Sermon, August 6, 2006

John 6.24-35; Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 “What is it?” manna—that’s what the word manna means: “What is it?” The people of God were sustained in the wilderness by what is it. Manna that food provided by God that is to be collected only enough for one day—it can’t be saved for the next day. Can’t be flash-frozen. Can’t be salted away. Can’t be packed in barns. Can only be collected for the day. Give us this day our daily bread. What is it? The people haven’t been out of Egypt and slavery that long really. But freedom they’ve discovered has it’s own set of fears. Fear has distorted their memories. They yearn for the fleshpots of Egypt while they criticize their leaders. Fleshpots. I love that word. No, it isn’t beer bellies. And, no it isn’t about strip joints. It’s about pots of meat to eat. In their hunger and their fear the Israelites remember the meat and the bread they ate in Egypt. Their fear distorts their memory. All they can remember is the good old days (of slavery and forced labor). Maybe in your own life you’ve known this way that fear works. To distort the memory.. God hears their murmurings and complaints and sends them quail (fleshpots) and manna (bread). Today we think that manna was probably bug juice—something contemporary Bedouins still collect on a daily basis—flakes of carbs and sugars left by plant lice that feed on the tamarisk tree in the desert. Whatever it was—bug juice or some other kind of bread, the people don’t recognize it as bread. It wasn’t like any loaf or piece of bread they’d ever seen: not like pita even, or doughnuts, or multigrain. . . . I asked for bread. What is this? . . . Their vulnerability has been matched by God’s generosity—but they haven’t a clue—because manna doesn’t meet their expectations. Fear does that, doesn’t it? It not only distorts your memory, but it limits your expectations of what’s coming. It shrinks your imagination—at least of the good. That’s been my experience. How many times have I prayed for deliverance, and then not recognized it when it came to me? How many times have I prayed for help and not liked who brought it? How many times have I prayed sure that I knew just what I needed (brioche)—only to find in retrospect that what I wanted would have been death? There is a level at which we simply must read this story as a story about hunger for food—real food—food for bodies. You need sustenance for your body if you are going to cross the desert. You need: Water. Quail. Manna. When we hear this story and we can’t help but think about the millions of people starving to death in our world today. Not back sometime in the distant past. But today. I’ve read that ¼ of humankind is living in abject poverty this Sunday. That’s about 1.3 billion people. 33,000 children starve to death every single day. What is it? What about them? The truth is that there is enough food to feed all the bodies on the earth right now. The food is here. But we humans who have enough to eat haven’t been willing, or able, or imaginative, or courageous enough to get it to those who need it. And, of course, as I say those words I can hear your mind—coming up with all the disastrous long-term consequences of such distributions, preparing your remarks to deliver to me as you leave this place this morning—to remind me of the political and economic realities of our world—or perhaps you are merely shrugging the shoulders of your mind and saying, “not me, I couldn’t make that happen. I’m not responsible” But, you and I know one other thing: God’s generosity calls us to feed the hungry. But to read this story as only a story about bread—literal, physical bread: brioche, sour dough, or muffin—is to do it an injustice. That’s made perfectly clear in Jesus’ interactions with the seekers who come to him asking for bread—just after he’s fed the 5,000. They keep talking about bread and manna, and he keeps pushing them deeper, or higher, or wider, or more fantastically, or more truthily. It’s a travesty really to only read Scripture literally. Those who do so expect they are going to find the truth—but at least in today’s Gospel story, it’s clear that the physical, literal level of these feedings yields only a hint of God’s truth to be revealed. Jesus keeps pointing to something else. What is it? What is it that we seek? Physical hunger is real. That’s the truth—but everyone, whether they are starving for food, or so overfed that they are stuffed---everyone hungers. Hungers for meaning, hungers to be called to their best selves, hungers for relationship, hungers for new life, hungers for God. “Don’t work for food that perishes,” says Jesus, “work for the food that endures for eternal life.” The food that sustains the fullness of life. Just recently I heard a real-life story about a young man I know. When I last saw him he was pursuing the American dream—wife, child, house, bigger house, bigger house, money, more money, most money. Necessary things, desired things, things beyond your wildest desires. Then there was a divorce, a trip to a foreign land, visits to temples, with monks, tears, dark nights, letting goes, finding himself—his art, long ago left behind. His generosity—not practiced for a long time. Tuning his eyes to see the manna along his path—like nothing he’d ever seen before. Tiny. Nothing he’d looked for or imagined. He’s been born again. There is creativity and joy. Relationship with his child. Peace. Connection with the divine. What is it? He thought he’d lost it all. Family, possessions, job, reputation, whatever. Manna came to him in loss. in vulnerability. In sharing. In giving up the hoarding, the grasping, and storing, the plotting and planning. In emptiness. Bug juice. What seems like loss can contain a gift. God works that way sometimes. You and I know that. “Sir, give us this bread always.” God love them. God love us—we who seek. We who think we know what we need. Give us this bread. Always. Gimme. Gimme. Gimme. The bread we seek is always being offered by the God who loves us. But, when it is offered, our question is, “What is it?” Because we’d imagined it the way we imagined it. Not the way it comes. We’re used to taking care of ourselves, providing our own bread. Storing it up, protecting it. Keeping it for a rainy day. There are those who are starving for bread and meat—literally. We are related to them. Most of us here have more than we need. Maybe just maybe. The manna that is coming our way today, in this place and time is the manna of the small, the beneath us, the manna that requires our letting go. The manna that invites us to slowdown. To collect for only one day. To depend on God in new ways. Acknowledge our vulnerability, live into our dependence on God and our interdependence—our most desperate hunger for connection. As I drove my car through town the other day, I looked at all the other cars at the intersection. Each one had one person in it-- individuals isolated in their cars—all of us heading to our own private destinations. I thought about how Jesus told the seekers, “I am the bread. Believe in the one that God has sent. Believe in me.” To believe is not some act of the mind. To believe in or into Jesus as John puts it is to commit to, to be in solidarity with Jesus. Words like loyalty, abiding, love, being faithful to—those are words that describe believing in Jesus What is it? We hardly recognize it any more--this bread that invites us into relationship. . . . Give us this day our daily bread. This bread that invites us to the table to be fed—and calls us and enables us to go out into the world to share. Just today. Every day.

Sermon, July 2, 2006

Mark5:21-43; Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24 I got a call from a chaplain not long ago to go visit a woman who is under the care of hospice—a woman who is dying. I went and took communion with me. After communion, I offered to pray for her and asked her if she had any special requests. I waited in the silence, holding her frail hand in mine. She asked me to pray for a friend, who is ill, and for her daughter. That was a holy moment that moment. From the lips of a woman near the end of her own life came prayer requests for others—that their lives might be blessed by God. Our little reading from Wisdom this morning affirms that God created all things that they might exist—have life. It sings the praises of the generative forces—of creativity and tells us that God takes no delight in the death of the living. And, in our gospel reading we come face to face with Jesus the healer, whose energy for healing can be tapped from behind and even by one who is sick unto death. This generative force in Jesus—a sign of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom is in evidence throughout Mark’s Gospel. Jesus goes about his ministry healing all kinds of people—of all kinds of disease. Today’s story interrupted by another story is all about healing and faith. The faith of the woman who reaches out to touch Jesus’ cloak—and the faith of Jairus the leader of the synagogue, whose daughter is ill. Both of them fall down at Jesus feet—they are made one in that. In their need, in their desire for healing, in their turning to Jesus they are united. It gives you a picture really of one way in which we are made one in Christ—this image of the two people—so different, one a leader, highly respected the other a woman who has suffered much and lost all her resources in her frantic search for healing. No matter their differences—in their need for healing they are made one—at the feet of Jesus. In their humility we see their unity. Perhaps you have experienced this kind of unity with others in an emergency room—a place in our society where those in urgent need come together in their hope for healing. In an emergency room you find yourself sitting next to others who may be very different from you. But all are there in their common humanity and need. Not all are healed—not all have their diseases cured. You and I know that. Life is fragile and people get sick and die. And the power of medicine—whether Western or Eastern or any other kind seems to go only so far. And when we look out on our world today if we’re honest I think we’d have to say that there are days when we’re not so sure that God’s power for healing, that generative energy for life—is at work. There are moments when we consider our world and we have to wonder: and its not just the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, in Palestine, the Sudan or Colombia, or the condition of the environment. . . it comes closer to home than that—when we consider the divisions and sickness in our own lives—our country, our cities, our families, even in our Episcopal church these days—so much in the news. If healing is about wholeness and unity then you have to wonder—you have to wonder. Like the folks who laughed at Jesus when he said that the girl was not dead, just sleeping—we have to laugh. Who is he kidding? We mourners—we know death when we see it. We know death. Whether it’s the death of the little girl or the living death of the woman who had bled for 12 years—we know about death. You and I. We know its ways—and we can see it clearly. We know what it’s like to be the bringers of the sad news: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” How often have you seen death, identified death, and given up hope? Have there been times when all seemed lost? In your own life—in the life of a loved one? Some things just seem intractable and we aren’t at all sure that there is any power on earth that can change them. Most of us have known such times. Known losses that make us wonder if we can go on.. “Why trouble the teacher any more?” These stories about Jesus and the woman and the little girl—one sick for twelve years, the other born just as the woman’s illness began—are not just stories about healings. Surely they are reminders to us about the deepest of all truths—the one the Wisdom passage hints at. They are stories about Jesus—about his suffering, death, and resurrection. Biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine says that “Women’s bodies in this story provide a model for the body of Christ.” Their suffering is a model for Christ’s suffering, their healing a model for his resurrection. Like Jesus’ own death, the little girl dies surrounded by commotion and mockery. And at her healing the people are “overcome with amazement.” The word in Greek is ekstasis—the word used only one other time in Mark’s Gospel—at the end --when the women at the tomb are told that Jesus has risen from the dead. And if the stories provide a model for the body of Christ surely they are a model for us as the body of Christ. Here’s where the rubber hits the road. Here on a Sunday morning when we come together in our need to fall at the feet of Jesus—you might say if you were an evangelical. Here on a Sunday morning when we come to kneel at the communion rail to be fed—here we are made one in Christ. And here week in a week out we travel the path on the border between life and death—breath and stillness. Here we bring our deathliness to the source of life—praying, hoping against hope that the generative energy of God will heal us—make us whole and give us a new beginning. This meal first celebrated when Jesus was at the very edge of his own life—facing into the certainty of death—is the meal we turn to for life. It is grounded not only in his dying, but in his rising. That is the ground of our being. The ground of our hope. That dying and that rising. And perhaps you and I find ourselves here because we in some sense—in some part of ourselves—are like the little girl. We are dying or have died. Our losses have overwhelmed us. The breath has been knocked out of us—our hopes have been dashed. We wouldn’t think to bother the teacher, really. In our hearts we might laugh at the notion that life could come out of death. Yet, here we are: you and I. Maybe it’s just habit that brings us, or maybe it’s our longing. Our longing to hear those words, “Talitha cumi.” “Little girl get up!” Czelaw Milosz, the Nobel prize poet once wrote a poem after attending mass on this very day in the liturgical year. A reading this Sunday from the Book of Wisdom About how God has not made death And does not rejoice in the annihilation of the living. A reading from the Gospel according to Mark About a little girl to whom He said: Talitha cumi! This is for me. To make me rise from the dead And repeat the hope of those who lived before me. Like the woman I visited who is dying—you and I live at the edge of life and yet we live into hope—that precious life-giving hope of resurrection. This is who we are. AMEN

Sermon, July 16, 2006

[I invite you to stand in the silence this morning and greet the person to your right and to your left by bowing, with your hands together like this in front of your chest—your heart. Greet one another acknowledging the divine in each of us. Take your time. Now greet others who are around you this way…] 2 Samuel 6:1-5; Mark 6:14-29 When was the last time you danced with all your might? Or, whirled with all your might? When did you let go and let your body express your joy in dance? In our society dancers tend to be young people—and dance isn’t always an expression of joy—if you’ve ever been near a mosh pit, you’ll know what I mean. At my younger son’s wedding a few months back we joined in circle and folk dancing after the meal. It was late and the dancing was short, but there is nothing like that feeling of your whole body moving to the beat of the music, and the interaction with others as you take hands and dance your joy. I was on retreat last week learning and practicing healing prayer and meditation—and we began every morning by moving our bodies and dancing together. Not in couples—in community. We even danced to Stevie Wonder one morning. We spent a lot of time during the week in quiet, meditating—so it was especially good to be able to pray every morning with our bodies moving. David dances with wild abandon—whirling with all his might as the Ark—the symbol of God’s presence in the midst of the people—is brought back from the Philistines to a united community—to the City of David. He expresses his joy, and no doubt the joy of the people, by dancing. There are songs and lyres, and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. Just imagine that! As if that weren’t enough, there was loud shouting and the sound of the trumpet! And David was leaping and dancing. [This clearly was not Episcopal worship!] Although David’s wife Michal might represent the thinking of some higher Anglican-types—she despised him in her heart—and later complained of his unseemly behavior.] Dancing is considered a normal expression of joy and praise to God in Hebrew Scriptures. And in Jewish custom and in the early church—in fact in the church throughout the Middle Ages dancing—circle dances, processional dances—was a part of worship. Of liturgy. Clergy and laity alike danced. The people of God danced. They didn’t just pray with their minds, and their words—they prayed with their bodies—by dancing. I suppose the remnants of this kind of worship can be found in our stately processions, and in the bowing and kneeling and other bodily gestures we make—with great Anglican restraint. What happened to dancing? Did you notice that at our Big Event—our parish party last year—not many people danced—many more watched from a safe distance than danced. Why are so many of us embarrassed to dance—find the notion of dancing in church to be so foreign—so something I could maybe watch—but not do. I can’t dance. “Liturgical dance when its done professionally,” we say, “is fine—once in awhile. But—don’t involve me—not me.” How was that this morning when you greeted one another with a bow? Honoring the divine within them? How is that different from just nodding to them? How is that different from nodding at them, or smiling, or saying perhaps, “God bless”? What happened to dancing? . . . Oh, yes, Herod and his wife and their daughter. Oh, yes, them. Feminine wiles—suggestive dancing—Salome (or Herodias perhaps). Manipulation—trickery—death. Gruesome death—laid at the feet of dancing. That must be it. Dancing is dangerous because when women dance it pleases men—and then you know what happens next. . . dum de dum dum. As time passed and clergy became the doers and the laity the watchers in the liturgy—and as the effort to control grew—then dance had to go. And its dangers were tied to stories like this one—an abject lesson if there ever was one. About the dangers of dance. And of girls and of women. Poor Herod. Poor poor Herod. This is not a story about dancing. It is a story about power and its abuse—or it’s a story about the cost of telling the truth to power—or it’s a story of how the ghosts of the past can rise up to undo you—or maybe it’s a story about how the powers that be may blow out a candle but never manage to put out God’s fire. And, of course, it’s a story about Jesus—and about who he is. It’s the longest single story in Mark’s gospel and it comes just after Jesus sends his disciples out to preach and heal, and just before they come back to report on their successes. John’s already dead at this point—but word of Jesus is spreading and that brings John back to life, you might say. People are asking, just who this Jesus is—is he a prophet? Is he Elijah? Where does his power come from? Herod who has killed John thinks John must have come back to life. He apparently can’t bear to think that there could be two such powerful folks roaming his territory. And Mark tells us that Herod actually liked to listen to John—but he threw him in jail because he’d dared to speak the truth. John told him and his wife Herodias—who happened to be divorced from his half-brother Philip—that their marriage wasn’t lawful—not under Jewish law. No doubt this was something most folks had figured out for themselves. But probably not many spoke the words out loud—not to Herod’s face. Herodias, the wife, sees how this truth-telling could be damaging to Herod’s honor—not to mention her own. It’s a sick little story this one—and it’s about the powers that be—for those gathered for the birthday celebration are the court nobles, the army officers and the leading Galileans—the inner circle of power (you know, government officials, military and business leaders—those types. It’s a shameless story about how living a lie catches up with you—and how the decision-making in this circle of power results in the death of one already silenced, just so that the face of the King can be saved. Imagine being one of those in attendance. Imagine yourself sitting through this debacle. What would you be thinking when Herod makes his ridiculous offer to the girl—who may have been around 10 or 12—Imagine what you think when she comes back. When he orders the guard to execute John. When he returns with the head on a platter. When it is given to the girl. Just imagine. What it is like to watch this tragedy unfold. Do you suppose anyone dares to speak? Does anyone dare to make a joke? Applaud? Is anyone sick to their stomach? Who turns away and pretends it isn’t happening? So many morals to the story. Find the silent party-goer in yourself watching quietly as the powers that be save face through killing. Find the Herod in myself more concerned about what people think of me than anything else. Find the Herodias in yourself still a child but thrilling to the power given you for the moment. Find the wife in you—trapped in the consequences of living a lie—so afraid of the truth spoken out loud—that you lash out to silence it. Find the John in you punished for speaking the truth, powerless before the powers-that-be. And then of course, there is the Holy One. Find the Holy One in you. For this little story is a part of a much larger and much deeper story. Mark reminds us of the cost of following Jesus—by reminding us of the cost paid by the one who came before him. Jesus and his followers will not have an easy time of it when it comes to speaking the truth to power. There is a cost to exposing the truth. To living lives that provide evidence of God’s resurrecting power at work. This story is a prologue to the story of Jesus’ death and Jesus’ resurrection. Death never is the final word. God’s new order comes—and no King can change that. Herod uses his power to protect himself from the truth. He doesn’t really have a clue about who he is dealing with. He’s been attracted to John—but he hasn’t come close enough to let his message work its transformation. The Ark—that presence of God in the midst of the people. Who is this Jesus? For us, he is the Ark. His life, death, and resurrection full of God’s Godness in our midst. Mostly people didn’t notice. Or they are intrigued, but keep their distance. They didn’t dance. They don’t whirl. Years ago I watched the New Year’s dances at Taos Pueblo just before dawn with the temperature just about 0—the boys and men danced—dressed kind of like David in his linen ephod—hardly clothed at all. We who watched wore long underwear, parkas, and wool pants, and stomped our heavy boots just to keep our feet from freezing. The dancers just had moccasins and some were bare footed. They whirled with all their might—and in their ecstasy they praised the Holy One and gave thanks for the gift of life. It’s one thing to watch --and another to dance. To dance is to know the resurrection in our bodies. To find the Holy One in you is to dance. Dance then wherever you may be.

Sermon June 25, 2006

Mark: 4:35-41 I’m struck by all the silences in this little story from Mark’s gospel. I imagine Jesus and his friends at dusk—that time when the sun is setting, and there’s that mixture of dwindling light and dawning darkness. He’s told them to take the boat across the Lake. They’re heading to the other side—the place of the Gentiles—outsiders—a place of discomfort. They’re tired too—it’s been a long day—and so I imagine them setting out with a good deal of silence among them. And, Jesus even falls asleep—maybe just then you could have heard his sleepy breathing in the silence of the dusk. An in-between time and an in-between place. Years ago when I was still a teen-ager, I spent a couple of summers up on Lake Huron visiting a friend and working as a maid in the resort on an island. Every week we took a break from our chores to participate in a sailboat race. The only race I can remember was really exciting. The 3 of us who usually raced together were often late to the race—this time was no exception, we jumped in the sailboat, got it ready kind of on the way to the starting line. We made excellent time too I might add—for the wind was nice and strong. At the starting line I noticed that all the other boats had four or five people in them—one even had six. This was unusual but I didn’t think much about it. At the sound of the starting gun we were off—and I mean off—our sailboat flew across the lake—and we were a busy threesome, As the wind picked up we had to put our bodies more and more over the side just to keep the boat from tipping over. We were definitely winning this race—far ahead of all the other boats—they were weighed down with the extra crew members. We were holding on for dear life, our bodies so far out over the side of the boat that I thought I was holding on with my toes. I glanced back at our skipper—and noticed her face was very white—underneath that summer tan! I was beginning to think I knew why the other boats had more people in them. We flew up to the buoy where we were to turn. “Ready about” the captain screamed, and then “coming about…” the boom flew from one side to the other, and then just as we moved to the other side of the boat. . .the mast cracked—it broke into two pieces and the sail enveloped us in white. No one was injured. After we crawled out from under the sail, we simply watched as the other boats sailed past us. After the race a friend came to retrieve us, he towed us in--past all the other boats. I think of this race when I hear this strange story from Mark. I think of how impossible it is to believe that anyone could actually sleep through a storm on a lake. I think of how I would have been screaming at whoever was in the back asleep—screaming at him to wake up and do his part. H-e-e-e-l-p! Don’t you care? Don’t you care about us? We’re drowning. And you know when we come to that moment in the story. When Jesus’ friends so filled with fear cry out to him, “Don’t you care?” A second silence falls—the silence before the storm is stilled. This one is a silence in the midst of the uproar—the winds howling all around them. Jesus asleep. In their fear they cry out the question that all of us—faithful and faithless cry out when things are tough and God seems absent. Like the three teenagers in their ignorance maybe the disciples with their experience have sailed their boat out onto the lake sure of their skills. There is one thing they know and that is how to sail a boat. But this storm that comes up suddenly it seems, challenges their skill. They try everything they know how to do—and the waters are in the boat now. And one thing sailors know is that the lake doesn’t care. When the winds and waters rise the lake doesn’t care. So maybe this is a place you’ve been in—or maybe you are there right now. And maybe like the friends of Jesus you’ve dared to utter that question, “Do you care?” “Where are you?” and there is silence. . . . In our story, Jesus rises and speaks from his own silence—to quiet the winds. “Peace,” he says, and there is peace. And another silence I imagine. What sailors call a dead calm, perhaps. No sound. No movement. Stillness. . . . Jesus himself seems amazed at their fear and what he calls their lack of faith. Their lack of trust. The way they forgot their center maybe—in their fear and reliance on their experience and training—they forgot who they really were and that he was with them. This may be the crux of it all. The way we forget who we are and who God is—we forget that no matter how absent God seems or how fearful we get—we are not alone in the boat. The waters are dangerous. Not all trips will end happily—there is the real possibility of death. And when we’re up against that kind of moment we so often turn to our own devices—until they don’t seem to be enough. I sympathize with the disciples. I’ve been there—done that—more than once. My parents raised me to be self-reliant. And there are times when there is so little evidence that God is in the boat at all. This issue for Mark wasn’t so much that Jesus calmed the storm and the waters. Waters were considered mostly to be the realm of evil and anyone who could control them would be a powerful person indeed. For Mark though, the moment of truth comes after the calming, when the friends of Jesus ask the final question, “Who are you?” “Who is this?” Who is the man who acts in ways no one would expect. He’s just a carpenter you know—he’s acting way beyond his place. We don’t know where to put him. Mark’s whole gospel focuses on this constant question, “Who is this?” And in the boat, the awed disciples I rather imagine ask their question, and then fall into silence. . . . Who is this? Mark’s readers probably would have known. Only God could calm the waters. But the story ends with the question. And the silence. . . . This is how it is for us. We are ones who ask the question—live into that question. Others have never asked, or gave up asking long ago. But we come here week in and week out pondering the question—living into it. Oh, there is a level at which we know the answer—you and I know who this is—at least something of who this is. And we know that we have been called into the boat with Jesus to go to the other side—where folks are different, where we are challenged as Paul puts it to open our hearts wide. The journey itself can be challenging—even the folks in the boat with us challenge us to open our hearts wide. Sometimes we live as though we’ve forgotten the answer to the question. We get fearful. We rely on our own devices. We hate it that death and danger are real. We keep trying to turn the boat around and go back—go back to the shore, to the comfort of the known—but somehow in our faithfulness and our faithlessness, we keep on. And we are never alone. The One who is with us, who from the calm in his own heart can calm the storm—is the One who bears his own scars of the journey. God-with-us. The scars are important—but they aren’t the last word. Whatever this story is about—most surely it is about this journey across the lake—the journey of the church (after all you are sitting in the nave right now—the boat—just look up at those rafters and their shape. And, yes, you are sitting in the boat upside down—which may give you pause ). It’s about the journey of our own denomination to the Other Side. Its about the journey of our own little lives. Yours and mine. Our calling to venture out into the waters toward the Other Side. Maybe you can discern the movement of God in your own life today calling you to leave the comfort of what you know and to journey into the unknown. This is the journey of faith: this living into the questions. In it we are transformed and set free.