Sermons from St. Martin-in-the-Fields
Jan 01, 2023 |
The Word Made Flesh: the Holy Name in the New Year
| The Rev. James H. Littrell
The Word Made Flesh: the Holy Name in the New Year
View PDF -
Sunday Sermon
01/01/2023
The Rev. James Littrell
"The Word Made Flesh: the Holy Name in the New Year"
Oct 16, 2022 |
Persistent Wombats & Widows
| The Rev. Callie Swanlund
Persistent Wombats & Widows
Read the Rev. Callie Swanlund’s sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 24.
Today’s Readings:
Of course the story doesn't end here. After each snooze the wombat always awakes wanting more carrots. Finding that her way has been blocked, she demands attention in other ways: bangs up the trash can, pulls up the flower bed, sneaks into the grocery bag, anything for more carrots, until the night in which the wombat decides that carrots are insufficient. That night the wombat’s diary reads,
“Why would I want carrots when I feel like rolled oats? Demanded rolled oats instead. Humans failed to understand my simple request, chewed up one pair of boots, three cardboard boxes, 11 flower pots, and a garden chair until they got the message. Ate rolled oats, scratched, went to sleep.”
This sweet but annoying creature obtained what it wanted through a variety of methods, not least of which was persistence. Now, persistence is one of those traits that is typically thought of as a really positive thing; to call someone strong or resilient or persistent are all admirable descriptors. They're markers that someone has gone through something difficult or harrowing and has come out the other side. It's a way that we describe victims of abuse, or people with disabilities, or survivors of various forms of oppression. Now this past week has been filled with several national and global observances of persistence. First on Monday we had Indigenous People's Day, the same day was World Mental Health Day. And the very next day was National Coming Out Day. On each of these days our minds might have been drawn toward people who persist again and again. Here at St Martin's we have a special relationship with the Lakota people in South Dakota. For many years we held mission trips and later pilgrimages to the Pine Ridge reservation and to the nearby Black Hills. The Lakota are people who have seen their lands and homes and rights be taken away. They are people who have faced injustice time and time again, and we all know by now the stories of indigenous boarding schools and other atrocities that have impacted many if not all indigenous tribes. For indigenous peoples, preserving their land, language, and livelihood has always been difficult due to our insistence on colonization. Along with Indigenous People's Day, we observed World Mental Health Day, a day to promote access to mental health resources for all around the globe. It's a day in which people who have been challenged by any variety of mental illness are reminded that they're not alone. People who have undiagnosed mental health needs or people who have no support are given a chance to connect with others. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we've seen a sharp increase in those experiencing anxiety and/or depression, and yet even with its prevalence in most of our lives the stigma and discrimination remains.
Finally we had National Coming Out Day, a day in which we celebrated those LGBTQ people who have “come out”, revealing their identity in a way that isn't required of those who fit the gender or sexuality norms. On this day we acknowledged those who have openly shared their identity but also those who have had their identity shared without their consent or those who have not felt safe sharing their identity and so much more many LGBTQ people are still not celebrated or even supported and often lack affirming healthcare, faith communities, and other sources of strength. Of course, each of these groups are more than their stigma or oppression; each contains beauty, flourishing, and vibrancy, but all are subject to internal or external forces that don't want them to survive, let alone thrive. All of these observances mark people who have been required to persist and that's exactly what we encounter in today's Gospel. Today's Gospel is sometimes called “the Parable of the Persistent Widow,” the person who, like the wombat, does not give up but continues going back to the door again and again, seeking justice, seeking more. And it is the judge who doesn't even believe in her cause, but is tired of being pestered; it's this judge who finally gives in. He relents, because she persists.
Now the moral of all of these stories seems to be that the one experiencing the hardship needs to keep going. There's a fable about two frogs who jump into a jug of milk, and both try to swim to the surface, they try to climb the edges of the slippery jar to get out. One can't make it and eventually drowns while the other keeps swimming and keeps swimming and keeps swimming until it's no longer in a jug of milk but sitting atop a jar of newly churned butter.
Yes, this frog persisted, and we celebrate that persistence, but there's something missing here. Must it always be the one who is threatened or challenged or stigmatized who perseveres? There's a whole industry out there teaching us how we can do better, how we can be better. It's called the self-help industry, and it's just that: it's between us and our self. Now I'm not knocking, it I'll be the first to admit that changing the narrative is a powerful tool, that seeking flourishing can help us move beyond languishing, that tools of self-awareness and self-soothing are incredibly important. But, we weren't put on this Earth simply for self-help. We are a people created by God to be in community with one another to help each other.
The other name for this parable aside from “The Persistent Widow” is “The Unjust Judge,” so my question is this: should we continue praising the resilience, praising the persistence of those who are experiencing injustice and hardship, or should we look to the other character in the story? Should we look to the unjust judge and ask how that system can be changed?
If you've been the one who has had to persist, we applaud you and we're here cheering you on, but can we go beyond that? When the wombat wasn't feeling heard she knocked over the trash cans and dug up the flower beds and it got people's attention. When we witness Injustice how might we persist? How might we get loud? How might we speak truth to power?
God favors the downtrodden, the brokenhearted, the oppressed. God sits with the indigenous people who mourn. God sits with the person struggling to get up in the morning or contemplating suicide. God sits with the isolated queer teenager and and God sets bushes ablaze to get our attention. God sends messages, messengers to teach us the way of love. God calls on us to care for friend and stranger.
So may we persist, not just for ourselves, but for the mutual thriving of us all.
Amen.
Today’s Readings:
- Genesis 32:22-31
- Psalm 121
- 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
- Luke 18:1-8
Of course the story doesn't end here. After each snooze the wombat always awakes wanting more carrots. Finding that her way has been blocked, she demands attention in other ways: bangs up the trash can, pulls up the flower bed, sneaks into the grocery bag, anything for more carrots, until the night in which the wombat decides that carrots are insufficient. That night the wombat’s diary reads,
“Why would I want carrots when I feel like rolled oats? Demanded rolled oats instead. Humans failed to understand my simple request, chewed up one pair of boots, three cardboard boxes, 11 flower pots, and a garden chair until they got the message. Ate rolled oats, scratched, went to sleep.”
This sweet but annoying creature obtained what it wanted through a variety of methods, not least of which was persistence. Now, persistence is one of those traits that is typically thought of as a really positive thing; to call someone strong or resilient or persistent are all admirable descriptors. They're markers that someone has gone through something difficult or harrowing and has come out the other side. It's a way that we describe victims of abuse, or people with disabilities, or survivors of various forms of oppression. Now this past week has been filled with several national and global observances of persistence. First on Monday we had Indigenous People's Day, the same day was World Mental Health Day. And the very next day was National Coming Out Day. On each of these days our minds might have been drawn toward people who persist again and again. Here at St Martin's we have a special relationship with the Lakota people in South Dakota. For many years we held mission trips and later pilgrimages to the Pine Ridge reservation and to the nearby Black Hills. The Lakota are people who have seen their lands and homes and rights be taken away. They are people who have faced injustice time and time again, and we all know by now the stories of indigenous boarding schools and other atrocities that have impacted many if not all indigenous tribes. For indigenous peoples, preserving their land, language, and livelihood has always been difficult due to our insistence on colonization. Along with Indigenous People's Day, we observed World Mental Health Day, a day to promote access to mental health resources for all around the globe. It's a day in which people who have been challenged by any variety of mental illness are reminded that they're not alone. People who have undiagnosed mental health needs or people who have no support are given a chance to connect with others. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we've seen a sharp increase in those experiencing anxiety and/or depression, and yet even with its prevalence in most of our lives the stigma and discrimination remains.
Finally we had National Coming Out Day, a day in which we celebrated those LGBTQ people who have “come out”, revealing their identity in a way that isn't required of those who fit the gender or sexuality norms. On this day we acknowledged those who have openly shared their identity but also those who have had their identity shared without their consent or those who have not felt safe sharing their identity and so much more many LGBTQ people are still not celebrated or even supported and often lack affirming healthcare, faith communities, and other sources of strength. Of course, each of these groups are more than their stigma or oppression; each contains beauty, flourishing, and vibrancy, but all are subject to internal or external forces that don't want them to survive, let alone thrive. All of these observances mark people who have been required to persist and that's exactly what we encounter in today's Gospel. Today's Gospel is sometimes called “the Parable of the Persistent Widow,” the person who, like the wombat, does not give up but continues going back to the door again and again, seeking justice, seeking more. And it is the judge who doesn't even believe in her cause, but is tired of being pestered; it's this judge who finally gives in. He relents, because she persists.
Now the moral of all of these stories seems to be that the one experiencing the hardship needs to keep going. There's a fable about two frogs who jump into a jug of milk, and both try to swim to the surface, they try to climb the edges of the slippery jar to get out. One can't make it and eventually drowns while the other keeps swimming and keeps swimming and keeps swimming until it's no longer in a jug of milk but sitting atop a jar of newly churned butter.
Yes, this frog persisted, and we celebrate that persistence, but there's something missing here. Must it always be the one who is threatened or challenged or stigmatized who perseveres? There's a whole industry out there teaching us how we can do better, how we can be better. It's called the self-help industry, and it's just that: it's between us and our self. Now I'm not knocking, it I'll be the first to admit that changing the narrative is a powerful tool, that seeking flourishing can help us move beyond languishing, that tools of self-awareness and self-soothing are incredibly important. But, we weren't put on this Earth simply for self-help. We are a people created by God to be in community with one another to help each other.
The other name for this parable aside from “The Persistent Widow” is “The Unjust Judge,” so my question is this: should we continue praising the resilience, praising the persistence of those who are experiencing injustice and hardship, or should we look to the other character in the story? Should we look to the unjust judge and ask how that system can be changed?
If you've been the one who has had to persist, we applaud you and we're here cheering you on, but can we go beyond that? When the wombat wasn't feeling heard she knocked over the trash cans and dug up the flower beds and it got people's attention. When we witness Injustice how might we persist? How might we get loud? How might we speak truth to power?
God favors the downtrodden, the brokenhearted, the oppressed. God sits with the indigenous people who mourn. God sits with the person struggling to get up in the morning or contemplating suicide. God sits with the isolated queer teenager and and God sets bushes ablaze to get our attention. God sends messages, messengers to teach us the way of love. God calls on us to care for friend and stranger.
So may we persist, not just for ourselves, but for the mutual thriving of us all.
Amen.
Oct 09, 2022 |
Healing is Always God's Will
| The Rev. Callie Swanlund
Healing is Always God's Will
Read the Rev. Callie Swanlund’s sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 23.
Today’s Readings:
I think sometimes we're hesitant like that when we're asking God for something; we don't want to put God in a box or demand something of God. Sometimes we might not even know what it is we're asking for, so we don't make a direct request. But if we look at this morning's gospel, if we dig into it, we see these ten people suffering from a skin disease called leprosy and we know that they were not at all hesitant in their request. In fact they shouted out to Jesus “Have mercy on us, have mercy on us.”
They knew what they needed and they asked God for it. I think we often have a pretty narrow idea of what healing entails and I think in God's universe healing contains so much more than that. One of the most important pieces of healing is that of belonging. My friend Heather Kern Lanier is an author and a parent of a child with a chromosomal deletion. It's a rare syndrome and they call their child a ‘rare girl’, and she has helped me look at the healing miracles in the Gospels in a completely new light. Often we talk about a person having something restored to them: having sight restored to the blind, having hearing restored to the deaf. But the way that she's helped me see these Gospels is that what in fact is restored is that these people are restored to community.
That it's the others around them, who also are healed, who welcome them in because there are so many who feel ostracized and isolated by their condition. In fact these ten people in today's Gospel had a contagious skin disease. No one wanted to be anywhere near them and it seems that they even knew that because it says that they stayed their distance and they shouted out to Jesus. They were on the outskirts, they were not restored community, until Jesus healed them. Restoring them to belonging, restoring them to community: that is a part of all of the healing miracles, is having others around us see the fullness to which God created us. Scholar Francisco Garcia points out that there's a formula in many of these healing miracles. It is that the person is seen, heard, received, and sent. We see that again in today's Gospel Jesus peers at them, sees them from far off, and then He hears their request. He receives them, already children of God, and there's always an element where He sends them, like the man at the end where He says “Go, your faith has made you well.”
It is this type of healing that allows us to live out our baptismal covenant in which we say that we will respect the dignity of every human being.You see, healing is transformative, and it's not just for those who are healed. Healing is transformative for the healer, and healing is transformative to all those who bear witness to the healing.
Healing is never unidirectional; it requires participation. Healing requires something from us. If we look at some of our favorite miracles we start to notice that they all require some participation. They're never just Jesus off on his own doing something, especially something that's not been asked for. In the feeding of the multitudes Jesus doesn't just snap his fingers and there's a feast. Jesus hears that there's a need. His disciples say the people are getting hungry, they're getting restless, and so He sends them out to gather what is there. Those who provide their fish and their loaves of bread are participating in that. Those who pass it around are participating in that. We also have the time when Jesus's disciples are feeling really rough, they're trying to fish all day long, and there's nothing. There's nothing. And Jesus says to them cast your your nut on the other side of the boat, try over there. And what do they do? They try it, they say “I don't know, Jesus, we've been trying all morning and we've yielded nothing but okay, we'll give it a try,” and they pull up so many fish that it strains their net. They are participating in that miracle.
We have the woman who is in need of healing and all she does is touch the hem of Jesus's robe. That's how she seeks her healing, she seeks to be nearer. She seeks to be encompassed in community, she seeks belonging. And Jesus feels that, He says “I felt the power go out from me,” He felt that connection between them.
Now, this participation in one's healing even comes in the times in which Jesus raises one from the dead. When Jesus goes and sees Jairus's daughter this little girl laid out, presumed to be dead, He says “Talitha koum, little girl, get up.” When He sees Lazarus He says “Lazarus, come out” and they do. They get up, they come out, they are part of the healing.
All of this requires us to believe what our friend that one day in Eucharist said, to believe that healing is indeed God's will. Now healing doesn't always come in the form that we are looking for, it doesn't always come in the form that we are expecting. Healing and a cure are not the same thing. It might be in mind, it might be in body, it might be in spirit. But if we believe that healing is belonging, if we believe that we must participate in healing, and if we believe that healing is God's will, we are promised healing in our lives.
May we all seek healing, the kind that opens our hearts more widely; the kind that transcends our expectations; the kind that transforms us and sets us free. Amen.
Today’s Readings:
- 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
- Psalm 111
- 2 Timothy 2:8-15
- Luke 17:11-19
I think sometimes we're hesitant like that when we're asking God for something; we don't want to put God in a box or demand something of God. Sometimes we might not even know what it is we're asking for, so we don't make a direct request. But if we look at this morning's gospel, if we dig into it, we see these ten people suffering from a skin disease called leprosy and we know that they were not at all hesitant in their request. In fact they shouted out to Jesus “Have mercy on us, have mercy on us.”
They knew what they needed and they asked God for it. I think we often have a pretty narrow idea of what healing entails and I think in God's universe healing contains so much more than that. One of the most important pieces of healing is that of belonging. My friend Heather Kern Lanier is an author and a parent of a child with a chromosomal deletion. It's a rare syndrome and they call their child a ‘rare girl’, and she has helped me look at the healing miracles in the Gospels in a completely new light. Often we talk about a person having something restored to them: having sight restored to the blind, having hearing restored to the deaf. But the way that she's helped me see these Gospels is that what in fact is restored is that these people are restored to community.
That it's the others around them, who also are healed, who welcome them in because there are so many who feel ostracized and isolated by their condition. In fact these ten people in today's Gospel had a contagious skin disease. No one wanted to be anywhere near them and it seems that they even knew that because it says that they stayed their distance and they shouted out to Jesus. They were on the outskirts, they were not restored community, until Jesus healed them. Restoring them to belonging, restoring them to community: that is a part of all of the healing miracles, is having others around us see the fullness to which God created us. Scholar Francisco Garcia points out that there's a formula in many of these healing miracles. It is that the person is seen, heard, received, and sent. We see that again in today's Gospel Jesus peers at them, sees them from far off, and then He hears their request. He receives them, already children of God, and there's always an element where He sends them, like the man at the end where He says “Go, your faith has made you well.”
It is this type of healing that allows us to live out our baptismal covenant in which we say that we will respect the dignity of every human being.You see, healing is transformative, and it's not just for those who are healed. Healing is transformative for the healer, and healing is transformative to all those who bear witness to the healing.
Healing is never unidirectional; it requires participation. Healing requires something from us. If we look at some of our favorite miracles we start to notice that they all require some participation. They're never just Jesus off on his own doing something, especially something that's not been asked for. In the feeding of the multitudes Jesus doesn't just snap his fingers and there's a feast. Jesus hears that there's a need. His disciples say the people are getting hungry, they're getting restless, and so He sends them out to gather what is there. Those who provide their fish and their loaves of bread are participating in that. Those who pass it around are participating in that. We also have the time when Jesus's disciples are feeling really rough, they're trying to fish all day long, and there's nothing. There's nothing. And Jesus says to them cast your your nut on the other side of the boat, try over there. And what do they do? They try it, they say “I don't know, Jesus, we've been trying all morning and we've yielded nothing but okay, we'll give it a try,” and they pull up so many fish that it strains their net. They are participating in that miracle.
We have the woman who is in need of healing and all she does is touch the hem of Jesus's robe. That's how she seeks her healing, she seeks to be nearer. She seeks to be encompassed in community, she seeks belonging. And Jesus feels that, He says “I felt the power go out from me,” He felt that connection between them.
Now, this participation in one's healing even comes in the times in which Jesus raises one from the dead. When Jesus goes and sees Jairus's daughter this little girl laid out, presumed to be dead, He says “Talitha koum, little girl, get up.” When He sees Lazarus He says “Lazarus, come out” and they do. They get up, they come out, they are part of the healing.
All of this requires us to believe what our friend that one day in Eucharist said, to believe that healing is indeed God's will. Now healing doesn't always come in the form that we are looking for, it doesn't always come in the form that we are expecting. Healing and a cure are not the same thing. It might be in mind, it might be in body, it might be in spirit. But if we believe that healing is belonging, if we believe that we must participate in healing, and if we believe that healing is God's will, we are promised healing in our lives.
May we all seek healing, the kind that opens our hearts more widely; the kind that transcends our expectations; the kind that transforms us and sets us free. Amen.
Sep 18, 2022 |
Reckless Creativity
|
Reckless Creativity
The Rev. Laura Palmer
September 18, 2022
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to thee O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.
Staying on the high road, let’s just say this is a text clergy find “challenging” or “demanding.” At issue is that the Jesus we encounter here is difficult to reconcile with the Jesus most of us think we know and worship. Can he really be lifting up the snake of a manger we meet in this parable?
One of the books clergy rely on for sermon preparation, Feasting on the Word, comes with these warnings:
behavior of the main character.
And one more:
You understand then why it’s easy to race ahead to the bumper sticker endings: “You can’t serve both God and wealth” Tuck that away for Stewardship Sunday which is coming up soon. “No slave can serve two masters.” Bet you’ve heard a dozen sermons on that. Check.
Some suggest that even Luke struggled with this text and added moralistic endings as exit ramps for perplexed preachers.
“I can’t believe that this story came from the lips of our Lord,” Saint Augustine said some 1600 centuries ago.
We talk about Jesus being God incarnate in human form, and then when he acts like one of us, seemingly inconsistent, out of character, maddeningly obtuse, we’re aghast.
Myself included which led me to fantasize: What if deadline pressure forced Luke to turn in a rough draft? Or maybe he forgot the part of the papyrus which made all of this hang together?
But here’s what helped shed light on the mystery of this text: What if Jesus in talking about “dishonesty” was actually doing so tongue-in-cheek? Stay with me here for a moment, because this makes the “dishonest manager” less like a snake and more like Robin Hood.
In the Roman Empire, there were two classes: the very rich and the very, very, poor. The master’s wealth depended on the exploitation of the illiterate peasants.
About to be fired for his ineptitude, the suddenly desperate manager does an about-face. No longer “strong enough to dig” and “too proud to beg” the manager decides to cancel a percentage of the debts the tenants owe to his boss. “I have decided what to do, he says, “so that when I am dismissed as manager people may welcome me into their homes.”
Some scholars suggest all the manager did was cancel the commission he would have earned on the monies due—an act of generosity since like his boss, his wealth was based on exploitation. But regardless of his motivations—his actions had a huge impact on the very poor who may have never before experienced boundless generosity which no doubt felt like grace.
In a stunning reversal of what we were expecting the master praises his manager’s shrewd behavior. He may not know the extent of what his manager did, but he cannot fail to realize that suddenly everyone he exploits to sustain his fortunes-- now holds him in higher regard.
Cancelling his commission is one of the theories about the manager’s behavior. But his motivation may have been pure selfishness. The manager decided he needed more goodwill than the master needed more wealth and did the right thing for the “wrong” reason. But no one liberated from debt or oppression cares much about who turns the key.
As Martin Luther once said, “Our God is the God who can ride the lame horse and carve the rotten wood.”
When a system is rotten to the core—as the Roman Empire was especially when compared to the Kingdom of God-- does it really matter if a lame horse is the one who rides into town?
We don’t know what happened to the manager in the rush of good will he felt from his new friends. Did his perspective shift when he began to stay in their houses or tents and look at life from the bottom up? Did he begin to experience the pure generosity of friendship and love that often flow from those who have the least to give? We have no idea.
We want parables to be teachable moments; “A grassroots lesson connecting the ordinariness of life with the extraordinary nature of God,” writes Helen Montgomery Devoise.
It’s worth nothing that in this gospel, Jesus is dealing with the world as it is. Corrupt, broken, messy. Continues Devoise:
Why would Jesus make an example for godly living so
unsavory? The parable presents as the model for our
faith someone whose life is the complete opposite of
everything Christ ever taught.
We all expect and hope that the sleazy manager will get his due, and it’s just the opposite. There is a reckless creativity, though to his approach and he acts.
Jesus says that “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.”
Debie Thomas in Journey with Jesus, poses this question:
Where and how might we be more shrewd, more clever, more creative, and more single-minded in our vocations as children of light? If the manager in Jesus’s story can hustle so hard for his own survival, how much more might we contend on behalf of a world God loves?
Today Jesus might look at the way the courts were stacked slowly and steadily over the years with politically minded judges more likely to make politics their priority over the Constitution and note that their shrewd manipulation paid off.
Imagine if those shrewd tactics were pursed be what Jesus called “the children of light?” who understood that the Judiciary is not meant to be an arm of the Executive Branch.
Jesus tells this parable to the Pharisees, the prominent religious leaders who were strict adherent to Jewish law and put that above all else. The Pharisees are no fans of Jesus expansive attitude towards divine judgment. Writes Rev. Dr. Alison Boden, whose husband was your last rector:
Jesus has been cooking the books of diving judgment, and the
folks who’ve staked their lives on following the law to the letter
do not appreciate having the rulebook revised. Christ is God’s
steward and he’s busy forgiving debts—canceling indebtedness.
His message to the religious leaders is that God is the eternal
creditor, not themselves. Jesus is canceling debts owed not to
them but to God, and God commends him for it.
Despite Luke’s best efforts to tack on some take home messages, this parable is finished not in the gospel, but in us. We have to decide what would happen in us if we gave this gospel a time share in our hearts? We have start somewhere and this messy parable is, in the end, is a fine place to start. As Debie Thomas points out:
Where there is unburdening, where there is liberation, where there is crazy, radical generosity — there is God. And where God is? Well, that's where we should seek to be as well. Amen
September 18, 2022
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to thee O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.
Staying on the high road, let’s just say this is a text clergy find “challenging” or “demanding.” At issue is that the Jesus we encounter here is difficult to reconcile with the Jesus most of us think we know and worship. Can he really be lifting up the snake of a manger we meet in this parable?
One of the books clergy rely on for sermon preparation, Feasting on the Word, comes with these warnings:
- None of the parables of Jesus has baffled interpreters quite like the story
- The parable of the dishonest steward poses significant theology challenges,
behavior of the main character.
And one more:
- It is no exaggeration to say that the parable’s meaning has stumped even the best and most creative interpreters of Scripture.
You understand then why it’s easy to race ahead to the bumper sticker endings: “You can’t serve both God and wealth” Tuck that away for Stewardship Sunday which is coming up soon. “No slave can serve two masters.” Bet you’ve heard a dozen sermons on that. Check.
Some suggest that even Luke struggled with this text and added moralistic endings as exit ramps for perplexed preachers.
“I can’t believe that this story came from the lips of our Lord,” Saint Augustine said some 1600 centuries ago.
We talk about Jesus being God incarnate in human form, and then when he acts like one of us, seemingly inconsistent, out of character, maddeningly obtuse, we’re aghast.
Myself included which led me to fantasize: What if deadline pressure forced Luke to turn in a rough draft? Or maybe he forgot the part of the papyrus which made all of this hang together?
But here’s what helped shed light on the mystery of this text: What if Jesus in talking about “dishonesty” was actually doing so tongue-in-cheek? Stay with me here for a moment, because this makes the “dishonest manager” less like a snake and more like Robin Hood.
In the Roman Empire, there were two classes: the very rich and the very, very, poor. The master’s wealth depended on the exploitation of the illiterate peasants.
About to be fired for his ineptitude, the suddenly desperate manager does an about-face. No longer “strong enough to dig” and “too proud to beg” the manager decides to cancel a percentage of the debts the tenants owe to his boss. “I have decided what to do, he says, “so that when I am dismissed as manager people may welcome me into their homes.”
Some scholars suggest all the manager did was cancel the commission he would have earned on the monies due—an act of generosity since like his boss, his wealth was based on exploitation. But regardless of his motivations—his actions had a huge impact on the very poor who may have never before experienced boundless generosity which no doubt felt like grace.
In a stunning reversal of what we were expecting the master praises his manager’s shrewd behavior. He may not know the extent of what his manager did, but he cannot fail to realize that suddenly everyone he exploits to sustain his fortunes-- now holds him in higher regard.
Cancelling his commission is one of the theories about the manager’s behavior. But his motivation may have been pure selfishness. The manager decided he needed more goodwill than the master needed more wealth and did the right thing for the “wrong” reason. But no one liberated from debt or oppression cares much about who turns the key.
As Martin Luther once said, “Our God is the God who can ride the lame horse and carve the rotten wood.”
When a system is rotten to the core—as the Roman Empire was especially when compared to the Kingdom of God-- does it really matter if a lame horse is the one who rides into town?
We don’t know what happened to the manager in the rush of good will he felt from his new friends. Did his perspective shift when he began to stay in their houses or tents and look at life from the bottom up? Did he begin to experience the pure generosity of friendship and love that often flow from those who have the least to give? We have no idea.
We want parables to be teachable moments; “A grassroots lesson connecting the ordinariness of life with the extraordinary nature of God,” writes Helen Montgomery Devoise.
It’s worth nothing that in this gospel, Jesus is dealing with the world as it is. Corrupt, broken, messy. Continues Devoise:
Why would Jesus make an example for godly living so
unsavory? The parable presents as the model for our
faith someone whose life is the complete opposite of
everything Christ ever taught.
We all expect and hope that the sleazy manager will get his due, and it’s just the opposite. There is a reckless creativity, though to his approach and he acts.
Jesus says that “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.”
Debie Thomas in Journey with Jesus, poses this question:
Where and how might we be more shrewd, more clever, more creative, and more single-minded in our vocations as children of light? If the manager in Jesus’s story can hustle so hard for his own survival, how much more might we contend on behalf of a world God loves?
Today Jesus might look at the way the courts were stacked slowly and steadily over the years with politically minded judges more likely to make politics their priority over the Constitution and note that their shrewd manipulation paid off.
Imagine if those shrewd tactics were pursed be what Jesus called “the children of light?” who understood that the Judiciary is not meant to be an arm of the Executive Branch.
Jesus tells this parable to the Pharisees, the prominent religious leaders who were strict adherent to Jewish law and put that above all else. The Pharisees are no fans of Jesus expansive attitude towards divine judgment. Writes Rev. Dr. Alison Boden, whose husband was your last rector:
Jesus has been cooking the books of diving judgment, and the
folks who’ve staked their lives on following the law to the letter
do not appreciate having the rulebook revised. Christ is God’s
steward and he’s busy forgiving debts—canceling indebtedness.
His message to the religious leaders is that God is the eternal
creditor, not themselves. Jesus is canceling debts owed not to
them but to God, and God commends him for it.
Despite Luke’s best efforts to tack on some take home messages, this parable is finished not in the gospel, but in us. We have to decide what would happen in us if we gave this gospel a time share in our hearts? We have start somewhere and this messy parable is, in the end, is a fine place to start. As Debie Thomas points out:
Where there is unburdening, where there is liberation, where there is crazy, radical generosity — there is God. And where God is? Well, that's where we should seek to be as well. Amen
Aug 14, 2022 |
The Refiner's Fire
| The Rev. Laura Palmer
The Refiner's Fire
Read the Rev. Laura Palmer's sermon for the Tenth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 15.
Jeremiah 23:23-29
Psalm 82
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to thee, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.
Now, the laugh’s on me because years ago, a priest friend would send me his sermon on Saturday when he was stuck and uninspired. Once my snarky self said, “Sometimes bad texts happen to good preachers.”
The better word would surely have been “challenging” but there are moments when I click on the text for the following Sunday and think, “Where are Mary and Martha when I need them!” Or last Sunday’s Jesus, the one who said “Do not worry, little flock…do not be afraid.”
We skip over the Jesus who talks about bringing fire and swords. The Jesus who talks about hate and division. And thank you very much, but when it comes to hate and division, we excel in doing that all by ourselves as any news cycle will prove.
So my challenge this week is clear. Is it possible to square this Jesus with the one we not only love and worship, but serve?
Let’s jump right into the fire: the one Jesus said he came to earth to bring and wished were already kindled. What happened to the babe in the manager? The Prince of Peace? Who shall reign forever and ever?
But imagine if Jesus were talking about a refining fire? Reverend Shanon Kershner from Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church poses this question (1):
What if this fire of which Jesus speaks is not a fire of destruction,
a fire signaling retribution and punishment?...What if it’s a fire of
purification, a fire of refinement?... As any metalsmith will tell you,
a refining fire burns with such intense heat that once the metal
is plunged into its core, any impurities come to the surface so they
can be scraped away.
Kershner also helped me understand why Jesus wished the fire had already started when she wrote:
I believe the fire Jesus wished had already been kindled was
a refining fire—one that would scrape away everything in us that
keeps God’s very presence from being reflected in our faces,
reflected in our lives.
This, she writes, challenges us to ask:
What obscures God’s presence from being seen in your face; what obscured God’s presence from being seen in the way you live your life? (2)
Questions worth asking every day of our lives. And think about it: had those flames been kindling, Jesus’ three years of ministry might have gone differently. The crowd that cheered him on Palm Sunday as he road into Jerusalem, expecting a triumphant king, might not have jeered him a week later shouting, “Crucify him,” “Crucify him!”
The kingdom of God Jesus offered was, and still is, a disruptive, radical vision of the world and we fool ourselves when we pretend it isn’t, concocting a cozy and comfy Christianity that divides us from ourselves by saying who’s in and who’s out, who’s worthy of God’s love and who isn’t.
A few years ago – before the pandemic—I remember a married gay couple here who’ve now since moved out of state. One of the women told me she and her wife felt welcome felt at St. Martin’s right from the beginning.
“You know, we can’t just walk into any church.” Hear those words again. “We can’t just walk into any church.” And these women were privileged, professional, and white, a point I make only to emphasize how hard it is still for our LGBTQ siblings to find a place of belonging in the world. This was heightened for me this week by a survey from the Trevor Project that said 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide in the past year, more than half of whom were transgender and non-binary.
2,000 years later, maybe kindling is no longer enough; maybe we need to be spreading lighter fluid over the flames of not only our faith, but our culture.
And many of you I am sure would agree with author and priest Barbara Brown Taylor, who said she wished Jesus disturbing words about creating division in families had never been written down or edited out of Luke’s gospel altogether. (3)
Think for a moment about the cost of discipleship which Jesus surely did because the future of God’s kingdom would depend on those who would carry it forward after his death. By the time Luke was written—several decades after the crucifixion—Christians – and their families-- were being persecuted by the Roman Empire:
As Barbara Brown Taylor points out:
If they found one believer in a household they would arrest
everyone, so it really was true that turning toward Jesus meant
turning away from your family, whether you wanted to or not.
once you made following your Jesus your first priority,
everything else fell by the wayside—not because God took it
away from you but because that is how the world works. As
long as the world opposes those who are set to transform,
transformers will pay a high price. (4)
This brings us to Easter Sunday, 1962, and Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a “transformer” who became a saint in the Episcopal Church in 1991.
Daniels, a Harvard undergraduate from New Hampshire grew up as an Episcopalian but had a crisis of faith when his dad—a physician-- died at an early age and his sister was suffering from a chronic illness at the same time.
But in Boston’s Church of the Advent, that Easter Sunday, something was kindled in Daniels; he heard a call to serve God and after graduation, entered the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge.
Passionate about civil rights, Daniels went to Alabama in 1965 for the March on Selma. He’d planned to return to seminary, but Alabama changed him and he got permission to spend the rest of the semester there.
Daniels explained: “I had been blinded by what I saw in Alabama (and elsewhere), and the road to Damascus led, for me, back here.” (5) One of his projects was to help integrate a local Episcopal Church.
In the summer of August, 1965, after a series of demonstrations, Daniels and three other civil rights workers, went to a rural store which local residents hated because it served non-whites.
When Ruby Sales—one of Daniels colleagues-- walked toward the store to buy a cold drink, a man with a shotgun took aim. Jonathan Daniels leaped in front of her and the bullet aimed at the 17 year-old black teenager exploded in Daniels’ chest.
Upon learning of Daniels’ murder, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, said that “One of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.” (6)
The murderer was subsequently acquitted in Alabama by an all-white jury.
Ruby Sales went to college and then graduated from the same Episcopal seminary Daniels attended. The ordination of women was still years away. Ruby Sales became a leading civil rights activist and a public theologian. Today she runs a non-profit in Georgia.
“You have to understand the significance of Jonathan’s witness,” Ruby Sales told the Washington Post on the 50th anniversary of his murder in 2015, “He walked away from the king’s table. He could have had any benefit he wanted because he was young, white, brilliant and male.” (7) Sales said she feared the racist hatred that killed Daniels was still alive and virulent, and that was seven years ago.
Jonathan Daniels chose, and accepted, the cost of discipleship. He dreamed of becoming a priest and was martyred instead, becoming one with “that great cloud of witnesses,” and a saint in our Church.
The word “martyr” is from the Greek word for “witness.”
Jonathan Daniels became a martyr, witnessing to his faith in Jesus with his life and death. The refiner’s fire kindled in him that Easter Sunday was transformative.
What would happen if we fanned those flames in ourselves? Burning through all that keeps us from seeing Jesus reflecting back when we hold a mirror up to our lives?
Let the life of Jonathan Daniels hand you a match and see what you can kindle anew in your life and witness to Christ.
Today is a very good place to start. This Sunday, August 14th, is the Feast Day of Jonathan Daniels. AMEN
1. Kershner, Shannon, “Conflict Avoidant,” Sermon preached at Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, August 18th, 2019
2. Ibid.
6. Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Virginia Military Institute, (VMI Class of 1961), Civil Rights Hero,VMI, Retrieved February 1, 2015
7. Ruane, Michael E., “Black Civil Rights Activist Recalls White Ally Who Took A Shotgun Blast for Her,” ˆWashington Post, August 16, 2015
Jeremiah 23:23-29
Psalm 82
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to thee, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.
Now, the laugh’s on me because years ago, a priest friend would send me his sermon on Saturday when he was stuck and uninspired. Once my snarky self said, “Sometimes bad texts happen to good preachers.”
The better word would surely have been “challenging” but there are moments when I click on the text for the following Sunday and think, “Where are Mary and Martha when I need them!” Or last Sunday’s Jesus, the one who said “Do not worry, little flock…do not be afraid.”
We skip over the Jesus who talks about bringing fire and swords. The Jesus who talks about hate and division. And thank you very much, but when it comes to hate and division, we excel in doing that all by ourselves as any news cycle will prove.
So my challenge this week is clear. Is it possible to square this Jesus with the one we not only love and worship, but serve?
Let’s jump right into the fire: the one Jesus said he came to earth to bring and wished were already kindled. What happened to the babe in the manager? The Prince of Peace? Who shall reign forever and ever?
But imagine if Jesus were talking about a refining fire? Reverend Shanon Kershner from Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church poses this question (1):
What if this fire of which Jesus speaks is not a fire of destruction,
a fire signaling retribution and punishment?...What if it’s a fire of
purification, a fire of refinement?... As any metalsmith will tell you,
a refining fire burns with such intense heat that once the metal
is plunged into its core, any impurities come to the surface so they
can be scraped away.
Kershner also helped me understand why Jesus wished the fire had already started when she wrote:
I believe the fire Jesus wished had already been kindled was
a refining fire—one that would scrape away everything in us that
keeps God’s very presence from being reflected in our faces,
reflected in our lives.
This, she writes, challenges us to ask:
What obscures God’s presence from being seen in your face; what obscured God’s presence from being seen in the way you live your life? (2)
Questions worth asking every day of our lives. And think about it: had those flames been kindling, Jesus’ three years of ministry might have gone differently. The crowd that cheered him on Palm Sunday as he road into Jerusalem, expecting a triumphant king, might not have jeered him a week later shouting, “Crucify him,” “Crucify him!”
The kingdom of God Jesus offered was, and still is, a disruptive, radical vision of the world and we fool ourselves when we pretend it isn’t, concocting a cozy and comfy Christianity that divides us from ourselves by saying who’s in and who’s out, who’s worthy of God’s love and who isn’t.
A few years ago – before the pandemic—I remember a married gay couple here who’ve now since moved out of state. One of the women told me she and her wife felt welcome felt at St. Martin’s right from the beginning.
“You know, we can’t just walk into any church.” Hear those words again. “We can’t just walk into any church.” And these women were privileged, professional, and white, a point I make only to emphasize how hard it is still for our LGBTQ siblings to find a place of belonging in the world. This was heightened for me this week by a survey from the Trevor Project that said 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide in the past year, more than half of whom were transgender and non-binary.
2,000 years later, maybe kindling is no longer enough; maybe we need to be spreading lighter fluid over the flames of not only our faith, but our culture.
And many of you I am sure would agree with author and priest Barbara Brown Taylor, who said she wished Jesus disturbing words about creating division in families had never been written down or edited out of Luke’s gospel altogether. (3)
Think for a moment about the cost of discipleship which Jesus surely did because the future of God’s kingdom would depend on those who would carry it forward after his death. By the time Luke was written—several decades after the crucifixion—Christians – and their families-- were being persecuted by the Roman Empire:
As Barbara Brown Taylor points out:
If they found one believer in a household they would arrest
everyone, so it really was true that turning toward Jesus meant
turning away from your family, whether you wanted to or not.
once you made following your Jesus your first priority,
everything else fell by the wayside—not because God took it
away from you but because that is how the world works. As
long as the world opposes those who are set to transform,
transformers will pay a high price. (4)
This brings us to Easter Sunday, 1962, and Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a “transformer” who became a saint in the Episcopal Church in 1991.
Daniels, a Harvard undergraduate from New Hampshire grew up as an Episcopalian but had a crisis of faith when his dad—a physician-- died at an early age and his sister was suffering from a chronic illness at the same time.
But in Boston’s Church of the Advent, that Easter Sunday, something was kindled in Daniels; he heard a call to serve God and after graduation, entered the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge.
Passionate about civil rights, Daniels went to Alabama in 1965 for the March on Selma. He’d planned to return to seminary, but Alabama changed him and he got permission to spend the rest of the semester there.
Daniels explained: “I had been blinded by what I saw in Alabama (and elsewhere), and the road to Damascus led, for me, back here.” (5) One of his projects was to help integrate a local Episcopal Church.
In the summer of August, 1965, after a series of demonstrations, Daniels and three other civil rights workers, went to a rural store which local residents hated because it served non-whites.
When Ruby Sales—one of Daniels colleagues-- walked toward the store to buy a cold drink, a man with a shotgun took aim. Jonathan Daniels leaped in front of her and the bullet aimed at the 17 year-old black teenager exploded in Daniels’ chest.
Upon learning of Daniels’ murder, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, said that “One of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.” (6)
The murderer was subsequently acquitted in Alabama by an all-white jury.
Ruby Sales went to college and then graduated from the same Episcopal seminary Daniels attended. The ordination of women was still years away. Ruby Sales became a leading civil rights activist and a public theologian. Today she runs a non-profit in Georgia.
“You have to understand the significance of Jonathan’s witness,” Ruby Sales told the Washington Post on the 50th anniversary of his murder in 2015, “He walked away from the king’s table. He could have had any benefit he wanted because he was young, white, brilliant and male.” (7) Sales said she feared the racist hatred that killed Daniels was still alive and virulent, and that was seven years ago.
Jonathan Daniels chose, and accepted, the cost of discipleship. He dreamed of becoming a priest and was martyred instead, becoming one with “that great cloud of witnesses,” and a saint in our Church.
The word “martyr” is from the Greek word for “witness.”
Jonathan Daniels became a martyr, witnessing to his faith in Jesus with his life and death. The refiner’s fire kindled in him that Easter Sunday was transformative.
What would happen if we fanned those flames in ourselves? Burning through all that keeps us from seeing Jesus reflecting back when we hold a mirror up to our lives?
Let the life of Jonathan Daniels hand you a match and see what you can kindle anew in your life and witness to Christ.
Today is a very good place to start. This Sunday, August 14th, is the Feast Day of Jonathan Daniels. AMEN
1. Kershner, Shannon, “Conflict Avoidant,” Sermon preached at Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, August 18th, 2019
2. Ibid.
3. Taylor, Barbara Brown, “Family Values, Gospel Medicine, pp. 14-15
4. Taylor, Barbara Brown, “High-Priced Discipleship,” Bread of Angels, pp. 48-49
5. Schjonberg, Joan, Episcopal News Service, “Remembering Jonathan Daniels 50 Years After His Martyrdom,” August 13th, 20156. Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Virginia Military Institute, (VMI Class of 1961), Civil Rights Hero,VMI, Retrieved February 1, 2015
7. Ruane, Michael E., “Black Civil Rights Activist Recalls White Ally Who Took A Shotgun Blast for Her,” ˆWashington Post, August 16, 2015
Aug 07, 2022 |
A Place Beyond Imagining
| The Rev. Laura Palmer
A Place Beyond Imagining
Read the Rev. Laura Palmer's sermon for the Ninth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 14.
Today's readings are:
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. AMEN.
It’s a very short distance from the third pew over there on the right-- where I always sit-- to this pulpit but I traveled a very, very, long way to arrive at this moment. It’s astonishing to be here. My heart is filled with gratitude and a quiet joy
When gratitude and joy are combined, it’s both powerful and yet also humbling. For me it’s what can happen in embracing an unexpected life. Faith was involved, to be sure, although I wasn’t calling it that per se. I was calling it “trust’ and when I wanted to change my life I began praying my dangerous prayer: “Let thy will be my will,” Sunday after Sunday at the Eucharist.
I trusted in God to lead me which is at the heart of faith when I was reminded of again when I read the exquisite words from Hebrews: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
People mistakenly assume that I’m courageous but I’m not. I’m very curious though and good at walking through doors when they open. And somehow, the next right thing appears on the wings of the Holy Spirit.
I do try to plan—I was going to go to law school and get Black Panthers out of jail—but I went to Vietnam instead with a pediatrician I met hitchhiking illegally on an interstate -- which led to a long career as an author and journalist in television news.
But there came a time when I knew there were no more jobs in TV that appealed to me anymore. I wanted the remaining years of my professional career to be in service to God out of the profound gratitude I had for the life I’d lived. Not that it had been easy. There were crucifixions along the way but somehow, I kept making it to Easter. I had no idea what to hope for, but did, and do, have faith in things unseen.
So I began praying my dangerous prayer at the communion rail – all six words of it with no idea of what was coming next. “Let thy will be my will.”
If someone had asked me -- and no one really did—I’d probably have said I might end up doing non-profit work in New York City where I lived.
The thought of going to graduate school with money I didn’t have for a degree that led nowhere and that I’d end up working in Philadelphia, a city I often flew through on Amtrak en route to DC, was beyond my power of imagining.
I should also add that by the time I graduated from Union Theological Seminary with an M.Div. in Psychiatry and Religion, I was sure I would never be ordained. Full stop. Never. I’d hear other students say things like “I’ve known I’ve had a call on my head since I was four,” and I’d wince. That wasn’t me. Another time someone said “I had a dream in which the Holy Spirit who showed me I’d be leading people to Jesus.” Good for you, I thought. But that’s not me.
And yet God led me to a place beyond imagining, one where the moment I arrived, I knew I belonged. And you, the loving people of St. Martin’s, and your rector, Jarrett Kerbel, and a parish committee, listened and supported me as I quietly began to respond to what I realize now was a persistent whisper from God. It was long, difficult, and took years. The waiting was at times, endless. Start to finish – what began in New York end nine years later here at St. Martin’s when I was ordained on Dec. 13th, 2019. And even when I was ordained, I never imagined preaching here. I was the oncology chaplain at CHOP, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. So once again this morning, I find myself in a place beyond imagining, where gratitude and joy collide.
God’s will for my life was far greater than my own. A way was made out of no way that I could see. It’s like the passage from Genesis this morning when God told Abraham to look at the heavens and imagine his descendants being as infinite as the panoply of stars flung across the navy night sky. Abraham must have been incredulous. He was too old and for starters, his wife, was barren, yet God let him to a place beyond imagining.
And, as author and theologian Barbara Brown Taylor points out,
"For Protestants in particular, his story is key. Abraham did not lift a finger to be saved. All he did was believe God’s promise and that was enough. He was saved by faith alone." (1)
Faith. Trust. The conviction of things not seen. We stare through the glass of our lives so darkly and often for so long it is hard to imagine that there might be anything more.
It can be easy to forget so that faith should be vibrant and alive. It’s not to be confused with theology, as the noted pastor Frederick Buechner points out:
"Faith is different from theology because theology is reasoned, systematic, and orderly, whereas faith is disorderly intermittent and full of surprises…Faith is homesickness, faith is a lump in the throat faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting, waiting." (2)
And we are not patient people. Waiting makes us anxious and often doubt our faith. It can be frustrating and frightening whether we are choosing to change our lives, as I was, or being forced to change the lives we thought we going to live because of life’s traumas that come to us all. Waiting can be a geyser of what Martin Buber aptly describes as “Holy Insecurity.”
"This is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of danger and of risk, of eternal beginning and eternal becoming, of opened spirit and of deep realization, the kingdom of holy insecurity." (3)
St. Martin’s knows something about holy insecurity as you work and pray through the process of “eternal becoming” it certainly can feel risky at the very best, if not dangerous, at times. But this, too, Buber reminds us, is the kingdom of God.
As if aware of how we struggle with “Holy Insecurity.” Jesus, in the sweet tenderness of these words from Luke says this: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
And yet, that means work, struggle, danger and risk. It surely did in my life as God led me to a place beyond imagining. We must prepare. Keep our lamps lit. Even if at times it only feels like a pilot light of faith, of trust, of love. We must remain ready. And that’s a process, not a switch that can be flicked on.
We will get there together, with faith, and with the deep and strong bonds that have been forged from the past to the present in this parish community for over a century. You are not alone, we are not alone, even if it might often feel that way. As the Psalmist today reminds us, “Our soul waits for the Lord, He is our help and our shield” because St. Martin’s does not belong to your priest. It belongs to you, beloved children of God, and above all, to the one in whose name we live, pray, and serve. God is calling us all to a place beyond imagining and one we’ll recognize the moment we arrive. AMEN.
1. Taylor, Barbara Brown, “The Sacramental Sky,” Duke University Chapel, Durham, N.C. February 18th, 2010
2. Buechner, Frederick, “Faith and Fiction,” sermon preached at Montreat Conference Center, North Carolina, 1986
3. Martin Buber, as quoted in Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, Barbara Brown Taylor, Harper Collins, 2019, pg, 81
Today's readings are:
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. AMEN.
It’s a very short distance from the third pew over there on the right-- where I always sit-- to this pulpit but I traveled a very, very, long way to arrive at this moment. It’s astonishing to be here. My heart is filled with gratitude and a quiet joy
When gratitude and joy are combined, it’s both powerful and yet also humbling. For me it’s what can happen in embracing an unexpected life. Faith was involved, to be sure, although I wasn’t calling it that per se. I was calling it “trust’ and when I wanted to change my life I began praying my dangerous prayer: “Let thy will be my will,” Sunday after Sunday at the Eucharist.
I trusted in God to lead me which is at the heart of faith when I was reminded of again when I read the exquisite words from Hebrews: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
People mistakenly assume that I’m courageous but I’m not. I’m very curious though and good at walking through doors when they open. And somehow, the next right thing appears on the wings of the Holy Spirit.
I do try to plan—I was going to go to law school and get Black Panthers out of jail—but I went to Vietnam instead with a pediatrician I met hitchhiking illegally on an interstate -- which led to a long career as an author and journalist in television news.
But there came a time when I knew there were no more jobs in TV that appealed to me anymore. I wanted the remaining years of my professional career to be in service to God out of the profound gratitude I had for the life I’d lived. Not that it had been easy. There were crucifixions along the way but somehow, I kept making it to Easter. I had no idea what to hope for, but did, and do, have faith in things unseen.
So I began praying my dangerous prayer at the communion rail – all six words of it with no idea of what was coming next. “Let thy will be my will.”
If someone had asked me -- and no one really did—I’d probably have said I might end up doing non-profit work in New York City where I lived.
The thought of going to graduate school with money I didn’t have for a degree that led nowhere and that I’d end up working in Philadelphia, a city I often flew through on Amtrak en route to DC, was beyond my power of imagining.
I should also add that by the time I graduated from Union Theological Seminary with an M.Div. in Psychiatry and Religion, I was sure I would never be ordained. Full stop. Never. I’d hear other students say things like “I’ve known I’ve had a call on my head since I was four,” and I’d wince. That wasn’t me. Another time someone said “I had a dream in which the Holy Spirit who showed me I’d be leading people to Jesus.” Good for you, I thought. But that’s not me.
And yet God led me to a place beyond imagining, one where the moment I arrived, I knew I belonged. And you, the loving people of St. Martin’s, and your rector, Jarrett Kerbel, and a parish committee, listened and supported me as I quietly began to respond to what I realize now was a persistent whisper from God. It was long, difficult, and took years. The waiting was at times, endless. Start to finish – what began in New York end nine years later here at St. Martin’s when I was ordained on Dec. 13th, 2019. And even when I was ordained, I never imagined preaching here. I was the oncology chaplain at CHOP, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. So once again this morning, I find myself in a place beyond imagining, where gratitude and joy collide.
God’s will for my life was far greater than my own. A way was made out of no way that I could see. It’s like the passage from Genesis this morning when God told Abraham to look at the heavens and imagine his descendants being as infinite as the panoply of stars flung across the navy night sky. Abraham must have been incredulous. He was too old and for starters, his wife, was barren, yet God let him to a place beyond imagining.
And, as author and theologian Barbara Brown Taylor points out,
"For Protestants in particular, his story is key. Abraham did not lift a finger to be saved. All he did was believe God’s promise and that was enough. He was saved by faith alone." (1)
Faith. Trust. The conviction of things not seen. We stare through the glass of our lives so darkly and often for so long it is hard to imagine that there might be anything more.
It can be easy to forget so that faith should be vibrant and alive. It’s not to be confused with theology, as the noted pastor Frederick Buechner points out:
"Faith is different from theology because theology is reasoned, systematic, and orderly, whereas faith is disorderly intermittent and full of surprises…Faith is homesickness, faith is a lump in the throat faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting, waiting." (2)
And we are not patient people. Waiting makes us anxious and often doubt our faith. It can be frustrating and frightening whether we are choosing to change our lives, as I was, or being forced to change the lives we thought we going to live because of life’s traumas that come to us all. Waiting can be a geyser of what Martin Buber aptly describes as “Holy Insecurity.”
"This is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of danger and of risk, of eternal beginning and eternal becoming, of opened spirit and of deep realization, the kingdom of holy insecurity." (3)
St. Martin’s knows something about holy insecurity as you work and pray through the process of “eternal becoming” it certainly can feel risky at the very best, if not dangerous, at times. But this, too, Buber reminds us, is the kingdom of God.
As if aware of how we struggle with “Holy Insecurity.” Jesus, in the sweet tenderness of these words from Luke says this: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
And yet, that means work, struggle, danger and risk. It surely did in my life as God led me to a place beyond imagining. We must prepare. Keep our lamps lit. Even if at times it only feels like a pilot light of faith, of trust, of love. We must remain ready. And that’s a process, not a switch that can be flicked on.
We will get there together, with faith, and with the deep and strong bonds that have been forged from the past to the present in this parish community for over a century. You are not alone, we are not alone, even if it might often feel that way. As the Psalmist today reminds us, “Our soul waits for the Lord, He is our help and our shield” because St. Martin’s does not belong to your priest. It belongs to you, beloved children of God, and above all, to the one in whose name we live, pray, and serve. God is calling us all to a place beyond imagining and one we’ll recognize the moment we arrive. AMEN.
1. Taylor, Barbara Brown, “The Sacramental Sky,” Duke University Chapel, Durham, N.C. February 18th, 2010
2. Buechner, Frederick, “Faith and Fiction,” sermon preached at Montreat Conference Center, North Carolina, 1986
3. Martin Buber, as quoted in Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, Barbara Brown Taylor, Harper Collins, 2019, pg, 81
