Thanksgiving

Homily for Thanksgiving/Harvest Celebration with Piedmont Church

Sunday, November 22, 2015

The Graves Chapel Council members and I are glad to have this special opportunity to extend our deep gratitude to Piedmont Episcopal Church for all you have done for the chapel over the years.  Without your dedicated help and financial support of the chapel, our doors likely would have closed forever after the great flood of 1995.  We thank you.  We are very grateful that we continue to be a sister parish of Piedmont Church, and we hope to welcome you to our services and events in the future.

At this time, I would like to have members of the Chapel Council who are present today to stand. I am grateful to all of you for your wisdom and hard work as we endeavor to make Graves Chapel a vibrant center of community life in Graves Mill. Although the chapel is a mission of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, and I am licensed as an Episcopal lay preacher by the bishop, our council and those who worship here come from a variety of Christian denominations.  We are an ecumenical community. At the first meeting of the council, we agreed that our motto would be borrowed from these words in Isaiah 56:

“All who keep the sabbath and hold fast my covenant, these will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people."  

We sincerely hope to make everyone feel welcome here.  

            In this place, in tranquil and lovely Madison County, and here in Graves Mill, where the landscape is beautiful during every season of the year, even as winter approaches, we acknowledge on this day that we have much to be grateful for. In the past year, though we have endured illness or hardship, grief or stress of one kind or another, we understand that such things are simply in the nature of human existence. Tough times are unavoidable. Today, and on Thursday, when Thanksgiving is officially celebrated, we are reminded that, in spite of the difficulties we inevitably face, God is good and we are blessed in many more ways than we are challenged.  So, we give thanks today for life itself, for the beauty of the earth, for fresh air to breathe, for clean water and wholesome food, for the love of family and friends, for safe shelter. We also give thanks for this great country of ours and for the freedoms we enjoy. We give thanks for the men and women of our military who protect us and keep our country strong. We give thanks for all who work to maintain peace and order. 

            Did you know that the observance of Thanksgiving as a national holiday occurring on the last Thursday of November began in 1863, when our nation was embroiled in Civil War? When he made the proclamation establishing the holiday, President Abraham Lincoln said these words: “I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for our deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.”

            

           As much as we see war and violence throughout the world, and we often become fearful and worried about attacks that might arise in our own country, can we ponder for a few moments these words that established a day of national Thanksgiving? At a time in our history when brother took up arms against brother and battles raged across farm fields right here in Madison County, the President and the people were able to acknowledge God’s loving presence in their lives. It was in the hope of peace and the healing of all wounds that Thanksgiving was established.  In the very act of turning our hearts in prayer to God and giving thanks for our blessings, however meager they may seem to us at the time, we open the door to peace and brotherhood.  Gratitude itself is a peacemaker and a healer.

We pray that it may always be so!   AMEN.

Man's Judgment; God's Mercy

 Homily for Sunday, October 25th     Graves Chapel

The Old Testament story of Job reads like a play, but may also be seen as a parable.  The wisdom it reveals is both difficult and profound as it asks the question, “How can we understand why people suffer in the many ways they do?”

Today’s lesson from the Book of Job comes from the very last chapter in Job’s story—Chapter 42.  In Chapter 1, we learn that Job is a faithful and righteous man, a man beloved and mightily blessed by God.  In fact, Job becomes a topic of conversation between God and Satan.  Satan makes a wager with God concerning Job, and the essence of what Satan says is this:  What does it take for a faithful man to lose his faith?  Yes, Job is a righteous and faithful man—and that’s easy for him since he is blessed with great wealth, a loving family, and good health. But if you take away all of his blessings and reduce him to a state of extreme poverty and ill-health, would Job continue to be faithful to you, God?  God has so much confidence in Job’s faith that he agrees to have him tested in this way.

In a matter of moments, it seems, all is taken away from Job: All of his possessions; even all of his children.  Finally, deprived of everything that had made his life worth living and covered with painful boils, Job sits on an ash-heap, moaning in pain. Three of his old, righteous friends come to visit Job. They question him, attempting to help him understand why these awful things have happened to him. In other words, they ask him to search his conscience and determine what he had done, what sin he had committed to deserve such punishment. But Job is stubborn. He knows in his heart that he did NOT sin, nor did he deserve to be punished. In fact, in Chapters 26 to 31, Job proclaims to his old friends all of the ways he was blessed and the reasons why he deserved to be blessed. Job asserts his righteousness.

Blind Bartimaeus, the beggar we meet briefly in today’s gospel lesson from Mark, provides an interesting contrast to Job. We don’t know anything about Bartimaeus except that he calls out to Jesus as he passes by—and he cries out persistently until Jesus hears and responds. We are told, “Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’”  Without hesitation, Bartimaeus answers Jesus, “My teacher, let me see again.”  And the answer Jesus gives him is a familiar one: “Go; your faith has made you well.”  Since Bartimaeus is willing to believe that the rabbi Jesus can heal him, he is healed. Bartimaeus does not waste time asking Jesus WHY he is blind.

As Job contends with his so-called friends, he struggles to understand—to see—why the God he has served and worshiped faithfully has seemingly turned his back on him.  Has Job truly found himself in a position opposite that of Bartimaeus?  Or is there something the formerly wealthy Job could learn from the blind beggar?  Instead of trying to figure out why his life has been turned upside down and defending his record as a good man, what if Job simply asked what Bartimaeus asked of Jesus?  “Teacher, let me see again.”

 After his three old friends argue with Job, a young man named Elihu speaks up. Elihu has listened to the three older men chastising Job, saying only egregious sins could have earned him such harsh punishment. He has heard Job defend himself, justifying his own righteousness and saying he did NOT deserve to be punished. Although Elihu is a young man, and he showed respect for his elders by waiting for them to finish speaking, what he has to say demonstrates his wisdom. First, he politely rebukes the main thesis of the elder friends of Job. Their basic argument was that Job must have sinned because they believed that God punishes only sinners. Elihu points out that ALL people suffer from time to time, the good as well as the bad. His assertion is that God does not cause bad things to happen to good people; rather, in Elihu’s words, “God delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear by adversity.” 

Isn’t there great truth in those words?  When our lives are moving along swimmingly and all seems well, how often do we take the time to think of God, to express gratitude for our many blessings?  Isn’t it more likely, as Elihu suggests, that we turn our attention to God and pray most fervently when we find ourselves in pain—either physical or emotional? God doesn’t cause the pain—pain happens to everyone sooner or later. But God uses the pain to draw our attention in God’s direction, where help and comfort can be found.

When Job spoke to the three older friends, asserting his righteousness and his lack of sin, he has fallen into a very common  human trap. It reminds me of my favorite line from a T-Bone Burnette song: “As soon as you say you’re being humble, you are no longer humble.” Elihu points out the conceit Job expresses when he argues, at length, “I have NO sin.”

Would Job measure the worth of someone like Bartimaeus, for example, by his outward appearance as a blind beggar, and find Bartimaeus less worthy than he? By expressing his righteousness as a reason why he does not deserve to suffer, Job shows disdain—a lack of empathy—for others like Bartimaeus who suffer. For this, Elihu takes Job to task, saying, “But you are obsessed with the case of the wicked; judgment and justice seize you. Beware that wrath does not entice you into scoffing.”  In other words, Elihu suggests to Job, who are you to imply that other sufferers deserve their suffering any more than you do? Do the poor deserve to be poor? Who are you to judge or to scoff? Do you really believe you understand the judgment and the ways of God?

Elihu concludes by saying, “God thunders wondrously with his voice. He does great things that we cannot comprehend.”  In the face of such greatness, the best thing we humans can do is surrender our own willfulness and worship God—because, as Elihu continues, “ God does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit.”

What happens next in this dramatic story? God answers Job “out of the whirlwind.” Some of the most spectacular passages about God’s creation follow, in Chapters 38 to 41. God asks Job (and all of us), “Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth?... Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth?...Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?...Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?...Declare if you know all this.”  

Finally, Job begins to comprehend and he speaks the words of today’s lesson: “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted… Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me that I did not know…I had heard you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”

With only “the hearing of the ear,” we humans fail to see God at work in our lives. We like to use reason as we argue and discuss and figure things out (as Job and his friends had attempted to do). Our God is a God who uses even our suffering to bless us in unexpected and seemingly unreasonable ways. I know that sounds a little crazy, but I will share with you my personal example. If I had not gotten married at a very young age to a man who turned out to be an alcoholic, I would never have found or followed my current spiritual path.  I would simply not be the person I am today. As difficult as my life seemed during those years, I can honestly say I’m very grateful for all of it. 

As with Job, it may take us some time to comprehend God’s ways!  Should we, like Bartimaeus, simply ask the Lord, “Teacher, let me see again”?

Amen.

            

The Wideness of God's Mercy

Homily for Sunday, September 27, 2015        Graves Chapel

Lessons:

Psalm 124

Mark 9: 38-41

The Collect: O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Jesus says:  “Whoever is not against us is for us.”  He opens a very wide door of inclusiveness, doesn’t he?  It makes me worry about how often we Christians tend to open doors just a crack to see who is knocking—and then slam the door shut when we don’t like the looks of those outside.

In my capacity as an academic advisor, I am asked all kinds of questions by the students who come to my office.  One young man, who had noticed that I sometimes wear a cross, came to see me with a question of grave importance to him. He wanted to know if I would discuss spiritual matters with him.  This young man (I will call him Lee), raised by Christian parents, was having a crisis of faith that I think must be common among his peers. One of his parents is Baptist and the other is Catholic. (Some confusion on his part is understandable!) He told me he tries to do the right thing, tries to live according to what he has learned in church, but he cannot reconcile all that he has been taught with what he has now learned about humanity from his friendship with students who have backgrounds very different from his own.

His Baptist grandmother insists that anyone who does not acknowledge Jesus as Lord will burn in hell. Lee asked me a question we may all have pondered: What about the good people who are raised in a different faith tradition, who have never learned about Jesus, the people who live decent lives, love their families, and behave with kindness and respect toward their neighbors? Will those people really burn in hell? I asked him to consider what Jesus might say in response to this question. Is today’s simple statement from Jesus an answer to Lee’s question: “Whoever is not against us is for us”? 

Holy Scripture is replete with expressions of the open-handed and welcoming love of God for all people.  In Isaiah 49, as the prophet sets the table for the coming of a Messiah, he says, “It is too light 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, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”  Jesus became that light and shed his light on anyone who was able and willing to reflect it—to the ends of the earth. 

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells us that only the Samaritan—not the Jewish priest or the Levite who passed by on the other side of the road—reflected God’s love for the poor injured man.  Remember, he tells this story in answer to a question by an expert in Jewish law who asks him essentially the same question Lee asked me: Who is my neighbor?  Through his parable, Jesus answers, “Your neighbor, even if he is not from your own tradition and background, is the one who shows love where love is needed.”  The Jews of Jesus’s day despised the Samaritans and considered them half-breeds.  Yet, Jesus tells us here and shows us when he encounters the Samaritan woman at the well, that people of a good heart—even the people we disdain for their differences from us—are welcomed and valued in God’s kingdom. As the collect for today says, “O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity.”

The world we live in offers many tests of our willingness to show mercy and pity. These days news programs are filled with images of refugee families fleeing the war zones of northern Africa and Syria and landing, with desperate hope, on the shores of Europe.  We know just how desperate they are since they would rather take the risk of dying in a substandard boat as they cross the Mediterranean than stay in a place where they and their loved ones are likely to be brutally killed in war.  How can we reconcile Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan with Hungary’s erection of a razor-wire fence?  When the prime minister of Hungary says that he will not allow the refugees into his country because their presence will challenge the Christian values of Europe, can he not see the irony in his words? 

Yes, I do understand the real fear of potential terrorists. I do understand why some caution must be exercised. I am not completely naïve. But let me ask you this—how many ordinary families, turning to others for simple compassion, are likely to bite the hand that feeds them?  How many of them will reject the face of Christ turned to them in love? Aren’t people more likely to be radicalized when they experience downright meanness instead of kindness?  What would Jesus ask us to do?

The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, of which Graves Chapel is a part, has been holding what are called “Hand in Hand Listening Sessions” around the state. The purpose of these listening sessions is to discuss how we, as Christians, can work with more determination toward racial reconciliation. Dave and I attended one of these sessions in Charlottesville on Thursday evening.  In our small groups, the primary consensus we were able to reach is that bringing all people together in the common light of love is something our faith requires of us. My first understanding of this requirement comes from my experience as a child in Bible School when we sang, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.”  The simple truth of the words of this song were reinforced for me by the loving kindness I saw my mother demonstrate to everyone she encountered, without reservation.

Simone Weil, a French philosopher and Christian mystic who is considered by many to be a 20^th Century saint, is quoted as saying, “Christ does not save all those who say to him, ‘Lord, Lord.’ But he saves all those who out of a pure heart give a piece of bread to a starving man, without thinking of him [Christ] the least little bit. And these, when he thanks them, reply, ‘Lord, when did we feed thee?’…An atheist and an ‘infidel,’ capable of pure compassion, are as close to God as is a Christian, and consequently know him equally well, although their knowledge is different or remains unspoken. For, ‘God is Love.’” 

Weil died in 1943, at the age of 34.  During World War II, she was actively involved in the French resistance movement. Diagnosed with tuberculosis while in London, she continued her work and refused special treatment, restricting her diet to what she believed her French counterparts were able to eat in German-occupied France. Her solidarity with her compatriots meant that she sometimes refused food. Ultimately, she died in a weakened state.  While she lived, she lived for love.

Although we don’t know where our call to follow Christ will take us, I pray we will be able to follow that call with courage. It isn’t always easy to BE the face of Christ, but we are called to SEE Christ’s face in everyone we encounter. After all, as he himself said, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”  May we, by reaching out the hand of love, turn those who might be against us into those who are for us and with us.  Neighbors!  AMEN.

           

Sing a Song of Love

Homily for Sunday, August 30, 2015                  Graves Chapel

Our lovely earth makes music for us, at all times, if we would but listen. When I was a child and sat near an open window in this chapel, during a summer Sunday service, I listened to the singing of the Kinsey Run. I can still listen to it today.  In the north pasture near my grandmother’s house, bobwhites called to each other all day long. At this time of year, crickets play their pipes in the tall grass, and in the evening, cicadas—or hot birds, as Dave’s grandfather called them--tune their electric guitars to a reverberating twang.  Even in the city, there is music to be heard in the laughter and voices of the people around us, in the hum of productive labor, in the calling of songbirds. For some reason, the engineering school at UVA seems to be a particularly desirable home for wood-thrushes. I often hear them singing as I walk around Grounds. The song of a wood thrush may be the loveliest music of all.

Sometimes there are days that seem to put an end to all music.  In the past week, we have been confronted with terrible news.  I found myself unable to sleep in the middle of Thursday night, thinking of the young victims of the shooting in Roanoke and of the refugees found dead in the back of an abandoned truck on the side of a highway in Austria. Senseless horror, senseless cruelty—there is no way to comprehend such things, much less explain them. There is evil in the world. We don’t know much about the traffickers who no doubt accepted money from the desperate refugees and then killed them—or allowed them to die. I think we can guess that greed was the reason behind their actions. In the case of the shooter in Roanoke, untreated mental illness may have motivated him to pull the trigger.

In today’s lesson from Mark, Jesus speaks directly about the source of evil.  He says, “Listen to me all of you and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”  Our Lord is speaking of the human characteristic called “motivation,” the thing within us that causes us to behave as we do. Whether we commit a sinful or evil act is completely up to us. The question for each of us to answer personally, and for our communities to examine collectively, is why we make the choices we make. What motivates us to do the things we do?  Wouldn’t Jesus advise us to make love our primary motivation?

The collect appointed for today invokes God in this way: “Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things…” God did not simply wave a magic wand and cause the world and all of creation to appear. God is the author of creation, a craftsman with an outline and a plan who clearly devoted thought to what this universe would be and how it should work.  How is it that bad things happen in a universe created by the “author and giver of all good things”?  In the story of creation, we are told that God created us in God’s image, as thinking creatures. We are reminded in a prayer to God found in Psalm 8, “What are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands.” At our creation, we were bestowed with the gifts of intelligence and self-will.   When we believe our lives to be our own instead of gifts from God, it can be easy for selfishness and pride, envy and greed to become human motivations.

God created humans in “his own image,” essentially like God in our ability to plan, to craft, to understand and to love the gifts of creation.  Just as our very lives are gifts, all good things—clear water that quenches our thirst, clean air to breathe, the earth that produces an abundance of food for us to eat—are gifts freely given.  In giving humans stewardship of the earth, God asked us to care wisely and well for all of the gifts--including one another.  Judging by the ways of the world, it appears that we humans find God’s charge to us to be a very difficult task.

Maybe that is why the next line of the collect implores of God, “Graft in our hearts the love of your name.”  GRAFT is a pretty interesting choice of a verb, isn’t it?  A graft involving living tissue, such as a heart muscle, is a surgical procedure intended to cause the two things to adhere to one another, permanently. This prayer isn’t seeking to place a reverence for God somewhere within our conscious selves; it is asking for that love to be united so closely with us that it is inseparable from our very being.  A love for God grafted to our hearts could not fail to be our primary motivation. 

Wouldn’t a love that deeply embedded within us change the way we think and behave? At least, that is what the next line of the collect seems to suggest: “…increase in us true religion.”  The writer of today’s epistle, James, is widely believed to be the brother of Jesus, and he has some strong words for how “true religion” can be recognized. James begins by reminding us of the source of all goodness, even human goodness: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the way of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creation.”  The first fruits of God’s creation—what a beautiful way to think of human life! As the first fruits of God, our hearts should be filled with gratitude, at the very least. Doesn’t it seem that way?  James goes on to say,  “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.  Therefore, rid yourselves of all sordidness and wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.”  The implanted word is the love of God’s name that has been grafted on our hearts.

What James has to say next also explains what is meant by the words, “…true religion.” James tells us that the way to demonstrate “true religion” is to “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” We are to show by our behavior towards others and our care of creation, by the generous and useful things we do, that we are grateful children of God. James goes on to say, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”  In other words, be kind, be loving, be patient, be humble, be meek.  Be unselfish.  In these ways, we “nourish” ourselves and others “in all goodness.” Anyone who lives in this way “brings forth the fruit of good works,” as the collect concludes. 

St. Therese of Lisieux called this simple way of living a “little way,” because it keeps the focus on serving others and putting oneself last. It is a path that requires humility. Even in a world as torn as ours, we do still see examples of people living in this “little way,” as they strive to put others before themselves, not only as volunteers in refugee camps, but also in patient kindness to a stranger they may encounter on a city street.  St. Therese understood her “little way” to be the fulfillment of the life Jesus commends in the Beatitudes.  It is simply a life lived in and with love.

I know. In a world that seems to be torn apart by evil, what can simple and humble acts of kindness accomplish?  We cannot undo the evil that is done. We can’t even seem to be able to prevent evil from happening. But we can add our own acts of love and kindness to the scales and tip the precarious balance toward God’s side, the side of love. 

Sometimes I think, when I hear the crickets piping or a wood thrush singing, that the rest of creation does a better job of showing God its gratitude than we humans do. Why should a bird or a cricket be more grateful than a human being?  Their lives are certainly more precarious than ours. And yet they sing on! Do they know something about gratitude that we often forget?

Today’s Old Testament lesson comes from one of the most beautiful love songs ever written, “The Song of Solomon.” Yes, it expresses the ardent love between a young man and his bride, but it also expresses the love God feels for us and for creation.  The words speak of the joyous singing of the universe:

Arise my love, my fair one, and come away!

For now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth;

the time of singing has come,

and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”

May we all add our voices to the song of the universe and share the joy of gratitude. In all we do, may we express your love, O Lord.   AMEN.

Rooted and Grounded in Love

Homily for Sunday, July 26, 2015

Lessons:

2 Kings 4: 42-44

Psalm 145:10-19

Ephesians 3: 14-21

John 6: 1-21

            Are we rooted and grounded in love?  And is that love a blessing we share with others?  I believe the answer to those questions is a resounding yes.  Every face I see before me is the face of someone blessed by God and willing to share the blessings. The first verse of today’s psalm suggests that in recognition of how open-handed God is in blessing us, our natural response would be prayers of praise and thanksgiving: “All your works praise you, Lord, and your faithful servants bless you.”

            The other day, I read a morning meditation on the subject of prayer taken from the writings of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She wrote, “If you are searching for God and do not know where to begin, learn to pray. Take the trouble to pray every day. Tell him everything; talk to him. He is our father; he is father to us all, whatever our religion. We are all created by God; we are his children. We have to put our trust in Him and love Him, believe in him and work for him. If we pray, we will get all the answers we need.” Considering what we have learned about the prayer life of Mother Teresa since her death, I found these words of hers very remarkable and moving.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta received a call from God to serve the poorest of the poor, the sick and the dying.  She began her ministry in India in 1950, and continued to serve as the founder of the Missionaries of Charity until shortly before her death in 1997 at the age of eighty-six. Since her death, the world has learned that, for many years, Teresa suffered from a feeling of distance from God. She wrote to her spiritual director that she continued to pray as always, but did not often feel God’s presence. Still, she demonstrated her deep faith by continuing to serve suffering and dying people, those so poor they had nowhere else to turn for help. Without the services of the Missionaries of Charity, most of the people Mother Teresa and her sisters cared for would have died on the streets of Calcutta.

In our collect for today, we hear the words, “O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy, increase and multiply on us your mercy; that with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal.”  Though her prayers were “sterile,” as Mother Teresa said, she believed God would strengthen her. When her day to day life was comprised of serving poor people who were dying of tuberculosis, AIDS, leprosy, cancer, and other illnesses, it is easy to understand why Mother Teresa may have suffered from an enduring depression.  In that state of depression, she may have found herself unable to connect to her source of comfort—her God.  Even so, she continued to live her faith and to pray. She trusted her God and God’s mercy to help her and those she served through the temporal afflictions of their illnesses. She continued to be the face of Christ, the very face of love, to the poorest of the poor.

Mother Teresa was “rooted and grounded in love,” a phrase Paul uses in his letter to the Ephesians. Without such a grounding, she would not have been able to carry on her work for so many years. In saying “rooted and grounded in love,” Paul prays for the followers of Christ, that all of them—all of us-- may have Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith. Paul goes on to pray that we who call ourselves Christian will someday “have the power to comprehend, with all [our fellow] saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of God, that we will come to “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”  He prays that we will “be filled with all the fullness of God.”  Paul promises these things are possible because the power of Christ is “at work within us: and is “able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” Mother Teresa had the power of Christ at work within her, even when she could not feel God’s presence. Christ working through her made her able to accomplish abundantly far more than any of us could imagine.  Although she struggled with her own relentless sorrow, surely those she served felt her kindness toward them as a great blessing. She showed unloved people what it meant to be loved by God.

In spite of the many sorrows of the world, our God is a God who is always ready to bless us. Today’s Old and New Testament lessons illustrate the abundant generosity of God’s blessings.  In 2^nd Kings, the prophet Elisha tells his servant to feed a hundred people. When the servant protests that he has only twenty barley loaves, Elisha responds, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’”  And so it was, just as the Lord said.  This lesson prefigures the more familiar story in John, of Jesus feeding the five thousand gathered to hear him teach. Once again, maybe the most astonishing thing about the story is that twelve baskets of food are left over from the five barley loaves and two fish.  God’s blessings seem to have a way of expanding to fill the pressing need.

But there is a special condition to the expansion of blessings. Jesus has the 5000 people sit down in groups. Then he gives thanks for the bread, breaks it, and distributes it among the people.  He does not overlook anyone. He does not cast out anyone for being unworthy. The key to this miracle is that the blessing is something shared by all. As we say before communion, “All are welcome to the Lord’s table.” 

Unfortunately, over the years, the organized church at times seems to have lost sight of the universality of God’s blessings. The church has not always stretched out its hands to everyone in a welcoming way. At some point in its long history, the church became more interested in rebuking people for their sins rather than inviting them to share in the blessings. The Puritans, who settled Massachusetts and played a large role in the founding of this country, condemned and executed innocent people in their community for being witches. One of the most famous sermons in American history, preached in 1741 by the Puritan Calvinist Jonathan Edwards during the “Great Awakening,” is called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Edwards tells everyone listening to him that they are all sinners, being dangled by God like a loathsome spider over the pit of hell. Edwards’ sermon is in line with the theology of “original sin,” an idea that dates to the 2^nd century after the life of Christ and asserts that all humans are, by nature, sinners from birth. The concept of original sin came into prominence when factions of the early church could not agree on dogma. The term “original sin” never appears in the Bible.  Politicians, however, could see the usefulness of a doctrine that might help to control the behavior of people by terrifying them with the prospect of hell.

There were some theologians and ordinary people of that early period, however, who believed in the idea of “original blessing” rather than original sin. Whereas the Puritans and Calvinists called the forests of New England “the devil’s playground,” people down through the ages have found beauty, solace, and inspiration in nature. In Genesis I, the very first book of the Bible, we are told that God finds all that he created to be good. After the creation of humankind, male and female, we are told, “And God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” The joy God takes in all that he creates is a sign of His original and continuing blessing. Doesn’t it seem that way to you?   Yes, we all are sinners. No human being is perfect. But instead of being sinners in the hands of an angry God, we can see ourselves as sinners subject to the mercy of a loving and forgiving God, our father and creator.

Contemporary theologians Matthew Fox and Richard Rohr, among others, have rediscovered the ancient tradition of seeing the world through the lens of original blessing rather than through the lens of original sin. (In fact, Matthew Fox has written a book entitled Original Blessing.) What does that term mean?  Simply that we see ourselves from the day we were born as loved so much by God that we ourselves are blessings. Loved by God in this way, we share in the blessings all around us. The Lord who tells us to love our neighbor is the same Lord who suggests that we should forgive our brother seventy times seven.  Why should we ever doubt the love and mercy of such a Lord?  Listen to these words from Psalm 145 again and hear the joy. Hear how ALL are blessed:

The Lord is faithful in all his words

and merciful in all his deeds.

The Lord upholds all those who fall;

he lifts up those who are bowed down.

The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord,

and you give them their food in due season.

You open wide your hand

and satisfy the needs of every living creature.

The Lord is righteous in all his ways

and loving in all his works.

The Lord is near to those who call upon him,

to all who call upon him faithfully.

Like the most beautiful of the trees in all of Creation, we are rooted and grounded in the love of God.  May we feel the full depth of that love all the way to the tiptoes of our roots!  AMEN.

The Kingdom's Boundaries

Homily for Sunday, June 28, 2015           Graves Chapel

Lessons:

Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15: 2:23-24

Lamentations 3:21-33

Mark 5:21-43

What the next world will be like in the life after this life is the greatest of mysteries. Speculation about a heaven with streets of gold and pearly gates is really just that--imaginative speculation. In the complicated gospel story for today, however, we are given a pretty clear glimpse of the relationship we will have with Jesus in the life to come. This story illustrates that the boundary between life and death we imagine as an impassible wall is, for the Lord, permeable.  Certainly, we can see that the loving compassion of Jesus is equally present on both sides of that boundary.  When Jairus is told that his little daughter has died, Jesus says to him, “Do not fear; only believe.”

Lately, death is something we have had too much of here at the chapel. Most recently, we lost our beloved Dreama Travis. Then, suddenly, we learned of the death of Nelson Lamb. In late December, our neighbor Ken Deavers passed away.  And in early January, our ardent supporter Joseph Rowe, having lived a marvelous 92 years, died peacefully.  We have been saddened and diminished by all of these deaths. We miss our friends and loved ones.

            Listen again to these words from the Book of Wisdom: “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. For he created all things so that they might exist.”  For all who grieve, these words may be perplexing.  If “God did not make death,” why have we lost someone we love?  We prayed for healing for our loved ones, and those loved ones are no longer with us. Why weren’t our prayers for healing answered if God did not intend anyone to die?

            Is it possible that our understanding of death is the issue—and not death itself?  When I say “understanding of death,” I know that must sound a little crazy.  After all, what is to “understand” about the cessation of life? However we may define it, the finality of death is the wall we unavoidably run up against. Most of us are at stages in our lives when we have lost a significant number of people we have cared deeply about to the finality of death. Death is death, and the void it creates is enormous. And heartbreaking.

            Even so, I think we may agree that all deaths are not equal in their enormity.  My mother died shortly after her 71^st birthday, an age that now seems very young to me. I was thirty-seven when she died. Mama had begun to show symptoms of the rare neurological disease that killed her about ten years before her death. She fell often, from a stiff, upright position, bruising herself badly. Ultimately, she lost the ability to speak and to swallow, and in the last six months of her life, she had a feeding tube in her stomach. Although many of her acquaintances thought she had something like Alzheimer’s that had affected her brain, Steele Richardson Syndrome does not affect the cognitive function of the brain until the very end. Mama was aware the whole time she was ill that she was losing the functionality of her body. She knew.

            My mother was a woman of great faith, and some of those closest to her wondered why she had been afflicted with such an illness. I guess some may have thought it was God’s will that she suffered as she did. Believing as I always have that, as the lesson from Wisdom tells us, “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living,” I never blamed God for my mother’s illness. I never thought it was God’s will that she suffered; after all, who has more compassion for suffering than Jesus? I believed that her death was nothing but a blessing. She had suffered enough. As a mother and a kind and generous person, Mama had lived the life of an angel here on earth. I was grateful that God had taken her to be with him in the life after this life. In my mother’s case, death was its own kind of healing.

            Today’s Gospel lesson from Mark includes two stories of healing, deliberately interwoven in a way that calls for deeper interpretation. The frame story is the one of the man named Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, who comes to Jesus to seek his help when his little daughter is gravely ill. Jesus goes with Jairus to heal his daughter.

            The story within the story is of a woman who has suffered for twelve years from hemorrhages. She is one of many in the crowd of people Jesus walks through on his way to the house of Jairus.  As the Lord passes her, the woman reaches out to touch the hem of his garment, not daring to ask Him for help. She believes that by simply touching Jesus, she will be healed. And she is right!  As soon as she touches his cloak, she feels herself to be free from her devastating disorder. Sensing that someone has touched him in a way that caused power to transfer from his body to hers, Jesus asks, “Who touched my clothes?”  The grateful and frightened woman steps forward, acknowledging her act and the healing she has received. Jesus blesses her before continuing on to heal the little girl.

            Before they even arrive at the house of the leader of the synagogue, a messenger comes to meet Jairus and tells him that his little daughter is already dead. The messenger suggests that Jairus should trouble the teacher no further.  Jesus, however, is not ready to be dismissed.  He says to Jairus, “Do not fear. Only believe.”  Arriving at the house, they find a commotion of people weeping and wailing over the death of the child. Taking a few of his disciples and the child’s parents into the room where the girl lies, Jesus takes her by the hand and tells her to get up. Mark says, “And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age).” We are told the parents are overcome with amazement. They must have also been overcome with joy.

            So, what are the reasons why these two descriptions of Jesus’s healing power are intertwined?  What is the underlying message of each that is best illustrated in connection to the other?  For one, the subjects of the healing are both female. In a time and culture where women and children had no consequence at all, no rights, no independence, we see the Lord Jesus demonstrate loving consideration for a woman and a girl-child. Even more significantly, the affliction of continuous hemorrhaging suffered by the older woman would have made her perpetually “unclean” to her neighbors.  As an “unclean” woman who could never be purified, she lived a half-life in the shadows of her community. In her social isolation and degradation, she was an embodiment of the walking dead. Knowing how some of the elders might react with disgust to any contact with her, she demonstrates great courage (and great faith) when she reaches out to touch the cloak of Jesus.  And what happens? Are her fingers burned or broken by the power they encounter? Does the Lord scream at her in rebuke for her impertinent behavior? Absolutely not!  He acknowledges her, blesses her, heals her.  He treats her like a human being, worthy of love and mercy.  We are specifically told the woman has suffered from these hemorrhages for twelve years.  That is an awfully long time to live as an unwelcome outcast. Imagine her great joy when Jesus not only heals her, but also treats her with respect and kindness.

Now we change settings and meet a man who, as a leader of the synagogue, would have been in a position to declare the hemorrhaging woman unclean. Jairus may or may not have known the woman, but as the father of a dying young girl, he feels his need of the Lord. Once again, we see the Lord fulfill not only the faith of the person who needs him, but also the hope.  When the daughter of Jairus is reported to be dead, Jesus says to him, “Do not fear, only believe.”  Hold onto hope.

            And what are the details we are given about the young daughter of Jairus?  We do not know the illness that causes her death. We are not even told her name.  We know that Jesus speaks to her and says, “Little girl, get up!”  And she does get up and begin to walk about, to the amazement of her parents and the disciples who are witnesses to this resurrection.  We are also given the very precise detail of her age: twelve years.  For a girl, twelve years of age is the symbolic time of her transition from childhood to womanhood. It is the time of a girl’s life when she begins to experience what it means to be unclean in her culture.  

            Why?  Why do we have these wonderful stories of healing and resurrection involving women?  Can the answer really be as simple as this:  God loves everyone. Always. In the eyes of the Lord, there are no outcasts, no second-class citizens, no failures, no sinners beyond the reach of love and mercy.  There is no such thing as “uncleanness” in God’s kingdom.

            And in God’s kingdom, death does not have the final word. For the unclean, hemorrhaging, and outcast woman, her life must have felt like living death. In healing her, Jesus gave her back her life. In the story of the little girl, Jesus enacts His role in the passage all of us will make as we transition to the life after this life.  He says, “The child is not dead, but sleeping.” He takes the hand of the “sleeping” girl and invites her to join Him in his kingdom.  She awakes in answer to that call.

            These words from the Book of Lamentations beautifully speak of the eternal love of God, no matter which side of the dividing line we are on when we experience that love:  “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.” 

Or, as Jesus says, “Do not fear; only believe.”

AMEN.

The Trinity: A Relationship

Homily for Sunday, May 31st    Graves Chapel

When the prophet Elijah runs away to the wilderness, afraid for his life, he finds a cave in which to hide on Mt. Horeb. It is there the Lord reveals his power to Elijah, first in a rock-splitting wind and then in an earthquake and then in a raging fire.  After the disasters, there is the sound of sheer silence and finally a still, small voice. We don’t know whether Elijah found that silence and the quiet voice the most terrifying of all; what we do know is that after the voice speaks, Elijah obeys the Lord.

Having the Lord speak to us directly sounds both terrifying and glorious.  I had an experience of hearing what I believe to have been the Lord’s voice when I was a teenager. I won’t share the entire story now, but the voice I heard was very clear, as if surrounded by silence and power, and the message was brief. It was a life-altering moment for me—and it happened in a noisy gym at a high school basketball game.

There is a long tradition, and maybe it begins with this Old Testament story, of thinking of the Lord as speaking to us, either directly or through an angel. In fact, I remember seeing cartoons that show a person with an angel on one shoulder, whispering in his ear, and the devil doing the same on the other shoulder.  In this kind of scenario, the human in the middle appears to be helpless while the Deity and the devil duke it out. Some of us may be old enough to remember comedian Flip Wilson saying, “The Devil made me do it.”  Flip, like the rest of us, had nothing to do with the choice he made, right?

How do we sort out the constant stream of thoughts, often competing for our attention, inside our heads?  Sometimes those thoughts are certainly things I’d never want to say out loud!  Careless thoughts can lead us down a path we should never follow. Often our thoughts define us. Seventeenth century French philosopher Rene Descartes famously said, “I think, therefore I am.”  In this faster than the speed of light 21^st century, when technology seems to drive all we do, do our thoughts really make us who we are?  These days it can be hard to focus on any one thing for any length of time.  In such chaos, where thoughts dart around like pinballs, how can we ever discern the Lord’s voice?

The short answer is with effort—and the Lord’s help. Dave is now part of a centering prayer group that meets on Tuesday mornings, and both of us practice contemplative prayer every day. Today’s theologians are returning to some of the oldest practices of prayer and meditation from the early church.  The University of Virginia now has a Contemplative Sciences Center. People are hungry for a quieter closeness to God. We hunger to hear and understand God’s voice.

Last Sunday was Pentecost, the celebration of the founding of the church. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended in a rush of wind, and flames landed on each of the disciples. They began to speak in the tongues of all those gathered nearby, so that everyone who heard them could understand what they said. As the resurrected Jesus had promised them before he left them, the Holy Spirit appeared to them and entered them. Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” 

That same spirit inhabits us, as promised first in the Old Testament. The prophet Jeremiah wrote these words of the Lord about his people: “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Even so, like us, God’s people had a hard time listening. When Jesus sent the Spirit to inhabit and guide the disciples, did He formalize that part of ourselves that we modern disciples name “consciousness” or “conscience”? He called this spirit “the Advocate,” and an advocate is a guide, a guardian, a friend. Christ gave us a way to recognize and follow this voice of love and goodness, a way to discern the voice of God speaking within us. Now the ability to hear God’s voice is always available to us when we bring it to the forefront of our minds and don’t allow God to be crowded out by the myriad voices of our own self-centeredness. The Holy Spirit, God, dwells within us, but until Jesus made that powerfully clear to his disciples, we had no formal way of acknowledging the ever-present “still, small voice” among the clamor of other voices.

            In our first hymn today, we sang, “Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, perfect Trinity.” Today is Trinity Sunday. How do we explain God as “three persons”?    Twelfth century monastic Richard of St. Victor wrote of the Trinity, “For God to be truth, God had to be one; for God to be love, God had to be two; and for God to be joy, God had to be three!”  Truth, love, joy—without someone with whom to share these things, do they have meaning? How do we share and experience truth, love, and joy in our own loves, except in our relationships with each other? 

The collect for today, also an ancient prayer, says, “Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine majesty, to worship the Unity.”  Unity. As Richard of St. Victor suggested, the Trinity shows us that God is a relationship. Isn’t it hard to imagine the amount of love that passes among the Father, the Son, and the Spirit?  Contemporary theologian Richard Rohr says, the Trinity is a “fountain overflowing with love.” As relationship, God is a community of three, and when we share bread at God’s table, when we gather together for worship or just for fun, when we share truth, love, and joy with one another, we join that community as God’s partners and make God visible in the world.   

 Paul says in today’s selection from his letter to the Romans, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”

The Trinity is a community and a family of many, joined together in the Unity of One!

Amen.

The Good Shepherd

Homily for Sunday, April 26^th, 2015                            

The lessons for today:

Acts 4:5-12

Psalm 23

1 John 3:16-24

John 10:11-18

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

“I am the good shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”  Is there a more poignant description of the Lord’s love for us than these words of His?  Even though we humans can be silly and sinful and often wander off in pursuit of fruitless dreams, still the Lord is willing to die for us. Since we are not capable of recognizing where the danger lies, of seeing how the path we follow may conceal a ravenous wolf, the Lord pursues us. Today’s verses from John as well as Luke’s parable of the Good Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep so he can seek out the one lost sheep are among my favorite passages in the Bible. Whether we are among the ninety-nine obedient sheep or the one who goes astray, we do not have to do anything to deserve the love of the Lord.  We do not have to earn God’s love. Chances are pretty good we’ve had opportunities to be both kinds of sheep in our lives. Whether we feel right now like one of the well-behaved ninety-nine sheep or the one that is lost, we can be assured that the Lord loves us, either way.  In fact, the Lord loves us so much that he laid down his life for us.

Maybe I like to think of the Lord as the Good Shepherd because I’ve always been very fond of sheep. When I was four years old, I was given a cute little lamb by my mother’s dear friend, Marietta Lillard, Randall’s mother. This little lamb’s own mother was unable or unwilling to feed her, so my family bottle-fed her until she could be returned to the flock. I can still recall the fuzzy warm wool of Lamby-Pie (as I named her), her soft, urgent bleating  (baaaa) and the way she’d nudge her nose against the bottle as she drank.

I know sheep are weak, silly, completely defenseless, and timid. Probably a little dumb, too, if you want to throw in all the stereotypes. What is their saving grace?  In spite of all of these shortcomings, they are valuable to the shepherd. Their literal value to an everyday shepherd, of course, is derived from their wool and their meat. To the Good Shepherd, their value is their need. Sheep are so weak, so humble that they cannot survive on their own.  They need the shepherd, whether they are capable of admitting this need to themselves or not. We human sheep, who fancy ourselves to be much smarter than the average lamb, usually do not recognize or admit to our need for God. Even so, the Good Shepherd will seek us out when we go astray.

How many years has it taken me to appreciate the importance of this kind of humility?  If our right relationship with God compares to that of a sheep being herded, guided, protected by the Shepherd, humility has to be our baseline stance. I would like to paraphrase a definition of humility that I have found very helpful:  “Humility is perpetual quietness of heart. I do my part and trust God to take care of the rest.”  Even though I feel the truth in those words and crave that perpetual quietness of heart, working to have the humility of a little lamb has always been a challenge for me.

As a child, I know I was an annoying Miss Know-It-All to my classmates. Miss Smarty-Pants. As far as books and grades were concerned, I measured up as the smartest girl in my class. I was smart enough, in fact, that I was given a scholarship, almost a “full ride” as my brother likes to say, to an Ivy League school. When my parents drove me to Providence, Rhode Island, for my first year at Brown University, I knew I had traveled a very great distance, in more than the geographic way, from my home here in Graves Mill. I had entered a world where I could become the person I dreamed of being. Instead of being Sue Anne (my childhood nickname), I could now use my real name, Susan, a name that sounded more grown-up and sophisticated—and less Southern.  

So, what did I do in the middle of my second year at Brown, when I was nineteen years old?  I got pregnant. My boyfriend and I married over winter break and then went back to Providence, to finish out the academic year. That summer, we moved to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, to live with my in-laws until the baby was born.

I barely knew the Rev. Bob Hull and his wife Kathy when I arrived at their home, six months pregnant. My father-in-law was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, and having grown up in the church, I couldn’t help but feel that, considering the circumstances, I had to earn his love, even though I called him “Dad,” as my husband, his eldest son Bobby, did. I was entering a complicated family situation, one that it has taken me years to understand, and Bob Hull could be stern and distant at times. I worked very, very hard to be a good daughter, to be a part of the family, to prove to Bob and Kathy that I was not a “bad” girl. My son Rob was born in September, and Bobby and I returned to Providence with the baby that January, to complete our degrees. During those years, we were fortunate to have the support of both of our families or we would not have been able to graduate.

As I became more immersed in the Hull family, I grew to appreciate Bob and Kathy and to love them as second parents, even after my marriage to their son ended in divorce. My husband’s younger brother Michael was, and still is, like a brother to me. When my own father committed suicide, Bob and Kathy immediately dropped everything and made the long drive from western Tennessee to be at the funeral with their grandson, Rob, and me. All of this was grace, the kind of grace one might expect from a Presbyterian minister. Or from a loving father.

After Bob Hull retired from his last large church in McKenzie, Tennessee, he began to serve a very small rural church nearby. The folks of that little church greatly appreciated his leadership. They loved Bob, and they presented him with a set of carved wooden sheep, including a shepherd and a dog, and this framed quotation from Isaiah: “He shall lead his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arms and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young.” Bob was pleased that I had been licensed as a lay preacher and that I had returned to Graves Chapel.  The last gift I received from Bob before he died was his set of carved sheep, with the shepherd and the framed quotation.  He had given me his blessing.

It has taken me many years and the love of good people like Rev. Hull and my husband David even to approach the kind of healthy humility that can reward us with “quietness of heart.”  It is very hard to move from false pride to shame and guilt to self-acceptance. At times life is definitely a one-step up, two steps back endeavor. I have certainly taken wrong turns and played the part of the lost sheep too often.  From my experiences of being lost, and then found, from approaching green pastures and still waters, I now trust that even I can be revived by a Lord who fills my cup to overflowing with goodness and mercy.

We speak of the almighty power of God, and sometimes humans want to have that kind of power and control. We want to do God’s part as well as our own. But that is not the lesson of the shepherd and the sheep. It isn’t God’s power that we should hope to possess. It is the mercy, love, and humility, even the kindness of the shepherd that is God’s desire for us.  In this way the shepherd leads us when he calls us by name and asks us to follow him. And showing that we know we need the Lord by following the path the shepherd takes—that is all that is ever asked of us.

Amen.