Image

Proper 24 A 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp24_RCL.html


Today’s Gospel has been stretched in a hundred different ways.

Some have used it as some sort of parable for the separation of church and state. Pay your taxes when asked, let the government, whatever government, get what it asks for, obey the law, go to war if drafted. God and the things of God belong somewhere else than in this world, somewhere unearthly and “spiritual”, meaning misty and insubstantial and not affecting business as usual.

Others say that Jesus is setting a trap for those who tried to trap him. Everything belongs to God, and nothing really belongs to the emperor, no more than anything belongs to any man.

But I wonder if there is yet more depth to this parable. I wonder if the mystery that Jesus wants us to dive into is the mystery of “image.”

We are made in the image and likeness of God. The word Jesus uses is “ikon”, the same word used by Orthodox Christians for their sacred images “written” and displayed for veneration, “windows into heaven.”

Any sacred image, any “ikon”, is meant to remind us of the unspeakable glory of the image of God in all creation and in the human person.

If we saw one another as we truly are, I believe we would be blinded by the light of glory blazing forth from each one of us.

So, what image do you see in this coin, asks Jesus? Who has stamped his own image on this coin, this bit of creation? The emperor? Does he think that this coin reflects his glory?

And what are you doing with this coin? Are you using it to carry out the emperor’s business? Are you using it to serve the God who has no image, no name that we can speak? Are we stamping our own business, our own agenda, over business and commerce and especially on human lives, lives made in the image of God?

Do we stamp over the image of God in human lives with the image of indifference and violence and exploitation? The beginning of any Christian action in the world is deep awe of the image of God in the other. Do we allow that image of God to be stamped with cruel or indifferent images, images that say “national interest” or “border integrity” or any other slogan, on the hidden glory of the image of God on human lives?

Do we allow the image of God in ourselves, our true selves, to be stamped with imperial images? Do we allow the divine which is the image of God in ourselves to be stamped with anything, anything less than “property of the living God”? Do we allow denigration, discrimination, indifference, marginalization, racism, anxiety, interiorized abuse, materialism to obscure the divine image?

The Christian journey is to become fully who we most truly are. Christian living is living in awe and reverence of the divine image within ourselves and in all those around us.

A modern parable presents a man who asks an old monk, “How do I get over the habit of judging people?”

The monk replied, “When I was your age, I was wondering where would be the best place to go and pray. Well, I asked Jesus that question. His answer was ‘Why don’t you go into the heart of my Father?’ So I did. I went into the heart of the Father, and all these years that’s where I’ve prayed. Now I see everyone as my own child. How can I judge anyone?”*

So now, whose image is on this coin?


*from Tales Of A Magic Monastery, by Theophane the Monk. Crossroad Publishing Company, 1981.

Help!

Proper 23 A, October 12, 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp23_RCL.html

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works…


Today’s brief Collect, composed for the first Prayer Book, tells us something vital about our relationship with God.

Annie Lamott would agree. She is a good writer who manages to put God on the best-seller list, not an easy thing to do these days. People love Annie’s style because it is at one and the same time wise and yet simple and accessible, speaking of ordinary life.

Annie is a recovering alcoholic and has experienced a great deal of pain and brokenness. She is very candid about this in an un-self pitying way. In her little book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, Annie places “Help!” as the first and most essential of our prayers. Says Annie: “If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.” Our only possible response to these deep and terrible truths is “Help!” or “Lord have mercy”, or “Kyrie Eleison” if we wish to be traditional and sound mystical.

Often here we engage people deeply immersed in the dominant culture’s message. That message goes something like this: everything is OK and life is meant to be sweet and gentle, you are completely all right and in complete charge of your life and do not let anyone or anything tell you otherwise. In the NW we tend to take life easy, and if one has some money and some good fortune life is sweet. In addition, many who come to us have experienced some version of Christian formation, or deformation, that they wish to put behind them. So messages such as Annie’s are not greeted as good or welcome news. It sounds first and foremost like “negative theology”, because people hear only the broken and the not-in-charge part, an argument for shame.

But this is the deep truth of our lives and our existence. We learn it over again when the downsizing happens, or the doctor comes in with test results and closes the door before sitting down. We learn it when the child crashes and burns, or when the spouse no longer speaks to us, or the car appears out of nowhere impossibly close, right before that horrible noise, on what had been up til then an ordinary commute.

Annie’s words struck me at the end of this week, when the demands of my multi-tasking life—rector of a congregation in a process of re-birth, clinical chaplain in a hospice organization in the midst of change and growth, occasional hospital chaplain as well—became overwhelming. I arose exhausted yesterday wondering how I could continue to make it all work. The answer came: “You can’t.” Certainly not on my own.

An essential component of any Christian life, or of any ministry, is embracing the reality that only God can make things work, that we are wholly dependent on God. Funny how the most basic lesson must be learned and re-learned, a kind of repetitive Continuing Ed class that we need to take over and over again. Perhaps we learn this truth a little more deeply each time we take the class.

The Scriptures come alive when seen through the lens of our complete dependency on God. “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us”. “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”. And that strange story of the man who had no wedding garment? It is said that in those days a king would hand out wedding garments to guests. All the undressed man had to do was to ask.

Ask, ask. Many of us are ashamed to do that, reluctant to admit our dependency, perhaps afraid to become some sort of spiritual Doug or Wendy Whiner. But all we can do is ask. In our lives, in our re-birthing parish as well—do we ask? Have we listened for the answer? Do we believe God responds to those who ask? Today’s Collect asks for God’s help, at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end.

Angels and Tracy and Journeys

September 27, 2014: Angels and Tracy and Journeys
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp21_RCL.html
and
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/Michael.html


The God of the Bible is a God of journeys.

When we are on the road, we are most ourselves.

The People of God do not do well if they stay in one place.

Think about Jacob in today’s reading. He is running from home, running from his swindling of his father and his brother, running from his brother’s revenge. Alone and frightened, he lays down to sleep. He does not expect or even deserve what happens next. A vision of angels, a ladder to heaven, and a Voice that promises him companionship and an amazing future when he returns.

When we are on the road, when we least expect it, when we are tired and spent, angels appear. Perhaps they were always there, but we were too comfortable and distracted to pay attention to them. We need to be on the road, taking the chance, leaving aside what is familiar to take what God will offer the traveler who trusts in God.

There are no guarantees. But there is a promise: presence and faithfulness, companionship on the road, surprising welcome at journey’s end.

Well, this congregation is on a road, one of the boldest and most trusting roads that I have ever known a church to take. We do well to remember that the God of the Bible is a God of the road, a God who sends angels to travelers and who gives no guarantees, but instead makes a promise.

And Deacon Tracy is on a road as well. Tracy has been one of the most faithful of presences among us. All around us are evidence of her ministry—in the lives of our children and youth, in our ongoing presence to and with the poor of 82nd Avenue, in the journeys of those whom she has companioned, even the family area at the rear of the church. Tracy and Jim were one of my first “young adults” to arrive back in the late 1990’s. Tracy’s diaconal vocation was born here and here she has grown, and we have grown along with her.

But Tracy has chosen a new path even while this congregation has chosen a new path. Tracy will give her considerable gifts and talents to the people of God as she has done here. In fact Tracy is not going far at all—she is going to serve St. Matthew’s, a congregation here on the East side, one of the congregations with whom we share life and ministry and one of the congregations with whom we shall share much more in the months and years to come. The Eastside churches are being bound more and more closely both by need as well as by mission and gift. It is possible that we shall see more of Tracy around and about as we change and grow.

But still, there is a parting and a new road. It is sad and yet it is sweet.

The sadness is that Tracy’s well-loved presence will be absent on Sunday mornings here. The sweetness is found in the opportunity we all have to commit ourselves to the God of journeys, the biblical God, and to prepare well. Travelers, especially pilgrims, learn how to prepare and how to pack light.

We all take Paul’s words as our packing instructions. Our journey is Christ’s, who emptied himself, took the form of a servants, and embraced his mission, even to the cross.

So we take our leave of one another, but we take the same God. We take this moment to divest ourselves of anything we do not need to carry—regrets, anything unhealed or unreconciled. We embrace one another in thanks, asking one another for blessing, inviting the God of journeys to go with us all. We each continue to work out our salvation “with fear and trembling”, because it is no ordinary journey we all take. We journey into service and companionship with Christ.

Travel light, travel with God. Welcome the surprising companions along the way. Welcome the workers, especially those who seemed to say “no” but now are here. They are often the best workers of all. Welcome the angels who reveal themselves as well, the angels who may have been here the whole time but only now, as poor and vulnerable travelers, can we see in their beauty.

Let’s welcome one another to this moment of journey and change.

Unpredictable

Proper 20 A 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp20_RCL.html


“Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure…”

A lovely Collect, and a lovely thought. But simply not being anxious about earthly things is not an easy thought. Nor is it easy to release the things that are passing away and hold fast to those that shall endure.

I don’t know about you, but I am very good about being anxious about earthly things: How can I help my church survive and even grow? How can I keep on making a living until I can retire? I spend a great deal of my time being anxious about those things.

When those things do not work out according to plan, that’s when resentment begins. Didn’t I do everything right?

Today’s readings make today “Resentment Sunday.” Resentment is shot all through the texts. Jonah does what God asks him to and preaches to those nasty Ninevites, the ISIL of the ancient Middle East. He hopes to see some fireworks and divine wrath as a result, hopes to see the Ninevites get what they deserve. Jonah probably hopes to get what he himself deserves—a decent retirement and a good reputation as a successful prophet, good solid mention in the Bible with lots of quotes from his preaching.

But Jonah does not get the outcome he planned. Instead he gets near heat stroke as even the scraggly shade bush over his head withers away. And all God does is ask, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

For God’s plan changes and God’s wisdom is deep and unpredictable. The one thing that we can know is that God is compassionate.

In the Gospel, good workers are called to the fields and promised an honest day’s wage for an honest day’s pay. But the owner hires more people all throughout the day. Each receives a denarius, the fair wage for a day of labor. Those who worked all day are angry, because they think they earned more. But that’s not how the owner thinks. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

When our lives do not work out according to the plan, the result is often resentment and envy, even anger. What we hear in response from God is this: Do you do right to be angry? I am merciful. Are you envious? I am generous.

This is a good and challenging word for each of us in our personal lives. But this is also a good and challenging word for us here at this church we love so much. We are doing hard, challenging work, attempting to allow God to re-birth our congregation. Birth and re-birth are both small and vulnerable and unpredictable. There are no guarantees. We have already had both encouraging surprises and significant setbacks, and already some of us have been disappointed in our expectations. None of us know the end result of this journey that we have begun. Like Jonah’s mission, it is unpredictable. Like the workers in the Gospel, the only thing we know for sure is that it is a gift and honor to be called to do this work, and at the end of the day the master of the vineyard will prove to be both unpredictable and generous.

I do not envy preachers who are tasked with interpreting these texts for a comfortable community that think of themselves as self-sufficient. These texts are pretty abstract in such a setting. For us, they come alive. The New Testament was written for just such communities and just such times.

For me, part of the work has been naming my personal agenda: to be something like a “successful rector” according to the worldly standards of the 20th century, big budget and full pews on Sunday, maybe a building named "Neilson Hall" God help me; to have a decent retirement with no worries. But these are all “earthly things.” As we proceed this Fall, I think we do well to name those earthly things that we ourselves love. They’re not bad things. They’re just…earthly. At the end of our mission, we may find ourselves sitting under a withered bush confronted by the strange compassion of God. At the end of the day, we shall be paid a decent wage, only to see the same pay given to new workers who have not worked all day as we have.

But that’s the Gospel. And that’s the strangeness of a God who is compassionate and generous.

Our co-patron Paul tells us the only thing we need to worry about: “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ… For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well…”

That may sound like a strange thing to hope for. But at the end of the day, at the end of all our days, this is our one hope. We began this re-birthing journey not because we believed it was a sure thing, but because we felt it is the right thing. Today we’re invited to hold fast to things that will endure—not memories and expectations, not buildings and plans, but God’s generosity, God’s mercy, and life in Christ. If we hold to Christ, we’ll see the face of the generous God at the end of the day. That’s the only pay that matters.

Nuevo Amanecer keynote, by Rev. Pedro Suárez, Assistant to the Bishop and Director for Evangelical Mission in Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod of the ELCA

Time passes quickly, and our opportunities to gather seem so few. I do not want the learnings from Nuevo Amanecer to fade, so I will share via this 'blog some learnings, thoughts, and perceptions. At Concilio and other settings we shall make time to chew on bite-sized pieces as they strike us as helpful. A Spanish translation will be forthcoming soon after I publish each English text.

As I have said in other settings, the warmth and the power of the gathering, the sense that here there is something powerful and central happening, a new and different kind of Episcopal Christianity arising, was my overall sensation. In the Reign of God, the edges become the center, the last become the first. Frankly I feel that the Spirit of God has left church settings that remain monocultural by choice or by habit, and the power and passion of Nuevo Amanecer demonstrates to me where Spirit is moving. As I have shared in other settings, of late I feel that scales have fallen from my eyes, and I have come to think of The Episcopal Church as an ethnic white denomination being given the opportunity to become a body more reflective of the larger world, a world in which Spirit is making profound changes and breaking down barriers.

Rev. Suarez addressed core issues of this process in his keynote talk.

I sat and scribbled madly what I heard, which was presented purely in Spanish. If NA publishes an official translation I shall make this available as well.

Suarez spoke of the process of "inculturation", the process by which a people preserves their identity and culture and even language, and contrasted inculturation to other less positive processes such as "assimilation." "Assimilation" is more what happened to my Irish and Native American ancestors, and perhaps to yours as well: language lost (for my Irish ancestors that process began back in Ireland with the English imperialists imposing their tongue and punishing the use or the teaching of Irish Gaelic), culture lost to a significant if not complete extent (in my Tlingit grandmother's case, lost nearly completely). The churches btw in many if not most cases colluded completely in this process. In the case of the Indian boarding schools in this country churches colluded utterly, literally "beating the Indian" out of the children taken from their nations ("Kill the Indian, save the man" was the motto of the founder of my grandmother's school). In the case of the Irish, although the Roman church preserved a few distinct devotions and a sense of Irishness in that the Roman Catholic Church was clung to as opposed to the conqueror's exported Anglicanism, parochial schools worked hard at eliminating Irish accents and habits and tried to form a kind of generic "American identity" in order for the children to succeed financially in a white Protestant-dominant nation. Awareness of difference remained however--my mother taught me what WASP meant when I was still in grade school.

The above are my reflections, and BTW these are my personal reasons why our journey matters to me.

Inculturation values the distinct gifts and flavor, as it were, of any given people, and invites them to be part of a greater whole. We are all enriched and changed as a result.

This BTW is why I asked not long ago via FB "what do we (white dominant culture Episcopalians) bring to the table as part of our culture?" Those responses were very slow in coming forth, I think in part because we do not often think of ourselves as possessing a distinct culture or cultures. If we think of it at all, we assume that we ARE "the culture", and do not look on ourselves with an eye to naming what is distinct about us. As white-ethnic peoples continue demographically to become a minority in this nation (by 2050 fully 1/3 of all people in the USA are predicted to be of Latino descent given present trends), it behooves us to do so.

Fleshing out this conversation, Suarez spoke of...

5 Values of Latino culture
1) Family: loyalty and interdependence
2) Personalism: the personal quality of each interaction
3) Respect: proper regard for figures of authority
4) Machismo: masculinity and virility, understanding that the man is the provider, responsible for the well-being and honor of the family
5) Marianism: the values of the Blessed Virgin, that women are spiritual over other people and that Mary is spiritual above all others, that Mary is especially able to help those who are poor and suffering and that women in general are given this gift and charge as well

The above was presented not as "good or bad." It is easy to see that several of the values above have distinct shadow-sides or destructive aspects, particularly the culture of machismo. Culture just is.

By contrast, Suarez named these as five features of dominant American culture:
1) Individualism, emphasizing competition over cooperation
2) Equality: that all have the same rights or should
3) Time, as in organizing its use and keeping to time, for after all "time is money"
4) Directness and assertiveness
5) Materialism and consumerism

Again, culture--not necessarily good or bad. Culture just is.

My notes got somewhat broken at this point, partly because what Suarez said led me down path after path of my own, partly because I kept discovering the limitations of my Spanish especially when presented by an erudite native speaker! I was also stubborn about refusing the translation earphones.

But Suarez spoke of the challenge of transcultural assumptions--distrust and prejudice, of cultural values clashing and competing for dominance, and my addition is that cultural values under stress and pressure can manifest in destructive ways.

Suarez proposed "Cultural Competency" as a value to be striven for, a necessary feature of contemporary communities (a necessary feature for us at SPP I may add, and in this Diocese). Cultural competency presumes awareness, sensitivity, and eventual competence. Cultural competence means toleration at the most basic level, acceptance, and finally celebration of distinctiveness and the gifts that each bring to the community.

The risks of this process include:
1) Inadequate inculturation (there is a "loser" on some level)
2) Negative cultural values go into ascendency
3) The new culture/community assumes and remains in a lower socio-economic level
4) Prejudice and discrimination
5) Migrant status (one is always a stranger, and retains "stranger habits" for generations

As I recall, Suarez used a kind of "Johari Window" chart of various models of inculturation, ranging from loss of one's home culture and assumption of the new, loss of one's own culture and no assumption or participation in the new (this result is a complete kind of tragic alienation), retention of one's home culture but little if any participation or assumption of the new culture, or inculturation, retention of and celebration of one's home culture and full participation/competence in the new culture, bringing one's home culture as a gift.

Suarez spoke of five strengths of Latino peoples...
1) A strong religious sense and strong sense of family connection
2) High valuing of children
3) High value of literacy, especially in ensuring the education of the children
4) Economic opportunities for Latino people are increasing
5) Most Latinos look on the USA as an opportunity to work and to improve their lives

And Suarez spoke of these qualities of what he called "Leaders in Process":
1) The "Prime Directive", adopting a position of sensitivity
2) To have a genuine curiosity about one another
3) Contrasting the glass half-empty/glass half-full (a real good one in many ways for us at SPP!)What do we have here already, in terms of connections and contributions, local leaders. In all cases, the answer to the question is PEOPLE.

In any case, our tasks as a becoming-church culturally are...
1) To nurture a genuinely curious stance toward culture (including our own I may add)
2) To understand diversity and to negotiate language barriers
3) To have understanding and sensitivity, and to make room in all conversations regarding assumptions of culture and identity
4) And above all, to celebrate! Celebrate difference, and to celebrate the process!

Incredible amount of substance for us, and incredible amount of resonance with our experience even thus far.

One cross

Holy Cross 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/HolyDays/HolyCros_RCL.html


What does the cross of Christ mean?

A story from years ago that disquieted religious folk was of the patient in the Catholic hospital who asked the nurse to take down the crucifix that faced him on the wall at the foot of his bed, a familiar sight to this day in hospitals like Providence. “I am in pain” said the man. “What possible good does it do me to be forced to look at the image of a suffering man?”

I appreciate this man because he was seeing the cross clearly and was impacted by what is depicted. For him the image of Christ crucified was not just part of the background of a religious institution, whether hospital or church.

Today, the feast of the Holy Cross, the cross is not just part of the background. Even if the cross has become an ignored accessory, or a rejected image by those appalled by the pain depicted, the cross is still inescapable.

Wherever pain and division and violence and loss are found, there we find the cross.

In the past 20 years roadside shrines at the sites of accidental death or even murder have become common in the USA. Often a cross is part of the shrine. “Yes this” says the cross, yes, tragic and hideous loss. “Yes this, but also this.” A dialogue of realities—loss and pain, yet a stubborn and irrational hope at one and the same time. The bridge between loss and hope is the cross.

This + is a crucifix given to me by a charming Filipina nun as I entered the novitiate of my old religious Order. We were twice besieged by government-sponsored paramilitary in the village where we lived for a year. I was sitting meditating and looking at this cross one night when a burst of automatic rifle fire went off only yards away from our residence. I still feel the fear of that as I tell the story and hold this crucifix. “Yes this, but also this.”

The cross, the crucified yet risen Christ, is found at the center of all our suffering and the suffering of the world. The cross is found particularly at the nexus of suffering and pain dealt out by the oppressive powers of the world, dealt out to the poor and the pushed aside. The cross is emptied of its power if we forget that on the cross is stretched out a man executed by the powerful, executed because he was a threat to organized political and military and yes, religious power. The cross faces us with the reality that to this day people, whole peoples, are still beaten up and ordered around and imprisoned and pushed aside and even executed by the powerful and the threatened. The cross is both uncomfortable truth and proclamation of the overthrow of the powerful and the abusive, of God’s stand with the poor. “Yes this, but also this.”

We here live the cross in a particular way. Last week Padre Maldonado spoke with me about our project to make one community from two very different peoples, different cultures and language groups. One of those groups experience discrimination and exclusion on a daily basis. He said in admiration “You’ve really bet the farm!”

Well, we have. But we’ve done that because Jesus of Nazareth bet the farm, bet with his life. He bet that God would be victorious in the face of the worst that the Roman Empire and the Temple elite could do. He bet that death would not have the last word.

We here bet that, in the midst of challenges and difference, in the face of the deep divisions between people and languages and cultures, that we find the cross of Christ. “I shall draw all people to myself.” “Yes this, but also this”: a people healed and made one, an improbable community that practices justice and equality before God.

Anyone here have dandelions in their yards? Each year when I harvest the dandelions one more time, I speculate again that they are not individual plants, but all part of one whole. In the same way, the cross on our foreheads through Baptism is not our personal cross. It is one cross, one plant, blossoming in different places and different lives, drawing all, plunging to the depth of human division and human pain, embracing all and yet making hope.

“Yes this, but also this.”

"My life and death is with my neighbor/Mi vida y mi muerte es con mi vecino"

September 7, 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp18_RCL.html

The most famous ancient hermit is Saint Antony the Great. El hermitano mas famoso es San Antonio el Major. Although he lived in solitude, he once said this: Aunque vivia en solitudo, el dijo este:

“Our life and our death is with our neighbor. Nuestra vida y nuestra muerte es con nuestro vecino.

“If we gain our neighbor, we have gained God. Si ganamos nuestro vecino, ganamos el Dios. “If we scandalize our neighbor, we have sinned against Christ. Si se scandalizamos nuesto vecino, hemos pecado contra Cristo.”

As we begin this Fall season, we gather as one community to learn this again. And we give thanks that we live with one another, that our life and our death is with our neighbor. Mientras empezamos este Otono, reunimos como un comunidad para aprenderlo otro vez. Y damos gracias porque vivimos uno con el otro en este parrochia, que nuestra vida y nuestra muerte es con nuestro vecino.

We are not “saved” alone. No estamos salvado solo. Much of North American religion, especially Christianity, is about me and God. Mucha religion en Norte America cuenta de salvacion individual, es acerca de mi y Dios.

But the Gospel is about life together. Pero el evangelio es acerca de vida en comun.

In the prophet we hear that we are responsible for one another, in good time or in bad. En el profeta aprendemos que somos responsible uno por el otro, en tiempos Buenos y en tiempos dificil.

We will fall, we will sin. We will fall short of God’s expectations. We will disappoint one another. Nos caeremos, nos vamos a pecar. Nos quedaremos cortos de las expectativas de Dios. Vamos a decepcionar a los otros.

We will do this together. Haremos esto juntos.

And we will stand up again when we fall. We will help one another to stand. Y estaremos juntos cuando nos caemos. Vamos a ayudarnos unos a otros de estar en pie.

This is our life: we fall down, and we stand up again. Esta es nuestra vida: nos caemos y nos levantamos de nuevo.

We cannot promise that we will never fall down, that we will never hurt one another. No podemos prometer que nunca vamos a caer, que nunca nos haremos daño unos a otros.

We can ask God’s help to stand up again. We can help one another to stand. Podemos pedir la ayuda de Dios para levantarse de nuevo. Podemos ayudarnos unos a otros a ponerse de pie.

Because God promises that we can stand, that we can live a life filled with light. Porque el Dios nos promete que podemos parar de pie, que podemos vivir una vida lleno de luz.

Jesus shows us this way of life. El Sneor Jesus nos muestra este forma de vida.

Jesus tells us how hard we should work through our problems together. Jesús nos dice lo duro que debemos trabajar a través de nuestros problemas juntos.

Because the life of one is the life of all. Debido a que la vida de uno es la vida de todos. If one of us suffers, we all suffer. Si uno de nosotros sufre, todos sufrimos. If one falls away, we all fall. Si uno cae lejos, todos cameos.

Because, as Saint Antony says, “Our life and our death is with our neighbor.” Porque, como dice San Antonio, “Nuestra vida y nuestra muerte es con nuestro vecino.”

Draw Near

Transfiguration 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/Transfig.html


In winter, we long for the summer sun. In the winter of our lives, we long for the dazzling light of Transfiguration.

This feast is a sign of hope amidst any struggle or doubt. This feast is pure gift and grace. The early church thought it was a respite, a kind of break, from struggle and toil. If anyone draws back from the challenge or the struggle of following Jesus, today’s feast, re-telling today’s story, gives us heart and strength.

The text from Exodus was composed by people who were discouraged and in danger of forgetting who they were. Remember that what we call the Old Testament was largely assembled by scholars in Babylon, where Judah was in exile, having lost the Temple and their homeland. “Remember”, says the story of Moses. “Remember how Moses spoke to God, and how his face shone with divine light. Remember how the light frightened them, but how Moses called them near. The light was for them, and the light was for all who heard the story and who longed for light and glory in their exiled lives.

The early church carefully told this story in the Gospels and referred to it often in the Epistles. The texts of the New Testament were composed when the infant community of Christ-followers were in deep crisis, rejected and pressured from outside, divided and frightened within. “Remember”, says the Gospel story. “Remember how the Lord Jesus was transformed. Remember how the light and glory of God shone from him. Remember the cloud, the same cloud that covered Mt Sinai, remember how Peter and James and John were afraid when they entered the cloud. Remember the voice, the words ‘This is my chosen.’”

“We were with him on the holy mountain” says the old teacher in 1st Peter. “We saw, we heard, we tell you.”

The Scriptures tell you. Countless lives lived amidst doubt and struggle in the light of the Glory tell you. And I tell you.

I tell you that, even in the sameness of my days, even in the repetition of my tasks, even amidst the losses and sorrows that surround my ministry and the lives of so many around me, I long for the light of glory, the light of God shining forth from Jesus Christ. I tell you that, at the most surprising moments, I have glimpsed that light and glory. Mostly I have glimpsed that light in the cloud of my own confusion and misunderstanding, of my own mixed-up fears and doubts. The light of God is so bright that it dazzles the eyes of the head and of the mind and can appear as darkness, just as we are temporarily blinded by bright light.

But this feast, this radiant gift, speaks to me of the truth beneath all truth—the light, the glory, the radiance, the utter and complete hope beyond all hope that is always straining to burst through the surface of what we think are the Way Things Are. It is the light of unspeakable glory that truly is the Way Things Are. Remember, bask, drink deeply, lift up your hearts. We say that every Sunday.

Said an early preacher, “Since each of us possesses God in our hearts,” and is being transformed into the divine image, we also should cry out with joy ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here’—here where all things shine with divine radiance, where there is joy and gladness and exultation; where there is nothing in our hearts but peace, serenity, and stillness; where God is seen.”

Remember, draw near, do not fear. The light is kind. The light is for us.

Free of Charge/No Hay Cuesta

Proper 13 A 2014 (bi-lingual)
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp13_RCL.html


Today, we hear that the finest food does not cost money. Todavia escuchamos que el provecho mas sabroso no hay cuesta.

“Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” “Consigan vino y leche sin pagar nada.”

When we gather, the richest food is free of charge. Cuando reunimos, el provecho mas sabroso no hay cuesta.

In our common life we speak much of money and grants. We speak of dreams and plans for our parish, our buildings, our programs. En nuestra vida comun aqui hablamos mucho de dinero y becas. Hablamos del suenos y visiones por nuestra parrochia, por nuestros edificios, y nuestras programas.

But what gives life and meaning to all of that is free of charge. Pero el que se da vida y significa a todo esto no hay cuesta.

The food of God is the love of God in Christ. El provecho de Dios es el amor de Dios en Cristo Jesus.

The food of God is the Word and the Sacraments, the peace of the Spirit. El provecho de Dios es la Palabra y los Sacramentos, la paz del Espiritu Santo.

The food of God is the presence of Holy Spirit in the midst of the gathered community. El provecho de Dios es la presencia del Espiritu Santo en la media de la comunidad reunido.

That food we have in abundance. Este provecho tenemos en abundancia

At times that food seems scarce. A veces este comida parece escaso.

We struggle to overcome barriers that language and culture can present. Luchamos para vencerer sobre barreras de lenguaje y cultura puede presentar.

We work hard to try and worship together, and to make decisions together. Trabajamos para orar juntos, y hacer decisiones juntos.

At times, our life together seems as small and fragile as two fish and a little bread. A veces nuestra vida comun parece pequeno y fragil como dos pecados y un poquito de pan.

But today, Jesus blesses these small, fragile gifts, and tells us to break them and give them to the community. Pero todavia el Senor Jesus les bendiga estos donos pequenos y fragiles y se mandanos a fraccionarlos y a darlos a la comunidad.

And there will be abundance. Y sera abundancia.

In this broken and fearful world, there are few examples of peoples who come together in the name of God amidst differences of language and culture. En este mundo lleno del miedo y divisiones, hay pocos exemplos del pueblo quienes reunen en el nombre de Dios en la media de diferencias del lenguage y cultura.

But we are trying. Pero tratamos esto.

The church of God is called to be a sign of hope. La iglesia de Dios esta llamada a ser un senal de esperanza.

Our life together is a sign of hope for unity in a divided world. Nuestra vida comun es un senal de esperanza por unidad en un mundo dividido.

God promises today that our life together is not just for ourselves, but for those not yet with us who hunger for that hope and that sign. Todavia el Dios nos promesa que nuestra vida no es por nosotros solamente, sino por aquellos que no estamos ya con nosotros, quien tiene hambre por esta esperanza y este senal.

“See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you." “Tú llamarás a pueblos desconocidos;
pueblos que no te conocían irán corriendo a ti,
porque yo, tu Señor, el Dios Santo de Israel,
te he honrado.”

Under the mud

Proper 12 A 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp12_RCL.html


The deepest truth is the one most hidden.

Martin Smith tells the story of how he went to search for an ancient well. He was a theology student in England, and one day he learned that in the Middle Ages there was a holy well outside of the old town where the seminary was located. Like so many of the ancient holy sites the chapel and other buildings at the well were destroyed during the Reformation. The site of the well was neglected and eventually forgotten except in local legend and some historical references.

One Sunday afternoon Martin got a bicycle and, armed with some amateur research as to where to look, set out for the rural area where he thought the holy well was sited. He found himself walking in the midst of a cow pasture, with nothing in sight except grass and weeds and cows and cow pies.

Martin kept walking, although he had no real idea where he was going.

In a low place in the pasture, Martin suddenly sank up to his ankles in mud. Using his hands, Martin dug away the mud and grass. Suddenly his fingertips scraped on stone. Over the course of a couple of hours Martin uncovered a small plaza of rough paving stones surrounding the holy well, still silently providing life-giving water underneath the mud and weeds and cow manure, still waiting to be found.

The most precious gifts lie hidden in plain sight.

Solomon’s famous wisdom is found completely in the simple prayer we heard today: “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?" In other words, give me wisdom. In the Hebrew Scriptures wisdom is not simply knowledge as we understand it. Wisdom is a living being, the “Hochma”, feminine and dynamic and creative, present with God at the beginning of all things.

Later, she was known as “Sophia”, “Holy Wisdom” through whom and with whom God continually redeems the chosen people.

In the New Testament she is the Holy Spirit, the breath, the life and depth of God. The Spirit raises Jesus from the dead, and is given to each of us baptized as a sign and seal and promise of glory.

Like Martin Smith’s well, Spirit is the hidden life of God. She hides in plain sight. She hides in our own depths. She is always at prayer within us.

A contemporary monk was asked how it was that he seemed to possess the gift of continuous prayer that St. Paul speaks of several times. His answer also spoke of wells: “I think that prayer was always inside of me, like a spring covered with a stone. Then Jesus came and took away the stone. Prayer has been welling up ever since.”

This is our most precious gift, God-with-us, God-within. When we hunger for prayer and wonder why we cannot pray, the answer is closer to us than our own breath. Spirit is sighing too deep for words within us. God in Christ declares us God’s own. God is for us. God’s gift is given free of charge. Any attempts we make to pray, either alone or gathered here, are simply focused moments when we ask God to take away whatever stone, or mud or weeds or cow manure, that may be obscuring the gift of prayer within us. In the end, it is disarmingly simple, it is so close we have trouble focusing our restless wandering eyes. Small as a seed, humble as yeast, but the treasure hidden in the field. I wonder if the merchant in Jesus’ parable found his treasure under mud and weeds and cow manure?

So often in church we talk about the church, we talk about our experience, we talk about the relationships, we talk about the building and the money and the tasks to be done.

How often do we talk about this: Wisdom given lavishly if we ask, Spirit praying always within us?

Perhaps if we speak about this hidden treasure, this deepest truth, all else will be given as well.

Weeding

Proper 11 A 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp11_RCL.html

It’s funny what you find in your lawn.

We have some lawn around our house, a cheerful mixture of grass and clover and dandelions and some things I cannot even name. It’s green, which is all that matters to me.

But the dandelions bug me because they’re greedy. They spread out and claim big round patches of ground, killing the other stuff. And they’re greedy of air space—ignore the lawn for a couple of weeks and you’ll see them, tall and insolent, waving their high stalks in the breeze.

On the rare occasions that I have time and energy to do so, I like to take my favorite tool, a weed-ripper shaped kind of like a screwdriver with a wide pronged tip, and dig them out. It’s very satisfying—I push the tip down as far as you can and patiently pry. I love the satisfying “pop” of the root—it’s like popping a big pimple. My reward is a surprisingly large plant cradled in my palm, a “lawn cabbage” as I like to call them.

The clover flowers came in late June. A neighbor keeps bees, and honeybees need all the help we can give them. So I cut the grass around the clover and left big patches. The bees seemed to appreciate that and the clover was astir with tiny flecks of gold.

Well, the clover dried up and began looking sad, and my daughter was stung on the foot as she walked through with sandals. So last night I got out our electric mower and began to cut the whole business.

As I cut the clover, I marveled. Hidden among the clover I found several of those nasty sort of dandelion cousins, those weeds that grow really savage spikes on their leaves. Stepping on one barefooted is like stepping on a land sea-urchin. They took total advantage of my compassion for the clover and the bees and grew their ugly spines tucked away from sight.

Good timing, for today’s parable is about seeds and weeds. This is one of the parables in which Jesus’ interpretation is his way to deal with the unwillingness of the disciples to use their imaginations.

Sometimes I feel that we are the ground, open for all kinds of seeds, good and bad. The older I get the more aware I am of the array of plants growing inside of myself. The good growth, the sweet nourishing harvest of kindness and forbearance and humility and prayer, grow very quietly. The Spirit crying “Abba” is a whisper. I am more aware of the big, thorny weeds—my capacity for judgment and for resentment and for selfishness. I see the spiritual task as a process of consistent weeding. If not, the dandelions quickly rise to wave in the breeze.

But sometimes I think that God is the seed and also the ground.

On Friday I drove once again to Mt Angel/Woodburn for hospice work. The abbey at Mt Angel has a bookstore and coffee shop with good wi-fi—it is a good place to catch up on charting and e-mail while absorbing some peace by osmosis.

On the table were some copies of the Houston Catholic Worker. The issue was mostly devoted to the enormous human tragedy of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the borders. The writer spoke of the racism of those who imply that these Central American children must have neglectful parents. No, they love their children passionately. Only because of the desperation of conditions in Central America do they choose the slim chance for survival vs the nearly certain fate of keeping them at home. Keeping them at home, to face conditions that we helped create by participating actively in their civil wars, by creating the economic conditions that foment poverty and desperation.

But the article spoke of efforts not only to help the children, but also to address the root causes of Latin American poverty and desperation. To not only cut the field, but to address the roots of seeds we planted.

I felt the stir of my old commitments and activist work in the 1980’s, the old passions that had gotten lost in the business of life and family and running church programs. I thought of our work here, to birth a community that addresses inequity and racism and cultural control, to be equals all together.

I thought with gratitude of those who have passion to ask the questions and to do the work. And as I sat in the coffee shop, I thought of all the good being done every day by good people, caring for the sick and the dying, speaking up for the vulnerable, the ways in which the world remains a place where compassion still has a voice.

Wisdom says, “For you show your strength when people doubt the completeness of your power,
and you rebuke any insolence among those who know it.
Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness,
and with great forbearance you govern us;
for you have power to act whenever you choose.
Through such works you have taught your people
that the righteous must be kind,
and you have filled your children with good hope,
because you give repentance for sins.”

Repentance means another chance, another day for weeding. Another opportunity for us to make it right, to bring compassion. For the ground is good ground, and there is good seed, God-ground and God-seed.

I looked at the insolent little thorny plant, capable of ruining someone’s evening if stepped on unawares. I dug down with my favorite tool.

I do love the sound and feeling of that “pop.”

Trinity

TRINITY SUNDAY, First Sunday after Pentecost Year A
June 15, 2014
Parish of Ss. Peter & Paul
+++++

We know that nature can be vicious and violent. In the winter, in some parts of our country, a blizzard comes and encases the trees with ice, and they grow heavier and heavier until a limb as thick as a telephone pole breaks loose and crushes the spine of a 44-year-old woman; she dies instantly while her two grade-school children stand by in unbelieving shock.

But when you think about nature as you experience it year by year, the thing that stands out is the good, the dependable, the trustworthy. The bad things are real, but they are the exception. For the most part, nature is lovely, trustworthy, even lavish. Good, and not only good, but very good.
But there is still a puzzle: what does the created world have to do with the yearning for justice which is so much a part of our teaching about being Godly and Christian? What does the lying peacefully under the full moon have to do with the cry for community and liberation?

Many have travelled to Africa where they see people so malnourished that they were more like stick figures than human beings.
We love "...the easy wind and downy flake" of Robert Frost's poem. But what do they say to these cries for justice?

We love the fire crackling in the fireplace. But what does that offer to someone who is alone and alienated? We love the sunlight refracting through the ice on the window. But what does that do for the victims of poverty or racism or sexism or sexual violence?

And certainly a part of all this is what we experienced this past week, not far away from here, at Reynolds High School. Our son Christopher is a teacher at Walt Morey Middle School, just down the road from the high school, and his school served as a gathering-point for students to obtain their possessions a few days after the tragedy. Our Bishop Michael said in his weekly message to clergy on Thursday, "I would remind you that one of the responsibilities we have in our communities is to provide a sense of safety. A reminder that God is fully present in the life of Christians as represented in the Trinity might be a good addition to your preaching this week." And so I do now, and ask: What does all of our basking in this glorious (mostly) Oregon June weather have to do with Emilio Hoffman or Jered Padgett or the teacher who was injured? What does it have to do with us who have to cope with tragedy and help our children understand?

When you go back and read Genesis 1 with all these questions in mind, you begin to notice fascinating things that help answer the questions.

On each of the seven days of creation, God creates according to the same pattern. God commands, "Let there be ..." The command is executed. "... and there was ..." God assesses what happens. "And God saw that the light was good." And the text states the time, "And there was evening and there was morning ..."
This symmetry suggests that the world itself is predictable and trustworthy.

In addition to having its own integrity, each created thing is alive and responsive to God and to all the other things. We can see this clearly enough in animate things--dogs and raccoons and parakeets. But according to the Bible, it is true of all created things. To us, a rock is inert. But in the Bible, there is a sense in which it is alive. That's why the Psalmist can say, "Let the sea roar and all that fills it ... Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills sing together for joy" (Ps. 98:7-8). And in our day, the philosopher Charles Hartshorne points out that since all matter is composed of whirling atoms and subatoms, it is all truly alive. Even the bricks and blocks form which a building is built.


Do you notice this? God creates a place for each thing and frees it to be what it is to be. God places each thing so that it is related in just the right way to all the other things.

The key word is relationship. God creates all things in positive relationship with one another. As Genesis 1 comes to its majestic conclusion, everything is in a community of mutual support, mutual encouragement, mutual lifting up and building up.

We know the word does not occur in Genesis 1. But isn't this a picture of "justice"? In the Hebrew tradition, after all, justice is first and foremost a matter of right relationship, of things holding one another up as God intended from the very beginning.

The will for justice is built into the very fabric of things. The power of life itself seeks for all things to live together in community. So the Psalmist says, "The heavens proclaim [God's] righteousness" (97:6).
Now this may seem a little far-out, the frog croaking for justice. But some of us have experienced this: nature bearing its own witness, calling us to community and support in relationship. A family several years ago began a backyard vegetable garden. The father of the family says:

"At first, the garden was just a place to work. You turn the soil and water it, and things grow. But, to use Martin Buber, the famous Jewish philosopher's expression, I gradually began to sense that the garden was a kind of "Thou." I began to sense that the garden was a genuine Other. I became aware of the constant presence of the life-force and the dazzling diversity of the vegetables. And when things grow together at their best, the garden is a picture of what God intends for all.

"I got a lot of help with sermons out there, talking things over with the potatoes. Actually, I talked with the corn (since it has ears), but the potatoes did look over my notes (with their eyes)."

So, on your way home from church today, look around. Smell the fresh air. Take a look at the trees. Taste a glass of fresh, cool water. Listen to the birds. Witnesses. At their best, they are signs of God's presence and God's grace and God's will. Partners in the search for justice. And if you listen carefully, maybe you can hear them speak to you.

In the Beginning, not in time or space,
But in the quick before both space and time,
In Life, in Love, in co-inherent Grace,
In three in one and one in three, in rhyme,
In music, in the whole creation story,

In His own image, His imagination,
The Triune Poet makes us for this glory,
And makes us each the other's inspiration.
He calls us out of darkness, chaos, chance,
To improvise a music of our own,
To sing the chord that calls us to the dance,
Three notes resounding from a single tone,
To sing the End in whom we all begin;
Our God beyond, beside us, and within.
(Malcolm Guite)

Phil Ayers+, June 15, 2014

Broken church

Saints Peter and Paul/San Pedro y San Pablo 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/PetPaul.html


("Lord of the broken church, whose chosen foundations are marked by fault lines: we thank you for the grace that took the denier and the persecutor and made them witness to your liberating gifts; through Jesus Christ, who sets the prisoners free. Amen")

“Lord of the broken church…” prays today’s Collect, not the BCP version, but from Prayers For An Inclusive Church.

We usually do not celebrate broken churches. We have anxious meetings about broken churches. We hire consultants to address broken churches. Some make money publishing books that give ideas and propose plans for broken churches.

We try to fix broken churches.

Today we celebrate broken churches .

It’s our patronal Sunday, Saints Peter and Paul. We celebrate two men of the New Testament—Peter the impulsive denier, and Paul the persecutor whose first career as a Jewish version of the Taliban was rudely interrupted by Jesus.

Our lovely traditional ikon shows them embracing. If you read between the lines in the NT, you know that this probably never happened. Peter and Paul were at best what the young people today might call “frenemies”, uneasy partners who rarely saw each other and who fought in public when they did.

They fought over inclusion. Do the Gentiles, the non-Jews, get to join the party meant for faithful Jews who believed Jesus to be the Messiah? In my opinion this is the key question of the New Testament—who gets to belong? Fully observant Jews? Or Gentiles who observe part of the Law? Peter was shocked into thinking this by his own vision where God told him to eat pig meat and vulture meat and snakes.
Or all the Gentiles, as thought Paul?

It took two personally broken people, unresolved and conflicted, to open the door for a broken church and a church of the broken.

In a community of the perfect and the put-together, there is no room for the broken. There are no cracks through which can slip the wounded, the unresolved, the doubter, the rebel, the opinionated, the painfully shy, the poor, the chronically ill, the depressed, the anxious, the excluded, the shamed.

There is no room for Jesus. Jesus is the excluded, the shamed.

A broken church is a good church. A broken church knows its Lord, the tragicomic failed Messiah whom God alone raised on high. A broken church knows its need for God and for grace.

We’re a broken church. We’re a church of many names. First Saint Peter’s, then Saints Peter and Paul, now we add San Pedro y San Pablo. How many more names shall we have? We’re in the midst of dying and rising, of a re-birth that includes smallness and vulnerability and perhaps some pain and a little blood before we’re done. (If we’re ever done.) Our questions here have been questions of inclusion. Are we a community of only the resolved and the consistent, the acceptable according to mid-20th century standards? Or are we also a community that fully affirms women in all ways, that welcomes and affirms LBGTQ members in all ways? Are we a community of classical hymn-singing English-speakers? Or are we also a community of guitar-accompanied Spanish-speakers?

Over and over, just like the early Church, the question—if we welcome, if we seek out and affirm and include the ones that are different, who speak differently, who act differently, who bring a different experience and a different culture into our midst—are we still recognizable? Far more important, are we the community of Jesus?

We have Peter and Paul, the broken patrons of a broken church, to advise us. We have Jesus, the excluded and wounded who is raised on high, to show us and to gather us.

Through the years, I have wondered at the mystery of my own call to this community. In the past few years I have wondered at the mystery of why I am still here.

I think part of the answer lies in gifts—I am comfortable with urban environments, I have a deep Catholic instinct regarding spirituality and prayer. I like a mix of cultures, I speak a useful second language, I have clinical training that helps me deal positively with deeply wounded people.

The deeper answer is—I myself am a broken man.

I left the Roman Catholic Church and incurred a sense of exclusion as a result. My parents bore a deep sense of racial and cultural and familial shame as well as anxiety as a result of poverty, and they passed that story on to me. I think that my own wounds resonated with the wounds of this community back in the mid-‘90’s and we recognized each other. We still do. We have a gift here of openness to deeply wounded people.

“Lord of the broken church…” At times we stumble over one another’s wounds here, but here there is space for grace and for light and for God.

Today’s Ezekiel reading is for us, the people of the broken church---

“I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out…I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them... I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy.”

According to the prophet, it is a good thing to be in need of healing, for we have a healer. It is a good thing to be lost, for someone will find us. The shepherd promises to gather us, to heal us, to feed us.

The prophet says it is not a good thing to be among the fat and the strong, among the self-sufficient and the complacent and the over-confident.

We are the broken church. That is our hope and our gift. We are the community that has been broken time and time again, wrestling with this question—who is welcome? We are the people of the denier and the persecutor whose argument with one another was never really resolved. But in the spaces left in the fault lines, there is room for light and for hope and for Christ and for those who have been excluded. There is room for you and for me.

We are San Pedro y San Pablo, Saints Peter and Paul.

Pick it up

Proper 7 A 2014
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp7_RCL.html


Like many new clergy, I too had a honeymoon period with the parish, now almost 20 years ago. That is a sweet if somewhat unrealistic time that a pastor and a congregation will share, similar to a honeymoon in a committed relationship. After a search process and much anticipation, the new clergy arrives, and we’re all rather enchanted with one another. Everything is new, everything is wondrous, everything seems possible, there is new energy and new hope.

During this period, a wonderful faithful member of the congregation approached me with a sense of delight. He slapped me on the back and said, “Everything is going so well! Everyone likes you so much! And there are no complaints.”

I stood there and suddenly, for me, the busy room fell silent. Something went cold inside of me. As this very kind man walked away, I thought to myself that if those words were carved on my tombstone, “Everyone liked him and had no complaints”, that I would not care to appear before God to have my ministry judged.

“Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

The cost of the Gospel is shot through all our readings today.

“Take up your cross” has, through the years, been tamed and made a private sort of piety. My long-suffering Irish Catholic mother modeled this kind of spirituality and taught it to me. Whenever something came along to test my personal patience as a kid—a splinter in my knee, the ice cream man coming late to the neighborhood—mom would say “offer it up.” The message was clear—life’s little troubles gave me material that would make God happy as long as I had the right attitude.

We miss the Gospel, and for that matter the prophets and the message of Paul, if the cost of discipleship, the cost of following Jesus, becomes for us a private way of making sense of the suffering that life brings.

To listen to God and act on what we hear, to be a person baptized into the death of Jesus, to follow Jesus on his way—is a different path indeed.

It is a way that breaks the heart, says Jeremiah. Jeremiah hears the living God but almost seems to regret listening. Betrayal and violence followed him as he struggled to be faithful to the living word he heard. Jeremiah was simply obedient to the word that the God of Israel was speaking to him, the same God who was worshipped by all those around him. But Jeremiah heard the whole word, not just the word that made life comfortable and predictable. For that he was attacked, betrayed by friends, and abused. But we do not have the bland words of comfort of his friends to inspire us. We have Jeremiah the broken-hearted man who accepted no cheap comfort, who although complaining before God opened his heart and mind to the challenging Word he heard.

It is a way of death and resurrection, says Paul. To those who simply added belief in Jesus as Messiah to their array of beliefs, Paul makes clear that to follow Jesus is to enter willingly into Jesus’ death in order to be raised with him to new life. This way would lead to rejection by faithful followers of Moses as well as by Roman Gentiles. Not a popular road, but one that leads us into the heart of God.

And “take up your cross”? We now know that the cross was an execution reserved by the Romans for capital crimes, for revolution and for subversion. The Romans did not really care what you believed just so long as you paid your taxes and obeyed Roman law. If Jesus was harmless, just a gentle man teaching a gentle personal faith, he would not have been crucified. The Romans were quite practical and consistent this way. Private faith is not threatening. Faith that challenges the empire, the status quo, the way that business as usual is done—that is threatening. The Way of Jesus threatened to overturn both the business of the Jerusalem Temple as well as the rule and priorities of the Romans. In a real sense the Romans were quite correct in crucifying Jesus. He was an enemy of the state, whose Gospel meant the end of the rule of tyrants and the powerful.

When Jesus says “take up your cross”, he means embrace my radical and life-changing, world-changing way. Walk with me on a dangerous road, a road that leads from death to life.

Yesterday at the ordination I heard from the rector of St Stephen’s downtown how they transformed their church into a congregation of radical hospitality to the people of the streets. A deacon came to church dressed as a homeless man and preached, speaking from the standpoint of the poor and their experience walking into a comfortable church. The people of St. Stephen’s heard that word and began, from that day, to take up the cross that for years they had simply adored.

And we have taken up our own cross in our bi-lingual and bi-cultural journey. Yesterday we heard moving testimony from one of our leaders who had experienced several segregated congregations in Portland before coming here and plunging into life and leadership at SPP. Life is different here, he and his spouse assert. Nowhere have they experienced a church where two language-groups and cultures are simply together as one.

This is part of our Way of the cross, as we pay the price of walking a Way that is often not comfortable, that does not “feel like the old church” or does not feel like many other churches at all. But here we try in our way to break down barriers, to address and dismantle assumptions of power, to make the concerns of all members our concerns, the struggles of all members our struggles, to welcome fully.

There are many ways to find comfort in this world. Portland is full of such comfort—a lovely privileged life so long as you have enough money for coffee shops and food carts and a couple of trips up the Gorge or out to the coast. But there is another way, the way of the cross, the way of walking with and embracing those different and learning more and more about ourselves, about others, about the Gospel, about Jesus, about the Way of God. About the Cross.

I do not know

(Note: this homily was preached at the ordination of Jonna Alexander and Brad Tobbein to the transitional diaconate)

Ordination June 2014
Jeremiah 1: 4-9; 2 Cor 4: 1-6; Luke 22: 24-27


Once long ago in the desert, a group of the elder hermit monks came to see the great Abba Antony. Abba Antony decided to turn the conversation to the Holy Scriptures, so he read a passage and asked the monks to offer their comments. Each of the monks thought long and carefully and then spoke, offering their best interpretation. Finally it was the turn of the last monk, Abba Joseph. All eyes were on him as he looked up and said simply, “I do not know.” Abba Antony said, “Truly Abba Joseph has found the way, for he said ‘I do not know.’”

It is not recommended that you try this approach on any of your papers or exams. A professor might be amused, especially if they know this story, but they will not be impressed.

I could not resist telling that desert tale today as we gather for the ordination of two very scholarly and erudite candidates. Brad and Jonna are both known by us as fine students, intellectually oriented, and ready to give richly of these gifts to us, to the church. That is a good thing, a heartening thing. We need deeply intelligent and learned people to offer themselves, and in the words of a Collect “we pray that the Church never be destitute of such gifts.”

But among your friends and family and well-wishers and those who just like ordinations, because face it—ordinations are pretty cool, we bask in the hope and the faith here and we wish to catch a glimpse of Spirit as she rushes by—among the congregation wise old Abba Antony added himself to the guest list. And his ordination gift is his knowledge of the Way—“I do not know.”

Because Jonna and Brad do not know what they are getting into. How can they? None of us do. When each of us accepted baptism, we were not promised a road-map. Instead we were plunged into mystery, into wild-waters. In Baptism we belong to Christ, forever. We dwell wherever Christ dwells. And Christ dwells in startling places—in alleys and forgotten empty lots, in houses with broken windows outside of which gunfire punctures the night, in the back wards of hospitals, under bridges, in lonely rooms where unseen tears are shed, in the depths of hearts broken by life yet often masked by smooth fixed facial expressions and the appearance of “normality”, whatever that is. At the heart of creation, a place infinitely small as well as infinitely vast, there Christ dwells. Most surprising, most mysterious and wondrous and startling of all, Christ dwells in the intricate and only partially-explored depths of our own wondering and longing hearts.

That’s where the baptized live with Christ. Anyone accepting the church’s ordination re-affirms that and commits to seek and proclaim and adore and serve that Christ.

Brad and Jonna, if you accept the church’s ordering today, you are charged to seek that Christ with your whole life’s blood and soul. Seek that Christ, in all the places where Christ is truly the hidden God. Seek that Christ in the heart of the church. The church, the kyriakon, the gathering that belongs to God. Nothing and no one that belongs to God are perfect and resolved and consistent and finished. The church is that mad merry and grieving band of wanderers, often lost and often wrong, always moving and never still, broken and sinful and capable of great good and great ill. The church is a gathering of the broken-hearted who are willing to try one more day. And the church will break your heart—I tell you that on the best authority. And when your heart is broken, yours will be the choice to walk with her one more day. Your broken heart will teach you wisdom.

And you will not know how the journey will end.

Learning will not reveal that. But the flame implanted in your heart by God will make that next step possible.

Jeremiah knew that next step. Few hearts are so openly broken as is Jeremiah’s. Few paid such a price for belonging to God. Few knew so many doubts and so much pain, pain that Jeremiah screamed into the heavens. But few there are whose words so thunder through the ages. It was not his knowing, but his surrender, his laying of his broken fearful heart before God that made the doubt-filled young man into the prophet. “Now I have put my words in your mouth” said the Holy One, blessed be the Name. We pray that today for you: words placed in your mouth even amidst doubt and fear, a heart willing to be open and to be broken. On that holy ground, ground tilled and harrowed, there God will grow the Gospel

And Paul takes you by the hand and welcomes you as kin and partners. He invites you to proclaim not yourselves but Jesus as Lord. That is hard, dear friends, take it from me, because ego is seductive and is good at hiding behind the purest of motives. Part of the journey of ordination is uncovering, sometimes by failure, the tangle of one’s actual motives. There will come a day when you will awaken to that tangle of mixed and messy human motivations and simply cry “Christ have mercy.” In that moment Christ will shine in you, not granting you worldly success but making you worthy of the trust of all the glorious sinners and ragged saints who know their own failures, and who need someone to speak Christ to them, someone who loves them and who feels their own poverty and need. On that day, in those moments, your vocation will be ratified and re-born.

Where you will be, what you will do, how things will go, who you will be is all unknown. Thank God for that. Only tourists know exactly where they are going. The church does not need tourists, people just passing through to pick up souvenirs of career or ambition or gratification. The church needs pilgrims, fellow-journeyers with all of us who have no idea what the journey’s end will be, who do not even fully know ourselves and the mystery of what Christ is working in our own hearts. But please walk with us. As you say “yes” and accept the laying on of hands, please embrace the unknowing, the deep mystery, the immersion into the church’s heart as we walk in an uncertain world where structures are fading and the Gospel is deemed irrelevant and there is no path as the poet said—the path is made by walking.

And that old hermit Antony will smile again, and say “Truly they have found the way, for they say ‘I do not know.’” You do not know, but you say “yes.”

The promise of empty space/La promesa del espacio abierto

Ascension Sunday/Domingo del Ascension 2014


The mystery of the Ascension is a mystery of absence. El misterio del Ascension es un misterio de ausensia.

The beloved Master and Lord is taken from the disciples. El Maestro y Senor tan amable se tomo desde los discipulos.

Right when they need him the most is when they lose him. Cuando ellos se necesitan, el se sale.

The mystery of the Ascension is a mystery of confusion. El misterio del Ascension es un misterio de confusion.

I wonder what the disciples were thinking and feeling when the Lord was taken from them. Quiero saber que pensaron los discipulos cuando su Senor se salio. Even the Gospel of Luke says that they were confused as to what all these amazing events really meant. Aunque el Evangelio de San Lucas dice que eran confusado que significa todas de estas cosas tan maravillosas. “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” “Señor, ¿vas a restablecer en este momento el reino de Israel?” Are you going to defeat the Romans and the corrupt priests in the Temple? ?Derrotaras a los Romanos y los sacerdotes corruptos en el Templo?

So when the Lord was taken from them, here’s what I imagine they were thinking…Esto es que yo pienso que los discipulos pensaron cuando el Senor se salio:

Where is he going, and is he coming right back? ?Adonde va, y se regresara pronto?

Who’s in charge now? ?Quien esta encargada?

What do we do now? ?Que hacemos ahora?

And maybe, does anyone know where we parked? ?Quien sabe donde estamos estacionado?

It’s the same kind of confusion. Es lo mismo tipo de confusion.

The mystery of the Ascension is a mystery of doubt and faith. El misterio del Ascension es un misterio de duda y de confianza.

As the disciples returned to Jerusalem, what did they talk about? Or did they share a long silence? ?Cuando regresaron los discipulos a Jerusalem, que les hablaron? ?O les quedaron en silencio?

One thing they did was to stay together. Another thing they did was pray. Les quedaron juntos. Y ademas les oraron. They went back to the Temple, the place that their faith told them was where prayers were heard by God. Les regresaron al Templo donde ellos creeian que el Dios se escucha a sus oraciones.

And they believed that that Advocate, of whom Jesus spoke, would come. Y ademas creeian que el Paracleto de quien hablaba el Senor se viene.

We also often wonder where Jesus has gone. Nosotros tambien queremos saber adonde va el Senor Jesus. We also wonder what it is we are supposed to do next. Y queremos saber que tenemos a hacer. We wonder who is in charge, or who will cut the church grass, or any number of things that seem so important to people. Queremos saber quien esta encargada, o quien puede cortar el pasto afuera de la iglesia, o muchas otros cosas que parecen tan important por la gente.

But we stay together as a new and different people at Saints Peter and Paul. Quedamos juntos como un pueblo nuevo y diferente a San Pedro y San Pablo. And we pray, here in this place where God hears prayer. And we hope. Oramos aqui en este lugar donde el Dios se escucha a nuestras oraciones. Y tambien esperamos.

We believe the Spirit of God has already been poured out upon us. Creemos que el Espiritu de Dios ya esta derramada en nuestras corazones.

God-Spirit is here. And yet, God-Spirit is coming. Dios el Espiritu Santo esta aqui y ademas se viene.

Today we meet even if we have confusion and doubt. Reunimos todavia aunque tenemos confusion y dudas. Today we meet and pray. Todavia reunimos y oramos. We look at one another and wonder who is in charge, what is the plan? A ver uno al otro y preguntamos quien esta encargada y que es el plan. But instead of easy answers or going somewhere else, we are asking for God-Spirit. Pero en vez de contestas faciles o andamos a un otro lugar, se pedimos por el Espiritu Santo.

Sailing

(Note: this is a précis of a homily delivered without manuscript on 6 Easter, May 25 2014)

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Easter/AEaster6_RCL.html

Today we're surrounded by sailors.

This fourth Sunday we celebrate a Celtic Mass as is our custom. We're in the midst of a kind of "long octave" of Celtic sailor-saints. Coming up soon on June 9 is our old friend Columba, voyager to Iona, who first came to us 12 years ago and has caused us a lot of grief and upset ever since. Outreach, intentional spirituality, breaking down the walls between us and the neighborhood and all.

But just past us on either May 16 or May 21 is St. Brendan, Brendan the Navigator, Brendan the Bold. Many of us has heard version of his story: how he set out on his long sea-voyage to seek the Land of the Blessed, Tir Na Na'Og, past the setting sun in the West. The story of this voyage became the first travelogue and science fiction novel of the Middle Ages. It had everything: monsters, a heroic journey, strange sights, and a good dose of religion and spirituality thrown in too!

The story says that Brendan made two voyages.

The first was done classical Celtic monastic style. The faith of those early Celtic Christians was desert-shaped, influenced by the desert Fathers and Mothers of Africa and Palestine. So the Celtic monks longed for their own desert. Most of Ireland was too green and fertile to be very desert-like, so the sea became their desert.

Like others before and after, Brendan set out with a few companions in a hide boat. Once clear of the shore and the surf, they shipped the oars and rudder and let the wind of God take them where the wind willed.

It seems like they bobbed all around the British Isles, coming ashore in Wales and Brittany, even bumping into St. Columba on a small Scottish island hermitage. They reported seeing Hell rise up out of the sea and demons throwing burning boulders at them. Some say this means that Brendan drifted close to Iceland and its volcanoes.

They got back to Ireland, filled with a bunch of new stories, which makes any Irishman's heart glad. But Brendan was not done.

He wanted to go somewhere with purpose. He wanted to sail to the Land of the Blessed in the West.

Brendan went to his soul-friend, a very powerful older woman named Ita. Ita told him to do this journey right. Build a proper wooden ship, she said, not a little hide boat. Take some proper sailors with him, not just some dozy monks. And sail with purpose to the West, and not just be blown around by what she called "the lunatic wind."

And so Brendan did just that--built a proper wooden ship, signed on some sailors who knew what they were doing, and brought along with the usual monks and a bishop or two some craftspeople, fisherfolk to help supplement their stores, singers and entertainers because the voyage was long, and even, so the story says, "three unbelievers at the last moment", just because, since hey, it's a good post-modern thing to do, why not?

They set their sails and, after many other satisfactory adventures, made it to the shores of the Blessed Land. There are those who say there is truth behind Brendan's tale, and that the golden-skinned people who greeted the monks and showed them hospitality were the same who, centuries later, met the Spanish conquistadores who came not in peace but with muskets and swords. Pity the Irish monks were not the permanent settlers rather than they.

At any rate, Brendan's tale is important still as voyage is an image and a reality that has accompanied the Christian project since the beginning. Anchors and boats are found among the images in the catacombs of Rome. The very church is which we sit is built Western-style as an inverted ship complete with keel and ribs. We sit in the "nave", the ship, and if one is in the Navy one sails in a "navum", a ship, and proceeds to "navigate."

A ship is meant to sail. One of the most forlorn sights I know is seeing a ship rotting in a forgotten dry-dock. It has lost its purpose, and perhaps it has even forgotten how to sail.

A church is such a ship.

A church is meant to voyage, to go out, and not stay in dry dock where it would seen to be safe where in reality it slowly rots. A church is meant for the open water, sailing towards a promise, a new people, a new test of faith, a new horizon, where we do not know what awaits.

Paul chooses that same sort of voyage today as he preaches on Mars Hill in Athens. He has sailed far, has Saul the Pharisee, and he is a long way from Judah with its fiery zealots and its Temple observing the sacrificial law of the Torah. He is in Gentile-town, Goyim City. Surrounded by idols of every shape and description, highly questionable sexual morals to an upright son of Israel, a babble of ideas and philosophy and poetry and debate, and probably there was pulled pork in the food carts by the road. Athens. Makes you feel ritually impure just to say the name. A lot of his brothers would have spat on the ground and walked out, looking for some kosher food and the company of some decent monotheists.

Not our Paul. He launches out into this choppy Gentile sea, speaks to the opportunity presented by that poignant altar "To an Unknown God", quotes their own poets to them. He takes that voyage. Moments like this preserved the Gospel from dying in the second century as some obscure Jewish cult.

And today we approach the great sea-launching of the church, the feast of the Ascension. On that day we remember that the early Jesus-movement needed to learn to sail without their captain visibly present at the helm. The mystery of the Ascension is one of absence, of the early movement finding themselves apparently alone at sea, with the next direction theirs to choose.

It matters how one navigates, to not be blown around by the "lunatic wind." And so we get our sailing instructions today. "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence." "If you love me, keep my commandments." The church is blown about by the lunatic wind if we allow fear or resentment or nostalgia to take the helm.

Our lives are such voyages. As we each raise the sails each new day, take the commandments of God, the power of the Gospel, as sailing-instructions. Sail with purpose.

Our congregation is on such a voyage. For some years we bobbed about like Brendan drifting around the British Isles on his first voyage. We stayed attuned to the wind. It was hard work and not an easy time. But it was an important time.

But now we sail with purpose. We have a horizon at which we aim. Our vision, a "re-birth" as a bi-cultural and bi-lingual congregation, is a purpose and a goal. There will be a lot of sailing-time involved. We do not know what lies beneath the horizon-line in the West.

But we sail with purpose. So let's make sure we take the sailing-instructions we need. The commandments of God, the strength and promise of the Gospel, the promise of the Advocate, the Spirit who comes richly to those who wait and pray in faith. Let's take all of us, with all of our gifts. Let's take the many friends we have made in our life lived here, whom we do not see on Sundays but who support us and give us encouragement. Like Brendan let's take 3 unbelievers along too, just because, and besides they keep us honest and we like them. "Gentleness and reverence" are the order of the day.

And let's take Brendan the Bold, and crusty old Columba of the misty isle, and all those who wish to join our company and add their strength and their faith. They are a strong and wise company. They speak many languages--lately they've been speaking as much Spanish as English and old Gaelic.

We sail with purpose. We do not know the land to which we sail. But we know a land has been promised.

Meetings on the dark road/Encuentros en el camino oscuro

On Thursday morning, I met with a group from the Diocese of Oregon called the Commission on Ministry. They were interviewing me for my next step toward ordination to the priesthood, and they asked me questions about my job, about my schoolwork, about what kind of person and priest I want to be.

But what they really wanted to hear about was my journey of faith. They were asking where in my life I had met Jesus.

And I thought, of course, about the Road to Emmaus.

El jueves pasado, yo me reuní con un grupo de la Diócesis de Oregon que se llama la Commission on Ministry. Me entrevistaron para el siguiente nivel en el proceso de ordenación sacerdotal, y me preguntaron sobre mi trabajo, mis estudios, y qué tipo de persona y cura yo quiero ser.

Pero lo que quisieron entender más que nada era mi travesía de fe. Me estaban preguntando dónde en mi vida yo había conocido a Jesús.

E yo pensé en el camino a Emaús.

Ask me about meeting Jesus on the road in my own life, and I will usually try to tell you a nice story. A story that makes me sound great. It will be about a transcendent experience I had in church, or a moment where I served another person and saw the face of Christ.

But my greatest moments of knowing the power and love of God through Jesus Christ actually haven’t been like this at all. They are not the times when I see Jesus from a mile off and go running into his open arms. Instead, they’re the times when I bump into him on the road, but I don’t recognize him right away.

Pregúntame sobre mis encuentros con Jesús en mi propia vida, y usualmente, yo trataré de decirte una historia bonita, en que yo parezco muy devota. La historia será sobre una experiencia transcendental en la iglesia, o un momento en que yo serví a otra persona y vi la cara de Cristo.

Pero en verdad, mis momentos más importantes de saber el poder y el amor de Dios por Jesucristo no han sido así. No son los instantes en que veo a Jesús y corro a sus brazos. En vez de eso, son los momentos en que me topo con él, pero no lo reconozco inmediatamente.

The moments when I’m overwhelmed and feel like I can’t do anything right. The moments where I’m lying awake in the middle of the night, regretting the past and worrying about the future. These moments come when I lose my temper and say something mean. They come when someone I love is sick and all my prayers don’t seem to be making them any better.

Those are the times when my eyes are kept from recognizing Jesus. Like the disciples, even when I see him, I just stand still, looking sad.

Son los momentos en que me siento inundada y creo que no puedo hacer nada bien. Los momentos en que me mantengo despierta a la medianoche, llena de arrepentimientos sobre el pasado y ansidedad sobre el futuro. Estos momentos llegan cuando pierdo la paciencia y digo algo horrible. Llegan cuando alguien que yo amo está enfermo, y todas mis oraciones no pueden hacerle sano.

Esos son los momentos en que algo me impide darse cuenta de quién es Jesús. Como los discípulos, aún cuando yo lo veo, sólo me detengo allá, triste.

And when Jesus finally makes himself known to me, it’s not in the warm and fuzzy way that I want him to. Instead, I hear him calling me “foolish” and “slow of heart.” It doesn’t feel all that great.

But, of course, he doesn’t show up just to call me stupid. He’s saying: —Yes, you were foolish not to trust me. And yes, you were slow of heart not to think that I would be here for you. But I’m here now. Everything will be okay.

Y cuando Jesús finalmente se revela a mí, no es de la manera dulce y simpática que yo quiero. En lugar de eso, me llama “tonta” y “lenta.” En esos momentos, no me siento fantástico.

Pero, por supuesto, no me abandona después de llamarme “lenta.” Él me dice: —Sí, eras tonta cuando no confiaste en mí. Y eras lenta cuando no pensaste que yo estaría aquí para tí. Pero ahora estoy aquí, y todo será mejor.

The times when I don’t recognize Jesus are the times when I need him the most. And he knows it. When he goes out to find the heartbroken disciples, he meets them exactly where they are. He may call them out on being a little foolish, but he tells them everything they need to know. By the time he vanishes, they realize that their hearts have been burning within them all day. Even when they couldn’t see Jesus for who he was, he was there for them all along.

Los momentos en que no reconozco a Jesús son los momentos en que yo necesito a él más que nada. Y Jesús lo sabe. Cuando busca a los discípulos desconsolados, se reune con ellos en su situación actual, y les dice todo que necesitan saber. Cuando eventualmente desaparece, se dan cuenta que el corazón les ha ardido todo el día. Aún cuando no podían reconocer a Jesús, estaba con ellos en cada momento.

When we walk our own road to Emmaus, it can feel lonely and dark, and Jesus can feel very far away. It is my prayer that in those most desolate moments, the veil will be lifted from our eyes, and we will feel our hearts burning with the knowledge that Jesus is always ready to meet us on the road, every step of the way.

Cuando caminamos en nuestro propio camino a Emáus, puede parecer aislado y oscuro, y puede parecer que Jesús está muy lejos. Mi oración es que en esos momentos más desolados, veremos claramente, y nos daremos cuenta que el corazón nos arde con el conocimiento que Jesús siempre está listo para reunirse con nosotros en el camino, en cada momento de la travesía.

Amen.


Caterina "Cat" Healy, May/Mayo 4, 2014

Remember Linda

I was dressed in jeans and a stained black hoodie. But the man’s clergy radar was working fine. “Excuse me, pastor…” These conversations in our church parking lot usually lead up to money. But not today.

“Pastor, I’d like to have a, you know, a little memorial for Linda. She died this week. You remember Linda.”

I did not remember Linda. Our church sees many Lindas. We’re perched on Portland’s 82nd Avenue, a nondescript borderland of a road that everyone uses but no one really wants. “Decent” people drive through quickly, their gaze on the road or slipping quick as distracted thought past the street’s residents. Homeless, sex workers, dealers or consumers of drugs, sometimes more than one of these in the same person—that’s whose feet get blistered on the eternal pavement of 82nd, in between the car lots and the random array of small businesses clinging to life.

A person has a name. A name means you matter to someone, that someone somewhere thought your existence matters. At the meal that we cook and serve for all comers, we try to call people by their names. But there are so many. They come, they go. They age, they get found sick in alleys and are taken to hospitals. They go to detox. They go to jail. They get out of detox and jail. They die. Usually they just disappear, for weeks or months or years. Sometimes when they come back, if they come back, they ask with a look of weary hope, “Remember me?”

Today I did not lie. “No, I am afraid I do not remember Linda.”

The man, gentle, almost courtly, inclined his head respectfully and smiled. The gaps in his teeth did not detract from his dignity. “That’s OK, pastor. She hadn’t been coming here for long. She was real nice, though. She got real sick, cancer in the liver.” He gestured with one hand that, only then, did I notice was holding the strings of several helium balloons, the foil kind you buy in supermarkets. “It’s OK if we have a little gathering, a little memorial, you know? And would you say a few words?”

I smiled, a little wearily, and said “Of course.”

Our volunteer team was occupied with serving breakfast to a roomful of over 25 people. They looked up, registered what was happening, and without a word looked at me.

None of us needed to be concerned. Linda’s mourners had things well in hand.

“Hey ya’ll, Linda died. You all know Linda?”

Weary, wary heads were raised. A moment of silence, and then a murmur of recognition from some. “Oh yeah. Harsh.” “Shit, man.” “That’s too bad.” “Poor baby.” From others, no recognition, but respectful looks and softly spoken words, the human words that we all try to say when we wish to speak to pain, with death, with grief.

“We’re just gonna have a little gathering in here,” the man said, gesturing to the inner hall. “Everyone’s welcome.”

Young women, their faces battered with what the street deals out equal-opportunity to young and old, came in with more balloons, with flowers, with a collage of photos adorned with hearts and glitter.

A very distraught woman, wild-eyed yet somehow gentle in her body posture, fixed me with her gaze. “She was my best friend. She was so sweet. I don’t know what I am going to do. She went so quick.” She showed me a photo.

A young woman, soft brown complexion, smiling shyly at the camera. Someone’s daughter, someone’s friend. Around the shy eyes, hints of dark circles. Puffiness to the cheeks and face—some edemia, water retention, common to heavy drinkers. An awkward set to her stance and tilt to her hips—untreated injury. Sometimes I so wish I did not know what I know.

I smiled at the distraught young woman. “She looks so sweet.”

The woman looked down and, with a sob, said, “She was. She so was.”

Those who finished eating gathered in a loose, uneven circle, gently and respectfully. One man talked to himself the whole time, which no one heeded—he always talks to himself, all the time. The gentle man and the distraught young woman passed around a poster to sign, as well as shiny helium balloons to sign and to take home, if people wanted.

When that intangible moment of readiness arrived, they all looked up at me.

The Episcopal Prayer Book works great to frame human moments like this. But the art of ministry consists in getting out of the way, gracefully.

I left lots of space for people to share. These are the voiceless, or if they speak, people walk away. Not here, not today.

“She was so sweet.”

“Linda was my love and my friend.”

“She tried so hard, she was walking that good road, she had been clean for awhile now.”

“I totally respect how she was trying to get her life together. It’s such a shame.”

“I didn’t know her, but she sounds awesome.”

“I’ll always remember her smile.”

Everyone had voice. The thoughts, the tears, the words rose and fell like an east breeze off the hard street.

All eyes raised to me once more.

“Rest eternal grant to her O Lord/And let light perpetual shine upon her…”

A life is long, yet over in a moment. A funeral is even shorter.

“Take some balloons, y’all. Thank you. And there’s a gathering at my place, a little food, maybe a few beers, if you come by later.”

It was not long before the hall was empty, empty except for three shiny balloons gently wafting at the end of their strings.

These days, churches are composed of layers, like an onion. One layer is this human gathering on Saturday mornings—volunteers and guests, raw human reality battered by the beast of a street that lays like a great sleeping serpent outside the church’s door. Food, kindness, connection—that’s church. It’s far from Sunday morning, but that’s church.

And the human thing still happens. One life, one almost-silent life, came to an end. The promise of a long life was broken by disease, the disease of addiction then the disease whose name is printed on the certificate. But before the world moved on, some people gathered, a few photos were shared. People spoke from their own pain and struggle to one young woman’s struggle. The pastor “said a few words.” And someone blew up a bunch of shiny balloons.

Someone remembered Linda.