Following a Messiah on the Move

Sermon from Nov. 20, 2016
Feast of St. Andrew, transferred
Matthew 4:18-22

I imagine our patron saint, Andrew, as a guy with tired, sore feet.  That’s true for all disciples and apostles, I suppose, because being a disciple and apostle means being on the move. 

Now, for we disciples and apostles gathered here this morning, that may not sound much like good news.  In fact, a call to be on the move may seem like the last thing we want to hear.  Many of us are emotionally and spiritually exhausted by the recent election and its aftermath.  I’ve heard from faithful people who long for a time after presidential elections when we stopped arguing, and tacked back toward the center, and tried to come together despite difference.  And I’ve heard from faithful people who no longer feel safe in their own nation, or in their own city, or even in their own church, because they fear what the recent shift in our political life will mean for them and for people they love.  We can wish that weren’t true, but we can’t wish it away.  If nothing else, we have to be present to pain, and listen to people’s frustration and grief, and walk alongside them through it.

And as we walk with them, we find ourselves on the move again – just like Jesus.  We always seem to find him walking alongside people.  All through the Gospels, he’s moving from one place to another, proclaiming good news and inviting people into it. 

That’s how I imagine the setting for today’s Gospel reading on this feast of our patron saint, Andrew.  Picture the reading as a movie scene.  It opens with a shot of two guys in their fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee, which is really just a lake, smaller than Lake of the Ozarks.  The sun is rising, and they’re beginning their day as they’ve begun a thousand days before.  We don’t know much about Andrew and Peter.  They’re not high-class types, but they’re not paupers either.  Basically, they have a small business.  They get up every day, and do their work, and sell their catch, and mend their nets, and get up the next day and do it all over again.   

Well, up in the corner of the movie scene, a figure comes walking slowly along the lakeshore.  It’s Jesus.  As he comes more fully into the scene, he looks over toward Andrew and Peter, out in their boat.  They’re close in, so they see Jesus coming.  And I’ll bet they know who he is.  Just before this morning’s reading, Matthew tells about Jesus beginning his public ministry in Galilee, preaching and proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17).  He must have attracted attention, this local guy who’d decided he was a prophet, stirring people up and calling them to turn their hearts and their lives in a new direction.  So I’ll bet Andrew and Peter know who’s walking toward them in the morning sun. 

As he comes near, Jesus simply calls out, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people” (Matthew 4:19).  And then, I imagine, he just keeps on walking.  So Andrew and Peter look at each other, wondering what to do. 

Now, maybe they had a miraculous moment of clarity.  Maybe they knew God was calling them to a life of discipleship and what that was going to mean.  But I doubt it.  Instead, maybe they were simply captivated by what they’d been hearing from this preacher and prophet who described a world of God’s love in contrast to the bitterness and injustice of the world around them.  Maybe their hearts burned with the possibility that such a world might be real.  Maybe they knew, if nothing else, that they had to find out more.  So, as Jesus keeps on walking, Andrew and Peter quickly row in, and get out of the boat, and jog after him down the lakeshore.  They follow him – not because they suddenly understand everything Jesus is about but because the hope of God’s beloved community sets their hearts on fire.  So they follow – which, by definition, makes them disciples. 

From there, they spend the next few years following this messiah on the move.  It couldn’t have been comfortable.  Following Jesus, they didn’t even know where they’d stay from one night to the next.  They ate based on the kindness of strangers.  They put themselves at risk from the Romans, who didn’t take kindly to wandering bands and their leaders who tended to look like revolutionaries. 

But Andrew and Peter also saw signs and wonders.  They heard good news that God particularly blesses those at the bottom of the scale.  They saw people healed.  They learned they could be so much more than they’d ever imagined.  They received Jesus’ power – power to be with people who suffered, and heal them, and speak good news, and cast out the demons that delude us into thinking we’re merely secondary characters in someone else’s story.  As followers of this messiah on the move, they had hope – hope that even the poor in spirit, even those who mourn, even the meek, even a couple of fishermen from Galilee could burn with the brightness of God’s purposes.  They began to see that they were bearers of holy light and that Jesus was sending them out to shine that light among others.

So, that’s why I think Andrew must have had tired, sore feet.  He started walking that morning by the lake, and I don’t think he stopped until his own martyrdom.  Different traditions say Andrew brought the good news to Ethiopia, or to Ukraine, or to Russia, or to Greece, where he was executed on an X-shaped cross.  Even in death, Andrew was on the move as his remains were reportedly taken to Scotland, for whom he became the patron saint – which explains why a bunch of people in Kansas City are wearing tartans and listening to bagpipes as they celebrate this saint’s day. 

As we march to the bagpipes this morning, we are Andrew’s spiritual descendants, ourselves following a messiah on the move for more than 100 years.  In 1913, the bishop sent people way out here to Brookside, on the outskirts of a growing city, because, as the bishop said, “our own city – right here – is our greatest and most crying mission field.”¹  They started meeting in a back room of Wolferman’s grocery store at 59th and Brookside.  They bought property at the corner of Meyer and Wornall and settled there in 1922.  But even having found a home, the people of St. Andrew’s kept following the messiah on the move.  We followed Jesus to the neighborhoods around us, sharing the word about Dr. Jewell’s powerful preaching.  We followed Jesus as the city kept moving south, planting a church in Red Bridge in 1958, appropriately named for Andrew’s brother, Peter.  We followed Jesus to Haiti, building relationships there that have grown for more than 25 years.  We followed Jesus downtown to the Kansas City Community Kitchen, and down the street to Southwest High School, and east to the Grooming Project, bringing good news of dignity and hope in contrast to the world’s news that only the strongest matter. 

But we’ve only just begun following our messiah on the move.  A couple of years ago, you blessed me with the opportunity to take a sabbatical, one of the best journeys I’ve ever known.  I visited nine congregations in the Episcopal Church and the Church of England.  Each one, in its own way, was figuring out how to keep going on its journey to proclaim the Good News without tossing its tradition off to the side of the road.  From Seattle to Denver to rural Maryland to London, each congregation was learning how to reach the people around them in new ways while still honoring the tradition they had known and loved for decades (or centuries).  I was blessed to tell their stories and take away some lessons for other congregations hearing the call to stay on the move.  And today, we get to celebrate the fact that someone actually wanted to publish it.  The book is called Beating the Boundaries because I believe that’s what God is asking us to do – to go to the boundaries of church as we know it, and cross over into relationships with the people we find on the other side.

But we’d been hearing that call well before I went on sabbatical.  That’s what our Gather & Grow initiative is all about – following Jesus as he leads us among people in our community.  The worldly concerns of building designs and construction estimates sometimes distract us from the point of Gather & Grow.  The point is to take the next steps in a 100-year journey of connecting with people. You don’t have to be a statistician to see that fewer people go to church now than in years past.  OK, says our messiah on the move and his sore-footed apostle, Andrew.  OK.  That means we need to find ways to go to them and show them God’s love.  And that means finding new ways to “be church” for the people around us.  It means following Jesus across the street, enabling the Word to take flesh and dwell among us by engaging with people whom God brings our way.

Gather & Grow feels like a long journey, and we still have miles to go.  But that perseverance is part of our story, too.  I’ll bet guiding this church through two world wars and a Depression felt like a long journey.  I’ll bet building this worship space in 1952 felt like a long journey – one that took six years and three fundraising campaigns and still didn’t give them the building they wanted.  I’ll bet founding St. Peter’s in Red Bridge felt like a long journey.  And still, today, Jesus calls us to get out of our boats to follow him and fish for people.  Like our patron St. Andrew, we follow Jesus because that’s where our hope rests.  We may not understand every word that comes out of his mouth.  We may not know exactly where the journey is leading or how it’s supposed to look.  Sometimes, we may not be able to see much more than the world’s divisions and anxieties lying ahead of us.  We’ve been on this path for years already, and our feet may be sore.  But as Jesus passes by and says, “Follow me,” we say, “Yes, I will, with God’s help.”  So we follow him out of this nave, our congregation’s glorious boat.  And we follow him out the door, always trying to keep up with our messiah on the move.

1. The Silver Jubilee of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City, Missouri. Commemorative booklet from the parish’s 25^th anniversary, Oct. 9 and 10, 1938, held in St. Andrew’s archives.  Page 10.

A Pledge to Witness

Sermon from Nov. 13, 2016
Luke 21:5-19; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

It’s no great insight to say that we come together this morning in an anxious time.  Maybe “fearful” is more accurate.  That certainly applies to our national life.  Now that the election is over, we’re left to figure out how to govern ourselves in a climate of anxious division.  The divides are almost too many to name – race, class, gender, educational background, national origin.  Identity politics seem to be our only politics anymore, as people fear their voices won’t be heard any other way.

But anxiety and fear slither among us in other contexts, too.  Last weekend, several of us were in Springfield for the convention of the Diocese of West Missouri, the “annual meeting” of the Episcopal congregations in the western half of this state.  This, too, will come as no surprise, but much of the conversation there had to do with money and our fears about it for the future.  Many West Missouri congregations are not growing, and several are shrinking.  In fact, 28 of the 48 congregations in West Missouri had smaller operating budgets in 2015 than in 2014.  That affects the diocese as a whole because the amount of money that congregations pay to the diocese each year is based on their operating income.  (And just to say it out loud:  All congregations, including St. Andrew’s, pay money to the diocese; only a few receive grants from the diocese – definitely not including St. Andrew’s.)  It’s a familiar story, and one guaranteed to raise anxiety:  Diocesan revenue is declining while the need for ministry only grows.  So we have to assess ministries, prioritize them, celebrate what God provides, and steward the money as faithfully as possible. 

It’s tempting for us to allow all our divisions and anxieties and fears to spill over into our life together here, in our congregation, where we live out our faith day by day, week by week.  It’s tempting to think, “We’ve never faced times as challenging as these before” and then stress about what the future will look like. 

But in times like these, we have some friends we can turn to.  One of those friends is a sense of history.  It’s easy to say that our nation has never been this divided, and that’s probably true in terms of my lifetime.  But do today’s divisions really compare with the conflict over slavery, and a Civil War, and military occupation of the South, and decades of segregation and terror against black Americans?  I don’t think so.  It’s easy to say that our Episcopal Church is on its last legs because of declining resources and our reticence to share the good news of God’s activity in our lives.  But do today’s challenges really compare with nearly being extinguished as “the king’s church” after the American Revolution, or being called to resurrect ourselves and go out in mission across a new nation?  I don’t think so.

A second friend we have in this time fear and anxiety is Scripture.  Today’s Gospel reading comes from a part of the story called the “little apocalypse,” which shows up in all three of the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  The part we heard today is just the first section, describing the coming destruction of the Temple.  After this, in Luke’s version, Jesus goes on to talk about the impending destruction of Jerusalem and, after that, the coming of the Son of Man to usher in the end of the age.  This kind of writing is called apocalyptic, which means to reveal something – and, for the people hearing it, to encourage them and exhort them to vigilance in their faith, even in deeply challenging times.  Encouragement and vigilance in our faith – yeah, that sounds about right for us, too.

So, in the reading this morning, Jesus not only encourages his followers and exhorts them to vigilance; he also surprises them with the claim that the world’s challenging times bring us an unexpected benefit – the opportunity to serve as witnesses.  Yes, Jesus tells his followers, you’re going to face tough times that will challenge your faith and maybe even shake your confidence in the things you’ve known.  But, he says, “this will give you the opportunity to testify … and I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict” (Luke 21:13,15).  The other reading this morning, from Second Thessalonians, picks up a similar theme, arguing that we can’t just sit on the sidelines and wait for Jesus to get on with the Second Coming; we have to get off our backsides, and attend to our work, and “not be weary in doing what is right” (3:13).  You bet life will be challenging, Jesus says – and you will rise to the challenge.  “By your endurance, you will gain your souls” (Luke 21:19).

So, in a challenging time like this, we find a third friend, one that also might come as a surprise:  our congregation’s stewardship campaign.  Yes, you heard me right, the stewardship pledge campaign is your friend.  Today, we’re concluding our stewardship season and blessing the pledges you’ve offered so far.  Pledges will continue to come in between now and the end of the year.  As they do, we’ll make a budget for 2017, giving great thanks for what you will have provided as an outward and visible sign of God’s blessings to you.  I try to live by the conviction that what God gives us is sufficient, and abundant, and extraordinarily generous – and we will receive your pledges that way.  We will give thanks for the “enough” that God provides.  So stewardship is our friend in that sense, absolutely:  It helps us see that everything we have is on loan from God; and the practice of giving back bends our hearts heavenward, helping us remember who and whose we are.

But the call to stewardship in challenging times is also our friend in another way.  The call to be a steward is the call to be a witness.  The call to steward God’s blessings is the call to testify to those blessings.  Over the past few months, you’ve heard testimony from our own cloud of witnesses.  In the Messenger, you’ve read profiles of people who change lives through their work in the community.  You’ve read about ministries here that reveal the kingdom of God among us by forming us as Christians, by serving the world’s needs, and by worshiping the God who loves us more than we can imagine.  You’ve seen little, red and green sacraments of thanksgiving, the examples of our gratitude hanging on the apple tree in the entryway.  And you’ve heard the testimony of witnesses during worship.  You heard Oliver Carnes tell you why he serves as an acolyte and helps lead younger teens in youth ministry.  You heard Jean Kiene tell you how God has called her to serve and how Outreach work changes lives as it feeds her soul.  You heard Mary Brink tell you how our four weekly worship opportunities bring us into community with God and with each other.  And today, you heard Blake Hodges testify about why he offers his time, and talent, and treasure to God at St. Andrew’s. 

Now, you have to know that Blake isn’t just someone who tells his story well.  He is part of the quartet of witnesses who have given countless hours to expanding St. Andrew’s ability to reach the people around us through the Gather & Grow initiative.  Blake and Megan Hodges, and Sean and Sarah Murray – if any of us has the right to stand up here in frustration about the roadblocks Gather & Grow has hit, and tell us we might as well just turn this place into a lovely restaurant, it’s Blake and Megan and Sean and Sarah.  But that’s not what you heard from Blake.  In a time of anxiety, after literally years of work to hear God’s voice and realize God’s call to grow our capacity for mission – in a time of one blasted challenge after another – you heard Blake proclaiming gratitude, and confidence, and hope, just as you heard from our other witnesses.  It is Jesus’ call to faithful endurance and the endurance of faith.  And that call is not easy.  It’s no coincidence that in Greek, the word for “witness” is “martyr.”  The world will not tell us we are right when we proclaim gratitude, and confidence, and hope.  It will shoot us down every time.  And still:  “By your endurance, you will gain your souls.” 

So, in the midst of all the anxiety, how is Jesus calling you to be a witness?  I believe it boils down to this:  Jesus is calling you to know, and name, and live your faith.  At a men’s group meeting last week, we tossed around this really rich question:  If a Martian came to earth, and sat down next to you, and asked you what you believe – what would you say?  How would you name what you know and feel about God?  And then comes the next question:  Given what you know and feel about God, how does your life embody it?  How are you a witness?

That’s actually what a pledge card is all about.  It helps us testify.  It helps us answer the question, “How does my life embody what I believe?”  Jesus asks us to honor God’s loving sovereignty over us by remembering it in word and deed, across the compartments of our lives, through offerings of time and talent and treasure.  Your pledge is a pledge to act.  And, more specifically, it’s a pledge to act as a witness to the truths that the world will always deny: the truth that unity conquers division, the truth that hope conquers despair, the truth that love conquers fear.  These are the divine realities the world seeks to silence.  But we must not let it be so.  We are Christ’s witnesses, so we must testify.  We must live God’s light, and live God’s love, out loud. 

The Morning After

I went on a walk early this morning, to take the dog out and to pray along with my daily podcast of Morning Prayer.  As it turned out, the dog and I stepped out the front door just as the sun was beginning to rise.  The eastern sky was lovely as new life arose, once again.

Election Day has come, and the nation has chosen Donald Trump as president.  For some, that’s cause for joy; for others, it’s not just disappointing but frightening.  “I wonder which Donald Trump we’ve elected,” one parishioner said to me this morning.  Will it be the one who moves across political lines pragmatically or the one who names categories of people to exclude?  People fear most what they don’t know – and this morning, there’s a lot about the future we don’t know.  And yet, the sun rose, another divine masterwork to welcome us into another day of opportunities for discipleship. 

When I pulled into the church parking lot this morning, I saw discipleship in action.  A new member of St. Andrew’s had spent all of yesterday at the church (beginning at 5:30 a.m. and ending after I left at 6:30 p.m.), helping us offer hospitality to the hundreds of voters who lined our halls.  This morning, the same man was outside the church, removing political signs from the yard and otherwise tidying up.  “This is a good thing for me to be doing today,” he said.  Service nearly always is.

Wherever you land on today’s continuum from joy to fear, remember: We are the Church.  No matter who is elected to any office, our sovereign is Jesus Christ.  He calls us to worship, to repent, to proclaim good news, to serve others, and to work for dignity, justice, and peace.  That was true yesterday; it is true today; and it will be true tomorrow.  First and foremost, ahead of any other allegiance, we are called to follow Jesus and be his body in the world, each one of us an essential member of it.

So take a moment to admire the sunset this evening, or the sunrise tomorrow morning, and ask how God is calling you to serve. 

I Am Zacchaeus

Sermon from Oct. 30, 2016
Luke 19:1-10

As we hear this story of Jesus and Zacchaeus, it might help to set the scene.  Jesus is coming into Jericho.  In the passage just before this morning’s reading, he’s healed a man who desperately wanted to see again.  Jesus explains what’s happened by telling the man he’s not just healed but that his faith has “saved” him (Luke 18:42).  It’s the kind of healing that goes beyond healing, the healing that restores our lives to the wholeness God intends – and it makes the formerly blind man join Jesus on the road.  That’s what’s on Jesus’ mind as he makes his way into Jericho. 

And how about Zacchaeus?  What’s on his mind?  Well, first we have to know who Zacchaeus is.  He’s a Jew, but he’s also a “chief tax collector” and “rich,” the story says (19:2).  Basically he’s a traitor, part of the Roman system taxing his people to support the brutal Empire … and, of course, enriching the tax collectors.  You also have to know this man’s name is part of the story – “Zacchaeus” means “innocent” or “clean,” rather ironic given his life and work.  But that’s how he sees himself.

So, this imperial collaborator is looking for Jesus.  He’s heard the buzz, so Zacchaeus climbs a sycamore tree to see Jesus pass by.  On one level, it’s a practical thing: Zacchaeus is short.  But on another level, maybe Zacchaeus is climbing that tree because he’s used to getting what he wants.  Zacchaeus is the kind of guy who stands in the “premiere” ticket line and sits in box seats at the amphitheater.  When Zacchaeus wants to see, he gets to see.

Oddly enough, Jesus wants to see Zacchaeus, too – not to indict him but to spend time with him.  Jesus has come to town to bring God’s wholeness not just to those who’ve been oppressed.  Jesus wants to see the oppressor made whole, too. 

And you know, I think, deep down, Zacchaeus wants to be made whole.  Sure, he’s used to first-class treatment, but his conscience isn’t dead.  Late at night, trying to fall asleep, maybe he sees the faces of the neighbors he’s defrauding.  Zacchaeus knows he’s lost and needs healing.  And Jesus doesn’t keep him waiting.  “Zacchaeus,” Jesus says, “hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today” (19:5).

I imagine Zacchaeus frozen on his branch, the whole crowd now staring up at him.  But something happens to Zacchaeus in that moment.  Maybe he begins to see those people below him in a different light – shining with the dignity of the children of God.  But he hears something, too – something about himself.  Deep in his heart, Zacchaeus hears a shocking word of grace.  He hears Jesus say, “You are just as worthy as everyone else who’s lost, and I have come to make you whole, too.”  It doesn’t matter where you fall on the spectrum – the exploited and those who exploit, the excluded and those who exclude.  Zacchaeus is just as worthy of God’s forgiveness and healing as the folks he’s been robbing – because Zacchaeus, too, is a child of God.  As Jesus tells the crowd and every one of us: “The Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost” (19:10) – all the lost.

This is the Sunday in our stewardship season when we highlight Outreach ministries, the work we do and the resources we give to serve the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the alone, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned.  We know that when we serve others, we serve Jesus himself, down the street and across the sea.  Your Outreach giving provides food for hungry people at the Kansas City Community Kitchen.  It provides food and books for students in Haiti and salaries for their teachers.  It supports a social entrepreneur’s vision to train moms for living-wage jobs and break the cycle of poverty.  It helps kids in Kansas City’s housing projects learn that God loves them and wants to see them well-fed and educated.  It helps women and their kids break free from domestic violence.  Your pledge of time, talent, and treasure supports all that work.

But, you know, our Outreach giving helps meet our needs, too.  I would say our Outreach ministries are just as much about our healing as they are about serving Jesus in “the least” of his brothers and sisters (Matthew 25:40).  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  In fact, there’s a lot right with that.  Because, I have to tell you – I am Zacchaeus.  Most of us here are Zacchaeus.  And I’ve had to climb down from my safe perch in the sycamore tree for my own come-to-Jesus meeting. 

I started climbing down was when Ann and I lived in Iowa City and I volunteered at the local food pantry.  Now, mind you, I didn’t actually serve hungry people at the food pantry; I stocked shelves.  It was a start, but I only climbed a couple of branches down the sycamore tree.

When we went to seminary in Austin, I got involved in the student-run feeding program. Actually the word “program” dresses up the effort too much; it was more like a guerilla campaign.  We would make burritos for about 100 people, load them into a rusted-out pickup, and drive to the storefront where day laborers came to collect their pay.  There, we gave the laborers burritos, bananas, and oranges until the food ran out.  It was one of the best parts of seminary for me, talking with actual hungry people.  They’re much more interesting than the abstraction of “hunger” I imagined when I stocked shelves at the pantry.  They’re also more complicated.  What do you do when a hungry person doesn’t appreciate the burrito you gave him?  Or what do you do with the reality that all the burritos in the world won’t do a blessed thing to change the system that keeps the day laborers wondering whether they’ll even get work the next morning – and a system that will never pay them enough to live on.  Asking those questions, I climbed a few more branches down the sycamore tree toward Jesus.

Here at St. Andrew’s, it’s been our partnership with St. Augustin’s School in Haiti that’s made the biggest difference in helping me climb down and meet Jesus on the road.  I’ve been blessed to share time and meals and Eucharist with people like Pere Colbert, and the school’s headmaster Samuel, and the other teachers – people we’ve come to know.  Through those relationships, our congregation has empowered kids at St. Augustin’s to learn, despite hardships I can barely fathom.  But that’s not all.  Through those relationships, I’ve begun to know salvation, along with Zacchaeus. 

Here’s how that healing works for me.  Even at the pantry in Iowa City and at the day-labor office in Austin, I could see there was a disconnect between my reality and the reality of the people being served.  I couldn’t really frame it, but I knew it was there.  I might now frame that disconnect, and my need for healing, in terms of privilege.  I am tremendously privileged.  I am American.  I am white.  I am male.  I am straight.  I come from a family that sent me to college.  I start the game with the ball at midfield, while others are starting buried deep in their own territory.  So, when I hear Jesus calling Zacchaeus to come down from the tree and change his point of view, I hear him calling my name, too.

But Jesus isn’t just yelling at me for my complicity in a series of broken systems.  He’s asking me to see them and change them as best I can – helping to educate kids in Haiti, supporting training for women to find living-wage jobs, encouraging you to see the injustices that hurt God’s heart and then act to change them.  But Jesus is also calling my name because he loves me and wants me to be made whole, too.  He’s trying to help me see him in people I wouldn’t truly see otherwise.  I can’t know what it’s like to be Haitian.  I can’t know what it’s like to be a women at the Grooming Project.  I can’t know what it’s like to be a kid at Gordon Parks Elementary, who can’t tell you where he lives but only where he stays.  I get to start from the 50-yard line.  I live in privilege I’m only beginning to see. 

But Jesus asks me to climb down from my sycamore tree because he wants me to find the healing that comes from taking the journey with him.  He wants to make me whole by bringing me into relationships I’d never know otherwise.  Every step we take toward the other is a step toward seeing that person’s full humanity.  Every step we take toward the other is a step toward honoring that person’s God-given dignity.  Every step we take toward the other is a step toward building God’s beloved community.  Every step we take toward the other is a step toward our own healing, healing at the hands of the One who comes to seek and save the lost – like us.

Do Thankful

Sermon from Sunday, Oct. 9
2 Kings 5:1-3,7-15c; Luke 17:11-19

This has been a week of sadness for many of us in the St. Andrew’s family.  We gathered here yesterday to celebrate the life of our friend Deacon Peg Ruth, who’d been part of this parish for more than 62 years as a member, staff deacon, source of wisdom, and bearer of love.  As we proclaimed our faith, and her faith, in the power of resurrection, we also shed several tears.

In addition, this week brought us news of Hurricane Matthew and its devastating effect on southwestern Haiti, home of our ministry partners in Maniche and Les Cayes.  We don’t know the full scope of the damage, but it’s no stretch to say our friends there have lost more than we can imagine, their fragile homes, their crops, and their possessions literally scattered to the winds.   

When I prayed about Haiti this week, the image that came to mind was the offertory at the 150th anniversary celebration of the Episcopal parish in Les Cayes.  As you may remember, when we returned from Haiti in the spring, I talked about this amazing offertory procession, with people dancing their way down the aisle to bring their first fruits to God’s altar:  bananas, mangoes, and corn; beans, rice, and peppers; even goats and chickens – all of it brought as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord who had provided it in the first place.  At this point, our friends in Haiti have precious little to bring to God’s altar, and their struggles will only intensify with the disease and deprivation we know will come in the storm’s wake. 

But Haiti is one of those thin places between heaven and earth, a place where our lives and the kingdom of God intersect in surprising ways.  Our friends in Haiti need our prayers and our ongoing support, but I have absolutely no doubt that before long, they will once again be bringing their first fruits to God’s altar.  It’s just what they do, because they know God will call new life into being there.  And they’re right.  That’s just what God does.

Offering first fruits to God is a pretty good description of Peg Ruth’s life, too.  Peg gave her loving presence here so generously – one of those parishioners who does nearly everything there is to do at church and does it with a servant’s heart.  Whether you’d known Peg for 60 years or, like me, only a decade or so, you couldn’t help but be moved by the generosity of her spirit.

A few months ago, Peg was interviewed in the Messenger about why she put God first in her life – why she offered her first fruits.  She said, “I simply wanted others to have the faith I knew to be very real.”  So she packed up neighborhood kids in her car and brought them to church along with her family.  She served on a million committees, including the Vestry.  She led the Altar Guild.  She said “yes” to God’s call and pioneered the way for other women to serve in ordained ministry.  She supported St. Andrew’s and its ministries financially.  She visited you in the hospital; and whether you were a friend and neighbor or a patient with AIDS, she would take off her sterile glove, and hold your hand in hers, and pray that you would know Christ’s healing love.

Each of those gifts Peg shared with us was a first fruit.  It’s a concept with a long history, one deep in our DNA.  Our spiritual ancestors, the people of Israel, would come to the Temple in Jerusalem every year to offer the sacrifice of their first fruits, the produce they’d inherited when they came into the Promised Land:  wheat, barley, figs, pomegranates, dates, wine, and olive oil.  It sounds like that offertory procession in Haiti.  Those gifts supported the Temple’s operation; but more important, they were an antidote to amnesia.  They helped people remember that the land and its produce was God’s gift, not something of their own doing.  And those offerings helped the people remember their side of the Covenant, too:  As God provided land and blessing, the people offered fidelity and thanksgiving.

Here at St. Andrew’s, we’re beginning our season of stewardship this morning.  For the next five weeks, you’ll be hearing from clergy and parishioners about what it means to put God first, to honor God through the offering of your first fruits.

But in another sense, this season has been underway for months already.  Think about the stories you’ve read in the Messenger and the bulletin about members of this church family putting God first – Morgan Olander, Dr. Stan Shaffer, Audrey Langworthy, Bob West, George and Carolyn Kroh … and Deacon Peg Ruth.  Each has his or her own story of what it looks like to live a generous life in terms of time, talent, and treasure.  All of them are pledgers to St. Andrew’s, but that certainly isn’t the only mark of their faithfulness.  For Morgan, generosity has looked like mentoring Boy Scouts.  For Stan, it’s looked like building partnerships in Haiti.  For Audrey, it’s looked like years of public service in the legislature.  For Bob, it’s looked like civic leadership in universities, libraries, and health care.  For George and Carolyn, it’s looked like ministry in education, community gardening, and Haiti.  And for Deacon Peg Ruth, it’s looked like a life of servant ministry and servant leadership.  As Peg said, “Being a Christian is sometimes a tough road to travel, but choosing the easier path is not what the Christian life is about.  Jesus said, ‘Take up the cross and follow me.’  I can’t say, ‘No, wait, it’s too heavy.’”

            Can we follow those models of faithfulness?  Can we follow the lead of the people of Haiti who bring their first fruits to God’s altar despite the risk that their homes might be destroyed in a few minutes’ wind and rain?  Can we follow the lead of Deacon Peg and the others we’ve been profiling?  Can we live a generous life despite the temptation to see scarcity everywhere we turn?  

            I believe the answer is simple and yet simply astounding, and here it is:  I will, with God’s help.  It’s our answer to the five questions God asks us in the Baptismal Covenant:  Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and the prayers?  Will you persevere in resisting evil and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?  Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?  Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?  And will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?  As Stan Shaffer said in his interview, those promises of the Baptismal Covenant capture the Christian life in microcosm:  Sacrifice.  Forgiveness.  Celebration.  Service.  Respect.  That’s our job description as followers of Jesus, and we can’t let his call scare us away.  After all, if we’re followers, that means we’re on a journey.  We can’t expect to walk it as faithfully today as we will tomorrow.  But still, each day, we can take a good next step, following his lead.

            How?  I think the key is the practice of thankfulness – the active, outward, concrete, sacramental practice of thankfulness.  Not just being thankful, but doing thankful.  Now, this may not exactly come naturally to us.  Think of the examples in our readings today.  Naaman, the Syrian leader with leprosy, was angry that he didn’t get enough personal attention while God miraculously healed him.  In the Gospel, the nine Jewish lepers didn’t bother to say thank-you to Jesus for their healing; only the outsider, the Samaritan, lived out his thankfulness by coming to the place of blessing at Jesus’ feet.  We’re not so good at “doing thankful.”  We need God’s help, and we need practice.

That practice of thankfulness happens across the scope of our lives, as we’ve seen in those profiles in the Messenger.  It’s about time and talent and treasure because God blesses us with all three.  God asks for our first fruits not as transactions of blessing but as tokens of blessedness.  The Israelites gave God their first fruits not to purchase good fortune but to help them remember where their Promised Land had come from and what faithfulness God expected in return.  We need the same memory aid to remind us that we cannot live for ourselves alone but for him who died for us, and rose again, and now uses our hands to hold the world in love. 

In the next few days, you’ll be receiving information on how to “do thankful” here at St. Andrew’s through pledges of time, talent, and treasure.  All three are equally important – prayer, and service, and financial gifts – because God doesn’t just want the first fruits from your wallet.  God wants first place in your life, as Peg Ruth modeled.  As she said in her interview, “I’m trying to live the message, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” 

She could say that because Peg knew who she was and whose she was.  She knew God’s claim on her life.  She knew the costs that faithful living brings.  But she also knew the joy that comes in the morning, the joy that comes when the storms clear, the joy that comes from putting God first.

            So do you.  So do I.  But we need help, sometimes, to remember.

Finding Jesus, Part 2

Feast of Holy Cross, transferred, and the 15^th Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks

Philippians 2:5-11; John 12:31-36a

Last week, I told you that today I’d give you Part 2 of my contribution to this sermon series on Finding Jesus.  I will do that, but this day has a very different tone from last Sunday.  Last week was Labor Day weekend, our final taste of summer relaxation.  Today, we’re remembering the 15^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. 

There is no official feast of 9/11 on the Church calendar, so we’re moving the feast of Holy Cross from Sept. 14 to today.  9/11 and the feast of Holy Cross share some resonances, particularly about the place of suffering in this world God loves, as well as where and how we find God in that suffering.  So on this day, as we honor the anniversary of 9/11 and honor the mystery of the Cross, we remember a theological truth so deep that it defies logic, one you have to experience to know.  That truth is this:  Jesus redeems our suffering, healing the brokenness of human life and rolling away the stone from our tombs, by entering into our suffering directly.  Jesus comes to us in our most grievous moments, takes flesh, and dwells in the midst of pain and sorrow we thought we could never bear.  And through his stunning compassion, contrary to all human logic, Jesus conquers our pain and sorrow and the brokenness from which it comes, leading us out of the grave and into new life.  I don’t expect that to make perfect sense, laying it out there that way.  It’s like trying to explain love.  In fact, it is trying to explain love.  With content like this, logical explanations can only go so far.  At some point, we have to enter into the deep truth that only story and memory can hold. 

First, about 9/11:  I imagine every one of us in this room over a certain age can remember where we were and what we were doing 15 years ago this morning, when airplanes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.  I was in seminary.  We were beginning the first week of classes for that semester, the senior year for Ann and me.  That morning, I was excited about the semester but worried about Ann.  Her health hadn’t been good for a few weeks; she was having pain in her lungs, and shortness of breath, and general exhaustion.  And we didn’t know what was wrong. 

That morning, the whole seminary community was gathering in the auditorium for orientation to the first week of classes.  Before we got there, some of us had heard that a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center; the initial reporting said the pilot of a private plane must have made a tragic mistake.  As the academic dean was speaking, a voice came from the back of the room, the ethics professor shouting out, “Oh, my God, a plane has hit the second tower, too!”  Class was over.  We turned on the TV news coverage and sat there, the whole seminary community, paralyzed.

After a couple of hours of shock and fear, one of the professors realized we should be praying.  So we filed out of the auditorium and into the chapel to offer the Supplication, a rarely used rite in the Book of Common Prayer intended for “times of war, or of national anxiety, or of disaster” (154).

From that brief time of prayer in the chapel, the image that comes to mind for me is the seminary cross.  When you enter the chapel at Seminary of the Southwest, the first thing you notice is that there is no cross inside.  There’s an altar, and a pulpit, and a pipe organ, and rows of chairs – but no cross.  Looking for it, your eye goes to the wall behind the altar, a wall of clear, leaded glass revealing the grounds outside.  And among the huge Texas live oaks in the yard stands a bronze cross, probably 15 feet high, weathered green over the years.  That is the chapel cross – but significantly, it’s not in the chapel.  It’s in the world.  That cross shows where Jesus was, and where Jesus is – in the world that he gave himself to redeem.  One could argue that’s where the cross most belongs.

It is perhaps an accident of physics that, on that day, the ruins of the World Trade Center also left a bare metal cross, standing in the dust – amid the sacrifice of the first responders, amid the joy of the rescuers, amid the broken hearts of families left alone.  It’s pictured on the cover of today’s bulletin.  Like Good Friday, like the crucifixion itself, that cross is a stunningly powerful proclamation of the horror of humanity’s sinfulness – our willingness to turn our backs on the peace and love God intends.  But it also proclaims the power of God to redeem that sinfulness by being lifted up in an act of deadly healing that sets the world to rights.  The cross represents Jesus’ victory over sin and death, his being raised up “to draw all people” to himself, as we heard in today’s Gospel reading (John 12:32).  God has highly exalted him, as Paul writes in Philippians, so that at the name of the crucified Jesus, “every knee should bend … and every tongue confess” that he is the true emperor, the true king, replacing all human pretenders to the throne.  (Philippians 2:10-11).  That’s the message of this feast of Holy Cross we’re marking today. 

But we can’t jump to the triumphal end of the story just yet.  Jesus’ victory, the victory in which we share – it comes at a cost.  For the reason why Jesus can defeat sin and death is because he has been there.  He has faced down Satan and endured the worst that humanity could dish out.  He has suffered along with the powerless, along with political prisoners, along with those who have no country, along with those who can’t fight back.  He has suffered with the sick, with the hungry, with the naked, with the abandoned.  Jesus has hung on that cross in the world; and from that cross, he has overcome the world (John 16:33).

We know that story from 2,000 years ago.  What makes it true is that it’s still our story, too.  As the first responders rushed into the ashes 15 years ago, Jesus rushed in with them.  As thousands bled and died in the rubble, Jesus waited with them.  As family members tearfully posted photos of the missing, Jesus cried with them.  As passengers on a plane over Pennsylvania decided to sacrifice themselves to save people below, Jesus crashed along with them.  And as innocent people now endure discrimination born of fear and hate, Jesus stands with them.  What makes the story of the cross our truth is this:  that Jesus does not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but he empties himself; and being found in human form, he humbles himself in the ultimate act of love: compassion, which literally means “suffering with” someone.  And what Jesus bears, Jesus heals – no matter what life dishes out, no matter how fearsome the world becomes, no matter how clearly death appears to be the victor.  Jesus heals us by entering into our suffering, taking it on himself, and reminding us how the story truly ends.

So I told you last week that today I’d finish my story of finding Jesus.  It’s this compassionate Jesus I had in mind, and I met him in a hospital.  It was about a month and a half after 9/11.  I mentioned earlier that Ann had been having health challenges, though we didn’t know the cause.  She entered the hospital just after 9/11, and it wasn’t long before we had our answer.  She had lupus.  Now, lupus presents in lots of different ways – sometimes being mildly disruptive, sometimes threatening your life.  It was the latter kind that attacked Ann.  Her lung capacity began vanishing, and her heart rate rose to a consistent 160 beats per minute.  The doctors tried all kinds of things, but nothing made much difference.  She just kept losing lung capacity, and her heart kept up its killing pace. 

Then, one afternoon – on Halloween, actually – her heart started slowing, but not in a good way.  Suddenly, her blood pressure was down to 80/40.  The nurses tried to seem calm as they whisked her off to surgery, as her heart rate kept dropping.  There wasn’t time for much conversation before surgery began, and Ann didn’t know what was happening anyway.

The nurse led me to the surgery waiting area and into one of those little rooms they reserve for “private consultations.”  Now, I had done my chaplaincy training in this same hospital several months earlier, and I knew what those little rooms were for.  I’d used them with patients.  That’s where the chaplain takes you when the news isn’t likely to be good.  Ironically, though, there was no chaplain, and I didn’t really want to talk with a stranger anyway.  So I called Ann’s parents and mine, to let them know what was happening. 

And then I called my friends.  There were six of us in my seminary class who’d become especially close over the previous two years: Amy and Kathy and Faith and Wes and Cal and me.  We called ourselves the Six Pack.  So I talked with one of them – Faith, I think – and she rallied the other four.  Within minutes, they were walking into the waiting room.

Of course, nothing they could say would change the fact that Ann was having emergency surgery to drain a quart of fluid from around her heart.  There were no explanations or rationalizations they could offer.  But the presence of my friends was the presence of Jesus Christ, the one who calls us “friends” (John 15:15).  In my fear, Jesus was there.  In my suffering, Jesus was there.  Now, if you’d asked me, I might have been able to make that connection intellectually.  But here’s how I felt it: When they arrived in that scary little waiting room, one by one they each hugged me.  Hugs are always good, but it’s the last hug I remember particularly.  It was Cal.  Cal was an athlete, a swimmer; and even in seminary he had kept up his regimen.  So Cal came to me, and put his arms out like a cross.  And he wrapped me in the strongest hug I’ve ever known. 

It wasn’t Cal.  It was Jesus.  In the worst moment, as life literally seemed to be draining away, Jesus came and stood before me and wrapped me in his love.  He knew what I was experiencing.  He’d been there before, after all.  He’d been through the worst that human life dishes out. 

The God who suffered on the cross suffers with us still – and eventually walks with us, out of that scary little waiting room, out of the tomb, and into the victory of life made new.

Finding Jesus, part 1

Sept. 4, 2016
Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 14:25-33

Here we are, three weeks into this sermon series on Finding Jesus.  So far, we’ve heard from Mtr. Anne and Dr. Tom Vozzella, sharing their stories of God coming and taking flesh and changing their lives.  It may seem miraculous – and it is miraculous – but it’s also part of the deal for followers of Jesus.  Much of the point of this sermon series is to encourage us to expand our sense of where and how Jesus might show up in our lives.  Sometimes, it’s dramatic.  Sometimes, it’s everyday.  And sometimes, it’s both.  But whenever and however we find him, he comes with an offer – an offer of relationship.  The question is, what do we do with the offer?

So, what’s your relationship with Jesus like?  One way to assess it might be to picture who’s there at the other end of your prayers.  Who are you praying to – and maybe more to the point, who are you comfortable praying to?  Are you connecting with the creator of the universe, a cosmic parent who wants the best for you, who fervently hopes you’ll to make the right choices, and who sometimes intervenes (inexplicably) to show you the way?  Or maybe you’re connecting with a Spirit you can’t quite identify or picture but who calms you, or comforts you, or empowers you to do what you could never do on your own?  Or maybe you’re connecting with the One who calls you “friend” (John 15:15) – someone who has walked the path you’re walking, and who guides you along it, and who stunningly sacrificed himself to give you the gift of life that never ends?

It’s that last One I’ve had trouble with.  Even early on, I could identify with God as the cosmic parent.  I could even identify with God as a spirit I couldn’t picture but knew was there – everywhere, in everything.  But who exactly was this Jesus everybody talked about?  The hero, the superstar of our faith; I get that.  But also the one who “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father,” as we proclaim in the Creed every Sunday.  Talk about a long-distance relationship.

It didn’t help that I grew up as an Episcopalian in Springfield, Missouri, the buckle on the Bible Belt.  In Springfield, it seemed, everybody knew Jesus.  On every corner was a Baptist church or an Assemblies of God church.  In those traditions, not only did they know Jesus, they could even talk about him.  A lot.  And they could talk about him in those wise and mysterious ways that said they knew things I didn’t.  A great example was a billboard for a Baptist church on the north side of town.  “Jesus is the answer,” it proclaimed.  OK, fair enough.  But what was the question?  If I don’t know enough to ask the right question, I’m probably not going to be able to understand your answer.

Although I went to church every week growing up, I actually heard very little about Jesus – at least very little about the risen Jesus present in the here and now.  That was just as true at church as at home.  Most of what I knew about Jesus came from sacred music because I sang in church choirs from the second grade on.  And the church music we sang wasn’t praise songs or old Protestant classics.  Other Christians I knew sang those songs, about having a relationship with Jesus.  Think about the titles:  “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.”  “I’m Gonna Have a Little Talk With Jesus.”  “I Come to the Garden Alone,” where “he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own.”  We tended to make fun of music like that, as I was growing up.  What we sang in the Episcopal Church was instructive and poetic but much less personal or experiential.  Think about these Hymnal classics: “Joyful, joyful we adore thee.”  “There is a green hill far away.”  “O Word of God incarnate, O wisdom from on high.”  “In Christ, there is no east or west.”  “Lift high the cross.”   Even the old militaristic hymns, like “Onward, Christian soldiers.”  The songs we offered all proclaimed Jesus with power or beauty or theological depth.  But few of them had me singing about someone I love and who loves me back.

Actually, I envied my Baptist and Assemblies friends, the people who sang the other kinds of Jesus songs.  I envied the folks who had an authentic answer when the proselytizers came knocking on their doors.  In my family, we came up with smart responses we could use when they stopped by.  “Have you been born again?”  Why, yes, when I was baptized at 1 month of age.  “Have you ever come up for an altar call and given your life to Jesus?”  Why, yes, every Sunday when I receive Communion.  The answers were right, of course; and I’ve offered them myself to people struggling to understand how Episcopalians see those beliefs and practices.  But those answers don’t describe a relationship.  If you don’t know what it means to say, “I love Jesus” or “Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior,” then you think your way into the same truth.

OK, fast-forward to when I was 24.  I’d returned to college to earn teaching certifications, and I was back in Springfield, living with my parents and going to Christ Episcopal Church once again.  I was grateful for the place to live while I took classes for a year, but I have to say that identifying with my parents wasn’t really what I wanted at that point in my life.  After all, I was a little older than most of the other students in the program; I’d had a couple years’ experience in the real world, writing for the governor of Missouri; I was teaching a freshman composition class.  I had delusions of coolness.  Looking back at myself a quarter century later, I recognize that I’ve never had any hope of being cool, whether or not I was living with my parents.  But at that point, the last thing I wanted was to see myself as being part of my nuclear family at 24 years old.

Among other things, it’s hard to find a girl when you’re in that situation.  Now, Ann and I knew each other at that point, from having a class together; but we weren’t dating.  Part of the reason why was because it’s not exactly the height of “cool” to take a girl back to your parents’ living room after a date and sit there while they watch TV.  I wanted to be cool, but instead I was stuck being a family guy.  And I kind of resented it.

One Sunday morning, the Old Testament reading was the one we heard this morning, from Deuteronomy.  I don’t remember exactly where the priest went with the sermon, but I can still hear him, in his high, reedy voice, repeating those words over and over again:  Choose life, choose life, choose life that you may live (30:19).  Even without a strong personal relationship with my Lord and Savior, I could take a hint.  It was time to recognize that being my parents’ son was a pretty good gig.  It was time to embrace the life God was giving me rather than wishing I had a different one.  And it was time to stop worrying about how I measured up in other people’s eyes.

Well, long story short, it turned out that Ann was looking for a family guy rather than a cool dude.  Praise God for that – and not just because I got the pretty girl but because that pretty girl helped me find Jesus.  I don’t know that she knew that before this week, but it’s true.

I’d love to be able to say that I found Jesus in some lightning-bolt moment.  Many of us with clerical collars think we’re supposed to have stories like that, some moment when the scales fell from our eyes.  Tom Vozzella shared a moment kind of like that last Sunday, about hearing a church organ for the first time and knowing he was called to serve God through music.  Must be nice.  In my case, a miraculous vision during Eucharist would have been great, given how things worked out professionally.  But I didn’t get any of that.

Instead, I got a wife.  And what does that have to do with finding Jesus?  It’s about God offering me life, the life of God’s love in the flesh, and me being aware enough of the blessing to choose it. 

As we heard in that reading from Deuteronomy, God holds out to us the offer of astonishing blessings, the chance to live in the Promised Land that God prepares for us.  For me, that Promised Land has been the land of relationship.  In the love I’ve found in our marriage, I have experienced the love of God incarnate, which is precisely who Jesus is.  That kind of love is not abstraction or explanation.  It’s not an agreement in principle between two parties to tender and accept the offer of eternal life.  The love of God is Jesus – love with the abstractions removed.  It’s love that takes flesh, and commits to you, and stands by you, and affirms your inherent value even when your actions don’t merit it.  I came to know that love, divine love, from Ann.  

It may be odd to hear that on a Sunday when Jesus tells us, in the Gospel reading, that we have to “hate” our families to follow him (Luke 14:26).  I think that hyperbole is his way of saying we can’t put anything in the place of God.  But I would say the love we know in relationships doesn’t have to compete with God’s love.  Instead, the love we know in relationships can point us toward God’s love, helping us believe it’s true.

That worked for me.  I chose to believe God’s love was true even though my own wiring would have left me skeptical of it forever.  I used to be the guy waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under him, waiting for Lucy to yank the football away just as Charlie Brown runs up to kick it.  In the love of my wife, I came to know a different definition of me.  I came to know that, in God’s eyes, I was worthy of the Promised Land.  I came to see that I was worthy of being saved.  I came to know the love of Jesus – the love of someone who hangs in there with you, and gives himself for you, despite the fact you’ll never be good enough to earn it.  So I decided to say, “Yes” – to choose life, to enter the Promised Land, to accept God’s love with flesh and bones on it, and to accept the fact that, yes, I could, actually have a little talk with Jesus.  Because God loves me – flesh and bones, warts and all.

So, there’s part 1. You’ll have to come back next week to hear how the story goes in part 2.