The Prodigal SonS

A reflection on Luke 15:11-32

In the story of the prodigal son, do you think much about the older son? We like the nicely completed story of the younger son who decided to leave the family ranch for the big city, demanding his share of the family wealth as he goes. It’s easy to see how he squandered the gifts he had. And it gives us a sense of completion to see him return, destitute, willing to ask for his Father’s forgiveness. This is the vulnerable humility everyone should show when they admit to their harmful behaviors. And the Father offers grace and forgiveness and rejoices.

But what about the older son, the one who stayed and worked? Do you ever think about him wasting or squandering the gifts he had? He stayed. He worked with his Father rebuilding the wealth that the younger brother depleted. He followed the rules. And he is angry and resentful and grumpy and unwilling to join in the celebratory barbecue to welcome his brother home. I get it. It can be challenging to celebrate with someone whose mess we had to help clean up. It’s far easier to just label the one who made the mess as useless or worthless than it is to see them as God does.

The Father’s generosity and love has been available to the older son all along but all the son could see is the Father’s rejoicing over the return of the one the older son blames for the pain that he has nurtured into prideful entitlement. This son also wasted his Father’s gifts.

Blame is easy. Blame feeds our self-righteousness. Self-awareness is the weed-killer that stops blame from growing into resentment and anger. The only person whose emotions and behaviors I can manage is me. I can’t make another be who I think they should be but I can allow God’s love and forgiveness shape how I see and interact with others. Personal growth isn’t easy. It takes strength and courage to be who God created us to be.

The Father knows that relationships, especially ones that have been broken and restored are the most valuable thing we have in life. Reconciled relationships are stronger than they were before the damage because true reconciliation requires growth on both sides. It takes strength to admit fault and to say I’m sorry. It takes courage to accept the apology and to love in spite of the hurt caused. Reconciliation requires movement and healing on both sides of the relationship, a willingness to change and grow and work together to intentionally forge a relationship stronger and more healthy than it was before.

Jesus doesn’t tell us if the older son ever let go of his self-righteous resentment and reconciled with his Father and brother. We don’t get a tidy bow on this story. I think the intent of the ‘cliff-hangers’ in Jesus’ parables is to make us think “how would I end this story?” Do I nurture my resentment with more effort than I put into intentionally growing the relationships in my life? Am I willing to step into God’s strength that enables me to either say or accept “I’m sorry” and “Let’s do the work of reconciliation together”?

I think this parable needs to be titled ‘The Prodigal SonS’. In their own ways they both left their relationship with their Father and squandered what they had been given. Jesus gives us the ideal ending with the younger son and lets us work out the ending with the older son ourselves.

Imagine what our world would be like if we worked as diligently at our relationships as we do attempting to amass whatever form of wealth that has gained our attention. God’s gifts to all of us – love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation – are always available. We can walk away from them. We can ignore them. Or, we can live into them with the wisdom that these gifts grow in abundance the more we live into them. And there’s always more than enough for everyone.

Do you have a few minutes?

Hi, Y’all. As I sit here with my coffee and my dogs watching the sunrise on this chilly morning, I’m reading the headlines and attempting to process all that is going on in this country. I know, these are big thoughts for a Friday morning but it’s how my brain works this time of day. I’m a morning person.

So, here’s what’s on my mind: We are losing our capacity for empathy. There’s lots of reasons for this loss and I’ll leave those theories and explanations to the psychologists, sociologists, and other experts who know how to study such things.

I think that a major reason is we are being giving permission not to be empathetic on a daily basis by the leadership of this country. I am regularly shocked by the way our president speaks of others, by the way he shows absolutely no concern, empathetic or otherwise, for any human being. I do not understand how anyone can say he’s looking out for us or the greater good by what he’s doing.

I see him intentionally creating chaos and crashing the lives of those whose jobs he’s deleting and anyone who disagrees with him. I see his lies and his rewriting of the narrative and his unwillingness to see his fellow human beings as anything but instruments of his desires and collateral damage in his game of greed.

I hear folks scared about what will become of their social security income and their Medicare funds to pay for their healthcare, neither of which are entitlements but money from their own income over the years that our president and his co-president are threatening to steal.

But y’all know all of this. The only reason anyone cannot see it at this point is, in my opinion, because they are choosing not to. If I’m wrong about that, please help me understand why you support what our president is doing.

Empathy is defined as “an emotional response of compassion and concern caused by witnessing someone else in need.” Empathy is an other-oriented view of the world around us. Empathetic concern is a fancy psychology phrase for how Jesus teaches us to live when he tells us to love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as ourselves.

We cannot follow Jesus and be unmoved by the pain and suffering in this world. I don’t know how to say that more plainly. That isn’t just my opinion. It is the teaching of Jesus, part and parcel to the Gospel that is Good News for the poor and oppressed and ALL people. We cannot follow Jesus and turn a blind eye to the pain and suffering that is being caused by the actions of our president.

AND, we must be guided by Jesus as we address the evil, as we speak LOVE more loudly than the hate. We cannot devolve into name calling or brutality. Express curious compassion to those who are still under the spell of our president. Write and call your representatives and firmly speak the truth. Reach out to your neighbors. It’s difficult, I know. But with God’s help we can follow Jesus in the Way of Love.

And, to wrap up, I used the following blessing a couple of Sundays ago and some of you have asked for a copy of it.

Thanks for listening, y’all. Together in love and with God’s help we continue to build up God’s Kingdom on earth as in Heaven. LOVE.

Mothering Love

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX.
The Lectionary readings for the Second Sunday in Lent are here.

We are in the second week of Lent. Did you give up anything? Did you take on something new? How’s it going? Did you ask, along with the what and how of giving up or taking one, the most important question? Why? Why do we make decisions to give things up or take things on for Lent?

If I give up buying more Lenten devotion books for lent, yes, my budget will be happy and yes, I’ll be less frustrated in trying to decide which one I read first and feel less guilt for reading a 40 day daily devotional in three days, but what’s the real purpose?

If you look to church history, you’ll find connections between our giving something up and sacrifices, you’ll find explanations of remembering we depend on God for all things, and that it’s a small scale metaphor for God giving of God’s life for us. And all of these are legitimate reasons to observe Lent. But, again, I ask for what purpose? Why do we need to remind ourselves of what God has done for us and who and Whose we are?

The purpose of Lent is to be intentional about opening ourselves up to growing deeper in relationship with God because tending to our relationship with God is the very purpose of our creation in the first place. The purpose of Lent is to make more room for God in our daily lives and because we are human with limits and one of those limits is there is only 24 hours in a day if we want to make more room for God we may need to let go of something else.

Sometimes, though, what we need to do is become aware of God’s presence with us in what we are already doing. Do you consider that God is with you when you are doing laundry, washing dishes, doing yard work, working on your hobbies, spending time with your family and friends, relaxing in front of the tv, stressing while watching the news, while paying bills, or sitting in the doctor’s office?

God doesn’t want to be the god of only those parts of our life where we choose to acknowledge God. God wants us to know the joy and love of God being God of our whole life.

The other day I was working on a piece of writing about how the words we choose to use matter and when our grandmothers told us not to call people names it was because they understood that when we call people names, it is an attempt, whether we are conscious of it or not, to dehumanize them even just a little bit. Names articulate who we are and the names we use for others articulates who we think they are. When people call us by name we feel like we matter and when we call someone a name with negative intent it is because we want to show disrespect.

So, as I was writing I typed a sentence that read, “Jesus never called anyone a name.” and then I immediately remembered the passage I just read and I quickly deleted the apparent heresy I had typed. Jesus called Herod a disrespectful name. But in order to get to the root of it we need to back up a bit in the story. Jesus is speaking in a synagogue and has just healed a woman on the sabbath and of course the leader of the synagogue is incensed. Jesus’ response is to caution those listening against taking better care of their animals on the sabbath than they do God’s beloved people and he follows this with three short parables to answer the question “what is the Kingdom of God like” – yeast, a mustard seed, and a narrow door – and wraps up his sermon with ‘some who are last will be first and some who are first will be last.’

And then these Pharisees come to warn him that Herod is out to get Jesus because of his talk of Kingdoms. Jesus does’t flinch. He doesn’t become defensive or threatening. Instead, Jesus offers a message to Herod and calls Herod a fox. Just like in our English language, this would have created an image of a cunning or sly person. Jesus knew how Herod had treated his cousin John. Herod was both intrigued and threatened by John’s words and was willing to trade John’s life for his own reputation. By calling Herod a fox, Jesus is making the point that Herod doesn’t live and behave as a person created in the image of God should in God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven. Herod is acting more like an animal whose only instinct is to preserve its own life. Herod becomes a character in one of Jesus’ parables on what the Kingdom of God is and isn’t like.

And in this extended parable, Jesus makes one of the most striking woman-centered images of God in all of scripture – Jesus likens himself to a mother hen who is trying to gather her children together for protection from the fox. What breaks Jesus’ heart is when the children of God would rather be in danger with the fox than in safety with God. The people of Jerusalem, a metaphor for the religious elite, don’t want to make room for God because they would have to give up the power and high ranking status they love more. Making room in their lives for God would mean making room in their hearts for all of God’s people, even the poor and those on the margins. They don’t want to live in God’s kingdom; they only want to build up their own status. And Jesus says when they make that choice, God will leave them to it.

In our divided world, we all have a choice. Do we follow Jesus through the narrow door of the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven? Do we sow love and compassion and empathy to grow more love and compassion and empathy? Do we live with the understanding that how we live and treat others leavens the world either positively or negatively?

God’s greatest desire for every human being is that we all live in the love of God’s Kingdom here and now, where and when we are, loving God with our whole lives, loving our neighbor as ourselves, meaning we want for our neighbor what we want for ourselves, that we want all people to thrive just as we want for ourselves.

In God’s kingdom on earth, when we seek the greater good of all people, we all thrive. There is always enough for everyone. But we have to choose to make room for God in our lives, to make God the God of our whole life. And sometime this means we have to clear out a closet or two, we have to look at what fills our days and our hearts and our minds and see what we need to rearrange or clear out so that God is God of our whole life. Now, granted this should be an ongoing way of looking at and analyzing our lives but in this season of Lent, we are to give extra attention to it. A bit of spring cleaning if you will in the weeks before Easter when we proclaim and celebrate the good news of our faith. God loves us all, every human ever, so much that God is willing to give God’s life to reconcile with us. And it was never God who harmed the relationship between God and any of us. We are the ones who choose to hang out with the fox instead of God and even so, God said I’ll give myself up so we can be in relationship. That is an extraordinary, beyond human comprehension kind of love.

So, with whatever you’ve given up for Lent, how are you intentionally making more and more room for God’s Mothering Love? The more room we make for God, the more room, the more love we have for each other. So, trust your grandmother and don’t call people names, leave that to Jesus. With God’s Mothering Love we can help heal the pain and division of our collective life on earth as in heaven. Amen.

Our Amazing Humanness

A sermon preached on Ash Wednesday at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The readings for Ash Wednesday are here.

All right, since it’s Ash Wednesday, I have a confession to make. My biggest issue in the season of Lent isn’t about giving things up, I’ve already proven to myself I have the self-discipline to give up just about anything for six weeks. My biggest issue is that I over-indulge in Lent devotions. Seriously, I’ve either bought or downloaded 4 different ones for this year. And that’s on top of the year long devotional book that I began in January, I mean, am I supposed to suspend that for the next 40 days or add my Lent ones to it?

The last one I bought just last week is titled, “God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us” by the Reverend Lizzie McManus Dail. The title hit me hard in my lifelong journey to heal from the harm of my childhood church. I know it’s supposed to be a daily devotional for 40 days but I’m already about a third of the way in. Our prayer for Ash Wednesday says the same thing in a peculiar way: God hates nothing God has made. And, despite what the prayer may go on to say, I proclaim with confidence that God does not make us wretched. I really dislike that word, it’s so, so … well, wretched. If I were on the Prayer Book committee I’d ask to change it to ‘humanness’.

So, what is it to be human, to be in our humanness, to acknowledge our humanness? I know this is challenging for many to hear, but being human means we have limits, that we are finite. We can’t do everything or know everything or even be everything anyone ever wanted. But neither does it mean we are worthless or wretched. Being human means that despite our best efforts and how we might pretend to others, we never really have it all together. Being human means we are The Created of our Creator God. Being human means God chose to create us so that God could love us because God is love.

And in the stories our faith ancestors tell of this amazing Creator God, when God made us, God declared that all of creation is now Very Good. Being created from the dust does not mean we are insignificant; being created from dust is about our connectedness to both our Creator and all of Creation. Often the ‘you are dust and to dust you will return’ of Ash Wednesday comes across as harmful And demeaning because with much of our theology, our understanding of God, we make the mistake of not beginning at the beginning.

This Creator God who made the beauty of the stars, the wildness of the wind, the well ordered rhythm of days and seasons, the whimsy of flowers and butterflies, the strength of tigers and bears, the oddity of platypuses and penguins and sloths, the solidness of rocks and mountains, the fluidity of rivers and streams, this God made US! And even better, this God made us in God’s own image!

One of my desires for all of us through this Lent season is that we rewind our theology of humanness a bit, to start with how and by whom we are created and for what purposes, rather than starting with the moment we attempted to put ourselves at the center of the universe, what is commonly referred to as the Fall.

This is not where God started. It’s is where we used our freewill not to love God back but to take our own journey thinking we could create our own universe. The Fall is where God started God’s relentless pursuit of us to remind us we are created in love and by love and for love.

I think ‘acknowledging our wretchedness’ is going against God’s view of us. He sees us as beautiful beloved children AND God knows we do and think and say things that are harmful to ourselves and others AND God loves us and chooses to make us worthy to be heirs of God’s Kingdom.

And none of what I’ve just said means that any of us are perfect or can do whatever we want without guilt. Part of being human is that we often make choices that go against God’s purposes for us. Instead of living from the place of God’s Image within us, we try to be the small ‘g’ god of our own universe. Sometimes it’s intentional because we want to have power over others. Sometimes it’s accidental because we are just behaving as we have been taught to survive.

But, regardless of intent or accident, we have to acknowledge our humanness, come to terms with who God is and who we are, and confess this knowledge to God (even though God already knows).

This is what Ash Wednesday is all about, acknowledging our humanness, saying to God and our community of faith that we realize we cause harm to others and ourselves and we want to be better humans. The season of Lent is an intentional time to focus on those aspects of our lives that cause harm, the way we treat others and ourselves, the way we tend to our bodies and souls, and the way we care for all of creation, to acknowledge we do harm and then do the intentional work of BECOMING and BEING better at living from the Image of God within us throughout our lifelong Journey with Jesus.

Lent is not about showing the world how good we are at punishing ourselves or beating ourselves up or about how good we are at self-discipline. This is the point Jesus is trying to make in this sermon as recorded by Matthew. Not that Jesus was talking about Lent because it hadn’t been invented yet but the point fits. Sometimes, in ChurchLand it’s like we are having a competition to see who can prove themselves the most wretched when what we should be concentrating on is how to become more and more the humans God created us to be by living as Jesus shows us to live, in love and for love.

God doesn’t ask us to prove anything – either how holy or how wretched we are. God knows who we are and God has already done the work of forgiveness and restoration and reconciliation by coming to us as Jesus, to live and die as one of us. God invites us to remember we are created good and that we are connected to each other and all of creation. God invites us to live the good life of love and compassion and grace and empathy. Heaven’s treasure is the relationships we live into with the firm knowledge that we are neither less than or more than any other human being. We are all on equal footing. Heaven’s treasure is the freedom we feel when we allow ourselves to be who God created us to be instead of trying to be better or worse than anyone else. Heaven’s treasure is the abundance of God’s love flowing through us into the world.

These rewards are here for us now, as we work with God to build up the Kingdom on earth as in heaven. Have a blessed intentional Lent in all of your Humanness. Amen.

Recognizing Jesus

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The lectionary readings for the Last Sunday after Epiphany are here.

There’s a relatively well-known story in some church circles about a priest in an average middle-class American church who told her congregation that she’d be out of town the next Sunday and they’d have a visiting priest. On that Sunday, as the congregation began to arrive for the worship service, a stranger walked in, not well dressed nor apparently recently bathed, and made her way to the middle of a pew in the middle of one side. She didn’t speak to anyone or make eye contact, just walked in and sat down. As others noticed her, they whispered and stared, one or two approached with a shy “good morning and welcome” but didn’t reach out or get too close as they continued their conversations about whether or not they should invite the visiting priest to lunch.

At the Passing of the Peace, just a couple of people reached over to shake her hand. She kept her head down but offered them Peace back. As the service ended she slipped down the side aisle and left as the congregation lined up to shake hands with the visiting priest.

The next Sunday as their priest got up for the sermon, she laid a ragged, dirty zip up hoodie across the pulpit. And then she watched as a few of the more observant folks recognized it. “Did y’all enjoy your guest last week?” They smiled and nodded. “I’m so sorry I missed getting to meet her but I trust y’all went out of your way to make her feel welcome and at home.” People began to look confused and shift uncomfortably in their seats. You see, the guest priest had been a man. “Did anyone get her name or contact information. I’d love to reach out to her.” By now no one was looking at the priest, only at the hoodie she had laid on the pulpit. She moved on to the sermon, on the same gospel passage we read today, commonly known as the Transfiguration of Jesus.

In our story today, Jesus invites Peter, James, and John to go with him for some quiet prayer time but what our reading leaves off is the intro to the first sentence. It actually begins, “Now about eight days after these sayings …”. Whenever the Gospel writers give us a time indicator we need to pay attention because it links what comes before with the new story signaling that what is about to be read needs to be understood in it’s proximity to what comes before.

So, what did Jesus say eight days before? Some pretty challenging things like if we want to follow Jesus we have to take up our cross, we have to be willing to set aside our personal desires for the greater good of all people, that we need to make our life’s purpose the building up of God’s Kingdom, not our own. And that if we are ashamed of Jesus’ teachings about love and mercy and grace, he will be ashamed of us.

So with these thoughts meandering around in their heads and hearts, Peter, James, and John go with Jesus on the prayer retreat. And they witness something extraordinary on the mountain top. Peter wants to preserve the feeling of truly seeing Jesus with their hearts for the first time. He wants to stay in this moment forever. Don’t we all? But he’s interrupted by the very voice of God. “This is my beloved. Listen to him.”

You see, the transfiguration of Jesus wasn’t for Jesus’ benefit, he knows who he is; the transfiguration happened so Peter, James, and John could truly see and know who Jesus is, not just for a temporary feel-good moment, but so that this wisdom would transform every aspect of their ordinary lives.

And then Jesus leads Peter, James, and John back into the community to continue to reveal himself through healing and restoration, through feeding the hungry and sharing the abundance of God’s kingdom with everyone.

We are also told a curious thing about this incident, that these three students of Jesus kept silent as they came down the mountain and returned to the regular rhythm of their day. And, on the next day, they and a crowd of others witness Jesus healing a boy and restoring the father/son relationship. And all were astounded at the Glory of God. Isn’t it interesting that the crowds who witness Jesus showing up with love and compassion don’t keep silent and his best known students did.

God’s glory isn’t something we are to attempt to contain, either in this building or on a mountain top retreat, or in our hearts. When we see Jesus for who he truly is the glorious, life transforming Love of God is something we must share with the world.

God didn’t choose to show up in this world in fancy palaces or wealthy mansions. God showed up through a woman with no social standing. And God shows up in and through the people who make the teachings of Jesus the compass for their daily lives for the sake of those who need to be seen and heard and fed and cared for.

It’s an important part of our life’s rhythm to show up here and worship together. Just like this mountain top scene with Jesus and his disciples, it properly orients us to who and Whose we are – God’s beloved children. it gives us the opportunity to see Jesus for who he is. It keeps us properly ordered as to who God is and who we are as we worship the One who created all in and for love. But we can’t stay here; we can’t contain God’s glory here. What happens here, what we do together here – pray, hear God’s Word, praise, and receive the body and blood of Jesus in fellowship – is intended to transform us so we can see Jesus for who he is, our Lord and Savior, so that we can show up as the image of God for the hurting world.

In the gospel stories, Jesus shows up as a shepherd, a friend, a teacher, a prophetic voice, and a sacrificial love giver. In our recent class on the Revelation to John, we talked a lot about who Jesus is and how he shows up in John’s visions; Jesus shows up as a slaughtered Lamb, as a victorious king whose ‘sword’ is God’s word of Truth. Never does he show up as a violent, vengeful warrior or as an autocratic leader demanding respect or as a condemning or oppressive religious leader. Jesus shows up in this world in and through us, the people who have made the choice to follow Jesus for the Glory of God.

How does Jesus show up for you? Do you look for Jesus in the not so put together stranger or only in the one in the pulpit? Do you look for Jesus in the kindness of others or only in the ones who lord power over others. In the marginalized or only in the celebrities?

How does Jesus show up for others through your life? As an empathetic and compassionate friend and neighbor who wants for others the same flourishing we want for ourselves?

At our diocesan council week before last, one of our guest speakers was Lutheran Bishop Sue Briner said, “we have been too quiet for too long about who Jesus is.” We can’t hide our relationship with Jesus in this place. We are all called to show Jesus to the world so that the world is shaped by Love and compassion and empathy. This is how we participate in the building up of God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven. This is how we are transformed into the image of the One we follow for God’s glory.

In this world so permeated with hate and anger, let’s love loudly so others know who Jesus is, too. Amen.

Love Carefully

I originally wrote this in 2019 and before I started this blog. I’ve added an update to the end so I invite you to grab your favorite beverage and read the whole thing (and pay attention to the paragraph that begins “I also think it is a small step toward stopping all immigration to the US and the possible elimination of all public assistance for permanent residents and even citizens…).”

Can I share with you a story?

By my income, I’m classified as middle-class. I have a graduate degree and have been working and paying taxes (mostly) since I was 13 years old. I have a full time job with health benefits, a pension, 403b, no debt except for a mortgage, and a decent sized savings account. My parents were well educated, hard working people who raised us kids to be educated, hard working adults. And, for a couple of years when I was a young single mom, working and going to school so I could make a good life for me and my son, I was on food stamps.

Here’s another piece of my story: I am a naturalized citizen of the United States. I was born in Germany, in a German hospital while my dad was in the Civil Service and stationed there. I have a German birth certificate. My parents filed my birth with the consulate in Munich. We moved back to the states when I was 2 and I traveled with an infant stamp in my mother’s passport. When I was 12 or 13 I applied for and received a social security number. In my mid-30s, post 9/11, I was going to travel outside the US for the first time since I was 2 (except for Mexico and Canada which only required I had ID to cross back and forth prior to 9/11) and I applied for my own passport. The state department sent me a letter saying they had no record of my citizenship. Although I had worked and paid taxes since I was 13, I didn’t exist as a citizen of the United States. So, to cut to the chase here, my mom still had her expired passport that had my infant stamp and I sent that to the state department. They did their research and found the original documentation my parents had filed in a basement in the consular office in Munich. It had never been sent to the State Department in Washington. With the paperwork located, I was issued my naturalization papers, dated 1967 and signed by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Yes, I am concerned that some day someone will “do the math” and question the validity of my papers.

So, in my head and heart, I bump my story up against the new rule that says migrants legally applying to live in the United States can be denied if there is any possibility they could go on public assistance. Any possibility. (you can read it for yourself here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/08/14/2019-17142/inadmissibility-on-public-charge-grounds).

My childhood would not have pointed to any possibility of going on public assistance, but I did. My current situation does not point to me ever needing public assistance but who knows.

The proper use of public assistance is the right thing for us as a society to do for one another. I believe that we all must carry our own load AND bear one another’s burdens (Cf. Galatians 6:2-5). I used other people’s tax money to feed me and my son and I am happy to think that my taxes help others who need to get back on their feet.

I have no statistics to back this up but I’m fairly certain there are plenty of legal citizens who were born in this country to families who have been citizens since the revolutionary war who have abused the public assistance offered by our government and paid for by our tax dollars. Do we need to clean this abuse up? Absolutely! But I do not agree with the idea that we can deny anyone legal access to the US because they might at some point in the future receive public assistance. Who has such a crystal ball?

I also think it is a small step toward stopping all immigration to the US and the possible elimination of all public assistance for permanent residents and even citizens (but I realize I don’t have a crystal ball either). And it frightens me, for all of our sakes.

So, please, just be careful who you lump into “us” and “them” because more than likely someone you consider an “us” is really more like the “them” than you realize. We are all more similar than we are different.

*******

So, approximately six years later, here we find ourselves with a president and an overwhelmingly large group of people who want to and are doing everything they can, legal or illegal, to eliminate immigration and public assistance. And I find myself even more frightened.

If our government undoes birthright citizenship, what’s next? Eliminating everyone who wasn’t born in this country, even American Citizens like me? If laws are passed that require women’s names on their IDs to match their birth certificate at least I’ll be ok (I’ve never bought into the idea that women have to change their name at marriage) but with the death of both my father and my husband last year, will I be allowed to have a mortgage in my name or a car loan? Not if some have their way.

So, again, I say, please be careful who you lump into “us” and “them”. Be careful what you label “woke” or “liberal”. Much of what is being labeled as these are exact teachings of Jesus: caring for the poor and the sick and the widows and the orphans and the immigrants.

Mercy, compassion, empathy, and love are not Christian heresies; they are the core foundation of all that Jesus teaches.

Wake up, be alert, pay attention and discern what is of God and what is of the great deceiver. Let’s LOVE more loudly than the hate that is permeating our country. Thanks for your time.

The Good Life

Before we dove into the readings for today, I want y’all to take a brief moment and think about how you would describe the good life? Turn to the person next to you and tell them briefly what your description of the good life is. Next question: How do you define the word blessed? Tell the person next to you. Hold on to those thoughts for a bit; we’ll come back to them.

But first, let’s look at the Gospel reading for today. This is Luke’s version of the better known Matthew’s telling of the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. Matthew’s version had 9 ‘blessed are’ statements and no ‘woes’, and as is obvious by it’s common title, Jesus does the teaching on a mountain side.

Luke has Jesus talking on a ‘level place’ and the teaching is directed primarily at the disciples, not the crowd. Let’s take a moment to talk about the crowd. This isn’t a group of religious elite or the wealthy class or political officials. These were the powerless and impoverished folks trapped in the poverty of Roman Oppression. They had come looking for Jesus to be healed and made whole.

And after taking care of them, Jesus turns to his disciples and says the craziest, most upside down thing someone can say after having just taken care of the poorest and sickest of people. So we need to make the effort to look at these statements from the same perspective of the people Jesus has just healed and the disciples who had given up everything to follow this revolutionary itinerant preacher.

Jesus’ words are written in Greek yet he most likely would have spoken Aramaic and read scripture in Hebrew. The meaning of the word that we translate here to blessed in English means fortunate or flourishing, or the good life, and it is used to describe the circumstances of another person. It isn’t the same word that we would say in English “God bless you” when wishing them well.But before we get lost in a seminary style word study let me just say that the point is to understand the word, translated here as ‘blessed’ and in other translations as ‘happy’ is a description of something seen in the circumstances of another person. This word isn’t a magical incantation to initiate gifts from God that we want for ourselves.

Jesus is describing what he’s seeing in front of him – the condition of the people who had come to him for healing – using a wisdom word intended to persuade those listening that a certain way of life is the ideal state. Jesus is saying that from the vantage point of God’s Kingdom on Earth as in heaven, these are the markers of those who live the good life: being poor, being hungry, weeping, and being hated and rejected. In the second part of each statement Jesus discloses the gift from God received by those living this Kingdom of God good life.

You who live the good life of being poor in this world are given the Kingdom of Heaven. Notice that this one is in the present tense – the Kingdom of God with it’s upside down perspective of what the good life actually is, is here, for each of us to step into now, if we are willing to reevaluate what makes the good life by God’s rules for measuring flourishing.

We live the good life in God’s Kingdom when we work together to ensure no one is hungry, to lift each other up in hard times, and live the teachings of Jesus regardless of what others may think or say about us. This is the good life because this is the life that God created us to live.

These words of Jesus are his commentary on what is happening in the lives of the powerless people right in front of him, the poor and sick and impoverished. This is the kind of people Jesus chose to share the good news of God’s kingdom with. They are the fortunate ones.

And for those folks who are more concerned with amassing wealth than they are about helping others flourish, for those who would rather gorge themselves than share their abundance, and those who ignore the hardship of others and live only to impress others, well, God’s Kingdom isn’t very good news at all. Determining whether or not Jesus’ message is good news or bad news depends on your perspective of whether or not you are living in the kingdom on earth as in heaven.

If you are walking through life in God’s Kingdom at hand, this is all very good news; if you are walking through life working at building your own kingdom, this is bad news.

From the very beginning, God lays it out plainly: Flourish in the abundance of the garden, just don’t mess with that one tree. Through all of the stories of our faith ancestors, God has instructed us about blessings and woes (otherwise known as curses), life and death. God created us to live within this framework. And over and over again, we get tired of waiting on God’s blessings because we have redefined “blessed” as getting what we want when we want it. In the economy of God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven, being blessed is about everyone having what they need to flourish and participate with God by blessing others. This is the good life.

When God made the choice to create us all in God’s image, it wasn’t so that we could convince others to worship us but so that we would know that we are God’s representatives in this creation and our purpose is to be stewards of all that God offers us in and through creation.

Being rich or having enough food or being happy aren’t bad. These are good things that God wants for all people. When we let others go without when we have more than enough, that’s when we’ve taken the wrong path; we’ve corrupted the goodness of God’s provision for all people.

God’s blessings aren’t about making our individual lives easier. God’s blessings are to flow outward from the recipients to build up the Kingdom of God on earth. And when we try to seize our own blessing on our own terms, well, woe to us because God will turn us over to the consequences of trying to take on our own terms what God freely gives us.

What we do with our money, how we share what we have with others especially those who don’t have the same societal privileges as us, and who we admire and celebrate with, how we interact with our neighbors, who we consider to be our neighbors, convey what our preferred Kingdom is.

Jesus invites us to live the good life and challenges our understanding of just what the good life is. Remember back to the beginning when I asked you to tell the person next to you what the good life is? We can’t share the good life if we are sitting by ourselves. The good life can only be lived in community with others, loving God and our neighbors, so that everyone flourishes in God’s Kingdom. Amen.

If you say so

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The lectionary readings for the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany are here.

What’s the scariest, most daunting thing you’ve ever been asked to do? How did you respond? With anger or frustration? With fear? Or with the humble confidence that comes from trusting the one who is asking a hard thing of you?

In our Old Testament lesson, we have Isaiah, a prophet, who’s willingly taken on the task of preaching to the people of Israel about how they’ve tripped up and sinned against God. Isaiah takes on the difficult task of telling the Israelites that if they stay on the path they are on, life as they know it will be turned upside down as God withdraws his support from them.

As we enter into the story, Isaiah’s been told what he’s to say and do and now he’s given a vision of God’s Throne Room. I mean it’s one thing to agree to proclaim God’s truth here on earth, but to be transported straight into the Throne Room with God? If one isn’t prepared properly, that’s certain death! He’s agreed to what God has asked of him but is just beginning to realize the magnitude of it all. Yet Isaiah doesn’t give up or walk away; Isaiah listens to God’s call and responds, trusting God to enable and equip him for all that God asks.

And then it seems that God is setting Isaiah up for the impossible, saying the people Isaiah will preach to won’t comprehend, won’t think, won’t see or hear. But God isn’t forcing the people not to understand, God is saying that even as God has been with the people and spoken to them and taught them and led them, they still want to do life their own way; God has and will continue to give them ample opportunity to walk with God and they keep choosing their own path. If God miraculously changes them to follow God only, God is taking away their freewill and without freewill they stop being fully human and lose the capacity to love. And that is not who God created any of us to be.

So now that we’ve gotten Isaiah squared away, let’s jump over to the Gospel reading: Peter and his buddies have had a terrible night shift with nothing to show for their efforts. And Jesus, whom Peter knows and has apparently heard teach and preach and admires as indicated by the address of ‘master’ tells Peter to try it again – the preacher is telling the professional fisherman how to fish. And Peter, to his credit, gives Jesus the benefit of the doubt, although a bit cheekily with his “if you say so” and tries again, with miraculous results. At the sight of the haul, Peter knows immediately that he’s in God’s presence, and responds in much the same way as Isaiah – with a humble knowing of who he is in relation to God.

Both of these men have accurate and proper responses as they come to terms with the reality in front of them – God is with them. These men are aware that they are human beings created by the One who is coming to them and saying walk with me, work with me, let me show you who you are created to be by love, in love, and for love. They understand that without God, we are not worthy to do the work of God’s Kingdom, that without being in relationship with our Creator, we are only building our own kingdoms. With God and by God only are we made worthy and competent and capable of living in service to God and God’s kingdom on earth with justice and compassion and mercy and love.

Jesus then says to Peter the thing he says almost as much as he tells us to love: ‘do not be afraid’. A few of us had a conversation about this at Wednesday Eucharist week before last. Fear is a natural emotional response we all have. God gave us the emotion of fear to tell us that something is wrong, to help us pay attention to what is going on around us. And in our holy scriptures, the word translated into English as ‘fear’ is used to convey our proper understanding of who God is and who we are in the hyphenated English phrase fear-of-the-lord. We aren’t to cower at the name of God but to respond as Isaiah and Peter did, with the humility that says we know we are’t worthy of who God is and what God does for us. This fear-of-the-lord isn’t supposed to drive us away but to help us properly orient ourselves to God in reverence and awe: We follow God, we don’t direct God. God invites us to be on God’s side; we don’t tell God to be on ours.

Jesus knows all too well this world can be an extremely scary place. Jesus knows we are human and we will experience the emotion of fear. And he says ‘don’t be afraid’. He’s not telling us to ignore our fear but to not let it control us and to not use it to control others. Leaders who rule by fear are the very leaders that God and the prophets and the apostles and all of our holy scriptures speak against.

When Jesus says do not be afraid, he is reminding us that God is with us and it is God’s strength and power of LOVE that give us the courage to stand up to the injustices of this world. Do not be afraid is a call to stand against those who are working so very hard to instill fear in all of us. Fear, when we let it take control of us, is paralyzing and prevents us from walking in the righteousness and justice of God’s Kingdom. Letting fear take control prevents us from being who and Whose we are.

When we come face to face with God, when we are aware of God’s presence with us, yes we have the ability to chose God or not, but is there really any other choice than to admit we are human and worship and praise the One who created us? How amazing is it that the God who created us wants to be with us and in relationship with us and asks us to participate with God in the building up of God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven?

We don’t have to be perfect before God chooses us; we don’t have to earn God’s favor; we don’t have to prove to God or anyone else what a good person we are. With God and by God’s actions we are worthy to do the work of God’s Kingdom. God chooses us. God loves us. God calls us to share that Good News with the hurting world.

We don’t have to worry that we won’t live up to God’s expectations. We don’t have to go into the service of God’s Kingdom naively. God tells us what we are to do – God tells us to love. And when we love well, God is pleased. And when we don’t love well, because we are all only human after all, God loves us still and calls us to return to the way of the Kingdom on earth as in heaven.

God asks us to do hard, daunting things: to love when the world says hate; to show compassion when the world says judge; to work for the greater good of all when the world says take care of number one; to remain faithful even when it seems we aren’t having any effect on the suffering in this world, even when we are the ones suffering. God asks us to do hard things and walks with us as we do, giving us the strength and courage that is fed by God’s love. And that is very good news, indeed. Amen.

Presenting Jesus

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The readings for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany (aka The Presentation of Jesus) are here.

I’m going to begin by asking each of you “how are you?” I don’t mean it rhetorically. Say your answer out loud. The world feels so hard and prickly and completely discombobulated. So, how are you, really?

I have to admit, I’m overwhelmed. I know it’s important to stay informed on what’s happening around us but it is so disheartening to witness the flood of anger and division and the fear it is causing in so many.

Two weeks ago, an Episcopal Bishop stood in the pulpit and preached on unity and mercy, things Jesus spoke about often. And now congress is trying to officially condemn the message as a “distorted message”. To people who want to spread fear, mercy does distort their message. But Mercy is a core and primary message of God’s good news of Love for everyone. And it is our responsibility as we follow Jesus, to lift up the marginalized in our society, in our community. Being in the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven is about building others up, not tearing them down. It is about making our table bigger, our circle wider, welcoming the stranger and the immigrant. Regardless of what our government may say and do, we are God’s church, God’s people, followers of Jesus, the Body of Christ.

Martin Luther King said, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.” We must speak and act God’s Love louder than the anger and hate so those who are afraid can hear us. And this takes the courage and strength and confidence that comes with knowing who and Whose we are.

In our reading today from the prophet Malachi, we hear the question “Who can endure, who can stand” when the messenger of Love comes? For those who are taking part in our conversation about Revelation, John echoes these questions and the answer isn’t spoken but shown, Jesus is the only one who can stand in the presence of God, who can truly proclaim God’s Love. AND, ALSO, Jesus makes us worthy to stand before God and to speak God’s message of Love, too.

Refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap don’t destroy, they make what is being worked on better, more pure. Refining the descendants of Levi isn’t about culling the herd but about making each and all of us a kingdom of priests before God (and yes, that includes each of you) better and better, as we are continuously shaped into who and Whose we are.

The refiner’s fire doesn’t create something new, it removes the impurities in the gold and silver so they can shine as they are intended to. The fuller’s soap takes wool and removes the impurities that have settled in it as the sheep lived their life outside so the wool is what it originally was, pure wool.

When we are open to being refined and purified, to do the work with God’s help that gets through the self-preserving layers down into the redeemed original created in God’s image by and for love, we are ‘pleasing to the Lord’ even as we are still a work in progress. When we are stagnant and stuck and refuse to see any way but our own, we are not very pleasing, either to God or anyone else.

In our Gospel reading today, we hear the story of Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus to the priests in the Temple as was the custom of their day. Luke chooses to put more focus on an elderly man named Simeon and prophet named Anna. Simeon and Anna speak of Jesus as the personification of redemption and salvation, God at work in a way they’ve been waiting for their whole lives, a fulfillment of Malachi’s words. And they know that the man this baby will grow to be, with his very life will show us what God’s redemption and salvation looks like. And what Jesus shows us is that God’s redemption of the world, God’s salvation, looks like mercy and grace and compassion and love.

Jesus is the embodiment of Malachi’s refiners fire and fullers soap. Redemption is taking what’s already there and purifying it, restoring it to what it was intended to do or be. As we follow Jesus, doing our best with God’s help to live each day by his teachings, we are continuously being purified each time we make the choice to err on the side of mercy instead of taking the easy way of hate.

It is easier to hate than to show mercy because showing mercy means we may have to give up something we want. But in the end, being merciful means we all have what we need. The Rolling Stones were on to something!

It is easier to claim that the Truth requiring us to change or sacrifice is distorted than it is to let the Truth of God’s Love redeem and save us from ourselves. You’ve heard me say, “life is much easier when we aren’t self-aware”. But life is much better when we seek to be who God created and intends for us to be, our true, authentic selves that sometimes gets buried among the impurities of living in this world.

When we come into this place each week, we are following Jesus, presenting ourselves to God. We enter with all of our experiences, thoughts, emotions, and interactions of the previous week. We bring our whole selves into this community, and as we greet each other at the door, we have to move around and past the Baptismal Font. Do you notice it? Do you wonder why it’s in the way?

It is there, front and center, to remind us of God’s redemption and salvation, merciful gifts to us that we are commanded to share with others. In the vows we make at our baptism we renounce the ‘forces of wickedness that rebel against God and corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, as well as the desires that draw us from the love of God. And then we promise to turn toward Jesus, putting our whole trust in his grace and love, as we follow and obey him. As we enter and leave this place, the water of baptism reminds us that we are first and foremost citizens of God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven and the command to Love is what guides who we are and all we do.

As we move toward God’s Table, we come to receive the mercy of God’s Love. We present ourselves to God, made worthy by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We receive Jesus’ life into ourselves so it shapes us from the inside out and then we carry it with us into this world – a light to those who are afraid in the darkness.

And, so, I’ll end as I began, “how are you?” Are you feeling a little more peace and strength because of the Word of God? Are you feeling a little more courage because of the precious gift of God’s mercy and love? Are you aware of God’s presence with us just as Anna and Simeon felt the movement of the Spirit in the temple? Our refining is a lifelong process of becoming more and more aware of God with us in all that we do, in who we are, in who all people are – God’s beloved people. Amen.

Come in

A sermon preached at St. Francis by teh Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX.
The lectionary readings for the second Sunday after the Epiphany are here.

Imagine going to a state park and only looking at the entrance sign and not actually entering the park. Signs aren’t the thing, they only point to it. Street signs tell us what street we are on but aren’t the actual street. Directional signs tell us how to get to our destination but aren’t the destination. Signs are an invitation to enter what they point to.

This is how Jesus used what John calls ‘signs’ and others call miracles. The amazing things that Jesus does are just that – amazing, wonderful, miraculous acts that heal and restore, but the purpose of them is what comes next, entering into the abundant life, this life, in the here and now, of the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven. So often, Jesus cautions people to not be so enamored by the sign that they get distracted from actually entering into God’s Kingdom.

Isn’t it curious that the first sign pointing at the now and not yet Kingdom of God isn’t a healing or raising someone from the dead or an exorcism, it’s turning water into gallons and gallons of wine at a family celebration.

But before we talk about that, let’s look at this wedding with an understanding of the time and place in which it happens. In the Jewish culture of first-century Palestine, a wedding celebration would last up to a week and the wine served was an important sign of hospitality. And, just like at St. Francis’ Decktime and FEASTS, the guests brought wine to contribute to the festivity. So, running out of wine tells us that this wasn’t the upper crust of society but just ordinary folks coming together to celebrate with all that they had!

Also, in this long ago culture, to run out of wine was more than just inconvenient; since wine was a key mark of hospitality, running out would bring shame on the host family and the whole community. Mary, in her request to Jesus, isn’t just looking to refill her own glass, she’s worried about the reputation of the family and wants the best for them.

Let’s take a short sidenote to talk about Mary: despite what well known Christmas Carols may say, she wasn’t meek and mild. Mary was bold and courageous. As we talked about during advent, Mary said yes to God’s radical plan. To be a young jewish woman in an occupied culture which looked on her as mere property, pregnant outside of marriage was at best to be cast out of your family and society because of the shame, and at worst, a death sentence. Her relationship with God, her faith and her trust in God, gave her the courage to risk her life to be the one who brings God’s own son into this broken world.

It should be no surprise to us that at this wedding Mary is the one who steps up to prevent the shame that was about to come upon the family. The exchange she has with Jesus makes me laugh with delight because of her boldness. She wasn’t looking to take over for God or do things her way, she knew of God’s life-giving love and is sharing it abundantly symbolized by the wine.

Mary tells Jesus they are out of wine and he responds, ‘why should we care, I don’t want to make a scene’ – please note, when he calls her ‘woman’ it isn’t a put down but a term of respect, much like we’d use ma’am today. And Mary, knowing her intent to to prevent any relationship damage in their community, presses on. She turns to the servants and says, ‘do whatever he tells you.’ Mary knows the way of God’s Kingdom on earth.

The vessels Jesus uses aren’t random – six purification jars, one shy of the number of wholeness signaling the kingdom is now and not quite yet, vessels that held the water for washing before worship, each about 25 gallons, a glimpse into the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, the outward signs that we are kingdom. people.

The first thing that Jesus wants us to understand is the abundance of good in God’s Kingdom. God’s Kingdom isn’t about keeping others out or condemning or shaming others. God’s Kingdom is a hospitable and welcoming Kingdom, filled with looking-out-for-each-other, telling-each-other-when-we-have-spinach-in-our-teeth kind of relationships, God’s kingdom is a building-bigger-tables, and inviting everyone to the abundant feast kind of Kingdom.

It’s not small thing that Jesus started his public ministry with a party, a wedding, a joyous celebration of a relationship and the coming together of families to do life together. This sign both points us to the beginning of the journey into God’s Kingdom and gives us a taste of the banquet to come. To be in God’s Kingdom isn’t restricted to a particular time or place, in this building or sometime in the future when we die; to be in God’s Kingdom is to be in abundant relationship with God and each other now. If we don’t start with relationship, the rest makes no sense and there’s no point to the journey. If we aren’t willing to be in self-giving relationship with each other and with God, what good does healing do if there is no community in which to be healed. What good does forgiveness do if there are no relationships to be restored? What good does casting out evil do if there is no modeling of goodness in which to grow into God’s beloved?

Jesus loved a good party; he was accused of fellowshipping with the drunkards and gluttons, what polite society calls ‘the wrong sorts of folks’. This first sign wasn’t at all frivolous, it points to the foundation of who and Whose we are: beloved people in loving, life-giving, liberating relationship with God in the kingdom on earth as in heaven.

So, how do we participate in the abundant now and not yet Kingdom of God in our here and now? The answer is the same as Mary gives to the servants: do whatever Jesus tells you. Love God with your whole being, love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemy. Love. Invite. Include. Bring all you have to the party, share life with each other, and build each other up.

Be bold and courageous like Mary to stand in the kingdom even if the culture around us says differently. The most powerful force in heaven and earth is God’s love. Jesus showed us the signposts into the Kingdom, we know the Way, and it’s up to each and all of us to walk the Way as we courageously and boldly stand up to the forces of hate and shame and oppression in this world. Don’t just marvel at the sign; do what Jesus tells us and we enter the life we are created for. Live the life the sign is pointing to – life in community with God’s beloved, building each other up, bringing all we have to the table, celebrating our good, sharing our abundance, grieving our sorrows as we walk together in the Kingdom of God here and now. Amen.