A reflection on John 9:1-41
Six and half years ago I stood in this spot and offered to you my first sermon as your rector. I no longer have a copy of that sermon, long lost in one of the numerous computer crashes before I learned how to back up my data on a flash drive. But I do remember the illustration I used and the point I wanted to make.
In that sermon I described my experience working as a volunteer in the pediatric unit of a local hospital. I talked about one baby in particular. The mother came to this country from India but the father’s visa was repeatedly delayed. So, the mother, pregnant with their first child had to give birth in a foreign country without family or spouse. And the baby developed “failure to thrive” syndrome.
Failure to thrive is somewhat of a mystery to doctors, no one knows exactly what causes it. All they know is that despite everything appearing normal a baby fails to gain weight and grow; instead the baby diminishes and sometimes dies.
The Indian mother cared for this baby night and day, comforted and loved him, even as she grieved her own struggle to parent in this lonely way.
I used that illustration to name what I felt was a fear here – that this congregation feared its ability to grow and that that fear would manifest into a failure to thrive.
Underneath all of our work over these last years it has remained a subtle but lingering fear. Will this church die?
The point I wanted to make in that first sermon was that the desire to live, and the ability to do so, resides in large part with you, the people of St. Hilary’s.
Just like the baby, no matter how much loving care he received, something in him needed to decide to live. Somehow it seems the baby needs to make that decision, in what ever context the baby is able to do so, before the organs begin to fail from lack of nourishment.
Church communities need to make a similar decision to live. It needs to be an organic decision; the energy to live must rise up within, with the people willing to do what it takes to live.
Of course I had only a glimmer of an idea, in that first sermon, just how challenging the road ahead would be. Together we faced, just three short weeks after my arrival, the events of September 11, 2001. We gathered here that night in our fear, to be comforted by one another, to share stories and to pray.
We spoke of the evil of this world, the tendency for chaos to rear its ugly head, and God’s desire to forever scoop into the chaos and pull forth new life.
We had to remind ourselves that God desires life; God desires health; God love us and wants only the best for us; and, God will always win out over evil.
We have waded through natural disasters in the world around us – of Tsunami’s and hurricanes, finding our strength in helping others.
We have mourned through the deaths of many beloved people in this parish and found that we are stronger because of our ability to care for one another.
We have faced deep profound challenges to our faith in the actions at General Convention in 2003. We have found our voices as individuals and as a community as we willingly entered into difficult conversations. We have learned how to speak from our hearts and to listen with respect.
We have learned to let go of those who felt they had no choice but to choose another way, another church.
We have found our strength in living the tension of the middle way.
We have learned how to listen to others and understand that Christians can disagree on a whole number of issues, doctrines, and dogma, and still be good and faithful Christians.
We have learned how to read scripture and realize that each of us brings our own bias, our own lens.
But we have also learned that there is a central truth to the Word of God – that God loves us just as we are – and that we are called to love God, love others, and love self with that same generous spirit that God shows us.
We have learned that this is not easy – it has not been easy to extend love to those who would rail at us for not taking sides; for choosing to follow the middle way.
Sometimes it has not been easy to love God as we wondered what was happening to us, to this faith community – why didn’t God make us big like other churches?
And it has not always been easy to love ourselves and see the strengths and beauty and value of this parish family in the midst of our stress and strain and fear that we will fail to thrive.
Our gospel reading this morning offers us a direct link to all these same issues. In the story of the man born blind the Pharisees seek to point fingers and lay blame – surely the man was blind because of something he did before birth, or something his parents did before he was born.
The Pharisees see a direct link between cause and effect, between well-being and sin. But in the process they spend all their energy pointing outward and fail to look inward, fail to see their own sin and spiritual blindness.
And therefore fail to see God’s love evident in the world.
We have spent much of the last six years looking directly at this same theme -
that we begin first by looking at our selves and the ways we as individuals and as community are living in broken relationships with God and one another.
But it is not enough to just look at our brokenness. We have to do something about it. We have to make amends. We have to look at the ways we reject God’s love for us and for the world. We have to look at the ways we reject others and hurt people – and how we do this in ways known and unknown. Then we have to ask God to forgive us and to help us.
In traveling the journey of Lent we are pointed in the same direction as the disciples – a direction that helps us learn, over and over again, (like the disciples)that God is not a judging punishing God. Yes, God can be that. But what we learn from Jesus is that God is really one who aches for the brokenness of this world – in all its manifestations.
And, in Jesus we learn that God yearns to heal that brokenness. Also in Jesus we learn that God has chosen to do this, to heal the brokenness of the world, by working in and through human beings.
In Christ God came to heal this sin sick world and restore us to wholeness. But like that baby, we have to be open to God’s transforming love. We have to let it into our lives and into our spirits and we have to act upon it.
I don’t know why some failure to thrive babies turn around and live anymore than I know why others don’t. All I know is that is complicated and very sad.
And I don’t really know why some churches turn around and live and grow while others do not. I do think that Diana Butler Bass is on to something.
Remember our meetings in January 2006 when I shared with you her model, the tinker toy model? I think she is on to something when she suggests that we need to learn a new way of being church – one that is less about “authority” and “more about questioning without easy answers.”
And I think she is on to something when she says that the churches that grow have three factors all working together: a clear vision for mission, quality leadership in lay and ordained positions, and the Holy Spirit energizing the place.
I like to think that the work I have done here has been setting the stage for this to happen. We have laid the foundation for a clear mission with our work with refugees – whether that work plays out in selling Bishop’s Blend Coffee and the proceeds to Mexico, or with resettling refuges, or other Fair Trade endeavors…there is a clear sense of mission here. B will now take over as the Episcopal Migration Ministries Refugee Program Diocesan Liaison. She will help to keep this ministry remains front and central with the parish and the diocese.
I also like to think that we have quality leadership in our vestry and lay leaders, and these folks will hold the helm and steady this ship to navigate the waters ahead. They will need your support, prayers, and love. Be sure to pray for them and thank them.
And you will be in good hands with Pastor Deb. She will bring a calm and steady hand to the leadership as well as new enthusiasm and inspiration. Pray for her too and offer her your full support.
Remember always that you are a strong faith community making a difference in the world. Remember always to love God, love your selves, and to love others.
Remember me as one who loves you too.
And, remember that this church is not a community gathered around its priest – rather this is a community gathered around Jesus. All you have to do to thrive is to be yourselves, to love generously, and to continue to see beyond yourselves.
Don’t allow your anxiety about the future make you blind. Don’t allow your fear to limit what is possible. Allow the healing love of God to wash you and to open your eyes anew, to see clearly what is possible.
With eyes wide open, with the clarity of new sight you will see Jesus,
and he will lead you to new life.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Remember You Are Dust, Remember You Are Christ's
A reflection on Matthew 4:1-11 Lent 1
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent. On Ash Wednesday these words are followed by the imposition of ashes, and mark the beginning of Lent. The ashes remind us that we are human, made by God from the very substance of creation, remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
All across the country this year Ash Wednesday services were cancelled, including here. So, this morning we offered each of you the opportunity to begin Lent with the imposition of ashes. A simple act, but it serves as a reminder that Lent has begun and we are called to make this time holy.
Once I have said these words I find them echoing in my head. And in the reverberations of my mind I think….what does it mean to observe a holy Lent? And, am I doing it?
Thankfully the Ash Wed liturgy points toward what this might mean by laying out the following criteria:
We are to observe a holy Lent by doing the following:
Self-examination
Repentance
Prayer
Fasting and self-denial
Reading and meditating on God’s holy word.
Ok. But what does this really mean?
Self-examination means, simply, that we pay attention to our lives. It doesn’t mean that we beat ourselves up and exaggerate all our failings. It does mean that we pay attention to what we do, what we say, how we act, each and every day.
Repentance – oh, here is a word filled with all kinds of connotations. What do we really mean when we speak of repentance? We mean the act of turning to God, or, returning to God after a break in the relationship. Repentance literally means turning away from sin and turning back to God. Repentance follows an honest self-examination and an acknowledgement of our sin.
Ok. Now there is another loaded word. What is sin? Over the years we have talked about what sin is and what it is not… sin is not some behavior we can point our finger at. Sin is not finger pointing at “wrong” behavior because behavior is always culturally bound – what is deemed good or wrong in one era may not be good or wrong in another.
But what is always important, always relevant, and never limited by time or place – our relationship with God, with self, and with others. Essentially, sin is broken relationship in all its forms – broken with our family and friends, broken with our neighbors, broken with strangers we meet and ignore. Sin is broken relationship with God.
Our Gospel reading this morning describes the very human ways Jesus is tempted to break relationships with God, self, and others. Break relationship by emphasizing personal power, glory, and greatness over relationships of love and care. This reading points us look at the ways we have broken relationships with God. The various ways we may reject God in our lives or the ways we push God aside for other things – things that fill our busy lives and help us believe that we don’t have time for God.
Prayer – well prayer may feel like something we think we ought to know how to do – but never actually do – or we worry that we will pray badly or somehow pray “wrong”…how do we pray? Mary Oliver the Nobel Peace Prize poet describes prayer this way:
It doesn’t have to be
The blue iris it could be
Weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
Small stones; just
Pay attention, then patch
A few words together and don’t try
To make them elaborate, this isn’t
A contest but the doorway
Into thanks, and a silence in which
Another voice may speak.
Prayer does not need to be perfect, nor poetic, nor grand. Prayer is simple. We offer to God who we are in words or in silence. Often times it is enough that we just sit down for a few minutes and say, “God, here I am.” And then be silent.
Fasting and self-denial – these speak to a process by which we empty ourselves of the stuff of life and open ourselves to God. Fasting may be from food or drink – but it also may be from simply being too busy. Imagine your Lenten discipline being a fast from busyness.
Reading and meditating on God’s holy word. Well, this one is easily done if we come to church on Sunday. Here we are able to hear the Word spoken and the preacher breaking open that word so that it is relevant to the lives we live. Scripture tells the story of the people of God and their lived experiences with God. Scripture opens up for us the struggles of a people of faith and the joys and sorrows experienced by people seeking God.
Lent is traditionally a season of preparation for Easter. We prepare ourselves by looking at who we are and what we are doing. We prepare ourselves by following Jesus in the final days of his life and learning from him what it means to be a person of faith.
Lent is traditionally a season of preparing candidates for baptism. In the early church, following two years of teaching, adults entered their final phase of preparation to become Christian during the season of Lent.
From the beginning of my call here as your priest you all have said to me that you want me to baptize with an open and generous spirit. You do not want me to limit baptism to some set of criteria. You want me to baptize. I have found that to be an amazing act of hospitality. I have taken this seriously and baptized generously. Most recently we participated in the baptism last Sunday at St. Nicholas, of my God-daughters. Baptized by the Presiding Bishop in a festive celebration - in an incredible service of joy and hospitality.
And, now today, even on this first day of Lent, we will baptize a young boy. He desires this baptism and for a variety of reasons this day is the best day to do so. And so we will.
We will baptize him in the waters that flow from the rocks of Lent. In these rocks we symbolize the ruggedness of our journey, the challenges and temptations of our faith. The baptismal water that symbolically flows from these rocks into the font remind us that God pours God’s self out for us. In the middle of the water stands a bowl of ashes, another sign of life coming forth from what seems to us to be charred remnants. From the ashes come the rocks, from the rocks come the water, from the water comes life.
In the ancient church there lived a group of people praying in the desert. They went to the desert to find solace and quiet, to get away from the busyness of the city, they went to the desert to pray. One of these desert people was named Poemen. He was called Abba Poemen, or Father Poemen, a leader of a desert community. He said this about water and rocks:
"the nature of water is yielding, and that of a stone is hard. Yet if you hang a bottle filled with water above the stone so that the water drips drop by drop, it will wear a hole in the stone. In the same way the word of God is tender, and our hearts are hard. So when people hear the word of God, frequently their hearts are opened to the presence of God."
This baptism this morning stands as a reminder that, more often than not, the temptations we experience actually harden us to God. But God pursues us, slowly, like drops of water on rocks. This baptism comes because this child and this family desire and have decided that now is the time. God is speaking in their lives and this is the response. Out of the rocks, out of the barrenness of this winter season, come living water. This water will not be stilled by us. This water will not be contained by humanity, no matter what we do or how we try. Not even by the human imposition of tradition. This living water represents the love of God which flows forth at all times. And for Christians it is the living water that gives us new life in Christ and names us as God’s. Baptism is the beginning of the relationship. For each of us here today baptism is the real invitation into observing a holy Lent.
In baptism we are washed in the waters of love. A sign of the cross is marked on our foreheads with the sacred oil, the chrism.. The cross of ashes is traced over the cross of oil and reminds us each and every year who we are and whose we are. Each time we come for prayers of healing and anointing another cross is traced in oil. And so it goes, layer upon layer, the mark is traced on us. Through the temptations of life which seek to pull us away from God this mark remains, indelible, ever present. Remember you are dust. Remember you are Christ’s.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent. On Ash Wednesday these words are followed by the imposition of ashes, and mark the beginning of Lent. The ashes remind us that we are human, made by God from the very substance of creation, remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
All across the country this year Ash Wednesday services were cancelled, including here. So, this morning we offered each of you the opportunity to begin Lent with the imposition of ashes. A simple act, but it serves as a reminder that Lent has begun and we are called to make this time holy.
Once I have said these words I find them echoing in my head. And in the reverberations of my mind I think….what does it mean to observe a holy Lent? And, am I doing it?
Thankfully the Ash Wed liturgy points toward what this might mean by laying out the following criteria:
We are to observe a holy Lent by doing the following:
Self-examination
Repentance
Prayer
Fasting and self-denial
Reading and meditating on God’s holy word.
Ok. But what does this really mean?
Self-examination means, simply, that we pay attention to our lives. It doesn’t mean that we beat ourselves up and exaggerate all our failings. It does mean that we pay attention to what we do, what we say, how we act, each and every day.
Repentance – oh, here is a word filled with all kinds of connotations. What do we really mean when we speak of repentance? We mean the act of turning to God, or, returning to God after a break in the relationship. Repentance literally means turning away from sin and turning back to God. Repentance follows an honest self-examination and an acknowledgement of our sin.
Ok. Now there is another loaded word. What is sin? Over the years we have talked about what sin is and what it is not… sin is not some behavior we can point our finger at. Sin is not finger pointing at “wrong” behavior because behavior is always culturally bound – what is deemed good or wrong in one era may not be good or wrong in another.
But what is always important, always relevant, and never limited by time or place – our relationship with God, with self, and with others. Essentially, sin is broken relationship in all its forms – broken with our family and friends, broken with our neighbors, broken with strangers we meet and ignore. Sin is broken relationship with God.
Our Gospel reading this morning describes the very human ways Jesus is tempted to break relationships with God, self, and others. Break relationship by emphasizing personal power, glory, and greatness over relationships of love and care. This reading points us look at the ways we have broken relationships with God. The various ways we may reject God in our lives or the ways we push God aside for other things – things that fill our busy lives and help us believe that we don’t have time for God.
Prayer – well prayer may feel like something we think we ought to know how to do – but never actually do – or we worry that we will pray badly or somehow pray “wrong”…how do we pray? Mary Oliver the Nobel Peace Prize poet describes prayer this way:
It doesn’t have to be
The blue iris it could be
Weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
Small stones; just
Pay attention, then patch
A few words together and don’t try
To make them elaborate, this isn’t
A contest but the doorway
Into thanks, and a silence in which
Another voice may speak.
Prayer does not need to be perfect, nor poetic, nor grand. Prayer is simple. We offer to God who we are in words or in silence. Often times it is enough that we just sit down for a few minutes and say, “God, here I am.” And then be silent.
Fasting and self-denial – these speak to a process by which we empty ourselves of the stuff of life and open ourselves to God. Fasting may be from food or drink – but it also may be from simply being too busy. Imagine your Lenten discipline being a fast from busyness.
Reading and meditating on God’s holy word. Well, this one is easily done if we come to church on Sunday. Here we are able to hear the Word spoken and the preacher breaking open that word so that it is relevant to the lives we live. Scripture tells the story of the people of God and their lived experiences with God. Scripture opens up for us the struggles of a people of faith and the joys and sorrows experienced by people seeking God.
Lent is traditionally a season of preparation for Easter. We prepare ourselves by looking at who we are and what we are doing. We prepare ourselves by following Jesus in the final days of his life and learning from him what it means to be a person of faith.
Lent is traditionally a season of preparing candidates for baptism. In the early church, following two years of teaching, adults entered their final phase of preparation to become Christian during the season of Lent.
From the beginning of my call here as your priest you all have said to me that you want me to baptize with an open and generous spirit. You do not want me to limit baptism to some set of criteria. You want me to baptize. I have found that to be an amazing act of hospitality. I have taken this seriously and baptized generously. Most recently we participated in the baptism last Sunday at St. Nicholas, of my God-daughters. Baptized by the Presiding Bishop in a festive celebration - in an incredible service of joy and hospitality.
And, now today, even on this first day of Lent, we will baptize a young boy. He desires this baptism and for a variety of reasons this day is the best day to do so. And so we will.
We will baptize him in the waters that flow from the rocks of Lent. In these rocks we symbolize the ruggedness of our journey, the challenges and temptations of our faith. The baptismal water that symbolically flows from these rocks into the font remind us that God pours God’s self out for us. In the middle of the water stands a bowl of ashes, another sign of life coming forth from what seems to us to be charred remnants. From the ashes come the rocks, from the rocks come the water, from the water comes life.
In the ancient church there lived a group of people praying in the desert. They went to the desert to find solace and quiet, to get away from the busyness of the city, they went to the desert to pray. One of these desert people was named Poemen. He was called Abba Poemen, or Father Poemen, a leader of a desert community. He said this about water and rocks:
"the nature of water is yielding, and that of a stone is hard. Yet if you hang a bottle filled with water above the stone so that the water drips drop by drop, it will wear a hole in the stone. In the same way the word of God is tender, and our hearts are hard. So when people hear the word of God, frequently their hearts are opened to the presence of God."
This baptism this morning stands as a reminder that, more often than not, the temptations we experience actually harden us to God. But God pursues us, slowly, like drops of water on rocks. This baptism comes because this child and this family desire and have decided that now is the time. God is speaking in their lives and this is the response. Out of the rocks, out of the barrenness of this winter season, come living water. This water will not be stilled by us. This water will not be contained by humanity, no matter what we do or how we try. Not even by the human imposition of tradition. This living water represents the love of God which flows forth at all times. And for Christians it is the living water that gives us new life in Christ and names us as God’s. Baptism is the beginning of the relationship. For each of us here today baptism is the real invitation into observing a holy Lent.
In baptism we are washed in the waters of love. A sign of the cross is marked on our foreheads with the sacred oil, the chrism.. The cross of ashes is traced over the cross of oil and reminds us each and every year who we are and whose we are. Each time we come for prayers of healing and anointing another cross is traced in oil. And so it goes, layer upon layer, the mark is traced on us. Through the temptations of life which seek to pull us away from God this mark remains, indelible, ever present. Remember you are dust. Remember you are Christ’s.
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