What the Worship Space Tells Us

[Sermon from June 2, 2013, celebrating the return of St. Andrew's to its renovated worship space.]

Well, let me say, “Welcome home.”  This place cleans up pretty nicely.  Just glancing around, you may not get the full scope of the last two months’ work, so let me list some of the highlights:  The flooring in the nave has been replaced, so it all matches.  The broken pews have been fixed.  The walls and ceiling have been painted, and what would be the keel and the ribs of the “ship” of the nave have been stained to match the rest of the wood.  The lighting is much brighter.  The sound system and speakers have been replaced.  And the work was completed within budget and on time. 

We’re pleased to have representatives from Pearce Construction, as well as some of the subcontractors with us here this morning.  Thank you for your holy work to renew this holy space.  And to the members of the Facilities Commission and Interiors Committee, and to the staff – and particularly to Mary Heausler, our stunning junior warden – thank you, thank you, thank you.  You all have served admirably as stewards of the household of God.  As Jesus says in one of his parables, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” (Matt 25:23)  After this experience, you may not want to be in charge of anything else, but I think the point is how much God appreciates your work.

So we’ve spent the past two months worshipping in the Undercroft – sitting in a semicircle around the altar and pulpit, much closer to the action than usual, singing some different music with different instruments, and hearing responses from you after the sermons (at the 10:15 service).  It was a chance to experiment, so we did.  And as you know, over the past three weeks, we asked for your feedback about these changes through a quick survey.  Even someone with my level of expertise in statistics can interpret the results for three of the questions on the survey.  Overwhelmingly, people enjoyed the different music, the different instruments, and being closer to “the action” and to each other.  About inviting parishioners to respond to the sermons, the survey results were a little less clear – a bimodal distribution at both ends of the curve, if you remember your stats class.  A plurality of you really liked the sermons done that way – and coming in second were those of you who never want to see it again.  Welcome to the Episcopal Church. 

So what did we learn from worshipping in the undercroft?  If nothing else, we learned that space matters.  Space doesn’t just have utilitarian value; it has theological content.  You may like one space better than another, and the reason why might well have something to do with how you relate to God.

The comments from the survey captured a lot about what the worship space downstairs communicated theologically.  This was my favorite comment:  “It feels so good [in the Undercroft], like everyone loving each other. When we go back upstairs to the nave, I hope we’ll keep this spirit alive.”  With all its challenges, our worship downstairs did a great job of reflecting the immanence, the intimacy, of God’s presence.  One of the things that differentiates Christians from people of other faiths is that we put a lot of stock in the doctrine of the Incarnation: the idea that the sovereign Lord of the universe “became flesh and lived among us” in Jesus Christ (John 1:14).  God came to save and redeem humanity from the inside out, enabling God to experience our life and sanctify it directly.  We could feel this in the Undercroft, being close to the preacher breaking open the Word, close to the Altar where bread and wine became Christ’s Body and Blood, close to each other – even able to look into each other’s eyes as we worshipped.  It was a beautiful experience of the immanent presence of God.

And here we are, in a space that communicates something different about the divine.  Here, the arches and vaulted ceiling and stained-glass windows draw your perspective up, always up.  The three main sections are on three different levels:  First you have the nave, the ship of the faithful for your voyage of discipleship.  It’s at street level, welcoming everyone aboard.  Then you have the chancel or the choir, where the clergy and musicians lead our prayers and praise.  It’s raised slightly and separated from the nave by this little wall, seeming to imply that somehow holier work happens up here.  And finally, up another step, through the gate, and past the rail, we have the sanctuary, the holy of holies where the Body and Blood of Christ are consecrated.  In the old days, as some of you will remember, only ordained people and acolytes could even enter the sanctuary – well, and the Altar Guild, who were really in charge.  My point isn’t to critique the architecture of this beautiful space but simply to observe that it communicates something other than the immanent, personal presence of God.  This space gives us an experience of transcendence, of God’s divine otherness – beautiful and majestic and set apart from the day-to-day-ness of our lives.  Here in this amazing space, we know who’s in charge.  And it’s not us.

We proclaimed it in the psalm this morning, the perfect psalm for this Sunday when we’ve come back into the temple of the Lord:  “[G]reat is the Lord and greatly to be praised; he is more to be feared than all gods….  Oh, the majesty and magnificence of his presence!  Oh, the power and the splendor of his sanctuary! …  Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth tremble before him.  Tell it out among the nations, ‘The Lord is King!’” (Psalm 96:4,6,9-10 BCP)  You come into this space, and hear this organ, and see the light streaming through these windows, and feel yourself drawn into the presence of the risen Christ towering over the high altar – how can you not know that God is King?  “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea thunder, and all that is in it,” for God is God, and I am not (Psalm 96:11 BCP).  Many of us, if pressed, would have to say this realization isn’t as self-evident as we might hope.  In fact, we might have to admit it comes as a surprising relief to say that God is God, and I am not.

In our worship here, we enact mysteries that seek to capture ultimate mystery:  that the God who’s always been king, who created the heavens and the earth – this eternal sovereign is enthroned again and again, right here in this space.  Every week, we remember the timeless reality that God’s rule is both constant and constantly new, both forever and forever surprising to us.  The people of ancient Israel had no trouble wrapping their minds around this mystery of a God who was, and is, and is to come.  We remind ourselves of the same truth here as we consecrate the bread and wine, remembering out loud that “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”  Every week in our worship here, the Word and the prayers and the sacrament remind us that God was, and is, and will be God, no matter what. 

So why do it?  Why do we enact this truth, week after week after week?  It’s not because God needs the reminder.  It’s for our own benefit – and thereby, for the benefit of this world God loves so much.  Gathered in this place of transcendent beauty, performing rites handed down across the centuries, we enthrone God in our own hearts, over and over again.  And in our hearts, the Lord of all creation takes on flesh and dwells in the world once again.  You and I become the incarnation of divine majesty, the Body of Christ given for the world God has made.  We look into each other’s faces, and we love the people we see.  We look into the faces of people we don’t know, and we reach out hands and hearts to them.  We look across the street and see a neighborhood of people who can’t name the spiritual home they need.  We look down the street to Southwest High School or Gordon Parks Elementary – or we look across the sea to our partner school in Haiti – and we see children of God who need healing in ways that, miraculously, we can help bring about.  When our hearts are formed and reformed here to honor the majesty of our divine king, we are made into nothing less than Jesus’ own body, broken for each other and for those we don’t yet know. 

So, as we go forth from this glorious space today – fed by Christ and with Christ to be Christ in the world – let me offer you one small challenge.  Estimating generously, when we come to church on a Sunday, we spend half a day in the kind of transformative worship I’ve been describing.  What would happen if we worshipped God that way the other six and a half days of the week?  I don’t mean spending all your time at church – just the opposite.  I mean bringing church into all of your time.  What if, every day, we praised the Lord, and blessed God’s name, and declared God’s wonders among the peoples? (Psalm 96:1-3)  What if, just once every day, we actually spoke of the fact that God is God, and we are not?  It might start with simply saying grace around your dinner table.  It might grow into saying grace when the waiter brings you lunch at a restaurant.  It might be simply observing that God did a great job with the sunset that day.  It might be a quick “Praise God!” when someone tells you good news.  It might be “I’ll pray for you” when the news is not so good.

These small acts might not seem to matter a bit, in the greater scheme of things.  But when we’re tempted to think this way, that’s when this beautiful space whispers to us and reminds us of the lesson it never ceases to teach:  that we’re called to “tell it out among the nations:  the Lord is king!” (Psalm 96:10 BCP).

Give Love to Find Love

[Sermon from April 28, 2013]

Here we are in week 2 of this sermon series, “I Want a New Life!”  The idea is that resurrection sounds great in the abstract, on Easter Sunday, when the flowers are blooming and everyone’s all dressed up.  We sing, “Jesus Christ is Risen Today,” and gather Easter eggs, and eat brunch – and then what?  Sometimes it’s hard to see resurrection in our own experience, especially when life seems to bear down on us far more than bear us up.  So this series is about where we might look to find the new life Jesus has begun.  Last week’s sermon was about giving up control to find peace.  This week, the topic is love and what we might do to get our hearts refilled.

Now, maybe your heart’s just fine.  If so, you can spend the next 10 minutes giving thanks for that.  But I think many of us might find ourselves running a little low on love.  Maybe it’s a matter of being tapped out.  Maybe your life is so busy, so demanding, that you feel like someone’s always asking you for something.  You come to the point when you want to say, “Wait a minute!  I need to feel valued.  I need to know I matter, not just that I’m productive.”

Or maybe your deficit of love comes from a problem at the other end of the spectrum.  Maybe it seems no one needs you anymore.  Friends and family aren’t around; interactions are relatively few.  Life just seems to plod along.  You come to the point when you want to say, “Wait a minute!  I need to feel valued.  I need to know I matter not just because of who I used to be, but because of who I am right now.”

Well, I want to tell you about a friend of mine, a friend I never imagined having.  He is Fr. Colbert Estil, our partner priest in Haiti.  I want to tell you about Colbert because I think he has something to show us about finding love.

Colbert has the most demanding life of any priest I know.   He oversees one of the largest Episcopal parishes in the southern part of Haiti, St. Sauveur.  That would be a challenging life by itself.  But in Haiti, the Church works differently than in the States, and congregations share priests much more than happens here.  So Colbert also oversees 10 other smaller churches.  On top of that, he’s ministering in a place with a level of material need that’s hard for us even to comprehend, not to mention the spiritual and emotional needs that all people have.  On top of that, each of his churches also has an elementary school, so there are those balls to juggle.  Add to that trying to have some semblance of a personal life.  Colbert and his wife, Monese, have four kids, including a son who’s one month old. 

Then, on top of all that, you have to know about a particular stumbling block Colbert faces.  If you’ve been here when Colbert has come to visit, then you know:  He stutters.  A preacher who stutters.  As if his job weren’t hard enough….

I can only imagine Colbert’s level of stress.  No, scratch that.  I can’t begin to imagine Colbert’s level of stress.  Talk about someone who might want a new life!  If I were Colbert, I’m pretty sure I'd be feeling low on love.  Who’s ministering to him?  How is his heart filled after being drained and drained and drained?

So what does Colbert do in the midst of this life where he’s expected to be so many things to so many people?  He goes and plants a church.  He was here last weekend, and Colbert told the story of his call to ministry in southern Haiti, leaving his work as an accountant in order to be a priest.  He said that, when he was ordained, he promised God that if he were sent to the south, where the Episcopal Church isn’t as widespread, he would plant churches.  So he’s done that in Jérémie, a city 45 miles away from his home in Les Cayes.  It used to be a six-hour drive to Jérémie, Colbert says.  Now, with a graded road, that 45-mile drive up and down the mountains only takes three hours.  But still – just to get there and back is a six-hour investment of time.

Why am I telling you all this?  It’s not to hold up Colbert as Superpriest and beat myself up because I can’t do everything he does.  I’m telling you this because Colbert’s heart is fueled by the power of resurrection.  Like nobody else I know, Colbert reveals the joy of someone who knows he is truly loved.  Sure, he’s tired, and his life is deeply challenging.  But he knows the love of God filling his heart.  And in every encounter you have with him, you feel that love, too.

Where does it come from?  Was he just born with a huge capacity for storing up God’s love, like a camel trekking across the desert without needing a drink of water?  Maybe.  But I think Colbert also shows us what Jesus is trying to show the disciples in today’s Gospel reading.

As is so often true, it helps to know what comes just before the passage we heard today.  Jesus and the disciples are at the Last Supper.  Jesus takes a basin and a towel, and he washes the feet of his friends.  He says, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).  Then a few minutes later, he explains why, as we heard this morning:  “I give you a new commandment,” Jesus says, “that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (14:34-35)

The mystery here is the deep mystery that permeates our faith, the paradox you find all through our Scripture and tradition: that we find love by giving love away.  The emptier your tank feels, the more you need to empty it for someone else.  Why?  Because in doing so, God fills you with an unexpected peace that surpasses understanding, an impossible love that empowers you to love more. 

When we feel empty, it’s time to give ourselves away.  When our lives overwhelm us, it’s time to go to Haiti, at least in spirit (maybe in person, too).  When we’re drained, it’s time to take a meal to someone whose life is turned upside down, or write a note to someone who’s alone, or go serve lunch at the Kansas City Community Kitchen.  When we have nothing left to give, it’s time to come to the Fools for Christ’s Sake Dinner tonight and remember how filling a child’s belly can fill your own heart, too.

When we share from God’s blessings, we see God’s blessings.  When we give love, we find love.  When we shine Christ’s light into the darkness that presses down upon us – showing the world what it means to be Jesus’ disciple – we also remind ourselves of the mystery that keeps us going when logic says we should quit:  That it’s in giving that we receive; it’s in loving that we are loved; and it’s in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Piecing Together the Evidence

[Sermon from Easter Sunday, March 31]

Luke’s story of Jesus’ resurrection is like the first part of an episode of Law and Order.  It opens with ordinary people stumbling onto a scene where clearly something extraordinary has happened; then the rest of the story is about people trying to piece together the how and the why.  You never see the crime in Law and Order; only the evidence that points to it and the consequences that come from it.  What makes the show interesting is how the characters work backward to figure out what happened and then work forward to ensure the story ends in justice or redemption.

Have you ever wondered about the fact that the Easter story is told like this?  None of the four gospel writers gives us the story of Jesus actually being resurrected.  There is no account in the Bible of Jesus getting up off the cold slab and walking out of the tomb.  Instead, what the Gospel writers present is a trail of evidence for investigators like us to follow.  The stone’s been rolled away.  The body is gone.  Bizarre bystanders offer an interpretation that no one in his right mind would believe.  But they remind the investigators of past statements by the missing person that indicate premeditated action – that there’d been a plan for this all along.  But as of yet, there’s no body to prove the investigators really have a case.  All they have are clues that something’s happened.

And even when Jesus does appear later on, it doesn’t happen in the ways we might expect, given that these stories are written by people trying to convince others he’s alive.  Jesus doesn’t appear to huge crowds but only to those “who were chosen by God as witnesses,” as Luke writes in Acts (10:41).  Jesus doesn’t go to the authorities who’d condemned him in order to prove them wrong.  The resurrection never makes the 6 o’clock news.  It seems an odd way for God to get the story out there, if the point is that Jesus’ followers are supposed to be “witnesses of these things” to “all nations” (Luke 24:48,47).  Why not start by broadcasting compelling proof of life?

We might wonder the same thing, 2,000 years later.  Why doesn’t God give us that kind of certain proof, if God wants us to believe? 

Well, if I stood here and told you that we’d found documentary evidence of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, would you believe it?  What if archaeologists uncovered a long-lost eyewitness report?  What if we had a video of the stone rolling away and Jesus waltzing out of the tomb on Easter morning – would that convince you?  Maybe immediately, like the viral commercial of NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon scaring a used-car salesman to death during a test drive.  But then, after millions of hits on YouTube, we’d get the news stories about how it had all been faked.¹ 

So if you’ve come to church this morning looking for proof that God raised Jesus from the dead – DNA evidence or experiments we can replicate – you’re not going to find it.  In fact, you’re never going to find it.  And, I have to tell you, the resurrection is much more believable as a result. 

What do we find to be most believable?  Not studies – you can find a study to show that black is white and white is black.  Not quantifiable data – you can prove anything with statistics.  Not images – just ask the people who swore the Jeff Gordon video was real.  “Proof” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

So what do we find most believable?  The experience of people we trust.

Resurrection is a conviction looking for evidence.  And across the ages, from the very first Easter morning, what’s supported that conviction has been detective work – individuals piecing together the evidence for themselves, then going and sharing what they found with people they know.  There’s no way I can stand here and argue you into resurrected life in the kingdom of God.  All I can do is offer evidence.  So here are some clues that I’ve found. 

As a younger man, I knew with certainty that I didn’t want to have children.  I didn’t like kids particularly.  I didn’t have much experience taking care of them.  I didn’t think I’d be any good with kids, and I thought they’d get in the way of the life I was beginning – so I decided I wouldn’t have any.  But when Ann and I started dating, one of the very first things that made this relationship different was that, suddenly, I could see myself being a father.  Eventually it happened for us; and now I can’t imagine who I would be without the long nights, and the family trips, and the broken rules, and the hard conversations, and the hugs at the end of it all.  Through the gift of children, God has made me into somebody I wouldn’t have been otherwise.  Parenthood gave me new life.

Also as a younger man, I worked as an editor.  Most of my time at work involved sitting in a cubicle, revising and proofing material other people had written.  Hours would go by when I didn’t speak to anyone.  I remember one afternoon of proofing when I was so bored I literally fell asleep, my red pen trailing off across the page.  Needless to say, I didn’t find much meaning in my work.  But I found a lot of meaning in the ways I was beginning to serve at church and in the relationships I was building there.  I started feeling like I belonged at church more than I belonged in my cubicle.  God and I started talking about that; and 15 years or so later, I’m preaching to you on Easter morning.  I certainly didn’t see it coming, but now I can’t imagine going back to my cubicle and my red pen.  By calling me into this work instead, God has formed me into somebody I wouldn’t have been otherwise.  Being a priest gave me new life.

I think I’ve shared with you before that my wife, Ann, and I came to a time in our relationship when we faced serious problems, just like every other couple that’s been together for any length of time.  There came a point for us when things blew up because we’d never really learned how to talk about difficult things.  At one of the worst moments of that time – I can still see where I was standing – I turned to the Scripture reading for that day, looking for direction.  Here’s what I found, from 2^nd Corinthians:  “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (5:17).  In the moment, as things were falling apart, that reading seemed like a cruel joke.  But instead, it was prophetic because we did the work to confront our issues and learn how to talk with each other.  The experience was awful and devastating – and one of the best things that’s ever happened to us.  Our relationship is so much deeper now, so much stronger, so much more alive.  Through the painful gift of reconciliation, God has formed us into people we wouldn’t have been otherwise.  Reconciliation gave us new life.

And then, there’s this place.  Many of you here this morning know we’re in a time of movement and change at St. Andrew’s.  For many years, we’d been content to pass on our church’s strength and stability to new generations of Episcopalians, which is a wonderful thing to do.  But anymore, it’s not enough.  We don’t have babies the way we used to, and they don’t tend to stick around like they once did.  Faced with the same aging demographics many denominations are seeing, this congregation has chosen to step into a new future.  We can’t make out the details quite yet, which is OK.  But we know it involves doing church in a different way for different people – the “spiritually homeless” all around us, right here in our own neighborhood; people seeking a connection with God without the churchy baggage of conflicts over rules and money and institutional survival.  So we’re searching for a third priest to minister with young adults and families as part of a larger effort to create a church for your kids and grandkids.  Through this discernment about how to be “church” in new ways, God is forming us into a community we wouldn’t have been otherwise.  God is giving St. Andrew’s new life.

I’m telling you these stories because they’re the ones I’ve been given to tell.  They aren’t any better than the stories in your hearts this morning.  There are people here with devastating illnesses who’ve found spiritual healing that’s stronger than death.  There are people here who’ve suffered through the death of relationships but found new life in new love.  There are people here who’ve turned away from addiction and embraced lives of healing and hope instead.  There are people here who’ve heard God knocking on their doors and stepped daringly into a new calling on their lives.  And there are people here who have quietly loved and served the folks around them for years, being raised into the heavenly glory of emptying themselves for others.  There are hundreds of pieces of evidence just here in this room.  Each one is a clue pointing to the conclusion we’ve come here this morning to celebrate – that resurrection happens, both to Jesus and to us, over and over and over again.

In that experience, we find not just a pattern of hope for today but a promise of hope for tomorrow.  For centuries now, this is why people have held onto this faith, the hope that lets us sleep at night.  St. Paul put it this way in today’s reading from 1st Corinthians:  “Since by man came death” – through humanity’s own sinfulness – “by [a] man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (15:21-22 KJV).  When we look around us – at the empty tomb and at our own rebirths – new life is what we see.  Those experiences tell us the Church is more than rich tradition, more than a gathering of nice, polite people.  We are the witnesses of resurrection. 

And as witnesses, we also catch ourselves in the act of living eternal life.  That’s the promise all this evidence points toward.  Being made new in the here and now is great, but even better is the pattern the evidence reveals.  We hear it at every funeral, and every Easter morning, and at every resurrection moment of our lives: the truth that death is not the end.  It’s a truth nearly all faiths and cultures understand in their own ways – that the sun always rises, that the flowers do push up through the snow.  But here’s the really shocking truth we find at the end of this investigation:  Resurrection isn’t just a comforting metaphor to get us through cold, dark days.  Resurrection is real.  Forever.  For you.  You are not condemned to death, despite what the culture and your own fears may tell you.  Your conviction has been overturned, and your sentence of mortality has been lifted. 

How do I know?  Because the evidence is all around me. 

1.       Boren, Cindy.  “Jeff Gordon’s test-drive viral video for Pepsi is fake.”  The Washington Post blogs.  March 15, 2013.  Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2013/03/15/jeff-gordons-test-drive-viral-video-for-pepsi-is-fake/.  Accessed March 29, 2013.  See also Stampler, Laura.  “Pepsi’s Most Successful Viral Video Ever is Completely Fake.”  Business Insider.  March 20, 2013.  Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-gordon-pepsi-video-is-fake-2013-3.  Accessed March 29, 2013.

A Maundy Thursday poem

The Fly’s Opportune Time

 

It’s Maundy Thursday.  The

Giant fly eyes the bread

And glides in for a landing –

Right there, in front of

God and everybody. 

This target’s too inviting to

Pass by.  Sweet and yeasty,

Full of life, the bread sits

There, defenseless.  Just as

This is no daily bread, this is

No small-time fly.  Twice the

Size of a picnic pest, the fly

Bears an air befitting its

Stature.  Even on the altar of

Sacrifice, unlike the bread

The fly won’t be denied.

We small men flick fingers

And wave hands, boys

Playing at power.  But

The fly knows better.  It’s

Been working the long con,

Waiting for this very night,

And it’s not going anywhere.

On this night of willing

Sacrifice, Jesus there at table

With his friends, the fly

Takes its time and

Makes its move.  The bread’s

Still there, of course, still

Whole and sweet and good.

But germs have now

Been spread, and only

Moments separate the

Lovely, holy now from

Creeping disease to come.

 

-- John Spicer

Church Going to People

I was gone most of last week at a conference for larger Episcopal churches.  The conference was in San Diego, which was a wonderful contrast to the two huge snowstorms that my wife, Ann, and I left behind.  It was also a great learning opportunity – a chance to think about where the Episcopal Church is going, how we can reach people who aren’t here, how we can do ministry better, how we can serve parishioners better.  Then, after the conference, Ann and I took a couple of days off, rented a car, and drove up the coast to Los Angeles.  I want to share a few images from our trip with you.

The first two images are from where we stayed in L.A. – a historic little hotel in a very funky part of the city, Venice Beach.  If you ever watch The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, you may have an image of Venice Beach in your mind:  People in skimpy swimming suits, roller-blading down the sidewalk; muscle men pumping iron, “free spirits” peddling paraphernalia for, shall we say, alternative lifestyles.  Add to that the hawkers of medical marijuana, the homeless people camping on the beach, and the tourists trying to make sense of this circus, and you have quite a cross-section of humanity.  It was fascinating – like traveling to a different country (maybe a different world).  I’m not sure I felt like I belonged there exactly, but it was certainly interesting.

The next three images illustrate the real reason we went up to L.A.  No, that’s not the entrance to a club and a band beginning its set.  These are photos of the building and the “narthex” of an Episcopal church, as well as a band playing what functions as the “prelude” before worship there.  The name of the congregation is Thad’s.  Not St. Thaddeus’ Episcopal Church.  Just Thad’s.  Thad’s is an intentional church plant by the Diocese of Los Angeles.  As the priest puts it, Thad’s is there for people “who would never darken the door” of a traditional Episcopal parish.  Many of the people there have never even set foot in a church before – which is a little hard for us to imagine, here in the church-saturated Midwest.  So Thad’s takes the shape of the Episcopal liturgy, what we know from a Sunday-morning service, and turns it into something the people there can connect with.  And the morning we were there, probably 150 people were at Thad’s rather than hanging out at Venice Beach.

And what did they experience?  What drew people in?  Well, as you can see, it’s in a very approachable space, part of a collection of cool galleries and boutiques in Santa Monica.  The music is basically alternative rock – and the musicians there write it all themselves.  There’s no explicitly Christian symbolism in the room, other than the purple draping on the music stands reminding those in the know that it’s Lent.  Worship is led by guys in jeans and sweaters sitting on stools.  There’s only one Scripture reading.  There was no celebration of Eucharist that Sunday – they have Communion only about once a month.  After the sermon, people have a chance to share their reactions and contribute their experiences in response to what they heard.

And the people there clearly felt like they belonged.  Several of them shared personal experiences out loud in response to the sermon.  They took a long time exchanging the Peace.  They gathered for coffee and doughnuts before and after worship.  It doesn’t look like our version of church, but clearly they felt like they were in God’s house.  Clearly, they felt at home. 

Why am I telling you this?  It’s NOT because I want to turn St. Andrew's Sunday mornings into an experience like Thad’s.  Let me say that again: I do not want to turn our Sunday mornings into an experience like Thad’s.  I can say it one more time if you want to hear it again.  What was interesting to me about Thad’s is the way this congregation has taken Episcopal worship and community life, and made them authentic to the context in which they find themselves.  They’ve looked around at who’s there in Santa Monica – people with little or no experience of church, people in the entertainment business, people who like funky museums and boutiques – and they’ve created a place where authentic relationships can flourish for those folks.  They’ve created a place where real community can grow out of the fertile Episcopal ground of Scripture, tradition, reason, and welcome.  Thad’s has created a place where people feel they belong.

Belonging is a huge piece of what it means to be part of a church community.  And I don’t mean “belonging” in the sense of having a membership.  I mean feeling the embrace of God’s love welcoming you, holding you, and supporting you through the ups and the downs we all face. 

We heard about that kind of belonging in the Gospel reading today, one of my favorites, actually.  It’s what we usually call the “parable of the prodigal son,” but a better name would be “the parable of the Father’s embrace.”  Jesus tells this story because the religious authorities are grumbling at him for associating with lowlifes, the tax collectors and other sinners.  He’s out there with the folks on Venice Beach, so to speak, and the religious leaders can’t understand why.  So Jesus tells them a couple of parables, including this one, to reveal the sense of belonging that God offers us and God’s passion to draw us into it.

In this story, it’s not cheap grace that the Father gives his wayward son.  It’s true that the Father’s love is always there for the taking, but it matters when the Father extends it – which is once the son has made the first move.  The son has to decide to turn around, to repent, to come back home.  But once he does, the Father doesn’t put him on probation until he proves himself.  The Father makes a move just as dramatic as the son’s return, rushing out of his house and down the road, meeting his wayward son out there on Venice Beach.  The sense of belonging, the sense of embrace, that the son had thrown away – it’s there for him, once again.  The Father runs to him, puts his arms around him, and kisses him.  And once he’s in his Father’s arms, the son knows that’s where he belongs, without a doubt.

That’s what the people at Thad’s are experiencing: God, in the person of that congregation, is throwing open the doors of the traditional Church and running outside it, finding lost daughters and sons and welcoming them home.  They need to feel that they belong; and in the spiritual community of Thad’s, they’re finding that embrace.

These days, that’s what the experts are saying people need as their first step in becoming part of a faith community.  In the old days, when the Church could expect most people would want or need to be part of it, the model worked like this:  You believed in the things the Church said you should believe, you behaved in a way that let you fit in with the other folks there, and eventually you came to feel like you belonged.  Now, as writers like Diana Butler Bass explain, the model is reversed for the religiously unaffiliated.  Now, they need to feel like they could belong in given a spiritual community.  Then they’ll try on the behaviors people practice there – things like coming to worship, having a prayer life, serving in the church and the community, giving back to God in thanksgiving for their blessings.  And through this process comes a deep, centering belief in God as revealed in Jesus Christ.  It’s the kind of belief that’s more than simply agreeing something’s true.  It’s the kind of belief you stake your life on.¹

Those of us who know the love of Christ at St. Andrew's would say we belong here, in the way the prodigal son belongs in the love of his Father’s household.  You could cite lots of examples, but I saw one here a couple of weeks ago that blew me away.  Many of you know Allen Roth, who’s been a parishioner for many years, along with his wife, Cindy.  Many of you also know that Allen has received difficult news – a diagnosis of cancer the doctors say most likely won’t be cured.  The other night, Allen stood up in the Jewell Room before a couple of groups he belongs to here.  Everyone shared a glass of wine and a bite to eat, and Allen told his story – of his diagnosis, but also of the joy, the hope, and the paradoxical new life he’s found in the experience of “terminal” cancer.  The fact that Allen could stand up and offer that story says he feels he belongs here – and so does everyone who filled the Jewell Room that night.  They are bound together in the life of God’s kingdom that Paul describes in the reading from 2^nd Corinthians: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (5:17).  The fact that Allen could throw a “cancer party” with his spiritual community at church shows just how much more than an institution St. Andrew’s really can be.  Everyone in the room that night felt life being made new.  Everyone in the room that night felt the Father’s embrace. 

And now, as St. Paul would urge us, we’re called to take the next step – to be “ambassadors” of God’s new creation (2 Corinthians 5:20) and bring the power of Jesus’ love to reconcile those who are spiritually homeless, those out wandering on the beach.  Our neighborhood looks different than Venice Beach, and most of the people on the Trolley Trail aren’t quite as interesting as the characters out in L.A.  But the call is the same.  Jesus asks us not simply to be a church that accepts the people who come to it but a church that reaches out to the neighbors around us and draws them into a spiritual community they may not even know they need.  Jesus asks us not just to be people who go to church but to be a church going to people.  I think Jesus is asking us to explore what it might look like to create a new worship opportunity, sometime other than Sunday morning, that connects a little more directly with the experience of people who aren’t here.  I think Jesus is asking us to build a community where people who aren’t here could feel like they belong.  I think Jesus is asking us to show “all sorts and conditions” of people that they can feel the Father’s embrace.  As the people of God in this place, we’re called to meet folks out on the road as they make their first, hesitating turns toward the Father’s love.  And then, we’re called to welcome them home.

1.         Bass, Diana Butler.  Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening.  New York: HarperCollins, 2012.  199-214.

God's Answer: Christmas

[Sermon from Christmas Eve]

If you were here on Sunday, then you know this sermon is sort of Part 2 to what I began that morning.  But don’t worry – you don’t have to have heard Part 1 for Part 2 to make sense.  Part 1 was about the question, How can we get ready to celebrate Christmas after the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut?  Part 2 is about a harder question:  Where is God this Christmas if something so awful can happen?

On Christmas Eve, we like to hear stories.  I’ve often written stories for sermons on Christmas Eve.  There’s something about this night, a chord of memory long-played from childhood, that makes us want to gather around the fire with a mug of hot chocolate (or something stronger), basking in the warmth of the love of family and the love of God.  I can still see my family gathered around our living room on Christmas Eve when I was a child, and I can feel the warmth of the fire toasting my back as I sat on the hearth – the spot for the youngest in our household because the older people got the chairs.  We talked, and sipped whatever our mugs held, and got ready to head off for midnight mass to welcome God’s love into the world once again.

That was my Christmas Eve from childhood.  This Christmas Eve, things feel different.  This isn’t a sipping-cocoa-‘round-the-fire sort of Christmas Eve – not with our nation and our own hearts still aching from the shooting in Newtown.  This is a Christmas Eve when sentimentality feels even cheaper than usual.  This is a Christmas Eve when we can only imagine how the people of Newtown must be reeling, trying to figure out how they’re supposed to celebrate the birth of the Christ child only 10 days after losing so many children of their own.

In fact, this is a Christmas Eve when some of us might have come to church trying to figure out a few things about God, too.  If you’ve come here tonight with serious questions on your heart, know that you’re not alone.  If you’ve come here tonight even with something of a chip on your shoulder, know that you’re in good company.  I imagine there are many people, even folks of long-standing faith, who’d like to ask some serious questions of God tonight.  At the top of the list might be, “Where were you in Newtown?”  Or maybe, “How can such awful things happen to such innocent people?”  Or maybe, “Why didn’t you do something?”

On a night when those questions hang in our hearts, I guess I do want to tell a couple of stories after all.  First is the story of one of the victims at Sandy Hook Elementary.  Of course, all the adults who died at the school that day are rightfully remembered as heroes, giving their lives for the children they served.  But one woman’s story particularly strikes me this night – Anne Marie Murphy. 

Ms. Murphy was a teacher’s aide at Sandy Hook, assigned to help special-needs kids in a first-grade class.  Ms. Murphy was a wife and mother of four, a strong Christian who loved to paint and who was planning a big celebration with her extended family over Christmas.  That morning, she was with working with Dylan Hockley, a 6-year-old who struggled with autism.  When the gunman burst into the classroom, Dylan Hockley was hit, along with the teacher, Vicki Soto, and several other children in that class.  What stands out to me about Ms. Murphy, the teacher’s aide, is where her body was found.  She had apparently been nearby Dylan because she had pulled him close, using her own body to try to shield him from the gunfire.  In that act, she lost her own life.^1,2,3 

Why do I tell you such a sad story on this holy night?  Because, in a deep sense, it’s the Christmas story.  It’s the Christian story. 

In our culture, the Christmas story tends to come across like the images on our Christmas cards – a loving couple cast in soft light; cuddly lambs around a manger; a baby glowing in divine light, wrapped in blankets and resting comfortably on clean, warm straw. 

Now, none of us has video from that night 2,000 years ago, but I think the scene probably didn’t look quite like that.  Two thousand years ago, this child was born to impoverished, unmarried peasants.  They’d been forced to travel on foot the 70 miles from their home in Nazareth to the father’s hometown of Bethlehem because government authorities commanded it.  It wouldn’t have been easy in any case, but it was all the harder because the young woman was about to deliver their child.  When they arrived, the only place they could find to stay was in a cave, sleeping with the animals that were kept there.  And if you’ve ever mucked out a stall, you know how clean that cave most likely wasn’t.  This couple’s situation wasn’t all that remarkable.  Thousands of peasants would have been affected by the Roman government’s census, and most of them would have been enduring similar hardships.

But the difference, of course, was the child.  This wasn’t just another peasant baby, as likely to die as to live in its first few hours and days.  This peasant baby was the Son of God.  Now, you’ve heard that said so many times before that it may not mean much to hear it again tonight.  But let me say it again:  That was the Son of God lying in the muck of that stable. 

Messengers from heaven came to other peasants that night, sheep herders outside town, and told them a Savior had been born – the anointed ruler, the Lord, the true king who would reveal the Roman Emperor as the imposter he was.  But this divine king was lying in a feed trough, and his parents were just hoping they’d find something to eat that night.

To the sheep herders, the message must have been literally unbelievable.  It didn’t make sense.  How could it be “glad tidings of great joy” (Luke 1:10) that another peasant baby had come into a dark, uncaring world?  He certainly couldn’t have seemed like a savior.  He looked like he was the one who needed saving. 

Thirty years or so later, he’d look very much to be in need of saving once again.  He’d be beaten and killed by the worldly authorities he’d come to challenge.  And on that dark Friday, people gathered around would ask, where was God?  Why didn’t God come to save this young man who who’d worked miracles and who called out to his Father from the cross?

On the floor in Newtown, Connecticut, a teacher’s aide lay shot and killed by a madman.  And again we ask, Where was God?  Why didn’t God come and save the children at Sandy Hook Elementary and the teachers and staff who protected them?

This is the mystery of Christmas: In Jesus, God was lying there in the dirty straw.  In Jesus, God was being beaten by the Romans.  In Jesus, God was dying on the cross.  And at Sandy Hook Elementary, Jesus was shielding a 6-year-old, trying to save a beloved child from the power of sin and death.

The mystery of Christmas is that God saves us from sin and death by stepping directly into the line of fire.  God loves us, and all of creation, so deeply that God saves the world from the inside out.  As a baby, vulnerable to everything, God chose to enter into our experience and make it God’s own.  The pain we know, God knows.  The fear we face, God faced.  The death we seek to avoid at all costs, God chose.  Like the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary, God saw us in need and decided to act, no matter the cost. 

But what transforms this from simply a story of noble suffering to the story of salvation is the fact that for this baby born in the dirty straw, death was not the end.  Jesus’ death toppled death from its throne.  Enduring it, he defeated it – and gave to us that victory, as well.

Anne Marie Murphy knew that truth.  She staked her life on it.  For Christians, death is not the end because God chose to defeat sin and death from the inside out, stepping directly into it to lift us out of it. 

In our own small ways, we, too, know that we’re called to walk the path of Anne Marie Murphy.  We probably won’t find ourselves called to shield a child from a bullet.  But we most certainly will find ourselves called to love people extravagantly in a thousand smaller ways.  We may not lay down our lives, but we can hold out our hands.  We can give when the world might take.  We can cry with someone who mourns.  We can offer a coat to someone shivering in the cold.  We can commit ourselves to honor this truth: that all children deserve the chance to learn free from violence, free from hunger, free from systems that bind them in despair.  As Anne Marie Murphy chose to act as Christ, so must we.  God loves us enough to defeat sin and death from the inside out.  Now, Jesus asks us to return the favor.

At the end of the order of service, you’ll find a poem.⁴  It wasn’t written in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, but it might as well have been.  On this holy night, let me leave you with this: 

 

When the song of the angels is still,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their sheep,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoners,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among people,

To make music in the heart.

                           – Howard Thurman

 

1.   Cleary, Tom. “Dylan Hockley died in Anne Marie Murphy’s arms.”   Available at: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Dylan-Hockley-died-in-Anne-Marie-Murphy-s-arms-4122828.php.   Accessed Dec. 20, 2012.

2.   Feldman, Emily. “Newtown Teacher’s Aide Died Cradling Dying Student: Family.”   Available at: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/NATL-Newtown-Teacher-Died-Cradling-Dying-Student-Family-184007371.html.   Accessed Dec. 20, 2012. 

3.   Liu, Betty Ming, and Shelley Acoca.   “Connecticut shooting: Sandy Hook victim Anne Marie Murphy mourned by Katonah parents.”   Available at: http://newyork.newsday.com/news/nation/connecticut-shooting-sandy-hook-victim-anne-marie-murphy-mourned-by-katonah-parents-1.4336910.   Accessed Dec. 20, 2012.

4.   Thurman, Howard.   “The Work of Christmas.”   In: Thurman, Howard. The Mood of Christmas and other Celebrations.   Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 1973.   23.