Shouldn’t We Be Celebrating?

18^th Sunday after Pentecost; Yr. A, October 12, 2014

Exodus 32:1-14; Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23; Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            Both our reading from the Hebrew scripture and the Gospel include celebrations.  The Exodus passage is the story of the golden calf.  Moses is up on the mountain receiving the ten commandments, and the people get tired of waiting for him to return.   Which really means, they got tired of waiting on God.  So to satisfy their own impatience, Aaron, the priest in their midst tells them all to hand over their gold.  He takes it and he fashions it into a golden calf.  Then after the people proclaimed the calf their god, Aaron built an altar before it, and led their worship of it.  Theses were newly liberated people.  Freed from harsh servitude in Egypt.  Shouldn’t the priest, of all people, have a clue?  Shouldn’t Aaron have encouraged the people to keep faith, to be patient, to pray?  But he doesn’t.  Instead, he leads them astray.

We Are One in the Spirit

16^th Sunday after Pentecost; Yr. A, September 28, 2014

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16; Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

Before writing this sermon, I went back and re-read the one I wrote for my last Sunday in June.  I wrote about making space.  I prayed that we would all have a sabbatical that would allow us to make space to hear and see God in our lives.  And then I read that story from Exodus.  The Israelites are wandering in the wilderness after being released from slavery and they’re complaining to Moses.  “We’re in the middle of a desert here, Moses. And there’s no water around here to drink.  What are you going to do about it?”  Moses was raised in the palace of the Pharaoh’s daughter.  After fleeing Egypt himself, he was a shepherd.  Moses has no idea what to do about it.  Moses goes to God, frustrated, angry, and feeling a little threatened by the mob’s demands.  “They are almost ready to stone me.” He says.  God tells Moses to go ahead of them and strike a rock.  God will bring water from the rock to satisfy the people.  So Moses does what God commands, and God does what God has promised.  God provides refreshing water for everyone.

It occurred to me that part of hearing God results from seeking God.  I spent my sabbatical seeking God.  I had become so busy with stuff that hearing God was really difficult.  I was hearing a lot of demands, like Moses, not necessarily from all of you, but from the mob that was inside my own head.  From the beginning, starting with those first three days at Cobblestone Retreat Center, I tried to put the demanding side of me to bed, and rekindle a relationship with the side of me that knows and seeks God’s voice.  It was a journey of the heart, not the head. 

I don’t think I realized how much I was missing.  It took a few weeks for me to feel comfortable leaving my cell phone at home.  I almost always have it with me … just in case someone calls and I need to respond.  For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had time to read something and reflect on it or journal about it, and contemplate what it might mean for me, and for my relationship with God.  I found myself leaning into whatever experience I was having, paying attention to what was going on the moment, and nothing in the future was pulling me away from the present.  The mob was stymied.  They had nothing to complain about.  I was doing all I was supposed to do … giving myself over to the moment and whatever that moment entailed … playing with my daughter, embroidering, reading, kayaking on the lake, painting the back wall of the cottage, laughing so hard my face hurt, inspecting my bee hive, listening to someone else’s sermon, walking on a country road in Vermont, experiencing church in different places, spending time with old friends, walking and talking for hours, rekindling a love affair with daily prayer, sleeping soundly every night and not waking to an alarm.  I’m sure some of you are jealous, and if I were sitting in your seat, I would be too!  But I am here.  Standing in the front, and I am feeling incredibly grateful.  I had no idea how very tired I was.  You gave me time to rest, time to go look for God, and I found that I could find God all over the place.  The Israelites ask Moses, “Is the Lord among us or not?”  Well, God is. 

The Lord is among us. 

Making Space

2^nd Sunday after Pentecost; Yr. A, June 22, 2014

Genesis 21:8-21; Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

Today’s my last Sunday before leaving on sabbatical and I’ve been talking about it with people, so this has been two weeks of saying good-bye, something that I didn’t expect.  Somehow as I thought about the coming three months it didn’t occur to me that people would be saying good-bye.  Given that more than a year ago, the Lily Grant process encouraged us to plan to mark the leave taking … you might wonder where my head has been.  My head has been occupied with tying up loose ends, getting tasks done, putting the house in order you might say.  My mind has been on St. Stephen’s and I thought I could just silently slip away from other responsibilities.

In the Unity of the Holy Spirit

Pentecost Sunday; Yr. A, June 8, 2014

Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 20:19-23

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

         Today is the feast of Pentecost, a day when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Our Pentecostal brothers and sisters celebrate this gift every Sunday during the year.  They recognize the power of the Spirit in their lives every day.  They expect to see it at work in their worship and in their homes.  The Spirit is alive, and they are alive in the Spirit, sometimes in ways that seem strange to us.  But just as the Son and the Father are made one in the Spirit, so are we made one in the communion of the Spirit.  We sometimes recognize that Spirit in the oddest of places.

Now What?

Easter 7; Yr. A, June 1, 2014

Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; John 17:1-11

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

                        Ascension story in Acts:

They are together with Jesus. 

Asking if this is the time when Israel will be redeemed. 

He says stay in Jerusalem, what has been promised will come in a few days.

Suddenly Jesus is lifted up and taken away. 

The disciples stare up into heaven.

Men in white arrive.  “Why do you stand looking up towards heaven?”

Who wouldn’t be doing that?

            Two thoughts are in there heads.

What just happened?

Now what?

Stones

Easter 5; Yr. A, May 18, 2014

Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            Stones.  Stones can be used for building up or tearing down.  When I was younger, we lived in North Carolina.  We were the last house on the street adjacent to miles of woodland and a small creek where we would often go to play.  One day down at the creek, I got mad at my younger brother.  I picked up one of the stones on the dirt road and threw it at him.  It hit him in the face, right beside his eye.  Another few millimeters and it would have taken that eye right out.  As soon as I threw that stone, I knew it was a mistake.  I wanted to reach out and pull it back out of the air, but it was too late. 

The Apostles Teaching and Fellowship

Easter 4; Yr. A, May 11, 2014

Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            We come together for a reason. Our Book of Common Prayer says that in corporate worship, we unite ourselves with others to acknowledge the holiness of God, to hear God’s Word, to offer prayer, and to celebrate the sacraments.[1]  We come together to form a communion, to become one.  My friend’s wife is a painter, and one day she spoke about her painting in the context of worship.  She told the group that she painted in layers.  First one color and then another.  First blue and then yellow on top of it.  From a distance, it looked green, but if you looked at it up close, you cold see that it wasn’t really green.  It was still blue and yellow.  The colors had blended together to form something new, something they could not be on their own, but each color retained its own identity.  Worship is like that.  We come together to become one Body in Christ.  We are transformed as we walk in the door.  If we think of ourselves as unique colors, each painted on the palette of our worship, we each participate in the transformation, and even as we are transformed as a whole we retain our own individuality, our own color.  Every Sunday we become one Body, something we weren’t the week before, a painting we cannot imagine ahead of time. 

Holy Communion

Easter 3; Yr. A, May 4, 2014

Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            What is it about the breaking of the bread that has the power to reveal Christ in our midst?  I mean, it’s a piece of bread, blessed and broken, handed out to each person who comes to the altar.  It’s bread, made of grain and water.  It’s fresh from the earth and formed by our human hands, but we say that in it we experience Christ. 

            My family is Roman Catholic, and my father’s funeral was held in the Roman Catholic Church where I grew up.  My family sat together in the first few pews.  It was a fine service, and the priest did a nice job with the homily, but after the consecration as we were preparing to go up for communion, the priest stood behind the altar and invited all practicing Roman Catholics to receive the bread and wine.  He explained that the sacrament of communion, the bread and the wine, were more than the Body of Christ, receiving it was also a sign of the Roman Catholic Church’s solidarity.  Those who couldn’t come forward were asked to pray with him for the day when all of us would be able to come forward and share communion together. 

Dream Dreams

Easter Sunday; Yr. A, April 20, 2014

Jeremiah 31:1-6; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            In May 1999 I got a call late at night.  It was my father telling us to come home.  My mother was dying of pneumonia.  We made plane reservations and left early the next morning.  When I got there, she was alert and comfortable.  My family gathered in her room.  We told jokes and stories, and she laughed with us all afternoon.  Those who had been up all night with her went home to sleep.  Nancy, my younger sister and her husband and I stayed the next night with her.  She declined over the next 24 hours, and died early the following evening.  She was the first person I ever saw die. 

We Are the Living Word

Lent 5; Yr. A, April 6, 2014

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            When I was at Girl Scout camp we used to sing this song called Dem Bones Gonna Rise Again.  It was all about the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and eating the forbidden fruit.  I sang it with the kids this morning.  The phrase Dem Bones Gonna Rise Again runs all through that song.  As I read the passage from Ezekiel that verse kept running through my head.  For years, our tradition talked about that garden experience as a falling away from God.  A falling that tainted us forever.  We were marked as outcasts and left to drift in a harsh and uncompromising world with the reality that those bones were going to “rise again” in us.  That those same bones would lead us into the same sin, original sin St. Augustine called it.  Sin we could never escape because it was in our very flesh.  Sin that only Jesus could erase.

            It feels like we almost forgot that humanity was created good.  With each new birth, goodness comes into the world anew, filled with potential and promise.  God’s intent for us is good, and the garden experience did not negate that fact.  The Spirit is here to breathe life into us, even now.

Shame on Us

Lent 4; Yr. A, March 30, 2014

1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            Good morning and welcome to our show this morning.  Thanks for tuning in!  We’re so very pleased to have a special guest with us today.  He was a man born blind, but one day that all changed.  He was healed of his blindness by a man named Jesus.  Soon after that, he was thrown out of his synagogue.  He’s here with us today to tell his story and to talk with us about his amazing journey. 

Blind man, it’s so good to have you with us today.  You’ve become something of a celebrity in the last few weeks.  Everyone’s talking about your transformation!  Why don’t you begin by telling us what happened that day.

At the Well

Lent 3; Yr. A, March 23, 2014

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

         Jesus goes to Samaria with his disciples.  He stops at a well and asks a woman there for a drink.  There are several things about this encounter that make it odd.  First, Samaritans and Jews didn’t get along very well.  Jews considered Samaritans heretics, so they wouldn’t have been too likely to have a conversation with one another anywhere, let alone at a well.  Second, it would not have been proper for a man to be talking with a woman he didn’t know.  Third, noon is a very funny time for a woman to be at the well.  Most women went to the well in the morning and collected what they needed for the day.  It was a social event.  They talked and worked together.  This woman was probably an outcast, unwelcome at the morning ritual with the rest of the woman in the town. She’s at the well at noon in the heat of the day at a time when no one else would consider coming to draw water. 

            If I were her, I’d be wary.

A Season of Wholeness

Lent 1; Yr. A, March 9, 2014

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

                  Here we are in Lent again and I find that I haven’t decided what I will “do” for Lent.  I don’t have anything in mind to give up, and even though I have lots of resources available to me, I don’t seem inclined to want to “take on” anything new.  A few years ago, I gave up ice cream because I have ice cream almost every night before I go to bed.  I started to feel like I didn’t have much control over that habit.  Hannah would go to bed.  The “time for ice cream” timer would go off in my head, and even if I didn’t really want it, I’d find myself heading toward the freezer, calling out to Nancy on the way, asking if she wanted some too.  I’d be scooping it out, realizing that I wasn’t even really going to enjoy it, but that didn’t stop me.  The dish was there, and I was scattering the roasted almonds on top.  There.  It’s ready.  Might as well eat it.

Finding Wholeness in Ashes

Ash Wednesday; Yr. A, March 5, 2014

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 103; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church & The Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene

         I play the hammered dulcimer.  It’s a trapezoidal instrument with a rather large flat surface covered with strings.  It sits out in my living room so that when I walk by it, I can be tempted to sit and play.  When I first got the instrument, I loved the wood finish; the grain and the color are just beautiful.  But it’s been about two years now.  The instrument is out all the time and it’s gotten a little dusty.  Actually, it’s covered in dust.  At first, it bothered me because the beautiful finish was getting hidden.  I tried to clean off the dust several times, but it was difficult.  The strings got in the way.  Nancy, got me a small brush to sweep away the dust when it collected, but it didn’t work so well.  I even asked at my Dulcimer class what people did about the dust.  My instructor said, it’s kind of interesting that the people who care most about the dust on a dulcimer are our spouses.  The people who play just want to play.  They don’t notice the dust.  That seemed odd to me, but over time, I found that to be the case.  I rarely notice the dust anymore.  I love the way my instrument sounds.  I love the way I feel when I play it.  I love seeing it out in the room, and not hidden in a case where it might actually have a chance of remaining dust free.  Dust has become for me, a sign of life lived well.

A Frightening Thought

Last Sunday after the Epiphany; Yr. A, March 2, 2014

Exodus 24:12-18; 
Psalm 99; 2 Peter; Matthew 17:1-9

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            Today we heard transfiguration readings, miraculous stories of our faith; the story of Moses going up onto the mountain to receive the tablets of stone.  God speaks to Moses and calls him up the mountain, setting him apart.  Moses takes Joshua with him part of the way, and then he goes on by himself.  At the top, the people see a devouring fire, and Moses is consumed in cloud and mystery.  They are confused and afraid.  After seven days he returns with face glowing and tablets in hand … the holy instruction embedded in stone, a guide to lead God’s people into the holiness of their calling. 

            Jesus too goes up a mountain.  He takes two friends, James and John.  On the mountain, they encounter Elijah and Moses in the dazzling white light.  The voice of God calls out to them, declaring Jesus God’s beloved.  Listen to him, the voice commands, setting him apart.  James and John are confused and afraid.  The light fades and they are left alone with Jesus.   Jesus the living incarnation of God’s instruction touches them, and says … do not be afraid.

You Shall Love

7^th Sunday after the Epiphany; Yr. A, February 23, 2014

Leviticus 19:1-2. 9-18; 
Psalm 119:3-40; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23; Matthew 5:38-48

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            When Hannah was about three, she used to sit with Nancy during the church service.  You’d think a kid that young doesn’t really pay attention to what’s going on, especially if she’s sitting in your lap snuggling, but they do.  Nancy thought Hannah was sleeping, when suddenly she popped up and asked, “what is love?”   What do you say to a three-year-old who wants to know what love is?  Maybe you tell them love is caring for other people, or treating people with kindness?  Love, when you get down to it, isn’t so easy to define in simple terms.

            When I hear the redactor in Leviticus say, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, I start to squirm because love’s just not simple. 

Let Your Light Shine

5^th Sunday after the Epiphany/The Presentation; Yr. A, February 9, 2014

Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12); 
Psalm 112:1-9, (10); 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-18); Matthew 5:13-20

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on our Annual Meeting Sunday

            “You are the light of the world.  A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.  No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”  Matthew 5:17-18

            We’re not on a hill, but we’re on Chili Avenue.  Last year over 30,000 people came through our building, not even counting those of you who came to church on Sunday mornings.  That’s about 590 every week.  83 people a day.  People from the neighborhood, coming to AA and NA meetings, coming to pick up food on Mobile Pantry days, coming for emergency food from SWEM, coming to Mindfulness Meditation, coming to worship with our two partner churches, coming to garden in our side yard, coming to the Triangle neighborhood Association meetings.  People coming because we are here.  We know it.  The people who come here know it.

Honoring Darkness

4^th Sunday after the Epiphany/The Presentation; Yr. A, February 2, 2014

Malachi 3:1-4; 
Psalm 84; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

When I was younger I was afraid of the dark, maybe you were too.  I delivered the morning paper and there was one part of my route that took me through a customer’s backyard and down a wooded path into an apartment complex.  There weren’t any street lights on that dead end, and the path through the dark was always filled with cobwebs from some spider’s work during the night.  I walked quickly through that blackness, heart beating furiously, half expecting some hidden menace to jump out and grab me.  I was always relieved to see the light in the parking areas ahead as I walked out of the trees.  A sigh, a slower step.  I’d made it … again.

Love is our Weapon

2^nd Sunday after the Epiphany; Yr. A, January 19, 2014

Isaiah 49:1-7; 
Psalm 40:1-12; 
MLK “The Power of Nonviolence” (1957); John 1:29-42

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            At Strong, when I was there for my CPE observation last week, they were discussing vacation time that was coming up, and one chaplain said, “I want Monday.”  The supervisor  said, “We work on Monday.”  At first, I thought she meant she wanted Monday during the two weeks that were allotted to them for vacation.  But then I looked at her.  She’s African American.  She wanted Monday, this Monday, Martin Luther King Day.  Tomorrow, many of us have a day off from our regular responsibilities.  Many of us do, but not all of us.  Perhaps not even those who might find the festivities of the day most significant, and appreciate it most. 

            Last year I attended the martin Luther King, Jr. event at the Eastman Theater.  The event was well attended and clergy of all kinds were invited to attend and process.  It was my first time, and I was interested to see who I would know.

Welcome Georgia!

1^st Sunday after the Epiphany; Yr. A, January 12, 2014

Isaiah 42:1-9; 
Psalm 29; 
Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            I was baptized as a baby, a short time after I was born.  My family had a private baptism with my immediate family present.  Perhaps there were others present, I’ve never asked.  The baptism was assumed because my family was Roman Catholic, and all babies are baptized.  Roman Catholics used to believe that babies that weren’t baptized before they died lived in a kind of Limbo, a floating existence that certainly wasn’t hell, but it wasn’t quite heaven either.  There they stayed waiting until the end time when all things would be brought into full communion with God.  That common belief actually made some parents a bit anxious to get the baptism done quickly. God forbid some tragedy occur and place the baby’s soul at risk.  That kind of situation hardly seems like a choice.

Being Light

Christmas 2; Yr. A, January 5, 2014

Jeremiah 31:7-14; 
Psalm 84:1-8 (9-12); 
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a; Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

After seminary I applied to take the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius at the Mercy Prayer Center.  The interviewer asked me, “What is your image of God?”  I was stumped.  I don’t really have an image of God.  I don’t know what God looks like, and I don’t spend much time thinking about it.  I don’t have any illusion that God really looks like us.  But I guess an image of God is different than a picture.  So I said this.  When I think of God I think of light.  I think of truth.  I think of a little child held in love.  When I see truth and light and love, I know I am in the presence of God.  Light. Truth. Love.

            As I sit at my computer writing the sun is just coming in through the window.  The bright beam is hitting me on the side of the head, getting me right in the eyes.  The light is reflecting on the inside of my glasses and the glare shimmers across the lens.  It’s hard to see.  My inclination is to get up and adjust the blinds in the window, to shut the light out.  But I like the sunlight pouring into the room as I write and read.  I want the warmth of that light to fill the room where I am working.  On a day when the temperature is near zero outside, it makes the room feel like a safe womb isolated from the cold.  But the light … it’s so intense … so overwhelming … so distracting … I can hardly stand it.  Light can be like that, so can God.

Emmanuel

Advent 4; Yr. A, December 22, 2013

Isaiah 7:10-16; 
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; 
Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

In the reading from Isaiah, the prophet tells his people that they will receive a sign, a woman with child from the House of David.  Matthew picks up on that in the gospel reading we had today.  An angel appears to Joseph and tells him that his betrothed is pregnant and will have a son.  It’s a sign, and the early Christians saw this as the fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy.   Paul confirms this belief in his letter to the Romans.  Jesus Christ is the one who was promised by the prophets.  He is the one from the line of David, the one who will bring about obedience  of faith. 

New birth is a relevant theme at this time of year.  It comes at a time when the earth appears devoid of life, the days are dark and the cold creeps into both our bodies and homes.  We need hope during these days.  This week alone, we had three homicides in our city within two days.  In Greece, a 10-year-old boy lost his life when he fell into a snow tunnel he was building with a friend outside his home.  In Henrietta, a woman died in a car accident this week when another car hit her from behind and knocked her into the path of an oncoming car.  One of our own lost a family member in a car accident.  We could use the kind of promise that Isaiah made to our ancestors.  We need it as badly today as the exiles in Babylon did those many years ago.  A lot of people think we’ve got beans for brains if we believe that the birth of Jesus changed anything.  People are still killing one another.  Many around the world still die from hunger.  Accidents continue to happen, and some have fatal results.  What’s the difference?  So what if Jesus was the Son of David?  What’s he done for us lately?  What’s he done for you?