August 16, 2015

Pentecost – Proper 15

Proverbs 9: 1-6; Psalm 3: 9-14; Ephesians 5: 15 – 20; John 6: 51- 58

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

In order to be a priest in the Episcopal Church one of the things you need to do is attend a seminary, where you spend three years working on a Master’s Degree. Once you receive the degree, it’s somewhat tempting to think you know everything you need to know about being a priest, until you actually start doing it, and you realize you know less and less as each day goes by.  

One of the things that happens in seminary is seminarians (that’s what you call the students) spend time working in local Episcopal churches in something called “field work.” The idea of field work is that you learn the nuts and bolts of church life and get a sense of what it is like to actually work in one.  At the seminary I attended, we weren’t assigned a church, but were rather instructed to go out and interview at different places. Immediately this process of interviewing for church placement created a sense of unwelcome competition in our class, as people started out interviewing for the “sexy churches” – the big parishes, like the National Cathedral - places with lots of money, lots of stained glass, big buildings, all that stuff. I had absolutely zero interest in competing with classmates over who got assigned to which church, however big it was. So I intentionally sought out a church no one in my class was interested in interviewing.  And I found it!

Upon arriving for my interview with the rector, it was obvious why no one was interested in this particular church– it wasn’t grand, the architecture was modern, but in a bad late 1960’s modern church architecture sort of way. The church building itself wasn’t particularly attractive – lots of dark brown brick, fluorescent lighting, no stained glass, hardly any windows. It was like walking into a DPS or Social Security office, except those are classier joints compared to  this church.  But when I saw it I knew it was perfect.  And it was. I spent two years at that parish and fell in love with it. It was a quirky, kind of weird place, but what really interested me about it was that it was the most racially diverse Episcopal church I had visited in all my time at the seminary. The church had parishioners from many different parts of Africa, including Eritrea and Angola. The people were warm and friendly, and that church reminded me that church isn’t about a building. It’s not about putting on fancy clothes and pretending to be someone your really not. Church is about people coming together, as we are, in one of the few places in the world where all are equal. 

One Sunday morning the Rector had me help with communion, and she gave me a paten, or the plate, upon which the consecrated hosts (wafers) are placed. I had never served bread to people before at the rail, so this was a new thing for me, and one of the first people I gave the host to was an elderly woman who lived across the street from the church in an Episcopal assisted living home. She had a PhD, and at one time was an established university professor. Her body and mind had been ravaged by Alzheimer’s, and so her cognitive abilities were arguably now less than they were in the past.  

This meant that the filter that we have in our brains that keep us from saying the things we know we probably shouldn’t - she didn’t have. It was gone. Which made conversations with her wonderful because you always knew where you stood with her, and she always told you exactly what she was thinking. There was never any guess work.  I grabbed the wafer from the paten and placed it into her hand and said the words “the body of Christ, the bread of heaven…” She looked at the host carefully as she held it in her hand, and then looked up to me, and asked the most wonderful question that caught me completely off guard. “Are you sure it is?” I had no idea how to respond, so I said “yeah I’m pretty sure.”  

Her question has never left me, though. As we hear Jesus say this morning that he is the living bread from heaven, many of us wonder what exactly that really means. I often about what it is we do here on Sunday morning. We take bread and wine, bless them, and then share them with this audacious claim that they are somehow part of Jesus, or connected to Jesus in a way we can’t fully explain or even comprehend, and that we receive them freely.

Was that bread in her hand the living bread of heaven, the body of Christ? The definitive Episcopal answer is – perhaps. In the Rite I Eucharist, the priest is instructed to say these words when administering communion: “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.” That sentence is an intentional paradox – because first it calls the bread “the body of Christ,” but then later goes onto say that it is a “remembrance that Christ died for us.” Well, which is it? Is it the actual physical body of Christ or is it a memorial, a reminder that God continually feeds us? Does it matter?

People have argued this question for centuries, each side quoting the Bible and their tradition against the other. The prayer book, in its wisdom offers a third way: let it be both. For those who believe it is the real presence of Jesus, it is the real presence. For others for whom the idea of the real presence of Jesus in bread seems conspicuous, let it be a memorial, a remembrance of Christ’s death and resurrection.  

Whatever the bread I placed in that woman’s hand was or wasn’t – it is more than any of us can comprehend. Episcopal priest Suzanne Guthrie says: “the Eucharistic host, so small, so pale, a mere wafer of lightness, contains the universe. A worshipper becomes One with the universe, consuming this wonder within the body, a mystery angels dare not look upon.”  

It is the living bread of heaven.  It is a mystery. It is a reminder that Jesus always freely offers himself to us, never imposing, never forcing.  And when we place our hand out to receive this holy mystery, we ask God, “are you sure?” AMEN.

August 9, 2015

Pentecost – Proper 11

1 Kings 19: 4-8; Psalm 34: 1-8; Ephesians 4: 25 – 5:2; John 6:35, 41 - 51

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

In early 1980s my family lived in Phoenix, Arizona. We lived across the street from the Luftman’s, a Jewish family who we became close friends with, as they had two daughters, Amanda and Jessica, who were of similar age to me and my older brother. We were always at each other’s homes, playing hide and go seek, blind man’s bluff, and all other sorts of other games that passed the time during the long hot summer months of Arizona. 

Amanda and Jessica’s mother, Barbara, and my mother were close friends, and on November 24, 1983, Barbara came over and surprised my mother on her birthday by hanging colorful banners around our house inscribed with the number forty.  It was my mother’s fortieth birthday. At the age of eight back then, I remember thinking, “Wow that is really old!”

Around that time, at least as I remember it, Amanda and Jessica’s maternal grandparents, Gertha and Joseph came to visit them. I remember this visit because it was the occasion of my first, and to date, only argument over religion. I was raised attending an Episcopal school, and in the religion class, learned about Jesus.  One day I shared what I had learned with Jessica, who was playing with My Little Pony horses at the time, that I knew Jesus was the Messiah. And Jessica said, “No, he isn’t, the Messiah has not yet come.” I grabbed one of her My Little Pony horses, agitating here more, and said, “Yes he is the Messiah, my Bible teacher said so!”  The argument escalated, and finally I said something so foolish, so ignorant, and so un-informed, that it could only have come out of an arrogant eight year olds mouth. I don’t remember exactly what it was that I said, but it was something about Christians being superior to Jewish people because Christians had Jesus.  

The next day, Jessica and Amanda’s mother and grandmother showed up at our doorstep, and wanted to talk to me. I was in big trouble!  They sat down in our living room and explained to me that it was okay for people to have different religious beliefs, but that we should never use our beliefs to divide us from each other. I learned that my hurtful rhetoric about Christianity being superior to Judaism touched them on a much deeper level than I could have ever imagined. They explained to me that Joseph, Jessica’s grandfather had a tattoo on his arm, which was his prisoner identification number, possibly tattooed upon him by a German Christian military officer. Jessica’s mother, Barbara, I learned, was smuggled out of Poland as a young girl, as her parents fled for their lives to escape Nazi persecution. While it could be argued that there were atheist or at least agnostic Nazis at the time, it is undeniable that many of them were Christian.  It was when I saw the number on Joseph’s forearm that I felt realized just how utterly stupid my comments were.  Since that moment, I have never had any desire to argue religion, unless religion is used as a means to persecute or threaten the well being of another human being – then I will have plenty to argue!

Numbers matter, you see. Whether that number is tattooed as a means of identification, or if it is in reference to someone’s age. Numbers matter.

In the Bible, the number forty appears again and again throughout different books in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament.  In our reading from 1 Kings today we hear about the courageous prophet Elijah who spoke truth to power – and won. Before the story we hear this morning, Elijah encountered the wrath of Queen Jezebel when he challenged the priests of the Canaanite god Ba’al to a contest between their god and the god of Israel. What was this contest? Which god would strike a pile of wood with fire and cause it to burn? The priests of Ba’al tried, but to no success.  Elijah prayed to God, and fire came from heaven and struck the pile of wood.

So furious was Jezebel she threatened Elijah with his life. This is where we meet Elijah this morning: on the run, tired, hungry, and ready to give up. So destitute and afraid is Elijah, he asks God that he may die. Thankfully, that prayer goes unanswered, Elijah instead falls asleep. Instead of bringing death, God’s angels bring food and water, ministering to Elijah in the desert, as they ministered to Jesus for his forty days in the wilderness.

The food and the water the angels offer Elijah fortify him for his journey, a journey that lasts forty days and forty nights. The destination of that journey? Mt. Horeb, or as it is known elsewhere in the Bible as Mt. Sinai, the mountain where Moses spent forty days and nights where he did not eat or drink until he had written down the words of God’s covenant.   

All of these examples of the number forty, whether they are about Elijah, Moses or Jesus point to the same thing – that forty symbolically represents in the Bible a time period of testing or trial. The number is not literal as much as it is symbolic – when we read the number forty in scripture, it means a period of time of testing, of struggle. For some people that might be a month, a year, a decade, or an entire lifetime. Many of us, like Elijah or Jesus, have experienced those seasons of trial, those periods of time where it seemed as if God is far away and unconcerned about our struggle. Some of us are in that moment now. If this is where you are, there is something so important for you to know.  

As angels ministered to Jesus for his time of trial in the wilderness and Elijah as he was fleeing Jezebel, so too are angels ministering to you right now.  Joseph and Gertha were angels to me. As much as you may feel alone, as much as you may feel that you are the only person struggling with an addiction, a failed relationship, a lost job – you aren’t. There are others here who have the same experience, and because they have that in common with you and they have experienced what you have experienced, they are an angel to you, as you are an angel to them.  

Who are the angels that are carrying you through this moment?  Have you thanked them? Have you told them how grateful you are? If you are in the forties (and I don’t mean age, I mean if you are in a period of struggle or trial), know there is food and drink for your journey here, as angels provided the same for Elijah.  

If you choose to come to this altar later, you will receive a food and drink, and you will be ministered to by angels.  

The number I saw tattooed on Joseph’s arm that day has never left my mind, and it was the first time I ever associated a number with a period of time. I will never imagine pretending what his experience was like, but in some way that transcends my feeble understanding, I believe that the angels that reached out to Elijah and Jesus reached also out to Joseph and Gertha, and that they reach out to us today. I cannot explain this, except to say that in life and in death, whatever our age, there is an angel reaching out to us, always. AMEN.

August 2, 2015

Proper 13

2 Samuel 11: 26 - 12: 13a; PSALM 51: 1 - 12 ; Ephesians 4: 1 - 16; John 6: 24 - 35

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THE REV. CARISSA BALDWIN-MCGINNIS

A dear rabbi friend of mine has two children; twins. Several years ago his boy, Noah, got in his dad’s car after attending his first slumber party. The child was animated in his response to his father’s inquiry as to how the party had gone.

“Dad! Dad!!!! DAD!!!!!! Dad, we ate the most amazing thing. It was this bread. It was white and soft.  Dad! It was so delicious. Dad, we HAVE to get some of that bread, Dad. It’s called Wonderful Bread, Dad. Can we get some?”

Now my friends, this rabbinical couple, are my age and eat healthy. I’m sure the twins had eaten only whole-grain bread until the party, because in some circles (including the one I was raised in) feeding your kids white sandwich bread was tantamount to handing them a cigarette. The health food movement missed the exquisite aspects of the highly refined fluffy stuff not to mention the virtues of the delight it bestowed on its youngest consumers. Not to worry. Noah was here to set the record straight and to bring good news of Wonderful Bread to his household.

Much like Noah’s amplification of the glorious and transporting qualities of Wonder Bread, the gospel of John is a major amplification of aspects of Jesus’ spiritual teachings. This gospel takes the truth of Jesus and stylizes it and him as a mythic archetype of divinity and truth. If we did not grasp the spiritual meaning of Jesus’ teachings from the other three gospels, John is going to make it impossible to miss.

The fundamental premise is that Jesus comes from God and that what is holy and divine can also be received by others and by us. In chapter 5 of the gospel Jesus says, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life…Yet you refuse to come to me to have life (5:39-40).” In many other words he makes the point that if we will open ourselves to the Source, then we will receive the transmission of the sacred. We will perceive the Creator’s invisible pulse that pervades the universe in what we Christians refer to as the Holy Spirit. It is a sacred breath that we each take in and that we share. And once we’ve tapped it, we grasp that it is infinite. This is what Jesus conveys to the Samaritan woman from whom he requests a drink of water. “The water that I will give will become in [others] a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”  It will give and it will give. There is no threat of climate change in the metaphysics of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

The gospel of John is about how we live in these bones and these guts on this earth and somehow in our very being have sanctity. Esther de Waal, an Anglican teacher of spirituality, puts it very succinctly.  “Christianity does not isolate the sacred from the secular.” Furthermore, de Waal sees the symbol of the cross as the symbol of that reality. She says that Christ on the Cross holds together the vertical which points towards the heavens and the horizontal arms which stretch out to the world.

How is it that we can maintain some sense of the vertical, the divine, in the midst of the complexities of our horizontal life? How is it that we can maintain hope or a sense of self when, for example, we are paralyzed with fear? Perhaps we are a child, vomiting with a case of mortal nerves on standardized testing day. Maybe we are an adult worker heading to the office after the morning news reported that our employer had announced layoffs. How are we, for example, to maintain any internal composure when we are shamed by an infidelity inside a friendship or marriage or trusted institution? Is it possible to hold ourselves in spiritual esteem when someone else points out rightly an errant way of our own?  How are we supposed to feel divine, good or when we get laid out flat along the horizontal axis of our reality?

Either we have already tasted what God offers and we and trust it, or

God’s provision springs up in the midst of our hell.

My mother had a colleague whose adult son suffered from chronic depression. Oddly, one day while the two were walking the path alongside town lake in Austin, Texas, the man was struck by lightening. After whatever necessary medical interventions took place, and the woman’s son recovered, it became clear that his depression had subsided. He felt hope and anticipation for the future.

Victor Frankl, a Viennese psychiatrist, who survived Nazi death camps including Auschwitz, tells a story about a young woman prisoner who was days from death and conscious of her fate. When he talked with her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. “I am grateful that fate has hit me this hard.  In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously.” She went on to say that the only friend she had in her isolation and proximity to death was the single branch of a chestnut tree that was visible from were she lay. “I often talk to the tree,” she said to Frankl. He asked if the tree spoke back. “Yes,” she replied. “It said to me, I am here - I am here – I am life, eternal life.”

The gospel of John says we learn the wonderful and dependable ways of the divine by revelation (tree branch) and lived experience (lightening strikes) more so than by logic or by way of someone else’s truth.  The promise is that in our living – including our dying – we can find meaning and we can know God.

“I am the bread of life.” Hear this not only as a decisive messianic claim by Jesus, but as an invitation.  Can you hear it as Jesus saying, “Come. I have taste the Bread of Life.  I have drunk from the water from the spring.  I am one with the Holy Spirit. I know the secret to the Wonderful Bread. I have tasted it so many times that I have become the miracle.  Come experience what I have, what I am, and what I know to be true. Eat, drink and find for yourself that which is infinitely available and infinitely exquisite. I am here - I am here – I am life, eternal life.

July 19, 2015

Pentecost – Proper 11

Jeremiah 23: 1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2: 11-22; Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Every year our family takes a vacation to Colorado to temporarily escape the summer heat and humidity of Houston. We always drive, and we do the drive in two days, using the city of Amarillo as a halfway point where we spend the night. One year on the trip when our family was in Amarillo staying at the hotel, I was rolling one of those luggage carts to our room that had all our bags and the kids blankets and stuffed animals, to an elevator. As I was pushing the cart into the elevator, an older woman walked by, looked at the stuff on the cart, and said, “look at you – travelling with kids! I remember those days.” As she walked off, she stopped and turned around looking back at me and said, “Remember – when kids are with you, it’s called a trip, not a vacation!”

I think many parents here would probably agree with her words! A long time ago I read a beautiful statement about travelling, and I have found it to be very true.  The words are simply this: “travelling allows you to remember who you want to be.” Those words become more true for me every day. Vacations afford all of us the time to think, reflect, and ponder things that our more busy schedules prevent us from doing at home.  Not only that, vacations give us a sense of perspective on our lives that most of us, ok – me – are unable to maintain at home. That’s one of the reasons why vacations are essential. Whether we our vacation is a trip somewhere or a “staycation” here in Houston, time off, time away, is necessary for all of us.Which is why I am going on a six month vacation starting tomorrow. I’m just kidding.  It’s really nine months.  

The closest word in the Bible to “vacation” is Sabbath.  In the Bible, Sabbath is a time of rest. So important was Sabbath, that it was included as one of the Ten Commandments – to keep the Sabbath day holy. The importance that scripture gives to the idea of time off, of rest, of Sabbath, is tremendous. And yet in scripture there is also irony and contradiction. This upholding of the idea of Sabbath rest, as conveyed in the Ten Commandments, seemed to apply to everyone, except Jesus.

If you read through the Gospels, it will quickly become obvious to you that Jesus never really got a day off. I have yet to read anything in the Gospels along the lines of “Yea, after healing several thousand near Capernaum, Jesus and his disciples ubered to Sidon where they embarked on a cruise to Nassau that Matthew found on Travelocity.” No, it seems Jesus rarely, if ever, got a break.      

We hear today an account of Jesus, who had just sent away his disciples two by two to go throughout the land to heal, feed, and care for the people they encountered. The disciples did that, and when they returned to Jesus, they were tired. They are worn out, they need a break – a Sabbath. And Jesus tells them to do just that – saying “go put your feet up, relax, sip a cold refreshing beverage by the Sea of Galilee.” That’s a loose translation of the Greek – what he says more clearly is “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.” So the disciples get in the boat, excited about having some down time, but they’ve got a problem.

They are celebrities now. People know who they are, and they say “Look! There are those guys who fed and healed all those people – let’s see if they can feed and take care of us!” So no one seems to get a break. Jesus is there and he watches all this happening, the people crowding around the disciples, a literal body slam of human need, and the Bible says Jesus had compassion on them – but the Bible is unclear whether Jesus’ compassion is directed toward the needy crowds or toward his tired and worn out disciples.

I don’t think it is difficult for us to find some common ground with these worn out and fatigued disciples who apparently get very little, if any, down time. Many of us are tired. Some of us cannot afford to stop working for a day just to take a day of rest.  Some of us are workaholics, working way longer than we need or should.  And that is a form of idolatry, by the way. The reality is for most of us, there is no real break, there is no real lull. Even if we can afford a vacation, it’s just blip on our calendar – but is the best we can do.

There is too much work to be done, too many mouths to feed, too many sick to heal. There is no clear sense as a global community amidst our financial insecurity, environmental, political, and social concerns that and real break, vacation, or Sabbath is near. Or is there?

Jesus never promised time away or a vacation to any of us. But what Jesus does promise is far more real and far more significant. In another Gospel, the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says “Come to me all you that are weary and I will offer you rest.” Not a break, not a vacation, but true rest – a place to bring our tired and weary selves and rest.

How do we do that?  We pray. We create a space in our lives for God.  See, God does not come into the world unreceived or uninvited. God is gentle and will not come into your world unless you actually want God to, unless you prepare a place for God. Whatever prayer is, it is true rest for weary souls.

I promise you that if for the next week, everyday you pray, not for yourself, not for what you want or what you need, but if you create space in your heart to pray for ten people – it can be anybody – your parents, your friends, your spouse, the president – it doesn’t matter.  If you pray for ten people every day, I promise that you will feel that sense of true rest, which only God provides. Not a break, not a vacation, but true abiding rest. That’s the paradox of prayer: when we pray for others, our hearts are calmed, our spirits rest in peace. AMEN.

July 5, 2015

Proper 9

2 Samuel 5:1-10; Psalm 48 / Psalm 123; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

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THE REV. CARISSA BALDWIN-MCGINNIS

Malcolm Boyd was an Episcopal priest, a freedom rider, a civil rights activist, a poet and a gay man. He lived long enough to know the right to marry in his state of residence, California. Oh, how I wish he had made it long enough to receive the Supreme Court ruling that a marriage in California is now a marriage in any of these United States.

In one of Boyd’s poems titled, “We’re ordaining somebody today, Jesus” Boyd writes:

When you say to us “Go,” and we comprehend our ministry in the world … do we understand that we will not be contenders in a social popularity contest…Do we want you to call us with your command “Go”? … Or would we rather you did not call us?  Then we could be left alone by you.  We would not have to love in the face of hate.

Loving in the face of hate might not have been the way Malcolm Boyd would have chosen to describe his personal life or love as a gay man, but many others in the LGBT community very well could. The psalmist writes, “Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy, for we have had more than enough of contempt.” This also is a cry that many an LGBT person of faith has uttered in silence and aloud.

So said Army Reserve Sergeant First Class who along with his husband submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court that the fact that their marriage which took place in New York and was subsequently not recognized in the state of Tennessee - where the couple lived after the Sergeant’s deployment to Afghanistan - was arbitrary, inconsistent, problematic and unjust. In one geographic location they were recognized and had rights as a married couple. In another geographic location they did not.

The Supreme Court in its response stated said that the military couple was right. The majority opinion in some places was eloquent and touching. For example, “Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there. It offers the hope of companionship and understanding and assurance that while both still live there will be someone to care for the other.” The decision acknowledged legal gains made by the LGBT community, but opined that progress was not the same as equal protection under the law. The majority opinion actually states, “Outlaw to outcast may be a step forward, but it does not achieve the full promise of liberty.”

While some were disturbed, disappointed or hurt by the court’s decision, others were not only elated but were made whole. So many in the LGBT community felt like we had finally made it to the welcome table. We have known the hymn lyrics that state “we’re gonna eat at welcome table one of these days.  We’re gonna feast on milk and honey one of these days.” The lyrics of the hymn are forward looking. They are hopeful. Two Fridays ago it seemed that one of these days had come to pass now.

By coincidence, simultaneous to this secular court decision, General Convention of the Episcopal Church was meeting as it does every three years to legislate any array of matters affecting our life and structure as a church. General Convention is a bore to many and reports on its proceedings a good sermon do not make. But because of some important actions taken, I will choose to share out today what might otherwise be missed.

In response to the Supreme Court ruling, the House of Deputies and House of Bishops’ passed a resolution this past week to change the canons on marriage, approving two rites for trial use of same-sex marriages in the church. These are approved by the Episcopal Church to be used, beginning on the first Sunday of Advent of this year. No church is required to use them or to perform same-sex marriages, but these rites are accessible now and available now. They are approved for trial use. The resolutions were adopted on votes by orders, with more than 80 percent of the clergy and lay deputies approving them. Similarly, a majority of bishops voted in favor.

As with the Supreme Court decision, there was a minority report and dissenting voice in the vote on these resolutions. That voice included all three bishops of the Diocese of Texas. Bishops Fisher, Harrison and Doyle issued a letter outlining their shared convictions to explain their vote against the canonical changes to marriage.  I do not attempt to speak for them. I simply lift up to you part of their letter.

1) The discussion on the issue of same-sex relationships has not, in our opinion, engaged Holy Scripture as it should, 2) our Christian partners throughout the Anglican Communion and the world, and even in other denominations in our own country, have not been properly brought into our conversation, 3) the Supreme Court decision, while lauded by many, should not drive our theological conversations and decisions, 4) we believe any process to revise the marriage canons properly belongs in the context of a constitutional process of prayer book revision and not in an isolated action.

As we read this letter, some of us who had felt so previously invited to the welcome table thanks to secular changes suddenly did not feel a sense of welcome anymore. While it may not required, it can feel as if the LGBT community in the church here is being asked once again to love in the face of hate and to be patient in the midst of contempt. Suddenly the honey tastes of salt and the milk tastes a bit sour.

The bishops did not communicate that no change would come nor did they say what change would come or in what time. What is clear is that the current way of blessing and marrying people remains in place; a system in which gay and lesbian couples are handled differently than straight couples. This church has been talking about gay inclusion and marriage for 39 years. We have had conversations in the global Communion. We have had conversations with our denominational friends. The question some of us have is “How much longer shall we deliberate?”

In the sadness and disappointment that some of us are experiencing, we find comfort, of course, in knowing that Jesus never made it to the welcome table. He was the dissenting opinion in the Galilee where he was rendered powerless by many who knew him as a carpenter and could not catch on to his spiritual progress and ordination into Jewish authority. Furthermore, it seems likely that he was brining a message of non-violent resistance into a land that cultivated zealous Jewish armed revolt against Roman occupation. As Jesus the teacher and leader is rendered powerless by the projections of those in his homeland, he calls on others from the Galilee to work two by two and together to bring power to the people. The Jesus movement was teaching the spiritual power of the faithful resided not in the inner sanctum and private acts of the high priest, but rather in the metaphysical force of their own personhood of the people out in the villages. The religious and spiritual authority, they were modeling, resided in the people.

Jesus teaches the twelve how to respond when they are disrespected or made unwelcome in their efforts to invert the order of authority. He instructs them to shake off the dust from their feet in those cases. They are to be declarative about their separation or rejection in a culture where hospitality is expected and considered a requirement to maintain one’s honor and standing. To shake off the dust is to let it be known the code was not kept. But the movement did not seem to pursue any further punitive measure or expectation.

Two Fridays ago myself and others like me were told by the highest court in the land that we had a place at the welcome table. But unfortunately, those of us who participate in the Episcopal life of faith and happen to live in the Diocese of Texas subsequently read a letter that made us to feel once again not so welcome. The food no longer seems to taste so good or feel very nutritive. So, on this day I choose to shake the dust from my feet by remaining seated at the time of the meal. Please understand this not as a choice to separate from the community in any way. For here am I. Rather this is more as a fast or a hunger strike to imply that I await the time when all couples who are blessed or wed are treated equally and all families are recognized equally. Because my ordination as a lay person or a priest is not fully recognized in contrast to the law I abstain. I ask no one to join me.  I simply take this point of privilege to explain what you will observe.

Where one is hungry not all are fed. Where some are denied, not all are served. When is one of these days going to come to this place?  Will the welcome table ever be set here for all of us?

June 28, 2015

Pentecost – Proper 8

Wisdom of Solomon 1: 13-15; 2:23-24; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8: 7-15; Mark 5: 21-43

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

So, a big week for the Supreme Court. Their ruling earlier this week in upholding the affordable care act was certainly eclipsed by their ruling announced Friday, in favor of marriage equality for all, a decision that is already being heralded as the civil rights victory of our age. The Bishop of our Diocese, the Right Reverend Andy Doyle, has posted a video of his wise and thoughtful response to the Supreme Court’s decision and its impact on the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, and upon General Convention, the triennial gathering of the Houses of Bishops and Deputies of the Episcopal Church going on right now in Salt Lake City, Utah. History was made at General Convention yesterday when both houses elected, for the first time ever, an African American Bishop, the Rt. Reverend Michael Curry as our next presiding bishop, who will begin his nine year term in November this year.

Regarding the Supreme Court’s decision, there is much more to be said about this historic moment in our civic and in our religious life together, and we will do so together as a parish. As happens often in our news cycle, a story, like that of the Supreme Court’s decision, receives so much attention, that other important events that happened last week go virtually unheard.

I want to share one of them with, a story about a woman Elisabeth Elliot, who died recently at the age of eighty-eight. Elisabeth Elliot, and her husband, Jim, were missionaries in the deepest jungles of Ecuador amongst the Auca Indians. Elisabeth and her husband felt called by God to bring the gospel to this fierce tribe, which had no outside contact with the world at the time.

After much planning and months of groundwork, they made friendly contact with several members of the Auca tribe.  Two days after their first meeting, several warriors burst out of the jungle and speared Elisabeth’s husband, Jim, and three other men, to death. The missionaries were armed, but when the attack came, they only fired their weapons in the air, as they had agreed they would in such an event. The incident made headlines around the world in Time, Reader’s Digest, and Life magazines. So if you were Elisabeth, think about what you would have done. Gone back the United States, given up, lost your faith in God?

Less than two years after her husband’s death, Elisabeth left her home to live with the tribe who had murdered her husband. She also brought her daughter, Valerie, a toddler at the time. For most of us, living with the people who murdered your spouse and the parent of your child would be unthinkable. Elisabeth Eliot saw it as God’s call.  

She lived, peacefully amongst the Auca tribe for two years, and discovered that the tribe’s need for God mirrored her own need.  In a book she wrote some years later detailing her experience, Eliot wrote that “the Aucas are…human beings, made in the image of God…[w]e have a common source, common needs, common hopes, a common end.”  Elisabeth Elliot is a hero for her stance that all people even those who inflicted great harm, are worthy of God’s grace.

For the last few weeks, we have heard parts of a letter written to a church in the city of Corinth. Corinth, positioned on the Greek cost, was a commercial and financial center of the Aegean world. The New Testament contains two letters written to this church by the Apostle Paul: 1 and 2 Corinthians. The letter we hear from today, 2 Corinthians, was written sometime around the middle of the first century, or about twenty years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. To put that in a bit of context, the earliest written Gospel in the Bible is the Gospel of Mark, and that wasn’t written until about ten years after 2 Corinthians.  

Paul understood this church, he knew the people there well, and he knew that the hallmark of the Corinthian people was that they were passionately committed to being the best at everything.  They wanted to be the best public speakers, the best in trade and commerce, the must cultural, and they considered themselves the “best” Christians. Paul himself wasn’t very impressed with this Corinthian bravado. In fact much of 1 Corinthians is devoted to deflating their over-sized egos.

However in this second letter, Paul encourages their desire to excel, to be the best, but not at all the stuff they thought was important, but rather to try to be the best in their generosity toward others who were not like them. Paul understood the Corinthians had no problem sharing God’s grace and love with each other, but when it came to others, the outsiders, the outcast, the Corinthians were guilty of stifling that free-flowing grace, keeping it to themselves, and refusing to share it with others. This selfishness is what Paul found so troubling about this church he loved so much, but struggled with so dearly. He struggled with how people in this community claimed to be followers of Jesus, and yet were so selfish and shrewd.  

Priest and author Frederick Buechner writes: “We have within us, each one of us, so much more power than we ever spend, such misers of miracles are we, such pinch-penny guardians of grace.”  What he’s saying, of course, is that, tragically, the church is full of people who don’t hear the message that God’s abundant grace is for everybody. This was the Corinthians problem.  

It is not our job to judge who deserves grace, or who deserves mercy. That was the sin the church in Corinth. And it is what our nation is struggling with today. Dylann Roof, the twenty-year old young man who murdered nine people in a Bible study two weeks ago in South Carolina, is not someone I want God to be graceful toward. I am unable at this moment to move past anger. I don’t have the language to articulate my feelings of sadness and rage. I am ashamed and embarrassed that at this moment, I don’t want God’s grace to be extended to him.   

And my struggle with this is precisely Paul’s point. In my desire to channel or limit God’s grace, I am committing the very sin of the church in Corinth. I struggle with seeing God’s grace be given to someone I cannot understand – who seems so different from me, and I need your help to show me how.  There are parishioners of Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, who have forgiven, or are ready to forgive Dylann. Their understanding of the limitless grace of God bestowed upon all people, even those who murder, recalls the graciousness of Elisabeth Elliot, who befriended and loved even those who took her husband and the father of her daughter from her.  

In the midst of unspeakable tragedy, God’s grace always survives in ways we cannot nor should understand. Our job is not to understand the grace of God, nor is to be micro managers of God’s grace.  Our job is to be conduits of God’s grace whether in the jungles of Ecuador, the streets of Charleston, the steps of the Supreme Court, or in the most important place of all – our hearts. AMEN.

June 21, 2015

Proper 7-B

Job 38:1-11,16-18; 2 Corinthians 5:14-21; Mark 4:35-41;(5:1-20); Psalm 107:1-32 or 107:1-3, 23-32

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THE REV. PORTIA SWEET

On the evening of October 17, 1989, I arrived in Charleston SC from San Diego and rode with my to-be manager to Edisto Beach, about 40 miles away to what was to be my home and place of employment, Fairfield Resort. We opted to eat at the restaurant bar so we could watch the World Series, being played in San Francisco. Instead of the ball game, however, there was awful news of the San Francisco/Oakland earthquake - a major disaster in which 67 people died and over $5Billion in damage occurred. I was immediately  frantic, for my sister, with whom I had been living, was in SF earlier in the day. I was not sure the time of her returning flight to SD. It was hours before I finally reached her by phone, and even then, she had not been able to contact her husband who had remained in the City.  

All of this was about a month after Hugo, a Category 5 hurricane had struck Charleston and ripped an awful path of destruction in the region. And so began my experience with Charleston, SC: its beauty, its charm, and the stormy period that astonished me in many ways.

My role at the resort was that of site Human Resources Director. The employee population was about 50/50 Caucasian and African American. In 1989, although all the Civil Rights Laws had been passed, segregation of the races was still very much a way of life. Having lived in various other parts of the country for the previous 15 years, I was astonished that so many descendants of the old Southern families there were living in an antebellum fantasy world. I was astonished  driving down Highway 40 toward Charleston to see time and again a church for white folks on one side of the road and a church of the same denomination for black folks a block away on the other side of the road.  I was astonished to walk into an employee party to find black and white at opposite ends of the room, like junior high boys and girls at a school dance. I was astonished when after church one Sunday, a fellow parishioner whose family went waaay back, said to me, "You don't have to be Human Resource Manager to those N...'s do you?"

I saw the storm brewing, and set about finding allies to help me avoid yet another disaster. For my job description included conducting diversity training and seeing that all employees were treated fairly. I was already in the boat with Jesus, yet like the disciples in the Gospel reading, I was not sure who he was in this situation.

Now there were many lovely and kind people living there.  The people who became my supporters and who shared my view of social justice turned out to be Christ followers, black and white. With their help I gained the confidence of the African community on that island and was able to make some progress in doing the work I was hired to do.

So this past week, when I awoke to the news of the storm, the massacre at Mother Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, SC, I was horrified, I was very, very sad, but I was not particularly astonished. The storm warnings had been there for a very long time.

The Psalmist for today wrote "Let all those whom the Lord has redeemed proclaim that he redeemed them from the hand of the foe. He gathered them out of the lands from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Some went down to the sea in ships and plied their trade in deep waters....Then he spoke, and a stormy wind arose, which tossed high the waves of the sea......They cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper and quieted the waves of the sea.......and he brought them to the harbor they were bound for." (PS 107)

In his letter to the Corinthians which was read earlier, Paul makes it clear that following Jesus as a faithful servant does not guarantee a life of all sunshine, no pain, no storms, no scary moments. He lays out rather specifically his own storms and yet Paul remained faithful, knowing that Jesus could and would calm the waves so that he, Paul, could continue his work and do it with affection for those whom God gave him. Remember that Paul was certainly a counter-culture figure, and so was Jesus, and so are any who seek social justice in this time and place.

So what has Charleston SC have to do with the community of St. Andrew's in the Heights? Are we not diverse, loving, welcoming, generous, and faithful? You see, the storm that brewed and still does, in SC, as I see it, was one of silence and tolerance for that which should not be - denial.  It was 1989 when I was there and this is 2015, not 1860! Jesus was about calling a spade a spade - especially when dealing with self-righteous Pharisees who would choke on a gnat and swallow a camel when it came to moral law. Jesus was about social justice in his command to us to love one another - ministering to the least, and the most awful of punishments being  set aside for those who would harm the most vulnerable among us.

In loving one another as ourselves, we are called to give to the needy and we are also called to speak for the voiceless, to speak up against injustice. When we do, we will find ourselves in the eye of a storm.

I was reminded yesterday in a sermon preached by The Rt. Rev. Dean E. Wolfe, Bishop of Kansas  at the ordination of deacons, that it is the duty of deacons to stir up storms - the winds of justice in the midst of silence that brings about the kinds of social eruptions and sin that occurred this week in Charleston. In some ways those eruptions occur daily here in Houston and if you listen even once a week to the local news you will  know that what I say is true. It can be scary and risky work to seek justice when no one wants to admit an injustice is being done. When great corporate and personal profits are being realized through unjust treatment of marginalized brothers and sisters. There is big business in the trade of narcotics and sex. There is lots of money to be made by squeezing out small business merchants through legislation that prohibits their profitable existence or trade practices that eliminate thousands of jobs in order to increase shareholder dividends! I wonder at the true reasons for closing so-called under achieving schools in Houston, which not so coincidentally are the places many impoverished children go to learn.

I confess, I hold shares in some corporations and I have worked for public corporations and small businesses. Profit is not a dirty word in my vocabulary; EXPLOITATION is.

Author Kurt Vonnegut is quoted as saying, "We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down."

One more thing astonished me. A news anchor was interviewing  a former federal investigator, talking about how some members of Emmanuel AME Church, and especially members of victims' families, were ready to forgive the man who murdered in their sacred space. The anchor woman asked, where would the thought, the courage, the wherewithal come from to forgive such an act? She could not understand. I was astonished.

"A great windstorm arose,"  wrote Mark, "and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern asleep; and they woke him up and said, 'Teacher,  do you not care that we are perishing?' "

There are many about us - we pass them, perhaps unnoticing, every day, who wonder, "Do you not care that we are perishing?" They and we are in the same boat. Should they perish because of our silence,  our neglect, we will perish as well. Are we afraid to speak out for them? Jesus said, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"  Jesus came to reconcile ALL people to God: From the east and from the west; from the north and from the south.

I believe it is time for all of us who profess to be Christian, or Jew or Muslim for that matter, to engage in some honest self assessment and ask God for forgiveness  for our sins of silence. I believe it is time for us to Say, "Jesus, I care that they are perishing. Please show me the way to help you calm the storms and stem the tides of injustice, hate, ignorance, and other evils." Jesus can still calm storms, small and great. Jesus does care that his sheep are perishing. We are Jesus' eyes, hands, feet and voices in the stormy world.  We must put ourselves into the midst of the storms of injustice - both the loud ones and the silent ones,  so that in believing, we can do the work he sends us out to do. And believing, God will always equip the willing to bring about his peace to his creation.

For whom will you speak up? On what issue will you write letters, demonstrate before City Hall, the State House or other venues? What shareholder meeting will you sacrifice the time to attend? How will you vote in the next election?

Patrick Overton reflects in his poem “Faith”: “When you come to the edge of all the light you have And take the first step into the darkness of the unknown, You must believe one of two things will happen: There will be something solid for you to stand upon, or you will be taught how to fly.” Many times in our lives we face the unknown, the uncertainty of a future, an outcome, we cannot see. And what we have to hold onto in those moments is our faith that God is with us: that God will be our solid rock to stand on, or that we will be taught to fly.
I invite you to jump off the cliff with me as we develop our wings, and with Jesus' help, on the way down, we can calm the winds of the storms around us. Amen

June 14, 2015

Pentecost – Proper 6

Ezekiel 17: 22 - 24; Psalm 92: 1-4, 11-14; 2 Corinthians 5: 6-17; Mark 4: 26-34

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

According to the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, the best way to understand a crisis, is not to see it as something scary, something that produces anxiety, or as the collapse of a dream we once had. All of us have experienced crises in our lives, that moment where things seem to be going fine, and all of a sudden, something happens, our lives come undone, and we feel as if they are out of control.

A crisis event in my life over ten years ago, when doctors explained to my wife and I that our first born son had a brain abnormality. From those doctor’s words forward, our lives took an unexpected turn, but a turn I would not give up for anything. Ten years after that moment, I see that the crisis we experienced was actually a miracle – an uncomfortable miracle, but a miracle nonetheless.

A crisis, Carl Jung suggests, is an opportunity. It is an opportunity because it forces us to look at our lives differently, crises give us no choice but to examine our relationships through a different lens. The mandate of a crisis is that we have to recreate what normal is, and we have to discover the meaning of our lives in the midst of a crisis.  

This work is not easy.

Yet my experience of God is that God is most clear, most manifest, during a time of a crisis. Because in those moments, everything we thought was important, suddenly isn’t because we have a moment of blessed clarity in which we see God holding our hand.

Some of us are in crisis right now.  Some of us know that we are, and others of us do not know. Regardless, when crisis strikes us how do we make sense of it?

Much of the Bible seems to be written to address this fundamental question. The great prophets of the Jewish tradition wrote pages and pages trying to understand how God could be present in circumstances where it seemed God was so absent. We hear from one of these prophets this morning, Ezekiel. Ezekiel witnessed a crisis – he watched the destruction of the city of Jerusalem with his own eyes. Ezekiel saw the beloved temple in Jerusalem, where God was worshipped, and believed to have been present, completely dismantled and burned by the Babylonian armies. If that was not terror enough, Ezekiel was among those in Israel who were forced into exile in Babylon.

In the beginning of chapter 17, which unfortunately we do not hear this morning, Ezekiel speaks of two great eagles, one of the eagles represents Egypt, and the other eagle represents Babylon, and both of these eagles are circling around a tall cedar tree. In Ezekiel, the tall cedar tree represents Israel, and the two eagles of Babylon and Egypt circling around the tree are symbolic of those two empires who were competing against each other to control Israel. The eagle representing Babylon plucks off a branch close to the top of the tree and carries the branch off to plant it in a foreign land. This branch that was broken off the tree and planted in a foreign land represents those in Israel who were forced away from their homeland to live in exile in Babylon.

In the Jewish cultural mindset, this was a crisis like none other, and yet, as devastating as it was, as painful as it was, it was also a miracle. The Jewish exile forced the people of Israel to understand that their God was not just present in a temple that could be destroyed. They learned through this painful process, that God was present with them everywhere, even if their beloved temple and city lay in ruin. Because they lived far away from their home, they decided that they needed to begin writing down their story so that the next generation would know. And so they began to write, and it was from this experience that the books of the Hebrew Bible, beginning with Genesis, were written.  Some scholars suggest today that there would be no Judaism, and therefore no Christianity, without the exile.

What is your exile? What is your crisis? If you are not in a crisis right now, then that probably means you have either just emerged from one, or that you are heading right into one. That might sound kind of depressing to you, but I see it as really good news. In every crisis is an opportunity, and in every crisis, God is present.

I hope none of us feels shame for the public or private crisis we may find ourselves in today. God is with us, as God was with Israel. It doesn’t make the crisis easier or make it go away. But the presence of God does ordain the crisis and makes it holy. If you are in the midst of crisis, know that you standing on holy ground, for God has ordained it so.  AMEN.

June 7, 2015

Proper 5

Genesis 3:8-15; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35

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THE REV. CARISSA BALDWIN-MCGINNIS

A political journalist with the NYT named John Burns recently retired a 40-year career having covered politics and war the world over. His coverage included soviet Russia, Mao’s China, Taliban-led Afghanistan, and apartheid-era South Africa. In his recent editorial in the Sunday New York Times, Burns offered reflections on his career and experience. The piece focused on the question “What did I bring back?” Having chronicled wars, assassinations and natural disasters on multiple continents, he asks himself what might be the core conclusion to be drawn from his experience. Burns’ response is the following. “What those years bred in me, more than anything else, was an abiding revulsion for ideology, in all its guises.”

In a secular or political context ideology has to do with building social or political systems on a singular core idea. In a religious context ideology takes many forms. Chief among them is fundamentalism. The ‘fundament’ part of fundamentalism has to do with foundations. Fundamentalism in faith is the practice of ascribing the full complexity of faith to one key idea or ideal. This results in an approach to faith that views complex issues in black-and-white terms; asks us to receive our thinking from someone else; and expects us to follow rules rather than follow intuition or judgement. Ultimately, fundamentalism offers a faith foundation that is rigid and therefore easily broken. If you know anything about architecture or engineering, you know that a chief property of a functional foundation is its flexibility. Certainly an effective foundation must be strong, but it must also give and move as the earth beneath it and the building upon it shift over time.

Concern with ideology is a consideration on a Sunday when we read about a man and a woman in a garden being tricked by a snake, because this clever and ironic first story of God’s call to humanity has become a foundational text for fundamentalism. The biblical narrative of the garden temptation, however, is not a story about the fall of humanity.  It is a story about the call of humanity into relationship with God. The story has humor and follows a literary pattern. God invites the couple to take a load off in the garden but says, “Don’t eat from the tree in the middle.” God disappears for a while and the snake says, “Eat! It’s no big deal!” So the couple eats and upon God’s return in dismay the couple explains away their actions in a childlike fashion saying, “The snake made us do it.”

This pattern can be found in many biblical call narratives, including the call of the prophet Elijah who after being sent on a murderous mission by YHWY to kill 150 prophets of Baal is hiding out under a tree. God says, “Elijah!  Get up. Your work is not done.”  Elijah basically replies that he is an ineffective prophet, that the nation he attacked want his head, and he is hanging up his hat.  God is charitable and provides food and shelter. But Elijah never leaves the cave God provides for his rest and recovery. “Elijah!  What are you doing?! You’ve got work to do?  Why are you delaying in the cave?” To this, Elijah replies saying in today’s parlance “Lord, I have just been so moved in my heart.  I have been pious and in endless prayer and praises to you.” This is another childlike, ironic attempt to avoid holy accountability.  It is humor!

The story of the temptation in the garden is not about original sin but rather the universal temptation to avoid God’s call to courage in face of the unknown. As soon as we make this story to be about sexual morality or the superiority of men over women we have signed on to a campaign not only of religious ideology but idolatry. It is akin to cramming God - like some Genie - into a bottle, which would only have the effect of leaving us access to no God at all.

As convicted as John Burns is about idealism, I am about fundamentalism. Specifically, it is my conviction that God is neither an ideologue nor a fundamentalist. There is nothing in my pastoral encounters as a priest, my personal prayer life as a follower of Jesus, my own walk to freedom, or the fights for social justice in which I have taken part, that would suggest to me that God is either an ideologue or a fundamentalist. What I have found is that - rather than call us from complexity into simplicity (as fundamentalism would have it) - God most often calls us from complexity to complexity.

Any of us who choose to walk in the the Judeo-Christian or Muslim prophetic tradition undertake the practice of call and response. We practice it in church in the responsive reading of the psalms or in conversation with the presider. “The Lord be with you,” says the priest. “And also with you,” replies the congregation.  We make these calls and responses in worship in order to have a bodily experience and reminder of the relationship we maintain with the one who creates and guides us.

Fundamentalism can be attractive, and it can provide us some of the answers we seek. But often it will only get us so far. For example, if I were a gang-affected youth incarcerated for crime, fundamentalism might successfully invite me into a future of non-violence.  But what if I am a young, gay man of color?  After leaving a life of crime, how is fundamentalism going to help me make a way for myself and my life?

When we parch the foundation of faith by limiting it to singular ideas or rules, we risk doing harm to ourselves and others. The harm is akin to a young boy pursuing the virtue hand-washing before meals. So, he eyes a water fountain near the school cafeteria and rinses his fingers on the way to lunch. He does so only to be whisked around by a scowling teacher who admonishes him in hateful tones for the inappropriate use of the drinking fountain. “You do NOT wash your hands in the water fountain!” Taking up a habit he had just learned was good for both himself and his community, the child was smacked down by a rule he never knew existed.

John Burns … “In all of these places, my experience has been that when it suits the ends of power, ideology can be invoked to prove that 2+2 = 5, or 3, or any other number that suits….” those in control.  Ideology can literally drive us to believe that lies are truth.  But the prophetic tradition has never and can never be about control, coercion or untruth. Rather it is about creativity, irony, play, courage, complexity, call and response.

People want a community with a flexible foundation. People want experiences of inclusion and kinship. People want support for the times when they step out in courage into the unknown. May this community be one that provides these things more and more and forevermore.

May 31, 2015

Trinity Sunday-B

Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29 or Canticle 2 or 13; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17

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THE REV. PORTIA SWEET

Holy, Holy Holy -" For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever," Father Son and Holy Ghost, one Triune God. This is the Day - Trinity Sunday, when we praise God with all that is within us for his magnificence which is way and beyond our mortal comprehension. We just sang the Benedictus es, Domine, a beautiful song of praise extolling the glory of God. For to be able to fully understand God would be to limit that glory and power to human dimensions. Isaiah's vision, described in the first reading for today, magnificent and dramatic as it is, is still but a glimpse at the God we worship.

I believe in and proclaim a gospel of the LIVING God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer and Guiding, Comforting Spirit within; a God incarnate and alive in the world in which I live. Holy Scripture gives us stories of how God acts among the people of God and how God's people have acted with and against their creator. The New Testament gives us examples of who the Incarnate God, the Son of God, Jesus, was and what he said and did during his earthly ministry, as well as the story we celebrated last week of how Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to empower his disciples to take the Gospel to all people everywhere. It is in and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Son of God that we are forgiven, born anew, and have hope for eternal life.

While all that I have just said is true and you have heard these words many times, it is in the midst of our own stories that we personally encounter the Trinity. It was when the coal from the altar fire touched Isaiah's lips that he was prepared and willing to go forth as God's prophet. Nicodemus, a learned religious leader, a Pharisee, knew all the Hebrew scripture and taught others in it. Yet, it was in the personal meeting with Jesus that he began to see beyond the written words and know the Incarnate God. Nicodemus had to sort of sneak around at night to avoid being seen and reprimanded or accused of heresy in order to meet Jesus. He had to risk his reputation, and he was empowered to do so. Month after month I have stood  here and in one way or another encouraged whoever would hear to go meet Jesus in the world; to seek the face of Christ in all you meet; to be transformed in faith as you yourselves spread the Good news; to come from whatever darkness of night you are experiencing to find the Incarnate God, in the everyday mundane-ness of your ordinary lives.

How many of you listen to TED Talks? If you do not know, these are brief soliloquies by well-known people on a variety of topics and are available on line. Well, I want to present a little TED talk. Some of you know that a couple of weeks ago I attended a conference on homiletics (a fancy word for preaching) in Denver.  There, some 1800 clergy from many denominations and sects gathered for  several days of  lectures, sermons, workshops and worship services in the downtown Presbyterian, Methodist and Roman Catholic/Lutheran churches.  We were everywhere in the downtown area, identifiable by our nametags. To get to these events from the hotel meant taking the shuttle then walking up a steep hill a few blocks.  The hill was a challenge for me in the thin Denver air, so at the top I would pause a moment to catch my breath.

On the first morning, as I crossed the intersection, I saw a young man selling papers and initially turned to proceed in the other direction toward my destination. I had barely caught the large bold headline of the paper he held, "TOILET TALK". Thinking I had best keep moving, I was about to step off the curb when "something" told me to turn around and inquire.

"Hello", I said, "What is this paper about?

"We are trying to get public toilets in Downtown Denver," he replied.

Relieved, and curious,  I asked his name and in just a few moments heard something of his story how he came to be selling that paper.

Ted was a gay teen from Louisiana who had aged out of the foster care system and, unprepared to support himself and cope in society, found his way to Denver, CO. He lives on the streets and in cold weather spends the nights in shelters, which he, like most with whom I have visited here in Houston, finds to be unclean and unsafe. The paper he was selling, "The Denver Voice" is sponsored by a large number of donors: individuals, foundations, businesses and churches. It features issues, stories, and events of interest to the homeless population of the urban area. Vendors like Ted are hired by the paper and get to keep a portion of every paper they sell - immediate change in their pockets. Their current campaign, which is by all accounts progressing quite well, is to provide public toilets throughout the downtown area - and not just for those who live on the streets. I learned much from Ted and others and from the paper about this issue and this campaign.

I bought his paper and since he told me as he thanked me that it was his last one, I gave him a little extra for a hot breakfast as well. In the course of our conversation I told him I was in town for the preaching conference and he shared something of his own beliefs and spiritual experience.  And so it was that I met Jesus at the top of a hill in Downtown Denver on that crisp May morning.  And, having done so, I looked for Christ in earnest on the streets during the remainder of my time there, and was abundantly blessed with rich faith encounters, both among the street people and conference attendees. Further, when I shared this experience with a couple of friends who were there, they took courage to also seek ways to meet Jesus on the streets of Denver.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, "The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." And Nicodemus replied, "How can these things be?"

Indeed, these things are from the immeasurable love of God, the love relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, powerful community love poured out on all creation; all around us and within us; to believe IN the Triune God is to act on and in this love. It is in this acting that we gain eternal life. Here, ETERNAL LIFE means abundant life. Sharing spirit-filled moments with another in the Name of Jesus is about as abundant as life can ever be, whether that is on a downtown street, in the grocery store, the classroom, the family dinner table, or across the back yard fence. With this love and with this wind, we are invited into the community of the Trinity.

We come here together to praise and worship our God. God the Father, creator of all of us, fully equips, through the Holy Spirit, all who are willing to step out of our shadows to meet Jesus. We are fed at the table where Christ is both host and guest and believing in that food, we may be given both words, courage and direction to carry the Gospel out into the world.

Holy Holy Holy, Lord God Almighty. All the earth shall praise your name in earth and sky and sea.

Pause, take a breath, hear the voice directing you to turn around, and meet with Jesus.

May 24, 2015

Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104: 25-35, 37b; Romans 8: 22-27; John 15: 26-27, 16: 4b - 15

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Good morning. Thank you for being here on such a rainy Sunday morning. In the church calendar we are celebrating Pentecost, but on our national calendar, we are honoring the fallen who have given their lives for our country. I want to pause now and offer a prayer for Memorial Day. Let us pray.  

God, we remember the women and men who are currently serving in the armed forces of our country and we pray for their safe return. We also acknowledge that there are women and men who will not return, and we grieve their death in our prayers. We pause to honor their service and their sacrifice. Those of us who have not served in the armed forces cannot fully imagine the experience of war, but we do know war’s aftermath and the toll it can take on the human heart. This day we remember and acknowledge that loss as we remember those whom we have loved and lost. We hold their names and faces in our mind’s eye.  We recall the gifts they gave to us through the strength of their being, the depth of their love, the courage of their dying, and the fullness of their living. AMEN.

Okay, onto Pentecost. That word, Pentecost simply means “fifty days.” During the time of Jesus, some of the first crops were harvested fifty days after they were planted. So this day has some origin in agriculture and farming. During the time of Jesus, the festival we call Pentecost was more than just a Jewish agricultural festival. It also was an observation  of a very important moment in the history of Israel.  

Fifty days passed between the event of the Passover in Egypt and the arrival of the Jewish people to Mount Sinai, where Moses received the ten commandments.  

The reason why I say all this is to give us some context for understanding what exactly is going on here this morning. The book of Acts says that on the fiftieth day after the resurrection of Jesus, the spirit of God filled the house of the disciples in unique way. The Bible says it was like a “violent wind,” a phrase certainly appropriate for today where in parts of Harris County, storm gusts could get to 45 mph. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

The wind is accompanied by divided tongues of fire that come to rest on each of the disciples. This fire is the reason for why we wear red today – it is to commemorate the “fire” of the Holy Spirit. But, we are also Clutch City, are we not, and red is appropriate for the Rockets, and we all know they need our prayers.

For us today, Pentecost marks the dramatic conclusion to the Easter Season as we give thanks to God for the new life of the church that is given through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Today in church we are doing this – we are thanking God by celebrating the abundance we have received in this place and in our lives.  We are encouraging each person to write out on this sheet of paper (show) the blessings for which you would like to thank God. The ushers will collect them at the offering and place them in a basket and we will offer them to God at the altar.  

As Easter closes, it does so in a multiplicity of languages, which we heard a few moments ago during the reading from Acts. We heard Latin, Spanish, Assamese, and others. The reason why we hear those languages is because they foreshadow the universal global church. The church grows from Jerusalem reaching every continent, state, city and village.  

The impetus for Pentecost is not that the church grew because of people’s hard work, though that’s part of the story. The church grew because of the Spirit of God that blows where it chooses.  

Today we celebrate the birth of the church through the Holy Spirit, through that rush of wind and tongues of flame all of creation is turned toward its redemption. The Holy Spirit is a spirit of life, and so it is fitting today that we celebrate the gift of life freely given to us today through the Holy Spirit. And we do so with baptism, that sacred recognition that we are drawn into God’s family through water, prayer, and fire - in which they will be marked by the Holy Spirit forever.  Nothing will take that away, because the Spirit of God which we call Holy is forever. AMEN.

May 17, 2015

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 1: 15 – 17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5: 9-13; John 17: 6 - 19

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Two stories I want to share with you. The first is untrue, but it is at least humorous. The story involves two young enterprising church evangelists – let’s just say they’re two young women. They are in the process of going from door to door down a street in a neighborhood, knocking on doors, handing out Bibles, sharing their faith.

When they arrive at a house they knock on the front door.  Before the door is answered they hear the crying of children in the house and an adult voice yelling “give the toy back to your brother!” The door opens and the two young women see an older woman holding a baby in one hand, with two other crying children hanging onto her legs. There’s dirty laundry on the floor, milk spilled on the kitchen table, and the father is nowhere to be seen.

The first young woman says, “Ma’am we’re here to tell you about the gift of eternal life.” And the mother looks at the two evangelists and says. “Are you crazy? Look at my house! Why would I want to have to live like this forever!”

Second story – and this one is true. My brother, my sister, and I were with my mother in front of a Luby’s Cafeteria in the 1970’s while my dad was parking the car. It was evening, and we were going to have dinner. I was a baby at the time which meant I was just probably going to smear jello all over my tray.  Apparently, I was in my mother’s arms, probably crying, my brother, only a few years older than me at the time, was pulling away from my mom while my sister pulling her in the opposite direction and also crying about something. A man drove by in an El Camino, slowed down, rolled the window down, saw the desperate look on my mother’s face.  He leaned out the window and in what just may be the most unhelpful statement ever said he asked my mother, “hey lady, haven’t you ever heard of birth control?”

Life is complicated.  We are pulled in many different directions, trying to meet so many different needs, raising children, going to work, paying bills. We go about our work whether that is at home or outside the home, we do our best to maintain friendships, to do the right thing, and all of it can leave us, well – exhausted.  The idea of doing this for all eternity is not really all that appealing, to be honest.

I believe the author of 1 John knew this.  In the part of the 1 John we hear today, eternal life is described in a new and refreshing way. The author writes in v. 12: “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” When I hear that initially, my first response is to say “I disagree – I don’t like that” because I am uncomfortable with exclusionary statements, especially the religious kind. Who gave us the right to determine who has eternal life, anyway? But then I read it again.

When I read the verse the second time, I don’t see them as exclusionary at all. That is because I understand the words “Whoever has the Son has life,” to mean any person that chooses to live their life in the way that Jesus did, will have true life, a kind of life that never ends. A kind of life that not even death can end.    

What kind of life did Jesus live? It seemed to be the kind of life that was not governed by fear or anxiety, but rather grounded in love, hope, humility and compassion. Make no mistake – it is not an easy life, but nowhere in the Bible are we promised that eternal life is easy.  

That might come as a discomfort to some of you, but to me, I am grateful.  Philosopher Carl Jung once said “People need difficulties; they are necessary for health.” I don’t want to romanticize struggle or difficulty. The wake of the bombing of the Boston marathon, and the sentence given last week, is beyond our ability to fathom. The pain and difficulty coming from that event is unquantifiable. Even so – is not able to bring blessing and goodness out of the darkest moments of our national life?   

I don’t believe that God intends for us to feel pain. I believe our pain and suffering mostly arises as we slowly learn the futility of our self-will. Without romanticizing struggle, we are all aware that struggle - even suffering - brings us in touch with the God who created us in a powerfully intimate way. The prayer book’s way of describing this phenomenon is that after we die our lives move “from strength to strength,” meaning that even in eternity, we continue to grow and learn.  

Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn, now in his eighties, spoke about his concept of Nirvana, and expressed a similar hope – that Nirvana, let’s call it heaven, would not be entirely blissful, for that would invite decay. In an interview several years ago Thich Nhat Hahn rather expressed hope that there would be suffering in the world to come, because it is from suffering that eternal beauty and compassion grow.  These words are spoken not by a man who is immune to suffering on earth, but from a man who lived through Vietnam war in his own country, caring for the wounded soldiers on both sides – a man well versed in suffering, and ironically for him, suffering becomes not something to flee when he dies, but rather his hope for eternity.  

I should tell you how that first story ends. The two young women leave the house and look back at the older women, her children, the mess. They see the lines of struggle on her face. And they realize the mistake in coming to her home. This woman didn’t need to be bothered about eternal life – for she already lived it.  In both their minds, the young women knew silently, they had just met Jesus. AMEN.

May 14, 2015

Ascension Day

Acts 1: 1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1: 15-23; Luke 24: 44-53

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Earlier this week a Pew Research Study surveyed 35,000 individuals about their religious affiliation. The results of the survey indicated that seventy percent of the respondents identified themselves as Christian, which actually seems like a pretty good number in my opinion. When compared to the results of the same survey eight years earlier, there is about an eight percent decrease. In 2007, eight years ago, seventy-eight percent of the respondents identified themselves as Christian. What accounts for this decline in the last eight years?  There are many reasons!

People point to hypocrisy in the church, which is real. They also point to Christians who are perceived as judgmental rather than compassionate. They point to the church being a patriarchal, archaic and anachronistic holdover from a bygone era.

It is this last reason I suggested, that the church is considered outdated, that I believe would be why many who label themselves “none” (N-O-N-E) on a religious identification survey would struggle with the day we are honoring today – Ascension Day.

The idea of ascending, or supernaturally floating up toward the heavens, is an ancient mythical concept that was part of the lore of a variety of gods and goddesses long before Christianity came around.  Christianity latched onto this idea, as it seemed to capture the popular imagination of the time – who wouldn’t want to fly away, leave your problems behind, like the old man does in the Pixar animated film “Up”? The closes we get to ascension is when we get into an airplane, fly up into the sky, and at least for a day or few days, leave the ordinariness of our life behind.

Admittedly, the Biblical concept of an ascension, where Jesus miraculously ascends to heaven is a bit outmoded. But we have to remember that the story about Christ’s ascent to heaven comes from a 2,000 year old world view in which people believed that heaven was literally  above us in the sky.  

But 500 years ago, Copernicus challenged the church at the time to reconcile traditional understandings  (such as Jesus ascending “up” into heaven) with the scientific worldview of the time, which was that heaven was not “up,” which, of course, got him crossways with the Catholic Church.  

There is another problem with Ascension though, and that has to do with the timing of the event.  Acts 1:3 says that after forty days of appearing to the disciples, Jesus ascended up to heaven. If you read the Bible, you might be aware that the number “forty” appears rather often. Noah and his family were in the ark forty days. The Hebrews were in the wilderness for forty years.  Moses spent forty days fasting on top of Mt. Sinai while writing the ten commandments. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness himself.  

When the number “forty” is used in the Bible, it is like shorthand for “a long time passed,” so it doesn’t mean forty exact days – it means “awhile.” Understanding that “forty days” doesn’t necessarily mean “forty days” helps us to understand Luke’s way of telling the story of the Ascension, in which Jesus ascends to heaven on the night following Easter.

There is great irony in the Ascension: Jesus abdicates power in order to rule.  He departs from the disciples in order to be more fully present. He withdraws so he can draw all people to himself. The Ascension doesn’t take Christ out of the world, it makes Christ available to all people at all times, in all places. St. Teresa of Avila understood this clearly, as she demonstrates in a prayer she wrote centuries ago on the Ascension:

“God of love, help us to remember that Christ has no body now on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours. Ours are the eyes to see the needs of the world.  Ours are the hands with which to bless everyone now. Ours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.” Christ’s body ascends, so that we may become Christ to those in our midst. AMEN.

May 10, 2015

VI Easter

Acts 10: 44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5: 1-6; John 15: 9 - 17

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Jesus shares with us the today the very heart of his teaching, which is to love one another, as we are loved by God.  This is sounds great for a Sunday School class with young children, where they color pictures of Jesus and the word “love,”  but for adults, love is more complicated. Today is Mother’s Day, a day where we celebrate the love we have for our mothers and they for us.  But today is an illustration of love’s complex nature as some of us have strained (at best) relationships with our mothers. Some of us have been wounded by our mothers, and yet Jesus calls is to love all, including those who wound us.

Jesus modeled perfect love throughout his life, but even he seems to have lost his patience with his mother at that wedding in Cana of Galilee. I believe that as a society, one of the most pressing issues we face is how we are to love one another.  

I am a product of a divorced household; a household where the kind of love Jesus talks about today was untenable. Yet I have learned over time that even divorce cannot overcome love. And not just divorce, but all our attempts to categorize people when we become upset with them because we find that easier to do than seeking to understand and love them. It is easier to harbor thoughts of prejudice, bigotry, or homophobia than it is to love a person. Love takes courage. Because if we choose to love a person, we are taking risk, and that risk is that we’ll get hurt – bad.  That pain is often the price of love.   

That kind of vulnerability might not seem very appealing to all of you, but consider the alternative.  We are living in a time when many of us find it difficult to love, because of schedules, resentments, anger. These things hurt us – they hurt us so badly that we try to do anything in our power to numb ourselves to that deep pain. For some of us the answer to a lack of love in our lives is an affair. Others of us choose to numb ourselves with alcohol, prescription or illegal drugs, pornography, or any other kind of addictive behavior.  

The good news about this bad news is that Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. Jesus knows about our selfishness, our addictive behaviors, our misplaced anger, and the list goes on and on - and in spite of what Jesus knows about us, he loves us. None of that matters to him. And we are challenged to love accordingly. It’s an impossible task – but when we love one another without expectation for return or any strings attached we are like Christ.  

Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin believed that the natural movement of God’s creation is toward what he calls Christogenesis, toward becoming Christ – and that every act of our daily lives has the potential of moving the world toward Christ’s kingdom.  If God is love, and Christ is in God, then every act of love increases Christ’s sway on the universe.

What power we have when we love!  Do you believe a single act of love you demonstrate today impacts the entire universe?  I do.  Chardin writes that “the smallest act of love causes the very marrow of the universe to vibrate.”

I believe these acts of love move the universe in such a way as Chardin describes because they are so difficult to do, and when they happen, are a big deal.  Jesus asks us to love one another without fear, without resentment, without judgment. That, my friends, is no easy task. And yet doing so, changes the entire universe.

Jesus challenges us to love others even when they are power hungry. To love others when they are inconsiderate, when they are angry and when they lash out blindly. We are called by Jesus to love others when they are selfish or insensitive, hateful, or blind to the needs of others.   

This is not easy to do. But today is Mother’s Day. Regardless of whether your mother is alive or she has joined the communion of saints, regardless of what your relationship is toward her, the fact is at one point in history, a woman cared for you, and raised you, nursed you, changed your diaper – why?  Because she loved you. Because you are a part of her, and she a part of you. Your mother in every way was Jesus to you.

This connection between mother and Jesus was not lost upon the fourteenth century saint Julian of Norwich, who said: “Jesus is our true Mother in nature by our first creation. And he is our true mother in grace by taking our created nature…He is our Mother, brother and savior.”   

The love of Mother Jesus, as St. Julian describes, casts out all fear, melts all prejudice, and dispels all ignorance. It is the most powerful force in the universe, and God has placed this power of love into the palm of your hand. What will you do with it? AMEN.

May 3, 2015

V Easter

ACTS 8:26-40; PSALM 22:24-30; 1 JOHN 4:7-21; JOHN 15:1-8

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THE REV. CARISSA BALDWIN-MCGINNIS

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  This is the first verse of the psalm for today - psalm 22.  Another faithful translation would be, “My God, my God, why have you left me?”  This is Jewish poetry that Jesus is said to have cried out at the time of his crucifixion.  It is a sentiment that also bellows from the the dark nights of our own souls.  Dark nights of the soul are spiritual seasons in which we can not find our true self, our life force or even our God.  In these times it can seem as if there is neither past nor future, while the present is pure agony.  Dark nights of the soul are understood by some in the faith tradition to be the true manifestation of Hell.  

You can hear a dark night soul’s lament in the poetry of Katie Ford, who writes as a mother about her premature babe.  She conveys that the baby was born with barely enough substance to register on a weight scale much less to survive.  She describes the weightless weight of her human child in terms of dimes, paperclips, and teaspoons of sugar.  The baby is, she declares, a “child of grams.”

For the child is born an unbreathing scripture
and her broken authors wait
on one gurney together.
And what is prayer from a gurney
but lantern-glow for God or demon
to fly toward the lonely in this deathly hour

Her words depict an obviously terrifying and and seemingly desolate place “Of a Child Early Born.”  Prayer from a gurney, she says, might have been dangerous.  It might have been like shining a light for death to find her family in which case it was better not to pray.

Many of us understand her.  We have felt in our spiritually desolate seasons that it is better not to pray lest we in attempting to attract the force that gives life instead invoke the force that takes it away.  A child early born, depression, separation from employment, infidelity, chronic illness, the death of a parent can all bring on dark spiritual seasons in which our life force is overwhelmed and in which we we become weak and feel defenseless.  Often in those seasons we also feel confusion about who God is or what God should be - or is or is not doing for us.  This can feel like a crisis of faith on top of a crisis of psychology or spirituality.

The baby’s mother essentially says, “Why pray?!  It can only attract death.”  She calls her child an “unbreathing scripture” as if the baby’s predicament is evidence that the promise of faith has no life.  But in so doing she is telling the story of her fear and desolation in faith terms.  Her ambivalence about prayer is a prayer.  Though we rarely perceive it at the time, people of faith most often look back and observe that God and faith are in fact to have been found dwelling in the vacancies of our strength and our hope.

The ancient, Jewish poet of psalm 22 describes a similar agony.

I am poured out like water,
  and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
  it is melted within my breast;
my mouth is dried up like a piece of rock,
  and my tongue sticks to my jowls;
(yet) you (God) (are the one who) lay(s) me in the dust of death

You, God, are the one who makes our bed in times of desolation.  “You don’t abandon”, says the psalmist.  “You accompany.”  Faith is not a matter of belief statements.  Faith is matter of how we tell our stories both in times of glory and in times of desolation.

Sometimes, we suffer collective or communal dark nights of the soul.  A family may grieve together the loss of a loved one.  A high school community may suffer shock in a case of a youth who has taken his or her own life.  Many of us in the United States are experiencing a dark night of our collective soul as we discover that the system slavery was not dismantled but rather replaced by a system of mass incarceration.

This painful discover is the revelation that Michelle Alexander, lawyer and author, has been teaching as she has travelled our nation for a few, short years.  In her work she has peeled back for us the lid from history to unveil a direct link from centuries ago plantation enslavement of black and immigrant labor to the present day policing and incarceration of people - and I will add children - of color.  If you have not studied this phenomenon for yourself beyond what you are getting from the nightly news, I encourage you to do so.  The book is titled,  “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness.”  As we grieve Baltimore and the homicide of Marcus Gray we suffer knowing that they are only the latest manifestation of this truth which seems unwilling to be suppressed any longer and which is busting through all over the skin of our society.

I leave us with what I read to be a love letter from a black mother who with her white husband is raising their black son in the City of Baltimore.  This was written the morning following the violence and looting that came in tandem with the death of Freddie Gray.  She writes:

It's a beautiful day in my neighborhood. I can see a rainbow of all classes and races and backgrounds out on the stoops of marble and stone. I/We congregate in OK Natural Foods, Neal's Hair Studio, Spirits Wine Store, Jo Ann's Eatery, The Bun Shop, Eddie's Grocery Store, and a new pottery studio. I/We  stop to shake hands, hug, kiss, laugh… just say "hi".

I/We show up with trash bags and brooms to help with the clean up in the places that we affected on a scale ranging from minor to major.

The sounds of sirens waft in the background along with (the) hum of the choppers. I/We know what happened last night, and there is uncertainty as to what is to come. One thing I/we do know and feel is the palpable love that I/we, the citizens of Baltimore, feel for our city.

This is where I live, and this is where I am becoming one of many stitches mending unrest and restoring peace, one step and one day at a time.

May our uncertainty be our prayer, an may our love be our praises in this temple and at this difficult time.

April 26, 2015

IV Easter

Acts 4: 5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3: 16-24; John 10: 11-18

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

As a young boy, I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. My closest friend was a classmate of mine from kindergarten, named Thomas Arnold, but we all knew him as “Tres,” because his full name was Thomas Arnold, the third, named after his father and after his grandfather. Like so many boys at that young age, Tres and I were inseparable, spending the night at each other’s houses, riding bikes, getting in trouble together at school.  

When I was ten years old, I moved back to Houston, and was sad to be moving away from Tres. He was my best friend at the time.  I didn’t realize it then, but looking back now, I remember Tres had a temper. He would get angry, and sometimes would become inconsolable. At those times, I remember not understanding his anger, or why he felt the way he did.  

As years went by, Tres and I gradually fell out of contact, and rarely, if ever communicated once we were in high school. We had new friends, new schools, and new driver’s licenses. It wasn’t until my junior year in high school that I went back to Phoenix, though not to see Tres, but rather, sadly, to attend his funeral. Tres, I learned, suffered from a severe depression that drained him of life, and inflicted him with a sense of despair. It was a despair so heavy, that for Tres, there was only one way to escape it.

Almost twenty-five years later, and as a parent now, I cannot even begin to imagine what it must have been like for his parents. Out of that experience, though, Tres’ mother emerged a changed woman. Because even in the hell of that experience, she discovered that she was not alone – that God was with her.  

Her awareness of God’s presence echoes that of the author of the twenty-third psalm, who writes “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me.”  I have heard from many people that their greatest fear is not dying, but being alone. We are wired to be connected with one another – it is in our DNA.  

We desire and want authentic friendship that is not based on who or what others want us to be – we want people to be connected to us for who we honestly are. When I pray the words of Psalm 23, and say “I fear no evil for you are with me,” for a long time I have understood the “you” to be God. And it surely is.

But as I read the psalm now, I understand the word “you” differently. Yes it refers to God, but it also refers to you (pointing).   It is a prayer for companionship. Because we are with God when we are with each other. That’s called solidarity – we find ourselves drawn into God’s life when we are drawn into the lives of others, friends, neighbors, and strangers.

Tres’ mother and father stumbled into a valley of death. The author of the psalm knows this world. There is no promise here of life without enemies or evil.  Instead, in this very valley, surrounded by enemies and death, God builds a table. – a place for fellowship and communion, for being with God and one another. Around the table, that is where God happens.  

As a church we practice a stubborn hope, the stubbornness of building tables wherever we find ourselves – no matter how precarious our lives, we do what God does: make room for people at the table so that they too may grow into eternal life. That’s what the church is: a table where all are welcome to sit and rest in God’s love.  

In the valley Tres’ parents found themselves in, they built a table. His mother, Kimball, was later ordained a Deacon in the Episcopal Church where she now serves in Arizona. She continues to practice resurrection through her work as a grief counselor, working with parents and children who have faced unspeakable loss. She is to those people experiencing unimaginable pain an icon of God’s presence in the darkest valley, a reminder that no valley is too dark for God.

Today you might find yourself in a dark valley.  If so, look around, because I guarantee someone has been in that valley before you. That person has built a table in that valley, and there is a seat with your name on it. And at that table all are welcome to eat and drink God’s life in that place where there is no need to fear any evil, for God was in the valley long before you ever arrived. AMEN.

April 19, 2015

Easter III-B 2015

Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; I John 3: 1-7; Like 24: 36-48

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THE REV. PORTIA SWEET

We continue in this Eastertide to read stories of Jesus' post resurrection appearances among his disciples and it is not always easy to understand  how these can relate to our lives today. There are many theological writings, many thoughtful as well as some rather preposterous theories about these stories. One entire weekend of spiritual encounter is held to journey the Road to Emmaus. By comparison, what can be said in a brief Sunday morning homily is only one or two small nuggets.  I urge you to take these rich readings home with you today and re-read and meditate on them throughout the week.

The reading from Acts is from a sermon Peter gave after he and John had healed a lame beggar near the temple in Jerusalem. This was a man whom others carried each day to his post, where he lay on his mat and begged.  Much like the story of Jesus' healing in a similar situation, Peter and John told the man they had no alms to give him, but would give what they had- the gift from the Holy Spirit of healing, the ability to be a conduit of God's healing grace. The man received their gift and got up and walked away. The witnessing crowd was astounded, causing Peter to make the remarks we just read.

Peter asked them, "Why do you wonder at this as though it were our own piety or power that made this man walk?"  He then summarizes the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, fully human and fully divine, and points out they were eye-witnesses to it all. Further, that these things were fulfillment of the scriptures and prophesies with which all Jews were familiar.

In his various appearances, exampled by the Gospel reading from Luke this morning, Jesus does some very normal things. He eats with them; he talks with them;  and he shows them his wounds, scars of his suffering and unconditional love. And Jesus does some very unusual things, like walking through walls and locked doors. His appearance has changed, yet through his words and actions, they recognize him. And this is key.

You see, Jesus repeatedly emphasizes to them the importance of breaking bread together and of taking the message of God's unfailing love and promise of forgiveness and salvation to everyone. He makes it clear that we are all to be conduits of that love and tellers of the story.

Now at that time in the early first century, Christians were horribly persecuted by the Romans, and at least disdained by the Jews. Being a Jesus Follower was a very risky business. We get this when we read that the disciples were frightened, the doors were locked, and they hid from public view. Yet, they believed in what they had lived and they proceeded to form ministries, help one another, and spread the story near and far. And it is because they did so that you and I today have the story available to us in the scriptures, our prayer book, and our music.

Today, we Christians are also under attack. Make no mistake, friends, in most regions of the globe, it is risky business in 2015 to profess belief in Christ. Here in our own country one can no longer assume that others understand the tenets of Christianity and there are times and places where discussion of faith is deemed inappropriate and other times and places where it is illegal. Many of our laws, customs and mores, initially based on the Judeo/Christian model of justice and morality have been diluted and eroded. Within my lifetime, this has come to be so.

This is why it is very important that we gather as a community on a regular basis as the early Christians did, to remember and recite our beliefs, to break bread together in remembrance and in the presence of our Lord, to seek forgiveness for our wrong doings and to encourage one another in our journeys through love - the kind of love which Jesus brought, taught, and lived.

The Israelites literally took up arms against enemies of God, as did the crusaders and others, who were self-appointed judges of who was an enemy. Jesus, however, said to spread our arms in love to honor and respect the dignity of every person, as we are all children of God. He said, love your enemies. To do this, we must not leave the impact, whatever it may be, of this hour of worship in the Narthex when we leave. Rather, we are to take it to the streets, to our homes, to work tomorrow, to wherever life takes us this week, and by golly, share it, as conduits of this grace, with each person we meet through what we say and how we behave. We, like Jesus, can do this through very ordinary acts: how we speak to another, for example. Do we speak as though we truly pray they are filled with God's Peace? Do we share meals, time together, thoughts and conversations?

And we can do some rather unusual things to bear witness to our faith. I say unusual because I think most of us do not do these on a daily basis. We can perform random acts of kindness like paying forward someone's meal or groceries. We can be really radical and invite someone to church! Oh yeah, it is done. And we need to recognize that the enemy is NOT groups of people. The enemy is injustice. We need to be asking, "Why are so many people nearby in need of food assistance and subsidized housing and decent wages?" It is the reasons behind those conditions that Christians need to rise up against, seeking justice for the voiceless.

If some end up wondering how you do it; how you smile and remain calm when there is anger floating everywhere; how you strive to do the right thing even if it costs you financially, in popularity or in other ways; how you are kind and compassionate to everybody - when they wonder, remember Peter's sermon. By faith in the Name of Christ, you are able to remain his follower.

Jesus came to transform us - change our hearts. One of the bases of the Rule of Benedict is Conversion. Simply put, this means change of heart. Our lifelong spiritual journeys, lived as Jesus followers, are made up of conversion experiences; that is, moments of meeting Christ in others wherever we are. But we must venture out a bit to experience this gift of conversion. You have to make appearances.

I have the privilege of helping to form an alliance of clergy from the other churches located nearby. We are small and we are diverse in how we worship. Yet we are Christ followers and respect, actually embrace and learn from our differences. This is the body that is sponsoring the Blessing of Soles next week, and we are look at how we might serve(read, show Christ's love) to the many segments of Heights population through an event that focuses on health and spirituality. As we discuss this, we can imagine many, many ways in which transformative encounters might occur. You are invited to inquire and come, be a part.

This is the promise: In the end, no matter what this age entails, each of us will have a place in God's heavenly kingdom. As God glorified Christ in baptism, suffering, death and resurrection,  so too, we may be glorified through Christ. It is, therefore, important that we give conscious thought and intention to living a Christ-like life, befitting this promise. And it is important that we, as a faith community, come often together to learn, share, worship, encourage, and love one another as Christ loves us.

Brother John of the Society of Jesus has said,"

"Listen to me. You HAVE to decide what you believe to be the most important work in the world and then you have to DO THAT WORK. Because THIS is what happens. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS. God shows up."

AMEN.

April 5, 2015 - 10:30 Service

Easter Sunday

Acts 10: 34-43; 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11; Mark 16: 1-8

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Happy Easter!

I want to say that right of the bat because the reading we just heard from Mark just doesn’t sound very “Eastery.” It just comes to a complete stop with everyone running away from the tomb afraid – it leaves with this cliffhanger of an ending. What happened to the women who ran away from the tomb?  What about the disciples – where do they go? Fortunately in the age of Netflix, cliffhanger endings aren’t so bad anymore – you finish one episode of Sons of Anarchy or Breaking Bad where it leaves you hanging, you can just pull up the very next episode and start watching again. Problem solved!

But it wasn’t always this way. My first experience with  cliffhanger endings was as a child watching a two part episode of the Brady Bunch in the 1980s. In the episode, the Brady family travels to Hawaii for a vacation. While there, the oldest son, Greg, played by actor Barry Williams, goes surfing and his parents and siblings are watching him surf along the waves until the very end of the episode, when this giant wave comes crashing down upon him, and all you see is the surf board, floating in the ocean. Greg Brady is nowhere to be seen.  And then those three awful words appear on the screen – TO BE CONTINUED. It felt like a betrayal to my eleven year-old heart.  How could they just stop the story there?

For a whole week I anxiously awaited the next episode of the Brady Bunch to learn of poor Greg Brady’s fate. Did he survive the tidal wave? Was he eaten by a shark? Well, you’re just going to have to find out for yourself, because I’m not going to tell you.  Just kidding! Greg Brady survived his surfing accident.

Today cliffhanger endings are common place, whether in movies or television shows. And they are much older than select Brady Bunch or Happy Days episodes. I don’t know when the first recorded cliffhanger ending occurred, but I would wager that the story we heard today from Mark’s Gospel is certainly a qualified contender.   

Mark leaves us hanging with that last sentence we heard this morning: “So they [the women] went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

That’s how the story, at least according to Mark, originally ended. That is the very end of Mark’s Gospel originally. No mention of Easter Eggs, marshmellow peeps, or chocolate rabbits. Just fear that first Easter morning. It’s kind of a downer ending, and I gather it wasn’t really popular, because  some years later, a second ending was added on, one we didn’t hear today, but a few more verses of chapter 16 in Mark that attempt to put a more positive spin on things, rather than having everybody anxiously fleeing the tomb.  

It is a cliff hanger ending if there ever was one. What happened to Jesus? Or his mother, Mary? What about the disciples – where do they go?  None of these questions are answered. Reading Mark’s Gospel and coming to the end with all these unanswered questions is almost as frustrating as it was for me to watch six seasons of the TV show “Lost” only to arrive at the end of it with more questions. What ever happened to Walt? Who put that weird statue on the island?  (Apologies to anyone who hasn’t watched the show) Today I find myself more comfortable with Mark’s sudden ending. I’m okay with everybody running away scared, because I know that’s not the end of the story.  

This Holy Week I have made a new friend – it’s a dove that sits upon the branch of a crape myrtle tree just outside my office window. I noticed the same thing during Holy Week last year, too.  He (or she) stays in the tree for Holy Week, and then leaves and flies somewhere else. Is it the same dove from last year? Who knows.  But - the dove was outside my window as I wrote this sermon, and somehow it served as a reminder that Mark’s ending is not a cliffhanger – the story that ends on chapter 16 doesn’t really end there.

I say that because the dove outside my window reminded me that we are the next part of the story Mark begins. Yes, the women run away out of fear, but look at all of us here this morning. Your presence here proves to the world that Mark’s story doesn’t end where the Bible says it does. We are the next chapter – let’s call it chapter 17 - and it is a Gospel story we get to write, where we get to tell the stories of lives changed, of hope found, and most importantly, the fact that we are not alone, because God is with us and in us.

There is a dove sitting outside your life on a branch, and that dove is God’s spirit, which will never end, it always will be with you. The story Mark told needed to end so that your Easter story could begin. Where will you go when you leave the church today? Hopefully you don’t flee in fear!  I wonder, what story will you tell?  

God’s Easter blessing be upon you and your families this day. May you be blessed with courage to tell your story, giving it to the God who replaces cliffhangers with a Divine story that never ends. AMEN.

April 5, 2015 - 8:30 Service

Easter Sunday

ACTS 10: 34-43; 1 CORINTHIANS 15: 1-11; MARK 16: 1-8

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THE REV. PORTIA SWEET

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! We sing this joyous music and gather among all this springtime beauty to listen to a tale of great mystery. I think most of us like a mystery. There are certainly an overabundance of them on TV, in novels, and in real life. Whodunit? Que paso? Where is Sherlock when you need him?

As Christians, we make no attempt to disguise the fact that our faith involves mystery. Holy Mystery. Although human beings have evolved physically and mentally over the centuries, we are still human, and we have not conquered the world of the divine. Easter is one of those mysteries.

What is not a mystery is whether Jesus died on that cross. Pilate, who condemned him to die asked his own witnesses if indeed Jesus was dead before he, Pilate, agreed to release the body for burial .And his own men testified that Jesus was indeed dead. In most cases, crucified bodies remained on public view on their crosses as a deterrent to further testing of empirical authority by the public. Christ's dead body was taken down, wrapped in a cloth and placed in a new tomb, which was then closed by a large stone. Since by this time, it was very near the beginning of the Sabbath when all Jews had to be off the streets and no activities were to be carried out, The proper rituals of anointing were left for later.

It is the following day then, when the mystery begins to unfold. The women who had followed Jesus throughout his ministry on earth went to perform those rituals. They worried a bit about how they were going to get that heavy stone out of the way. So, when they arrived and discovered that someone had already removed the stone, they had to be surprised, stunned, perhaps frightened? Well certainly all of the above when they then saw a young man dressed in dazzling white clothes sitting nearby and no body was in the tomb. This mysterious messenger informed the shocked women that Jesus has gone and will meet up with them and the men in Galilee, just as he said he would do. Jesus had work to do and was not going to hang around.

In all the Gospel stories and other writings we do not have any account of what happened inside that tomb. We do not know the precise details. However the resurrection happened, it is a mystery. It was an Act of God. It was the fulfillment of a promise Jesus, God Incarnate, made before his death. But it did happen. I find it interesting that Mark ends this Gospel by saying the women told no one. Yet they had to tell or we would not have, as Paul Harvey used to say, "The rest of the story." There are various scholarly theories as to why this gospel ends this way and whether it actually does end here, But all that is another sermon. Important for us today is that the event was told, and told and told again.

How do I know it happened? And how can I be sure if I do not know how it happened? Do I not have an inquiring mind? Well, we have two additional readings of Scripture this morning, from two other sources, which testify to the fact of the Resurrection. And neither of these sources were in the tomb with Jesus.

He will meet them in Galilee as he told them. Why Galilee? Well, Jesus' ministry began with his baptism, near Galilee. Many of his acts of healing, times of teaching and acts of feeding the crowds occurred in Galilee. At least some of his closest followers were from Galilee. So what could be a more fitting place to gather than in Galilee and to live into the next chapter?

Jesus did meet his frightened band of followers. In all, he appeared several times and in several situations to them and others in the next six weeks. Luke records in the Book of Acts that Peter states "God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  The risen Lord appeared to Paul later in yet another mysterious event on the Road to Damascus. Paul was so transformed by the encounter that he believed and proclaimed the resurrection to all whom he met. Both Peter and Paul believed so completely in the Resurrection of Jesus, they died for their faith.

The message Mark brings us is that Jesus is not buried in a national cemetery. Jesus had work to do immediately - a word famously associated with the writer of this Gospel. Jesus was on yet another mission, and he has sent us also on a mission. We are not to look for Jesus in museums, cemeteries, old books, or in TV scripts. We are to be in the world, among God's people, and among people who do not know God but who are loved by him nonetheless. We are commanded to carry the faith of Peter, Paul, and all the martyrs as our shield and spread the Good News. Jesus came into this world to forgive our sin and reconcile us to God, our Creator. His life and death and Resurrection were not simply one time events in the history books to be memorized then forgotten, my friends, for Our Redeemer Lives - today - now - here - in the hearts and bodies of each one who claims him.

As we shout our Alleluias and proclaim the resurrection of our Lord, we are to step beyond the tombs of our own making and get to work, as Jesus did. We are to meet our neighbors who hunger for some good news and thirst for the salvation we know. We are to show them through the way we conduct our lives what it is to be a follower of this Jesus. We will be hearing more about Jesus' Resurrection appearances in the next few weeks. We are to invite them in to hear a good mystery story, and more - to be a part of the mystery itself.  For as we share bread and wine at this altar in a few minutes, we do become part of the mystery. Go! Tell. Do not be afraid. Alleluia! Christ is Risen. Amen.

April 4, 2015

Easter Vigil

Romans 6: 3-11; Psalm 114; Mark 16:1-8

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THE REV. JAMES M.L. GRACE

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

You may or may not know this, and the number of people here tonight compared to the capacity crowds we will have tomorrow doesn’t reflect what I am about to tell you, but tonight, The Great Vigil of Easter, is the most important service in the Christian calendar year. It is important because it is the first Eucharist of Easter, but it is important for another ancient reason.  

That reason is because Christianity is firmly rooted in Judaism – Jesus himself was Jewish. So this means that Jewish traditions are also in a way our traditions. One important tradition in the Jewish religion is Passover, which commemorates the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, a story we heard in one of our readings tonight. Specifically, Passover commemorates the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb a lamb whose blood was spread across the doors of Jewish homes in Egypt so that the angel of death would “pass over” those homes and not take the first born son.  

What does Passover have to do with tonight? Many Christians see Christ’s death and resurrection as a Passover moment. In other words, Christians see in Jesus that lamb whose blood spared the Hebrews in Egypt just as the death of Jesus upon the cross and his resurrection spares our lives and allows us to be truly free.

This connection between Judaism and Christianity is especially evident during the Eucharist, when the priest takes the bread, the body of Christ, breaks it, and says the words “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”  

The connection between what we call Easter and Passover is so strong that in every language besides English, the same word is used for the Jewish Passover and Christian Easter. The word is “pascha,” and it means Passover.  It is from this word, pascha, that we get the word paschal, which is the name of this candle – we call it the Paschal Candle. It signifies to us the very light of Christ which leads us upon our journey as the pillar of fire led the Hebrew people in the wilderness.

This Paschal candle is a reminder to us of Christ’s own Passover from death into life, which we celebrate at this first Easter service. The Paschal Candle is lit during all services in the Easter season and also at all baptisms and funerals.  This year we made a change with our Paschal Candle. In years past we have used an oil candle, like the ones upon the altar, because they don’t melt and spill wax on the floor and create a nightmare for the altar guild.  

But this year we have wax Paschal candle, which is more fragile than an oil candle because it will age, and over the next year as it melts, it will look different.  Hopefully, it won’t spill wax onto the floor! The work of this candle is to burn in the service of God. It will be with us all year, until the next Easter Vigil service, when we light a new Paschal Candle. The candle is a special candle for us, a reminder of the Paschal mystery – which is Christ’s death, descent among the dead, and his resurrection to everlasting life.  

The Paschal Candle reminds us of the power of Christ’s eternal light which shines in this church now, and more importantly, shines in our hearts.  We began our service in darkness, and now in the midst of the first Easter, we are awash in brilliant paschal light. Let your light so shine before all women and men that they may see your good works which glorify God in heaven.  AMEN.