Angels Among Us

     This angel, my mother's favorite Christmas decoration, is also a music box, and she spins elegantly to "Silent Night."

     I sometimes think this is how we like our angels, beautiful, soothing, and fixed in place.

     A woman told me once that she believed in angels, and she even had proof, thrusting into my hands two old Polaroids. "The angel", she told me with a sage nod of the head, with trembling finger pointing towards what I took to be a reflection of the camera's flash off a mirror in the background.

          Angels I have encountered, both in the Bible and in my personal experience, have been neither so retiring or discreet, so undemanding or so ready to let us enjoy the status quo.

     In the Bible, angels are messengers, delivering messages from God to usually startled just-plain-folk.  Abram and Sarai, knowing that they are well past child-bearing age, entertain three desert visitors for dinner, and are shocked to discover that they had been visited by angels bearing news of a new beginning. Mary, whose hopes centered on her recent engagement to a man named Joseph, is blown away when an angel visits her and tells her that she has been made a partner in a divine plan to save her people.

     In my life, there was the Christian Education director who told me that she thought I should teach church school to 7th and 8th Graders, back at at time when I had no idea that I could attempt such a thing, and no inkling that this was anything I might ever want to do; there was the former missionary who stopped into worship at the church I served one Sunday and told us, in the time of prayer concerns, of the horrors of the civil war in Sri Lanka, which led to a mutually-enriching partnership between our church and a village church in that country; there was that obstinate Academic Dean at seminary who told me I had to take a course across the river at Harvard Div School (the horror!), which is where I ended up meeting an amazing theology student who joined me in the adventure of married life.  All this, for starters...

     Who are the angels in your life?  Looking back, where can you see that divine messengers have appeared on your doorstep, startling you with their news, calling you into something new?  Where are they today, and will you entertain them?
  

“Let Me Help You with That Holiday Stress”

           

             A popular song way back when I was a teen was titled “Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is”.

            I think a lot of us know what time it is right about now. It is a time when we have finished up our Thanksgiving celebrations, perhaps started our Christmas shopping, perhaps have pulled out the Christmas decorations or at least thought about doing so, perhaps have dug out the Christmas cookie recipes and holiday CDs, and perhaps have had more than a few of the first inklings of that good, old-fashioned holiday stress.

            But being the good Christian folk that we are, we know that it is time for more than just all that holiday stress. It is also time to remember the story of the baby who came into the world long ago, bringing with him the promise of hope, peace, joy and love. And so it is time to get out the crèche, put on a live Nativity scene, pull the Christmas stories off the shelf.

            And yet, the church has the persistent habit of reminding us that it is another time as well. It won’t let us set our clocks forward and jump ahead to Christmas, the anniversary of the birth of Jesus; it won’t let us rest comfortably in a romanticized way-back-when for all the coming four weeks. No, the church turns our attention to the future, and to the present and how we might live in it.

            We live in a time when people are searching for meaning, trying to understand their own lives, seeking to get in touch with their inner selves, but also searching for how their lives fit into the big picture, searching to find something larger than themselves in which to place their trust, their faith, and their hope.

            With all the busyness of our lives, with the way life has of just overwhelming us with all the day-to-day stuff, it can be easy to lose sight of this deep, inner longing. But it is still there.

            This is why the church season of Advent is such a beautiful time. A time that is about so much more than holiday stress.

On the one hand, Advent is a time when we tell the story of people who came before, who, like us, were waiting for the promises of God to be fulfilled, and who strove to live faithfully as they waited. Advent is a time to remember that we are not the first people to live in an in-between time. We sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”, about the longing of captive Israel for the coming of the Messiah, the one whose coming we remember on Christmas. We read from the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, telling the people to live in expectation of the branch of Jesse springing forth, of the day when a new covenant would be written not on stone or paper, but on the hearts of people. We listen again to the story of how Mary and Joseph anxiously awaited the arrival of the one they would name “Jesus”, meaning “He saves.”

     And on the other hand, Advent is a time when we remember and retell the promises of God to us. Promises not only of what, but also of when.

            First, the what.  Since the time of Jesus, Christians have believed that the death and resurrection of the one who was born in a manger had ushered in a new period, the new era of the reign of God. It was more than just a matter of the calendar, of BC and AD, it was a qualitatively different time, a time when salvation was possible in an unprecedented manner. The age of darkness was being replaced by the age of light; a new heaven and a new earth was on their way; the time was dawning when the fulfillment of God’s promises of a reign of peace and justice and abundance for all was just around the corner, and might arrive in its fullness at any time. Through Jesus, God had broken into the world and history and had begun to set things right. 

            So what does this "what” have to do with you, and with your life, and the meaning of your life? Everything, of course. Your life is not lived in a vacuum, just a marking of time between the two dates on your eventual headstone. You have a part to play in a great drama of redemption and recreation, you are one to whom God draws near to bring you home.

I sometimes think this is hard for us to own. Popular culture tells us that there is always “the Chosen One”, one person somehow destined to be the one with the great part to play in the drama of salvation. In the Star Wars series, Anakin Skywalker, otherwise known as Darth Vader, is “the Chosen One”; in the Harry Potter series, Harry is “the Chosen One”; in “The Matrix” trilogy, Neo is the “the Chosen One.” But Jesus tells us that we are each chosen, that God plays no favorites, that we all have starring roles in God on-going drama of salvation. 

            Second, the when. Jesus himself warns his followers not to obsess over the when, wasting their days in trying to decipher the signs of the times or portents in heaven. Instead, he urges them not to fall asleep, to be ready at all times, for the promised day could come at any time, “like a thief in the night”. And so Paul tells the Romans, in the reading for today, to stay awake as well, to get up before the dawn, to not get so caught up with the minutiae of what passes for all the stuff we think we have to get done that we fail to be alert for what God is doing among us. He writes, “But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-to-day obligations that you lose track of the time, and doze off. The night is over, dawn is about to break.”

            Stay awake, and wait, and watch. And, oh yes, realizing that the day is dawning, that it will come with the same certainty that the world keeps turning, live as if that day is already here – not living lives of excess, of bickering with one another, of nursing grievances, of seeking only our own, of using others for our own pleasure, of even running around frantically trying to get everything ready to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Jesus long ago.

            We think we know what time it is, but this is what the time really is.  Time to be ready to meet the living God just around the next bend, coming perhaps, as Jesus foretold, on a cloud in glory, but more likely in the guise of someone in need: a hungry person, a homeless person, someone who is sick or imprisoned, someone who is lost or alone.   

            So maybe this is one answer to that holiday stress – to remember what time it really is, and to embrace that time, and to joyfully make the most of it.

            Amen.

            Let us pray. Gracious God who came to us as a tiny baby long ago, remind us always that salvation is nearer to us now that when we became believers; that even now you come to us where we are, as we are, working to never leave us the same. As these days grow short, as our days grow shorter, awaken us to a new joy of life, that this day we might resolve once again to truly live. Amen.

THE UNINVITED GUESTS AT THE THANKSGIVING TABLE

     It is a familiar ritual, I would imagine, for almost all of us. A late November day, the sun low in the sky, perhaps eclipsed by scudding rain clouds; a few tenacious oak leaves cling to almost stripped bare branches, the smell of long-dormant home fireplaces alight once again wafting through the neighborhood. Inside, all is warm and snug, the extended family gathered together once again around the table, a turkey waiting to be carved, luscious red cranberry sauce, mounds of mashed potatoes, gravy, all the fixings. It is good to have the family together again, good to be around the table, good to give thanks for the blessings of the past year – the new baby, the marriage, the success at school, the victories in athletics. It took some work, but all are squeezed in around the table, there is room for no more. And there is happy conversation, and the kids are trying to be polite, and there is happy conversation, and the adults are trying to be polite. And then it is over and you are outside breathing the cool night air and ready to head home, and a huge part of you is thinking “what a nice time”, and a huge part of you is saying “Got through that one.”

            Because you remember the uninvited guests at the table. The ones that wouldn’t let you fully enjoy the celebrations, the ones that hovered at the edge of your consciousness even as you complimented Aunt May on her gravy, and asked Billy about hockey practice, and made sure not to talk politics because it always sends Uncle Frank around the bend. The uninvited guests that won’t be kept out, that crowd in and around the table. You know who they are: death, cancer, job loss, a feeling of failure, a sense of low-esteem, anger, bitterness, worries about terrorism and war. You don’t talk about them, not tonight, this is a happy time, for Pete’s sake,  its Thanksgiving. And maybe, you say to yourself, you are the only one who is aware of the presence of these uninvited guests.

            You likely have heard many a sermon on the importance of gratitude, of living a life of thanks, of giving thanks each day for the blessings of this life.. It is a valuable lesson – but I wonder if there is something more to the life of thanksgiving than giving thanks for the good stuff.  I wonder about those uninvited guests at the table – what would happen, do you suppose, if we were to acknowledge, not ignore them, if we were to welcome them, rather than pretend they weren’t there?

Experience tells us that there can, indeed, be a connection between lament and thanksgiving. For we know that those with the most in life, with a surplus of possessions and health and all the trappings of the good life, can be some of the least thankful among us. Often those with what we would consider to be much can lead bitter and discontented lives. Conversely, those who have suffered much can often have the keenest sense of gratitude. It is a paradox expressed by the one who can say, “Now that my house has burned down, I can see the moon rise.” It is the strange wisdom voiced by the cancer patient: “Having this disease has been a wake-up call to me, and now I find a fullness of life I never knew before, and I live each day for the gift that it is.”

            Maybe an image of would help. In Enterprise, Alabama, there is a statue its citizens erected in 1919. It is a classic Greek statue, a woman draped in Grecian clothing and holding in her upraised arms a certain object. It is not a torch, or a book, or a flag. It is a bug – a boll weevil.

            It seems that Enterprise used to be a commercially successful town with a one crop economy – cotton. When boll weevils found their way into the deep South in the early 1900s, the entire crop was wiped out. Facing economic ruin, the farmers had to try something else that was immune to the boll weevil, and most of them hit upon peanuts.

            The upshot was amazing – not only did the peanuts grow, but the farmers flourished like never before. And it was all because of the dreaded boll weevil. In gratitude the townsfolk erected what is perhaps the world’s only monument to a bug; it bears this inscription: “In profound appreciation of the boll weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity, this monument was erected by the citizens of Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama, in the year of our Lord 1919.”

            Lament and thanksgiving, all bound up together.  Sorrow and joy, despair and hope, the family and the uninvited guests all welcome, together, around the table.

            We all have uninvited guests around the table. Pretending that they are not there just doesn’t work, it doesn’t even allow us that few hours of escape we had hoped for when we decided to put on the happy face for just this one day.

           Maybe this year, maybe tomorrow, maybe each day, we ought to try a new approach,. Maybe we ought to risk making room at the table for these uninvited guests, maybe even graciously welcoming them.  And if we did, perhaps we would find that they are not so scary after all; and if we did, then maybe we could truly open our hearts in thanksgiving to the One who promises to us, in all our brokeness, that we shall be healed; and if we did, maybe we could honestly say to ourselves and to each other, “Happy Thanksgiving”.

           

             

“Teach Us To Pray” -- a sermon

Text: Luke 11:-13

            I have always been taken aback by the disciple’s request here – teach us to pray. I mean, these disciples have been traveling around with Jesus for quite a long time; they have been observing him 24/7; they have seen him at prayer time and again; he has just come from a time of prayer. And still they ask, teach us to pray.

            So I take some heart from their request, figuring if they needed some instruction on prayer, maybe it is okay that I feel that I do, as well.  And let me tell you, I have always felt that I needed LOTS of instruction on prayer.  I think part of that is because I was raised in the Episcopal Church, and we always read from the Book of Common Prayer, and, for those who know the difference, the 1928 version! It is basically full of the most beautiful, well-crafted, formal prayers ever written in the English language. Lots of “thee”s, “ye”s, “beseeches”, and so on.  Pretty intimidating stuff, so much so that I grew up thinking that if I were to pray to God, the only acceptable prayer was in similar, flowery form, and I just knew that I was not up to it. 

            But looking back, I think my uncomfortableness with the techniques of prayer masked something deeper, and that would be an uncomfortableness with my relationship with God. Because prayer is, at heart, all about relationship, not form, not technique, not frequency, not any of that stuff. It is about relationship.

            Folk often have lots of questions about prayer. In my experience, perhaps the most common question people have about prayer is, “Does prayer work?” These days I tend to ask in response, “Does friendship work?”

            Folk usually draw back at that question, because they recognize that the assumption underlying the question – that our friendships are about success, about getting something out of them, about them working – is false. We are friends with someone not because we calculate that we will get something out of it, that it will work to our advantage. True friendship is all about the relationship, about sharing the same deep desires, about giving of ourselves, about being able to open our self up to another, and finding that the other does the same with us. The moment the relationship is about one getting something, it dies.  Now this is not to say that we don’t benefit from friendships – of course we do – but that is not the reason for them.

            So what if we thought of prayer in this way?  What if we moved away from imagining God as like some sort of cosmic vending machine in the sky, ready to mechanically dispense whatever goodies we wanted – health, wealth, freedom from challenges, a bed of roses, clear skin or whiter teeth -- if only we would insert the right number and kind of prayers? What if, instead, we thought of God as a confidant, a companion, someone who walks the long trail with us, someone who always has our best interests at heart and will go to any length for us?

            Perhaps you think this comparison of prayer to friendship to be a bit far-fetched. But it was not far-fetched to Jesus. In our reading for today, immediately after Jesus is asked to teach his disciples to pray, he begins, “Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night….” He asks the disciples to imagine that they went to the home of a friend in the middle of the night, seeking nourishment for unexpected late-night guests. Even if friendship was not enough reason for them to get out of bed, surely they would do so because of the persistent knocking at the door. In the same way, Jesus says, your Father in heaven, who is a much better friend than you will ever be, will answer you when you pray.

            Which brings us back to the disciple’s request – teach us to pray.  Because what I only recently got was that the question here is not, “teach us how to pray.” A question  about technique. No, the request is “teach us to pray” – a question which goes to the need to work on the relationship. A question just as relevant for us, of course.

            So, thinking of prayer in this way, as working on the relationship, what would that mean for us? Jesus follows up by telling the disciples: ask, search, knock. Keep the conversation going. Persist. Make the effort, and hang in there. You may have heard the saying, “95% of life is showing up”, so show up. Show up, even if it seems that your conversation partner is failing to make an appearance, at least on your time table.

Prayer is, at base, about relationship, but it is also what is known as a “spiritual practice.” A practice is the act of rehearsing a behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the phrase "practice makes perfect". So prayer is something we need to be intentional about, if we hope for our relationship with the one to whom we pray to flourish. I read of one person who put a little pink dot on the rear-view mirror of his car – and every time he was in the car, this dot would remind him to pray.  Some people set a time aside each day, perhaps to read a psalm, or to meditate. Others pray at mealtime, or before bed. Others make sure to come to worship on Sundays.

But still, what of technique? Is there a right way to pray? If we think of prayer as relationship, then we also realize that it is something we already know how to do. We know how to be in relationship with another, to talk to them, to share our hopes and fears and deepest needs, to ask for something, to say thanks for something, to even endure the silence when our friend might not find anything to say. We know how to pray.

            The disciples come to Jesus asking to be taught to pray, and Jesus responds not by giving them magical words to say, but by teaching them about the nature of the one to whom they pray. God is, Jesus assures us, a father and a friend, one who loves us and attends to our needs not because of our cajoling or because we have found the right words, but because that is God’s nature. Friends, God cannot help himself, he’s just a big softie who has a tender spot right here for each of you.  

So who here today is standin’ in need of prayer? I know am. How about you?

Live Strong

Me and Jamie

     Jamie was kind enough to pose for a picture with me and my new streamlined look.

     I am sure this is not news to anyone, but cancer sucks, and my hat's off to anyone who struggles with it.  I lost my mother, my father, my only uncle, and Sue, the mother of Katie and Julia and my first wife, all to cancer.

     But this is supposed to be a blog of spiritual reflections, so where is God in all this?

      Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his classic, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People", argues that we will never know WHY bad things happen, at least not in this life, so what we need to do is focus on the what, on what to do when bad things happen.     

     My experience of parting with my hair in honor of Jamie's upcoming last scheduled chemo treatment has brought home to me a parallel lesson, causing me to think about what we might be about when bad things are not happening to us or those close to us.  

     Things like living in gratitude for this day, and the opportunities and challenges it brings -- because some day it will be otherwise.  

     Things like opening our eyes to see that others, not so far from us, are dealing with those "bad things". 

     Things like trying to find ways to do something to help, if only (and I don't mean to minimize the importance of this), holding them up in prayer, or, if prayer is not your thing, in your thoughts.

     My hair will grow back; for Jamie, it will be a much longer process, and growing his hair back is just a small part of his road back to full health.  But in taking on this really rather insignificant act, I have somehow drawn spiritually closer not only to Jamie, but to all my loved ones who had their own struggles with this disease.  And I have also, in the shadow of that which too often leads to death, discovered new life.

     For all of that, I am thankful. 

     

In Solidarity with Jamie

Our avatars

In solidarity with, and in honor of, Jamie Bowe, a young man who is a member of the congregation I serve and who is having his FINAL treatment for brain and spinal cancer Sunday, I had a haircut today, and really got my money's worth. All gone.

Please join me in holding Jamie in your prayers or thoughts, as is your custom.

"A Spirituality of Life" -- sermon

           

         Some folk get along quite well in this life without being much disturbed by guilt. For instance, you may have heard of the day a funeral procession passed slowly down the road along the eighth tee of the golf course. A player stepped back from the ball he was about to drive, took off his cap, and bowed his head. When the procession passed, he put his cap back on, stepped up and drove the ball down the middle of the fairway. “Well”, said his partner, “that funeral procession sure didn’t interfere with your concentration.” “It wasn’t easy keeping my concentration”, replied the golfer. “After all, we were happily married for twenty years.”

            We don’t do guilt well here, either.

            This is something I say all the time, usually in the context of folk asking what we can do to get people to come to church more often. By “We don’t do guilt well here”, I usually mean relative to some other Christian traditions. We don’t tell folk they are committing a mortal sin if they don’t come to church each week; we don’t threaten them with eternal damnation if they just stay home. It’s not that we don’t think this might be effective – it’s just that we don’t believe it. But then again, you probably don’t, either.

            Now I say that we don’t do guilt well here, but personally, I do guilt pretty well in some areas of my faith life. Like, for instance, when I was off on sabbatical.  Now I know, intellectually, that one very legitimate part of being on sabbatical was simply getting rested and recharged, but there is a part of me, buried not-so deep down, which believes that I really ought to have been spending that time in spiritual practices. Like I did on my previous sabbatical, studying theology at Oxford, visiting churches in Sri Lanka, and going off to the Island of Iona, Scotland, living in community there for a week, attending worship three times a day in its magnificent abbey, really working at being more holy.

            And yet, truth to tell, when I was off on this sabbatical doing what I really love, what I am passionate about, which is sailboat racing, I felt fully alive in ways that I hardly ever do off the water. Being a part of a team fully dedicated to the same goal, being out on the water among magnificent surroundings, the intellectual and physical challenge, the total focus, the joy of competition, the satisfaction of sailing well and the elation of achieving, if not victory, at least close to it – it would not be a stretch to say, for me it was heaven on earth.

            “Heaven on earth”? Sounds rather, dare I say it, “spiritual”. But that cannot be, can it? We know what “spiritual” is – spiritual is what happens here on Sundays; spiritual is contemplative prayer, Bible reading, silence, centeredness; spiritual is going on retreat or on a mission trip.

            But maybe that problem lies in how we define spirituality, in the way we cordon spiritual matters off from the rest of our life. We divide life into the sacred and the profane, confining spirituality to what David Steindl-Rast labels the “penthouse of our existence.” He claims that spirituality relates to our entire existence, adding, “Someone will say, ‘I come alive when I listen to music’, or “I come to life when I garden’, or “I come alive when I play golf.’ Wherever we come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual.” (Quoted in The Fully Alive Preacher, Mike Graves, p. 27). 

            A well-done re-make of the 1984 film, The Karate Kid, was released this year, and it has a wonderful illustration of what I am talking about here. A young boy, bullied by a group of thugs at school, longs to learn the self-defense skills of kung fu. He convinces the building superintendent, who apparently knows this martial art, to take him on as a student, but to his disgust finds that the training does not involve smashing bricks with bladed palms, or learning different ways to kick or strike with his fists. No, day in and day out, he has one drill, apparently inspired by his teacher having witnessed the boy being criticized by his mother for leaving his jacket on the floor. Repeatedly he must take his jacket off; drop it on the ground; pick it up; hang it up, put it on. And then repeat. Over and over again.

            After days of this, the boy rebels, yelling “I didn’t come here to learn this. I came here to learn kung fu.” The teacher calmly replies, “Everything is kung fu.” What he is saying, of course, is that he is trying to teach the boy more than a few kick-boxing moves – he is trying to introduce him to a new way of being, a way that includes self-defense, yes, but which also includes treating his mother, and everyone else for that matter, with respect.

            Perhaps what we need to do is redefine spirituality so that it takes seriously that we are social, embodied creatures, so that it does not fall into that trap of dualistic thinking which values the mind over the body, which forgets that the meaning of the incarnation, if it means anything, is that when God came into our earthly existence in the human form of Jesus Christ, everything became imbued with the holy. Perhaps we might try to imagine what a spirituality of life, of life fully lived, might look like.         

It will be different for each of us, of course. For many, prayer, worship, contemplation, silence, and so on, the usual spiritual practices, might be key religious experiences. And yet, a spirituality of life would allow for more, and would recognize that for others a meal with friends, a time of sharing stories with people, a walk on the beach, an afternoon in the garden, even a race on the briny, can be equally powerful. A question for each of you might be, “Where is it that you come alive? Can you see God in that activity, in that part of your life?”

This is the challenge I posed for myself in the weekly blog I began writing a few weeks ago. To quote: “Jesus tells us to "seek first the kingdom of God", and yet how often are we too busy to do so; let's look for God-sign among the dunes, on

Main Street

, everywhere!”  Many folk, including many of our members here, often find themselves elsewhere on Sunday morning, and so miss that time set aside each week for spirituality. But the truth of the matter is that even for those of you who attend worship weekly, each week still has another 167 hours in which your spirit might be attuned to the spirit of God.

But if a spirituality of life says that a life of faith is not confined to “churchy things”, to worship, to prayer, to meditation, to Bible Study, then why church? Why come to worship on Sunday? Or Bible Study on Mondays or Wednesday?  Maybe we can worship God on the golf course and that is enough. Here is what Barbara Brown Taylor, author of “Leaving Church”, writes:

“Gradually I remembered what I had known all along, which is that church is not a stopping place but a starting place for discerning God’s presence in this world. By offering people a place where they may engage the steady practice of listening to divine words and celebrating divine sacraments, church can help people gain a feel for how God shows up . . . . That way, when they leave church, they no more leave God than God leaves them.” (Leaving Church, p. 165)

There are many good reasons for belonging to a church community and coming to worship on a regular basis, but perhaps one of the best reasons is they continually clue us into the ways in which God is at work in the world, in this community, and in people’s lives.  A colleague says that she views her role as a preacher to be a “broker of people’s experience of the holy” – her task is to share the stories of how God is involved in the world, not only as handed down to us in the biblical accounts, but also as experienced by people over time, and especially, today. As we listen to those accounts, it not only teaches us ways to be on the lookout for how God might be at work in our lives, it also helps set our expectations – after all, if we don’t expect God to show up in our lives, we are unlikely to look for its signs.

But of course there are many ways to listen, and using our ears is only one of the ways. We also listen and learn by observing, and by participation in a church community we can observe first-hand a community that intentionally seeks to form Christ-like people who embody and communicate, in word and deed, the good news of the kingdom of God. By participation in a church community, we walk side by side with, and work hand in hand with, a people who seek to be agents of transformation for the world, folk who live not just for themselves, but for others as well. And we not only observe them, they observe us; we receive, but we also give as well.

A spirituality of life is, therefore, a holistic spirituality, one which on the one hand celebrates the human experience of feeling fully alive in whatever sphere of life that might happen – on the golf course, in the garden, at home with the grandchildren, at a Patriots football game; and yet which, on the other hand, calls us to intentional engagement in the spiritual practices such as prayer, Bible Study, silence, and weekly worship. Perhaps today, a day on which we remember the Founders of this church community, we might do well to rededicate ourselves to this holistic spirituality.

Let us pray.

We give you thanks, O Founder of all that is, for the gift of grace which comes to us not only through this gathered body, your church, but also through your magnificent creation and the lives you have gifted us with. Awaken us to your presence here and in the routine of our daily lives, that we might ever turn our lives towards you, and live for your people. Amen.

Our Silent Vets

     I thought I would go looking for some vets today; I knew where I would find many, at rest beneath the sod, now so silent.

     My father was a veteran of WWII, serving in the Army in Germany after the Battle of the Bulge, slogging through the Ruhr pocket.  He brought back a number of souvenirs, including a Luger and an American grenade (emptied of powder, the fuse removed, but still an object of endless fascination for a young boy.)

     The souvenirs remained in a box in the attic. Despite my brother's and my persistent questioning, he never spoke of the war. Ever. Except to voice his bewilderment that a television comedy (Hogan's Heroes) could ever have been made.  And to vow that, after all the camping he endured in the war, he would never, ever, camp out again.

     He came home from the war uninjured. On the outside. And for all I could tell, uninjured emotionally.

     But what do I know? I cannot help but believe that his experiences were such that he wanted to spare us from them, and perhaps spare himself the re-telling.

     I know he was not, and is not, alone in keeping silent about his experience serving in the armed forces.

     Today we honor our veterans, and I honor my father for his sacrifice.  And one way I will do that is to remember that it is all of us who ultimately bear the responsibility for sending our young men and women off to defend us, and that this is a responsibility we need always exercise wisely. 

     Lest future vets needlessly come home

in silence.

Self-Portrait, September 2010

  

"When I look at your heavens,

     the work of your fingers,

  the moon and the stars that 

     you have established;

what are human beings that

     you are mindful of them;

  mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little

     lower than God,

  and crowned them with glory and honor."

    -- Psalm 8

“’We’re Not In Kansas Anymore, Toto’" - sermon

Text: Matthew 13:44-53

            For the disciples of Jesus, for the Pharisees and the scribes, for everyone exposed to his message, it was a Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz moment. 

            Most of you – maybe all of you – remember the movie. Dorothy is a teenager living on a family farm in Kansas, enduring what she considered a lonely and unadventurous existence, when a tornado sweeps Dorothy, her house, and her little dog Toto from her black-and-white world to the magical, Technicolor Land of Oz.  Looking around at this new world she has found herself in, she says, “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more.”  She is right, of course, and while there is much around that recalls her old world – there are trees and fields and cities and blue skies and singing birds and even people, there is also much that is new – a talking Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man, witches and wizards, and much more. Part of her challenge is accepting that the old world is not her present reality, and then learning to live into this new existence.

            This was Jesus’ message to all who would hear it: “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” The kingdom of heaven, as Jesus calls it in Matthew, the kingdom of God, as Jesus calls it in the other Gospels, is not some futuristic dream which might eventually be realized at the end of history or after we are dead and buried – no, the kingdom of heaven is near, it is at hand, it is breaking in among us. The God who promises to make all things new is doing that even now. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

            So naturally people have questions about this new kingdom, and one of the first ones is, “Well if the new kingdom is at hand, we can just throw out all of the old, right?” So maybe we don’t need all our traditions and our history, maybe we can forget all about the law and the prophets.  But Jesus says to them (Matthew 5:17) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” And what Jesus does is take the law, those rules by which the people had tried to make a just and peaceable community, and extend and internalize them. So we read in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus saying things like, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment….”  

            And so today we read, as Jesus winds up his parables about the kingdom of heaven, that “every scribe (by this he means every one who learns) who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”  The challenge for the followers of Jesus is to receive the treasure of his new teachings, to embrace the excitement and joy and wonder of the good news that the Technicolor kingdom of heaven is at hand, while at the same time cherishing and using the valuable from their tradition.

            Friends, this is just as true for us, today, right here at this pivotal moment in our history as a local church, right here in this pivotal time for the wider church as well.

            Maybe you have noticed. I know I have. Perhaps it’s because I was away for thirteen weeks on sabbatical, and changes that might have escaped your notice because you have been here stand out more for me, but the difference for me is shocking. Attendance at worship is way off. There are less of us in the pews.  There are fewer young families, fewer children. Fewer members of the senior choir, fewer bell ringers, fewer folk taking advantage of our adult education opportunities like Bible Study. There is less financial support for the church and its ministries, fewer pledging, fewer giving. I looked up the numbers, and average attendance, over the past two years, has dropped by at least one-third.

            You might be wondering what we are doing wrong. But it is not just us. I talk with my colleagues here on the Cape, and they are experiencing the same thing. I talk to folk off-Cape, same story. I pick up religious publications like The Christian Century magazine and read that church attendance is down across the board – even the denominations that did better in recent decades have joined in the decline.

             But wait, there’s more. Membership decline does not even begin to adequately describe our situation. The problems go much deeper, and they include the vast changes that have been going on in American culture the past fifty years. Let me name just a few.

            American Christendom simply no longer exists. The unquestioned assumption of the post-World War II years that part of being a good American was tied to belonging to and participating in a local, mainline Protestant church no longer holds. Many of the unquestioned and assumed supports underlying the church no longer exist. Businesses are now open on Sundays; sports, dance, drama, all once absent from the Sunday scene, now fill it, and our children and youth and their parents have long since given up making church a higher priority. Christmas carols are no longer sung in schools. Christianity is no longer the established religion; we are now truly an inter-faith society where the Christian faith is simply one choice among many. Many adults were not brought up in church. Far more families have two bread-winners these days, and as a result many Sundays find them looking for a day of rest, and that often means, a rest from getting the kids dressed, out the door, and over to church.

            In short, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

            But if we are not in Kansas, where exactly are we, and what ought we to do?  Are these insurmountable obstacles, or real opportunities? Is the pain we are experiencing death throes, or birth pangs? (If death throes, let us remember that at the heart of our faith is the knowledge that death precedes resurrection, that, as we sang in our opening hymn, “in the bulb there is a flower”.)

            And what about this pain thing? Is pain all bad? A fitness trainer that I know likes to repeat the saying “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” Pain can wake us up to reality, it can alert us to a problem, and it can motivate us to take action to address the underlying challenge. We humans are not big on change, and left to our own devices, won’t. We usually need a pinch of reality to get us off the dime. In other words, pain.

            So what to do? Perhaps we might take a clue from what Jesus had to say about the kingdom of heaven to those folk who found themselves in a similar situation, smack dab in the middle of a new reality and wondering how to make a start of things. He told them that “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”  So what might we bring out of the old, even as we grope for the new? Let me just touch on three ideas.

            First, a number of years ago we decided that we wanted to be a more obviously welcoming congregation, and so we held a hospitality summit, bringing together representatives of all the boards, committees, and fellowship groups in the church for a day of brainstorming. Out of this came a host of initiatives, like our nametag ministries, our Dinners for Eight events, the gift bags that we bring to the homes of first-time visitors, a paid nursery coordinator, and much more. Perhaps we might build on this welcoming initiative by taking it to the next level, moving it outward from something we do here to something we do out there, in our communities and in our neighborhoods and in our friendships, actively inviting others to try us out.  We Yankees are somewhat embarrassed about this, but it does not have to be that way – ask anyone who has lived in the South and they will tell you that one of the first questions they are asked is “What church do you go to, and if you haven’t found one yet, why not come with me on Sunday to our church?” Ask them to try us out because you’ve found something good here and you want them to have the chance to have that same good experience.

            Second, even as we focused inward on becoming more hospitable, we also focused outward, increasing our hands-on involvement in mission. You have joined Habitat for Humanity builds, taken mission trips to Chile and New Orleans, have supported refugee children in Sri Lanka, knitted neck warmers for the troops in Afghanistan, brought meals to the homeless at the NOAH Shelter. In so doing, you have not only done good, extending a helping hand to neighbors near and far – you have also grown spiritually, had transforming, even life-changing experiences. Can we find ways to deepen our involvement of partnering with God in the ongoing work of bringing ever closer the kingdom of heaven, of involving others, or sharing the joy?

            Third – and we always have to come back to this -- we have also gone deeper, intentionally seeking to bring Christ closer to the center of our lives. This has been evident in our worship together, and, for those who have attended, in our Bible Studies and other adult educational opportunities. Can we find ways to be even more intentional about going deeper? Perhaps it might be through subscribing to one of the devotional aids like “The Daily Word” or, for the technologically savvy, checking out my new blog. Perhaps it will be a new rededication to attendance at Sunday worship, at WITS, at the Men’s Breakfast Group. Perhaps it will mean putting together and attending off-site retreats.

            Above all, we need to remember why we do all this, why hospitality, why outreach, why going deeper – all this because these contribute to the purpose of the church, which is that of transforming lives for the better. We as a church, charged by Jesus with making disciples, seek to change people in such a way that the Christian story of grace and response, of God loving us first and then we responding in how we can live our lives, is the lens through which people experience reality.  And the good news is that this is not something that we do, although we can try to help make it happen – this, the gift of faith, is something God does.

            So let me end as I began, with Dorothy, in that wonderful new land of Oz. This, at core, is what we are about – striving to take people from that limited, black-and-white world so many just settle for, to a Technicolor world of grace and forgiveness, acceptance and empowerment. And as we do so, let’s not settle for clicking our heels together and wishing we were just back home again – instead, let’s fold our hands together, and pray to the One who promises to make all things new, “thy kingdom come, on earth, as it is in heaven.”

            Amen.

           

           

Bridging The Tide

     What, if anything, is of the Spirit in this photogragh?

     At first glance, a bridge, a structure crossing the tide, connecting two shores, built to span the waters and allowing passage across.

     Perhaps reminding us of the hopes of many that, now the elections are behind us, the parties might come together, find a way to bridge their differences, and in some semblance of unity work together to address the very real issues that confront us -- issues of substance, yes, two wars and a precarious economy and infrastructure needs and so much more, but also issues that go to the heart of how we will behave towards one another. Thoughts of reconciliation.

     Those of the Christian faith might notice the structure undergirding the bridge, reminiscent of what Jesus dragged up that hill outside Jerusalem some 2000 years ago, and wonder about a bridge between humanity and the Divine. Thoughts of another sort of reconciliation, perhaps.

     And maybe those who know this bridge, part of the boardwalk in Sandwich, Massachusetts, will see something else.  Noticing the ladder that drops from the mid-point of the bridge, they will see the bridge as it is in summertime, at high tide, crowded with children and youth and an occasional parent, all waiting for a chance to clamber up on the railing and then, after a nervous deep breath, that exhilerating Oh-My-God! plunge deep into the cool , salty waters.

     Perhaps they will see not discord, not opposing shores, and not even a bridge.

     Perhaps they will see a yellow brick road.

     What, of the Spirit or otherwise, do you see?

Cape Colors

For the beauty of the Cape....

     . . . in its most glorious season, the fall, when the skies are achingly blue, and the winds blow and blow and blow, and the colors come out so slowly, in a far more subtle way than up north, where the sugar maples blaze in glory.

       In our yard we have an oak leaf hydrangea, now a burnished red that almost eclipses its mid-summer glory of ivory, cone-shaped blossoms. . .

. . . and beach grasses like these, which in the fall wave their delicate seed pods in the ever-changing breeze . . .

and even a procrastinating mop head hydrangea blossom or two, which seemed to have over-slept their mid-summer wake-up call, and yet now help us remember that season which seems so long ago, when we splashed through the shallows at Sandy Neck and boated on Lake Wequacket, fired up the grill and roasted corn fresh from Crow Farm, lingered into the evening out on the deck and slept on top of the sheets, windows wide open, serenaded by peepers and crickets.

     How much of this beauty consists in its impermanence, in the bittersweet knowledge that soon it will be but a memory?  (One thinks of how much haiku is written about the cherry blossom).

     Once, in a moment of awareness of my own mortality (how we avoid those moments, and yet how powerful they can be!), I had two thoughts. The first was this: that if I were aware that I only had a short time to live, I would want that time to be in the fall, one last time to savor the transient beauty that paints the landscape in new magnificence every day. And the second was this -- how sad it would be to know that this was the last time I would have that experience; how sad, and yet, how strangely

wonderful.