September 14, 2014
/Pentecost – Proper 19
Ecclesiasticus 27:30-28:7; Romans 14:5-12; Matthew 18:21-35; Psalm 103:8-13
THE REV. MELVIN GRAY
September 7, 2014
/Pentecost – Proper 18
Exodus 12: 1-14; Psalm 149, 45c; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18: 15-20
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
As many of you know, my family and I recently moved into the Heights neighborhood this past May. It takes a while for a new home to have that “lived-in” feel, but I think we are getting there. Prior to living in the Heights, we lived in a neighborhood called Briargove, which is over by the Galleria.
The house that we lived in, in Briargrove, was not one that we owned or rented – it belonged to another church where I was serving. What became clear to us fairly quickly was that once we knew we were leaving that church to come to St. Andrew’s, we would also need to move out of the house, since it wasn’t ours. So, the circumstances surrounding our move were fairly abrupt. The HAR website became my new best friend, and each day I would scour it to see which houses were on the market in this area.
We looked at many, and finally decided on one that is a few blocks away from St. Andrew’s, and subsequently we moved in shortly after. As I look back on the experience of moving a few months ago, it all seems like this big blur to me now, because it all happened so fast. We moved in a hurry. I have yet to meet a person who would claim that moving their home was an enjoyable experience. For most of us, moving entails all sorts of decisions to make – what to keep, or what to give away. Yet moving is also cleansing. It presents us that opportunity to finally go through closets left untouched, to go through the stuff we’ve accumulated over time, and ask ourselves – do we really still need this?
Moving is at the heart of the story from Exodus we hear today. God tells every Hebrew family in Egypt to prepare a lamb to eat in a very specific way. And God is clear that those who eat this lamb must be ready to go, ready to escape their slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt. Being ready to go in a hurry means that they are to eat this meal in their traveling clothes, with their shoes on, and walking staff in hand. They are about to move, and they need to be ready.
It was an event now called Passover, which marked the protection of God’s people from the powers of death and their liberation from slavery. Today Passover remains one of the holiest day in the Jewish calendar in which every year faithful Jews remember death’s “passing over” the Hebrews so they might quickly flee Egypt.
There is a sense of necessary restlessness with Passover. The Hebrews were restless in the Egyptian culture of fear, violence, and slavery. And those who celebrate Passover today acknowledge and own that ancient sense of restlessness is still with us today. If we understand words like “Egypt” and “Pharaoh” as references to any and every agent of oppression and abuse, whether that is in Mosul, Nigeria, or in our neighborhood, then understanding Passover invokes a necessary restlessness with the injustice of the world. That is the power of the urgent departure of the Hebrews from Egypt – if we are not restless, then we run the risk of acquiescing and becoming complacent in our own world. And then how easy it is for us, like the Hebrews, to become enslaved to the way things are. Moving is never easy. It certainly wasn’t for the Hebrews. But God calls us to be a restless people, ready to move against the evils that surround us.
I hope to live in this new house for a good long time. My family has moved four times in nine years, and we are ready to put down roots in this neighborhood. But I also know that there is a part of God that calls us to be restless, to never be content with the status quo. Passover reminds us that sometimes we need to hurry, sometimes we need to eat the lamb – because it is on our belly where we practice hurried departure and upon our doorposts that we mark our safety. If you are restless today, know that your restlessness is holy. Where is God calling you to move?
August 31, 2014
/Pentecost – Proper 18
Exodus 3: 1-15; Psalm 105: 1-6, 23-26, 45c; Romans 12: 9 - 21; Matthew 16: 21 - 28
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
A few days ago I received a wedding invitation and attached to it was the RSVP card that you send back to let the host know whether or not you will attend. I have seen many of these cards before, but this one was unique, as it went beyond the standard two choices you often see on such cards: “gladly attend” or “regretfully decline”
The RSVP card attached to this wedding invitation I had these two standard choices, of course, but it also had three more – that’s right, there were a total of five possible options to select from: 1. Gladly attend. 2. Regretfully decline. 3. Resentfully attend. 4. Enthusiastically decline. 5. Will forget to respond but ultimately attend anyway. I think my response will be #5, even though I am marrying the couple who sent the invitation.
Life is complicated. And if you are able to see the humor in it, as this couple clearly does, it seems that life becomes lighter, easier to bear. But humor is not enough, is it? You all watch the news, hear it on the radio, or read it online. The number of challenges we are facing globally seems to grow each day. And many of us become numb to the problems of the world – whether that is on our southern border, in the state of Missouri, or across the Atlantic in Israel, Iraq, or the eastern Ukraine.
Many have confessed to me in the past weeks that we seem to be living in a globally dark time. Often, I confess, I have felt the same way. But a view of such despair is not biblical – no matter how bleak our problems may seem. “Do not be overcome by evil,” writes the Apostle Paul in Romans, “but overcome evil with good.”
There is no doubt that evil exists in the world - it is a clear and distinct reality. But so is its defeat. I believe whatever power evil does have in this world is receding, because Jesus’ death upon the cross severed the power of evil from its source once and for all. Of course evil flares up now and again in the form of war, disease, racism, injustice. But they are simply the dying breath of an evil ignorant of its demise. The evil we see so clearly in the world today is much like the tail of a lizard that keeps moving, even after it has broken off the lizard’s body. The tail continues to move, but it won’t for long. I believe the same is true for evil.
Why God chooses to allow evil to exist after its defeat is not a question we are in the position to ask. But here is a question we can: What is our response? In Romans, the answer is clear. Paul writes: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil,” and elsewhere “Bless those who persecute you.” I will not pretend that I have done this with much success. It is impossible for us to do on our own effort – but loving our enemy is possible with God.
Perhaps in the wisdom of our prayers, we might become like those who faced evil and triumphed beautifully in spite of it. I am thinking of people like the holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel, or the civil rights leader and martyr Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They witnessed evil in its most sinister disguise. And yet they were able to see evil differently than many do. In their wisdom, Wiesel and King saw evil as an invitation - one that required a response of justice and love. And the responses of Wiesel and King to the evils they confronted changed the world.
In your life, when you confront evil, how do you respond? Do you “regretfully decline” - numbing yourself to its reality; or do you “gladly attend”? To “gladly attend” might mean to take something ugly and godless and breathe into it the very Spirit of God. God has given you power to do this. But it’s not easy. Resurrection rarely is. But it is possible. All of us one day have to face the things we have created, and for some, that means confronting the evil we find in our own heart. How we respond, that is up to us. But respond we must – our lives demand that we do. AMEN.
August 24, 2014
/Pentecost – Proper 17
Exodus 1:8 – 2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12: 1- 8; Matthew 16: 13 – 20
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
While in college, a good friend of mine and I spent about two weeks backpacking our way through Europe. We travelled by train, beginning our journey in Paris, and ending up in Rome. In Rome one day I remember calling my mother from a pay phone (this was long before cell phones were common place). During our conversation, I shared with her that from the phone booth I was standing in, I could see the dome of St. Peter’s in Vatican City.
Those of you who have visited St. Peter’s know how large it is. When I visited it again several months ago, I found myself getting lost in the baroque architecture, and rather than marveling at its beauty, I began to feel that it was over the top – it was too much. I later shared my discomfort about St. Peter’s being so ornate with Paul Fromberg, suggesting that the church reminded me a bit of the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, to which Paul replied, “Jimmy, the Liberace Museum is much more tasteful than St. Peter’s.”
I still find it odd that such an ornate building is named for a simple, rugged, fisherman, named Peter, who became one of Jesus’ first disciples. Peter was not his original name, it was a nickname given to him by Jesus. Peter’s original name was Simon, and Simon lived in a town close to the Sea of Galilee called Caesarea Philippi, a good place for a fisherman to live. Near the city of Caesarea Philippi was a deep cave - not a man cave – they didn’t have recliners and flat screen televisions back then. Deep inside this cave, people at the time believed, was the birthplace of the Greek God Pan, whom the Greeks considered to be a God of Nature. This belief was so strong, the Caesarea Philippi was originally called Panias – the birthplace of Pan. But the cave was not this city’s only claim to fame. Within Caesarea Philippi there was also a large temple of solid white marble built by Herod the Great, the Roman king of Judea.
This large ornate temple was built not to honor the god Pan, but another person whom many at that time considered to be god-like – the Roman Emperor. It was Herod the Great’s grandson, Philip, who added on to this temple, and in the process of doing so, conveniently changed the name of the town from Panias to Caesarea, which basically means “Caesar’s town.” Phillip also added his own name to the town, designating it Caesarea Philippi to distinguish it from other nearby towns which were also called “Caesarea.”
So it is here at Caesarea Phillip, in the shadow of a great marble temple to honor an Emperor and in the midst of an ancient cave rumored to be the birthplace of a god, that Jesus asked Simon, “who do you think I am?” to which Simon replied “you are the Messiah.” That word Simon used, Messiah, is a Hebrew word that means “the anointed one.” In the Old Testament, “messiah” refers to any person who was anointed king of Israel, such David or Solomon. The Greek equivalent of Messiah is Christos, or in English, “Christ.” The name Jesus Christ, simply means Jesus, the messiah, or Jesus, the anointed one. Simon was one of the first to understand this – that Jesus was God’s anointed son.
It was here that Jesus gave Simon his nickname: “Petros” or Peter. The word petros means rock, and it is here that Jesus says to Peter, you are the rock, the one upon which the church will be built. Because Peter was the first, according to the Bible, to recognize who Jesus was, he in a sense became the first member of the church. It all starts with Peter.
Peter recognized that in the face of Jesus, he saw the eyes of God in a simple human being. No marvelous grand temple. No mysterious cave. Just a person, but a person unlike any Peter had ever seen. It was a momentous realization for Peter to make, and perhaps that realization in part was used to justify such a large church in Rome.
But we miss the point of this story, if we think it is all about Peter. Because it is not. The story is about you. Because the moment you, like Peter, stare into the face of Jesus and see the eyes of God, and you realize who Jesus is, that’s the moment when Jesus gives you a new name, when he calls you “Petros” a rock – and like Peter, you are the rock upon which Jesus builds his church. Not a church of fancy buildings or slick branding, but a church of the heart – a church that finds grace in suffering, and peace in adversity. You become the church for the world.
AMEN.
August 17
/Proper 16-A
Exodus 1:8 - 2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20
THE REV. PORTIA SWEET
Paul wrote:"I ask, then, has God rejected his people?
I imagine that in the past few weeks many people throughout the world, people of many faiths, have asked this question. Much darkness has seemingly prevailed in all parts of this globe on which we live. Surely the Yazidis on Mt. Sinjar have asked this question. They who practice an ancient faith that includes belief in the one God have been forced like animals onto a mountain by a violent army of people professing a different and radical faith in that same god. The Yazidis have watched their friends and neighbors suffer from hunger, thirst, murder and other inhumane atrocities as they waited and hoped for rescuers. And even those rescued from the mountaintop continue to endure scarcity, deprivation, and a rational fear of further enemy attack.
Has God rejected his people?
I imagine also that the non-radical Muslims in Iraq and in Gaza and in Syria must also have asked, "Has God rejected his people?"Many times in recent weeks as both ISIS and the Israelis, professing to be God's people, have brought destruction and deprivation into their lives.
Some Israelis surely must have asked if God had, after all, rejected his chosen people as their lives were intermittently interrupted by enemy rockets.
Looking then at Western Africa, I imagine that the friends, family and survivors of the thousands infected with the Ebola virus may be asking, "Has God rejected his people?" Even missionaries carrying their faith have been struck by this disease
And closer to home, perhaps, could it be that individuals who, although they have believed in God and perhaps been active in their faith, are so tormented that they contemplate and even carry out suicides; could they in their downward spirals be asking some version of, "Has God rejected his people?"
There are no simple solutions to the many and complex geo-
political problems in our world today. Positive thinking alone does not cure mental illness. However, let me be very clear in saying I firmly believe that God has NOT rejected his people.
Many of God's people have rejected their God. As Paul writes, God's gifts and calling are irrevocable. It is humans who allow dark and ungodly things to emerge from our hearts, direct our acts, and spew vile rivers of gossip, mistrust, hate, and murder both figuratively and literally throughout society. Not all of God's people have obeyed, as Paul reminds the Romans.
As I think of the many conflicts taking place simultaneously in the world on this very day, and how so many conflicting factions are claiming to be acting in the name of God, I wonder if those claims, hollow as they are, aren't like children shouting, "Mom loves me best." Of course these acts are not God's doing. They are, instead, examples of what Jesus is talking about in today's Gospel lesson - the evil intentions and atrocities that proceed from the heart and come out of the mouth to defile a person.
God has not rejected his people.
Remember the story of a few weeks ago of the mustard seed, and how one tiny seed can, in time, produce a huge bush that spreads over a relatively large space. The mustard bush/tree was considered a nuisance in a well-tended garden. Just as Jesus said a tiny bit of faith could grow huge like the mustard plant, so it is with the proliferation of that which defiles. And I think of the terrible threat of a global pandemic of Ebola or any other lethal disease; for that, too, can be an evil force that spreads and defiles as it goes.
To indulge in a bit of what iffiness; what if people throughout the world who have resources to spend on war machinery and energy to expend on the pursuit of power and greed had and would now, instead, aim all that on improving the lives of people in West Africa and other third world areas? Just what if that kind of sharing of abundance had and would relieve enough poverty to provide education, health, and life's necessities? And what if in that relief more people stayed well and fewer people felt hopeless and joined bands of terroristic armies?
Many will say that is an impossible dream. There are too many differences among people, too many different languages, cultures, standards of decency; too many historical divisions, us and them. Anyone who has traveled more than a couple hundred miles from their birthplace has discovered that human beings everywhere are more alike than different from each other. After all, we are all of the same species and lo and behold, we all share some modicum of DNA. We are, as we state in our affirmation of faith, created by the One God, who created all things.
Paul's ministry was about inclusion, celebration of diversity. He is writing to the Romans who are quarreling about who can be considered Christ followers and many think gentiles, that is non-Jews, should not be allowed in. That's you and me. What if that idea had prevailed? Paul writes in this same chapter, If the root is holy, then the branches are holy. He talks about grafting branches so that Christ might be woven in in the broken places - those broken place I spoke of a moment ago.
Jesus saw his ministry as one meant for the Jews, and that the Jews were God's chosen people - that is what the Hebrew Scriptures said. However, as Jesus walked the land and traveled into areas where so-called foreigners lived, his Father revealed a greater mission, one that included people in all the corners of the earth. In another story he encounters and shows love for a Samaritan woman. Today, with a little urging from the woman
herself, he responds in love to heal the daughter of the Canaanite woman. You see, it is, after all, Christ Jesus who can heal the broken places. He is IN the brokenness of all our lives. Are we asking for his healing?
God did not reject those people.
Jesus teaches and demonstrates time and again that faith sets us free from our vileness, and faith means obedience to God's irrevocable call to love him, ourselves and one another. There is the call, and there is the commission. And neither is meant for just a few. It is the gift and the yoke of every baptized Christian to respond to and carry out. Not to do so is to reject God.
Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is currently touring the countries of the Anglican Communion. In a recent sermon delivered in Australia, he said offered a vision of the Church overcoming division and "relishing the adventure of being the people of God." “Positive holiness and liberation means positive action that sets us free from the sins of defensive inward looking, competitive argument,” he said.“Freedom means openness and confession, of our faults, especially the abuse of power that lies behind the abuse of children and vulnerable adults. It means freedom from demanding authority and liberty to wash feet........He added: “It is liberty to be diverse and yet full of love for one another It is liberty to act in weakness and know the strength of Jesus Christ.”
In an earlier address at a February Faith in Conflict Conference, on the theme of reconciliation, the archbishop described it as “recognition of diversity and a transformation of destructive conflict to creativity. It holds the tensions and challenges of difference and confronts us with them, forcing us to a new way of life that accepts the power and depth and radicality of the work of the Holy Spirit in our conversions”.
With all my heart I believe that God has not rejected his people. He sent his only Son to redeem us from evil and sin. Jesus is our Advocate, so how can we be rejected? Those who are suffering so much as to ask the question need us. Reconciliation begins with you and me. We must first confess our faults and seek forgiveness in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must then be always mindful of what flows from our hearts into this world, for the love of Christ and the peace from God dwells in us and can come to another only through us. We must stay rooted in our faith by study and worship and daily prayer. Those prayers ought to include those we have never met, those different from us, those whose path to the divine curves in different directions from ours.
Listen with the ear of your heart to what God calls you to do, what God calls you to say, how God calls you to act. Do not reject your God through disobedience. God has not and will not reject you.
August 3, 2014
/Pentecost – Proper 13
Genesis 32: 22-31; Psalm 17: 1-7, 16; Romans 9: 1-5; Matthew 14: 13 – 33, 44 - 52
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Many years ago our family went to the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. If you’ve ever been to the Grand Canyon before, you know that the easy part of hiking is the beginning, because the trail head starts at the top of the canyon, and slowly works its way down to the bottom where the Colorado River is. We did not make it all the way down. The heat of the Arizona son was strong that day, and we turned around and started hiking back up to the top sometime in the early afternoon.
As we made our way back to the top, I noticed that strangely, the backpack that I was carrying got heavier as the day wore on. This seemed odd to me because all I was carrying in my backpack were bottles of water and food. If anything, I thought that the backpack should become lighter through the day, not heavier, because we were drinking so much water. I attributed the increasing heaviness of the backpack to general fatigue from hiking that day.
That was until we finished at the top of the Grand Canyon, and I took the backpack off my shoulders and unzipped it to find that it was full of rocks! Unknowingly to me, my older brother placed rocks in my backpack at each water stop. I will hand it to my brother, Randall. He certainly was clever, and I was not nearly perceptive enough.
Much time has passed since then, and that moment is all but an increasingly distant memory. Those of us with brothers or sisters know well the complicated relationships we have with our siblings. The Bible is full of stories about the complex relationships between brothers and sisters. This morning, we hear the story of Jacob and Esau, twin brothers whose relationship was anything but amicable. Jacob was the younger of the two, and prior to today’s reading, Jacob manipulated his older brother Esau out of his birth right, and subsequently manipulated their father, Isaac, into giving him the patriarchal blessing that rightfully belonged to Esau. Esau finally had enough of Jacob, and after their father Isaac died, Esau pledged to murder Jacob. Worried for his life, Jacob fled, and married a woman named Rachel.
After many years had passed, Jacob grew to realize how he had wronged his brother Esau. And so he returned home, and prepared to make amends with Esau. When Jacob discovered that Esau was on his way to meet Jacob with an army of four hundred men, Jacob was reasonably afraid. This was not to be the homecoming he wanted. So Jacob sent gifts in advance to appease his brother, and the night before he was to confront Esau, Jacob sent his family away, and slept by himself.
It was here, at the crossing of the Jabbok river Jacob encountered a mysterious adversary. Strange that Jacob desired this man’s blessing, having already received the blessing from his father Isaac. In any case, in place of a blessing, the man give Jacob a new name. His new name became “Israel,” which in Hebrew means “one who has struggled with God and prevailed.” When the sun rose that morning, Jacob realized the person whom he struggled with was Divine, and so he named the place “Peniel” which means “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” Though Jacob prevailed, he was not unscathed. His hip was put out of socket, and he would have a painful limp as a reminder of his struggle with God for the rest of his life.
Jacob was blessed by God, but he was also wounded by God.
– a powerful image for us –
The pattern for blessing in this story is that it follows pain. There is no such thing as blessing without blood being shed. So think for a moment about the pain you carry now – is that all it is - just pain, or is it something more – is it a blessing? What is it that you struggle with most? That life should be fair, or that blessings shouldn’t hurt? AMEN.
July 27, 2014
/Pentecost – Proper 12
Genesis 25: 15-28; Psalm 105 1-11, 45b; Romans 8: 26 - 39; Matthew 13: 31 – 33, 44 - 52
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
I have always been drawn to the beauty of stained glass windows. When you look at these windows, they draw you into a different world, a world of bright colors – a world in which God’s presence is immediately felt. I did not see these windows before they were cleaned, but I understand that now they are much brighter!
In many ways, I believe that parables – the stories that Jesus told in the Gospels - are a lot like stained glass windows. Like these windows, the parables Jesus told still today draw us into a world that is also colorful and vibrant, and very different from our own. Today we hear five of them, each parable a window showing us what the kingdom of heaven is like. The employ simple images like a mustard seed, or a fishing net, to talk about something far greater than any of us can really fully comprehend – the kingdom of Heaven.
What was Jesus talking about when he said such things? What is the Kingdom of heaven? The kingdom that these parables provide us glimpses of is a kingdom that is both here and now. The kingdom these parables describe is about us, it is about God’s entrance into our lives and world. But it is also a holy mystery, something we cannot fully explain.
And that is why each of the parables this morning begin with Jesus saying that “the kingdom of heaven is like...” rather than saying “the kingdom of heaven is...” And it is true, these parables suggest, that the kingdom of heaven is not something reserved for the pious, but rather is discovered often in the most unlikely places. And once we find it, it is far more valuable than anything we might possess.
I will never forget the day I realized I really wanted to be a priest. Many years ago, after finishing college I began an entry level job in an office building in downtown Houston. One day at work I found myself walking through one of the many underground tunnels that connect the buildings downtown to one another. While in one of these tunnels one day, I became aware of a feeling inside me that I couldn’t describe, but it was one I knew I had never felt before. It was a strange mixture of anxiety, adrenaline, fear, and hope. There was no bright light shining from above, no dramatic Charleton Heston-ish voice speaking to me, but in that moment, I believe I encountered God in a way that I still have difficulty explaining. And it was that encounter that served as the beginning to a wonderful journey. It was something I knew was worth giving up all I had at the time to pursue: security, comfort, predictability. In that moment, all of those things washed away, but in their place, I felt I had something of far greater value – a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven.
That experience was for me like stumbling upon the great treasure buried in the field, or finding the pearl of great value. I realized then that sometimes we discover the kingdom of heaven in the unlikeliest of places, sometimes we find it even in the tunnels of our lives. And while it is true we discover the Kingdom of Heaven during times of adversity and struggle, it is also true that the Kingdom is all around us, waiting for us to discover it.
I am reminded of a story of the newspaper entrepreneur, William Randolph Hearst, who was also a noted art collector. One day Hearst saw a picture of a painting that was so beautiful and moving to him, he wanted to buy it. So Hearst called up some people in the art market and had them find out who owned the painting, and after several weeks, the much sought after painting was found. “Where is it?” Hearst asked. “Well, Sir,” the voice said on the other end of the line, “we found it in one of your warehouses. You actually already own it.” The Kingdom of Heaven is already in our midst, we just have to open your eyes to really see it.
From God’s perspective, you are the pearl that is worth giving up everything to have. You are the treasure in the field. You are the greatest miracle in the world. Do you know the great value you are to God? Do you know that the Kingdom of Heaven is in the very palm of your hand. How generous God is! All we need to do is open our hands, and discover the pearl of great price has always been there. AMEN.
July 20, 2014
/Proper 11-A
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Psalm 86 or 86:11-17; Matthew 13:24-30,36-43; Romans 8:18-25
THE REV. PORTIA SWEET
When I was in elementary school, we were taught about the larger world through a little newspaper called The Weekly Reader. Do any of you remember The Weekly Reader? Famous world figures were often pictured and some biographical material would be included. We might be apprised of Major events from the political, sports, social science, and scientific facets of humanity. Looking back over the events of this past week, I was thinking that the editors of the Weekly Reader would be hard pressed to write an edition suitable for young minds to read. And yet, thousands of young minds and bodies are very much in the thick of what has and is transpiring this very minute. What are we as Christians to make of it all? How are we to sort out the evil and horror for our own peace of mind, much less explain it all to our children and grandchildren? And how is it we are to respond to the evil in the world - the weeds?
I do not pretend to understand everything humans do to and with other humans. However, I firmly believe that God has not abandoned the planet, and I think we have a few clues in today's Scripture as to how and where our God is in all this. Jesus was sitting in a boat teaching his disciples and others who gathered around. As he usually did, he used metaphors familiar to the people in their everyday lives. He said that the Kingdom of heaven could be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, then went away.
This brings to my mind the Creation story in which God made all things good, but while the couple in the garden were focused on themselves rather than the beauty and abundance of their gifts, an enemy came and planted temptation and left them to explain their actions. A short while later in the story we learn that one of the couple's sons murders his brother. Thus, man's inhumanity to man has been around from the earliest of days.
Now Jesus' parable gets a little strange. But the householder in this story told his gardeners to let the weeds grow right along with the wheat and wait until harvest to deal with them. I don't know about you, but I am an avid WEEDER. Just let the wind or a bird plant one of those ugly, smelly weeds in the middle of my flower bed, or my pot of miniature roses, and as soon as I see it, PLUCK - out it comes and into the trash.
I wonder if many of you, like me, would like to rid the world of the weeds and NOW! Looking at the horror of wars in the world, (Scott Pelley of CBS News recently stated that across the globe this very minute, 41 wars are in progress) or refugees, of bodies of airplane passengers strewn over miles of barren land and who knows how much ocean floor, of children housed in kennels and others tortured and abandoned by their own parents even in our own city - how can we as Christians NOT want to do some weeding? But Jesus cautioned that eradicating the weeds before the harvest could cause the good plants to also be uprooted. Where is God in all this? God is in the midst of his people and his people are planted in the same field as the weeds.
So I wonder again, " What are we as Christians to make of it all?"
Our mission is to love. Our mission is to spread the Word of God throughout this miserable world in which we live. And I think one very important point of this story is that if we marched forth hating the people we view as weeds and eliminated them, we would have much collateral damage. Witness the Middle East today. This has been done before, you know - and often in the name of religion. The very idea is frequently preached even today by false prophets and misinformed evangelists. Our mission is to love, not to eliminate possibilities for those who do not know the sower to never meet him.
The kingdom of God kind of love is a compassion which compels us to look injustice in the face, feel another's pain, acknowledge and call out the systems which sustain exploitation and inequality and to take a stand beside the marginalized - in other words, Solidarity with our brothers and sisters. It means recognizing the weeds - the enemies of Love. Some call them demons or the devil or evil personified.
Weeding can be back-breaking work. Gardeners suffer back and knee pain. Most farmers have calloused hands. God has not promised that now that we live in the Spirit we will have milk and honey and no back aches or horror. Living a Christ life means encountering and experiencing these things as did our Lord.
One cannot truly love at all without suffering hurt on some level. We are commanded to love just as God loves us. We are to allow the weeds to grow right along with us - to be inclusive, all the while living in such a way that the enemy will be overcome by the brilliance of the Christ light that shines from our hearts and our faces.
Paul reminds us that we are indeed children of God, joint heirs with Christ - if we suffer with him we may also be glorified with him. For we live with the knowledge of our salvation and the hope of the Resurrection. As followers of God in Christ, we are united with God. Atonement - At-one-ment. We are adopted sons and daughters and that covenant cannot be undone. This adoption is finalized.
If it is true what Paul says - that the suffering of our present time does not compare to the glory which will be revealed to us, how can we not risk loving enough to suffer in order to bring healing and hope to a cruel and broken world? This does not mean we are to avoid confrontation or challenge. On the contrary, since we are living and growing in the same field as the weeds, and since God in very present with and through us in that field, we MUST stand up to the enemy. And just like the couple in the first garden, we will be held accountable for our actions or our inactions.
Each time one of us acts courageously to change an unjust law or to stand against the evils which cause poverty or to write an op-ed bringing attention to a weed, we may also be encouraging many others to do the same. Each time we write a letter to a government official explaining the nature and consequence of a weed and demanding action to remedy an injustice, we are demonstrating our faith and acting on the Word of God. Each time we take time to pray for the weeds rather than pull them up, we provide an opportunity for God to turn hearts from hate to love and minds from self to other.
Jesus said, when he explained this story to his disciples later, that the sower of the good seed is the Son of Man and the good seed the children of God; that at the end of time the angels will do the reaping and will separate and deal justly with both the good crop and the weeds. So we are to let God deal with the alleged weediness of others. We cannot really know what is going on in the heart and mind of another, therefore we are to deal inclusively.
Could it possibly be that the over powering love of an entire nation for poor, exploited thousands of children might in the end turn the hearts of some unscrupulous government officials and cartel lords? Could it be that the fervent prayers of millions could bring an end to barbaric ethnic cleansings? Could it be that the power of love expressed through standing up for injustices throughout the world could actually be the greatest weed-preventer ever invented?
July 13, 2014
/Pentecost – Proper 10
Genesis 25: 19-34; Psalm 119: 105 - 112; Romans 8: 1 - 11; Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
This past Friday, I turned 39 nine years old. Someone recently told me that I look pretty good for my age. I think they said “You really do look good for being 48 years old.” Age is a funny thing. A person that I used to work with at another church would tell everybody who asked her how old she was, that she was ten years older than her true age. If she was 57, she would tell people that she was 67. And people would always say, “Terry, you look so young, how do you do it?”
As our bodies age, there seems to be ever increasing pressure for us to make ourselves look younger. Billions of dollars are spent every year in an attempt to convince us that hair color treatments, make up, plastic surgery will help us to successfully ward of our inevitable demise. How interesting humans are – as children, many of us wanted nothing more than to grow up, and once grown up, we want nothing more than to reclaim our youth once again.
But a face lift, or for middle aged guys a new red corvette, do not obscure the fact that our bodies simply do not last. The ancient Greeks understood this. In their understanding, the body was something temporary, something that would one day be discarded upon our death. Because the body would age and one day be no more, what really mattered to the Greeks was not the body, because it was impermanent, but rather the Soul. The soul, Greeks believed, was immortal, far greater than the aging body that contained it. In their understanding, when a person died, it was just the body that gave out, but the soul lived on eternally.
This belief strongly influenced the Apostle Paul, the author of our reading from Romans today, of which we heard a portion read this morning. In Romans, Paul writes that Christians no longer live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit of God.” Did you catch that? Paul
is using that body and spirit language. But it also seems that Paul is somewhat hostile to the idea of the body. Listen to some of his words from our reading from Romans: “To set the mind on the flesh is death,” and elsewhere “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.” What is Paul talking about?
When Paul speaks of the “flesh,” he is not talking about the body (our skin and bones). When Paul uses the word “flesh” in Romans, he is talking about a human life that has no contact with the life giving Spirit of God. In Paul’s writing “flesh” is not skin, rather Paul is describing a person who has chosen to live a life without God. A life without Spirit, a life without Soul. Such a life is primarily concerned with just physical stuff. This is a way of life many people choose, which helps to explain why the world is the way it is.
If we choose this life, a life as Paul calls “of the flesh” it means we are choosing a life where all that matters is ourselves, our resources, our money, our time. This kind of life, Paul writes, is not really life at all. It is a path of death, that no sportscar, facelift, or mansion can hide. Fortunately, Paul reminds us that there is another way. We can choose the Spirit. We can choose God, we can choose abundance rather than scarcity. A spirit-filled life is a generous life, bathed in forgiveness. It is a life in which death is broken. The life of the Spirit, Paul writes, is a joyful life, because with the Spirit of God within you, there is nothing that you lack.
This is the life that is worth living. But even if we choose the life of the Spirit, we will still age and one day we will still die. But we must forget that in our baptism, we already have died to the life of the flesh, and reborn into the life of the Spirit. Those baptized are experiencing right now the beginning of eternal life. And because we are in the midst of eternal life, age no longer matters. It’s a number, that’s all, because in the life of the Spirit, we will never age. You can be 21 as long as you want! AMEN.
July 6, 2014
/Pentecost – Proper 9
Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Psalm 45: 11-18; Romans 7: 15 – 25a; Matthew 11: 16 – 19, 25-30
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
The fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. I say that because I believe that freedom is worth celebrating, but I also love barbeque, and I really love fireworks. On the fourth this year I re-read the Declaration of Independence, and was reminded of the freedom we have from political oppression we so often take for granted. Among many things, all of the barbeques, backyard celebrations, grand fireworks displays, all point to this one thing – freedom.
As a country we should be proud of the freedom we have and thank God for it every day. It is a blessing for which many have given their lives for us to enjoy.
But as much as we focus on the freedom of this great country, as much as we value our independence to honor it, as individuals, many of us struggle personally with freedom. There are many in this country who simply are not free. An obvious example are the incarcerated, but also those thousands of immigrant children crossing the southern border into the United States. And there are plenty of others whose freedom in this country is negligible at best.
But I am not talking about their lack of freedom, obvious, thought it is. I am speaking about you and me. We live in a country that esteems freedom, but despite that, many of us live lives that are indentured or enslaved. While we are politically free, many of us are spiritually or emotionally bound. We are imprisoned, or enslaved to addiction or to the pervasive idea (and sin, in my opinion) that what we have is not enough. We don’t have enough time. We don’t have enough money. We don’t have enough friends. We are imprisoned by our envy of others we deem more successful, or more attractive than ourselves. Are any of us truly free?
Christ comes to each of us everyday, saying “Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest” It is a straightforward invitation, though we often misinterpret it. Jesus is our Redeemer, Savior, and Advocate. But Jesus is not a magician.
The promise of rest does not mean that Jesus will magically dismiss our weariness with a wave of his hand or lighten our burdens by casting all that weighs us down into oblivion. That is what we would like, of course, but it is not what we will get. Jesus offers rest to the soul, freedom of the heart, by sharing our burden with us, not by suddenly lifting it off our shoulders.
The image Jesus uses to demonstrate this sharing of the burden is a yoke. A yoke is a wooden beam normally used between a pair of oxen or other animals that allows them to pull a heavy load when working in pairs. When we draw near to Jesus, when we shoulder his yoke, we do not receive the relief we would like, but we receive something far greater: our freedom.
We may harbor the unrealistic expectation that with Jesus sharing our load, life will be easier, spiritually and in all other ways. Such will probably not be the case. We are yoked to Christ, not so that our burdens magically become lighter, but rather, so that we can all shoulder more, and paradoxically become free. The true paradox of the Christian life is that it is not until we surrender to bear that yoke, to bear that weight with Jesus, that we are truly free. Elsewhere Jesus says the same thing when he teaches that those who lose their life for His sake will truly find it. Jesus is our liberator, the one who truly makes us free.
And if we are yoked together with him, we can also expect the same mixed reception that Jesus himself received: some acceptance mixed with much rejection. But this should not really surprise us. Because the yoke Jesus is talking about is not a beam shouldered across two oxen – it’s the cross. The cross is a stumbling block to common wisdom and intelligence. Nothing about the cross suggests freedom, until you look at it with the eyes of faith.
Only by looking to the Lord of heaven and earth are all contradictions resolved: our intelligence cannot reconcile a yoke giving rest while harnessed for hard labor. But faith knows that the yoke shouldered bestows true independence, freedom, and relief. AMEN.
June 22, 2014
/Pentecost – Proper 7
Genesis 21: 8 -21; Psalm 86: 1-10, 16-17; Romans 6: 1b - 11; Matthew 10: 24 - 39
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Early on most Monday mornings (if I am disciplined) I exercise at the YMCA sometimes doing the elliptical trainer, or the exercise bicycle. That time early in the morning is my designated time in which I read as much of the Sunday New York Times (I am usually too lazy to read it on Sunday). I am one of those hold outs who still likes to read a newspaper – the Times on Sunday and the Wall Street Journal the rest of the week.
In reading the Times week I was deeply saddened to learn of the recent terrorist activity in Iraq and Syria. I read, with a heavy heart, about the tide of violent religious fundamentalism spreading across those battle torn countries at the hand of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or ISIS for short). ISIS is a rival of the Taliban. My first response was cynical: “Here we go again. More violence in the Middle East. What else is new?”
And then I remember my own travels to the Middle East pre-9/11, and the wonderful conversations I had with proud Turks, Jordanians, and Egyptians. On a subsequent trip to Turkey, I worshipped alongside Muslims in mosques as we listened to the imam’s call to prayer.
I engaged in thoughtful theological conversation with devout Muslims, the kind of conversation where one doesn’t try to convince the other that their beliefs are right, but rather we listened to learn, rather than to judge.
How ashamed I am of my initial, cynical response to the unfortunate situation in Iraq and Syria. This was made all the more apparent to me as I read again the story from Genesis we all heard a few moments ago. Perhaps it is a familiar story to you? If not, I will briefly summarize, as I believe this ancient story has much to teach us about our modern world. Long ago, God promised Abraham a son. But when Abraham’s wife, Sarah, did not bear a child, she gave Abraham her Egyptian slave girl, Hagar, who gave birth to their son they named Ishmael, which means, “God hears.” In the ancient near east, this surrogate motherhood was an accepted practice, and Hagar’s son, Ishmael, would have been considered Sarah’s son.
But when Sarah finally gave birth to her son, named Isaac (Hebrew Yitzhak, which means laughter), she demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be cast out to insure that only Isaac would be Abraham’s sole heir. Abraham did as Sarah asked, and sent Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness. This abrupt dismissal was like a divorce, without any child support. Alone in the desert, with their food and water running low, Hagar prays to God, and an angel answers her with the most peculiar response, saying to her that Ishmael, like Abraham, would become the father of a great nation.
As Jews and Christians look to Abraham as the patriarch of their faith, so too, do Muslims, because Ishmael (“God hears”) is considered the patriarch or great father of the Islamic world. Through Ishmael and Abraham, the religions of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are part of one family, though, it is safe to say, our family is quite dysfunctional. One part of the family –Ishmael’s – was cast out. The story of Hagar and Ishmael reminds us of a problem central to all families, and all societies, for that matter – who is accepted, and who, like Ishmael and Hagar, are cast out?
As a culture, we decide who is cast out because of gender, sexuality, color, religion, wealth (or lack of it), and like Ishmael, we cast them out because they are not like us. And that’s the problem. If we think we have the power to cast out, to judge, then we are wrong, because only God really has that kind of power. Our feeble attempts at judging others, in my mind, are mostly illusions. When we cast out others, we are pretending to be God.
So if it is true that the power to judge, the power to cast out, belongs to God, then why do we so often do it? Perhaps because the person we cast out, our Ishmael, is like a mirror reflecting our image back to us, revealing something about ourselves that we are ashamed of. It seems universal in human history, that when we cast a person out for whatever reason (they are a liberal democrat, conservative republican, a Bible in hand judgmental Christian – or a terrorist) – if we cast these people out, and label them enemy, we have to realize individually, or culturally, we are casting out a part of ourselves, a part of our history, that we are ashamed of.
Violence in every situation is a tragedy. And when religion is used to justify killing, it is especially so. We see this in Iraq now, but we also have witnessed it in the history of the Christian church. To those ready to judge another person, Jesus reminds us “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” I do not pretend to know the answer to averting more conflict in Iraq or Syria. I wish I did. But I do know that more violence or judgment is rarely the most appropriate resolutions to conflict. Whether it is in Iraq, or Syria, in our family, or in ourselves, we must consider; what are we to do with our Ishmaels? AMEN.
June 18, 2014
/The Installation of Jimmy Grace
THE REV. JOE REYNOLDS
The band of travelers in The Wizard of Oz all have the thing they are missing - they just don’t know they have it. For each of them it is the one thing essential for life to be full and rich. For each of them it is the missing piece that keeps them somewhere short of complete. It is this fact - that they have a crucial missing piece - that draws them together into a rag-tag band of misfits on a quest to find a wizard - the Wizard. They believe he can work the power of magic to fix them, to make them whole, so they can get on with the business of life.
You know the story. Dorothy is carried into a strange land - the Land of Oz - by a tornado, and she sets off on a dangerous adventure against impossible odds to find a way back home. Along the way she picks up three companions with holes in their lives. The Scarecrow has no brain, only a head filled with straw. The Tin Woodsman has no heart, only an empty, hollow can that forms his torso. The Lion has no courage with which to be the King of the Forrest. And Dorothy? Dorothy has the most tragic missing piece of all; Dorothy has no home.
They even have a song about it. I call it the “If Only Song.” If I only had a brain… If I only had a heart… If I only had the nerve. And Dorothy’s verse is the most plaintive of all, “If I only had a home.” They cannot move forward. They are broken - stuck - by their inadequacy - the things they don’t have.
And so they come together on a journey to find the wizard who can fill their needs. And, of course, the only way they can meet the challenges that stand in their way is to use the very things they are seeking. It is the Scarecrow who does all the planning. He points to his head of straw and says, "I have an idea.” It is the Tin Woodsman who cries at the slightest provocation. He is the one who provides the feeling, the emotions - the love if you will - that binds them together. It is the Lion who is at the front of every battle. Scott Peck once said that courage is not the absence of fear. “The absence of fear, “he said, “is brain dead. Courage is action in the face of fear.” The Lion whines and trembles but does what has to be done. He leads the charge.
And it is Dorothy who pulls it all together. It is Dorothy who provides the center around which they can gather and share their thought and hopes and fears. It is Dorothy who makes wherever they are into something very much like a home.
The Wizard turns out to be a humbug. He has no magic, and he can work no miracles. His tricks are just that, tricks done with smoke and mirrors, sound systems and amplified voices. The Wizard is a gimmick, and like so many, if not all, gimmicks he cannot produce what he promises.
The Wizard cannot heal - he has no magic - but like all the rest of us, he does have a gift. Maybe he has only one gift, but even if that is true, it is an important one. The Wizard can name things. He can see what is as plain as the nose on your face, but beyond just seeing, he can call its name and in naming, he calls it forward. I used to say that Scott Peck’s gift was his ability to put into words what you already knew to be true; you just didn’t know you knew it.
And so the Wizard names the gifts of head and heart and soul with symbols that mark them and make them tangible - a diploma, a testimonial, a medal of valor.
Dorothy is a bit more of a challenge. Her journey is the deepest of all, for she seeks the knowledge that where her heart is, there is home. She seeks herself. It takes a little longer and cannot be discovered simply by naming a country or a state or an address. You can’t get there in a hot air balloon or an airplane or all the tricks known to and tried by men and women.
There is another character in the story who watchers this band of seekers and gives them the comfort and strength of her presence. She isn’t really a part of the story, at least not in the same way as the others. She is transcendent. She comes from outside the story, above the story. Her name is Glenda, the good witch. (I never can remember from which point on the compass she comes.) I may be pushing the metaphor too far and stretching it to fit my own bias, but I don’t think it is an accident that Glenda’s name begins with a capital “G”. It is Glenda that tells Dorothy that she has always had the power of home within her. She just had to trust it. It is Glenda who intervenes with love.
It is, I believe, a parable of life. And perhaps on this occasion of a new beginning for Jimmy Grace and for St. Andrew’s it is a parable of life for this place as well. That we come here seeking something beyond ourselves is a given. We come seeking to find and be found by God. The seeking is not an end in itself. We come to join together on a journey of faith and mission so that our lives may be transformed by the risen Christ, and so that we may transform the world around us. Our mission is no more and no less than to change the world. It really doesn’t matter if we accomplish that mission in a day or in a life time. That isn’t the point. It is the reaching that draws the Kingdom of God closer.
And how could we possibly be ready for a calling as big as that? Surely we are too small, too poor, our voices too weak. Surely we are missing too many essential things. There are too many holes.
I don’t know what gifts you have. I know something of Jimmy’s many gifts for I have had the blessing of walking a short piece of our journeys together. But I don’t know the people of St. Andrew’s. I don’t know your gifts.
But I know this: I know that you all have gifts. I know it because God has declared it to be so. And more than that, I know that all the necessary gifts are here. I know that, because Jesus charged a rag-tag band of followers to change the world. And look what they did.
I don’t know about the Diocese of Texas, but in the larger Episcopal Church beyond our borders, for the past 40 or so years in my experience of ordained parish ministry there has been a conversation - off and on - about what to call an event like this. Many years ago in most places it was called, “The Institution of a New Rector.” Most people, it was said, didn’t know what that meant. It sounded like establishing a set of laws and placing the rector in some institutional hierarchy. And maybe it was. But it sounded strangely like someone being institutionalized. And maybe it was, but the name didn’t last anyway.
Gradually the title shifted to “installation.” We began to install new rectors. That wasn’t much better; you install kitchen cabinets and refrigerators. Most places I know of have now abandoned that title as well.
Whatever you think of the “New Prayer Book” - I’ve been around so long that I still think of it as the “New Prayer Book - got this one right. It is the “Celebration of a New Ministry.” All the other names - institution, installation, coronation, and investiture - all make the mistake of focusing on an individual - the rector. It becomes - at least at a subconscious level - about authority and the privileges of office. And while those things may be real, and even at times important, the focus misses the point.
This evening is not about Jimmy Grace. It is about the people of God - all the people of God who call themselves St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. The ministry of this church belongs to all of you. The authority of ministry is not in ordination or installation. The authority is in baptism.
It is easy to fall into the trap of seeking a wizard - or worse yet, casting Jimmy in the role of magician. Remember, the wizard is a humbug. Jimmy Grace will not solve all the challenges that face St. Andrew’s. He has no magic to offer you. He needs you as much as you need him. And you need him as much as he needs you. By himself he can do very little. Together you can change the world. And that is, indeed, something to celebrate.
“This is my commandment,” Jesus said, “that you love one another. Abide in my love. I appointed you that you may grow and bear fruit.”
Amen.
June 15, 2014
/Trinity Sunday Year A
GENESIS 1:1-2:3; PSALM 150; II CORINTHIANS 13:(5-10)11-14; MATTHEW 28:16-20
THE REV. PORTIA SWEET
I really hope none of you came this morning believing that you would leave with a clear understanding of “What is the Trinity?” If that is your expectation, here’s a spoiler alert: You are about to be disappointed.
You see, from about the third Century CE when Christian leaders began really thinking about formalizing Christian theology, much has been written, discussed, argued, and disagreed upon regarding the Trinity. Schisms great and small have occurred in Christendom over what the Trinity may mean and what it could/should be and could/should not be. People far more learned that I have written tomes and tried and failed to explain this doctrine once and for all.
Yet each Sunday we affirm our faith, proclaiming a Trinitarian belief in who our God is: God, Creator/Father; God the Redeemer/Son; God/Revealer Spirit; One God, Three Persons. We use terms like 3 in One and One in 3; distinct but not divided; different but not separated. Do you feel that headache coming on yet?
I am a simple soul. Yes, you know that I have had some theological education, but I remain a simple soul. The Trinity is a Christian Mystery requiring faith to accept. It is about divine love and relationship in love which is beyond our ability to replicate and therefore beyond our ability to precisely define in any human language.
As Paul said to the Corinthians, we see through a glass dimly. We use our familiar words to describe God in all the divine forms in order to relate to God – to the Holy. How can there be a relationship without some concept of the being to whom we desire to relate?
And so, since we are human and we are not God, we must rely on Scripture, our experiences and what others share of their experience to develop a personal relationship with the Mystery.
The overarching characteristic of this entity – the Trinity – is LOVE – the love of all the parts among itself and the love of each and all of those parts, unified, for what it has created – including you and me.
First the Father who created us just as our earthly fathers whom we remember and honor today created us. So it is perhaps not too difficult to relate as sons and daughters, even if our relationships with our earthly parents are less than ideal. Then, just as in the Genesis story, we are not always obedient; we give in to the Tempter who may be saying, “Just a little lie won’t hurt; just a bite of the apple; just taking something you surely deserve even if it is not rightly yours is OK, chum; and so God the Son became like us and was tempted – overcame the temptations and redeemed us from the death of sin by his death and resurrection. Although the Tempter, reptilian or otherwise, continues to hover and tries to seduce us, we have the powerful protection of the cross of Christ the Son – our Redeemer.
If you were baptized as an older child or adult, do you remember what you felt when the water flowed over your head, and can you still feel the spot where you were anointed? Those who have been confirmed, can you still feel the pressure of the bishop’s hands on your head? I know I can feel our bishop’s hands on my own as he invoked the Holy Spirit to make me a deacon in God’s church. These are some of the ways we relate to the Trinity through the Holy Spirit – our conscience, our guide. Christ’s Presence through the mystery of Communion with all the Saints each Sunday is another means of experiencing the Mystery of the Trinity.
And now in today’s Gospel, Jesus gives the eleven their marching orders. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
Therefore, it seems to me, a simple soul, that if you and I say we believe in this Triune God, the Holy Trinity, we are saying we believe in the power and goodness of Divine Love. And would not that logically lead us to long to know and experience that Love. If we then experience even moments of that Love, surely we would be eager to share it, because it would be too grand, too exciting, too powerful to contain within our own souls and bodies. Jesus knew this to be the case and knew that the Father would, through the Spirit, cause us to want to share this joy that comes from knowing the Divine.
The eleven may have first thought, as perhaps many of you do, “Well how shall we do that? There is so much opposition and danger in our world; so many enemies, so many unknowns.” Today you may be thinking, How can I go into all the world to baptize people? Yet, Jesus added, “And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.” It is by the Holy Spirit that we can have a living relationship with Christ. His spirit living in us fuels our creative force.
In the acts of loving another – spouse, partner, child, neighbor, stranger – we are in relationship with Divine Love. In acts of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving shelter to the homeless and hope to the helpless, and comfort to the sick and sorrowful, we are in relationship with Divine Love. In Prayer and Worship we are in relationship with Divine Love, and in eating the bread and drinking the wine we become a part of it and it becomes a part of us. When our actions are faithful reflections of what we say we believe, we, using our God-given gifts, can bear witness to that Love and bring those who thirst to the well. We can show others the way to baptism, to salvation.
Just reflect on the power and potential of love and relationship. Jesus, beloved Son sent by the father to redeem the creation the Father also loved, sends his loving, powerful spirit to remain with us forever when he is no longer with us in the flesh.
And there it is, my friends. I can use only human language and example. I am simple, and the doctrine is not. Therefore, I leave you with this: We are created in love, we are redeemed by love and we are commanded to share that love with our fellow creatures to the ends of the earth. Holy Holy Holy. Amen
June 8, 2014
/Day of Pentecost
Acts 2: 1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; 1 Corinthians 12: 3b - 13; John 20: 19-23
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
A few days ago, I was running down Heights Boulevard, and I couldn’t help but notice the art installation close to 1-10 that features what appears to me to be a church building literally sinking into the ground. You all know which one I am talking about? I’ve driven by it many times before, and often have tried to understand its meaning. Is this installation of the “sinking church,” as I like to call it a commentary on declining or “sinking” attendance in church? Or is it a metaphor for the decline of the church in the midst of an unprecedented number of people who label themselves “none” (N-O-N-E) referring to their religious affiliation?
Or, perhaps, is the sinking church a representation of what a church building looks like after my three children run all around it? I don’t know. But I like the sinking church. To me it serves as a reminder, that nothing is permanent, even the church. One day in the future, this building will no longer exist. The final book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, describes heaven without any single mention of a church. Why is this? Because in heaven, when we are in the immediate presence of God – there’s simply no need for church. Think about that – in heaven, no committee meetings, no diocesan council! Perhaps the only thing that could make heaven better is if they served those breakfast tacos from Chiloso’s down the street with the Chapel Hill sausage. But I digress.
The sinking church reminds us that anything we build, no matter how grand, simply will not last. The Bible reminds us of this from the very beginning with the story of that ill-fated construction project involving the building of a tower.
Long ago on the dusty slopes outside of Babylon, people built a tower with the hope that this tower would be tall enough to reach heaven. But God had other plans, and the tower was never finished, because God confused the language of its builders, so that they all spoke differently, in languages no one could understand. Their communication was garbled, much like our experience of hearing the reading from Acts moments ago. The name of this tower, Babel, is similar to the ancient Hebrew word “balal,” which means to be “confused.” Balal, or Babel both suitably describe the chaos that ensued once everyone started speaking different languages at the
Fast forward centuries later, to the city of Jerusalem. On the day of Pentecost, a Greek word that simply means “fifty days”, the disciples gathered in a single room. In that room they heard a sound like the rush of a violent wind. And something like fire appeared and rested upon each person gathered. It was a bizarre moment, a moment that even scripture cannot adequately describe, so we are left with mere analogies. It was like a great wind. It was like tongues of fire. It was the Holy Spirit.
In that strange moment, these men from Galilee, a place not known for well-spoken individuals, began to speak in different languages from all over the known world. But it was not like Babel, where no one could understand each other. Even though the disciples were speaking different languages, somehow they could understand each other. It is in this wild and supernatural moment scripture tells us the church was born. And that is what we celebrate today.
We celebrate the birth of the church through the Holy Spirit with fire and rushing wind. Through the Holy Spirit, through that rush of wind and tongues of fire all of creation is turned toward its redemption. Churches that appear to be sinking are really rising. Languages which once seemed strange, are now familiar. And death, which appears to have the last word, becomes a supreme festival on the road to freedom. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and it is here today.
The Holy Spirit is an abundant Spirit, offering life in abundance to all. And so it is fitting that we celebrate this abundant Spirit through recognizing our own abundance as we will do in a few moments. It is also fitting that today that we baptize four young children (Vera, Contessa, Caroline, and William) in which they will be marked by the Holy Spirit forever. Nothing will take that away. Towers will fall, churches may sink. But the Spirit of God which we call Holy, is forever. AMEN.
June 1, 2014
/Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 1: 6-14; Psalm 68: 1- 10, 33-36; 1 Peter 4: 12-14, 5: 6-11; John 17: 1-11
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
If you were to ask some clergy about prayer, they might present you with a list of books to read such as “the power of a praying husband.” These are fine, however, if I am asked about prayer, my default reference is the comedy film Talladega Nights, starring Will Ferrell, who plays Ricky Bobby, a champion NASCAR race driver. Here is an extended scene in the film as the Ricky Bobby, his wife Carley, her father Chip, Ricky Bobby’s best friend Cal Naughton, Jr. driver as they sit down to pray before dinner. Ricky begins to pray (and I will do my best to keep a straight face):
Dear Lord Baby Jesus, or as our brothers to the south call you, Jesús, we thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Domino’s, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell. I just want to take time to say thank you for my family, my two beautiful, handsome, striking sons, Walker and Texas Ranger, and of course, my red-hot smoking wife, Carley who is a stone-cold fox. Also wanna thank you for my best friend and teammate, Cal Naughton Jr. who’s got my back no matter what. Dear Lord Baby Jesus, we also thank you for my wife’s father, Chip. We hope that you can use your Baby Jesus powers to heal him and his horrible leg. And it smells terrible and the dogs are always bothering with it. Dear tiny, infant Jesus, we….
Carley interrupts: Hey, you know, sweetie, Jesus did grow up. You don’t always have to call him “baby.” It’s a bit odd and off-putting to pray to a baby.
Ricky responds: Well, I like the Christmas Jesus best and I’m saying grace. When you say grace you can say it to grownup Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus or whoever you want. [Ricky attempts to start the prayer again] Dear tiny Jesus, in your golden-fleece diapers, with your tiny, little, fat, balled-up fists….
Carley’s father, Chip interrupts: He was a man! He had a beard!
Ricky’s best friend Cal Naughton, Jr. adds: I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T shirt, cause it says, like, “I wanna be formal, but I’m here to party, too.” Cause I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party. I also like to think of Jesus, with giant eagle’s wings. And singing lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd, with, like, an angel band. And I’m in the front row, and I’m hammered drunk.
Ricky looks at Cal oddly, and attempts to pray a third time: Okay. Dear 8 pound, 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus, don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant and so cuddly, but still omnipotent, we just thank you for all the races I’ve won and the 21.2 million dollars that I have accrued over this past season. Also, due to a binding endorsement contract that stipulates I mention Powerade at each grace, I just want to say that Powerade is delicious and it cools you off on a hot summer day. And we look forward to Powerade’s release of Mystic Mountain Blueberry. Thank you for all your power and your grace, dear baby God. Amen.
What more do you need to know about prayer? Like Ricky Bobby, Jesus prayed at the dinner table as well. The prayer we hear Jesus pray from John’s Gospel was one he said at the Last Supper, and like Ricky Bobby’s, it too includes a product placement – himself. This prayer is called the “high priestly prayer” because Jesus is praying as a high priest, offering himself as a sacrifice that has great and inexplicable significance for the whole world.
Prayer is our life. It is what connects us to God. When we read the Bible, we see that Jesus prayed in many ways, and in many different circumstances. Sometimes he prayed in large crowds, sometimes he went away by himself to pray. Sometimes Jesus prayed during times of great anguish and suffering. Other times he prayed during times of great joy.
For me, prayer is about three simple words: relationship, persistence, and renewal. Prayer is relational in the sense that our duty as praying Christians is to be present and open to God even if we don’t feel like it. I remember one time driving home from work and I walked into the house, and there were toys everywhere on the floor, one of our children was sick, the dryer wasn’t working, and the dog had gone to the bathroom on the carpet. At that moment, all I wanted to do was get back in the car and drive to some other house that didn’t have all those problems. But I also wanted to stay married, so I didn’t. That’s what prayer is – it is doing the work of relationship, picking up the toys, cleaning the carpet, even when you don’t want to. It is about relationship.
Secondly, prayer is about persistence. Many of you have likely prayed for something time and time again. It might seem as if those prayers fell on deaf ears. We pray for something again and again not because we are trying to change God’s mind, or to make our will God’s will. Rather, it’s the opposite – we pray for the same thing again and again so that God’s will transforms our will, on earth as it is in heaven. We are persistent in prayer because through our persistence, God changes us. The fact that this past Wednesday city council approved a gay rights ordinance was an answered prayer for many people who persistently prayed for justice.
Finally, prayer is about renewal. The other day I was digging in some flower beds at our house. While doing so, I noticed that the top layer of dirt was very hard, dry, and ugly. But as I began to dig in the flower beds, I discovered that the earth underneath was refreshingly cool and fresh. Prayer is about overturning the soil of our heart that is hardened by cynicism and despair, so that our heart may once again become a place where goodness and beauty may grow.
Relationship, persistence, and renewal, and perhaps a little bit of Talladega Nights are what prayer is all about. And for those of you whose persistent prayer is that this sermon would end, well, your prayer is answered. Amen!
May 29, 2014
/Ascension Day
Acts 1: 1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1: 15-23; Luke 24: 44-53
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Upon the Mount of Olives in the modern city of Jerusalem there is a small chapel, shaped like an octagon. It was built centuries ago, and is an amalgam of early Roman and later Muslim architecture. Because the chapel has weathered so many centuries, it is difficult to tell which parts of it were built by Christians, and which by Muslims, but the fact remains that this small chapel stands today near the old city of Jerusalem.
It is called the Chapel of the Ascension, and I visited it some fifteen years ago while traveling in Israel. It is not an ornate building – it’s very simple and small. In fact, when I walked into this chapel, what I remember was a simple stone placed in the middle of the floor. Upon this stone, venerable legend suggests, one finds the very last footprint of Jesus upon the earth before he ascended to heaven as we heard in the Gospel reading today.
Is the legend true? Does that stone in fact mark the very last place Jesus set foot upon the earth? Who knows. And, it doesn’t really matter. But here is what does matter: the stone is marked and dirty, and smooth. Over the centuries became smooth from the tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists bare feet that have touched it – of the desire these people have had to put their foot in the very place they believe Jesus to have once stood. The stone is smoothed by the feet of people who literally wanted to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
Today is the fest day of Christ’s ascension – it marks the moment of Christ’s departure from earth to heaven. It is a day that is a bit anachronistic – a product of a time long ago when people believed in a tiered universe: that heaven was literally above us, in the clouds, and the underworld, beneath our feet and under the earth. Of course, modern science has demonstrated that this view no longer holds water.
Even knowing that, there is still a remarkable human tendency that orients us toward heaven, that draws our vision and attention to the stars, the clouds, the moon, the heavens. In the Bible all the biblical characters that experience resurrection, including Jesus, are restored to earthly life, their bodies still mysteriously anchored here on earth – the word “gravity” and “grave” share a common root.
The ascension captures a “lightness of being.” Biblical scholar Eugene Peterson comments on the power of this lightness, this ascension heavenward when he writes that “angels fly, because they take themselves lightly.”
We all look toward the heavens, we all want to ascend – that’s why hundreds of thousands of people (including me) removed their shoes in that chapel to place their bare foot upon that stone. We all want to ascend – we just don’t know how. Gravity keeps us down. And while it seems that gravity might be our largest obstacle toward ascending – I believe differently. I believe that it is through gravity, through weightedness, that we truly ascend.
St. Augustine, writing in the early fifth century in northern Africa says the same when he challenges us with this question: “Do you wish to ascend? Then begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.” It seems Augustine is saying that if you want to ascend, first you need to take off your shoes. You need to get dirty. To ascend you will need to find something rough and make it smooth. This is difficult to do if you don’t take yourself lightly!
It is a paradox that to ascend we must first descend. But I believe paradox holds more truth than fact. It doesn’t make sense, and yet at the same time – well, it makes the most sense in the world. AMEN.
May 25, 2014
/Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 17: 22-32; Psalm 66: 7-18; 1 Peter 3: 13-22; John 14: 1-10
THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
It is something massive, out of control, and utterly unpredictable. It doesn’t care about your feelings, and it will effortlessly destroy your hopes and dreams in a moment’s notice. But it gets worse, the path of horrible destruction it leaves in its wake is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. To quote the articulate political philosopher Rambo, it is “your worst nightmare.”
I know what you’re thinking – “he’s just talking about Houston Texans horrible season last year” – and while that was a unprecedented disaster, I am actually talking about something worse – the large reptilian monster of Japanese origin whom they call “Gojira,” or as he is commonly known here in the US, Godzilla.
Earlier this week I viewed the latest cinematic incarnation of this cultural icon, and near the end of the film, where the gigantic monster Godzilla unleashes all sorts of destruction on some poor city, knocking down buildings with a swing of his massive tail, his huge fists leveling bridges, airports, and buildings in no time at all.
The theme of unleashing a giant monster on an unsuspecting city, I thought to myself, seems to closely parallel unleashing a new rector on a parish. Without thinking about it, a rector can stomp all over a parish, knocking down programs, destroying long held traditions at the drop of a hat. I think “Godzilla” should be required viewing for all clergy. If you employ the city as a metaphor for the parish, the message is simple – don’t treat the church this way!
Monsters have captured our attention for years. As children, perhaps we believed monsters hid under our beds or in our closets. In our family’s home, sometimes we play a game called “monster” where I become the monster and chase children around the house. As adults, we know that while the monsters of our childhood were mostly confined to our imaginations, in our own adult life we struggle with monsters of a different sort, that seem often more real: addiction, disappointment, failure, depression.
It seems that much of our adulthood is spent in conflict with these monsters, and often we are lulled into believing that if we work hard enough, if we make enough money, or attain an adequate level of success and prestige, the monsters will magically all go away.
But we don’t defeat the monsters of our adult lives by engaging in conflict and struggle with them. Rather it seems that the best way to engage our inner monster is to befriend it. To shine a light on it with reverence and gentleness.
The author of 1 Peter this morning writes that we need to always be ready to make an account for the hope that is within us. It is a compelling verse, because I believe the author is speaking not just about the hope that our faith offers us, but also the hope that even those things of which we have no control – the chaos, the monsters, that they also have something to teach us. The hope that even in the monstrous, God is uniquely present.
If God is present in the chaos, in the monstrous, then what does that say about the Kingdom of God? Perhaps it is a reminder to us that the kingdom of God is not about getting away from our problems, hiding from our monsters, but realizing that God is totally present and supporting us through them? A “monster friendly” theology might invite us to look into the eyes of whatever monster terrifies us most with the hope that is within us, and through that hope, we discover we are actually seeing the eyes of God. Roman Catholic priest and author Thomas Keating writes about the theological worth of monsters, declaring that the kingdom of God “consists in finding God in our disappointments, failures, problems, and even our inability to rid ourselves of our vices.” If your life is imperfect, as mine is, perhaps these words offer much hope to you, as they do me. They offer me a new set of eyes to help me to see the monster for what it really is – something beautiful, something wonderful – God - in clever disguise. AMEN.