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Recovery Sunday October 20, 2019

Christ Episcopal Church

The Rev. Deacon Lisa Kirby

My name is Lisa and I am person in long term recovery.

Prior to 1985 I was lost to alcohol. I was not a daily drunk, but a daily drinker who had lost the power to decide when to stop drinking once I started.  Would it be two drinks, or would it be way more? That’s one of the symptoms of this disease, and it is a disease.  The brain loses the power of choice.  It is literally re-wired by alcohol or drug use to demand still more of what seems to make us feel good—although alcohol is a depressant. A couple of the brochures in the Parish Hall describe the physical brain changing process.

I found recovery through the Grace of a God who loved me when I could not love myself, thanks in part to the 12 steps we are reading together today,  but,  being lost I had to allow myself to be found.

Remember I said last month that being lost is not the same as being abandoned.  I had to turn around, back toward God, to be found.

We know that statistically 1 in 10 of you is abusing alcohol and quite a few are mixing alcohol with prescription medications and abusing some of your meds. One pill is good, two is better. A few of you may have prescriptions for the same med at more than one pharmacy.  That’s reality.

But of course, the big issue we face today is opioid use.

When certain narcotic pain killers were introduced in the 90’s they met a real need for pain control and their addictive properties were underplayed because they did relieve horrible pain, when used properly.

Sadly its addictive properties came to the forefront and abuse was widespread.  They were injected, inhaled as well as taken by mouth.

A few years ago right here, outpatient prescriptions equaled 94 opioid doses for every man woman and child in Craven County.  There were 67 doses for every person in NC.

At some point, one of the big ones, OxyContin was reformulated so that it could not be broken down and injected. Dr.s have gotten much more conservative in their prescribing.  Can’t get Oxys? Well, heroin is cheaper and easy to get and is a great pain killer.  

Even better add a little Fentanyl which will kill you twice as fast.

How do we look at those who are in the grips of addiction to alcohol, Rx meds or other drugs? Do we treat them like sick people. Are we like the judge in the Gospel and just don’t want to be bothered? Or do we follow our Baptismal promises and treat these sufferers with the dignity of another one of Christ’s beloved?

How about some practical suggestions:

Learn all you can about alcoholism and addiction.  I have brought a few brochures which may be helpful.

Pain is real.  Chronic pain is horrible and must be addressed but treatment must be managed in such a way that the cure doesn’t kill the patient. 

{Dr.’s have said on the PBS series “Do No Harm”, on Wednesdays at 8, which I recommend, that they prescribed pain killers the way they were taught in medical school without keeping up with ongoing literature discussing the accompanying dangers.}

Addicts are both adults and adolescents and their newborns who enter the world in painful withdrawal from the drugs the mother has taken. Jesus must weep for these little ones.

Where do teens get their drugs? Initially legitimately from Dr’s in many cases. Then they steal them from family and friends, they buy them with stolen money.  60 Minutes showed recently how companies in China advertise online that they can make and deliver any drug you want—tranquilizers, pain pills, heroin, fentanyl and it is delivered to your door via the US postal service. Anyone with a credit card can get anything they want.

There is a huge problem with our youth.  It is not surprising to note that peer pressure is the number one influence in an adolescence’s life.  It is estimated that 80% of a middle schooler’s thought processes are devoted to “fitting in”. .(try it you’ll like it

The age of first drug or alcohol use is lowest in families who eat together at least 8 meals a week, no cell phones, no TV.  Pretty simple isn’t it.  Don’t just listen to what your children and grandchildren are saying HEAR what they are saying, and what they are NOT saying.  Look for subtle changes in behavior, and especially who they hang out with. Count your prescription medicines because youth frequently get their drugs from somebody’s medicine cabinet. Appropriately dispose of unused pain meds, tranquilizers and the like.

Know the problem, know the solution. If someone you love is addicted to alcohol or drugs, identify support groups such as alanon, knowledgeable therapists and Dr.s.  There are both medical and spiritual solutions. God calls us all to be healers.

 Do we look at these sufferers and see the least of these His brethren or do we turn away in disgust.

As Christ’s hands and feet we must always be looking at how we serve his creatures.  

Alcoholism and addiction and horrible diseases and destroy the lives of those who suffer and those close to them.

Remember that, in the end, that Judge granted the Gospel woman what she asked.

But never forget that

Jesus promises us rest.  The Jesus to whom all hearts are open and from whom no secrets are hid, The God who sacrificed his only son loves those who suffer, and those who love those who suffer, and will care for each of us, no matter what. God’s protection and mercy will be with us all forever.

A sermon by the Rev. H. Paul Canady III

Rector of Christ Church, New Bern, NC, on October 13, 2019

http://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Pentecost/CProp23_RCL.html

If I could only have one genre of movie in my home collection, besides Star Wars, of course, it would be baseball movies. There have been more movies about baseball than almost any other sports-themed movie. Basketball, football, and hockey movies are fine, and certainly take a high level of choreography to film all the plays involved. And there are plenty of movies with soccer, gymnastics, and even dodgeball that make for good movies, but there is something about baseball movies. And I should note that I originally had this part about baseball movies written before my Washington Nationals beat the Dodgers on a grand slam in the top of the 10th inning the other night to win the division series, and I was fully prepared to say how much baseball has broken my heart over the years. It probably will again, but not this week. But if I had to narrow down my two favorite baseball movies, they would be Field of Dreams and The Sandlot. You don’t even have to be a baseball fan to love these two films. There is something about the innocence and pure love of the sport that is at the center of both of those movies that’s hard to turn away from. There are two other things that make these movies my favorite. And one of them has to do with our Gospel reading today. The first is that both movies feature James Earl Jones as a key actor in the on-going story. In Field of Dreams, he plays a reclusive author named Terrance Mann, and he reminds the main character, Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner), about the importance of baseball in America. He says, 

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.

America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

This field, this game -- it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

Which leads me to the other thing both of these movies have in common: past baseball heroes make timely appearances to change the course of the life of those in the movie. In Field of Dreams, baseball players from the 19-teens and 20s, including Shoeless Joe Jackson and Moonlight Graham, come walking out of a cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa, to a makeshift baseball field. In The Sandlot, Babe Ruth’s ghost says to Benny, “Remember kid, there are heroes and legends. Heroes get remembered; legends never die.” And in both movies, baseball is the medium which allows for growth and healing of relationships both past and present. 

I can not fathom an existence or a God who would not have Babe Ruth, Shoeless Joe Jackson, or Archibald “Moonlight” Graham or even baseball itself in heaven. That’s not what this is about. This is about something larger than baseball and cornfields and sandlots. It’s about the divine intersecting with the ordinary. It’s about the holy and the sacred disrupting our lives and making them better. 

And it’s about our ability in all times and places to give thanks to God.

In the Episcopal Church we believe that we are shaped by how we pray. At the beginning of those most central prayer in our Sunday worship, the Eucharistic prayer, the priest says, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God, and the people respond, “It is right to give God/him thanks and praise.” This is a line that gets repeated at Christ Church at least 5 times per week, and sometimes more if we have weddings, funerals, or another special service. The importance of naming our thanks to God is so key to what we do, that all of us, both priest and congregation say out loud, that it’s not only the right thing to do, but it is a good and joyful thing to give thanks to God. And not just on Sunday morning, but when? Always. And when? Everywhere. (SQUINTS: FOR-EV-ER)

We call this prayer, the Great Thanksgiving. Not the good thanksgiving or the prayer of thanksgiving. But the Great Thanksgiving. And in the midst of that Great Thanksgiving, we invite the Holy Spirit to make this bread and this wine holy, to be the body and blood of Jesus, whether figuratively or literally is up to some interpretation. But we have invoked the Holy, the sacred, to be among the ordinary. To take the bread and the wine and remind us of God’s power and presence in our lives. 

Our Gospel lesson from Luke this morning is about living a life of thankfulness. It’s about 10 people with a devastating, stigma-filled disease that casts them to the margins of society. They cry out to Jesus who simply says, “Go and show yourselves to the priest.” Not ‘get a doctor to check you out’ or ‘go look in the mirror.’ Because it was the priest who determined if you were clean enough to be in the temple or the synagogue and rejoin society. We could get into a whole thing about how the one leper who turned back was a Samaritan and what a shot across the bow that was to those listening. But the point is that this one guy came running back to Jesus and he didn’t high-five him and say, “Thanks, Jesus. That was cool of you.” He falls at his feet and thanks him. And the word that Luke wrote is eucharisto. It’s the Greek word to mean a thankfulness that goes beyond duty and responsibility. It is a word to express a thankfulness that goes even beyond words. And we celebrate that thankfulness three times on Sunday and twice during the week at the Eucharist. And when we pause to give thanks to God, we can see the divine interacting with the ordinary and lives changing. 

There was an article making the rounds this week on social media about a guy named Sheldon Yellen. He’s the CEO of Belfor Holdings. They buy and sell stuff, mainly companies. He has about 7,000 employees under him, and he handwrites each of them a note for their birthday every year. His last question when he’s team is negotiating a take over is “how many cards am I doing this year?” He also writes get well cards for employee’s children, congratulations notes when people get married or have big anniversaries, and thank-you notes when employees go above and beyond. Yellen says it has created a more compassionate and caring workplace because everyone is invested in the well-being of everyone else. That sounds an awful lot like the Kingdom of God in action. 

Thankfulness is key to our well-being, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Thankfulness and holiness feed on each other. When we can give thanks not only for a string of green lights, but for the red lights, too, when we can give thanks not only for our player hitting the grand slam, but also when the Mighty Casey strikes out, we will see the divine intersecting the ordinary. And the more we look for it, the more we will see it. And the more we see it, the more our lives will be forever changed.

###

Also check out James Earl Jones reading “Casey at the Bat” by Earnest Lawrence Thayer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xWtysMlrcA

then Lazarus laid him down and down

even down at Diverus' gate

some meat, some drink, brother Diverus

for Jesus Christ His sake

thou art none of mine, brother Lazarus

that lies begging at my gate

no meat, no drink I’ll give to you

for Jesus Christ His sake

So goes part of the lyrics of an English folk ballad known as “Dives and Lazarus,” which first appeared in the 1860s. Composer Ralph (RAIFF)  Vaughn Williams wrote a piece for a harp and string orchestra called Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus. A quick search of your Google machine after church will net you all sorts of results for this music inspired by one of Jesus’ toughest parables, second only maybe to the parable of the shrewd manager we heard last week. And if you missed Cortney’s sermon on that, it’s available on our website and I’d encourage you to give it a listen. Last week he said you cannot serve God and wealth and Cortney reminded us that the word Jesus uses is MAMON, which is a form of greed that strikes right up against the commandment about coveting and the gain of more and more wealth at the expense of others. 

In between last week’s Gospel lesson and this week’s, Jesus has a few words about the greed of the Pharisees and their lack of care for the poor and the vulnerable, which is at the heart of the laws of the Hebrew scripture. Of course in Scripture, the rich man in this parable has no name, but subsequent storytelling has named him Dives (DEE-VUS) since that is the Latin word for Rich. 

In the midst of all his wealth, the Rich Man lost his ability to see those around him. He doesn’t seem to have lost his overall sight, but he has lost his ability to see. In Jesus’ telling of this, he and Lazarus don’t have any interaction until they are both dead. And once they are both in their respective eternal dwelling places, the Rich Man observes Lazarus with Abraham, but he still doesn’t see him. He certainly doesn’t see him as his brother, as a fellow child of God. He sees Lazarus right there with Abraham and still tells Abraham to get Lazarus to do his bidding. Lazarus is a poor, sick, beggar, someone beneath him, and his contempt manifests itself by him saying, “Tell Lazarus to stick his finger in some water to cool my tounge!” I’m willing to bet that Jesus’ listeners got the point, maybe even the Pharisees, to whom this story was directed. They knew the right thing to do even if they weren’t doing it. 

It was the same attitude that the prophet Amos was preaching against about 780 or so years before Jesus. We hear a snippet of that preaching today. The irony of this passage is that it is directed to those in Jerusalem, which was the southern kingdom of Judah when 98.5% of the rest of Amos’ preaching was directed towards the northern Kingdom of Israel. It’s kind of like when your sibling is getting fussed at and your parent said, “And don’t think you’re so special pal!” 

It’s part of the same issue that the Apostle Paul is dealing with when writting to Timothy in today’s epistle lesson. It’s not the dollar bills or the shekles that that are evil, it’s the unquenchable thirst at the expense of the vulnerable and poor that gets us into well deserved trouble. Why? Because we fail to see people, especially people in need. 

At our Baptism, and every Baptism and Confirmation and on a few other occassions throughout the year, we make a promise to see beyond ourselves. We did this just last week at the 8:45 service and we will do it again in November. We commit, with God’s help to proclaim by word and example the Good of God in Jesus, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself, and to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. That means we have to see beyond ourselves, beyond those who just look and think and believe and vote and do things the same ways we do, and we have to put our trust in God to help make that happen because God knows we can’t do it ourselves. 

 At Christ Church, we grow spiritually through worship, being together, and serving our community so we can go out into the world to love as God loves. That’s why we are here. That’s why we do what we do. I said those words in a sermon a couple of weeks ago and then again in a letter that went out to the parish with an invitation to make your pledge to the mission and ministry of Christ Church in 2020. And I said that I didn’t just make up those words; they came straight from the mission and vision statements adopted by the Vestry in 2017. We live into that “WHY” more fully when we are able to see others, to truely see them and not just look past them. We live into that WHY when we seek and serve Christ by helping the world see those whom our culture marks as “less than.” We love the way God loves when we see more people and all of creation.  With God’s help, we can be rich in good works, as Paul wrote to Timoty, generous and ready to share so that we take hold of the life that really is life. 

Alan Payton was a South African author, an anti-apartheid activist, and an active Anglican. He penned this prayer in the early days of his country’s struggle to end Apartheid:

O Lord, open my eyes that I may see the need of others; open my ears that I may hear their cries; open my heart so that they need not be without succor. Let me be not afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich. Show me where love and hope and faith are needed, and use me to bring them to those places. And so open my eyes and my ears that I may this coming day be able to do some work of peace for you.

And let all God’s people say Amen.

On the occasion of Mariann's Baptism.

Proper 19 Year C

The Rev. Deacon Lisa Kirby

September 15, 2019

 

“Lost and Found”

 

In today’s Gospel some items are lost, and these are items of worth.  The sheep was a source of income for the shepherd and the coin was of great value to the woman.

An important thing to note here is that everyone and everything is of importance to God, including you.

God treasures each of his children.  When one is lost, he goes into search mode.  God’s nature is to love and to love is to go out and search tirelessly.

We’ve all either been literally lost (me before GPS and occasionally with it), more importantly we have all felt lost at some time or other—emotionally, spiritually, lost in grief, fear, or just sadness.

Please note that being lost is not the same as being abandoned. Francis de Salle said “The same sweet Lord who brought you hitherto, will not abandon you now.” We may feel lost but we will never be abandoned by our loving God.  Our God is always seeking us out and we must allow ourselves to be found.

I’ve heard it said, “if God seems far away, who moved?” We are also to seek.  It’s been said that our seeking is out willingness to be found.

 Cortney reminded us a few weeks ago that we will never look into the face of anyone who is not loved by God and we should include looking in the mirror at our own faces.  The coin and the sheep had value; you have value.

There was a woman named Mina, an experienced hiker who was alone and got off track when she fell and broke her leg and lay helpless in the brush. She lost her shoes in a flood. Rescuers searched for the standard 72 hours and then called off the search. Volunteers persisted, however.  They searched, ravines, pools.  They climbed, rappelled, hiked.  They got a helicopter and on day 17 she was spotted 7 miles from the central search area.  She was injured, she was dehydrated but she was alive. And all rejoiced.

 God is like those volunteers, He persists, and never gives up.  If you are feeling lost, you need to know that someone is looking for you.  The true searcher doesn’t search until dark, or until the weather turns bad or exhaustion sets in.  The searcher persists until the sheep is returned to the flock and the coin is pressed into the hand of the woman.  No matter how lost, embarrassed, or ashamed you may feel; you are of value and worthy to be found, and we will all rejoice.

 We need to be searchers, too.  God depends on us to be his hands and feet to search, wherever the search may take us, knowing we are supported and sustained by his life-giving spirit; we need to be like the volunteers who searched for Mina. Christ Church’s mission is to love as Jesus loves.  May we search as Jesus searches.

Sometimes, self-searching through journaling or meditation can be helpful, but we frequently need some help—a spiritual director, a therapist---someone who can help us find ourselves and re-frame our negativity and sense of loss or worthlessness.

I want to reiterate a couple of crucial points—first, you are never totally lost.  You may feel lost, but you are of value and you will never be abandoned.  If you feel lost maybe all you need to do is turn around and go in a different direction---toward God who will always be there to welcome you, his beloved lamb, back into the fold.

 Secondly, we are all called to be searchers.  We can be aware when someone suddenly acts differently, removed, emotionally distant.  A simple phone call for a “spiritual check” that doesn’t have to be overly obvious.  If someone starts not being places they normally are, you can make a simple call to say “I’ve missed you”. That 5 minute call may give a person all they need to begin the journey back.

 If someone seems lost, be the hands and voice of Jesus, the great Seeker.  If you are lost, beloved of God, turn around---turn around and be found, and we will all rejoice!

I’ll venture to say that if I had asked you last Sunday to make a list of things you are thankful for, it might look a little different than it does today. If you lived through Hurricane Florence as many of us did, there was a palpable tension when we found out that Dorian had made a turn for us. Not that we would wish upon anyone what we experienced last year or what Dorian unleashed on the people of the Bahamas, but I doubt any of us really wanted to live through anything close to it again. So as dawn broke on Friday morning in New Bern, and people didn’t lose power at all or people who lost power for days last September were only out a few hours, we gave thanks. People who had lost so much last year had a few limbs down in their yard. That’s not to say it was a cake walk. That’s not to say I’d voluntarily sign up to do it all again in two weeks. But we have much for which to be thankful. And I would be remiss if I didn’t publically thank all those who showed up yesterday morning to clean up the church yard. Team work really did make the dream work. They made quick work of a messy situation. Pausing to give thanks in this moment allows us as a parish and civic community to move forward here as we, if we feel called, find ways to help those affected by Dorian. 

Many Sundays you hear me say, “There is never a dull moment at Christ Church,” and as the fall kicks off in earnest next Sunday, we will see so much of what we do shift into high gear. Sunday school for children, youth, and adults. Mid-Week Bible & book studies. Third Sunday breakfast in the Harrison Center. Full choirs at both 8:45 and 11:00. Growing in Grace Afterschool Program. Pumpkins for the Pumpkin Patch arrive on September 28, and the opportunity to sign up for that outreach ministry is already available in the Reception Area and online. And Cookie Walk will be just around the corner, too. And then there are the things we do year-round like the 2nd and 4th Sunday Breakfasts at Religious Community Services, supply drives for Episcopal Farmworker Ministries, MERCI Clinic, and Interfaith Refugee Ministry. And I know I’ve missed some. There are over 60 different committees under eight commissions that help live out the mission of Christ Church. Those things I rattled off are how we carry out that mission, and we can talk at length about what their impact is both on us and on those we whom we serve. 

But we always start with why. At Christ Church, we grow spiritually through worship, being together, and serving our community so we can go out into the world to love as God loves. That’s why we are here. That’s why we do what we do. 

Jesus offered many invitations to follow him, to get on board with his message and his acts of compassion, healing, and devotion. And today’s Gospel reading reminds us that Jesus didn’t offer a partial membership. Words like this from Jesus are not always easy to hear or read.  Jesus is echoing Moses’ words in Deuteronomy which would later be echoed by Joshua when the Hebrew people would enter the Promised Land. God wasn’t interested in the Israelites giving part of their devotion to God. After all, God had done so much for them and only asked for unwavering devotion in return. I’ll take you to a place that will be all yours, God said to the people. All I ask is for you to keep your eyes on me and do what I tell you to do because that is the way that leads to life. In the same way, Jesus doesn’t want half our time or just part of our devotion. Jesus wants following him to be a way of life that changes the world. And we can’t do that if it’s just a “when I can squeeze it in” kind of thing. Those who want to be healthier can’t make it about when it’s convenient or the food looks good. I mean, Yes, french fries are often better than a salad. And binge watching our new favorite show may sound better than getting in some exercise. But if we are making a commitment to live better, to re-doing our way of life so we can live more fully, it means we commit to the salad and going on walks. 

The world continues to offer us french fries and bing-watching opportunities. And don’t get me wrong: I love french fries and if there’s a great podcast I’m into, I’ll binge-listen like it’s my job. But Jesus offers us way more than french fries and multiple episodes of tv and podcasts. Jesus invites us to be part of building up the Kingdom of God, to be peace-makers, healers, and advocates for those on the margins, and, in both words and deed, to be the light of Christ the world so desperately needs. But we can’t do any of that on a half-time basis. Our jobs as followers of Jesus is to work to live that life every day, even on the days when we’d rather not or it would be easier to take a break. But there is an opportunity every day to love the way God loves. And yes, it’s sometimes work. But the most rewarding moments in life rarely come easy. 

    So, here, at the beginning of September in Two Thousand and Nineteen, we have a chance to renew our commitment to a way of life that can change the world. Whether you have been a Christ Church since before you were born or you’re still trying to figure out where things are, we will continue to grow spiritually through worship, being together, and serving our community so we can go out into the world to love as God loves. Because that’s why we are here, and I’m incredibly thankful that you are a part of it.