Proper 25 B 2009 (at St. David’s)
(Job 42: 1-6, 10-17; Ps 34: 1-8; Heb 7: 23-28; Mark 10: 46-52)
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
I’m glad to be back here at St. David’s on a Sunday morning. It’s fun to get out of the box, and while your rector is wowing them at SPP I get to spend more time with a community that I feel is deeply bonded to my own.
Bonds and shared history are important. SPP was a mission of St. David’s back when Episcopal churches understood how and why to give birth to new churches. We have a statue of St. David inside our worship space, a reminder of that history and our gratitude. I am a good friend of your former rector John Nesbitt, and he celebrated the 8:00 AM Mass at SPP today. I am also a good friend of your present rector who is preaching at SPP as we speak. Sara and I are co-conspirators as she works for you and with you to help you and God bring forth new life from this place, from this church. I am trying to do the same at SPP. We are both trying to help the Episcopal diocese realize that, as one writer said recently, we have to change if we want to stay the same. If we want to witness to Christ and not bury Christ in our aging building, our old programs, and our daydreaming among our own history, if we want to unlock and open the wonderful treasure-trove which is Anglican-flavored Christianity, with sacrament and liturgy and generous searching intellect and reverence for mystery, then we need to look honestly at ourselves and the people around us and be willing to re-think, re-imagine, and begin again.
You are doing that now. You have held this place in this community and have opened yourselves to the wind of God blowing in new ways. The air is fresh, the place is busy and filled with life, and so I greet you as we re-imagine our lives and take the pilgrimage that Jesus has given us. It is good to be partners with you.
Today we are given this Gospel as a gift to help us do that.
We know this fellow by name—Bartimaeus, which is a mix of Greek and Aramaic meaning Timaeus’ son. He is poor, he has a half-foreign name, and he is blind. In other, more modern words, he is dead in the water and SOL—with no shelter and no way to get something to eat.
All he had was a cloak to help him get both: a raggedy cloak, to pull over his head to ward off the sun and to stretch out in front of him to catch bits of coins and maybe scraps of food. A cloak was a first century equivalent of a shopping cart and a “homeless—please help” sign.
But Bartimaeus has one more thing—a wild hope, a preposterous and desperate hope. “Son of David, have mercy!” Jesus, son of beloved king David, the king whom God swore he would love forever—hear me, see me, have pity on me.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.”
Take heart—if you feel any fear or doubt, if you are confused about your present and your future seems dark and cloaked—take heart. You are heard, you are seen. Feel new life beating and coursing through your mind, your heart, your soul.
“Get up”—leave the hopeless place you’ve gotten used to. Leave this place, even if you are afraid to move.
“He is calling you.” Do we believe that? Do we each believe that we are called, that our congregations are called, that St. David’s and SPP are called? Called—to mirror Christ, to be transformed, to be the radiant Body of Christ and the liberating presence of God.
“Take heart, get up, he is calling you.” And when we stand, what shall we ask him to do for us?
archived musings and preachments
Monday, October 26, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
CeltPub Fuel for Oct 20
CeltPub Conversation fuel—October 20 2009 Lucky Lab 4:30-6:00 P
In the Intro (p. X) Newell writes, “’The whole universe takes part in the dance’” (Jesus) says. Jesus is speaking of a harmony at the heart of life. And he is pointing to a way of moving in relation to all things, even though he knows also the price of living in relation to such a unity.” When and where have you felt the dance? “Moved in relation”? And what is “the price to pay”? Have you ever paid some of that price?
Newell refers to John Scotus Eriugena: “…Christ is our memory. We suffer from the ‘soul’s forgetfulness’, he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. He is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of God. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul.” He goes on to say the relationship of “nature and grace” in the Celtic tradition is not one of opposition but one of relationship and restoration. How does this live along with what you have been taught or inferred from “mainstream” Christian presentations of “nature and grace” if any? What questions, gifts, challenges does this pose from the context of your own life?
Or, talk about what you wish!
At 5:30, we’ll pass around a sheet where you may a) propose other kinds and times of gatherings which b) you are invited to sign your name to offer to host/co-ordinate.
In the Intro (p. X) Newell writes, “’The whole universe takes part in the dance’” (Jesus) says. Jesus is speaking of a harmony at the heart of life. And he is pointing to a way of moving in relation to all things, even though he knows also the price of living in relation to such a unity.” When and where have you felt the dance? “Moved in relation”? And what is “the price to pay”? Have you ever paid some of that price?
Newell refers to John Scotus Eriugena: “…Christ is our memory. We suffer from the ‘soul’s forgetfulness’, he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. He is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of God. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul.” He goes on to say the relationship of “nature and grace” in the Celtic tradition is not one of opposition but one of relationship and restoration. How does this live along with what you have been taught or inferred from “mainstream” Christian presentations of “nature and grace” if any? What questions, gifts, challenges does this pose from the context of your own life?
Or, talk about what you wish!
At 5:30, we’ll pass around a sheet where you may a) propose other kinds and times of gatherings which b) you are invited to sign your name to offer to host/co-ordinate.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Aware
Proper 24 B 2009
(Job 38: 1-7; Ps 104: 1-9, 25, 37b; Heb 5: 1-10; Mark 10: 35-45)
“Be aware of your surroundings.”
Last Thursday night I taught our martial arts class. I wanted to do something fun, so in the last ten minutes I had the group divide into four teams and play a game called Tae Kwan Do dodge-ball. At the signal each team attacks the other and spars in a free-for-all. If a point is scored for a clean hit, that person needs to go and stand against the wall. They can only re-join if an active teammate touches them. The last team with one or more active members left wins.
There’s a lot to be learned in martial arts. One intense young man charged his opponents and began to fight furiously with the most challenging person. He was so intent that he ignored a seven-year old kid who slipped around him and delivered a perfect front kick to his spine. “Out!”
The lesson: Be aware of your surroundings. Lift up your eyes. As in martial arts, so in life. We are surrounded by beauty and glory. The seasons change, the year ages in the graceful journey that is autumn. We savor the days, and welcome the promise of new life as an old life passes away and we smile or weep in memory. Be aware.
But are we? Are our days a joy and a revelation, or a burden? Is our life more curse than blessing? Is joy and delight hard to come by?
If we are not watchful, if we do not take care, it is easy to live in the place of scarcity and lack and even resentment that is the temptation of all of us. It is my temptation. At my stage in life my demons have names like “discouragement”, “cynicism”, and “resentment” when life does not turn out the way I thought it should. “My life should be secure and stable now.” “The other people in my life should have gotten a clue by now.” Even “the parish should be all straightened out by now.”
“”Who is this who darkens counsel without understanding?” God’s dialogue with Job is ours as well. “Dark counsel” comes to all of us, when we are sure that the weary resentful voices inside us speak truth.
But if our days are more burden than joy, it may do no good to be harangued by some preacher to “snap out of it.” That just adds to the burden, gives us more things to do.
We need someone to carry burdens that are too heavy for us. Jesus, says Hebrews, is “able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness.”
There is no burden we carry that has not already been carried by Jesus. There is no cry in the night, there is no agony of soul, there is no silent pain, there is no heaviness of heart that is not also being carried alongside us and within us. The Christ of hope and glory is the Christ who still suffers with his beloved people. As we struggle, as we journey, there is one who is with us and is healing us and is setting us free. Each step we take is not the same as the last. Each step takes us closer to knowing the heart of God.
A professor wrote recently that the letter to the Hebrews was written to a good community who were tired of doing the right thing—tired of being faithful in worship, tired of caring for the poor and needy, tired of keeping the community going one more year, one more month, one more day. Sound familiar? There’s no all-healing special program to address that. But there is Jesus Christ, his overwhelming love, his endless mystery and fascination, his amazing ability to heal and understand and renew and bring what was dead back to life.
Jesus has been to that moment of despair. From it he returns with grace and power to give abundantly to us.
(Job 38: 1-7; Ps 104: 1-9, 25, 37b; Heb 5: 1-10; Mark 10: 35-45)
“Be aware of your surroundings.”
Last Thursday night I taught our martial arts class. I wanted to do something fun, so in the last ten minutes I had the group divide into four teams and play a game called Tae Kwan Do dodge-ball. At the signal each team attacks the other and spars in a free-for-all. If a point is scored for a clean hit, that person needs to go and stand against the wall. They can only re-join if an active teammate touches them. The last team with one or more active members left wins.
There’s a lot to be learned in martial arts. One intense young man charged his opponents and began to fight furiously with the most challenging person. He was so intent that he ignored a seven-year old kid who slipped around him and delivered a perfect front kick to his spine. “Out!”
The lesson: Be aware of your surroundings. Lift up your eyes. As in martial arts, so in life. We are surrounded by beauty and glory. The seasons change, the year ages in the graceful journey that is autumn. We savor the days, and welcome the promise of new life as an old life passes away and we smile or weep in memory. Be aware.
But are we? Are our days a joy and a revelation, or a burden? Is our life more curse than blessing? Is joy and delight hard to come by?
If we are not watchful, if we do not take care, it is easy to live in the place of scarcity and lack and even resentment that is the temptation of all of us. It is my temptation. At my stage in life my demons have names like “discouragement”, “cynicism”, and “resentment” when life does not turn out the way I thought it should. “My life should be secure and stable now.” “The other people in my life should have gotten a clue by now.” Even “the parish should be all straightened out by now.”
“”Who is this who darkens counsel without understanding?” God’s dialogue with Job is ours as well. “Dark counsel” comes to all of us, when we are sure that the weary resentful voices inside us speak truth.
But if our days are more burden than joy, it may do no good to be harangued by some preacher to “snap out of it.” That just adds to the burden, gives us more things to do.
We need someone to carry burdens that are too heavy for us. Jesus, says Hebrews, is “able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness.”
There is no burden we carry that has not already been carried by Jesus. There is no cry in the night, there is no agony of soul, there is no silent pain, there is no heaviness of heart that is not also being carried alongside us and within us. The Christ of hope and glory is the Christ who still suffers with his beloved people. As we struggle, as we journey, there is one who is with us and is healing us and is setting us free. Each step we take is not the same as the last. Each step takes us closer to knowing the heart of God.
A professor wrote recently that the letter to the Hebrews was written to a good community who were tired of doing the right thing—tired of being faithful in worship, tired of caring for the poor and needy, tired of keeping the community going one more year, one more month, one more day. Sound familiar? There’s no all-healing special program to address that. But there is Jesus Christ, his overwhelming love, his endless mystery and fascination, his amazing ability to heal and understand and renew and bring what was dead back to life.
Jesus has been to that moment of despair. From it he returns with grace and power to give abundantly to us.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Impossible
Proper 23 B 2009
(Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Ps 8; Heb 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31)
After a flood, a young man walked along the swollen riverbank to see the rushing water and the wreckage.
Around a bend in the river, he found an old man standing up to his chest in the dangerous current. The old man was reaching out his hand to a tangle of branches in the midst of the waters. Looking closer, the young man saw a large scorpion clinging to the end of one branch. The young man watched in wonder and horror as the scorpion stung the old man on the hand. After shaking his swollen, bleeding hand, the old man reached out to the scorpion again. And again, and again.
After watching this repetitive drama for some moments, the young man finally burst out, “Leave it alone, you old fool! Let that ungrateful bug drown! He’s not going to appreciate what you’re trying to do, and he will sting you every time!”
The old man turned and looked at the young man with serene eyes in spite of the pain. “It’s in the nature of the scorpion to sting. And it is in my nature to try and save it. Why should I change my own nature?”
Well, this story raises a lot of questions for me. The first is, who is that old man living with living with and why hasn’t he been taking his medication? To rescue an unlovable poisonous insect even though it thanks you with a sting is insane as far as the world is concerned. Lots of words come to mind to dismiss the old man’s behavior—self-destructive, masochistic, even the milder “co-dependent.” I know that as I tell this story faces and situations from my own life and my own ministry come to mind—people who rewarded loving attention with demands for even more attention, or new arrays of problems when the old ones had been resolved, or walking away after absorbing tons of time and attention, sometimes waving one or more fingers behind them as they did. We all can relate, we all have been there. Perhaps we have been on the other side of the fence also, at least once or twice.
We speak about “boundaries” and “tough love” and “taking care of ourselves so we have something left to give to others.” Those are all wise words. Job’s words in the first reading become all of our words as we try to live and love, when all good works seem to taste and feel like dust and God’s face is hidden.
And yet, I want what that old man had—the peace, and the freedom to live in that embracing, giving, loving place. I find myself thinking that it is not just natural to live like that. It is supernatural, it is transformed nature, it is nature that is healed and set free by God.
Getting there is not an easy journey. Beware of easy religion with clear maps and all the answers! The man who ran up to Jesus today and asked him what to do had done everything right. He had kept the commandments, he’d read and listened to his Bible and took it all to heart. And I don’t think he was a hypocrite, because the text says that Jesus looked at him “and loved him.” But loving this man meant asking him to go to a place that his conscience and his religion had never asked him to go to before. Leave, leave what he thought he had a right to own even if he was doing good things with it. Leave it even though wealth was thought by some to be a sign of God’s blessing. Leave, give, follow, be nothing in the world’s eyes so you can have everything in God’s eyes. “How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.”
It’s impossible, humanly speaking. It is totally possible, with the help of God.
A man named Mark Scandrette recently gave a speech on “The Five Myths of Community.” He shocks his listeners, good church people, by reminding them that the first Christians were “miserable”—they lost a great deal for following Jesus, even their lives some of them. But church, says Mark, is not the place where we get all our needs met, where we find our favorite opinions affirmed, where we are totally comfortable all of the time. Even wanting community, says Mark, is not a good goal in itself; he said that “community is a beautiful by-product of seeking God’s kingdom together.” The key is to know and live that we come together to seek the kingdom of God. That is what a church is; that is all a church is.
This, by the way, is a stewardship sermon. Notice I have never used the word “money.” Stewardship begins with remembering who we most deeply are, and why we gather at all. When we hear that story of the old man reaching out to the scorpion, do we simply shudder in revulsion and disgust, or dismiss it as an improbable fable? Or does something in us come alight and say softly, “Yes, yes. I don’t like stings, but that is the kind of freedom and generous nature that I hunger for. I want to believe that life is possible. But I do not know how to get there.” And in the Gospel, the same thing—sell it all? In this housing market? Give it away? Where would I raise my kids? But isn’t there something deep inside, something that maybe was more active and visible when we were young and we hadn’t let life teach us oh so many limits, be oh so practical, that comes alive and says, “Yes, yes. I remember that! I remember hungering for that kind of freedom, I remember wanting to know what it would be like to live for God in that way. I remember traveling light, walking on a holy road.”
For us it is impossible. But not for God—even our tired and cynical hearts and our minds bombarded with a culture that tells us to get and get and no you do not yet have enough—it is not impossible for God.
And to share that journey, to ask what all that means, and to try it out—that is why a church exists. And that is the only Gospel reason for a church to exist.
(Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Ps 8; Heb 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31)
After a flood, a young man walked along the swollen riverbank to see the rushing water and the wreckage.
Around a bend in the river, he found an old man standing up to his chest in the dangerous current. The old man was reaching out his hand to a tangle of branches in the midst of the waters. Looking closer, the young man saw a large scorpion clinging to the end of one branch. The young man watched in wonder and horror as the scorpion stung the old man on the hand. After shaking his swollen, bleeding hand, the old man reached out to the scorpion again. And again, and again.
After watching this repetitive drama for some moments, the young man finally burst out, “Leave it alone, you old fool! Let that ungrateful bug drown! He’s not going to appreciate what you’re trying to do, and he will sting you every time!”
The old man turned and looked at the young man with serene eyes in spite of the pain. “It’s in the nature of the scorpion to sting. And it is in my nature to try and save it. Why should I change my own nature?”
Well, this story raises a lot of questions for me. The first is, who is that old man living with living with and why hasn’t he been taking his medication? To rescue an unlovable poisonous insect even though it thanks you with a sting is insane as far as the world is concerned. Lots of words come to mind to dismiss the old man’s behavior—self-destructive, masochistic, even the milder “co-dependent.” I know that as I tell this story faces and situations from my own life and my own ministry come to mind—people who rewarded loving attention with demands for even more attention, or new arrays of problems when the old ones had been resolved, or walking away after absorbing tons of time and attention, sometimes waving one or more fingers behind them as they did. We all can relate, we all have been there. Perhaps we have been on the other side of the fence also, at least once or twice.
We speak about “boundaries” and “tough love” and “taking care of ourselves so we have something left to give to others.” Those are all wise words. Job’s words in the first reading become all of our words as we try to live and love, when all good works seem to taste and feel like dust and God’s face is hidden.
And yet, I want what that old man had—the peace, and the freedom to live in that embracing, giving, loving place. I find myself thinking that it is not just natural to live like that. It is supernatural, it is transformed nature, it is nature that is healed and set free by God.
Getting there is not an easy journey. Beware of easy religion with clear maps and all the answers! The man who ran up to Jesus today and asked him what to do had done everything right. He had kept the commandments, he’d read and listened to his Bible and took it all to heart. And I don’t think he was a hypocrite, because the text says that Jesus looked at him “and loved him.” But loving this man meant asking him to go to a place that his conscience and his religion had never asked him to go to before. Leave, leave what he thought he had a right to own even if he was doing good things with it. Leave it even though wealth was thought by some to be a sign of God’s blessing. Leave, give, follow, be nothing in the world’s eyes so you can have everything in God’s eyes. “How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.”
It’s impossible, humanly speaking. It is totally possible, with the help of God.
A man named Mark Scandrette recently gave a speech on “The Five Myths of Community.” He shocks his listeners, good church people, by reminding them that the first Christians were “miserable”—they lost a great deal for following Jesus, even their lives some of them. But church, says Mark, is not the place where we get all our needs met, where we find our favorite opinions affirmed, where we are totally comfortable all of the time. Even wanting community, says Mark, is not a good goal in itself; he said that “community is a beautiful by-product of seeking God’s kingdom together.” The key is to know and live that we come together to seek the kingdom of God. That is what a church is; that is all a church is.
This, by the way, is a stewardship sermon. Notice I have never used the word “money.” Stewardship begins with remembering who we most deeply are, and why we gather at all. When we hear that story of the old man reaching out to the scorpion, do we simply shudder in revulsion and disgust, or dismiss it as an improbable fable? Or does something in us come alight and say softly, “Yes, yes. I don’t like stings, but that is the kind of freedom and generous nature that I hunger for. I want to believe that life is possible. But I do not know how to get there.” And in the Gospel, the same thing—sell it all? In this housing market? Give it away? Where would I raise my kids? But isn’t there something deep inside, something that maybe was more active and visible when we were young and we hadn’t let life teach us oh so many limits, be oh so practical, that comes alive and says, “Yes, yes. I remember that! I remember hungering for that kind of freedom, I remember wanting to know what it would be like to live for God in that way. I remember traveling light, walking on a holy road.”
For us it is impossible. But not for God—even our tired and cynical hearts and our minds bombarded with a culture that tells us to get and get and no you do not yet have enough—it is not impossible for God.
And to share that journey, to ask what all that means, and to try it out—that is why a church exists. And that is the only Gospel reason for a church to exist.
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