The Greatest but not The Easiest

 

Pentecost XXII - October 29, 2023

The Episcopal Church of St. Mary
Bridgeville, DE

The idea seems simple enough. “Love God, love neighbor.” The problem, as always, is in the execution of the idea. Who is God? Who is my neighbor? What does it mean to love them?

Wrestling with these questions is at the heart of what it means to be a follower, a disciple of Christ Jesus. If we’re honest, we’ve all struggled with these questions at different times in our life’s journey.

As a Hospice Chaplain, these are two questions people struggle with, even at the end of life, sometimes one more than the other. As a person of faith, these are two questions I have wrestled with my whole life.

If I’m honest, I struggled with those questions as I was writing this sermon and, in fact, right up until today. Part of the reason is that the world moves so fast these days, it’s often hard to get your bearings.

Not so when I was a kid. I knew exactly who my neighbors were. That’s because I knew the borders and boundaries of my neighborhood.

Furthermore, I knew the rules – the family rules, the rules of the neighborhood and the rules of the church. And, I obeyed them.

In my neighborhood, we had a policeman who “walked the beat”. His name was Officer Murphy. We all loved Officer Murphy. You could wind your watch when he would appear on your street. He knew every kid by name and where we lived. We felt safe whenever he was around.

And, we loved Fr. Levesque, our parish priest, who also walked through our neighborhood on his way back and forth from visiting with people in their homes. He always had a tin can full of mints in his pocket that he opened and put in our mouths as we swarmed around him like baby birds with our mouths opened for this mid-week sweet communion.

There was also Mr. DeMello, the Truant Officer. He was there to report you to your parents if you skipped school. We didn’t have to worry too much about Mr. DeMello, though. Not in our neighborhood.

That’s because we had Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Miller was a woman whose kids had all grown and her husband had died so she always dressed in black and lived alone.

If I close my eyes, I can still see her, standing in front of her second floor window, a cup of tea in her hand which she slowly sipped as she watched everything that went on in our neighborhood.

I don’t know if she counted us as we walked together to school but she knew when one of us was missing. She made it her business to know where each one of us was and exactly where we were when we weren’t supposed to be there.

No one dared skipped school in my neighborhood. We were too scared of Mrs. Miller who would come and find us (I don’t know how she found us but she always did), pull us out of wherever we were by our ear, and march us all the way to our parent’s home, still holding that ear as if her life depended on it – our feet barely touching the ground – before depositing us in front of our parents, giving us a hard smack upside the head before she left.

You never wanted to mess with Mrs. Miller. Nosireebob.

There were other people who came into our neighborhood: The Bread Man who came every Wednesday and Friday, the Milk Man who, several times a week, delivered glass bottles of milk or cream and tins of cottage cheese which he put into an aluminum container that sat on everyone’s doorstep. He covered everything with ice before he left. Funny, no one ever got sick.

We were free to ride our bikes everywhere. I was nine years old and, as the oldest of four, rode my bike at least once a week to the market to pick up “just a few things” my mother had called ahead to the grocer who had everything ready for me. He always asked me about school and what I had learned that week and we would have lovely conversations about that subject.

The rules in my neighborhood were also simple: You could play stick ball in the street but one kid always had to be the lookout for oncoming cars, and you always moved to the side as soon as a car appeared at the top of the street. You showed respect. While the streets were for stick ball, the sidewalks were for hopscotch and jacks, and everybody, I mean, EVERYBODY, had to be on their own porch when the streetlights came on.

As well as I knew my neighbors, I also knew God. He was a white man with long hair and a long, white beard who sat on a cloud way up in heaven and, all he had to do was point at someone who was being bad and ZAP! That person was dead dog meat.

I even knew what God sounded like. My father loved to read to us and I loved nothing more than sitting on his lap, my ear pressed against his chest. One day, as I listened to the sound of his voice in his chest, it occurred to me that this is what God must sound like: mysterious, other-worldly, distant and yet just as close to me as my next breath.

And, the rules? Simple. There were 10. Follow those, go to church, listen to the gospel, take communion, don’t skip school, do your homework, obey your parents, do your best to follow the Golden Rule and love God and your neighbor as yourself and you would go to heaven. Guaranteed.

Simple, right? Easy-peasy!

And then, ah, and then, I grew up. And the world was no longer simple or easy. The War to End All Wars which my grandfather fought in rolled itself into WWII which my father fought it; which rolled itself into the Korean Conflict which my uncles fought it; which rolled into The Vietnam War, which was a war no one wanted and everyone hated and protested.

The world began to move very quickly and in 1966, the cover of Time Magazine posed a question no one in my neighborhood would have dared to think much less ask: Is God Dead?

That was followed, five years later, by the 1971 Time Magazine Cover of a Pop Art psychedelic Jesus who gazed serenely from clouds. It was simply titled: “The Jesus Revolution.”

By the time I was in seminary in the 1980s, I was enormously frustrated, trying to understand a discipline known as Process Theology, founded by a man named Alfred North Whitehead.

I remember crying in a professor’s office because I was so confused. She comforted me and then whispered, “Never mind. God doesn’t even know what Whitehead is talking about.”

And here we are this morning, more than 2,000 years later, listening to these ancient words from both Moses and Jesus who are teaching us the ancient commandment of God to “love your neighbor as yourself.” And, if we’re honest, in our darkest moments, some of us are still asking Who is God? Who is my neighbor?

Who is this God who allowed a very sick man to shoot and kill 18 of his neighbors and friends in Maine while they were bowling or otherwise having a good time with other neighbors?

Who is this God who allowed the beautiful island of Maui, often called ‘Paradise’, to burn to the ground?

And what kind of God allows innocent men, women and children to die cruel, brutal, barbaric deaths in a place known as The Holy Land, a place dedicated to God by people of three different faiths?  

Not the God we know. Which, if that’s true, raises other questions, ones with which people have also been struggling to understand since the beginning of time: If God is all powerful, then why do bad things happen to good people? What role, if any, does God play in it all?

Here's where I’ve landed on the matter. I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out. Far from it. As a Hospice Chaplain, I’ve had this conversation about these questions many times with many people over the last many years.  Here’s what makes sense to me and why Jesus says that The Golden Rule is the Greatest Commandment:

There are things beyond the intellect and reason of the human mind. God is primary among them. As many advances as can be attributed to the human mind, there are many things we simply can’t understand.

Like, how to understand a love that is so pure, so unconditional, that we have this terrifying freedom to make choices, some of which are good and some of which are not.

Like, no matter what we choose, good or bad, we always have the choice to love because we are always loved.

Think about this mystery: Even before we loved God, God loved us. We are free to love this mystery we call God, who is far beyond our wildest imaginings and yet never further away from us than our next breath.

Free to love this mysterious God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. And, to love ourselves so that we can love our neighbor as ourselves.

Or, not. Whether or not we know God or love God, God still loves us. St. Paul tells us that nothing - absolutely nothing - can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing. Not even ourselves.

Turns out, The Great Commandment is not as easy as it once sounded. Turns out, we grow up and find the world is a very complex and complicated place.

Turns out, one can choose to dedicate one’s whole life to living out that great mystery, to love the questions and live into the questions – Who is God? Who is my neighbor? – so that, as the great philosopher Rainer Maria Rilke said, we may love the questions so much that, one day, we may live into the answer.

That’s why, I think, Jesus says that this is the Greatest Commandment and the second is like unto it. Not only do all the laws and the prophets hang on these two commandments, but the very enterprise of being human hangs in the balance.

Indeed, I would add that the future of the world depends on the kind of love that is humble enough to admit we don’t know everything and we don’t have all the answers, and we cannot see God, but to love, anyway. To choose love. Even when it makes no sense.

As Pascal said, “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”

Who is God? Who is my neighbor? Jesus has lots to say about that in later Gospels that are worthy of our time and consideration and study. For now, and in preparation of that, I’m going to leave you with the whole quote from Rilke to which I think, Jesus would give his stamp of approval:   

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”   

Amen.

Practice: In Memory of Her

A Sermon in celebration of the life of
Mary Ann Torkelson, organist and choir director
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Georgetown, DE

I’m so glad we could be together this afternoon, despite enduring tropical storm Ophelia, to honor and celebrate the life of Mary Ann Torkelson. I told her son, Brian, yesterday, that while I am unable to confidently report the shape of her heavenly form, I can imagine the earthly Mary Ann pacing back and forth on the billowy floor of heaven, worrying about all of us and what we might risk to be able to make it to the church safely.

In my imagination, she bundled up all that worry and went directly to the heavenly organ and started to play. She loved music and she loved to play the organ or piano. She said she was “just practicing” but you could tell that for her, what she was doing was more than just practicing the music she was going to play on Sunday. Much more.

“Practice” meant doing the thing you love most so that you could do it even better.

In the meantime, practicing helped her work out her worry about something. Or concern for the health status of a family member or a neighbor or a friend or a fellow parishioner. Or worry over yet another manifestation of “church politics”. Or, manage the anxiety about how to teach that particular, new, unfamiliar arrangement of a hymn that would be offered as an anthem next Sunday.

 

Practicing, for Mary Ann, was a form of prayer; it was an act of generosity and love.

I remember coming into the church quietly on Thursdays when I was here and she came in to practice. I won’t say I “snuck into the church” because I didn’t. I just came in through the side door, took a seat at the end of the front row and quietly listened to her practice.

I mentioned to her once that her playing sounded like prayer. She smiled and asked, “How did you know?” And then we talked a bit about what was on her mind. That happened a few times while I was here. I think she enjoyed our conversations as much as I did.

And that was the thing about Mary Ann. She was all about relationships. Music was the key to having relationships with people. With the choir, yes, but with the congregation. And, with the priest. Well, this priest, for sure. And, of course, with God.

 

Some leaders in the church – lay and ordained – are transactional. You do this for me, I do this for you. Mary Ann was not transactional. Mary Ann was relational. And, because she was relational, transformation was possible.

 

I watched her on Sunday mornings – before and/or after the church service – leading the choir through practice. I saw her, on a few occasions, offer the choir a new hymn or arrangement of a hymn and, if the choir was lukewarm and one person really didn’t like it, well, that hymn was out. That said, she also knew when it was that the choir just needed guidance and confidence and needed to be challenged.

I remember the first year I was here and we were gearing up for the first Easter back in the sanctuary after COVID. We had lots of plans to make the service simple yet simply wonderful.

 

Mary Ann fretted that there would not be a choir for Easter Day. I remember saying, “Mary Ann, I have great confidence in you. You’ll think of something.”

A few days later she said to me, “Have you heard Charlie sing?” I am humbled to confess that, at that time, I was so new to the church I wasn’t even sure who Charlie was. She said, “Well, anyway, I’m thinking of asking him to sing an anthem for Easter Day.”

 

“That’s great,” I said. “Does he sing in the Choral?” “Umm . .. No,” she said, looking away so my eyes wouldn’t meet hers, “Umm . . .Actually, he’s never sung before. I mean, not in a choir. But, I think he can do this and, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to ask him.”

 

Of course, I agreed. Well, I didn’t find out until later that Charlie had never sung in a choir. Or, sung in public, much less sung a solo. Charlie agreed to sing a solo for Easter based solely on two things: He wanted to sing for his new church on Easter. And, he wanted to sing because Mary Ann had confidence that he would do a good job.

There were a lot of reasons to rejoice that first Easter after COVID when we gathered back in this church to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. And, it was truly a resurrection. COVID had decimated all the infrastructure of the church: the Altar Guild, the Worship Committee, the Lectors and The Altar Servers were all newly re-organized and, was, to be honest, pretty much a pick up team situation, with last minute instructions being given at the very last second.

Nevertheless, the silver had been polished to a fair thee well. The pews were glossy with lemon oil. The grass in the church yard had been freshly mowed and the grass around the gravestones trimmed. The flowers were arranged beautifully. The vestments and altar hangings were perfection. The hymn selection was joyous. Mary Ann played her heart out on that organ.

Ah, but it was Charlie, led by Mary Ann’s guidance and the confidence she had in him, whose performance was the best sermon on faith and the power of our resurrected Lord I have ever heard. It left me slack-jawed with awe and wonder and weeping with joy at the possibilities promised by Jesus when we “love one another as he and God love us.”

Which brings us to today. The bell choir hasn’t convened in a very long time. They have come together today in memory of her. The choir hasn’t done many solos in a while. They are doing one today, in memory of her. Mary Ann’s dear friend, Bonnie Kuhn is here, playing the organ, in memory of her.

 

And, we are honored to have members of the Choral here with us today who are joining their voices with the voices of the St. Paul’s Choir, and all of whose voices, I am quite certain, will join with the voices of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven to sing praises to The One who created us all, but especially created Mary Ann as a gift to us, whom we now return to God. We do this, in memory of her.

As Irving Berlin once wrote, “The song is ended but the melody lingers on.”

The gospel for today tells the story of a woman who, I’m sure, was a distant cousin of Mary Ann. Her name was Mary of Bethany, who did a bold and brave and generous thing in anointing Jesus with expensive oil.

When one of the disciples complained about her, Jesus scolded him and said, “She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.  Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Mary of Bethany teaches us to take a risk and pour out our love boldly, generously, lavishly, extravagantly,, wastefully.

We all knew and loved her as “Mary Ann” but her family called her Grandy. That’s the name she wanted her grandchildren to call her but over time, everyone in the family called her Grandy.

No matter. We called her Mary Ann. We all have our own favorite and particular memories of the woman we have come to remember and celebrate and honor today. Each one of those stories together tell the story of a woman to whom life was not necessarily either kind or fair, but a woman who was unfailingly generous and kind nonetheless.

Here's what I think Mary Ann would like me to say to you: Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes prayer. When you practice – whatever it is: your voice or your instrument, your art or science, your baking or cooking, your needlework or woodwork – when you practice the gift you have been given, you send up a little prayer of thanksgiving to the one who gave you the gift in the first place.

Remember that practice means doing the thing you love most so that you can do it even better. Practice, ultimately is a form of prayer; it is the risk of love that is poured out boldly, generously, lavishly, extravagantly, wastefully.

 

Take the risk of practicing your faith in whatever manner it has been given to you and you will not only find the confidence to continue, you will be the inspiration for someone to find confidence in themselves, to try something new, to stretch themselves and give of themselves sacrificially so that others will be inspired to do the same.

And, when you practice, do it in memory of her.

Amen.

Loosed & Bound & Chatty Benches

 St. Philip's Episcopal Church

Laurel, Delaware
Pentecost XV - September 10,2023

When I worked as a Hospice Chaplain in New York, my office was located in Herald Square, Manhattan. A Transit Pass was part of my compensation so I could take a subway or a bus anywhere in New York City. Even so, as long as my schedule made it feasible, I much preferred to walk the streets.

There was one woman I ran into often. She was known by the locals as “The Blue Lady” because she was frequently dressed in some shade of blue, but it was more than that. She wore her sadness and loneliness around her shoulders like an old, tattered sweater.  

Just looking at her, pushing her grocery cart which was alternately filled with food she was bringing home or laundry she was taking to the laundromat made you feel sad and lonely, too.

Some said that she was once beautiful and used to be part of the dance ensemble on Broadway. Word was, she was pretty good. Not enough to be a star but she was pretty and she was good and so she almost always made the auditions to be part of the ensemble.

 

The word was also that she fell madly in love with a male star who, once the run of show had ended, moved on, leaving her behind with a broken heart that never really mended. There followed many years of abuse of alcohol which, for the first time in her adult life, earned her the label of “unreliable”. She made fewer and fewer auditions. Gradually, she stopped trying.

 

Mostly, she was ignored. Worse was when people – tourists, mostly – went out of their way to ignore her, making a big show of stepping out of her way, as if she had leprosy or that her body odor was much worse than it actually was.

There were a few of us who either worked or lived in the neighborhood who went out of our way to say hello to her – which was no easy task. You had to catch her when she was standing still to look over some fresh fruit or admire a bouquet of flowers and lingered to remember the time when her lover brought her beautiful bouquets. Then, you hand to stoop down and look up under her hat in order to catch her eye and say, “Good morning!” or “Hello in there!”

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, she would look up and study your face. And sometimes, if you were really lucky, she accepted both your greeting and your smile and say, softly, humbly, “Thank you,” as if you were paying her this wonderful kindness which she had neither earned nor deserved.

 

Something always felt more balanced in the world when I got that kind of response from her, or I saw her response to the kindness of another. Her gratefulness was palpable and real, and seemed to set off a minor vibration that just ever so slightly shifted the energy around her and changed the world for the good.

In this morning’s Gospel lesson, we hear Jesus teaching his disciples about how he wants them to behave as leaders in the new order of the world which his ministry is to bring into being.
It's important to remember that Jesus lived in what scholars call am “honor/shame” society where people were quick to take offense. So, Jesus is giving those who will be the leaders of the new community a simple formula to resolve conflict.

We are wise to take note of that process. As a country and a people, we seem to have returned to that ancient, primitive way of being. Many of us seem to be made of tinder and live in fear that the next person may be carrying a lit match. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a time in our common lives – in homes, at work, in families, and neighbors and friends – when tempers fly faster than fireflies in the darkened woods.

The information superhighway has never been smoother and faster, bringing information from millions of miles away in the seeming blink of an eye. Problem is, social scientists tell us that a lie can circle the globe three times before the truth can be told. (Hear that again)

This has led to what social scientists are calling “An Epidemic of Loneliness”. How ironic, right? We have the best, fastest communication in the world and yet there is an epidemic – a widespread, worldwide epidemic – of loneliness due to social isolation.

We’re also learning that loneliness is deadly. It is linked to strokes, heart disease, dementia, inflammation and suicide. The surgeon general of the United States warns that loneliness is as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and more dangerous than obesity.

I’ve recently learned that England has installed what they call “chatty benches,” where people are encouraged to sit down and start a conversation with anyone else sitting there. There are also “talking cafes,” where you’re encouraged to speak with other coffee drinkers.

Imagine such a thing! Well, I can. This, my friends, may be a terrible time to be a citizen of the world, but it is the best time to be a follower of Jesus. Those of us who know Jesus and follow his teachings know that the very heart of our faith is about community.

Jesus has called us together to live together in some kind of harmony. Jesus gave us a lot of teaching but only one commandment: Love one another. Thankfully and mercifully, he never said, Like one another. That’s ever so much more difficult.

To love one another means doing no harm. It means adjusting our default settings so that our first impulse is toward kindness and generosity of spirit. To love one another means that even though you don’t like someone, you look for the good in them. Anyway. At least, for the potential to do good. And, to love one another sometimes means speaking a hard word of truth: You hurt me. When you did that, I felt betrayed. You said one thing – promised one thing – but did another. You promised you wouldn’t do that ever again and then you turned right around and did that exact same thing again.

Life would be ever so much better – families could be so much stronger – workplaces could be so much safer – churches could follow Jesus more nearly if we loved one another enough to do exactly what Jesus says and do the hard work of loving one another enough to speak the truth in love FIRST to the person who made the offense.

That’s the wisdom of Jesus. This is how he wants us to be with each other.  Speaking the truth in love takes courage. It’s so much easier to be passive aggressive and let our anger or hurt come out sideways. In my business, in pastoral care and counseling, we have a saying, “Hurt people hurt people.”  It’s a hard truth but nonetheless true: Hurt people who have never attempted to find healing and reconciliation will, ironically, inflict pain on others. And, sometimes, like The Blue Lady of Midtown, Manhattan, they will try to numb the pain with alcohol or drugs.

Jesus tells his disciples, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” So, you know, the stakes are high. Nothing happens in secret. It's Newton's Third Law of Motion: To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Or, as my Grandmother used to say, "Live your life as if everyone will know everything you've done because eventually, everyone will."

Or, as the Beatles once sang:   "There's nothin' you can know that isn't known. /Nothin' you can see that isn't shown. There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. It's easy" And then, of course, they famously sang, "All you need is love."

Well, love takes some work, doesn’t it? It takes intention. It takes an adjustment of attitude from asking “What’s good for me?” to “What good can I do?” God knows, there’s enough bad stuff happening in the world. It’s the people who do small acts of kindness that help to balance things out. Newton’s Third Law of Motion – the equal and opposite reaction which balances out the hate with love.

Small acts of kindness, like: The people I’ve seen who see liter on the side of the road, pull over and stop their cars to pick it up.

Or, the adults who are coaching and cheering kids who are learning a sport while they are learning important lessons in life as they learn how to be part of a team.

It’s the 'volunteers' who bring a meal and a smile and a bit of conversation to someone whose health is fragile and body frail but their heart and soul just need a bit of attention from another human being in order to flourish.

It’s the folks who take the time to read to kids in the library. It’s even someone who holds open a door or lets a car pass or looks into the lonely eyes of someone and says, "Hello in there.” By which they are saying, hello, I see you. I care.

When those things happen, balance is restored and maintained in a world that is teetering on the brink of imbalance.

 

There is an ancient teaching among the Rabbis – perhaps one even Jesus learned – which is this: Before every human being go 10,000 angels who call out, “Make way! Make way for the image of God!”

What if we behaved as if that were true? What if we listened for the angels and saw in every person the image of God? How might that change the way we treated them?

Perhaps it would mean that the next time we saw a lonely person we might invite them to the nearest “chatty bench” and had a conversation. We might just be able to find an end to the epidemic of loneliness, one smile, one greeting, one lonely person at a time.

I’m going to leave you with this thought: Now that this church is brilliantly providing a space where people can be alone with their thoughts and in prayers with God over at Old Christ Church, what if this church considered doing an equal and opposite action? What if we came together and collected the funds to donate a “chatty bench”?

What if we placed it somewhere in Laurel? It could be in front of the church, but perhaps it might be near the library or town hall? What if the bench had the name and number of the church on it with the inscription that said something like, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Matthew 18:20.

I wonder what would happen. I wonder if people just might put down their cell phones for 10 red hot seconds, look each other in the eye and say, “Well, hello.” And maybe, follow that with, “How are you?” And, actually mean it.

And, suddenly, they might be still enough to hear 10,000 angels call out, “Behold, the image of God.” And, before you know it, they might actually have a bit of a chat. You know. Just like people used to do, back when we had clothes lines and had an after dinner walk and got cards and letters and newspapers in our mail boxes, and greeted each other on the street and in the aisle in the supermarket and had things to talk about other than the latest gripe or gossip.

You might actually get a smile in return. And, you might perceive a minor vibration that just ever so slightly shifted the energy around you both which changed the world for the good. Or, at least, your perception of the world might change. Which just might be enough.

I wonder . . . . . .

Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Amen.

 

Pearls of Great Price: The Philadelphia Eleven

The Ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven - July 29, 1974

Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia, PA

 
A Sermon Preached for Pentecost IX

Proper 12 A - Track I

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Laurel, DE

July 30, 2023

  

“Wow!,” he said, this friend of mine, also an Episcopal priest. “You know, sometimes, you can come on really strong.”

He’s known me for about two or three years. He said this like it was a newsflash. I mean, most people who’ve known me for 10 minutes know that, especially when it comes to the Gospel – preaching it or living it – I’m pretty passionate.

And, that’s what we were talking about. Preaching the gospel. And, that’s exactly what I said to him, in response.

“We’re talking about the gospel,” said I. “You do understand, of course, the risks some have taken for that gospel? For living it and preaching it? Right?”

Yesterday, the 29^th of July being the Feast of Mary and Martha of Bethany, was the 49^th Anniversary of the Ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven ,who were eleven women who had been ordained deacons, were ordained priests in God’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church in the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, PA.

Talk about taking a risk for the Gospel!

It was a monumental occasion in the life of the church. The House of Bishops had, in 1972, voted 74-61 in favor of the principle of the ordination of women as priests, but in 1973 General Convention rejected the change. So, it was, “illegal”.

The Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches in my home town, like many churches around the country, flew the flag at half-mast; others flew them upside down – a universal signal of “dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property”.

The event was covered on the nightly news on all three major television networks and the BBC, made the front page of The New York Times, and the cover stories of Time and Ms. Magazines which made it difficult, if not impossible, for the institutional church to ignore.

 

Despite the rhetoric to the contrary, the Ordination of Women to the priesthood was not an event that sprang fully formed from the head of Zeus.

The movement had been building in the Anglican Communion since the ordination of deaconesses in the Anglican Church in London in 1862 and in The Episcopal Church in 1885, but it wasn’t until 1968  - almost 100 years later – that the House of Bishops asked the next Lambeth Conference of Primates and Bishops to consider the matter of women priests.

It is worth noting that it wasn’t until 1967 that a constitutional amendment passed that allowed women elected as deputies to General Convention to be seated with voice and vote. That amendment was ratified in 1970. So, it’s been just 53 years since women have had the right to vote in The Episcopal Church.

A Special General Convention in 1968 allowed women to be lay readers and allowed to minister the chalice – only 55 years ago.

Let that sink in for just a minute.  There are women serving as lay readers and ministers of the chalice today who grew up in the church thinking they would never be allowed to function in these capacities.

We ought not to be surprised by this. In the 70s, women were trivialized. Look, a woman in a hard hat! A woman in a police uniform! Bless their hearts, aren’t they special?

In 1975, I – a married woman with two children, gainfully employed as a public health professional – applied for a credit card and was told I needed the signature of either my husband, father or brother.

It's not anything that women had never experienced. In the first scripture lesson, we hear the story of Rachel and Leah, but we hear it from the perspective of Jacob, who, poor dear, was tricked by Laban, his second cousin, to work 14 years for the woman he loved.

However, Jacob had left home and was with Laban because he had tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright. Some might be inclined to say that being tricked by Laban served him right.

But, I'm asking to look at this from another perspective. Imagine Rachel!

Scripture tells us that when Jacob met Rachel he kissed her and “lifted up his voice, and wept” (Genesis 29:11). This was a rare event in ancient scripture. Men “took” women for their wives – indeed, they “took” many women. David lusted after and took Bathsheba, a woman married to one of his generals.

But when Jacob met Rachel, he loved her so much it brought tears to his eyes.

Imagine what it must have been like for Rachel to have to wait fourteen years, to be obedient to the very tribal custom that gave to the eldest, the first born male the birthright but to the first born girl, the right to be first to be married.

Imagine what it was like for Leah, who got what was her birthright but not only got a husband who stole his brother’s birthright, the truth was that he didn’t love her; instead, he really loved and wanted her sister! Enough to work seven more years for her! Imagine what those first seven years of marriage were like for Leah!

St. Paul reminds us that “all things work together for good for those who love God.”  (Romans 8:26-39)

Eventually, Jacob’s sons would be the fulfillment of God’s covenant with him. The six sons of Leah, the four sons of Jacob’s concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah, Rachel’s son Joseph, who was Jacob’s favorite, and Joseph’s two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, would become the leaders of the 12 Tribes of Israel. God’s covenant with Jacob would not have been possible without the women in his life.

I have hung onto those words of St. Paul’s – that promise that “all things work together for good for those who love God” – when I knew I certainly loved God but things did not seem to be working together for anything good.

I’ve known I wanted to be a priest since I was six years old. My mother says, long before that, I used to set up the playroom with my dolls and my table and chairs and while other kids were having tea parties, I was having communion with vanilla cookies as wafers and purple Kool-Aid as wine.

I remember one of those times in my Roman Catholic youth when the nun who was leading our class asked us all what we wanted to be when we grew up. It was first grade and the boys all said they wanted to be doctors and lawyers and police and fire men. All the girls said they wanted to be wives and mommies – some said they wanted to be secretaries or teachers first and then get married and have babies.

 

Not me. When asked, I said, right out loud, “I want to be a priest.” I mean, I went to mass every morning with my grandmother. I loved it. I knew that’s exactly what God wanted me to do. So, I wasn’t prepared for the laughter that ensued. The kids laughed at me but so did the nun.

“No,” she said, “girls can’t be priests. Girls become nuns.”

 

“No,” I said, “I want to be a priest, not a nun.”  She laughed again, but this time, it wasn’t so funny.

“No,” she said, her voice tinged with anger, “boys are priests, girls are nuns.”

 

I considered it. I did. And then, I shook my head and said softly, to my shoes, perhaps sensing the danger, “I want to be a priest.”

And then, she slapped me. Hard. Right across my face.

And then she hissed, “Boys are priests. Girls are nuns.”

 

It would be years until I was able to give voice to my true sense of vocation.

I was in my late 20s. I had been an Episcopalian for two years. I was vaguely aware that there were women priests in The Episcopal Church but it was 1981 – seven years after Philadelphia and only five years after The Episcopal Church had changed its canons to allow women to be ordained – four since it had actually started ordaining women.

I had not yet seen a woman priest.

 

Until one Sunday morning, after church, we came home, fed the kids lunch and I settled in to read the NY Times. You may remember The Times was like a mini library. The NY Times Sunday Magazine slipped out from the various sections and advertisements and there, on the front cover, was a picture of the Rev Martha Blacklock, sitting on the steps of St. Clements’ Church in the Theater District of NY City, in her jeans and sandals and – a black clergy shirt and collar.

Suddenly, it all came back to me as sharp as that nun’s slap across my face. I felt my eyes fill up with tears, felt them fall down my cheeks, heard myself say in that same hoarse, fearful whisper of my six-year old voice, looking down at my shoes, “I want to be a priest.”

 

The next five years were an amazingly incredible journey. Turns out, that nun’s slap prepared me for the many challenges I would face in the journey to priesthood, but it turns out St. Paul was right.

Not only is it true that “all things work together for good for those who love God,” it was never more true that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

That is the Good News of Christ Jesus as proclaimed by Paul that is worth the risk. It’s like a teeny-tiny mustard seed that grows into one of the most magnificent trees in God’s realm.

It’s like measure of leaven that takes the dreams of a young, six year old girl who was told she couldn’t be what she knew God was calling her to be and expanded them beyond anything she could have asked for or imagined.

 

The Good News of Christ Jesus is like a treasure, hidden in a field and forgotten and then found. Just as Leah and Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah discovered that, that despite the rules of patriarchy that made some legitimate, some more valuable than others, the covenant of God could not have been completed without them.

 

The Good News of Christ Jesus is like a pearl, precious, precious, that formed as an irritant which the ocean pushed through a crack in the shell. Once inside, a pearl grows from a particle of sand into a beautiful internal luminescence that the shell can no longer contain, so it must be pushed out for the whole world to see and treasure.

 

The Good News of Christ Jesus is “like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind;”. One person who objected to the ordination of women said to me, “If we start to ordain women, everything will change. Everyone will think they can become Episcopalian.”

Son of a gun if she wasn’t right! 

Those of us who have been excluded are especially passionate about making certain that absolutely everyone feels welcome to be a member of this old church of ours – warts and all.

We are passionate about casting the net wide and catching fish of every kind into the kind of baptismal water that helps each one become the best of who God created them to be. Different. Unique. Called to seek and serve Jesus in the spark of divinity we see in ourselves and each other.

 

And, when we are allowed to grow and change, so does the church. Because we are – you and I are – the church, The Body of Christ, part of the baptismal water where we are challenged to be the living, growing, being and becoming the unique creature God intends us to be.

And that, my friends, is something to come on strong about, to be passionate about. And, even if it makes some people nervous or uncomfortable, living it is a risk worth taking.

I can’t imagine a pearl of any greater price.

And, I am so very deeply, humbled by and grateful for the gift of the women who are the Philadelphia Eleven who made it possible for me to be the unapologetically feisty, impatient, passionate priest I am today – warts and all.

Amen.

Sermon begins at 22:50

Lost and Found

 

St. Phillip's Episcopal Church

Laurel, Delaware
Pentecost VI - Proper 7 - Year A

June 25, 2023

 

Did you hear what Jesus just said?  “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother,  and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.”

 

Well, after reading that Gospel I can promise you this: Next time I am asked to be a guest preacher anywhere, I am definitely going to read the lessons FIRST before saying YES.

My friend and colleague, Margaret Watson, says, “Sometimes, you just gotta let it lay where Jesus flang it.” And, that’s what I intend to do.

 

This is a sermon about how God surpasses and transforms our expectations, bringing a sense of peace out of turmoil, a sense of belonging out of a sense of abandonment, and a sense of hope out of despair.  In order to understand that, you must listen to and understand – out of all of the many things Jesus says to us in this gospel passage – the following words:

 

“Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

 

First, let’s talk about families. The first lesson this morning is about the abandonment of Hagar, the Egyptian slave of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to conceive a child, Ishmael, the firstborn, because Sarah was unable. It’s the first recorded surrogacy.  

 

It wasn’t just that Abraham abandoned Hagar and his firstborn son Ishmael; it was that he sent them to the wilderness where they would face certain death. All of this because his wife, Sarah, wanted to insure that the son, Isaac, whom she bore by some wonderful miracle became the certain heir of his father’s legacy and did not have to share it with Ishmael.

 

Pretty chilling, isn’t it? But, some may argue that Abraham was just following directions from God, who told him not to worry, assuring him that Ishmael would not only survive but would live to see “a nation” come together under him, because he, too, is Abraham’s offspring.

 

Is this what Jesus was referring? This blind obedience to the voice of God, even if it causes the disruption and destruction of families? Is this what Jesus meant when he said, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”?

 

Certainly, many preachers over the years have interpreted these passages this way. In my work with Hospice patients, I have seen family arguments lead to heartache when a well intentioned person, dying of cancer or heart disease and convinced he or she have been stricken with this illness as divine retribution for one sin or another – sometimes grave, other times trivial like “I once had a cigarette with some friends on the football field” or, “I had sex before I was married” – and the only way they believed they were going to gain entrance beyond the Pearly Gates was to leave their life savings not to their family but to a local pastor or Televangelist.

I have come to believe that the judgments we heap on ourselves – or the judgments we allow others to heap on us – are seventy times seven worse than anything we will experience when we come face to face with God. 70 x 7. I do not believe that the God of unconditional love we see revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is about judgement for infractions of what are human constructs, limited human understanding, of Divine will, in the absence of grace.

 

That is not what Jesus is talking about in this morning’s gospel. Jesus was warning against what it would cost to go up against the Roman Empire in order to be one of his followers. Hear Jesus say, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;”

The possibility of death lies in the direct confrontation of the teachings of Jesus with the ‘powers and principalities’ of the day. It is then that the sword of Jesus will bring us the peace we seek when we act on our convictions, when we find the courage to live in our lives what we say with our lips.

 

In the almost 37 years I’ve been privileged to serve as a priest, I’ve come to know several people who have made difficult decisions based on what they believe that has not killed the body but came very close to killing the soul, the essence of who they are.

 

I’ve known young women who became pregnant and their decision to have an abortion or to keep the baby and either raise them on their own or get married to a man their family didn’t like or thought too young to marry, caused them to be abandoned by their families. It was devastating to those young women who, no matter their choice, were acting on their beliefs.

 

I’ve known lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people who made the world-shifting choice to be who they understood God made them to be and “come out” – to be – their authentic selves. Because of that choice, they were abandoned by their parents and families. UCLA studies indicate that sexual minorities are twice as likely as the general population to experience homelessness in their lifetime, the highest proportion being transgender youth.

And yet, in each and every one of the people I’ve known who have sacrificed everything for their own integrity, their own authenticity, for their dream, find a sense of peace that they have done the right thing, even as their hearts are broken by rejection and abandonment.

Like Hagar and Ishmael, God has provided a well of water in the midst of the desert, and promises a new family and a new home to be built from the broken pieces of abandonment and betrayal.  

That is because no one is ever outside of God’s grace. No one. We can be outside an awareness of God’s grace but the pathway to our salvation lies in our awareness and acceptance of God’s grace, as St. Paul says, “so we, too, (like Christ) might walk in newness of life,” even when it comes in most unexpected ways and from strangers.

A final story: Howard Thurman, was an African American author, philosopher, theologian, mystic, educator, and civil rights leader. In his autobiography, Thurman tells of his lonely years growing up in Daytona Beach, FL, a segregated town, where the nurturing black community and a profound interest in nature provided his deepest solace.

Schools in Daytona Beach went only to the seventh grade, so Thurman's family scraped together the funds to buy a train ticket for him to travel to high school in Jacksonville. It was a dream for which many were willing to sacrifice – a dream of a better life for this grandson of slaves –despite the lies some people wanted them to believe about the limits or deficiencies or worth of the life of a person of color.

 

Buoyed by the emotional and spiritual and financial support of his family, Thurman set out to pursue his dream.  However, at the train station, Thurman was told he had to pay extra to send his baggage. Buying the ticket had left him destitute; he had no more to ship his trunk.

 

Suddenly, all the awful things people said about him and people of his color and station in life began to feel utterly defeated. This must be what it felt like to have someone “kill your soul but not your body”.

Thurman writes: “I sat down on the steps of the railway station and cried my heart out. Presently I opened my eyes and saw before me a large pair of work shoes. My eyes crawled upward until I saw the man’s face. He was a black man, dressed in overalls and a denim cap. As he looked down at me he rolled a cigarette and lit it. Then he said, “Boy, what in hell are you crying about?”  

And I told him.

“If you’re trying to get out of this damn town to get an education, the least I can do is to help you. Come with me,” he said.

He took me around to the agent and asked, “How much does it take to send this boy’s trunk to Jacksonville?”

Then he took out his rawhide money bag and counted the money out. When the agent handed him the receipt, he handed it to me. Then, without a word, he turned and disappeared down the railroad track. I never saw him again.”

 

And, just like that, God gathered up the broken pieces of his dreams and wove of them out of the kind generosity of a stranger in work shoes, overalls and a denim cap, a way in the midst of the wilderness.

God offered him a cool sip of the living water of hope when his mouth was parched with despair.
God cut through the darkness of uncertainty with the sword of possibility and provided a way forward not only for Thurman but for the many students he would teach and inspire, including people like Barbara Jordan, Alice Walker, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Thurman never forgot that act of kindness, and dedicated his autobiography “To the stranger in the railroad station in Daytona Beach who restored my broken dream sixty-five years ago.”

This is a sermon about how God surpasses and transforms our expectations, bringing a sense of peace out of turmoil, a sense of belonging out of a sense of abandonment, and a sense of hope out of despair.  In order to understand that, you must listen to and understand – out of all of the many things Jesus says to us in this gospel passage – the following words:

 

“Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

 

Amen.

EK+

 

 

 

 

"As Jesus was walking along . . ."

 

 St. Mark's Episcopal Church

Pentecost II - Proper V
June 11, 2023

 

“As Jesus was walking along . . . .”

So begins our gospel lesson today, which sounds so casual, so nonchalant, that we cannot possibly be prepared for the incredible things that are about to unfold. This include, the calling of Matthew and what Matthew witnesses as he decides to follow Jesus:  The healing of a young girl so sick she is presumed to be dead and the healing of an elderly woman suffering for twelve years with hemorrhages.

Now, when you stop to think about it, the calling of Matthew to be a disciple was pretty amazing. He, himself, was a Jew who was a tax collector. That meant he worked for the Romans, the occupiers and oppressors, extracting unfair taxes from his fellow Jews and being paid an annual salary what was probably more than his fellow Jews would make in their lifetimes.

 

To say that tax collectors were hated is to make an understatement. Even the Pharisees, who had an unhealthy relationship with Rome, hated the tax collectors and complained to Jesus when they saw him sharing a meal with them “and other sinners”. And here, Jesus calls one of them, a man named Matthew, to be one of his disciples. And, wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles, Matthew follows him. Here’s what Matthew sees:

 

“As Jesus was walking along . . . .” suddenly a leader of the synagogue called to him, begging to come and heal his daughter whom he presumed was already dead. He assures the man that she will live and “as Jesus was walking along” to go and cure her, he is suddenly approached by an elderly woman who touches the hem of his cloak in hopes of being healed.

 

“As Jesus was walking along . . .” he stopped and turned to her and said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.

It’s almost dizzying, isn’t it? So many miracles packed into – let’s see, 1, 2, 3 paragraphs. And all of it happened, “As Jesus was walking along.” It’s all so casual that you might have missed the golden nugget of a lesson Jesus provides in the midst of all of these nonchalant miracles.

 

Jesus says, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”

Woah! Hang on! Let’s hear that again: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  That’s a pretty heavy lesson he’s nonchalantly dropped into the midst of nonchalantly performing three miracles.

 

I confess that, over the years, I’ve probably lost count of the number of times I’ve preached on this gospel passage, but I don’t think I’ve ever been struck as hard by these words. I think I’ve preached on Jesus saying, “Follow me” and the significance of the call to Matthew, the tax collector, and what it means to follow Jesus. I’m sure I’ve preached on the healing of the little girl and no doubt the healing of the elderly woman.

 

Maybe, in the midst of all that’s happening in this Gospel, I’ve missed – or, perhaps more accurately, avoided – the words of Jesus to the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

 

For our Roman Catholic friends as well as those in the Episcopal Church who understand themselves to be Anglo Catholics, today is the Feast of Corpus Christi, also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, celebrating the Real Presence of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

 

In medieval times in many parts of Europe, but especially in England, Corpus Christi was a time for the performance of mystery plays. The plays in York, England were performed on Corpus Christi Day for some 200 years until their suppression in the sixteenth century during the Protestant Reformation.

 

The observance of this day is frown upon by many as a relic of the kind of religion that moves the Eucharist to the status of an idol to be worshiped – too much emphasis on the “sacrifice of the mass” and not enough on the mercy of Jesus. 

 

I’ll leave that question to be debated by theologians as well as basic questions like, How is mercy different from sacrifice? What is required of mercy that is not required of sacrifice? And, what could any of those words, spoken to some ancient religious men mean for us today?

 

No, I’m not going to run to the dictionary and I’m not going to give you an exegesis on the passage. I could do that but this is a sermon meant to inspire more than instruct. I’ll leave all the classroom stuff to a weekly bible study or adult education class where it rightly belongs.

 

No, I want to talk about Ted Lasso. Does anyone in church today know who I’m talking about? For those of you who don’t, here’s the basic plot: American college football coach Ted Lasso  heads to London to manage AFC Richmond, a struggling English Premier League football team, which was part of the divorce settlement of a very wealthy British woman, Rebecca Welton, whose husband left her for a younger woman.

Why would a British divorcee ask an American football coach from Wichita, Kansas to coach a British soccer team – which is nothing like American football – you ask? To destroy it and therefore hurt her ex-husband who loved the team and get her revenge. Pretty dark, right? I’ve known divorces that were darker and messier and meaner. Trust me.

 

Except Ted Lasso is no ordinary coach. He embodies the kind of American can-do spirit some of us have forgotten about, given all the negativity that swirls around us today. He is unphased by his first loss as coach – and, his second. When the press asks him about it he says something that is quite remarkable.

 

Ted Lasso says that if coaching a sports team is only about winning and losing then a team will never win. In Lasso’s mind, a great team is created by helping each player understand who they are and learn to work with their abilities and limitations and by becoming the best person they are, they can be the best team player. For Lasso, it’s all about relationships.

Hold that thought.

So, a few episodes later, Lasso’s star player, Jamie, is sidelined for disciplinary reasons and Ted puts a new player, Daniel Rojas in his place. Daniel proves to be even better than Jaime but during practice, he is felled by an injury.

“It’s the curse of the treatment room,” someone gasps.

 

Turns out, in 1914 the club teased young men to join the club to trick them into enlisting in WWI. Over 400 men enlisted. Very few returned. Those injured from the war who did return ended up in the treatment room. Ever since, it is said, the room and the team have been cursed.

 

Ted is determined to ‘reverse the curse’ and asks the team to meet at midnight in the treatment room and bring with them something of value to them which will be burned. At midnight. In the hopes that Daniel will be healed and return to the team.

 

What follows is nothing less than astonishing. Roy, the team captain begins by bringing the blanket that was given to him as a child when he came to London. It was his “security blanket” which connected him to his family when he felt alone and scared.

 

Another player – Jamie, the bully who was sidelined for disciplinary reasons – told the story about how his mum encouraged him to play soccer and bought him his first pair of football shoes. But his dad, he said, encouraged him to be tough. He said, “Sometimes, I think I focus too much on being tough for my dad and not enough on why I came into football in the first place.” In went the football shoes.

 

And so on, one player after the next, sacrificing what was of value to him, letting go of old memories, and all for the sake of the health and healing of someone else.

 

You all are smart enough to know where I’m headed with this. I couldn’t provide a better illustration of what Jesus means when he says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Because, you see, for Jesus sacrifice is not about the suffering. For Jesus, sacrifice is about what you do – a piece of yourself you give up and contribute – in the service of others. Which is an act of mercy.

Which brings us to the “real presence” we celebrate in “Corpus Christi” – the Body of Christ. We are asked to “make a sacrifice of thanksgiving” and place it on the altar. In so doing, the true, real presence of Jesus comes to us in the ordinary elements of the bread and the wine.

 

It’s not magic but it is mystical. And, admittedly, a profound part of the mystery of our faith.

 

I have no power but I have been given the authority of the church and your trust in me to gather up all the broken pieces of our lives – the petitions we make in the Prayers of the People, said silently in our hearts or a loud, along with the worried lines I see buried deep in your brow, the tears I see welling at the corners of your eyes, the grimaces you make when you sit down or stand up, the whispered worries you give me in the sacristy or at the entrance to the church about an upcoming surgery or doctor’s appointment, the suffering of a relative or friend or neighbor, your grief at the death of someone near and dear to you.

I gather up ALL those broken pieces and lay them at the altar and together, we pray over them, remembering the great sacrifice Jesus made for us and the mercy he had for us. And, we ask Jesus to make of them his Body and Blood and for him to be truly and really present to us. We ask him to nourish us with the Bread of Heaven and the Cup of Salvation.

 

A sacrifice of mercy for our sacrifice of thanksgiving so we may be merciful to others.

“As Jesus was walking along . . .” a lot of stuff happened, according to Matthew. Turns out, lots of stuff happens in the midst of the ordinary, mundane events of our lives, which we can see if we but slow down just a bit and pay it some attention.

 

Jesus takes our pain and our sorrows, our worries and our anxieties, our fretting and concern along with our happiness and joy, our celebrations and commemorations, our triumphs and successes and all those things are changed and transformed and become for us his real and true presence.  And we are changed and transformed and become, for him, the Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ.

It's nothing short of a miracle, I tell you, all sandwiched into a regular, routine, Sunday in something on the church calendar we call “ordinary time,” which begins when we, like Matthew, decide to follow Jesus.

Amen.

EK+

PENTECOST: The Language of Love

St. Martha's Episcopal Church

Bethany Beach, DE

Pentecost - May 28, 2023 

 

I suppose I was about six years old. I don’t remember the exact age but I had started school, I know that. And, I was under the kitchen table in my grandmother’s kitchen. 

 

As I reflect on that time - that particular memory - I think I've come to understand a bit better at least some of what happened at Pentecost.

 
I was hiding there, under that kitchen table. I remember seeing legs – lots of legs. And shoes. Men’s legs. Men’s dress shoes and sneakers.

Women’s legs, every one of them clothed in what my mother always called “silk stockings” even when they were clearly no longer made of silk; but the kind favored by the women in my family still had the distinctive black seam up the back.

And, high heels. No square proper Episcopal heel for the Medeiros women, but not exactly stilettos either. And, they favored the open-toe style worn by their sheroes, Betty Davis and Rita Hayworth.

 

I loved these people – my uncles and aunts and cousins. They were my family. But, in that moment, I was ashamed of them. Because, I was ashamed of me. I was ashamed because they were all talking in a mixture of Portuguese and Azorean.

There was some English spoken by my younger cousins but it was discouraged so my grandmother could understand what was being said. Over in the corner, my uncle’s mother-in-law and his wife, were having a conversation in Syrian and then that was translated, back and forth, between Portuguese and Syrian and some English.

 

I was under the kitchen table not because I was afraid but because I had to be there – it was required, the 11^th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Miss a Family Gathering – but I was ashamed. Deeply, deeply ashamed.

I had just started school and my English was deemed to be insufficient for the comprehension necessary for the level of my classmates.

So, I was placed in a “special needs” class. No, that’s not what we called it back then. Back then, the school system used words like “low functioning” and “retarded” and they had been mandated to provide public education for that demographic of children.

Clearly, no one liked that new mandate. And, it showed.

The school system didn’t know what to do with immigrant kids like me so they placed us in the classroom with the kids who were otherwise functioning at levels on lower par than the rest of the kids.

 

I remember my parents being told about my class placement. I remember my parents being FURIOUS. I remember my parents being ashamed. My mother declared, right then and there, that even though we lived in the apartment above my grandmother, henceforth, furthermore and For Ever, in HER house, we were going to speak only English. No Portuguese speaking allowed.

And, so it was.

I was hiding under the kitchen table because I didn’t want to speak Portuguese, or have my Portuguese translated to Syrian. I didn’t want to talk because I was ashamed to speak. I knew my role was to live out The Great American Dream for my family and I felt deep shame that before it even began, my academic career was an enormous failure.

Remembering that time in my life has led to an insight about our reading this morning from the 20^th chapter of the Gospel of St. John.

We are told that the apostles were hiding in that Upper Room with the door locked for fear of the religious leaders of Israel.

Oh, I’m sure they were afraid. Shocked. Stunned, no doubt, and they also wondered, I’m sure, if what had been done to their Lord might also be done to them. Never mind fear! Oh, the horror! Oh, the sheer terror.

But, I suspect that there was also some shame involved. I have a feeling they suspected that they had failed in their mission. They were supposed to be part of the building of a whole New World, one where the highest standards were love and peace. Instead, they had watched in horror as their leader was led to his death with intense hatred and violence.

 

Could they have done anything to stop it? Why, oh why, had they fallen asleep in The Garden? If they had had a clue, would someone have considered the betrayal of Judas and talked him out of it?  If they had been on guard, might they have seen the soldiers coming?

 

Fear, yes. Of course. But, more. Guilt. Shame.

So, when Jesus says, "Peace" to them, not once but twice, I’m sure he was saying that not directed so much at their fear as their shame.  I think this is why, after he breathed the Holy Spirit on them he said, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

 

And, there it is: Absolution. No guilt. No shame. No fear. Just the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I remember two moments of absolution for my shame and fear and guilt. The first was from my Aunt Jackie, the wife of my Uncle Gilbert who was the youngest and the shortest which led some of his brothers to call him “Runt” but everybody else called him “Shorty”. He was, affectionately, "Uncle Shorty".

 

My Aunt Jackie had been looking for me. She liked talking with me and I with her. She found me interesting. She liked my ideas. She liked the books I was reading, took the trouble to read them too, and took me to the library to get new books. She understood my sense of humor.

Suddenly, the table cloth swooped up and she came crawling in under the kitchen table and sat down next to me.

I said nothing.  Mercifully, neither did she.

Then, she leaned in and said to me in a low voice, “Hey, kiddo. Your mom told me what happened to you in school. Well, you are going to think I’m crazy for saying this but, when you are older – not too old, maybe even before you are my age – you are going to see that this may have been the best thing that ever happened to you.

 

I raised my eyebrows and my mouth opened in disbelief.

“I know, I know,” she said. It doesn’t seem that way right now, but I’m telling you that right now you feel sad and I understand that. But, listen to me.  You haven’t let anyone down. We know you are smart. The teachers at your school are not smart enough to figure out just how smart you are. They will. You wait and see. Because of this, you are going to be kinder and will work harder to be smarter. Your family is very proud of you. I am very proud of you. You’ll see. This will all work out just fine.”

 

And then she put her arm around me while I wept. When I stopped, she got up and left and returned with a plate full of all my favorite foods. She and I sat under the kitchen table in my grandmother’s house and ate all of her Portuguese delicacies and spoke only English.

I felt forgiven and understood and ready to face school on Monday.

 

And, that’s when I got my second absolution.


My teacher’s name was Miss Kelleher. I can still see her kind face and sparkling eyes in front of me. She had silver-gray hair which she wore in the style of Mrs. Mamie Eisenhower. She always wore silky shirts with a loose bow that fell on her chest.

 

She pulled me aside and said, “Listen, I know you feel bad for being in here, but I’m going to help you. And, you are going to help me to help these kids. So, I’m going to work with you at every break and, if you want, after school. By the end of this quarter, you’ll be back in your regular class. I promise you. Until then, you will help me with some of these kids who need extra attention. Is that a deal?”

Oh, boy, was it ever!

 

Miss Kelleher was absolutely right. I did pick up correct English and comprehension very quickly and I was ready, actually, by mid-quarter to go to the regular classroom. But, beside English I had learned a few other languages and I wanted more time to practice.

The kids I worked with were great teachers. They taught me the language of compassion. They taught me the language of kindness. Thing of it is, while there were a few words to the language of kindness and compassion, none were really required. The fewer the better, in fact. Better a squeeze of the hand, a pat on the shoulder, a warm, authentic smile.

As I worked with kids who were compromised intellectually and/or physically, I also learned the language of patience. I’ve never really mastered that one, though. I’m much more patient with others than I am with myself, but that’s another story for another time.

My Pentecost moment, like that of the apostles, came when I was able to feel forgiveness, not just from others, but able to forgive myself for all my shortcomings and perceived failures.


That moment of Pentecost has come to revisit me and that has inspired other moments of forgiveness and unity as well as compassion and kindness, understanding and peace.

The history of the world, like the history of the church, is filled with stories of people who refuse to listen to strange tongues, Christians who refuse to learn from different ways of being.

Pentecost offers us a different way, where the Spirit affirms our differences, speaking in ways that each of us can understand—and yet drawing us together, around the same table, into communion.

That’s how the day of Pentecost ends, with all these strangers eating together. “So those who welcomed [the] message were baptized, [and] they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer” (Acts 2:41-42); “they broke bread from home to home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts” (Acts 2:46).

The miracle of communication that happened on Pentecost birthed a miracle of communion, to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit and hope for the miracle of knowing God in a meal, in each other – just as I knew God in my Aunt Jackie bringing me a plate of my favorite food for our own picnic under my grandmother’s table, and the way Miss Kelleher helped me to learn English during snack break at the lunch table in first grade.

Communion is an invitation to come together around a table and to let Jesus stretch us into relationships with one another, with people who are the same and different, as we struggle to understand God, as we struggle to understand each other.

In Luke’s reporting of Pentecost, red tongues of flame landed on everyone’s head and although different languages were spoken, everyone understood. That’s because the language of God is the language taught to us by Jesus and that language is the language of love.

The love of God, in the words of the poet Angi Sullens, which “comes to collect your failures, one by one, making honey from the bitter/making music in the void / making wings where there were wounds.”

I hope you commit to learning a new language this Pentecost – the language of the Love of God which can cross any barrier of culture, dissolve any wall built by fear, open any door locked by shame, melt any heart frozen by guilt, and lead us to that peace of God which surpasses all human understanding.   

Amen.