Monday, June 25, 2018

Jesus to the Church: Show the World How It's Done

Sermon from June 24, 2018
Mark 4:35-41

I want to speak with you this morning about a topic that, in one sense, I know nothing about but that, in another sense, I live out a lot more than I’d like.  I want to speak with you about being in peril amidst the chaos of the raging sea.  I believe we find ourselves in a moment very much like the Gospel reading we heard this morning – that story of Jesus, and the disciples, and the storm on the Sea of Galilee that almost swamps their small boat.
Now, as I said, I have no experience navigating storms at sea.  I don’t even have any experience navigating storms on a lake or a river.  But I want to tell you about an experience from our vacation to New York that’s had me thinking about tempest-tossed seas a little more than usual.
One of the places Ann and I visited was Ellis Island, which is now a national monument
The Great Hall, Ellis Island
devoted to the history of the immigrant experience in the United States.  I walked up the stairs into that stunning great hall, which looks more like a church than a government building; and I could imagine it teeming with people seeking new life in this country – that huge, echoing space, with thousands of voices speaking scores of languages.  For the government officials trying to make sense of all those stories, it must have felt like complete chaos.  And yet, that chaos was nothing compared with the crossing each of those 12 million immigrants had experienced – most of them selling their possessions and coming in steerage, sharing cramped space and all kinds of diseases, to journey to a land where they saw hope and opportunity.  That’s chaos on the storm-tossed seas I can’t even fathom.  (And if that’s true, by the way, just try to imagine the chaos endured by people enslaved and brought across that same ocean, enduring the monstrous injustices of kidnapping, torture, and death.)
But what really struck me at Ellis Island was part of the facility most visitors don’t see.  We had arranged for a special tour of the hospital wards where sick immigrants were housed and treated before being admitted to this country or sent back home.  The hospital wards look very rough today because they haven’t been preserved.  But in the day, the hospital on Ellis Island provided arguably the world’s standard of care, particularly for infectious diseases like cholera and tuberculosis.  The immigrant hospital pioneered innovations like housing contagious patients separately, sterilizing instruments and bedding, designing wards to allow in light and fresh air, and studying disease both clinically, like a medical school, and epidemiologically, like a public health service. 
The Ellis Island hospital had a tremendous cure rate and remarkably low mortality.  And all this care was offered for people who weren’t even American citizens.  It was for people who had endured the stormy chaos of the Atlantic passage and were living in the frightening limbo of being citizens of nowhere.  Our government cared for these strangers with the best technology available, treating them as full human beings, full children of God.  Now, you can make a good argument that doing so was in the nation’s pragmatic interest, to bring in healthy people for jobs we didn’t have enough workers to fill.  True enough – and in the process, the individuals themselves were also blessed, and made well, and given new lives.  For them, the storm was stilled.  And because of the care they received, they became the ancestors of millions of us today, perhaps some of us sitting in this very room.
Today, in our historical moment, the metaphorical storm-tossed seas continue to rage and foam.  Immigration is among the issues dominating our news and dividing our loyalties.  How do we do what every nation has to do, establishing safe and secure borders?  We’ve had to figure that out across our history, whether the focus was on Ellis Island or, now, on the southern border.  Part of the challenge is that immigration is not just an issue of public policy but also as an issue of ethics because there are real, live people involved – which is also something we’ve struggled to figure out across our history.  How are we called to treat the stranger at our border and the stranger in our midst?  And for us as Christians, we are required to ask the question this way:  How would Jesus have us treat the stranger at our border and the stranger in our midst? 
Recently, the attorney general moved into that question of Christian ethics, too, quoting Paul’s letter to the Romans to back up administration policy.  This morning, between the services, we had a discussion about Scripture, interpretation, and the treatment of immigrants.  It was great, and you’re invited to come as we continue it next week, same time and same place.  We’re doing this because we can do this here.  We can have great discussions in this congregation.  We are a family of folks with wide-ranging points of view who can trust each other enough to share them, and learn from each other, and still come together around this table to be empowered as Christ’s body in the world.  This is a big-tent moment in our national life, and I believe Jesus is asking this parish family to lean into it – to be a contrast presence to the divisiveness of the culture around us.
Of course, immigration isn’t the only stormy sea that the Church and our nation have been navigating.  Other waves also beat against our boat, and, again, I want to be direct with you about one of them.  We’ve been interviewing candidates to be our new assistant rector, someone to take on Mother Anne’s formerly full-time duties in pastoral care, parish life, and worship management.  This search follows three other searches that have brought us three stellar people to serve as our minister for younger adults and families, our community coordinator, and our engagement coordinator.  And each of those new hires is doing a fabulous job, even in their first two or three months with us.  We had a gathering for younger adults last Friday, and even in the summer, with folks out of town, we had 25 people there.  HJ’s is seeing use every day by parishioners, community groups, local businesses, nonprofits, and people just wanting a cup of coffee – and paid bookings are over $7,000 already.  Newcomers are receiving not just an immediate welcome but solid follow-up; our greeter ministry is growing stronger; and parishioners are being contacted to get involved in new ways. 
Of the people we’ve called to serve in those three positions, two of them have spouses of the same gender.  The search committees didn’t recommend hiring any of our new staff members because of their sexual identities, and I didn’t hire any of them because of their sexual identities.  We called the three best people we could find for the work Jesus is asking us to do here.  And I believe we are richly blessed to be part of a Church that embraces the ministries of all people and allows us to consider any qualified candidate for a job. 
Now, at this point, we’re close to calling a priest to take on leadership of our ministries of pastoral care, parish life, and worship management.  And, as it happens, one of the two finalists for that job also has a spouse of the same gender.  If the Holy Spirit leads us to call that candidate, it will be another example of our seeking the very best person we can find for the work God gives us to do here.  I hope to have something to share about that search in the coming week.
Now, a lot of the people in our national boat have felt frightened by the storms we face.  There are immigrants who fear the prospect of detention and deportation – and there are Americans who fear what they see in other countries whose immigration systems have weakened their economies and changed their societies.  There are LGBT Christians who’ve felt marginalized and silenced for decades – and there are other Christians who tell me they don’t recognize the Church that, not so long ago, taught them homosexuality was a sin and who don’t want to feel left behind by a family they love.  This is a time of change and uncertainty on so many levels in our world and our Church, and rapid change is maybe the most frightening storm of all.
I will be honest with you.  As the captain of this ship of souls, I am afraid sometimes.  I find myself right there with the disciples in today’s reading, fearing that the wind and the waves will tip us over.  When the tension torques up – when harsh language or divisive actions hit the news – I struggle with what I can say, and what I should say, and what effect saying something will have on this church family, and yet how Jesus commands us to put loving God and loving neighbor ahead of anything the world tells us.  I sometimes worry about just how great a storm our nation and our Church can navigate without the boat becoming completely swamped.   
So, help me out here, Jesus.  Like all of us in this room, I’m trying to do the right thing.  Wake up, and give us a hand!  Do you not care that we’re taking on water?  Do you not care that we’re afraid?
And Jesus looks at me and says, “Really?  You fear that I don’t care, and you fear I’m not engaged?  Look,” Jesus says, “I’m right here in this ship of souls with you.  Now, I could silence all your worried arguments with a single word – and I will; that’s what the second coming’s all about.  I’ve already defeated sin and death, and given you eternal life,” he says, “and I’ve called you to represent me in the world.  You know who you are – the family of God; gathered under this big, beautiful tent; called to grow into the fullness of who I’ve created you to become.  Work it out, and show the world how it’s done.  Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”
In the hymn we’ll sing at the end of today’s worship,1 we’ll pray for all those in peril on the sea.  We’ll remember our eternal Father, whose arm hath bound the restless wave.  We’ll remember Christ, whose voice the waters heard and hushed their raging at his word.  We’ll remember the Spirit, who didst brood upon the chaos dark and rude, and bid its angry tumult cease, and give, for wild confusion, peace.  And I pray – in the midst of the chaos of Church and state, when it feels like our boat is being swamped – I pray that we’ll remember who we are and whose we are:  that we have Jesus with us in the boat, that we can love each other through our differences and teach the world to do the same, and that we need never be afraid.

1.       Whiting, William.  “Eternal Father, strong to save.” In The Hymnal 1982.  New York: Church Pension Fund, 1985.  Hymn number 608.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

The Greatest of All Shrubs

Sermon for June 17, 2018 (Father's Day)
Ezekiel 17:22-24; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10,14-17; Mark 4:26-34

I want to begin this morning by telling you what I’m not going to preach about, and why.  If you’ve followed the national news this weekend, you know we’ve come to a peculiar moment in which the interpretation of scripture has become newsworthy. It’s not every day the attorney general appeals to the Bible to defend public policy.1 Now, it’s tempting for me to toss out the sermon I’d prepared for today and preach about using scripture to defend one’s position on immigration.  I’m not going to do that, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to address the question, because we are. 
For me to stand up here and tell you what I think would make some of you happy and infuriate others of you.  I’d get some supportive emails, and I’d have several angry coffees.  But the fact that a sermon is basically one-way communication means that we wouldn’t really have much conversation about scripture and public policy – and, worse, a number of you would just go away quietly upset, the disagreement distancing your relationship with the church. 
So, instead, I’d like to invite you to a conversation next Sunday, between the services.  We’ll use the presenting situation as a case study, looking at the scripture that the attorney general cited, as well as passages others would cite in disagreement.  I’ll have some things to say about those passages and about how to interpret scripture responsibly.  And then, God willing, you’ll share your minds and your hearts.  If we need to, we’ll extend the conversation to the following Sunday, as well.  I believe this congregation – and the Episcopal Church, at its best – can be a big tent, a contrast community to the divisiveness of our nation and the predictable outrage of social media.  If you agree, I hope you’ll come for the conversation.
So, instead of politics for now … Happy Father’s Day.  And thank you for honoring your heavenly parent as part of your Father’s Day celebration.  For me, leading up to Father’s Day, I’ve had baseball on my mind.  As many of you know, my father and I take a short trip to St. Louis each year to see a couple of Cardinals’ games.  You’ll have to forgive me for the destination; I grew up in Springfield, watching both the Royals and the Cardinals, never having to worry about issues of loyalty, at least not until 1985….  We still have a couple of months before my father and I head off for this year’s trip, with my son, Dan, but we’re looking forward to it already.
I’ve also had baseball on my mind because I was blessed to make a pilgrimage to Cooperstown, New York, when Ann and I were out there to visit our daughter, Kathryn.  I’ve always wanted to go to the Hall of Fame and see the holy relics of a game that, for me, captures our lives – and, if you’ll allow it, maybe even our path to God.  Baseball calls us into the green pastures of ball field to find our lives and our hearts in all their complexity, our virtues and our brokenness.  It’s a game we can easily see ourselves playing; even old short guys with spare tires can imagine ourselves blooping a single at Kauffman Stadium.  Because all could play, we know all should be welcomed to play, though our sinful tendencies made us slow to bring people of all colors and backgrounds onto the field.  And the game itself is a showcase of humankind’s potential for glory and brokenness, side by side: walk-off home runs and missed calls at first base in the World Series; chivalrous commitments to excellence and records tainted with steroids; the perfectly executed double play and the grounders that roll between our legs – and, despite all the ways we fall short, there’s always the hope of “next year.”2
Anyway, the visit to the Hall of Fame was one of the highlights of our vacation for me.  The only way to improve the visit would have been if my father had been there, too – to see the shrines of the players we watched together, people like Bob Gibson and George Brett, players whose passion and drive made them saints in the church of baseball.
My father would never say this, but he’s an all-star in his own right, in the world of collegiate debate.  As an undergraduate, he and his partner won the national debate tournament, not once but twice.  When he served as debate coach at what’s now Missouri State, he led teams to national titles often enough that they named the program after him.  But for my father, what mattered most – and what my sisters and I would hear about when former students told stories years later – was his consistent excellence as a teacher and mentor, as well as his investment in the lives and the well-being of his debaters.  For my father, his career wasn’t about making it to the hall of fame.  It was about helping his students figure out who they were and helping them make the most of what God had given them.  Not surprisingly, the same was true, to an even greater degree, for my sisters and me, as we grew up and for years thereafter.  Our father has been all about sowing seeds and nurturing their growth, year after year after year.
At its core, baseball is also about being the best you can be precisely where you find yourself, rather than achieving success in the world’s eyes.  A great example of that is the movie Bull Durham, about a minor-league catcher named Crash Davis.  He’s a very good ballplayer, excellent by minor-league standards.  In fact, through the movie, Crash Davis is flirting with the all-time home-run record for a minor-league player.  Now, that sounds great, at first – but being the best in the minor leagues isn’t exactly how a player wants to be remembered.  He wants to go to “the show” and play in the cathedrals of the majors.  But instead, Crash Davis ends his playing days mentoring a young, out-of-control pitching sensation, a kid who desperately needs to find both a father figure and the strike zone.  And in the end, Crash Davis sends the young man on to the majors, while Crash makes his exit as the minor-league home-run champ.  But the point is that redemption comes, too, as Crash finds love and purpose along the way.
You may be wondering what any of this has to do with our readings today.  But think about the parable Jesus tells about the mustard seed.  Now, we find this parable in Matthew and Luke, as well as the version we heard from Mark’s Gospel this morning.  But Mark’s version is the most interesting to me because it’s the most honest.  Jesus says the reign and rule of God is like a mustard seed:  It may be tiny and seemingly insignificant; but once it’s planted, “it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs” (Mark 4:32).  In Mark’s story, the mustard seed doesn’t grow into an impressive tree, as both Matthew and Luke say (Luke 13:18-19; Matthew 13:31-32).  Instead, that mustard seed grows into “the greatest of all shrubs.”  It’s like being the minor-league home-run champ – the king of the second tier.
But here’s where my father, and Crash Davis, and Jesus all come together.  A good father, or a good role model, doesn’t insist that those who follow him take precisely the same path he took.  (And thank God for that, because I’ll tell you, there was no way I was ever going to compete in debate.  I wouldn’t even take public speaking in college.)  Nor does a good father, or a good role model, insist that those who follow him must accomplish great worldly success in order to live a holy, purposeful, valuable life.  A good father inspires his children to become the greatest of all shrubs – to bloom where they’re planted, as the saying goes; to live into the fullness of whom God has created those children to be. 
I believe our heavenly Father takes the same pattern to the ultimate degree.  The kingdom of God isn’t about a powerful earthly nation, even though the ancient prophets saw it that way.  As we heard in the reading from Ezekiel, the prophets were waiting for Israel to become the greatest of all kingdoms in the ancient Near East, the earthly manifestation of God’s power and glory, with God’s own Son coming to rule as king.  But Jesus reveals God’s reign and rule coming in a different way:  It begins like one of the smallest of all the earth’s seeds, insignificant in appearance but stunning in potential.  And God’s kingdom requires someone or something to sow it, to take that stunning potential and place it in the good soil that God has provided and prepared.  Then, once it’s sown, that tiny, insignificant seed grows up and becomes “the greatest of all shrubs” – the minor-league home-run champ; the coach who wins but whose passion isn’t winning. 
That’s hope and success on God’s terms:  Learning to love the people around you and the life God has given you, learning to live into the fullness of whom you’ve been created to be, because that’s what brings God’s kingdom to life in the here and now – your life.  And I’ll tell you: When God gives us glimpses of what’s coming next, the heavenly kingdom in all its fullness, our later chapters of eternal life – those glimpses of heaven don’t come when we look at our trophies or our bank accounts or our cars or our houses – or even our plaques in the Hall of Fame.  We get glimpses of God’s kingdom when we live as new creations in Christ: making the most of whom God has made us to be, loving the world with the love that’s first transformed us, our lives offering branches of nurture and sustenance for the birds of the air around us.
So, it may not sound like much of a compliment, but – you are a mustard seed.  You bear greatness on God’s own scale.  So don’t miss your opportunity to be the greatest of all shrubs.

1.       Jacobs, Julia. “Sessions’s Use of Bible Passage to Defend Immigration Policy Draws Fire.” New York Times, June 15, 2018.  Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/sessions-bible-verse-romans.html. Accessed June 16, 2018,
2.       See Sexton, John, with Thomas Oliphant and Peter J. Schwartz. Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game. New York: Gotham Books, 2013.