Sermon for Sunday, February 5, 2012 Isaiah 40:21-31 “Steady”

For his fiftieth birthday, my husband indulged himself in a midlife crisis. He, with his brother and other friends, decided to bicycle across the United States as part of a four-man team in something called “The Race Across America.” This was not a leisurely jaunt from B&B to B&B. No, this was hard-core. Not for nothing does the Race Across America – also called RAAM - bill itself as the world’s toughest bike race. Some member of the team was on his bike at all times, riding day and night, from San Diego to Annapolis. While one person was riding the others were either in the van following the rider or in the RV sleeping or eating. It took a total of 8 and a half days, a remarkable accomplishment given that one of the riders was injured about halfway across the country and the rest of the team had to work that much harder, riding longer each day, until they reached Annapolis.

The remarkable thing about this accomplishment, outside of the fact that four middle-aged desk jockeys like Doug, Chuck, Mike and Majd actually finished, was that they rarely rode very fast. Their pace was respectable, but it wasn’t as fast as Lance Armstrong or the other elite bicycle racers. No, to do RAAM and survive, you’ve got to find a pace that works for you and stick with it. Sometimes, when they had to reach check-in points by a certain time, they stepped up the pace, but mostly it was steady as she goes, day and night, hour by hour, across the country.

Steadiness. That’s not a virtue that you hear about very often in today’s world. No, it’s always about being the fastest or the strongest or the biggest. At the Super Bowl this afternoon, no one is going to laud a running back for his steadiness. In that contest, it’s all about speed.

And yet steadiness is one of the things that gets us through.

It is steadiness that Isaiah is talking about in the Old Testament reading today. He is chiding the people of Israel who are exiled in Babylon. They complain “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God.” They feel that their time of trial is abandonment by God.

They whine and complain, and Isaiah responds as sharply as if he had slapped them. “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told to you from the beginning?”

He launches into an ecstatic recounting of God’s history with his people, of God’s power and creative force, all the things that God has given them, God’s never-failing attention to them. He says they are in the grip of what William Carl calls “theological amnesia.”

They have forgotten who God is, because they have been so busy ignoring God and tending to their own needs…and look where it has gotten them, in the hands of foreigners, living in a strange land. He cries out to them: “Remember! Remember your God. He has not abandoned you. You have forgotten HIM! Look around and see God’s presence in everything and everyone you see and touch and use.”

He says that if they go back to the beginning of their understanding of God, if they steady themselves and rebuild that relationship, they will no longer feel like God has abandoned them. They will see and feel his presence even in their times of trouble.

Even more important, Isaiah reminds these broken people that God not only has not gone away, but that he is there to give them exactly what they need to soldier on, if they look for it: “…but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” In other words, be steady in faithfulness, and God will supply the strength you need to survive whatever you must endure.

If you are running around yelling and complaining and struggling, how can you feel God’s presence? It is when you stop, stay still for a second, that you can regain that steadiness and calm that allows you to hear him, to feel him, with you.

I found myself thinking of this passage on Friday, when my colleague at Immanuel, Old Church would be presiding at the Memorial Service for the three year old twin girls who were murdered. How could the family of those beautiful little girls carry on with the awful burden of grief? How could they live with the worry that they should have seen something in the girls’ father’s behavior that would have been a clue to what he planned? How could they stop themselves from imagining, over and over again, how the girls might have suffered before they died?

It would not surprise me if the family said, like the Israelites, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God.” “I feel like God has abandoned me, and abandoned my girls, and I feel utterly lost and alone.”

Isaiah says that God is with us, even in the times when we are most broken, most betrayed by the world around us, most lost and in pain. If we turn to the Lord, if we remember his power and his love for all of that which he created, then we know that even in the most difficult times, we are not alone. This God loves us. This God remembers us, each one of us, by name. This God gives us the strength we need. All we need to do is to be steady, to pedal our bikes at an even pace, to be faithful, and he will be there giving us what we need, whatever the world does to us. Those who wait for the Lord, steady despite the insanity around them, shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not be faint, because the Lord will give them what they need to endure.

Amen.

Strange Weather, Strange Times

It has been extraordinarily warm this winter here in Richmond. It was over 70 for two days this past week, and it is confusing our plants in the garden. Several daffodils are up, and the camellias are blooming. If and when we get a cold snap, those poor plants will get a shock.

Still, despite what Punxatawney Phil predicted, our local weather folks are saying the generally mild weather will continue, so we may have six more weeks of mild temps instead of true winter.

I'm of two minds about this. I like real winter, with enough snow that you can stay at home and enjoy the fire in the fireplace and drink hot cocoa. I don't like feeling chilled to the bone, though, and that's part of the package.

It's been another challenging week. I have taken over as dean of the region (sort of a mother hen to the parishes in our general area) and have worried about and prayed for one of our country churches, where they had a funeral for twin 3-year-old girls who were murdered by their father. This has rippled throughout the whole area - I presided at a Eucharist in the retirement community where the girls' great-grandmother lives, and all her friends there are grieving with her. So much pain and questioning in the midst of this - it informs the sermon I will preach for tomorrow, on Isaiah 40:21-31 ("Have you not known? Have you not heard?"

I also presided yesterday at a funeral in a funeral parlor for a lady who died at 53 after a hard life - she had been born and brought up Episcopalian, but had not been affiliated with a church for a long time. I find myself wondering if things would have been different for her if she had had a church family to help her. No answer to that, of course, just as there is no answer to whether things would have transpired differently for the aforementioned little girls if their father, who killed them before he killed himself, had been attending church and had talked to someone there in his depression and anger.

All we can do with these sorts of tragedies is leave in God's hands and hope that other people who are struggling as these two did will ask for help - our help in the church or other kinds of help.


We all face times of balmy weather and cold snaps. It's easier to handle if we do it with God as part of the picture, and with God's people to help.

Sermon for Thursday, February 2, 2012 Eucharist at Westminster-Canterbury Luke 2:22-40 “Seeing Things”

Those of us who are older see things differently than those who are young. Part of it is just that we’ve lived longer, seen more things. There isn’t much in life that we haven’t experienced, be it good or bad. Part of it is that we’ve had time to reflect on our own lives, what we’ve experienced, how that has formed us and changed us. We’ve had great joy and we’ve had our hearts broken, and we have survived both those experiences.

That’s certainly true for me. I cannot look at a daylily on a summer day, especially those speckled orange ones we call tiger lilies, without remembering my first visit as a city girl to the country, when I went to Girl Scout camp at the age of 7. I had no idea there were places with so many trees, and that there were roads where hundreds – no, thousands – of those tiger lilies filled the ditches flanking the dirt road, their tangerine glory lighting up the day as we hiked alongside them.

I cannot walk in a churchyard without remembering with a chill the cold January morning when we buried my mother almost two decades ago, after her long battle with heart disease.

We who have lived a while see things more deeply than our younger friends and family, because we have touchpoints, memories, that help us give meaning to what we observe.

In this, we are in fellowship with Simeon and Anna, the elders in the synagogue when Joseph and Mary bring the infant Jesus to the temple to be dedicated to God, as Mosaic law decreed.

Imagine them now, an old man and an old woman, faithful believers in the one true God. Simeon had been promised by God that he would not die until he saw the Messiah. He spent most of his days now in the temple, waiting for the arrival of the anointed one as he had for many years, wondering perhaps if he would truly live until he saw the child. What a gift that God had given to this faithful man! Years to hone his skills in seeing, so that when the right child, that blessed child, came, he would recognize him. He was now old, so old that his eyesight was not very good, but when Joseph and Mary brought the child to the temple, he had no trouble seeing who and what this child was. At last, after all those years of waiting and watching! The child, the Messiah! And Simeon offered up a beautiful prayer, one that we still recite as one of the canticles in our prayer book:

"Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."

Simeon was grateful that God had kept his promise, both to the people of Israel in sending them deliverance through this Messiah, and to him, in giving him the gift of seeing who this child was.

But the gift of seeing does not mean that you only get to see wonderful and joyful things. The burden that Simeon carried was that he also saw how it would end for this baby, and he warned the child’s mother:

"This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed-- and a sword will pierce your own soul too."

We see more deeply, don’t we? And the hard part is that we see it all, good and bad.

This community knows that truth with particular sadness these days, when we mourn with our friend Louise over the senseless deaths of her great-granddaughters. We know bad things happen, that people go insane and hurt others, just as we know that little children are pure blessing and joy to us. We see how it is possible for such evil to happen. We wish we didn’t, as I am sure that Simeon wished he hadn’t seen what was going to happen to the precious infant Jesus that he held in his arms in the temple that morning. Sometimes it feels like we see too well, and wish we had the limited vision and naïve understanding of our youth. But this is the gift and the burden of our age – we see it all, too clearly to deny it. So it was with Simeon. So it is with us on this day, when we grieve the death of the King twins, when we weep tears of sympathy with their family.

The gift of vision, like all gifts, is simply given to us. It is given without regard to the good and bad we might see, but it is also given with the understanding that whatever we see, God sees with us. Whatever we see that frightens us, God knows about and stands behind us to strengthen us. Whatever we see that gives us joy, God knows about and stands beside us, smiling. Whatever we see that causes us grief, God knows about…and he wraps his love around us in shared grief.

We are not given this ability to see so deeply without a care for the emotions that it brings to us. And so, even in the most difficult times of seeing the hardest things, like the death of children, we know that we are not alone. We are never alone. The giver of the gift is with us, telling us that we must look, we must see, we must bear witness to what has happened, and we must pray that it will never happen again.

So we pray, and may our prayers help us to see the Resurrected Messiah as well as the Christ on the Cross. May our prayers help us to see two little children in heaven, as well as the poor hurt bodies they have left behind.

God bless us and keep us, and help us to bear the gift of seeing that we share.

Amen.

Sermon for Sunday January 29, 2012 Mark 1:21-28 “Crazy”

What do you do when you’re confronted by a crazy person? You know the kind of people I’m talking about. They’re the ones who sit on a bench on East Broad Street, waiting for a bus that never comes, talking to themselves. They’re the people who act a little odd, or a lot odd, in bus stations or train stations. They’re sometimes the homeless among us, or they’re sometimes the relative whom we don’t invite to our Thanksgiving Dinner because their behavior is unpredictable and sometimes frightening.

They are different from us, and we feel that difference acutely. As a result, we tend to discount them. We think they live in some strange underworld that has nothing to do with us. We think they are the detritus of the world, worthless.

They don't contribute to society. They don't work, or pay taxes, or fix things or make things. They cannot do these things, of course, because they are crazy, or at least they seem crazy to us. We judge them, and say they are a drag on society, or probably addicts, or we are frightened of them, because their world seems entirely disconnected with our own.

And yet as Christians we understand rationally that they have value. We know that they are created by God, beloved by their creator just as we are...and yet when we encounter them, we still think of them as "less than."

In many ways, it is natural to view them that way. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone describe the paranoid schizophrenic who lives under a bridge as someone who contributes to the world. You wouldn’t hire her to mind your children. You wouldn’t want him to draw your blood at the doctor’s office. No, for that you want someone who seems safe and rational and competent, and crazy people are, in our eyes, none of the above.

But the crazy people in the world have one skill that is rare and beautiful, one that few of us share with them.

They are the watchers. They see things, not just the top layer of things that we all can observe, but a deeper level of observation. Their observations are not always trustworthy, but sometimes they surprise us, because crazy people see things through a different lens. Their different perspective gives them the capacity to see things that we miss.

Sometimes, too, they sit still better than us, and those who sit still to observe catch things that we so-called normal people miss, whether it is a robin plucking a fat worm out of the spring earth or a policeman heading toward them to roist them out of their usual seat in the park. They see things, in the world and in humanity, sometimes so clearly that it is almost painful to them, and even to us.

I'm reminded of a man who stood next to me one bright Tuesday noon in McPherson Square in Washington DC. We were both attending a service of Street Church, a noontime Eucharist in the park for the street people and the office workers, a simple celebration of the Lord's Supper for people who were hungry for many things, not the least of whch was the sandwich and juice that would be handed out after the service. That man standing next to me was a sojourner, a wanderer from who knows where. He smelled bad and was twitchy. His clothes were worn and his backpack looked like it had seen better days.

He mumbled to himself, words I couldn't decipher. And the moment came in the service when we were to exchange the Peace, and I had no idea what I would do… I had no idea what he would do. But I took a deep breath, despite the odor that now surrounded us because he had wet his pants, and said "God's peace, my brother." I braced myself for whatever would come next, afraid that he might want to hug me.

“God’s peace, my brother.” He half-turned to me and stopped mumbling. He looked at me, waited a moment, and smiled and said "I need it. You need it too."

This strange man, possessed by some demon, whether it was drugs or alcohol or mental illness, this man who had wet his pants a few minutes before but seemed oblivious to it, this man who was mumbling to whomever...he had looked at me in a moment of strange clarity and had seen something in himself and in me. And he got in one. "I need it. I need God's peace. You need God's peace, too."

How could he have known?

I was in the midst of seminary. I had no idea where I would land, worried about money, about exams, about my thesis, my children, whether this had all been some monstrous mistake...and then a crazy man reminded me that my worries were irrelevant. I needed God's peace, and God would give it to me.

When Jesus began his ministry, he went into the synagogue to teach.There is some question whether he ever wondered about who he was and what he was doing. Yes, when he was baptized in the Jordan he heard his heavenly father's voice pronouncing a benediction on him and his mission. But perhaps he too wondered how this would all play out, or if he was doing it right, or whether he was deluded or even a tad crazy himself.

And then a truly crazy person came up to him. There was no hesitation in this man possessed by demons - he just started shouting at Jesus - or the demons within him did - naming Jesus in a way that the disciples didn't even dare - calling him the "Holy One of God."

The one person who could see who Jesus really was was not one of the disciples.It wasn't one of the religious leaders in the synagogue. It wasn't Jesus' relatives.

No, it was a crazy person, a man possessed by demons. This crazy man saw Jesus more deeply than the others did, especially the religious people. He named him as the Son of God. It was as if he had a microscope with which he could analyze Jesus’ DNA. He got it in one.

He was the forerunner of what Orthodox Christianity identifies as “holy fools,” saints who act foolishly, seemingly mad, talking in riddles, sometimes homeless, sometimes wandering around naked, but who are said to be prophets of God.

Maybe it's only the crazy ones who have the time to look deeply. Maybe their broken hearts and minds help them see what we in our arrogance and busy-ness are blind to.

Maybe the lesson of this story from Mark's gospel isn't that Jesus worked miracles and tamed demons, or that people were amazed by his words and works. Maybe the lesson is simply this: pay attention. Maybe the crazy people, the holy fools, have it right, and we have it wrong. Maybe we need to relearn how to see beyond our own circumscribed understanding of the world, and humanity, and God. Look deeply. Let yourself be holy fools. Let yourself be crazy enough to see the Son of God in unexpected ways, in unexpected people, in unexpected places, and be blessed.

Amen.

The Power of Purell

What would we do without hand sanitizer? It may just be the placebo effect, but I feel better when I've got some handy near the altar. Right now I have a bit of a stomach bug, but am still going to preside at the noon Eucharist. I will use the Purell before the lavabo and I hope I will not transmit any germs or bugs or anything.

A friend sent me a message about my Purell jones: "There are some studies to suggest that the alcohol (Purell is alcohol based) does not kill viruses like flu or whatever causes the "stomach bug." It does have an effect on meaner viruses like Hepatitis. Reason being the lower grade stuff is not encapsulated. Some of the more serious viruses are and the alcohol kills off the encapsulation. The more prevalent viruses don't have this encapsulation and fare better through the alcohol. This is all from a small study at Yale. Now, I did read about a different product called Soapopular that is used in the UK and does not use alcohol but instead uses something else and may be more effective on the typical viruses we come across."

May be true, but I'll go with what I can get domestically, namely, Purell and similar stuff.

If parishioners are hacking and coughing, I always use it after the Peace...again, I don't want to pass anything along that was passed to me.

When swine flu was around and people were nervous, we instituted the "elbow bump of peace." Some folks were even more careful, and used "the gingerly little wave of peace." We all have our little things that make us feel like we are in control of our environment and our health...whatever makes you feel safer is fine by me.

It would be awful if I caused one of my parishioners to get sick. Of course, they've passed their bugs to me on a number of occasions, but it seems like an occupational hazard. Still, I'm grateful for the Purell, even if it can't kill off everything to which I might be exposed.

Sermon for Sunday, January 15, 2012 I Cor 6:12-20 “It’s (Not) About Sex”

We preachers are always looking for ways to get our parishioners’ attention. Funny stories, references to things going on in the news, pop culture, whatever it takes to get you to listen to the message we want to share with you.

When in doubt, we’ve always got a go-to thing that guarantees you all will listen.

Sex.

Preaching about sex always makes folks in the pews sit up and take notice. So today, I’m going to talk about sex.

I know what you’re thinking.

“What is she going to say? Should we make sure none of the children can hear this? Will I be embarrassed by what she says?”

And that’s just fine. I want you to pay attention. I know you’re going to pay attention when the subject is sex.

Now, I’m not unique in this. Preachers, as I said, can always rely on this topic to ensure that their parishioners will attend to their message.

The Apostle Paul, a good preacher to be sure, actually used the word “fornication” not once but three times in this brief passage from Corinthians. It’s clear he wanted to get the attention of the faithful in Corinth. But like all things in Holy Scripture, there’s more to this than meets the eye.

So what’s going on in this R-rated passage from the epistle, and what does it mean to us today?

Let’s start with location. Corinth was one of the churches that Paul founded. But as much as he loved them, as a pastor he was frustrated by their misbehavior, and this letter has a lot to do with trying to get them back on the right path. He was in the midst of giving them guidance on how to live the Christian life, after chiding them for tolerating a man living in sin with his father’s wife. And now he jumped in to this discussion about fornication.

Fornication – that’s a word we don’t use too often these days. What does he mean by “fornication?” Paul uses the Greek work “porneia,” which can be translated as fornication, but really is not just about the way we think of fornication, which is sexual congress outside of marriage, but also talks about using prostitutes, incest, relations with animals, relations with someone who is divorced, and metaphorically, the worship of idols. So it’s all the nasty things one can do with one’s private parts.

Now to the heart of the problem. Why was this fornication business a problem with the Corinthians?

The Corinthians had been fighting among themselves about the right way to follow Christ and about interpretations of what Christ and Paul taught. Even that close to when Jesus had been alive, folks were already getting it wrong. Here’s a partial list of what they were fighting about, according to scholar Frank Crouch:

“Various factions in the congregation label others as wise or foolish, weak or strong; fight over who was the best pastor before the current one; bring lawsuits against one another; argue over sexual morality, whether it's better to be married or single, what makes a healthy marriage, what constitutes grounds for divorce, what are appropriate dietary practices; what is the correct understanding of resurrection and the afterlife; and on and on.”

Of course, we never argue about such things, do we?

So all these arguments were been going on, and what was the key misunderstanding that they arrived at?

They had heard from Paul that Christ set them free from their sins. And they, being human and wanting what they want when they want it, thought, “Wow! I can do anything, misbehave in any way, because Christ has set me free from my sins.”

In other words, no accountability, since they were already forgiven.

So some of the Corinthians were getting all wild and crazy and doing things that they know were sinful, but they thought they’d get a free ride.

But Pastor Paul said, “Hey, wait a minute!”

He started out with their main argument: “All things are lawful for me.” It is probably more accurate to translate that phrase as “all things are allowed for me.” The Corinthians are thinking that this means “I am free to do whatever I want.” But Paul says they’ve missed the point. They may be free to do whatever they want, but those things may not be beneficial. He starts to talk about the gift of the body, that beautiful creation of God, and how our bodies are part of an even more beautiful body, the Body of Christ. He uses this recurrent problem of sexual misconduct among the Corinthians to point out that when they are involved in inappropriate sex, they are uniting the beautiful Body of Christ to the body of someone or something that is not of God. When they do what they please, thinking that Christ’s death has given them leave to do anything at all, they may have fleeting pleasure, but they are not giving God pleasure.

Here’s the heart of the matter: Christ does not set us free so that we can do whatever we want to do; Christ sets us free so that we can do whatever God wants us to do.

Yes, Christ has set us free from our sins. He has redeemed us. But the proper response to that free gift is not as much self-indulgence as we can manage, it is grateful service to the One who has given us the gift. It is not misusing our bodies in sexual misconduct, it is using our bodies in God’s service…and that also includes sex as the gift God intended, in a monogamous, faithful, committed relationship.

Rationally, we understand this. Practically, it can be easy for us to follow the same path that the Corinthians did. Do we say yes to temptations of all kinds – not just sexual ones, but things like overeating, drinking, smoking cigarettes, using illicit drugs? Do we then say “Oh, I was just weak, but Jesus loves me anyway?”

Yes, Jesus does love us. Jesus did die for our sins. But don’t we have an obligation to try to live as He would want us to live? Don’t we have an obligation to try to care for ourselves, for these members of the Body of Christ, as the gifts that we are?

For me, the battle to live as God would want us to live is not about sex. I’m happily married and feel no temptation to stray. Thanks be to God for that! But I am not immune to misusing my body, my part of the Body of Christ…I’ve got an ongoing battle with my weight, not because I want to look skinny, but because I want to be healthy in order to serve God.

Others of us have other ways in which we deny God by using our bodies in selfish ways. I’ve mentioned a few of them: smoking, using alcohol or drugs, sitting around all night watching silly television programs or playing video games rather than getting out and moving, rather than exercising our brains and bodies so we can serve God.

We must change. This is not about New Year’s Resolutions so we look cuter. This is about living in our bodies, which have been called “temples of the Holy Spirit.” This is about recognizing that we don’t get a free ride because we are Christians, we still have to work at living right.

Yes, Paul was talking about sex, and sex was an attention-getter back in his day as well as ours. Sex is one of the many ways that we can get confused about what God intends for us. But Paul was also talking about much more than sex. He was talking about the many gifts that God has given us. Gifts, like sex, like forgiveness, come with responsibilities. They are meant to be used as God intends.

We may all find different paths to understanding what God intends for us, how we are to use our gifts, but make no mistake, God does have plans for us. So now may we gratefully accept those gifts, all of them, and live into them, not as we choose, but as God has planned. That is how we are most truly and deeply part of the Body of Christ.

Amen.