Thanksgiving, 2013

Why Give Thanks?

Lessons:

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Psalm 100

Philippians 4:4-9

John 6: 25-35

“If the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you, it will be enough.”

13^th century mystic Meister Eckhart is the source of that quotation.   Is his sentiment really true?  Why should we give thanks above all else?

Today’s lessons, the ones selected for Thanksgiving Day, certainly point in that direction. In Deuteronomy, offering a sacrifice of Thanksgiving to God is the thing the people are told to do first.  Deuteronomy was a book collecting the words of Moses to the people, with his explanations of the laws handed down by God and his own words of instruction. If Moses says give thanks, then maybe we ought to listen.

As the psalm says, we give thanks because “The Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting and his faithfulness endures from age to age.”  I’m pretty sure most of us can offer plenty of evidence of God’s faithfulness in our lives: of all the ways we have been blessed by God. But how often do we count our blessings?

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul offers clues about the importance of Thanksgiving when he writes, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything [in every situation] by prayer and supplication WITH THANKSGIVING let your requests be made known to God.” 

I’m pretty sure most of the prayers I make are prayers of supplication—when I make requests of God. I’m also sure that I don’t give equal time to saying thanks.

In the words from the Gospel of John, Jesus tells us directly why we should thank God:  “The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

The basic fact that we are alive and breathing, that we have the most essential necessities of life—food and water, shelter, someone who loves us—all are gifts from God. Many of the things we ask for in our prayers are not things we need, but things we want.  We know by the evidence of our own lives and the words of the Lord that God grants us everything we need before we ever even think to ask.

It stands to reason, then, that prayers of Thanksgiving are not just what we ought to say, but that words of thanks should simply rise to our lips spontaneously at any moment. When we thank the Lord for his provision of all we need, we acknowledge that we have received our blessings with a full awareness of their source.  We simply remind ourselves how very blessed we are when we give thanks to that Source of all we are and all we possess.  We very much need such a reminder when we get caught up in worries about our problems.

Right now I’m thankful that the epistle lesson appointed for this day is Philippians 4:4-9.  These most beautiful words are some of my very favorite ones in all the bible, and they always remind me of my sweet mother and her siblings, of how blessed I was to be born into their family. In these words, Paul lists some of the intangible blessings that we too often take for granted:  “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Something about the way giving thanks can bring us to an internal state of balance, “set us to rights,” so to speak, must have been what President Lincoln had in mind when he began the annual tradition of this holiday by proclaiming a national day of “Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens” to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26^th, 1863—right at the height of the Civil War.  Lincoln, whom many consider to be our greatest and wisest President, understood well the healing nature of giving thanks.

I am thankful for you, for this lovely old chapel, for all of our many blessings, and for the holiday we are about to celebrate.  May the Lord continue to bless us and keep us in his care.   AMEN.

Homily for Sunday, October 27, 2013

                                               Humility or Righteousness? 

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“If you want peace, work for justice.”

Those words appear on a bumper sticker, and the words are fundamentally true.  Most disputes between nations, most wars, have as their root cause some unjust act (or perceived injustice) on the part of another nation. Sometimes, as in Syria today, the injustice happens within a country, between opposing factions. The Hague and Geneva conventions have been in place for well over 100 years and have evolved into the bases for the prosecution of war criminals and the settlement of reparations where injustice has occurred.  Justice has to happen before there can be true peace.

            Jesus’s words  in today’s parable about two very different men praying in the temple speak to a very personal kind of peace—the peace we have within ourselves which usually translates into peace with our neighbors.  Jesus shows us very clearly that the peace he wills for us is the peace that comes from humility.

This parable also illustrates something pretty surprising—righteousness is less important in Christ’s eyes than humility.  The Pharisee in the story obeys every rule of the law; he knows he is both right and righteous and his words reflect the arrogance his righteousness produces. The arrogance that results from that self-righteousness of the Pharisee is clearly a grave sin in Christ’s eyes.  The Pharisee “exalts” himself, and by exalting himself, he sees the tax collector as contemptible. No love can be found in self-righteousness that puffs itself up at the expense of others.

Jesus’s exact words are, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”  What does it mean to be “exalted”?  The dictionary says that to exalt is to acclaim, to venerate, to elevate, to worship. If we think of Jesus and his life as the true model for our own lives, we will clearly see that Jesus never exalted himself.  In the poverty of his life and his debasing, horrific death, Jesus was an exemplar of true humility. Yet we know him as the Lord of all, God incarnate, and the author of mercy, love, and justice.  Jesus was the humble one who has been and continues to be exalted.  But we are none of us like Jesus Christ, who was perfectly humble and perfectly righteous. Like the tax collector and indeed like the Pharisee, all of us are sinners in one way or another.

So how do we live the kind of humility Jesus asks of us? And how will we be exalted by that humility?  The traditional interpretation of this parable is that the tax collector’s humility will exalt him into heaven. He prays what has come to be known as the Jesus prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He won’t even raise his eyes to heaven because he knows he is unworthy of the mercy he seeks. God, who is always more loving and forgiving of us than we are of ourselves, hears that prayer and forgives.

            I think that when Jesus says “the humble will be exalted” he means more than just the reward that awaits us when we die. I think Jesus is saying that our humility will exalt our spirits, lift us here and now into a state of grace, and give us inner peace. Accepting that we are sinners and far from righteous will lead us, as it does the tax collector, to seek God’s mercy. Focused on our own inadequacies, we will not succumb to self-righteous contempt for anyone else. Knowing ourselves to be loved by God in spite of our shortcomings and accepting that we are no better (or worse) than our neighbors draw us closer to both. We experience God’s love more fully, and we learn to love our neighbors and live with them in true peace and harmony.

            Yes, if we want peace, we should work for justice. But if we want the kind of peace that allows us to feel at one with God and with our neighbors, then we need to work on humility. It’s more important than being right! 

           

           

           

Homily for Sunday, September 29, 2013

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 Lazarus at the Gate

The lessons for today, even the parable in the gospel about poor Lazarus at the rich man’s gate, are some of the most straightforward ones in the bible.  There is not much need for interpretation in words like “Happy are they…who give justice to those who are oppressed and food to those who hunger.”  In the parable, the selfish rich man burns in hell, while the poor beggar is tended to by the angels in heaven.  This is the kind of lesson that makes me squirm. It’s tough to think about, much less preach about.  I never consider myself one of the rich, but in comparison to most of the poor people in the world, I am very rich indeed. When I think about the money I waste on trivial things, that’s when I really start to squirm.  I can just see myself on judgment day trying to justify buying that pair of shoes that gathered dust in my closet.  Then I remember with gratitude that our Lord is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” I still have time to mend my selfish ways.

            The collect for today says something pretty startling: “God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity.” Really?  I take a look at the beauty and wonder of creation, the incredible power of natural forces like wind and floods and wildfires, and I think, now, that’s power.

Or I look at someone who has been miraculously healed from a devastating illness, and I think—that’s power. But this collect, in stating that God chiefly reveals his power through mercy and pity, suggests that all those showy demonstrations of God’s power—the volcano erupting and tidal wave forming--are not  most important to God.  No, God demonstrates his true power in a way most of us usually overlook—or ignore—in the mercy and pity God shows each of us. Some people call it grace.

            When I was a child here in Graves Mill, I loved to hear the stories my mother told about her own childhood here, stories about the gatherings of family and friends, of neighbors coming together in times of celebration and in times of trouble. She told me about my hard-working grandparents, a farmer and his wife, about how my grandmother canned the vegetables my grandfather grew, how she cooked and spread a well-laden table at every meal, good food for the family and anyone else who came to share a meal. Mama told me about the lunches my grandmother packed for her children, how my mother was distraught one day when a big gust of wind tugged her lunch pail right out of her hand and dumped it in the river as she and her sister Mabel walked to school. Mama remembered that incident so plainly after so many years because, as she told me, her lunch contained one of my grandmother’s delicious fried apple pies.

            When I was a young adult and reflected on my mother’s childhood, it finally occurred to me that the years of my mother’s growing up, the years of what always sounded to me like years of joy and bounty, were the years of the Great Depression. From my mother’s stories, I never had the sense of anyone in the valley suffering through those hard times. I’m sure some of them did, but I’m equally sure this valley, where farming families had always known how to provide for their own and look out for one another, was at least somewhat insulated from the worst effects of the depression. The images we’ve seen of long lines of people standing in wait for handouts of bread are images of city life. We continue to think that the worst pockets of poverty in this country are in the urban areas, although we also know from the 1960s revelations about poverty in the deep hollers of Appalachia that poor people abound in all places. When we refuse to see the poor people in our midst, we behave like the rich man who overlooked the very existence of Lazarus at his gate. The words of today’s collect and gospel lesson remind us that, though we may choose to drive past the poor person in need, God always shows the poor mercy and pity and favors them over us when we neglect them.

            Let’s look at that parable again. When Abraham explains to the rich man why he is in hell and why poor Lazarus is finally receiving the comfort he deserves, the rich man doesn’t really get it. He wants Abraham to send Lazarus to bring him some water, as if he can still lord it over the poor beggar. Abraham points out to the rich man that what he asks is impossible. Then the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house, to warn all five of his rich brothers, so that they won’t end up burning in hell as he has. When Abraham says the brothers have Moses and the prophets, all of whom taught about sharing and caring for the poor, the rich man responds that his brothers won’t listen to the prophets.  He thinks they might listen to someone raised from the dead, like Lazarus. Maybe that would get their attention. The audacity of this rich man, even while he is in hell, is unbelievable!  Abraham has had enough of him by this point, and tells him that his brothers won’t listen to anyone any more than he did himself.  They are just as self-absorbed as he is.

            I wonder how many times we fail to listen to the prophets? How often do we read lessons like this one and forget about it the next day?  Two things from Paul’s letter to Timothy are helpful guides for us if we wish to do the right thing by sharing our wealth. Most of the time when you hear these words of Paul’s, they are misquoted as saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” But what Paul really says, and this is significant, is that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”  Money in and of itself is neither good nor evil. In fact, used wisely and generously, money can accomplish many good things. The problems arise from our attachment to our money and what we can purchase with it. When we love our money too much, we become less willing to share it with others.

            What’s the antidote? What does Paul say we ought to do with our money? He states very plainly how we rich folks are to behave.  We are “to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.”

            Ultimately, I think this means we have to take a close look at our relationship with our money. Actually, maybe the better choice would be to stop having a “relationship” with our money—to let go of that kind of attachment. Instead, we could assess how we use our money, and how we might be able to use it more wisely and generously.  I guess Paul would say we could redirect our love for our money toward doing a better job of loving each other and our neighbors.  Like every important challenge, that may be easier said than done. 

            As with any challenge, we can pray for the Lord’s guidance in discerning his will for us as we share our abundance with the ones who need our help the most.  AMEN

Homily for Sunday, August 25th

How Do We Bless the Lord?

Psalm 103:1-8

1

Bless the LORD, O my soul, *
and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.

2

Bless the LORD, O my soul, *
and forget not all his benefits.

3

He forgives all your sins *
and heals all your infirmities;

4

He redeems your life from the grave *
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;

5

He satisfies you with good things, *
and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.

6

The LORD executes righteousness *
and judgment for all who are oppressed.

7

He made his ways known to Moses *
and his works to the children of Israel.

8

The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, *
slow to anger and of great kindness.

When I heard the words of the psalm as a child, I wondered in what possible way I could bless the Lord. How could a puny, scrawny kid, who possessed little more than dolls and stuffed animals, offer a blessing to God, the source of all blessings?  As I grew older, I thought the very idea that someone like me could speak a blessing on God Almighty sounded terribly presumptuous.

I’ve been glad to have the opportunity this week to ponder the words of Psalm 103 and come to a better understanding of what they mean.  Thinking of God as a holy parent—and being a mother and grandmother myself—I started to consider what a joy it is when young children offer gifts. There are few things I prize more than the little plaster cast of Lillian Grace’s hand or the pictures she has colored for me for display on my refrigerator. Thinking about the pure delight those things give me, I begin to understand why God may enjoy the blessings offered up by His children.

After my parents died, when I was cleaning out their house, I found in Mama’s kitchen two pretty worthless gifts I gave her when I was a child. One was an amber Pyrex casserole dish that I won in a raffle at Wolftown Mercantile and proudly presented to her for Christmas. Now my mother made wonderful cakes for the holidays—fresh coconut, German chocolate, a buttery pound cake, and a delicious sherry-drenched fruitcake. That casserole dish was filled with one of those not-very-good mass-produced fruitcakes, but even so, my mother oohed and aahed over my gift and appreciated it enough that she kept the dish all those years, even after the casserole lost its top. She also kept a tile trivet I made for her at 4-H camp. Now I keep those things to remind me of the blessing of a mother’s love. If God thinks like a parent, and we are told God does, then maybe our puny human blessings bring God joy.

We have a big book at our house called The Book of Legends, and it is a compilation of stories and scriptural interpretations by some ancient rabbis. These old stories and sayings were the teachings Jesus, as an observant Jew, would have heard in the synagogue when he was growing up. Although he was never officially named a rabbi, Jesus proved that he was himself a master of the midrash—an exposition of the underlying meaning of a scriptural text.

I got out The Book of Legends to see what I could find out about humans blessing God, and how pleased I was to find a midrash on Psalm 103!  This is the way the story goes:

A certain man came to Rabbi Gamaliel and asked him, “In what place does the Holy One, blessed be he, reside?”  Rabbi Gamaliel replied, “I do not know.” The man became indignant at this answer and retorted, “Is this your wisdom? You pray to God every day, and yet you do not know where his place is?”  Rabbi Gamaliel, astonished at the impertinence of his questioner, retorted: “See here, you ask me about something that is thirty-five hundred years away from me. [The thirty-five hundred years represents the time and distance since creation.] Now I shall ask you about something that abides with you day and night, and you tell me where its place is.”  The man replied, “And what is that?”

Rabbi Gamaliel replied, “It is the soul, which abides within you. Tell me precisely where does it abide?”  Of course the man was stumped by this question, and he answered, “I do not know.” Rabbi Gamaliel chastised the man, saying, “You do not know the place of something that abides within you day and night, and yet you ask me to tell you where God’s soul abides, something that is thirty-five hundred miles away from me! Not even the celestial creatures that carry the throne of glory know where God’s place is, nor in what place his soul abides. Therefore, they say, ‘Blessed be the glory of the Lord, wherever his place may be.’”

When we speak of our connection to God, we sometimes say that God resides in our hearts. Sometimes we say, like Elijah, that we hear the “still, small” voice of God speaking deeply within us. It seems that the place where we experience God’s presence with us is the place where our soul is touched by the soul of God.

When we say, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name,” we speak from that mysterious place of connection with God.  We acknowledge the greatest blessing God has bestowed upon us: a portion of God’s own immortal soul.

            How do we bless the Lord?  We gratefully accept that God is the best part of each of us: the divine spark of life. 

Amen.

           

Homily for Sunday, July 28th Graves Chapel

What Do We Seek?

Lessons:

Psalm 85

Luke 11:1-13

            When I was a child, my dad always had an office for his insurance business in our basement. Usually my mother was around when he needed something typed, but every now and then, Dad had to resort to typing something himself.  At those times, he used what he called the “gospel system” of typing.  You may have heard the old fashioned phrase “hunt and peck” to describe amateur two-finger typing, and Dad’s gospel system was a variation of that. Dad typed using what he called the “seek and ye shall find” method.

            I can’t read today’s lesson from Luke without being reminded of my dad and his typing. As Americans, we seem to be a nation of seekers, always on the look-out for the next big thing. The early settlers kept pushing the frontier farther and farther west until we had filled this land from “sea to shining sea.” These days our seeking may take some of us to the frontiers of space or space-age scientific discovery. For most of us, our seeking just takes us to the mall, looking for the next gadget or the best bargain.  We are rarely satisfied enough with our lives to rest in contentment.

            I don’t know about you, but this prevailing restlessness of our society often leaves me feeling anxious.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m always stricken with anxiety—there’s a pill for that, and I’m not yet at the point of needed a prescription. (It’s not surprising that many people do need such medication.)  In my case, I can find myself treading water in an undercurrent of anxious thoughts: Am I really able to handle this difficult challenge at work? Are all of my loved ones safe and well?  Will I run into that troublesome person I’d rather avoid?  If I do, what should I say to him or her? Do I need to make an amends to someone for some failing on my part? You may have experienced some of these same anxious thoughts, and they may seem to be worth the stress they cost us.  But I can also become anxious over what to cook for dinner or where to park my car, and you may be familiar with those stressers, too.

            My dad was born in 1912.  Over the course of his lifetime, he experienced changes that people of previous generations could not possibly have grasped and would not have witnessed even if they had lived to be hundreds of years old, like Methusaleh.  My dad recalled traveling by horse-drawn wagon  to Graves Mill as a child, with his mother at the reins as they forded five streams between their house on South River and here. My grandfather Mark Haney was working as the official blacksmith for the small-gauge lumber railroad here in the valley at that time, and my grandmother regularly came to take him home or bring him supplies. By the time my dad died in 1983, things previous generations had thought to be impossible dreams had become realities: automobiles, airplanes, television, the nuclear age, men on the moon, just to name a few. Since his death, computer technologies have advanced at such an incredible rate that our laptops and cell phones become obsolete within months. It’s no wonder that our rapidly changing world leaves so many of us feeling discombobulated. There is a constant impetus to update and upgrade!

            In his book Breathing Under Water, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr asserts that our American culture as a whole is addictive by nature.   Our common anxieties arise from our addictions to everything from television to online social media to shopping to food (especially sweets) to body image to social status. We can so easily be caught up in an endless pursuit of self-gratification.  Maybe as individuals we are less addicted than others in some of these areas. But are we truly free of any of these addictions? I’m willing to admit that I’m not, and it’s a very uncomfortable admission.  

            If the primary urge that drives us is the need to satisfy some addiction or another, we are clearly not doing the kind of seeking Jesus means when he says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find.” What is it that He calls us to seek? How can we overcome our restless, addictive striving and replace it with inner peace?

            The parts of today’s gospel lesson contain signposts from Christ. In the first part--Luke 11, verses 1 through 4—Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray, and the prayer we know as the Lord’s prayer is a simple, everyday one that asks for God’s blessing in the form of our “daily bread,” that instructs us to forgive one another as we ask God’s forgiveness, that requests God’s help in avoiding temptation, that prays for God’s will (not ours) to be done. In the easy-to-overlook phrase “your kingdom come,” Jesus tells us to welcome God’s presence with us on earth.

            In verses 5 through 8, Jesus tells a story about a man knocking on his neighbor’s door late at night and asking for bread.  Jesus points out that the annoyed neighbor may not give in to his friend’s request for help on the first knock, but if the knocking goes on and on, he may finally arise and heed the request just to end the commotion. The message of this story is to pray with persistence.  Keep praying!

            In verses 9 through 13, Jesus tells us how our prayers and seeking will be rewarded: the Heavenly Father will “give the Holy Spirit to those who ask for him.”  What does it feel like to have that Holy Spirit residing in our hearts?  As Christians we have all surely had the experience, as fleeting as it may have been, of peace of mind and spirit, knowing the Lord was with us and within us.  The question for us, as we swim upstream in our addictive society, is how do we hold onto that peace?  How do we more consciously and more continually make ourselves aware of God’s presence?

We pray with thanksgiving. We pray with love. We pray when we are worried and in need of help.  Most of all, we pray with persistence. 

Paul admonishes us in Philippians 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  

Amen.

           

Homily for Sunday, July 7, 2013 Celtic Evening Prayer Buck Mountain Church

Lessons:

Psalm 66:1-8

Isaiah 66:10-14

Galatians 6:1-6, 7-16

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

“The Kingdom of God has come near to you…

The Kingdom of God has come near.”

Jesus sends out seventy evangelists

to spread the good news.

He tells them to say, “The Kingdom has come near”

to those who accept the good news

as well as to those who do not.

Celtic Christians lived every moment of their lives

believing God was near them.

At the remote western reaches of the Roman empire,

the native peoples of the British Isles

were converted by the Roman Christians

in the 2^nd century after Christ.

When the Roman legions abandoned England in 410

the Celtic Christians kept and spread the faith.

St. Patrick was among the English Celts

who took the good news to Ireland in that same century.

The Celtic Christians recognized God in nature,

in each other, in their daily tasks,

in all the trials and joys of life,

and they called on God’s presence at all times.

They heeded the words of Paul in his first letter

to the Thessalonians: “Pray without ceasing.”

Psalm 66 includes these beautiful words, praising God:

“All the earth bows down before you,

sings to you, sings out your name.

Bless our God you peoples,

make the voice of his praise to be heard,

Who holds our souls in life,

and will not allow our feet to slip.”

These words from the psalm could very well be

the model for a Celtic prayer.

For every activity of the day,

from the splashing of water for the morning bath,

or the churning of cream to make butter,

to the plowing and planting of a field,

the Celtic people had a prayer for every occasion.

They continuously invoked the presence of God

and praised God’s name.

What Isaiah says about the Lord’s loving care of his people,

suggests what the Celts believed:

“Thus says the Lord, I will extend prosperity to her

(to Jerusalem) like a river, and you shall nurse

and be carried on her arm,

and dandled on her knees.

As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.

You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice;

your bodies shall flourish like the grass;

and it shall be known that the hand of the Lord

is with his servants.”

These words of Isaiah would have resonated deeply

with the Celtic people, who surrendered their children

to God at the moment of their birth.

The midwife who delivered a Celtic baby

was called a womb-woman.

As soon as an infant was born,

the womb-woman sprinkled water on the baby’s head,

what they called a “birthing  baptism,”

as she said,

“A small drop of water

to thy forehead, beloved,

fit for the Father, Son and Spirit,

the Triune of power.

A small drop of water

to encompass my beloved,

fit for Father, Son, and Spirit,

the Triune of power.

A small drop of water

to fill thee with each grace,

fit for Father, Son and Spirit,

the Triune of power.”

Later the baby would also have an official baptism.

In living their lives as an ongoing conversation

with God, the Celts achieved a seeming intimacy

with the Holy

that modern Christians might envy.

But we shouldn’t be deceived and imagine

that such intimacy lacked the proper awe.

If anything, their nearness to God

inspired in the Celts

a greater reverence for the Divine.

May we learn to follow their example

living our lives in prayer. 

The Kingdom of God is very near. Amen.

Homily for June 30, 2013 Graves Chapel

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Caught in a Whirlwind

Lesson:  2 Kings 2: 1-2, 6-14

There is a bumper sticker that I see fairly often, and I like it. Unfortunately, it includes a word I would never say aloud in the chapel, so for that word I will substitute a blank.  “Blank happens.” Maybe you’ve seen that one, too?

You may be wondering why I would admit to liking such a statement, and I will explain. That bumper sticker expresses the truth. We could substitute the phrase “bad things” for the unspeakable word, and I think you will see what I mean.

Bad things happen. That’s the truth, and there’s no getting around it. There isn’t anywhere in scripture where we are promised eternal happiness. There are no guarantees that all of our experiences will be happy ones. How could that even be possible? Our world is made up of complicated people and complicated systems—including the operations of nature—interacting and competing with each other. Bad things are bound to happen sometimes.

The people of this valley have good reasons to acknowledge that bad things do happen from time to time. Eighteen years ago this past Thursday, on June 27^th, 1995, a great flood swept down the valley, causing unbelievable destruction and tragic loss. Those of us who experienced that disaster and its aftermath will never forget it.  A year ago today, when David and I arrived here for a wedding, trees and power lines were down in front of Graves Chapel. The derecho had struck.  Those are two examples of physical, natural storms, not unlike the whirlwind in today’s reading from 2^nd Kings.  But sometimes the bad things we experience are emotional storms, caused by personal disasters: the break-up of a relationship, the death of a family member, a difficult diagnosis for ourselves or a loved one.

Today’s story about the great prophet Elijah offers a truly amazing perspective on a seeming natural disaster—and where God can be found in it.  In the beginning of the story, it isn’t clear why Elijah is traveling and trying to leave his persistent young understudy, Elisha, behind. All we know is that Elijah says he is going where God has called him. They encounter a company of fifty prophets who also decide to follow them, and these fifty are eyewitnesses to the ensuing mayhem.

Standing by the Jordan River, Elijah (as the great prophet Moses before him) parts the waters, and he and Elisha cross the river on dry land. At this point, Elijah says to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you before I’m taken from you,” and Elisha makes a bold request.  “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” Elijah points out that Elisha’s request—his prayer—is a presumptuous one, hard to grant, but he tells Elisha that if Elisha sees him as he is taken away, then Elisha’s request will be granted. As they continue walking and talking, “a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind to heaven.” Elisha stands his ground, calling out to Elijah and telling him what he sees: “Father, Father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” Then he grieves for his lost father, tearing his own clothes in despair and taking up the mantle Elijah left behind. As an illustration that Elijah’s spirit does now, indeed, rest on Elisha, when he strikes the waters of the Jordan with the mantle, they part for him as they had for Elijah, and Elisha walks across to the other side and rejoins the company of fifty prophets.

Our lesson for today ends there, but the next passage in 2^nd Kings tells us much about the reaction of those fifty waiting prophets. Remember, they watched all that transpired from a distance, from the other side of the Jordan River.  What they saw looked like a lightning firestorm and a tornado, natural events that are fairly common in their Middle East. They saw Elijah being carried away in the whirlwind, and when Elisha returns safely, they acknowledged that, since he is the apparent survivor of a terrible natural disaster, Elisha now bears the spirit as well as the mantle of Elijah. One of them speaks up and says to Elisha, “There are fifty strong men here. Let us go and see if we can find the body of your master where he has been thrown down by the Lord on some mountain or in some valley.”  Elisha believes that such a search is futile, but when the prophets insist on going, he gives them permission.

So, what can this very dramatic story say to us today about the natural and other disasters that we have to face in our lives?

Elisha’s loss of his mentor and father-figure reminds us of the natural order of things: generations move forward with time, and we lose our grandparents and parents. Our sorrow at such times is unavoidable, but we can be comforted in the knowledge that God has called them, as he does Elijah, home to heaven.  This kind of passing on is one that we anticipate, even if we wish we didn’t have to say good-bye to our older loved ones.

But how do we cope with the unexpected losses? I believe God has a plan for each of us. Sometimes the events of our lives will take us to unexpected and unwanted places. We may find ourselves experiencing natural disaster or personal tragedy.  Wherever we are and whatever we face on our journey toward God, God is always present with us. God will always allow something good to come out of any bad thing that happens. That is the promise of God’s redemption and the gift of eternal life granted to us by Christ’s resurrection.        Amen.

Homily for Sunday, June 2, 2013

Buck Mountain Church   (Youth Sunday)

Faith and Trust

            What does someone have to do to acquire faith?  Where is faith found?

A few weeks ago, David and I went with Connie to Christ Church to hear poet and essayist Christian Wiman speak about his own faith.  The former editor of Poetry magazine, the preeminent journal of its kind in America, Wiman is about to begin a new phase of his life as he joins the faculty of Yale Divinity School.  In his address at Christ Church, Wiman acknowledged that his topic was one that most of the poets he has published would probably never choose to discuss in a public setting—faith.  Really, it’s not a topic most people would wish to discuss publicly; faith is personal and individual and talking about it can be prickly.

            So I really appreciated Christian Wiman’s willingness to discuss his faith journey with us. His story began with his upbringing in a west Texas town, where going to church on Sundays was just what everyone did. As a young adult, Wiman abandoned the church and pursued other paths.  I believe many twenty-somethings do the same; I admit that I certainly did. But in his late thirties and after receiving a diagnosis of a rare and incurable form of cancer, Wiman found his faith again. Actually, it is probably more accurate to say that his faith found him, and found him willing. From the moment we are born, God is with us, pursuing us no matter how far we attempt to stray from faith’s path.  When we, like Wiman, decide to turn around and move back in the direction of God, it may seem that we follow a trail toward God as if we are searchers.  What we don’t understand is that the desire we have for faith in God was planted there within us by God.  Jesus said to his disciples in John 15: 16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” Faith—the desire and capacity to believe confidently in God--is a gift of grace we’ve all been given. What we do with that gift is really up to us.

            Wait a minute, you may be thinking. Faith just isn’t that easy. We rarely know with any certainty what God is calling us to do, and having a conversation with God usually means we do all the talking. During difficult times, doubt seems more accessible than faith.  When is faith simple?

            Today’s gospel lesson from Luke tells the story of the centurion whose faith, Jesus tells us, is exemplary.  The centurion, an officer in the Roman army, sends some Jewish elders to ask Jesus if he will heal a very ill slave. The elders praise the centurion to Jesus, extolling his virtues, and Jesus agrees to go with them and tend to the centurion’s sick servant.  Before they arrive at their destination, another envoy from the centurion comes to meet Jesus. Repeating the words of the centurion, this friend says: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, `Go,' and he goes, and to another, `Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, `Do this,' and the slave does it."  Jesus is astonished by this comparison of himself to the centurion, by what the centurion is saying about the authority of Jesus.  The centurion must have heard stories about other people Jesus had healed. Believing in those stories, he asks Jesus to come to his home and heal his sick servant. When he amends even his invitation and asks Jesus simply to say the words of healing from a distance, confident in Jesus’s power to accomplish such a thing, Jesus says, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” At that moment, the sick servant is healed and the centurion’s faith is both justified and rewarded.

            In this story of the centurion, we have everything we need to know about how faith works. Faith requires confidence, but not a blind confidence in something we can’t see and don’t know first-hand. The centurion as a Roman officer was someone used to giving orders and making decisions. Clearly, someone he trusted had told him about this man Jesus and his reputation for healing. Maybe it was a close friend of his or a subordinate officer in his command who had witnessed one of Jesus’s miraculous cures first-hand. Whoever the source was, the centurion had faith in HIM, and having faith in what he had heard, he simply knew Jesus would be able to cure his slave.

Our faith is based on trust, and often it is trust in others.

            Think about Jesus and his reaction of astonishment. His disciples witnessed his powers first-hand repeatedly, but at times they lost faith and questioned Jesus. The disciples, who surely should have known that Jesus was the Son of God and capable of all kinds of miracles, often just didn’t seem to get it. We certainly see Jesus’s exasperation with them at times. Yet, here was this Roman officer, who had only heard about Jesus and had never seen him in action, who yet believed that Jesus had the authority to bring about a miraculous healing.  Now, that’s faith, Jesus exclaims!

            In reality, we are far more often like the disciples than the centurion. We question and we doubt.  It’s hard to live every day, every minute with a conscious awareness that God is present with us. We lose sight of what the Lord is really capable of doing and we let our faith slip. That’s just the way we humans are.

            For me, the simplest and most significant thing Christian Wiman said in his talk was this: Even though we have all had moments of blessed assurance when we knew all was well and God was on our side, we can’t seem to hold onto those times when our faith was strong. Wiman said that even when we cannot summon that feeling of nearness to God, we CAN trust in our memories of those past experiences. When we feel our faith slipping in the present, we can recall our past experiences of being close to God and be comforted.

            The story of the centurion further illuminates the way this kind of trust in faith can work. Faith is often something we catch from someone else. In fact, that is probably the essential truth for most of us who grew up in the church. As children, we simply came to believe about God and Jesus what the grown-ups in our lives, the people we loved and trusted most, told us. Often, the way the grown-ups lived their faith was the most compelling testimony to us.  As we grew older, we may have questioned (as we are encouraged to do) and refined our beliefs, but our simple beginner’s faith in God really never left us.

I hope and pray that our young people today will always have deep memories of what they learned here about love and faith.  I hope that when they grow up and face difficulties, the faith of their fathers and mothers and everyone they knew here at Buck Mountain Church will come back to them as something they can trust with all their hearts to see them through.

Amen.

Homily for Sunday, May 26, 2013

The Trinity: A Unity of Love

Lessons:

Psalm 8

Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31

Romans 5: 1-5

John 16:12-15

Since we’ve last met, the Easter season has ended and the season of Pentecost has begun.  As the time approached for his death and departure, Jesus tried to prepare his disciples for the difficulties that lay ahead, and he told them he would not leave them alone, that he would send an Advocate to be with them always. This Advocate he called “the Spirit of Truth,” or as we have come to know the Advocate, the indwelling Holy Spirit. Jesus in fact tells the disciples that he has to leave in order for the Advocate—the Spirit—to come to his followers.

On the fiftieth day of Easter, May 9^th, we celebrated the Ascension—when the resurrected and risen Christ, having appeared to his disciples and continued his ministry among them, finally leaves the earth—the human realm—and rises to heaven as the astonished disciples watch. 

Last Sunday, May 19^th, was Pentecost Sunday, when the church officially celebrates the arrival of the Advocate.  The Spirit falls as tongues of fire on the disciples, and they are able to speak in all the languages of those who hear them. As Christ had foretold, in this way the followers of Jesus, strengthened and guided by the Advocate (the Holy Spirit) were able to spread the Good News throughout the world.  A salvation that the Hebrew people, the chosen children of God, originally believed would only be offered to them became available to all tribes of people.  We worship here today in Graves Mill because our ancestors were beneficiaries of that spreading word, just as the prophet Isaiah had foretold: “It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” The Spirit entered the disciples, and the light of the salvation of Jesus Christ made it all the way to this end of the earth!

Now we have arrived at Trinity Sunday, which, as we say, celebrates “God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Since it is difficult for us to grasp an intelligent, communicative being who is not human, we attribute personhood to God.  I think that attribution, considering God to be some extremely smart person, may be the source of our common confusion about the Trinity. God is God, far beyond any human’s ability to comprehend or explain, and as such, is ultimately a mystery to us. Dividing the powers of God among three persons has been our human way of deciphering the mystery.

Even as we continue with a discussion of the Trinity, it will be good to remember that we are simply using the tools available to us—human words and human characteristics—to bring God to our level of comprehension. God, thankfully, is willing to meet us there.

I heard of a child once, who in that wonderful way children have of cutting straight to the heart of a matter, explained the Trinity to his Sunday school teacher. She had been attempting to explain the concept of the three persons to the class, when this little boy said: “Oh, I think I see. It’s sort of like the way my mom is my mother, but she is a daughter to Grandma and a sister to Uncle Roy.”  One God, but different roles, depending on the situation—that’s a simple way to look at it. St. Patrick, who famously used a three-leaved shamrock to explain the concept of a three-in-one God, emphasized that the Trinity is a Unity of love.  What holds the three aspects of God together and plants God within each of us is love. A simple Irish invocation illustrates the function of love in the Trinity in this way:  “O Father who sought me, O Son who bought me, O Holy Spirit who taught me…”

By all means necessary, the eternal God ever seeks us and calls us home.

Amen!

Homily for Sunday, April 28, 2013

 The Disciple’s Way                                                                           Graves Chapel                              

The Collect for the 5^th Sunday of Easter

 Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel for today:

John 13:31-35

At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Our nation has now suffered another dreadful terrorist attack, this time perpetrated by young men who were both home-grown and Islamic extremists.  We ask why and how this could happen, and there are no good answers. We wonder how any religion could condone the murder and mutilation of innocent people, including young children.  Our government will respond to this event as it must. But how do we respond? How can we process yet another national tragedy?

It is worth remembering at such a time that the three great world religions of Middle Eastern origin all trace their roots to the city of Jerusalem and, in essence, all worship one God. On that most basic level, Christians, Jews, and Muslims are blood relatives.  As Christians, we know we share our faith history with Jews; our Old Testament is Hebrew scripture and contains the law, history and literature of the Jewish people. Jesus himself was a Jew, and the first Christians were all Jews who came to believe that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the Saviour of His people.

So how do Muslims fit into this family history?  The Father of the Hebrew people was Abraham, and we remember that Abraham proved his faithful obedience to God when he nearly sacrificed his only son Isaac.  As you recall, God intervened and stayed Abraham’s hand, providing a ram instead for the sacrifice. Isaac would go on to be the father of Jacob and Esau, and through Jacob, renamed Israel, the entire genealogy of the Jews is traced. 

But think again. Isaac was not Abraham’s only son, although it can be said he was Abraham’s only legitimate son. When Sarah, Abraham’s aging wife, believed she would not be able to bear a son for her husband, she gave her servant woman Hagar to her husband, who fathered Ishmael with her.  According to Genesis, Ishmael was about thirteen years old and beloved by his father Abraham when Sarah finally gave birth to Isaac.  Jealous of Ishmael’s relationship with his father, Sarah insisted that Isaac had to be designated the only rightful and legitimate heir of Abraham. Sarah demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away.  And Abraham did indeed send them out into the desert, where an angel intervened and saved their lives, telling Hagar, “Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.”  Those verses are from Genesis 21:17-18. There it is, in Hebrew scripture, the place where God sends an angel to say that a great nation of people would descend from Ishmael. Arab Muslims would tell you that they are that great nation. They consider Ishmael to be the direct ancestor of the Prophet Muhammed.

There is a long history of reasons why these members of the same family—Jews, Christians, and Muslims—have often become alienated from one another.  I won’t go into that sad history now. It is also equally true that there are many places in the world where people of the three faiths live in peaceful harmony. As with the Boston Marathon bombing, it is usually the extremists of any one of these religions who want to impose their version of their faith on everyone around them.

That is as true of Christians as it is of Muslims. Adolph Hitler called himself a Christian when he massacred 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.  The Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church persecutes his fellow Americans, among them many Christians, when he brings members of his church to picket funerals. Rev. Phelps even planned to picket funerals of the children killed in December’s Sandy Hook school shooting. He calls himself a Christian pastor? He is a religious extremist. His way of hateful vengeance is not the Lord’s way.

In 1993, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed, a milestone agreement between the Jews and the Palestinians paving the way for potential peace in the troubled state of Israel.  Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the agreement, and the two men were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994.  There was hope at last for Jews and Muslim Palestinians to broker a peaceful settlement of their long conflict. Then, in 1995, before the peace could be finalized, a radical Jewish extremist who opposed the Oslo accord assassinated Rabin. 

As Christians, if we but look at the words of the founder of our faith, Jesus Christ, we will see that the way of hatred and violence, the way of extremists, is not His way. Nor did Christ ever suggest that we respond to such hatred in kind.  He told us to love our enemies and to turn the other cheek.  Jesus, as we are reminded in today’s collect, called himself “the way, the truth, and the life.”  The way of Jesus is fundamentally the way of love, mercy, and forgiveness. In a world beset by war and cruelty, by terrorist attacks, that way may seem to be a difficult way. (Boy, is it hard to turn the other cheek!)  Sometimes it can be difficult to love our own family members, but love them we must.  We may certainly find it impossible to love the young men who perpetrated the bombings in Boston, but we can work at holding back our hatred of them and of Muslims in general. Their extreme position in no way represents all American Muslims. If nothing else, we can begin the healing between Christians and Muslims by working toward better mutual understanding.

As we strive to live in love, as Christ loved us, it is important to remember that His is not a way of weakness. Turning the other cheek takes great courage, and God’s immense power is best demonstrated in love.  As Jesus prepared his disciples for his imminent death, he said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

We demonstrate to a troubled world that we are true disciples of Jesus Christ in this one way: by our love.

AMEN.