Day of Pentecost Yr C June 9 2019

Audio  Day of Pentecost Yr C June 9 2019

Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:14-17, John 14:8-17, (25-27), Psalm 104:25-35, 37

Many of you know a few weeks ago I went to my synchronized swimming reunion. We watched the young girls who are synchronized swimmers now, swim their routines. Sitting in those bleachers just watching, I held my breath when they held their breath. Sometimes more than a minute under water, all while swimming tremendously hard. Fast forward quite a few years, and I am doing yoga. What do I learn? I'm stronger when I breathe. I can balance better when I breathe. My muscles stretch more freely when I breathe. An old practice being replaced by a practice that is much better for me at this time in my life.

Breathe in, breathe out. Strength, balance, flexibility. I invite you to close your eyes and breathe with me. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in God's joy, God's spirit, God's Word. Breathe out God's joy, God's spirit, God's Word. The Spirit is here, in this room, Ruach, God's breath, soft and sweet, or the rush of a violent wind and flame.

"All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability." Jesus is the one who receives the Holy Spirit from God and who pours it out on all those present, empowering them and us to be agents of healing, and forgiveness, and compassion.

The Spirit empowers believers, you and I, and I think one of the things the Spirit empowers us with is speaking God’s language, and hearing God’s word. Speaking God's language, words of grace, healing, and reconciliation, and hearing God’s truth of grace, healing, and reconciliation. What a miracle that would is. I can just imagine filling the room, this air and this space, so that it spills out into the street, and the neighborhood, and the community, with words of God's love, with words of God's grace, with words of God's healing and reconciliation. I can just imagine all of us going out into the world breathing out God's words of love, of grace, of healing and reconciliation. I can just imagine those words falling out into the air, and being breathed in by those who so desperately need to hear God's words of love, of grace, of healing and reconciliation.

It’s hard though, isn’t it? Many people have so little experience receiving words of love, of grace, of healing and reconciliation. People, maybe even us, are suspicious, or frightened. Paranoid, or perplexed. Pentecost, the gift of hearing God's word, Love wins. I choose to live in a world of Spirit, a world in which God's word surrounds us, and is in us, a world in which peace and reconciliation is in the wind and in the breath, and falls on each and every one of us.

And this Spirit transforms us. We are transformed together into a community of love that calls us into relationship, that calls us to live the way of love. You see, this Holy Spirit empowers us so that we may be agents of healing, and forgiveness, and compassion. God interrupts and intervenes in our world, through Jesus, whose Spirit empowers us to partner in changing the narrative. It’s tough out there, it’s tough to keep speaking words of love, of encouragement. It’s tough to keep speaking words that build people up instead of breaking them apart. It’s tough to keep our eyes and our hearts on the truth that each of us is beloved of God. But the Holy Spirit empowers us for this ministry of love. As we walk with Jesus, empowered by the Spirit, in this story of healing and reconciliation, this story of compassion, we leave love in our wake, we deposit words of grace, and our world is changed.

The Spirit transforms us individually as well. The Spirit not only blows into our lives, but seizes us and claims us as children. You are in this family because you have been claimed and named as one of God's beloved, and we cry "Abba! Father! That is your identity. You are God's beloved, you have been filled with Spirit, washed in water, marked with oil, claimed as God's own child, and that changes you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.

And the Spirit transforms us, blows in and through us, both in our community of faith and in our individual lives, for the purpose of loving one another. God's mission of healing and reconciliation is to love one another. The Christian life is to show forth God's love in the world, and to love one another.

We Episcopalians are a little timid about telling our stories of God, of our relationship with Jesus, a little shy about talking about the Spirit's work in our lives, a little embarrassed to tell others of our call to ministry by virtue of our baptism. But, this story of God’s love for us is the most important story, and a story we can tell. Your story tells of God's forgiveness, your story tells of the Spirit's movement, your story tells of Jesus' healing.

I’ve heard your stories of transformation. I’ve heard about heartache and healing. I’ve heard about death and resurrection. I’ve heard the Good News that God creates a new heart and a new spirit. I’ve heard that even when we fall so far that there seems to be no more hope, God raises us up, Love wins, forgiveness happens, healing begins. I’ve heard these stories from you. God changes the narratives of our lives and we tell a new story about our identity as God's beloved. Listen for these stories, tell your stories. Tell your story of God's amazing and abundant love in your life. Tell your story of feeling abandoned by God. Tell your story of feeling not good enough and yet being loved completely and absolutely. It is by the Spirit we speak God's language, God's words, God's actions.

As you tell your story, and as you listen for your neighbor's stories, you may hear a call to stand with one another in the work that God calls us to. You may hear a call to love one another. You may hear a call to action in places and with people that make you a bit uncomfortable. Listen, the Spirit is moving in this place.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in God's joy, God's spirit, God's Word. Breathe out God's joy, God's spirit, God's Word. The Spirit is here.

1st Sunday of Christmas Yr C Dec 30 2018

Audio 1st Sunday of Christmas Yr C Dec 30 2018 John 1:1-18

John begins at the beginning; in the beginning was the Word. John, very intentionally, places us at the beginning, the first words of the first book of the Holy Scripture that John had on his heart, in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. And John very intentionally introduces us to one of the themes that for him shape all of faith, the light that is in the world.

In John 1 from The Message we hear, “The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!—came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.”

Genesis 1 from the Message we hear “God spoke: “Light!” And light appeared. God saw that light was good and separated light from dark. God named the light Day, he named the dark Night. It was evening, it was morning—Day One.”

How do we imagine this wondrous thing that God does? Creation, incarnation, resurrection. Try this. Imagine you are swimming, maybe snorkeling or even SCUBA diving in a beautiful, sun filled ocean. You dive. You dive deep. You dive to the depths of the ocean. It is cold, and dark, and beautiful. You see fish you’ve never seen before, and vegetation, but it is through the darkness of that ocean water. You see only what is in front of your face. Your breath is shallow, not deep and complete. There are fish that look like monsters. You return to the surface and the sun and warmth and light, but very slowly, because you must having dived so deep. At your return, you see more clearly, breath more deeply, love completely; in ways you could never have imagined before, feeling the warmth of the sunshine all over your body.

This is what incarnation is like, this is what resurrection is like, this is what life is like, I think. God dives down deep into our lives, our lives as we live them in the depths of the ocean. This is Jesus, and Jesus swims around and enlightens our underwater vision so we can see and care for all of the teeming creation. And Jesus picks us up off the bottom of the ocean and carries us into that sunshine, into that new life that we inhabit.

Incarnation, resurrection, birthed out of the waters of creation, the waters of baptism, the waters of new life. Bathed in the light that dispels the darkness. For John, there is hope that the smallest source of light might create the possibility of belief. The darkness represents the lack of relationship.

God speaks the Word into this world, Jesus dives into our lives for light, for love, for relationship. John calls us to turn around and face the Light, to fall on our knees and be forgiven. And today John calls us to be partners with him in showing the way to the Light.

We are yet in the season of incarnation, God in the flesh meeting us in the flesh. God came to be with us in the flesh not to relieve us of the mess and the muck of this life, but in the flesh God stands by our side, takes our hand, sometimes even carries us, and loves us. And that kind of love changes us, we can't help but be changed. God in the flesh reminds us in our flesh that we don't need to be perfect because we are perfectly loved. We don't need to consume and acquire to possess worth, we are enough just the way we are created. God in the flesh reminds us in our flesh that we don't need to gain attention to earn God's love, God has already loved us into ourselves. 

Incarnation is a mystery, and yet it is not so hard. Incarnation, God in the flesh, is about love in a very real sense, it is about God’s commitment to you and to me to walk this journey with us, or maybe to swim this journey with us, and it is about our commitment to love. Christmas is not about the presents; it is about God’s presence with us, and your presence with those whose path you cross.

Incarnation is about showing up, and showing forth the light that covers all darkness, and the love that wins. I’ve watched you do these things. You contributed toys and food so families would have some holiday. You’ve helped Wendi and her family clean out her home and move. You’ve helped serve a meal on Christmas day, and you prepared and served a meal yesterday. You’ve practiced music and lifted this congregation in singing God’s praises. You’ve made this space beautiful for all of us, and many more, to come and experience the light that is growing stronger. You’ve hosted your own families and friends, and given gifts. It’s been both joyful and difficult for many of you.

Love is born into human flesh. We are at the beginning, and we are at the end. But here in the middle, is where love turns us around, turns our world around. Here is our commitment to love as we have been loved.

I leave you with a poem today. Because Madeleine L’engle can always say it better than me.

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Madeleine L’Engle, First Coming, from A Cry Like a Bell

Amen.

First Sunday of Christmas, Dec 29, 2013

Audio 12.29.2013

What a wonderful set of readings we are given this morning! In Isaiah we hear, “I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God, for God has clothed me with the garments of salvation, God has covered me with the robe of righteousness.” And in Galatians is the Good News that we are children of God. Indeed we are God's beloved. 

How do we begin to understand the awesomeness of God? I don't think we always understand God’s nature in an intellectual or a cognitive way. I think sometimes we understand God in a much more organic way, a way that touches the very truth of our being, and of our mortality. 

Our humanness is tied directly to language. We really are formed and shaped by language, however adequate or inadequate. That is why it's so important to read to our children and grandchildren. Expansive language has the ability to expand our imaginations. How we understand God, our relationship with God, the Divine Love Story, how we understand Jesus human and divine, how we understand the presence of the Holy Spirit, is all about the words that we employ to describe that experience, that relationship. For example, those who say they are atheists, are not necessarily people who do not believe in God, rather they may be people who cannot assent to a particular way of describing God. There are many ways to describe God, to imagine God, and our language is just not adequate.

Postmodern thought suggests that what is real is only what we put language too. But I differ with postmodern thought because I think that what is real is God and our relationship with God, whether or not we have the words to describe that. That relationship exists whether or not we have the language to describe it. The challenge is to find the words and the symbols and the actions to describe God’s relationship with us and our relationship with God. We do that every Sunday we gather together. It is not just the words we say together that invite us into the Love that wins, it is also what we do together, the meal we share together, the symbols we use, and the people who are here. 

The first chapter of the gospel of John “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” is an absolutely beautiful and poetic song helping us to not only understand about God, but to feel and to see how we are related to God, and who Jesus is in that relationship. Jesus is the Word, and Jesus is the baby. But Word and baby are nouns that hardly begin to describe fully the incarnation of God.

Every time I read these words from John I hear the language of music. Some of you have heard me say this before. Sometimes for me the language of music speaks more clearly than words. When I hear this passage from John, I am encircled, enveloped, swaddled, if you will, in the awesome and abundant love of our creator. When I hear these words I hear a symphony. I hear the bass, the tuba and the tympani and the baritone, beating as the heart of creation. I hear the bass clarinets, and the bassoons, and the saxophones joining in the building of the harmonies. I hear the flutes and the clarinets with the melody of love and hope. And I hear the trumpets and the French horns with the blast of the proclamation that God has created the world and come into it as one of us. And I hear the sadness of the oboes, with the news that this world in which we live is not perfect, we are not perfect, and there is sadness and tragedy. 

But music is organic; as is the love of God. It is in the fiber of creation, the stones shout it out, the wind hums the word, the rain keeps the beat, the grace and truth of Christ is made real in the dance of the spheres. 

In A Wind in the Door, the second in a series of books by Madeleine L’engle, the first being A Wrinkle in Time, the author writes that for growth to happen there is a necessary death. The passage I quote this morning is a passage late in the book, when Meg O’Keefe, the main character, and her friend Calvin are really beginning to understand the interconnectedness of all things, and they are beginning to understand, birth, death, and resurrection. The reason I quote from this story and from this passage is that in it I hear what John is saying. 

“We are the song of the universe. We sing with the angelic host. We are the musicians. The stars are the singers. Our song orders the rhythm of creation. Calvin asked, “How can you sing with the stars? There was surprise at the question: it is the song. We sing it together. That is our joy. And our Being.” 

The Light has come, is coming, and will continue to come into the world. Not only is Christmas  about the baby born in a barn, the King on a bed of straw, Jesus, who enters our world, our lives, our hearts, because God, the creator of all that is seen and unseen, loves us. It is about God, the creator of the universe, who breaks into history. It is about Light that overcomes darkness. It is about the Word who is with us, the Word in our midst, the Word singing the song. Alleluia! Alleluia!

1 Christmas and Baptism

God's word takes on human form and enters history in the person of Jesus. The Word is born into this humble and majestic world. In a deliberate parallel to the opening words of Genesis, John presents God as speaking salvation into existence, who is Jesus. Jesus, whose birth we just celebrated. Jesus, born in a barn to parents of questionable status. This same Jesus speaks the word and it happens, forgiveness and judgement, healing and illumination, mercy and grace, joy and love, freedom and resurrection. Hear it again. The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!—came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out. There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.

During advent we saw much of this John. We learned that John calls us to a change of mind and heart. John calls us to turn around and face the Light, to fall on our knees and be forgiven. And today John calls us to be partners with him in showing the way to the Light.

We are yet in the season of incarnation, God in the flesh meeting us in the flesh. God came to be with us in the flesh not to relieve us of the mess and the muck of this life, but in the flesh God stands by our side, takes our hand, sometimes even carries us, and loves us. And that kind of love changes us, we can't help but be changed. God in the flesh reminds us in our flesh that we don't need to be perfect because we are perfectly loved. We don't need to consume and acquire to possess worth, we are enough just the way we are created. God in the flesh reminds us in our flesh that we don't need to gain attention to earn God's love, God has already loved us into ourselves.

Transformation happens in our lives as we take seriously the love that God shows us in the flesh. Our hearts expand, our hearts break, we give, we receive, we grow, we die. We do not despair, or lose hope, we do not harm, we work for the good of the others with whom we share this rock, because we know that love wins. Transformation happens in our lives as we take seriously the love that God shows us in the flesh. We come here seeking God in the flesh, and we receive God in the flesh, Jesus, in the bread and the wine around this table, at these steps, and we are made into that flesh which God is. We are made into God's body in the world. We become the new life that Jesus promises.

And today we have the good fortune of baptizing Zakariah into God's household of faith. Today we have the good fortune of baptizing Zakariah into the life, death, and resurrection of God in the flesh. Today we have the good fortune of baptizing Zakariah into the body of Christ, in the flesh. Today, once again, God shows the world that Love wins.

Many of Zakariah's relatives are making promises on his behalf this day, they are making promises that will help transform Zakariah into the person God calls him to be. The promises that are made on his behalf, and the promises he will renew himself someday soon, and the promises you and I renew today, form and shape us into the person God calls us to be. We are formed and transformed, our minds and hearts are constantly and consistently turned to God, as John would say. We are bathed in the water that reminds us of our mortality and our new life in Christ. We are marked with the oil that leaves an indelible cross-shaped tattoo on our face. And we receive the Light of God, so that we may bear it into the dark and broken places of our lives. We are upheld in our promises by God's household. We become God's flesh in the world.

We recognize baptism, whether it is here at St. Andrew's, or in any other denomination, or even if it is a "baptism by desire", as that which helps us remember who we are. We are God's beloved, no matter what, there is nothing we can do, there is nothing we have done, that puts us outside of God's capacity to love us and to bring us into that loving relationship. We are God's beloved, and baptism is a time on our journey of life where we can return on purpose or by chance. Every time we get wet, in the rain, in the shower, in the pool, we remember that we are God's beloved, we remember that we are called to a life and ministry of justice and peace, of mercy and compassion. Every time we see a cross, in the trees, in the window, in the sidewalk, we remember that we are God's beloved, we remember that we are called to a life and ministry of bearing the loving work that Jesus does on the cross into the world. Every time we smell the oil, the oil of cooking, the oil of healing, the oil that moisturizes our body, we remember that we are God's beloved, we remember that we are called to a life and ministry of healing and reconciliation.

Every time we gather together to baptize another child of God, we remember we are God's beloved, and we promise to hold this child in our prayers, we promise to hold this child in our hearts, we promise to walk this way together, never alone. Every time we gather together to baptize another child of God, we remember we are God's beloved, and we renew our commitment to be partners in this most grace-filled and difficult work. Every time we gather together to baptize another child of God, we remember we are God's beloved, we remember the Word that calls us into being, we remember the Love that wins, we remember the Spirit that sustains us and gives us new life.

You are God's beloved, you are marked as Christ's own forever. Amen.

1st Sunday after Christmas Yr A

From Isaiah we hear, I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God, for God has clothed me with the garments of salvation, God has covered me with the robe of righteousness. And in Galatians the Good News is that we are children of God.

We read this same set of readings each Sunday after Christmas, and each time I am overwhelmed by the awesomeness of God and of our human inability to speak of that. These readings challenge our understanding of God, and yet I’m not convinced we even understand God’s nature in an intellectual or a cognitive way. I think we understand it in a much more organic way, a way that touches the very truth of our being, and the very core of our limitedness.

Our humanness is tied directly to language. We really are formed and shaped by language, however adequate or inadequate it is. How we understand God, our relationship with God, how we understand Jesus human and divine, how we understand the presence of the Holy Spirit, is often about the words that we employ to describe that experience, that relationship. For example, those who say they are atheists are not necessarily people who do not believe in God, rather they may be people who cannot assent to a particular way of describing God, because our language is just not adequate to describe the totality and the mystery of that relationship.

Throughout history people have tried desperately to describe God, we have tried desperately to describe the reality in which we live. Today, postmodern thought suggests that what is real is only what we put language too. In many ways I am a postmodern thinker, but in this case what I think is real is God and our relationship with God. What that means is that God exists whether or not we have the language to describe God, and therefore a relationship exists whether or not we have the language to describe it. The challenge is to find the words and the symbols and the actions to describe God’s relationship with us and our relationship with God.

The first chapter of the gospel of John, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God I hear as an absolutely beautiful and poetic song helping us to not only understand, but to feel and to see and to hear how we are related to God, and who Jesus is in that relationship. It is not coincidental that In the beginning is the Word invokes in us a notion of the spoken language, but language is so much more than the spoken word.

Every time I read these words from John I hear the language of music. Sometimes for me the language of music speaks more clearly than words. When I hear this passage from John, I am encircled, enveloped, swaddled, if you will, in the awesome and abundant love of our creator. When I hear these words I hear a symphony.

I hear the bass, the tuba, the tympani and the baritone, beating as the heart of creation. I hear the bass clarinets, and the bassoons, and the saxophones joining in the building of the harmonies. I hear the flutes and the clarinets with the melody of love and hope. And I hear the trumpets and the French horns with the blast of the proclamation that God has created the world and come into it as one of us. And I hear the sadness of the oboes, with the news that some do not choose to listen to and be transformed by the music.

Music is organic; as is the love of God. It is in the fiber of creation, the stones shout it out, the wind hums the word, the rain keeps the beat, the grace and truth of Christ is made real in the dance of the spheres.

In A Wind in the Door, the second book in a series of books by Madeleine L’engle, the first being A Wrinkle in Time, the author writes that for growth to happen there is a necessary death. The passage I quote this morning is a passage late in the book, when Meg O’Keefe, the main character, and her friend Calvin are really beginning to understand the interconnectedness of all things, and they are beginning to understand, birth, death, and resurrection. The reason I quote from this story and from this passage is that it hearkens to the first chapter of John. It goes like this. “We are the song of the universe. We sing with the angelic host. We are the musicians. The stars are the singers. Our song orders the rhythm of creation. Calvin asked, ‘How can you sing with the stars?’ There was surprise at the question: it is the song. We sing it together. That is our joy. And our Being.”

The Light has come, is come, and will continue to come into the world. That is what Christmas attests too. Light overcomes darkness, darkness will not prevail. The Word is with us, the Word is in our midst, and the Word creates the song.

I am also aware that the first words of John, and the first words of Genesis, are very similar. In the beginning was the Word, In the beginning God created. This incarnation, God breaking into our world, God interrupting our lives, God in our midst, the Word made flesh, the song that sings light into the darkness, are words that attempt to describe God’s awesome activity.

Listen again to these words from the Gospel of John, from The Message. The Word was first, the Word present to God God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Everything was created through him, nothing—not one thing! —came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness, the darkness couldn’t put it out.

Alleluia. To us a child is born: Come let us adore him. Alleluia.