10 Pentecost Yr C Proper 12 July 24 2016

10 Pentecost Yr C Proper 12 July 24 2016 Audio

Jesus was praying, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray. Jesus responded in three ways. First, Jesus gave the disciples words to pray with. Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.

Then, the gospel writer Luke shows the disciples what that prayer looks like. Luke has Jesus tell a story of a relationship. There is a person who needs some food for a visitor, even though the visitor arrives in the middle of the night. That person goes to the door of his friend, maybe his neighbor, and knocks on the door in the middle of the night and asks for some bread. The friend sounds mightily irritated to be awoken in the middle of the night, but the story suggests that he did in fact after a little convincing, give over the bread. Prayer is about relationship, and prayer is about sharing bread. Sometimes those who practice a life of prayer are accused of doing nothing. But prayer is not doing nothing, indeed, prayer is doing what needs to be done.

And then what we hear from Luke this morning is about boldness. What we have before us is not just the so familiar words we pray as the Lord’s Prayer, but we have those words in the context of relationship and bread and boldness. Ask, search, knock. Jesus' instruction invites trust and boldness, ask, search, knock, confident that you will receive what you ask. There is no one among us listening who would give a snake or a scorpion to a beseeching child, so how then, Jesus implies, can we not trust that God as divine parent will give us all that we need, including and especially the Holy Spirit?

Jesus seems most interested, at this point, in an invitation to a relationship rather than an explanation about the technique of prayer. Prayer is not a list, but a relationship. In this passage Jesus invites us into relationship with God through prayer, offering us the opportunity to approach the God whose name is too holy to speak and whose countenance too terrible to behold with the familiarity, boldness, and trust of a young child running to her parent for both provision and protection.

I do think that we tend to get caught up in all sorts of questions about prayer. How do we pray? What do we pray for? And the big ones, does God answer prayer and does prayer change God? Just as Jesus gave the disciples words to pray with, we Episcopalians have all sorts of beautiful prayers that have been handed to us through generations of the faithful in our Book of Common Prayer, and we have wonderful new prayers that broaden our imaginations. However we are a little bit challenged by extemporaneous prayer. We tend to be formed as people of well thought out and constructed prayer. We tend to rely on the beautiful words of those who came before us. When we are wordless, when the feeling we have is so awesome, so fearful, so sad, so joyful that we are left wordless, speechless, these prayers of our people can lift us up and carry us along.

And there are times, like Anne Lamott writes in a book called Traveling Mercies, that our two best prayers are, "help me, help me, help me" and "thank you, thank you, thank you." Like Anne Lamott suggests, spontaneous prayer comes without thinking. We pray like that all the time.

The point of all of this is that prayer is the work we do in building our end of the relationship we have with God. That relationship is both personal and corporate. Each of us engages the relationship in a very personal way, and need to discover a personal prayer life that is intentional, spirit filled and nurturing. There are myriad ways to grow our personal prayer; one size does not fit all. Personal prayer even changes over time, depending on where and when life takes us.

It’s only in the last few years I have been able to sit in quiet prayer. With young children, trying to find quiet time was near impossible, and if I tried to be quiet to begin my day, before anyone else was awake, I just fell asleep again. I also needed to exercise, so I did that early in the morning while everyone else was still asleep, and I learned that I could combine prayer and exercise. That is a discipline I continue even though small children have become large. But I have also found that I can spend some time now in quiet prayer, without fidgeting and without falling asleep, most of the time.

We also engage our relationship with God in a corporate way. We gather together in prayer, in fact that is who we are as Episcopalians, people who share common prayer. We sing together, we have silence together, we say our prayers together, we read and hear scripture together, we eat together, and together we are sent out into the world to continue the work God has given us to do.

Bottom line though, is that prayer is a relationship, and a relationship must be worked at, it can’t be taken for granted or set aside, or it will fail. This relationship with God has at its foundation good faith and reciprocal love. It is a relationship that is transformative. "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me," writes C.S. Lewis. Prayer is really much more about us than about God. Prayer is about our overflowing need to know our creator, and to be known by our creator.

And yet I speak of boldness in prayer. How do we speak of boldness in this relationship with God? Especially when in our ears we hear, blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. How do we speak of asking for what we want, when it seems like God should already know that. Ask, search, knock. I think being bold and courageous in our prayer makes us clearer about what we are asking. I think being bold and courageous in prayer makes us discern what it is we really need. As we are bold in prayer, who we need to be, what we need to do, whom we need to serve, begins to dawn on us like a beautiful mountain sunrise. A sunrise that illuminates all else.

And I know that God always responds to prayer. Often that response is, no Kathy, not now, not ever. Sometimes that response is a surprise to me. I, in my infinite wisdom, would not do it the same way God does it. C.S. Lewis has also written, “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."”

Does prayer really work? I turn to Barbara Brown Taylor, a wonderful preacher and writer, in her collection Home by another way. She says about prayer, "It keeps our hearts chasing after God’s heart. It’s how we bother God, and it’s how God bothers us back. There’s nothing that works any better than that.”

Be bold, be courageous in your prayer and your relationship with God. And then do, do the thing, love, forgive, heal, feed, do the thing your prayer asks. You are the change you ask for.

Amen.

9 Pentecost Yr C Proper 11 July 17 2016

9 Pentecost Yr C Proper 11 July 17 2016 Audio

My favorite high school teacher was Mr. Everett Anderson, we affectionately called him Ev. He was a diminutive man. Most of us took his Shakespeare class and actually loved it. Ev could be caught jumping up and down and on top of desks with excitement. Most of us claim him as our favorite teacher, but he didn’t look like or act like or sound like the kind of person any of us would consider cool. Ev taught us about learning, about passion, about reading, and about getting along with one another. Jesus seems to choose the most unlikely teachers for us. The hated Samaritan man, the woman at the well, the child at his feet, the sinners with whom he ate, instead of respected Pharisees or lawyers, instead of authoritative experts or great prophets. However, the teachers Jesus has chosen for us are teachers who do the unexpected and who are the unexpected, like my favorite high school teacher. The Priest and the Levite in the compassionate Samaritan story we read last week, really do exactly what is expected of them. These Holy Men were not allowed to be unclean, therefore they could not touch the man who had been beaten, so they had to, in fact they were required to cross the road.

Our dear Martha in our story today does what is expected of her when she is entertaining people in her home, she can’t be blamed for that. You know what it’s like to have people over to your home for a meal, and Martha has this added stressor, Jesus is actually important in her circle of friends. You know what it’s like to spend the whole day cleaning, you know what it’s like to plan the menu, to buy the groceries, to prepare the meal, to set the table, to get everything just right. And you know what it’s like to feel like you’re in it alone, when no one steps up to help. You get a bit resentful, maybe even cross. You may even say out loud to whoever is close enough to hear, “doesn’t anyone care that I’ve got to do all this work myself?” Ahh, Martha, we are so much like you.

Martha actually has much to teach us. She reminds us of the value and sacredness of the work of hospitality. She reminds us never to take that work for granted; she reminds us that to even begin to meet Jesus, we welcome all comers with food and drink.

It's why it' so important to me to welcome all at this thanksgiving table. And it is why it is so important to me to “stay at the table.” What I mean by that is that I am committed to being part of the community of people who are Christians, of all types and varieties, and the community of people who are not Christians, because I think that we all have something to learn from one another, because I don’t think that there is only one way to follow Jesus, and because I know that staying out of difficult conversation effectively silences our voice, and I am not interested in being silenced. The metaphor of “staying at the table” is a metaphor of hospitality. Martha reminds us that the work of doing, of setting the table and inviting all to come, is very important work indeed.

But that is not the only piece of the story today. In the midst of Martha’s frustration with Mary, we also have Mary's story.

Mary becomes an unlikely teacher today. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, in the company of men, receiving all that Jesus has to teach. Mary is doing the unexpected, and making Martha quite mad in the process. Luke’s gospel shows us what the Kingdom of God is like. The Kingdom of God is like Martha working in the kitchen, and Mary learning at Jesus’ feet.

I think the most helpful way to read this story is in relationship to the story about the compassionate Samaritan. The pairing of these stories point to the importance of doing and hearing in the Gospel of Luke. The placement of these two stories illustrates that it's doing AND hearing, not doing OR hearing that matters. When the lawyer in the compassionate Samaritan story asked about the bottom line of what it means to be saved, Jesus goes to the heart of the matter by telling a story about love in action on the part of a hated stranger toward his most unexpected neighbor. In today's story, we hear that sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening carefully is also important, right at the heart of things, too.

Mary listens to Jesus, and the Kingdom is near. We live in a world that seems to equate busyness with importance, and a long to-do list, especially when it's finally completed, gives us a sense of satisfaction and even security…at least, until we start on a new list of tasks to be completed. Our days are full, one after another, of many things, and our minds are full and overflowing, worried and distracted, sometimes like Martha, by many things.

Can you imagine what life would be like, even for a little while, without all of the things that keep us busy? Can you imagine what life would be like, even for a little while, without all the talking we do? Can you imagine what life would be like, even for a little while, just listening to what Jesus may be saying? It may be a little like the Kingdom.

It seems to me that we can't hear God still speaking if we don't stop, not just sometimes but regularly, and just sit and listen, like Mary at the feet of Jesus. How can the Stillspeaking God get a word in edgewise over the cell phones, voicemail, television, and Internet and Pokemon hunting that bombard us? How can we tend to our internal lives like careful gardeners who spend time nurturing new growth, pulling weeds when necessary, and gently showering the thirsty green plants with refreshing water?

Our teachers today, the dreamer Mary, the practical Martha, show us the wisdom of balance. Mary shows us the wisdom of quiet listening, of expectant listening, of listening for the voice of Jesus, of dreaming. Martha shows us the wisdom of hospitality. Our job is to find the balance, to make room for both ways to meet God and greet God, and in the encounter, the Kingdom is near.

And then, there is Jesus. The story is probably really about Jesus. Jesus offers love to both Martha and Mary. In this story, neither are excluded, Mary and Martha are Jesus' beloved followers. In this world, where we label and divide people and choose not to love based on difference, Jesus shows us that love is possible. In this world, where agreement seems to be more valuable than difference, Jesus shows us that the nature of love receives the beauty and uniqueness of all of humanity. Jesus shows us that each and every life matters. Amen.

8 Pentecost Yr C Proper 10 July 10 2016

8 Pentecost Yr C Proper 10 July 10 2016 Audio

A priest, a Presbyterian minister and a baptist preacher, go out fishing. They toss all their stuff in the boat, and push off for the middle of the lake. Once out there, the priest realizes he forgot his lures. So he stands up and steps out of the boat and walks to the shore, gets what he needs and comes on back to the boat. A little later, the Presbyterian minister gets hungry and realizes he forgot his sandwich in the car, so he steps out of the boat, walks to the shore, gets his sandwich and comes on back to the boat. Well, the baptist preacher had left his jacket in the car and it was getting a little chilly, so he stepped out of the boat just like the others, but fell right into the water. The priest said to the Presbyterian minister, do you think we should have told him where the stones are?

Whether or not this is a funny joke, we laugh, or we groan, because we’ve been set-up, we know the form, the pattern, and can guess at the punch line. It’s based on our common stereotypes of these three characters. It’s like the story that is embedded in Luke’s gospel today, a priest, a levite, and a Samaritan go into a bar…. O wait, that should be a Jew, not a Samaritan. Everyone knows the joke and the punch line relies on the Jew, not the Samaritan.

What’s happening here? Those who heard this story originally would have been shocked long before the storyteller ever gets to the punch line, because the 1st century hearer would think “a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan would never be in the same story.”

You see, the shocking joke here is that it is the Samaritan who is compassionate. Let's look at these people in their own culture. The priest and the Levite shared high status in the community of God’s people. They were “temple people.” They were born into priestly families. They were very concerned with status, they epitomized the temple culture of those who are in and those who are out, they were in and just about everyone else was out. Within their world, their association with the temple commends them as persons of exemplary piety whose actions would be regarded as self-evidently righteous. The priest and the Levite were accustomed to being evaluated on the basis of their ancestry, their pedigree, not on the basis of their performance.

So the teller of this story has established these two holy men who have done their business at the temple in Jerusalem, and who are now traveling on the dangerous road to Jericho. They see a man by the side of the road beaten and bleeding, and each pass to the other side of the road instead of helping.

Into the picture arrives the Samaritan, and everyone who is hearing this story laughs. A Samaritan, they exclaim, Samaritans are no good lazy bums. They don’t even go to the temple in Jerusalem to worship, they keep to themselves, they are just not like us. Maybe we should build a wall to keep those Samaritans out. You see, the Samaritan is a man who is in direct contrast to the holy men of the temple. He has no pedigree, he is a merchant, he worships at a different temple. It is this distinction that makes this story shocking.

You and I have heard the story of the Good Samaritan so many times we just about know it by heart. We miss the shocking punch line. The Samaritan as the one who has compassion for the beaten and bleeding man at the side of the road is shocking. And, the actions of the Samaritan man condemn the holy men’s failure to act.

So what can this very familiar story reveal to us today? The story of the compassionate Samaritan is embedded in the story about a lawyer who has come to Jesus asking about eternal life. First, the lawyer asks Jesus what he must to do inherit eternal life. Jesus answers that question with the story of the compassionate Samaritan, and then the lawyer is able to identify who in the story was the neighbor and the lawyer is told by Jesus to go and do likewise. Today I would like for you to entertain the idea that this story is not just about being good, and it's not about being a hero. I would like you to see its complexity.

The story of the compassionate Samaritan is an illustration of appropriate behavior for a person who loves God and who expects to inherit eternal life. Remember, we’ve talked about this before, when Luke uses the term eternal life, he is referring to the new creation that is a reality in the life of those who profess Jesus Christ as Son of God. The term eternal life is not narrowly defined by what happens after death. It is about the absolutely new life that is the gift of God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is about living in the here and now as much as it is about the hereafter. Therefore the story of the compassionate Samaritan is about an ethic of compassion, it is about how we are related to our neighbors, it is about the love that wins.

The setting to the story is on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This is a very dangerous road, as most travel on foot was in this 1st century rural setting, replete with robbers and full of the possibility of violence. And Jerusalem is the city where the temple is. Many people would be traveling between Jerusalem and Jericho after visiting the temple in Jerusalem.
The Samaritan is the one who participates in the compassionate and covenantal faithfulness of God, not the holy men. This is not just a story about a good guy who helped someone out. This parable of the compassionate Samaritan undermines the system of status and honor based on privilege that was the way things were in 1st century culture. Once again, Luke is telling us a story that shows how the kingdom of God is near; the kingdom of God is about reordering human interactions.

The conclusion of Luke’s story has Jesus asking the lawyer, who himself has a pedigree, who in this story is the neighbor. The lawyer answered correctly, and Jesus admonishes him to go and do likewise. Eternal life is about compassionate interaction regardless of honor and status, race or gender.

This is as hard a message to hear in the 21st century as it was in the 1st century. In these days I wonder if we've progressed at all. The challenge here is to reject the sinful categories we use to turn other human beings into labels instead of persons bearing the image of the living God. Jesus shows us that we are honorable and valuable because we are God’s creation. Jesus’ life shows us that in God’s eyes everyone has a place in God’s house, in God’s kingdom. Jesus pours out his life so that we may know that truth. Jesus fills us with new life so that we may have abundant love for ourselves and for others.

As I spent time this week thinking about this story that I know so well, and, as a country we have experienced the tragedy of gun death over and over again, and the death of Elie Weisel, who was a concentration camp survivor, it is vital that we hear this story about the compassionate Samaritan for what it is. We are more like the holy people than we are like the Samaritan. Elie Weisel, in his life and work has said, the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

We are followers of Jesus, do not be indifferent. We need to be a sign of hope and of healing. We need to be agents of hope and of healing. Find ways to do that, find ways to show forth God's love. Find ways to be compassionate, find ways bear God's love and healing into all the places you find yourselves.

Amen.

7 Pentecost Proper 9 July 3 2016

7 Pentecost Proper 9 July 3 2016 Audio

Recently, the readings from Luke have been about the unfailing love and abundant grace that God has for us. We have heard how that love and grace calls us into relationship with God, and how that transforms us. We have heard that God does not call us away or out of the world, but instead calls us to do our work, to be in relationship, to go about our business in a way that is new, in a way that reveals God’s unfailing love and grace to the world. This work that God calls us to is also called discipleship. This is our call, this is our work. And the gospel of Luke is all about being a disciple.

To be a disciple or to do the work that God calls us to, is to be on a journey of active faith formation, and to be a disciple is to be part of God's dream of love and healing in this world. That is what Luke means when he writes about God coming near. This is called the kingdom of God. And according to Luke, the kingdom of God is about reordering human interaction, we see that when Jesus brings to the center those people on the margins. And the kingdom of God is about loving one another as God has loved us.  A sign of this love, a sign of God's dream in our interactions, is offering peace to all people we encounter.

In this gospel passage from Luke, we learn that God's call, God's love, God's kingdom, includes everyone. And we learn that discipleship, God's love, God's kingdom is about radical hospitality.

In the New Revised Standard Version translation we just read, we heard that Jesus appointed seventy disciples and sent them out in pairs. However, many New Testament scholars are convinced the earliest transcripts read 72. And the reason this is important, is that seventy-two is a significant number. At the time Luke’s story was told, the number of the world’s nations is seventy-two. Seventy-two is also reckoned in an apocryphal book, called Enoch, as the number of princes and the number of languages in the world. And according to legend, seventy-two elders were commissioned to translate the law from Hebrew to Greek, a project undertaken in order to win renown throughout the whole world for the Jews and their God.

So, seventy-two really means everyone, everyone is sent out, but never sent out alone. So now it is not just the original Jewish disciples of Jesus that spread the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. It is gentiles as well, and it is all of us; every one of us is a disciple and we are all called to spread the Good News.

Last Wednesday the church celebrated the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul. A gift that St. Peter and St. Paul give to us in the 21st century is the gift of disagreement. At the very beginnings of the church, these two important church leaders could not agree on who’s in and who’s out. The argument about circumcision which is referred to in the Galatians passage, was a huge argument in the 1st century. Basically, the question was, do disciples of Jesus have to be circumcised as a Jew before they can be baptized? This question was really about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, and what it means to be Jew. It is a question that caused communities to stop talking to each other; it caused communities to split apart and even stop eating together. The answer to the question however, was always, Love one another as God has loved you. And, a sign of that love was to settle your differences before you come to the table to eat. St. Peter and St. Paul taught us to agree to disagree, because we are all part of one family. The way St. Peter and St. Paul taught us to agree to disagree is to practice radical hospitality.

And that is what this passage before us today is about. All of us are called to radical hospitality; all of us are called to offer God's love and hospitality to everyone we meet.

This example of hospitality shows us both sides, how to offer hospitality, and how to receive hospitality.

Jesus sends the seventy-two out to do the work of preaching and teaching, and harvesting the fruits of that labor. Jesus sends them with instructions. Those instructions are about how to receive hospitality. First say “peace to this house” and then stay there and eat and drink, cure the sick and preach the Good News. If they do not welcome you, if they do not offer hospitality, leave in protest, and know that the kingdom of God has come near. We need to remember what Luke means when he writes about Jesus ushering in the kingdom of God. It is the reordering of human interactions. Jesus brings those who are on the margins to the center, those who are first will be last, those who are out will be in.

What does the discipleship of radical hospitality look like for us? As disciples, as followers of Jesus, we are called to welcome the stranger. We are called to offer rest, to wash their feet, and a place at the table. When we offer this radical hospitality, we act as disciples and the kingdom of God is near. We, as disciples, are called to offer hospitality to everyone, people we agree with, people we disagree with, people that look like us, people who look different than us, people that we grew up with, people who are strangers.

As disciples we are also called to go out into the world, walking along side one another, and say to all we meet, Peace to you, peace to your house, peace to your people. We are to take the gospel seriously, be transformed by it and offer it’s message of hospitality to all we meet, to all whose paths we cross, and to all who come alongside us as we journey together. In this age of rampant individualism and consumerism, offering hospitality and walking alongside one another, including and especially those who are different from us, is a radical and difficult call. This encounter requires attentive listening and willingness to enter into another’s world and be transformed by this world. This encounter requires dependence, and for folks who value independence above much else, this is a radical and difficult call. Dependence on God, and one another, the Body of Christ. There are few things more satisfying and life giving, it turns out, than sharing with others, giving of our abundance, receiving in our need, all the while being knit more closely together as the Body of Christ, very different witness to people in this world who would exclude, divide, and keep out.

Peace to this house, peace to your house, peace to the stranger’s house.

5 Pentecost Yr C Proper 7 June 19 2016

5 Pentecost Yr C Proper 7 June 19 2016 Audio

Again we have a story that shows us, that gives us a clear image of what the new life, this good news that is Jesus, looks like in the world. Just as we have read in the last two weeks, about the women to whom Jesus gave new life by bringing them back into the community and restoring their honor, we read about this man. Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to come out of him, and it did. By doing this, Jesus restores this man to new life.

So this story is like the others, it is a story about restoration to the community of the one who is on the margins, a story of transformation. This time though, it is a man, whose dis-ease puts him on the outside, makes him uncles. Let’s take a closer look at this man who is presented to us in Luke’s gospel today, where he is and why he is important.

First, we learn that this story takes place in Gentile territory, already we are not at “home,” we are in the country of the Gerasenes, opposite Galilee. Another marker that we are not at home, that we are on the margins, is the large herd of swine feeding. According to Jewish dietary regulations, pigs are unclean, so we know we are not in Jewish territory. This man did not live in a house, but in the tombs, which are also unclean, and which also makes him homeless. He had no clothes on, and he was possessed by demons. The setting of this story, and the description of the man, alerts us so that we know this is a story that puts Jesus into a non-Jewish setting, it puts Jesus into a place to encounter someone who is just not like the others. This man did not have a chance in Jewish or Greek society. He was tossed out, he didn’t have a chance for any honor or status, he may as well have been dead. In this way he is not unlike the widows we’ve recently read about.

Jesus restores this man, Jesus transforms this man, Jesus brings this man into the community. This is a very clear picture of what the kingdom of God looks like in the life of this one man, and what it looks like in our lives as well. Because of this man’s encounter with Jesus, he is clothed, he is in his right mind, and he can go home. Because of this man’s encounter with Jesus, he is brought into the community; he is no longer cast off. Because of this man’s encounter with Jesus, he is made whole, he has new life, he is transformed.

This is a story about God’s abundant grace and God’s unfailing love that calls us into relationship, and transforms us. This is a story about when we encounter Jesus; we will never be the same.

This man didn’t seek Jesus out. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when he happened upon this man. But in the encounter, Jesus truly recognized this man, and knew he was not himself. Jesus brought him to himself. The truth of God’s love and grace and abundance called the real man forth, and that expelled all that was not real, all that was keeping this man a prisoner in his own body.

Our encounter with Jesus does the same. Sometimes we seek Jesus out; more often than not our encounters with Jesus are accidental, coincidental, or providential, depending on what you want to call it. But, when we do encounter Jesus, we can not be the same. We are clothed anew, our mind is set right, and we find our home.

When we are baptized we are often clothed in a white garment. For some, that garment is the same one many infants before us have also worn for the occasion, for others we get a new set of clothes just for the occasion. The language and symbolism of baptism evokes this. We enter the waters of baptism with Jesus, and are robed in our new garments.

In baptism we pray for each child, we ask for an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love God, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works. I think that is a description of being in our right mind. We spend much effort in our lives to be right minded. We spend much time trying to be right, we have a need to convince others of our rightness. We even get angry and fearful when our rightness is threatened. When we encounter Jesus our mind is right. When we encounter Jesus we become clearheaded, we are filled with right thinking. Remember last week I described being made right, being justified, like justifying the margins on your page. That illustration still works in this story.

In baptism we find our home. Our home for now is the community of faith, the gathering of people who love and worship God, the assembly in which we share the reality of Jesus in the bread and the wine. Home is the people who patiently wait for us to realize that we are not alone in our faith journey. Home is where we can be fully alive, where we go to find ourselves. Home is where we find ourselves fully alive in Christ. Home is being in relationship with God and with one another.

The very hard part of encountering Jesus, is that we must open our eyes to living the transformed life that Jesus calls us to live. And the very hard part of living this transformed life that Jesus called the man with the demons into, and that Jesus calls us into, this life of being clothed in Jesus’ new clothes, being right-minded, and in coming home, is that our culture would have us believe a very different story. Transformation turns us away from ourselves, turns us away from being full of ourselves. Rather than looking out for ourselves, we look out for the other, we look out for our neighbor. We are in our right mind when we spend time in prayer, when we listen through prayer and scripture study, and when we listen to others to what God would call us to, to what God would have us do, to whom God would have us be. Rather than convincing others that we are right, that our way is right, we listen to other peoples stories, we encounter Jesus in the story telling, we are filled with the real presence of Christ.

This encounter with Jesus brings us home, when we are transformed we no longer turn away from God, but are bathed in the hospitality that Jesus offers. Home is the fullness of our relationship with God, and with our neighbors. Home is not acquiring stuff, home is not even the place we live. Home is living fully in the unfailing love of God, home is the abundant life God has for us. Home is being a wonderful and beautiful creature in God’s eye’s, no matter what, each and every one of us, not just some of us.

Like the man in our story today, who by his encounter with Jesus is restored and made whole, who is clothed in a new garment, who is right minded, who is brought home, God loves us abundantly and unfailingly so we too are clothed with a new garment, made whole, restored to fullness in God’s amazing kingdom. Today, we are invited to live the abundant life that God has for us.

So much of what we see in our culture in these days, people put out on the margins because of who they are, people killed because of who they are, call us to listen to this story and the stories that precede it with hearts of compassion. These stories show us what life in God's kingdom look like, what new life in Jesus look like. Everyone, everyone, has a place in God's kingdom, because love wins.

Thanks be to God. Amen, Alleluia.

4 Pentecost Yr C Proper 6 June 12 2016

4 Pentecost Yr C Proper 6 2016 Audio

Many of you have welcomed my family and I into your homes. You have fed us; you have offered us friendship and hospitality. In my home as a child, there were people coming and going all the time, everyone was welcome, anyone could just walk on in to our house, but the rule was that you were on your own. If you waited around to be served, you just kept on waiting, if you rang the doorbell, we would assume you were there to sell us something. Even in our small part of the world, hospitality is shown in different ways and I think has changed with a more fearful culture. That open door of my youth is suspect today.

Hospitality in 1st century Mediterranean culture was a matter of honor. There were rituals to be observed. Just as when someone comes to your house you would offer them something to drink, and if you are eating together a place to wash their hands, a 1st century Mediterranean would offer to wash his guests’ feet. Although this may seem odd to you and I, we have to imagine the situation. It is so very hot and sticky; lots of dust and dirt. No shoes and socks, but sandals. Feet were dirty. Compounding that situation is that folks did not sit around a table on chairs as you and I do with feet out of sight. Folks lounged on pillows, so feet were right there in full view. Not only a matter of hospitality, but a matter of practicality as well.

Today our story hinges on a blatant lack of hospitality. Jesus turns to Simon, the host, and rebukes him for neglecting to show him hospitality, he did not welcome Jesus as the host should, he did not wash Jesus’ feet.

This story we hear in Luke is very similar to the story we heard last week in Luke. If you remember, there was a widow whose son had died, and Jesus gave new life to her son. As I talked about that story, the point I tried to make is that it is about the Good News that Jesus brings to the poor. It is about how the widow, a woman on the fringes of the community, a woman who in that culture is nothing and has nothing, is restored to the community. Essentially, it is a story about the new life Jesus brought to her, as a widow, she was dead to the community, and Jesus gave her new life.

The story we hear in Luke today proclaims a similar message. Today’s story shows us that love causes forgiveness and love is the result of forgiveness. Our main character, other than Jesus, is a woman who is not attached to a man, a woman in the city, by cultural standards, a sinner. She is a woman on the margins, but it seems that she freely approaches Jesus, and in a most intimate way. Simon, the host, sat watching and judging. This unnamed woman washes his feet with her hair, and then anoints them. This woman shows Jesus the hospitality that his host blatantly denies. Once again, Jesus restores to the community one who the community deems a sinner. Jesus gives her life back to her; she is freed to use her gifts for the good of the community.

Love causes forgiveness, and love is the result of forgiveness. This is also the Good News that Jesus brings. You and I, like David in the Old Testament, and Simon in this story, and the unnamed woman, are sinners. Sometimes it is hard to use that word because the experience we’ve had with it may have been judgmental. But it is not judgmental at all, it just is. We are sinners; more often than not we miss the mark. It is who we are. Created in all our beauty, created in all our goodness, created in God’s image, we tend to turn away from God and worship idols, most often ourselves. We tend to believe the world revolves around us. We tend to think, like David, that we can have whatever we want, or like Simon, that just because we’re important we don’t have to treat people with respect. Instead, we have the unnamed woman, whose sin is no more and no less than ours or anyone else’s, but who comes to Jesus and shows great love.

The power in these stories is that love causes forgiveness, and love is the result of forgiveness, love wins. As we hear these stories, we may hear God’s love inviting us to acknowledge that we often miss the mark, that we often turn away and indulge ourselves. It is the abundance of God’s love shown to us in Jesus that causes forgiveness, and frees us to love and use the gifts we have been given.

We come to church, we say our prayers and sing our hymns, read the scriptures, and some even listen to me talk, we try to live good lives, not in order to get somewhere with God but rather because we have already arrived. God has already acted on our behalf. Christ has done for us that which we could not do for ourselves; reconciled us to God, brought us into right relationship with God, justified us. I used to wonder what that meant, to be justified, but I learned from my computer. When you are working in a document, just like as I worked on this, I had choices on how to set up my page. One of my choices is to justify the margins. If I choose to justify the margins, all my words line up nice and evenly, they are brought into line, they are made right. That’s one way I think of what Christ has done for us. Christ has justified my margins.

So, the only thing required of us is the openness to receive the love that causes forgiveness. This is not necessarily easy or pleasant. It does involve a change, a transformation of attitude and ultimately our actions, because love is the result of forgiveness. And, since love is the result of forgiveness, we are free to use the gifts that God has given us. We are free to love others just as they are, no longer are we bound by our fear. We are free to show others the abundant and extravagant love that God offers them, the forgiveness that God offers them, because we can be ourselves, we don’t have to be perfect anymore.

Since love is the result of forgiveness, we can offer the same radical hospitality to those who come through our doors, as the unnamed woman offers Jesus. We can wash one another’s feet, and we can feed and be fed. Because we are all sinners, and we are all forgiven, and love is a result of forgiveness, we can welcome all who come through our doors, without demands of uniformity, without demands of perfection, without demands of adherence to a particular way of thinking. Because love is the result of forgiveness, we stand shoulder to shoulder, we pray for one another. We give thanks and we go out to do the work that we have been given to do.

And, because love is the result of forgiveness, when all is said and done, forgiveness gives you back yourself. You are no more and no less than what you've done, the mistakes you've made, the story told about you. When you are forgiven, and you are, all of those limitations disappear and you are restored, renewed, set free. That is the good news. Amen.

3 Pentecost Yr C Proper 5 June 5 2016

3 Pentecost Yr C Proper 5 June 5 2016 Audio

We continue in the gospel of Luke following the story we heard about the Roman Centurion. Again we see Jesus showing up, and showing forth compassion. The stories from Luke and the piece we hear today from 1 Kings are about prophets and widows. But in the end they do what all the sacred stories do, they point us toward God. They show us and tell us who God is and what our relationship to God is.

As we listen to these stories, it's important  to understand the social structure of 1st century Mediterranean culture, and when we do, we see Jesus as the compassionate benefactor of the poor. The structure of 1st century Mediterranean culture is like a pyramid, with the householder or benefactor at the top, and then all his household and all his servants and slaves below him, the widows and children are on the very bottom. Each person in this structure derives any honor or wealth by their attachment to the householder. A woman is attached to a man in the household. Without that man, she has no status, no honor, no protection, and no means of support; she is effectively dead, unless she has a son. The Luke story assumes that the reader is well aware of the prophet Elijah, and the widow’s son who Elijah resuscitated, and it reidentifies that story with Jesus. But it goes one step further. The widow who is husbandless and sonless and in mourning, she who epitomizes the “poor” to whom Jesus has come to bring good news, is the real recipient of Jesus’ compassionate ministry. In fact, it is not too much to say that “healing” in this instance, although it entails the miraculous raising of this young man from the dead, should be interpreted as the restoration of this woman within her community.

What that means is that the restoration of the widow, her “poor” status, her unconnected status, her outcast status, is as important if not more important than the miraculous healing. Luke’s gospel is all about Jesus who brings this good news of new life to the poor. It’s all about restoration to the community and restoration of the community. It is about being made whole. It is about God’s unfailing love for God’s people. I want you to get a sense of this. This story is mind blowing, it is amazing and astounding, this woman was as good as dead, and restoring her son, restores her to life. I hope you're catching this story. If we were Jews of Jesus' time and hearing this we would be gasping, we would be clambering to know who this man is, and if we were a Roman we would be reporting him to the authorities.

So what does this good news mean in our world today? How does God’s unfailing love for God’s people make a difference in our lives? And as importantly, for the lives of all the people outside our doors who are desperately searching for something that makes sense in their lives. In this broken and fragmented world, how does the wholeness that God gives make a difference for us?

Our world is full of disconnections; the message from every corner is that you are not good enough the way you are. It is not unlike the 1st century Mediterranean world of Luke’s gospel, perfection is just attained differently today. You don’t look good enough, you don’t smell good enough, you don’t perform well enough. All of this serves to reinforce a deeper and much more insidious message that your worth is based upon some sort of external measure.

But there is no external message of worth that is true. The gospel story today says that we are truly loved in all our brokenness and that love restores us. Now some may say this is a message of mediocrity. If I am loved just the way I am, why should I bother with the way I treat people, why should I bother loving anyone, why should I bother if ultimately God will not be disconnected from me. God will never break the relationship; I however can turn my back on God. But the question of worth and ultimately salvation, arises out of that external message again. I do what I do because of the reward I will get. If I am good, I will attain heaven, for some it’s as simple as that. But the gospel is not about what I do, it’s about who God is. God is the lover whose love makes us whole, whose love fills us and feeds us. God’s love is about living fully today. God’s love is about relationship, about being connected to one another, and that relationship with God, that connection to God, is what makes us whole. God came into this world to show us that. God came into this world to restore us to wholeness, to free those who are enslaved, to give honor and status to those, in this world, have none.

How we live is in response to that abundant and unfailing love. I go out and love my neighbor, not because I get a gold star, and not even because it makes me feel good, I love my neighbor because I have been loved, because I have been restored to wholeness, because in loving my neighbor I enact healing and reconciliation. I love my neighbor because my life has been transformed, because I am created in God’s image.

The woman in Luke’s story today was restored to wholeness, she was restored to the community, she was cared for and loved, and so our response to God’s love and wholeness also has an ethical imperative. We love one another as we have first been loved, and we show forth that love to others in ways that also brings the good news to the poor.

Who are those in our lives whose lives need wholeness, whose lives need healing and reconciliation? Are they our family members? Are they the people who sit next to us in our pews? Are they the people at our workplace or school? Are they the clerks at the grocery store? Are they the people who work on our streets and roads? Are they the folks that come asking for money and food?

They are all these people.
What if every encounter throughout our day shows forth God’s love and wholeness? What if even just some of our encounters show forth God’s love and wholeness? What if we lived in the reality of our imperfection, and instead of trying to attain some sort of external perfection we embraced the person God created us to be and humbly lived the wholeness God has for us?

We would live in the reality of God’s kingdom here and now. We would live proclaiming by word and example the Good News of God in Jesus Christ, that the poor are given power, that those who seem to have nothing are extended grace. We would live forgiven and freed, without resentment or revenge. We would live without the need for violence, without the need for using others for our own personal gain. We would live as God lives in our midst, rejoicing in the life of the beloved, laughing with us at our folly, crying with us in our suffering, making us whole, complete. We would live no longer in broken fragments but as a beautiful and complete tapestry.

Thanks be to God. Amen, Alleluia!