail, they prevail because they are fed by a faith in God which creates things far beyond our wildest imaginings.
The odds, at times, seem stacked against us. The economy is terrible and our cathedral resources are strapped—we are really hurting. But if something so small, can grow into something so great then what’s stopping us from taking the seeds of our declining Cathedral resources and planting them, nurturing them and watching them grow into something greater than we could ever imagine?
Times are tough, our pledge income is down, our endowment is down, our loose offering receipts are down. Just this week we said good bye to our Cathedral Secretary her job eliminated due to budget constraints. The need in this City is great—the hungry, the homeless, the illiterate, the drug addicted, the mentally ill---there is a steady stream of need knocking on our Cathedral doors. If we can’t balance our budget how will we ever meet the increasing need of the world?
BUT, our donations to the food pantry are up, the Liberian community will graduate 60% more of their high school seniors this year than last, due in large part to the tutoring program we host ,my email request for some help with a Burmese refugee family has rendered very positive response—in the midst of deprivation and decline we have these bright spots.
Some small actions on the part of several of you does make a big difference. And right there---that’s the parable of the mustard seed … even though our financial situation feels weak what we’re able to piece together continually grows into something bigger and stronger than we, individually can imagine. That’s the lesson: each of us here has something we can give and we should for even if it seems meager, joined with others through faith it will grow into something much stronger.
Each of us sitting here today is gaining something by being here. Likewise, each of us here today is responsible for this place—the building, the worship and most importantly each of us sitting here today is responsible for the Word of God, as given to us through the love of Holy and Undivided Trinity. This love, and our work in its name, is what we are all about. Whether it’s giving a world class music education free of charge to children, whether it’s preserving a national historic landmark –a building which draws people in through its sheer beauty, whether it’s offering our space to refugees desperately trying to make a new life in the United States, whether it’s protecting people from the changes and chances of this life through the work of our Hunger Outreach committee---food for the hungry, clothes for the naked, housing for the homeless--or showing a four year old through Godly Play what the great stories of the Bible mean in our daily lives, our ministries at this Cathedral spread the Good News of Christ .
This place and you its people provide, like the mustard tree, a place of healing hope and hospitality to the world. I know it is scary right now and I know it is easy to cut your pledge ---or to not pledge at all—thinking that someone else will pay the bill---but that’s not how it works.
One big seed doesn’t grow into a beautiful house of worship, a variety of ministries to serve the world, a wonderful music program and glorious liturgies. No this place, and all that we do in its name, is sown through the individual seeds of each of us. A dollar here, a dollar there, teaching when asked, hosting when asked, helping when asked---these are the seeds of our faith and when sown together they grow into something more magnificent than we could ever imagine, something more stupendous than we could ever do alone.
In the words of the grace ending Morning Prayer (BCP page 102) remember:
Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
Just like the Mustard Seed.
Amen.
Parables as Jerome Berryman, the creator of Godly Play our church school curriculum says, are difficult to engage and we need to be ready for them. You see parables, when we’re ready to hear and explore them usually tell us just what we need to hear.
Parables are, at their core, morality tales which are dynamic stories, designed for us to re-visit again and again, each time taking a little something else out of them, something different, something more. What we need to hear, not necessarily what we want to hear. Oftentimes they remain closed to us, inexplicable, meaning nothing more than what the story says on the surface---regardless of how hard we try we don’t get it, the insight they’re designed to engender just doesn’t happen. Jesus encountered that a lot as he exclaims, “you mean you still don’t get it?” It’s not uncommon to stay on the top layer of the parable and move on, none the richer for it.
This week I was staying on the surface of the Gospel, ready to preach a fairly typical sermon about how the kingdom of heaven, God’s grace if you will, is like the mustard tree—a large shrub spreading all over and when its gained a foothold? Impossible to move.
But just as Berryman says in Godly Play, sometimes parables crack open and surprise us.
The seeds described in today’s parable, the growing and the mustard are pretty persistent—we’re told the growing seed sprouts and grows without the planter doing anything ---he sleeps through the whole process, and the mustard seed, smallest of all the seeds sown grows into the largest shrub on earth. These seeds have odds stacked against them, yet they prevail, they prevail because they are fed by a faith in God which creates things far beyond our wildest imaginings.
The odds, at times, seem stacked against us. The economy is terrible and our cathedral resources are strapped—we are really hurting. But if something so small, can grow into something so great then what’s stopping us from taking the seeds of our declining Cathedral resources and planting them, nurturing them and watching them grow into something greater than we could ever imagine?
Times are tough, our pledge income is down, our endowment is down, our loose offering receipts are down. Just this week we said good bye to our Cathedral Secretary her job eliminated due to budget constraints. The need in this City is great—the hungry, the homeless, the illiterate, the drug addicted, the mentally ill---there is a steady stream of need knocking on our Cathedral doors. If we can’t balance our budget how will we ever meet the increasing need of the world?
BUT, our donations to the food pantry are up, the Liberian community will graduate 60% more of their high school seniors this year than last, due in large part to the tutoring program we host ,my email request for some help with a Burmese refugee family has rendered very positive response—in the midst of deprivation and decline we have these bright spots.
Some small actions on the part of several of you does make a big difference. And right there---that’s the parable of the mustard seed … even though our financial situation feels weak what we’re able to piece together continually grows into something bigger and stronger than we, individually can imagine. That’s the lesson: each of us here has something we can give and we should for even if it seems meager, joined with others through faith it will grow into something much stronger.
Each of us sitting here today is gaining something by being here. Likewise, each of us here today is responsible for this place—the building, the worship and most importantly each of us sitting here today is responsible for the Word of God, as given to us through the love of Holy and Undivided Trinity. This love, and our work in its name, is what we are all about. Whether it’s giving a world class music education free of charge to children, whether it’s preserving a national historic landmark –a building which draws people in through its sheer beauty, whether it’s offering our space to refugees desperately trying to make a new life in the United States, whether it’s protecting people from the changes and chances of this life through the work of our Hunger Outreach committee---food for the hungry, clothes for the naked, housing for the homeless--or showing a four year old through Godly Play what the great stories of the Bible mean in our daily lives, our ministries at this Cathedral spread the Good News of Christ .
This place and you its people provide, like the mustard tree, a place of healing hope and hospitality to the world. I know it is scary right now and I know it is easy to cut your pledge ---or to not pledge at all—thinking that someone else will pay the bill---but that’s not how it works.
One big seed doesn’t grow into a beautiful house of worship, a variety of ministries to serve the world, a wonderful music program and glorious liturgies. No this place, and all that we do in its name, is sown through the individual seeds of each of us. A dollar here, a dollar there, teaching when asked, hosting when asked, helping when asked---these are the seeds of our faith and when sown together they grow into something more magnificent than we could ever imagine, something more stupendous than we could ever do alone.
In the words of the grace ending Morning Prayer (BCP page 102) remember:
Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
Just like the Mustard Seed.
Amen.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
And Then A Miracle Happens
Sermon preached at St. Paul's Cathedral, Trinity Sunday, Yr B
+
One of my favorite comic strips is The Far Side. One of the best shows a man resembling Albert Einstein standing in front of a blackboard upon which is diagramed some complex equation divided into three steps. Under the heading Step One are scribbles numbers and equations; likewise, Step Three, at the other end of the board, has similar markings. But under step Two, right in the middle of board are just five words: “And Then a Miracle Happens.” I love it----the notion that something so intriguing, an idea so historic, a formula which explains so much…could be boiled down to a “and then a miracle happens,’ is funny…and refreshing.
I empathize with the Einstein figure—how hard it is to explain something which seems so logical to you, yet it is so difficult to convey. No doubt the real Einstein had times when he wished he could just use Step Two! At times what we know so clearly deep inside is almost impossible to put into words.
It’s the same with certain Christian doctrines...the incarnation, resurrection, ascension, the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and The Trinity. No doubt the Bishops in Nicaea at the fourth century council which gave us the doctrine of the Holy Trinity struggled mightily to find the words to describe our faith. Words we recite each week in our Creed, words which, to this day, cause a lot of consternation both within Christianity and beyond.
Let’s face it, it can be very difficult to explain our faith to another. Just because we have experienced it doesn’t mean we understand it. It can be so big and overwhelming that words fail us and we end up with “Step 2:” and then a miracle happens!
Jesus may have felt the same way speaking to Nicodemus…Nicodemus, you see, wasn’t thinking BIG enough, he was so constrained by his adherence to the law and to the ways things had “always been done” that he couldn’t open himself up to understand the full magnitude of what he was experiencing through the ministry of Jesus. Nicodemus, a Pharisee had been raised to follow the rules—rules designed to please Yahweh a distant, all powerful loving yet also wrathful God. But being pleased isn’t God’s ultimate goal--
God’s ultimate goal is to be in relationship with us. Through the ages of prophets, patriarchs and matriarchs God has been trying to reach us—to connect with us. God wants to experience us and God wants us to experience God.
This is the purpose of the Trinity: God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit gives God various routes to us and we, in turn gain various routes to God. A roadmap of sorts*.
The Trinity gives us, and God, a variety of ways to communicate, to connect, to relate.
Some of us connect to the parental “Father God” because we have caring nurturing parents or we long to have a caring nurturing parent---either way, for some of us the image of God as parent, as Father/Mother is comforting.
For others, the fleshy God, the incarnate word of Jesus is an easier image to connect with---a friend, a companion someone more accessible, more real, more tangible for us.
For others, there’s a sense that God is all in all—everywhere, in all things, of all things and deep within us experienced as intuition, inner voice etc. The Holy Spirit, while not physically present, is deep within us, expressing itself in our innermost thoughts, our soul searching and our heart’s desire.
Our heart’s desire, when we let ourselves feel it, is to receive God’s love, to accept God’s pursuit of us. The Holy Trinity comes for us in a number of ways because, beyond all human reason or reckoning, God wants to reach us!
When Jesus says in today’s Gospel “the wind blows where it chooses” I see an image of God in the person of the Holy Spirit, seeking us out reaching into the recesses of our hiding places to offer to us what God most wants to give: Love.
That’s the real miracle of our Christian faith: God so loves us, so wishes for us to accept that love, that God continues to come after us—as we heard in the Gospel: God so loved the world he gave his only Son (John 3:16)- his incarnate self to see and touch and taste that love, God gave us his eternal and all encompassing self, the Holy Spirit, to course through our very being at all times and in all places. This is a miracle indeed…and one we are called to proclaim…if only we could find the right words!
The three persons of the Trinity are traditionally described as Father Son and Holy Spirit but others prefer: Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier or: Artist, Rescuer, Companion and many other permutations to numerous to mention here. It is a challenge to find the right words to describe the mesmerizing, fantastic and most amazing experience of God working in our lives. This struggle continues to this day—not because God is elusive, but because God is so big, so ever-present that language proves insufficient in describing it.
That is why this Cathedral, each Sunday, offers three distinct liturgies utilizing various styles to express our love of God and God’s love for us.
In the course of 4 hours we in-- three distinct ways---proclaim the Glory of God. We do this because as Jesus explained to Nicodemus: We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen….and what we know and what we have seen of God is so huge and so varied we must use a variety of words and images to express it. And that’s ok, because it doesn’t matter so much how we say it. What matters is that we experience it; that we delve into a relationship with God dying to our limited human roadmap, allowing ourselves to be reborn into the life of “And then a Miracle Happens”---the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God Creator Redeemer, Sustainer, Artist Rescuer Companion, Father Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
*CS Lewis Mere Christianity considers the doctrines of Christianity to be roadmaps to reality
+
One of my favorite comic strips is The Far Side. One of the best shows a man resembling Albert Einstein standing in front of a blackboard upon which is diagramed some complex equation divided into three steps. Under the heading Step One are scribbles numbers and equations; likewise, Step Three, at the other end of the board, has similar markings. But under step Two, right in the middle of board are just five words: “And Then a Miracle Happens.” I love it----the notion that something so intriguing, an idea so historic, a formula which explains so much…could be boiled down to a “and then a miracle happens,’ is funny…and refreshing.
I empathize with the Einstein figure—how hard it is to explain something which seems so logical to you, yet it is so difficult to convey. No doubt the real Einstein had times when he wished he could just use Step Two! At times what we know so clearly deep inside is almost impossible to put into words.
It’s the same with certain Christian doctrines...the incarnation, resurrection, ascension, the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and The Trinity. No doubt the Bishops in Nicaea at the fourth century council which gave us the doctrine of the Holy Trinity struggled mightily to find the words to describe our faith. Words we recite each week in our Creed, words which, to this day, cause a lot of consternation both within Christianity and beyond.
Let’s face it, it can be very difficult to explain our faith to another. Just because we have experienced it doesn’t mean we understand it. It can be so big and overwhelming that words fail us and we end up with “Step 2:” and then a miracle happens!
Jesus may have felt the same way speaking to Nicodemus…Nicodemus, you see, wasn’t thinking BIG enough, he was so constrained by his adherence to the law and to the ways things had “always been done” that he couldn’t open himself up to understand the full magnitude of what he was experiencing through the ministry of Jesus. Nicodemus, a Pharisee had been raised to follow the rules—rules designed to please Yahweh a distant, all powerful loving yet also wrathful God. But being pleased isn’t God’s ultimate goal--
God’s ultimate goal is to be in relationship with us. Through the ages of prophets, patriarchs and matriarchs God has been trying to reach us—to connect with us. God wants to experience us and God wants us to experience God.
This is the purpose of the Trinity: God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit gives God various routes to us and we, in turn gain various routes to God. A roadmap of sorts*.
The Trinity gives us, and God, a variety of ways to communicate, to connect, to relate.
Some of us connect to the parental “Father God” because we have caring nurturing parents or we long to have a caring nurturing parent---either way, for some of us the image of God as parent, as Father/Mother is comforting.
For others, the fleshy God, the incarnate word of Jesus is an easier image to connect with---a friend, a companion someone more accessible, more real, more tangible for us.
For others, there’s a sense that God is all in all—everywhere, in all things, of all things and deep within us experienced as intuition, inner voice etc. The Holy Spirit, while not physically present, is deep within us, expressing itself in our innermost thoughts, our soul searching and our heart’s desire.
Our heart’s desire, when we let ourselves feel it, is to receive God’s love, to accept God’s pursuit of us. The Holy Trinity comes for us in a number of ways because, beyond all human reason or reckoning, God wants to reach us!
When Jesus says in today’s Gospel “the wind blows where it chooses” I see an image of God in the person of the Holy Spirit, seeking us out reaching into the recesses of our hiding places to offer to us what God most wants to give: Love.
That’s the real miracle of our Christian faith: God so loves us, so wishes for us to accept that love, that God continues to come after us—as we heard in the Gospel: God so loved the world he gave his only Son (John 3:16)- his incarnate self to see and touch and taste that love, God gave us his eternal and all encompassing self, the Holy Spirit, to course through our very being at all times and in all places. This is a miracle indeed…and one we are called to proclaim…if only we could find the right words!
The three persons of the Trinity are traditionally described as Father Son and Holy Spirit but others prefer: Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier or: Artist, Rescuer, Companion and many other permutations to numerous to mention here. It is a challenge to find the right words to describe the mesmerizing, fantastic and most amazing experience of God working in our lives. This struggle continues to this day—not because God is elusive, but because God is so big, so ever-present that language proves insufficient in describing it.
That is why this Cathedral, each Sunday, offers three distinct liturgies utilizing various styles to express our love of God and God’s love for us.
In the course of 4 hours we in-- three distinct ways---proclaim the Glory of God. We do this because as Jesus explained to Nicodemus: We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen….and what we know and what we have seen of God is so huge and so varied we must use a variety of words and images to express it. And that’s ok, because it doesn’t matter so much how we say it. What matters is that we experience it; that we delve into a relationship with God dying to our limited human roadmap, allowing ourselves to be reborn into the life of “And then a Miracle Happens”---the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God Creator Redeemer, Sustainer, Artist Rescuer Companion, Father Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
*CS Lewis Mere Christianity considers the doctrines of Christianity to be roadmaps to reality
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