Good Sunday Morning, good people of the universe. The thunder and rain and lightning last night and this morning are not Hurricane Lee which is still south of us. Apparently, this is a storm coming from the West, over the mountains. We'll just call this "John the Baptist Weather," preparing the way for "Lee the Hurricane."

I've been watching the birds at the bird feeder outside our sunroom windows. They are picking through the seed which is soaked with rain. You can almost hear them muttering about how they really prefer their seed dry and not soggy.

But, they still cluster and pick, even if they occasionally complain and mutter. They seem to be there more for the company than the seed.

Or, perhaps that's my projection.

I've been reading a lot, here and there, about "The Epidemic of Loneliness" that is affecting this country as well as many so-called civilized countries around the world.

Of course, social media is being blamed for everything. Of course. It is ironic that in an age when communication - personal, national, international, global - is the fastest it's ever been in history that there should be an epidemic of loneliness.

One fact struck me hard: A lie can circulate three times around the globe before the truth can be told.

Just let that sink in for a red-hot internet second in real-time.

I know that it is not unusual for people to mark the days of their lives by a catastrophe.

"Well, the town hasn't been the same since Hurricane Rita."

"We used to have lots of lovely novelty shops downtown, and cafes and boutique shops but all of that changed after the Recession." (Or, the factory left. Or, the mine closed. Or, the economy tanked. Or . . . . .)

I don't think this country has been the same since 9/11. I'm keenly aware of that anniversary tomorrow. Something besides buildings was destroyed. Naivete or a sort of innocence about This American Life. Trust, I think, went with it.

And, once again, I really don't want to talk about it.

And, maybe I should.

I'm remembering just now one trip, years ago, to Ghana. We were in a village way up in the north, in Tamale, as I recall. We visited a village of women who were celebrating and wanting to share with us their joy because a church in Great Britain had sent them the money to be able to put a pump into their well.

Now, they said, we no longer have to pull up water. Now, look! See? We can just pull down on this pump and - Oh joy, we've seen it a hundred times now and we can still hardly believe it - Look! The water flows so easily into our containers!

Never mind that those were 20 and 30-gallon containers which they then lifted up and put on their heads to carry bac on the 1 mile walk back to the village.

One of the women leaned into me and asked, "Do you have such a marvel in your village?"

"No," I said, trying to contain the quiet laugh that gave rise spontaneously at the thought. "No, you see, we have faucets and sinks that bring the water directly into our homes."

She gasped at the wonder of such a thing. "Yes," I said, "and that water can be hot or cold. We have separate faucets for each."

She shook her head in amazement. "You mean, the water is right there, in your home? You do not have to carry it or bring it back to your village?"

"Yes," I said, "that's exactly what I mean."

And then, a sudden sadness overtook her face. She looked at me with great pity and sorrow. "What is it?" I asked. She put her hand gently on my arm as if to express her sadness and sympathy for me.

"Oh," she said, "if the women do not go to the village well to get your water, how do you tell your stories?"

Ah yes. One of the great ironies of our time. The rich American woman was so poor all she had was money.

The great irony of our time is that technology has made it possible that we've never been better able to talk with each other. Unfortunately, I think we talk TO each other - indeed, many times, we talk AT each other - and not WITH each other.

I don't know if we are really able to have conversations of any substance via email or on social media or X (formerly known as Twitter). There's something about incarnational conversation that is powerful because, I think, we're more apt to share our stories and when we share our stories, something transformational happens.

In this morning's Gospel, we hear Jesus give instructions to his disciples about how they are to handle conflict in community, after which he reminds them, "...whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

There are consequences. There are always consequences. Side effects. Collateral Damage.

See also: Epidemic of Loneliness.

I don't know what would be a "metaphorical village well" where we can go and tell our stories. Maybe that's the church? It could be, again, if the institutional church were to realize how much trust has been eroded and work to restore that again.

Well, anyway, that's where I'm headed. To church. I'm delighted to be with the people of St. Philip's, Laurel, DE this morning. I am going to talk to them a bit about this Epidemic of Loneliness and introduce an idea that started in England.

It's called a "chatty bench" which are placed around towns to encourage spontaneous conversations. The church has just created a lovely "Prayer Cove" over at Old Christ Church, the pre-revolutionary war church on the other side of town where folks can go and be alone and in prayer.

I'm wondering if they might consider Newton's Third Law of Dynamics: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. What if, I wonder, the church put up a "chatty bench" outside the church or the library or the town hall as a place to encourage spontaneous conversations.

Just a little something with the name and phone number of the church and, perhaps, this: "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Maybe, if we created places where people could share their stories, well, who knows what might happen?

Off I go, then, to wonder and ponder and pray and, perhaps, share a story or two, call that a sermon, and hope for the best.

Make it a great day everyone.

Bom dia.

Labor Day: A FB Reflection

Good Monday morning, good people of the last day of the long Labor Day weekend.

Oddly enough, many people will spend most of this day in their car, driving for miles on long stretches of asphalt when they're not sitting for long minutes in heavy traffic on the hot asphalt with thousands of other people who just want to get home after two glorious days at the beach.

Some people call this a 'holiday'.

We are actually celebrating the importance of work and the dignity of workers.

The eight-hour work week began as a socialist dream (shhh . . . don't tell that to some of my 'summer neighbors' with their pontoon boats loaded with coolers of food and beer kegs they claim they can't afford because of "the economy", flying flags that say, "Let's Go Brandon" and "F**K Biden" and - no surprise - "Trump 2024".)

Welsh textile mill owner and social reformer Robert Owen is credited as the first person to articulate the 8-hour work day, by calling for “eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, and eight hours rest” for workers in 1817.

That never really took in the UK but on 19 May 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant issued a National Eight-Hour Law Proclamation.

The origins of Labor Day date back to the late 19th century, when activists first sought to establish a day that would pay tribute to workers. The first U.S. Labor Day celebration took place in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882.

Labor Day has been a national holiday in the United States since 1894. To many, it may signify picnics, parades, a day off from work, or the end of summer and the beginning of fall.

As the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants who were labor union organizers, I grew up with a different understanding of Labor Day which was infused with a sense of the dignity and value of work.

My grandmother instilled it in us from the time we were very young. You never - ever - wanted to be like some of the kids you went to school with who sat around their house and got bored - or (gasp), had the temerity to admit boredom.

And if, by chance, your grandmother should see you and be momentarily concerned that you were not well and ask, "What's wrong, flower?" and you should lose your damn mind and sigh and say, right out loud, "There's nothing to do" . . . .

. . . . . . . WELLLLL . . . .

I still regret the day I said that, so many decades ago.

"Nothing to do?!?!?" she'd say, "NOTHING TO DO?!?!?!?!?" she'd repeat, raising her voice to an ominous tone. "Oh, I think we can find SOMETHING for YOU to DO . . . ."

And, just like that, I'd find myself sitting under the dining room table with a bottle of Murphey's Oil Soap and a soft cloth, polishing in between the "toes" of the claw of whatever creature it was whose carved wooden foot held up the table.

While I was down there, my grandmother would be sitting above me at the table, getting a bag of peas ready for me to shell once I finished that task, and then getting out the silver for me to polish after that, all the while extolling the virtues of work and repeating the "8-8-8" structure of the 24 hours God has given us in the day to work and play and rest.

She said that work brought purpose to life but so did play. To her, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," was tantamount to Gospel truth. And "rest" was equally important but that was different from "play".

To her, "Go out and play" was a holy command, meant to maintain the sacred order of life.

It was her "holy trinity" of the gift of life.

But it was the dignity of work that my grandmother stressed. I'm sure she was repeating some of the sermons she heard at her beloved Roman Catholic Church which was very involved in helping immigrants and in supporting the labor union movement, especially during work strikes.

For my grandmother, the dignity of work meant that hard work should pay off for everyone, no matter who you are or what kind of work you do. To her, it was wonderful - grand, in fact - if you were a doctor or a teacher. But that didn't give you any greater value as a human being than a factory or mill worker.

Everyone has value as a child of God. Everyone has a job to do as a child of God. The work of every child of God was valued and ought to be rewarded. Work gave everyone dignity because you were doing your part to further the Realm of God.

So, even though I came by my chores as a result of whining and sniveling and being a brat, there was always a reward at the end.

We'd make cookies or a pie together and then enjoy the fruits of our labor. Or, she'd slip a shiny nickel into my pocket and pat my head. And, she'd always say, "Thank you." That was more important to me than anything else. It put the "dignity" in the phrase "dignity of work".

As I grew older, I learned that "dignity of work" in the workplace means having zero tolerance for harassment, victimization, and discrimination. Being considerate towards colleagues, clients, and non-workers. Celebrating workplace diversity and differences.

So yes, it's important to have this Labor Day Weekend as the sort of last hurrah before it's back to school (which, in some places, happened weeks ago), and the beginning of the Fall Season.

It's more important, I think, to reflect on the work we do and why we do it and the conditions under which we work and how we can improve the quality of our lives by respecting and valuing the work that we do and the person doing the work.

I think those of us who are in leadership or management positions are especially called to this reflection. How is it that the way we treat those who work at our direction is reflective of the worth and value and dignity of being human?

So, let's get to it, shall we? Today is a beautiful gift of a day and it would be a shame not to open it up and see what's inside.

Make it a great day, everyone.

Bom dia.

September Morn: FB Reflection

 

Good Sunday morning, good people of this lovely September morn. Didn't Neil Diamond sing a song with that title? "We danced until the night became a brand new day" is the line dancing around in my brain.

Not a whole lot of time to write down my reflections this morning. The pups were awake at ten. minutes. to. five. am. I'm not sure why. They just were. And so were we.

My hands smell of basil. And, parsley. And, pine nuts. And, Romano cheese. A friend has a very generous basil plant that has been giving us lots of bounty. I've made three batches of pesto and I'm about to make what I think will be my last for the freezer.

There's something wonderful about having the smell of food on your hands - especially things that come out of the earth like basil and parsley.

Yes, of course, it reminds me of my youth. My grandparents and my father seemed to always have their hands in the good earth.

For the better part of the year - except Winter - my father always seemed to have at least a stubborn small amount of dirt under his fingernails. It was as if it clung to him as fiercely as he clung to it.

If I close my eyes and let the smell of basil carry me, I can also smell the way the aroma of new potatoes fills the air. And, the distinctive smell of carrots and beets when you pull them up from their cradle in the earth.

These "memory odors" have carried me back this morning to a time when the world seemed so much out of my grasp of understanding and yet it seems so much simpler to me now, that I look back on it.

I was filled with questions about everything then. “Why” was, hands down, my favorite word. Or, at least, the one I spoke most often. I asked lots of questions that didn't have an answer - or, at least, not an easy one.

I still don't know why vegetables and herbs have their own distinctive smell but that's not become as important to me as that they do, and that those odors are strong enough to carry me back to happy memories that are still teaching me things I didn't think I needed to know.

Simple truths. Simple truths that get unnecessarily complicated by life's experiences and asking too many 'Why's' that don't have an answer because, if you are blessed to live long enough, you come to understand that not everything in life has an answer.

Furthermore, you're not entitled to an answer to everything. It's important to stay alert and aware and curious. Why? Because it opens you to appreciate the mysteries in life.

Truth be told, it was the smell of basil and parsley on my hands that carried me to an insight about the pericope from St. Paul's letter to the ancient church in Rome which is part of today's lectionary reading (Romans 12:9-21)

There are simple truths there: "Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers."

One of my colleagues suggested that this passage should be copied out and printed at the entrance to the church.

Simple truths. Old as dirt. Fragrant as basil and parsley. Maybe we should inhale them more often. The world might be a better place if we did.

That's it for today. I'm off to the House of the Lord to gather up the crumbs and broken bits from under the altars of my life and bring them to be blessed and and transformed and used for nourishment.

I hope you make of today the best of all the best that is being offered to you.

If nothing else, take a tip from Mr Diamond and “dance until the night becomes a brand new day.”

Bom dia.

Labor Day Weekend FB Musing: Take up your cross

Good Saturday morning, good people of Labor Day Weekend. It's a fairly glorious morning here on the Delmarva Peninsula. Almost picture-perfect weather for the first weekend in September.

The AC setting is on OFF for the first time in months - has been since last evening. It's just reached 60 degrees, having plummeted to the low 50s last night. All the windows are open. And, the sliding glass doors.

I had forgotten what it was like to fall asleep smelling the ocean and hearing the sounds of the marsh. It was magical. As they say in Ghana, I slept "like a foolish man."

Speaking of magic and foolish men, I've been thinking about the Gospel for tomorrow. It's from Matthew 16:21-28 and it's the follow-up conversation between Jesus and The Rock.

Jesus starts to lay out for the disciples what's about to happen - the betrayal, the trial, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. Peter, bless his heart, says he doesn't want Jesus to suffer.

That's when Jesus gets what we can assume is a bit miffed at Peter. "Get behind me Satan," are not exactly words of gentle admonishment. But then, he says something that contains words that still haunt me from my Roman Catholic youth.

"Take up your cross."

When the priests and nuns of my youth said that, it was hard to miss the Sado-masochistic overtones in their words. We would often be quoted the words from St. Paul: "Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

I don't think any adult has any right to repeat those words to children - especially when they were used to justify Father gathering all the children into the auditorium to call up those who had gotten a C or below to shame them into improving their grades for the next semester.

It takes a great deal of emotional and spiritual maturity to understand the words and their context to understand the deeper meaning of trying to make meaning out of suffering.

So, yeah, I totally get Peter's reaction. “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” It ought never to have happened to anyone. But, it does. Even today.

Well, there are some places in the world where actual, brutal crucifixion still happens. We don't hear about it but that doesn't mean that people are - even as I type this - being tortured to death in horrid, obscene methods that make crucifixion look like a mercy and a kindness.

Then, there are people in this country who are being murdered for the color of their skin. A 21-year-old pregnant Black woman, mother of two, accused of shoplifting at a supermarket, was shot dead in her car by police in Ohio. (Say her name: Ta'Kiya Young.) The policeman who shot her is on administrative leave. (Seriously!?!?!?!?)

Women are being denied bodily autonomy and, in some states, being denied the opportunity to cross state lines in order to obtain the medical and surgical health care they need. Some young women who are deputies to the General Convention next year in Louisville, KY are concerned that if they are pregnant and suffer a miscarriage they could be jailed for getting the medical treatment they need.

Oh, and then there's the President of the House of Deputies who brought Title IV charges against a retired bishop who made sexually inappropriate advances to her, only to be surprised to learn that the "process" that promises "reconciliation" and not "justice" did just that. It made "nice" and did not provide her the justice she sought. (Some of us have been complaining loudly about this for years.)

There are also immigrants who are fleeing unimaginable suffering in their own countries who are being placed in busses with other immigrants and transported thousands of miles, far from any relative here in this country, by cruel politicians who want to make a political point.

And then, there's the personal, private suffering in our own lives. The emotional torture of betrayal and loss, anxiety and depression. Marriages broken. Alcoholism. Drug addiction. Psychiatric disorders. The almost unimaginable parental pain of the innocuous-sounding "adolescent rebellion," which can happen even when the adult child has supposedly matured.

I recently heard a psychiatrist (MD) estimate that on any given Sunday morning, at least - AT LEAST - one-quarter of the congregation is on some sort of anti-depressant and/or mood-elevating medication. Clergy are not included in that number but are most assuredly part of the statistic.

What comfort might we find in the words of Jesus to "Take up your cross and follow me"?

Damn little, is my answer. Trying to apply the specific words of Jesus, said to specific apostles at a specific moment in his ancient earthly journey is not always applicable to those of us who try to follow Jesus today.

It takes years of lived experience, of living through emotional and spiritual and even physical disasters, to begin to understand the concept of suffering, loss, and resurrection.

It's like a toddler trying to understand the game of "Peek-a-boo." Or, the preschool child trying to understand that at the end of the day, their parents will, in fact, return to come to get them and take them home and the pattern will repeat itself.

It's that moment when we all experience the magic of some sort inherent and waiting to be discovered in life.

Something that happens that defies logic, like coming upon a spider's web woven across two rocks in the forest, its intricacies heightened by the glistening morning dew.

The feeling in the heart of a grandparent that moment you realize that your heart has expanded, once again, to love each one and all your children and yet another grandchild, just as much as the moment you fell in love with the first newborn you held in your arms just moments after their miraculous birth.

The insight you get when you arrive at that moment in time - unannounced and unexpected (having long ago given up all hope, despite your endurance and character) - when you come face to face with a moment you thought would never arrive and the truth of MLK's words becomes clear: That the moral arc of the universe is long but it always, in fact, bends toward justice.

Those moments are precious and magical and you understand things with the logic which can only be found at the place where the logic of the heart crosses the reason of the mind.

And you learn that THAT is the cross you need to take up. That cross at the place which Martin Smith called "the crucifyingly obscure boundaries of our faith."

It's a long journey. For most of us, it's longer than the one from Galilee to Jerusalem. Then again, we're not Jesus. Or, for that matter, Peter or any of the other disciples. We just do the best we can with the little bit of stardust we have.

I hope you are able to enjoy today. I hope the current climate conditions where you are allow you to open a few windows breathe in the fresh air and listen for sounds you haven't heard for a while.

What can happen after that is really magical.

Bom dia!

 

Facebook Reflection: Why I go to church

Good Sunday morning, good people of the cosmos. It's a perfectly lovely morning in August, here on the Delmarva Peninsula. Temperatures are expected to stay in the seventies and there's a very light breeze coming from the NNE. Humidity, however, is 86% so a fan may be necessary.

We are getting ready for church this morning and I find my heart heavy. Actually, it's not so much my heart being heavy as my head being full.

There's a lot going on, you know? In the world. In the lives of some of my friends. In my life. Not a lot of it makes sense.

Sometimes, you know, you just can't think your way out of or even through things.

Sometimes, you just have to let stuff stew. Or simmer. Or marinate. Or, cool off. Before you taste a bit more, to see if you need to add something or if it just needs time before you can deal with it. Let the cake cool before you try to frost it.

That's when church can become important. It doesn't really matter if the choir is stellar or the preacher is particularly good (although that’s always lovely).

Sometimes, it's just being able to sit in the same holy space with people you know are also trying to sort stuff out, work stuff through, put stuff together.

You don't even really need to know the particulars of their story. You just see it in their faces. The way their shoulders slump. The something-something in their gait as they walk up to the communion rail and the way they walk back, hands together, head down.

Deep in the middle of the middle of The Deep.

Does misery love company? Perhaps. But, I don't think that's what's going on here.

I think The Holy is often found in a room filled with people who are broken and trying to make themselves whole again.

That's nothing the priest or the preacher or the choir director or choir has any control over. The only thing that makes that possible is for there to be an invisible but very clear sign at the entrance to the church and in every particle of every molecule of air in the "sanctuary" - the safe place" - that says, simply, "Come."

So, I'm off to go to a place where I know that's possible. It isn't always so every week. Some weeks, the message is stronger and clearer than others. You know, because we're human and nothing is ever perfect, except being perfectly human.

It's the possibility - nay, the probability- of unconditional welcome that's important.

So, I'm going to take a few minutes to gather up all the crumbs from under the little altars that are scattered everywhere in my life. I need to put them all together and bring them to the altar at my church where they can be gathered together with the other crumbs from under other altars.

And, through some mystery too deep for me to fathom, out of these many crumbs, gathered from many directions and wildly different sources, there will be enough to feed the souls of all who are there, with enough left over to be taken to those who are unable to be with us.

An ancient Palestinian Rabbi from Galilee has promised that it would be so.

I've learned over the years that the one promise you can always count on is one that comes from love that is incarnational.

So, off I go to be part of that. I hope the same can be true for you, too.

Bom dia!

 

Facebook Reflection: Spiritual Revival

 

Good Saturday morning, good people of the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer (I can hear Nat King Cole's voice as I write those words, can't you?).

I have chosen to make this a lazy day, which will be a bit of a challenge since today is "chore day" and I've got dusting and vacuuming to do, and, because I was away for three days, I've got more than my usual laundry.

It's okay. I've had one serving of the best cup of coffee in the whole world and I'm feeling brave and bold and up for the challenge. By the time I've had my second cup, I may actually find the courage to sit back down again and tune into MSNBC and watch the amazing mind of Ali Velshi at work.

I have been thinking about the question Jesus asks in the lectionary lesson for tomorrow. "Who do YOU say I am?" It's a critically important question for any religious leader to ask of their followers.

Actually, it's an important question for any leader to ask. I am just now remembering one of my favorite sayings of community organizer, Saul Alinsky, who said: "A leader without a following is just a person out for a walk."

A dear friend sent me a quote from someone named Alexander Den Heijur, "When I talk to managers I get the feeling that they are important. When I talk to leaders, I get the feeling that I am important."

I think that's a pretty good guess as to how a leader actually gets a following.

Who do YOU say that I am? I think everyone - but especially leaders - needs to ask another, similar question before they ask that one of others.

Everyone needs to ask themselves, "Who am I?" Not "Who do I think I am?" Not, "Who do I want to be?" The first question is to make a fierce, searing, self-inventory and ask, "Who am I?"

Those other questions will be part of the journey that takes you through the parts of yourself you keep in the shadows of the wilderness and deserts of your life and into the challenges and despair of the fires of refinement before you are able to find your "true self".

As I've been struggling with the question of Jesus, I've also been struggling with the image of The Mug Shot and all that it means, for our present reality as well as its historical significance at this moment in our common lives as a nation.

Let me just say this before I continue: There is no doubt that Donald John Trump knows exactly who he is. That's part of his power. He is crystal clear about his identity and he makes no excuses for who he is.

His rallies serve the purpose of opportunities for his followers to tell him who they say he is and he makes the necessary, minor adjustments, turning the various rhetorical control knobs up or down accordingly.

Whatever else you might say about The Former Guy, he is simply quite a brilliant leader. I wouldn't follow him to the Candy Store but that's because he's so clear about who he is that he makes the decision easy.

Here's what I do want to say: Because of all of this, I think there is every indication that this nation is in desperate need of a spiritual revival.

I'm not just talking about the rise of romanticism after the Civil War and again after the Vietnam War which influenced political ideology, inviting engagement with the cause of the poor and oppressed and with ideals of social emancipation and progress.

I'm talking about a deep, profound, radical examination and transformation of the Spirit of this country. The anger that is palpable and increasingly dangerous on the Right is not unmet by the rising anxiety and anger on the Left.

I'm probably troubled most by my own sense of satisfaction with the accountability inherent in the spectacle of the four indictments which is fine and good, but I am startled when it tips so easily into the vicarious enjoyment of the frenzied delight and triumphant jubilation that is so obvious all over the Left side of Social Media.

It's not that the triumphant jubilation is wrong; it's that it is done at the expense of those on the Right. They may well be, as Hillary said, "The Deplorables" but that is hardly a charitable perspective of our fellow Americans.

I don't know what good can come - how we can achieve 'e pluribus unam," (out of many, one) - when we create political and demographic caste systems. Then, we're no better than those on the Right who have a burning hatred for "The Elites."

Alinsky wrote, "First rule of change is controversy. You can't get away from it for the simple reason all issues are controversial. Change means movement, and movement means friction, and friction means heat, and heat means controversy."

We're certainly at a point, in this country, where controversy has generated a great deal of friction and friction has created heat. Many people are angry. Some are angry that they are angry all the time.

We throw political stones at each other: Immigration. Inflation. The economy. Crime. Corruption. Gun Control. Climate Change. No one does anything about these issues to bring about change. We just lob them at each other and wonder why we're hurt and angry all the time.

See also: The need for a spiritual revival. And, I think it begins with a fierce, searing inventory of our identity. I think we all need to ask ourselves, "Who do I say I am?" As individuals. As Americans. As people of whatever faith we profess.

This ought to be followed by "Who do we say we are?" As a nation. As Americans. As people of whatever political affiliation and ideology we claim.

As people who profess to believe in the founding principles of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

I don't know how to get there except by following the lead of The Spirit, through the valley of the shadow of death and into the Shining City on the Hill.

It is this spirituality that Martin Luther King, Jr. tapped into 60 years ago today in his brilliant speech at the March on Washington.

"Tell them about the dream, Martin" Mahalia Jackson urged him. "Tell them about the dream." And, he did.

At the end of laying out the elements and components of his dream for this land that he loved, he said,

“When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

That's the kind of spiritual revival this nation is desperate for.

At least, that's the way it looks to me this Saturday morning in August when I have chosen to make this a lazy day.

Not sure I'm succeeding but, well, as Albin sang in La Cage aux Folles, "I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses."

Off I go then, to have a second cup of the best cup of coffee in the whole world and then maybe put a load of laundry into the washer. I'll save chasing the dust bunnies for the afternoon.

I hope you make it a great day today, whether it's wildly productive or amazingly refreshing. As you go through your day, perhaps you, yourself can reflect on these two questions: "Who do I say I am. " And, "Who do other say I am."

I'm thinking, at the very least, you'll hear tomorrow's gospel in a deeper, more relevant way.

Bom dia!

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

Barden & Johnson: A Tribute

 

It wasn’t until I got to the graveside that I finally cried.

Lois has been gone for almost 3 years but I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye because of COVID. Sheri has been gone for a little more than a month but none of it seemed real because I hadn’t seen her since before COVID.

Oh, we had talked on the phone. Exchanged a few jokes on email. But, I hadn’t seen her in 3 years. I think I was pretty clear that she was now gone “home” as she often cried to me on the phone (“I just want to go home, Elizabeth, but Jesus is making me wait.”) but something in my heart and my mind and my soul hadn’t quite registered the reality enough for me to cry.

I clearly remember our first meeting. It was the winter of 1977. Ms. Conroy and I had “run away from home” in December of 1976, carefully mapping out an 8-hour ride from where we lived to anywhere, in either of the four directions. We figured an 8-hour ride would be one that would not only prevent family from “just dropping by” but also allow us time to (ahem) “straighten up the house”.

We decided on Bar Harbor, Maine – the end of the world – near the ocean we loved and the mountains that offered us inspiration. In February, my then-husband came up to have a weekend visit with the children. He picked them up in the morning and, just around the time we were starting to get worried about their return, called from the home of my parents to say that he had the children, was moving in with my parents, and they would work together to make certain that I would never see them again.

I can’t even begin to describe that moment or the next few days. Panic is a good place to begin. Devastation is also a good word. Crippling, immobilizing pain and despair born of a sense of isolation and a nagging sense of carefully-taught Catholic guilt that we somehow deserved this.

When I was able to gather my wits about me, I happened to have a copy of Ms. Magazine and, in the back ‘classified’ section, saw a small advert for an organization called DOB ("Daughters of Bilitis") and a PO Box. I immediately handwrote a letter and, by the end of the week, got a phone call from Sheri who said, “Come to Boston. You’ll stay with us. We’ll find you a lawyer. Hang in there. Help is on the way.”

We made plans to travel the next weekend, flying into Logan from Hancock County Bar Harbor Airport. We picked up some fresh Maine lobster on the way as a gift of gratitude. I still remember Sheri saying loudly (she only had 3 volume settings for her voice and loud meant 11) in her T H I C K Bawston accent, “Oh for Gawd’s sake! You can’t be spending your money on lobstah! What are you, Rockafellahs? You’re going to need it for your lawyer.”

Lois was away on assignment – in those days she worked as a Producer for the WGBH Public TV station program for children called “Zoom” – so it would be a weekend with this short, fierce, unapologetically Irish dyke, the first lesbian we ever met face to face and shook hands with, in her home in the South End of Boston which was about 10 years away from gentrification.

One of the last conversations I had with Lois was her laughing at Sheri’s description of us to her on the phone that night. “Oh, Loey,” she reportedly said, “these two kids are so scared I just want to feed them and hug them for a while until they calm down enough to make sense to the lawyer they are going to need. They have no idea how hard this is going to be.”

And, it was. Hard. Very hard. We were one of the first open lesbian custody cases in Bristol County Massachusetts. Not that we sought that distinction. It just was what it was. Our lawyer, Rick Rubino, had represented other lesbian women in custody court cases but not in Bristol County and not with the results anyone hoped for.

Lois and Sheri were there, every step of the way. They called every other day. They helped us budget money for the expenses. They gave us lodging every time we came to Boston. They introduced us to other lesbian women who shared their stories and their courage and their hope and their wisdom.

And, they provided the healing gift of laughter. Oh, my goodness! Did we laugh!?! And, laugh! There, in their South End home which had the phone wires tapped by the FBI for “subversive, deviant activity” (thank you Herbert Hoover).

That’s when I learned the Sheri Barden Philosophy On Life: When faced with the unthinkably illogical, unbearable, and evil absurdities of prejudice and oppression, laugh right in its face.

We. Would. Not. Have. Made. It. Through. Without. Them.

I told much of this story as part of my reflections at their Memorial Service, which began with a clip of the 10-year reunion of the documentary “Gen Silent” in which they are one of the “senior couples” interviewed. The documentary chronicles this first generation to come out of the closet publicly, those whose work of activism laid the foundation for the freedoms we enjoy today who were now anxious and, often, flat-out afraid about how they would be treated in a Senior Living Center or Extended Care Facility.

I’ve included that clip in the first comment. It’s classic Barden and Johnson, in their 80s and still sharp as a tack in intellect and wit and, especially with Sheri, sarcasm – which is a frequently-employed survival technique of early LGBTQ activists. Drag queens have a particularly biting, sharp-tongued version of sarcasm. I wish it weren’t necessary but for some of us, it is. It does seem to help ease the sting of prejudice for daring to be who you are.

I did find myself choking up a bit when I finished my reflection by thanking them for being “family” for Barden & Johnson in their final years. Barden always called that facility, “Gawd’s waiting room.” Many of them nodded in understanding. Not a bad place to hang out for your final years, really.

One quick note that I told them. They knew Sheri as Claire. And, that was her birth name. Sheri was her “gay name” – a custom many people used in the 50s as a form of protection for their jobs and homes and, for some, their marriage. Many of their contemporaries knew that some called her Sheri and others called her Claire but even they had no idea of the kind of prejudice they lived through. They were shocked.

I can hear the Millennials sighing, “Okay, Boomer.” Sure, okay. Just you wait till you try to explain tablets and electric cars and SCOTUS Judges Alito, Scalia, Thomas, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch to the generations that come after you. You can roll your eyes now. It’s okay. I did the same with my parents and aunts and uncles and their friends. Just you wait.

No, it wasn’t until I got to the graveside and saw their names engraved on the gravestone that I finally began to cry.

I felt the earth shift under my feet just ever so slightly. Then, an odd sensation found its way up my spine, rested a bit on my shoulders, and then up my neck. Suddenly, my eyes began to burn and sting, my mouth dropped open, and I heard a sound something like a wail and a moan, and realized that it was coming from me.

I gave into it and found myself stooping over their gravesite in great paroxysms of grief and tears. Our friend, Penelope, who had driven me there, gave me space, waiting nearby on a bench overlooking the Mary Baker Eddy Mausoleum and Pond.

I pressed my face to the cold granite marker as tears fell freely and kissed their names, saying the only word that would come to my lips. I said it over and over. I said it as reality. I said it as a prayer. I chanted it as an antiphon to an ancient psalm. I said it from my heart and the deepest parts of my soul. I said it with every cell in my body that ever was, is now, or will ever be.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I am so grateful. Deeply. Richly. Blessed.

I am filled, even as I write this, awash with gratitude and in awe that God saw fit – found us worthy – to send them to us when we needed them most.

Sheri and Lois were together 57 years. Now they are together forever.

I am looking forward to seeing them again “in that great by and by”. I can’t wait to introduce my parents to Barden and Johnson – if they haven’t already sought each other out. I am who I am today, in great part, because of them.

I want to chant my antiphons of gratitude. I want to shout my Alleluia’s to the Love that is at the start and center of all creation.

That will have to wait because I’m not quite ready yet. I think I’ve got a few more things to do, a few more amazing places to make pilgrimage to and marvel at, and even a few more sermons in this heart of mine.

I’ll grieve and rejoice until then as a form of thanksgiving for all that was, all that is, and all that is yet to be. And, laugh. And, find the goodness in things. And search for the light I know will always be there, no matter how dark it gets.

Indeed, there might yet be a young LGBTQ who needs some advice and direction and perhaps God will deem me worthy to be of some help to them.

Until then, I will make my song from my broken heart, “Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”

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+