Ben Franklin, Tracy Chapman, Pete Seger, and Jesus walk into a church…

Come unto me all that are heavy laden…

This holiday weekend, with parades and food, friends and family, we celebrate our Independence, honor the ideal that all persons are created equal. During this holiday we also celebrate a revolution, our revolt from the previous systems of government to experiment in self-rule. In keeping with that celebration, I thought I would bring to your attention some of the words of one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. And while he is not usually named as one of the great thinkers of his generation, his words did have a profound effect on the direction of 20th century Christianity.

Here are a couple of selected quotes that first appeared in Poor Richard’s Almanac, and later gathered together in the volume, The Way to Wealth:

God helps them that help themselves.

Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Never leave that till to-morrow, which you can do to-day.

Remember that time money.

Remember that credit is money.

This is just a short selection – some of you probably recognize some of these sayings; you might have heard them as kids or told them to your children. You might have even thought that they might be found in the Scriptures somewhere, perhaps in some hidden corner of the Proverbs or in one of the books of the Apocrypha that you haven’t read yet. But they are not in the Bible. These sayings, and others like them, were popular during the founding of our country. They wormed their way in the psyche of our nation and became the basis for our particular form of capitalism.

This point of view, that fuses together time, money, credit and God, flourished in the American system that insisted on a separation of church and government. Not that religion wasn’t important, isn’t valued, but that your taxes shouldn’t go to pay for a federally endorsed version of Christianity, one that was elevated above all the many forms of Christianity that exist. Christianity, then, is left free to compete in the marketplace of ideas.

So in the early days of our colonies there was this space where the church universal, what we would name today as the Catholic Church, used to exist as a moral authority, an assurance that you were OK with God. This vacuum was filled with a number of competing authorities and experimentation in church governance; and the one really loud voice of Ben Franklin, one who had the power of a printing press at his disposal. His sayings, fused with a budding merchant class eager to put a virtuous face on their business transactions, found fertile ground and might be summed up as this: If you are virtuous, diligent in work, wise in spending and investing your money appropriately, then you are blessed of God. Some might even say that if you are virtuous and industrious, then God will bless you with monetary riches. This is not what Scripture says but does any of this sound familiar? Does any of this find resonance in our policy decisions towards the poor, the homeless, the tired and struggling masses yearning for freedom?

By now, you might be wondering what this historical review of the beginnings of Capitalism is doing in a sermon, wondering how does this relate to Paul or the prophets, or even the words of Jesus himself? Or even asking, how does our financial system square with that well know, well-loved invitation from Jesus, “come unto me you who are heavy laden…”

It is good that we wrestle with questions like this during our celebrations. For as we celebrate our financial freedom, our electoral freedom, our freedom of expression, we also need to remember those who are burdened: those who for no fault of their own have somehow come up short in the American Dream, who have had their chosen line of profession disappear from under their feet, who have needed to retool their resume, revamp their lifestyle. In our rapidly changing industrial landscape, there are winners[...]

RCL Year A, Proper 8

A few years back I ran the Boston marathon on a record hot day. It was in the 80s and humid, unusual weather for mid-April – no one had been doing their training in that kind of heat, so everyone was suffering and struggling through the race, and many dropped out before the end. It was a great day to be a spectator, though, so the course was lined with cheering people, thrilled to be out having a summer-like party day. As we sweated slowly on, more and more people appeared by the side handing out water – not just the official aid stations, but people in front of their houses with extra cups of water, or spraying us down with their garden hoses. I learned for the first time how good it feels to pour a cup of cold water over your head when you’re hot, how fast it cools you down. The official aid stations were great, but it was all that extra water that made a difference for me at least, that day.

‘Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones…’ What was the last cup of cold water someone gave to you?

When we talk about discipleship and following Jesus, we often talk about what we do. What kind of discipline we keep in our lives, how we reach out and care for other people, how we work for justice and show compassion to those in need. We don’t tend to talk much about what we receive. But receiving is what Jesus talks about in today’s gospel. He’s talking to his disciples just before he sends them out as apostles to go and spread the good news. It’s kind of a reality check/pep talk – this will be tough, but it’s worth it; your family might hate you but I’ll be with you; go out and preach the gospel. But he winds it up with this bit we hear today, about those who will welcome them. Some will welcome you in my name, he says – some will even give you a cup of cold water, you little ones. Not only will you be doing tough work for others; you will also receive, and others will care for you.

What a relief, after verses and verses of the hard truth, the cost of discipleship. And yet sometimes receiving from others is the hardest thing of all for us.

At the memorial service on Friday for the Bishop’s husband Michael Reeves, one friend talked about how Michael relished taking care of other people. Michael was an avid cyclist, and carried a repair kit for flat bike tires in his car. The friend was with him one day when they spied a bicyclist on the side of the road, struggling to fix a flat. Michael screeched to a stop, jumped out of the car, pulled out his flat repair kit, handed the cyclist some Gatorade, and fixed the flat, all within 5 minutes. The cyclist looked at him in wonder, and said, ‘Who are you??’ Michael said, ‘Just a guy. Don’t pay me – pay it forward!’ and then jumped back in his car and peeled off.

Imagine being that cyclist, stuck with the flat, suddenly sprung upon by this Good Samaritan. Imagine the cup of cold water a stranger hands you, pouring over your head in the hot race. Sometimes you know you need the cup of water being offered to you. But sometimes you might just feel like you should be providing your own water. We take a lot of pride in being prepared and self-sufficient, in doing for ourselves instead of being a burden to others. Carry your own weight – earn your own way. Take enough water and be ready to change your own flat. But that’s not what Jesus is saying at all. You disciples, he says, are the little ones, the least. You’re not the great and powerful, you’re not competent to handle absolutely everything for yourself – and you’re not supposed to be. Receive the welcome given to you – for those who give it to you, it will be a reward, and it is good for you to receive it too.

When is the last time you received a cup of cold water?

There’s a real humility in receiving. To receive help means to acknowledge that you didn’t have it all figured out yourself. It means revealing your vulnerability, your ignorance, your helplessness. None of those are American cultur[...]

RCL Year A, Day of Pentecost  

Recent High School Graduates Nick Martin, Tyler McPherson, and Will Bond were our guest preachers on June 8, 2014 .

RCL Year A, 7 Easter  

Susie Ferguson Guest preacher and Christian Education Director preached to children and adults on June 1, 2014

RCL Year A, 6 Easter

This last week someone sent me a wonderful piece, a blog post by a writer for The Guardian newspaper in Britain. The title was, “Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time.” The writer, Oliver Burkeman, was reflecting on some of the terrific blunders that world leaders and large institutions have made recently – among others, a very badly handled firing of the executive editor of the New York Times, and, of course, the botched rollout of Obama’s healthcare website. These huge mistakes get a lot of attention, he noted, because those making them try very hard normally to keep up a façade of competence. And we need these world leaders and large institutions to appear competent, because we want to think that people high up in power really do know what they’re doing, since we don’t. However, Burkeman says, they don’t – because everyone is totally just winging it, all the time. And if you need examples of that, I’ll point you to a very funny thread on the website Reddit, of people confessing basic things they are unable to do – like tie their shoelaces or read a map or do math in their head. Grownup people. Maybe some of you, even.

This basic incompetence of many people could make you panic, or it could be very reassuring, depending on how you feel about yourself. As Burkeman says, we all have a tendency to compare our insides with other people’s outsides – in other words, most of the time we probably look quite competent and effective, even if inside we don’t feel it. If we compare how we feel inside with other people’s external facades of competence, then we’re bound to feel bad. But if we realize that other people are dealing with exactly the same set of feelings – shame and embarrassment and ignorance and guilt and all the rest of it – then we can be easier on ourselves. And easier on others when they fail too. Everyone has something, one of you said to me recently. Everyone is carrying something around with them that hurts – everyone.

Now I’m saying all this not because I’m trying for a good confession time of my own incompetence – I can tie my shoes and read a map and do math, but there are other things I’m not so good at (why do you think I took swim lessons last year?). I’m sharing it because it came to mind as I looked at the readings today. The one story we heard is the one about Paul giving that brilliant speech in the book of Acts. You look at him and he just looks so together, so ready to find a convincing way to teach the gospel using only the statue he sees in front of him. He talks, and people instantly get baptized. How does he do it? maybe Peter and his fellow apostles were wondering that as they listened.

But that question is exactly what Jesus, and Peter in the epistle, are answering. It’s the Spirit of truth working in Paul, the Spirit who abides in us all. It’s the eagerness and fearlessness that Paul embodies, that Peter tells all of us to have. It’s not competence – it’s not our own ability to do it perfectly all the time – it’s God acting in us, and our willingness to allow it. That’s how Paul did it – and that’s how we do it too.

In the book study we’ve been doing on Wednesday evenings, reading The Hole in Our Gospel, we’ve talked about times when we feel God’s nudging to do something, when something just seems to niggle at us and bother us into stepping out to care for someone else in need. And we’ve also talked about what keeps us from acting – our own judgments about the other person, our impatience to get somewhere else, our fear, or our longing for convenience. And often just simply our sense that we don’t know what to do, how to help with a problem that seems too big – people who live in poverty, people who are hungry or sick or suffering in some great way. Sometimes all of this can keep us from doing anything. But as Bob Pierce, the founder of the Christian aid agency World Vision, said, “Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything.” We can each of[...]

RCL Year A, 5 Easter

When I was a child I used to love watching Mister Rogers. I’d settle in in front of the TV and there would come Fred Rogers, walking cheerfully in the door singing his song, ‘It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…’ And he would greet me with a smile and a kind voice, as he took off his jacket and his shoes and slipped into his house sweater and comfy sneakers. I loved this, partly because when my own dad came home a little later, he would also take off his jacket and tie – back when men still wore such things to work – and put on his soft old cardigan with the holes in the elbows (and pour himself a drink of cheap Scotch and water). It meant that everything was ok, we were all home and dinner was about to be served and I was safe. I still think about this when I come home myself – nearly always the first thing I do is go exchange my shoes for my slippers, the ones my husband hates, and I wash my hands (a habit left over from New York) and I am home. (No Scotch and water, but maybe a beer sometimes.)

Today we have the pleasure of welcoming new people to our home here, new members to our congregation. They’ve been here long enough that we think we need to make it official, committing ourselves to them as they commit themselves to us. Welcome. As the saying goes, mi casa – nuestra casa – es su casa. Literally. This house belongs to all of us together.

That’s the message I think Jesus is giving his disciples today too: Mi casa es su casa. We often read this gospel at memorial services, implying that the Father’s house with all the mansions in it is heaven, the place we all hope to get to when we die. That’s one interpretation, and it is what we need to hear at a funeral. But I think Jesus is talking about more than what will happen after we die. The Father’s house is his image for the relationship between Jesus and God. And the other scriptures we have today talk of houses too in this metaphorical way, that God is a castle to keep us safe, a stronghold; that we are living stones built up together into a spiritual house. God is our house, we are a house for God, we are invited into the house Jesus and God live in together. It’s not a place with a street address, but home, the experience of truly being at home.

When we are at home, whether we take off our shoes or not, we let down our guard. We can be ourselves without worrying about what others think about us. We eat and sleep, being nourished and rested from our labors out in the world. Our most cherished possessions are there; our favorite people are there. We are safe, in that way that we all need to feel safe and secure. That’s the ideal of home, and hopefully something like it is what you experience at home in your life now.

That’s the kind of home Jesus is inviting us into as well. Come into my Father’s house, he is saying – there are plenty of rooms, there is plenty of space. Come into the experience of love and intimacy that is at the heart of God, between God the Father and Jesus his son. Come and find rest and be nourished; be yourself completely; find your treasure here.

But it’s a home that isn’t only located in one place. Being in this home doesn’t require that all our external circumstances are familiar. Some of you in this congregation are learning this right now as you literally change your external houses, moving from the houses you have lived in for years. Although you miss the particulars of your house, the view and the way the light came in and the corner where you sat, you are able to be at home in a new place as well. You still have the important relationships you had before, you keep your most treasured things, and you are able to be at home elsewhere – wherever you go, there you are.

So too, not everything has to be perfect or just the way we’d like it around us for us to find our home with God – practicing prayer, the awareness of God, can happen in line at the grocery store, or in a hospital bed, or in traffic. We are invited i[...]

RCL Year A, 4 Easter

So I was meditating a little this week on the mash-up of themes we have today, Sunday May 11: it’s Mothers’ Day, of course – happy Mothers’ Day – and it’s also Good Shepherd Sunday, the 4th Sunday after Easter when we wade into all the shepherd imagery in our scripture readings. We could tumble right into the sweet and sentimental, cuddling up with some fluffy lambs and apple pie, cozy and safe. That’s the image anyway of mothers we wave around on Mothers’ Day, and the image of the Good Shepherd we often see in the old Sunday School books, where all seems rosy. But no matter what the Hallmark cards today say, let’s be honest: mothering and being mothered aren’t always all that sweet and cozy, am I right? Anyone who has parented or taken care of another person, anyone who has been raised by someone else to adulthood, knows that there are a whole range of feelings and experiences involved in the process. Even when it’s loving, it isn’t always a cozy thing.

For that matter, shepherding isn’t always sweet and cozy either. There’s a lot of the rod and staff, at least metaphorically speaking; there’s a lot of sheep-dogging, there’s a lot of getting wayward creatures to head in the right direction…just like parenting. It’s not too surprising that shepherds and mothers are both images for God in scripture. Their jobs ultimately are about helping those in their care to grow and thrive. Which God wants for us as well, for us to grow and thrive through good and ill.

Three years ago when this Sunday’s texts came around, I was struck by the surprising riskiness of this shepherd imagery. I noted that the shepherd leads the sheep out of the sheepfold, out to find pasture and abundant life – rather than keeping them safe in the sheepfold with what is familiar and claustrophobic. This riskiness is scary for us, going out of our comfort zone/sheepfold is frightening – but it’s the only way we can live. We have to change, we have to risk, in order to have that life abundant Jesus is promising us.

Maybe that’s why abundant life sometimes proves tricky to lay hold of. There’s a challenge laid down in Jesus’ image of the good shepherd, you notice: he makes it clear that his sheep know his voice and follow him, no matter how many other thieves and bandits may come along and try to lead the sheep in other directions. Sheep know their shepherd’s voice and won’t follow somebody else. But sometimes we human sheep find it harder to focus on the right voice. Maybe sheep really are smarter than us after all.

Because we do hear and follow other voices. Just like we don’t always listen to our mothers, we don’t always listen to the shepherd. Instead we listen to voices that say other things entirely from what God is trying to tell us. The success voices: voices that persuade us that we’re not important unless we work 80 hour weeks; the voices that say we need the luxury goods; that our kids should be excelling in everything if we’re good parents. Or the not-in-my-backyard voices, that tell us that people in East San Jose or the homeless down the street aren’t our neighbors and aren’t our problem. Or the painful inner voices that tell us we’re not worthy of love because of something we’ve done or thought. All of those voices that speak against the gospel, in other words – against the words of love and forgiveness and the call to care for our neighbors. But how often we follow those voices instead.

And sometimes we ourselves are the other voices Jesus warns about. Sometimes we’re worse at this when we’re together with others. We rehearse old grudges against people, reigniting anger about past disagreements and conflict. We find others who think like us about not liking something, and we work ourselves up into indignation that we’ve been made to change our ways. We get into all the details of other people’s lives, not seeing that our caring has crossed the line into gossip. We tell somebody new that they’re not doing it right, making th[...]

RCL Year A, 3 Easter

This story of the road to Emmaus is a favorite of many people. It is a story of how Jesus meets us where we’re at, along the way and not sure of what we believe. It is a story of resurrection hope happening in the midst of deep disappointment and grief. And, I will add, it is a profound story of what we do when we come to worship.

Think about what happens: Jesus meets the two disciples on the road, but they do not realize yet it is Jesus. As they walk along, he opens up the scriptures, helping them not simply to make sense of recent events, but also to make sense of all of scripture – and everything else besides – in light of what God has done on the cross. And then Jesus and the disciples share a meal, where Jesus blesses the bread, breaks it and gives it to them. And then they recognize him. They hear scripture interpreted and taught, they eat and drink, and then their eyes are opened – there in their midst is God himself.  And then Jesus disappears, and the disciples immediately leave too, to go back to Jerusalem by night and tell the others what they have seen.

In worship together every Sunday, we follow this same pattern: we gather, we hear and talk about scripture, we share the meal, and we are sent back into the world. And what we hope is that what happens to these disciples on the road happens here as well: that in what we do together, we meet the risen Christ, our hearts burn within us, and we hurry out to share the good news of God’s work in the world. That is what happens here, right?

Well, maybe sometimes yes. But maybe too often, no. If not, why not?

Well, there are many answers to that question, but part of it, at least, has to do with what we do when we worship. Many of us simply don’t know or don’t really pay attention to what we do in worship, and it all passes by in a blur. When we don’t understand what’s happening, it’s hard for our eyes to be opened and our hearts to burn. It’s been a while since I talked through what we do in our worship, and it’s the kind of teaching that bears repeating from time to time.

In our church and in most Episcopal churches every Sunday morning we celebrate what we call the Eucharist together. The word Eucharist means to give thanks – it’s a service where that’s the central thing we’re doing, in other words, celebrating in gratitude together the gift of love God makes us in Jesus. Our worship service has two main parts to it: the liturgy of the word, and the liturgy of the table. The liturgy of the word is the first part, when we gather by singing and praying, and hear scripture read aloud and interpreted in the sermon. Responding to what we’ve heard, we declare the traditional words of faith in the Nicene Creed, and then we offer up prayers for our needs and the needs of the world. Most of that looks pretty much like what happens in other Protestant churches, and it’s something like what the kids are doing in Sunday School during their time there as well.

But we always go on from there into the liturgy of the table, and for that the kids join us and we all do it together. Every time we gather together on Sunday we break bread and are fed, as Jesus taught us to. If the first part of the service mostly engages our minds as we listen and learn, this is the part that mostly engages our bodies as we come together and eat and drink. For one thing, the words don’t tend to change much week by week, unlike the different weekly scripture readings we hear in the first part. We pray a Eucharistic prayer which basically says the same thing every time: it tells the story of God’s creation and God’s saving act of redemption by the sending of Jesus, and by his death and resurrection. It includes the words Jesus spoke at the Last Supper with his disciples, in which he commanded us to continue the tradition he was beginning. And then it asks God’s blessing on the food and on us. If we come more than once, it all starts sounding pretty familiar.

But as Kimberly reminded [...]

Guest preacher Kimberly Axtell

I remember the first night I was hooked on the X-files. It was a dark, Friday night, and I had just got home from a late night at work catching up on the billing. I probably even had a rapidly deteriorating In-and-out burger in the bag. And there, on the television screen, were these flashlights cutting through the darkness. After that night, munching my burger, the X-files show was appointment television for me, guaranteed to get me home in time to watch. This was, of course, pre-DVR recording box.

Now, maybe I mis-remember some of the story lines, but it seemed that the show was a dialog between faith and reason, writ large. The two main characters, Mulder and Scully, symbolized each of these viewpoints. Mulder, the profiler, believed; Scully, the scientist reasoned; each was seeking their particular truth. Each week, they would travel together to some abandoned building, or maybe this week it was a decrepit house, or a deep mine shaft, with hazy shadows, some greenish or bluish light coming from some odd angle. And there they were, searching for the facts with their high-powered flashlights. These flashlights almost seemed to be a leit-motif for the show.

Outside of the aliens from space storyline, there was usually the strange event of the week tale. Some person would have an experience with something outside of what they knew to be true. Sometimes they could describe, or put into words, what they had seen, touched, heard, smelled. And sometimes, they couldn’t – there were no words to describe the event.

The job of Scully and Mulder was to investigate, to sort through conflicting descriptions and somehow arrive at a truth. In the context of the show, this truth was a reasoned account of what happened, –    that despite what some might believe, there was often an explanation.

 

These things are written so that you might believe.

In today’s gospel reading, we have two encounters with the risen Christ, set a week apart. On the day of the resurrection (last Sunday), most of the disciples were gathered together in a locked room. They were anxious, not quite sure what to believe. A couple of the disciples, John, Peter, Mary, had visited the tomb at first light where Jesus was buried and encountered a strange phenomenon that was outside their experience. Their story was wild, almost unbelievable – Jesus had risen from the dead. But where was he? The body was gone. So Jesus, must be someplace physical, shouldn’t he?

But,then, it seemed that Jesus was among them, in their conversation, in their gathering together, in their fellowship. Jesus, didn’t ooze through the crack in the walls, or walk through the closed and locked door like some ephemeral spirit. He was there all along; it took the disciples time to realize that. The gospel story seems to indicate that Jesus become embodied among them and gave them authority and the gift of the Divine Spirit that was in him. But the story doesn’t say that Jesus left.

 

These things are written so that you might believe.

What do we do with a story that is allegorical? I think that one of the reasons that the Gospel of John has such power for us, even after all these years, is because it is primarily allegory. And the writer is not shy about stating this fact. Each story seems to be carefully constructed to convey some truth about Christ that hits us deep inside. We might like to think of the gospels as an assembly of eyewitness accounts like a newspaper, but this gospel writer goes to the heart of his subject matter.

In the second part of our gospel story, we encounter the maligned disciple, Thomas. Poor guy, he gets his own nickname, Doubting Thomas. But if you look beyond the story outline, you might see that he stands as a symbol for something greater, an everyman, if you will. Perhaps he stands in for you and me, disciples who have come later and didn’t witness the crucifixion or the resurrection – we who need an individual encounter wi[...]

RCL Year A, Easter Day

My kids are of the age now of relentless curiosity. They want to know everything. They are full of questions. They listen to Jim and me talk and want to know what we’re talking about. They ask what that picture in the newspaper is showing. They want to know what happens after people die. They want to know just what would happen if the house caught on fire. They want to know if that car we passed is a luxury car with leather seats and fake wood inside. They want to know if tonight is a dessert night. They ask and they ask and they ask and they ask. We grow weary with answering.

But I get why they ask so many questions. There is so much to understand about the world we live in. When you only have a few years of experience on earth, there’s just a huge amount out there that you don’t know anything about. It’s one of those parts of parenting that make me think, maybe this is something of what God has to deal with, with us.

And Easter – crucifixion and resurrection and salvation and all of that, all of that makes for a lot of questions. And not just for us. People in the stories in scripture that lead up to Easter have a lot of questions too. On Palm Sunday the crowd watching Jesus’ grand entrance into Jerusalem asks, ‘Who is this?’ When Jesus meets the soldiers in the garden coming to arrest him, he asks them, ‘Who are you looking for?’ As he stands on trial, the high priest wants to know who he thinks he is. Pilate asks him if he’s the king of the Jews. As he dies, those who watch him wonder, what just happened? And today, confused and weeping in the garden, Mary Magdalene sees someone standing there, and thinks, who is that?

There have been a lot of answers put forward to those questions of who Jesus is and what this day of Easter means. All through the Passion story and into the resurrection narratives and on beyond through the history of the church, many many many people have tried to answer them. He’s the prophet from Nazareth. He’s the rebel trying to overthrow the government. He’s a wonderful rabbi and teacher. He’s the sacrifice for us all. He’s the gardener. He’s the savior of the world. He is life itself.

But the real answer is the one Jesus gives himself. I don’t mean the titles, the Son of Man or Son of God or Messiah or any of those words. I don’t mean the theology of the atonement, or the physicality of the resurrection, or the technical debates over salvation. Those answers need time and explanation in order to unpack and understand. Those answers are interesting, but they tend to engage us in our brains, not in our hearts and lives. One way of knowing, but not all the ways we can know. No, the answer that Jesus gives is in what he shows us.

He calls people to follow him. He heals the sick, breaks bread with the despised and marginalized, raises the dead. And in his last surprising act, he gets down on his knees and washes his disciples’ feet. And then he dies, giving up his life for all. And days later, people experience him alive again, and their lives are forever changed.

The answer that Jesus is showing us, in other words, is love. Love that gives itself for others. Love that leads to life.

That’s the heart of the whole story of Holy Week and Easter, of course. Jesus gave himself up for us completely, God pouring God’s self out in love for us on the cross. It’s the most dramatic self-giving there is, love without any boundaries whatsoever, love given for every single one of us, whoever we are and whatever we’ve done.

But it’s not just his love for us that Jesus shows. He tells us to do the same. He washes his disciples’ feet and then he says, you also are to wash one another’s feet – you are to love as I have loved you. You are to give your selves in love. The answer to ‘who is this?’ and ‘what does this mean?’ comes back to us, and how we are to live.

Giving ourselves in love – we can make that out to be harder than it is. There are some who seem to show love better than others, and [...]