SERMON February 4, 2007

Isaiah 6:1-13, Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

I had an epiphany the other day. You know one of those moments when you suddenly behold the world in a new way. One of those times when a new light shines—often on your own self and you see with new eyes—you see with a sudden clarity. My granddaughter and I were just leaving a restaurant in downtown Petaluma—she suddenly pulled my hand and pointed across the restaurant at a man sitting at a table by the window. Her face had a kind of astonished look on it—although she didn’t say anything. I looked over and what I saw was an African American man sitting at the table. That’s what I saw. I looked down at her—a little embarrassed that she was pointing at him. She whispered to me,”Look, Mamaw, there’s a policeman eating here.” What she saw was a uniform. What I saw was the man’s skin color. My eyes were trained to see that way a long time ago. Who says racism is dead in this country? Who says I’m not infected with it? It was a little epiphany—an insight into the truth. A challenge to let go—and enter a new future. It was a light shining in the darkness of myself calling me to new life.

The season of the Epiphany when we celebrate the light of Christ shining in the darkness of the world—is a time to think about our own epiphanies—small and large. Our own moments when the light of Christ shines on us revealing the truth and reorienting us. Revelation involves challenge and change.

In today’s lessons God’s light falls on 3 men and they are never the same again. All three are humbled as they encounter the power and the mystery of God. We start with Isaiah the prophet—who spoke to the political realities of his day—a world of displacement and devastation when the powers that be destroy Jerusalem, drive the people into exile, and then, finally, there is a promise new beginnings. Isaiah has a vision of God so powerful, so indescribable really, that the closest he can come to words is to say that the hem of God’s robe filled the entire temple.

In the face of God’s majesty—the words of the seraphs praise: “Holy holy holy” echo even today in our own words at the Eucharist—Isaiah describes himself as tiny, lost, a man of unclean lips amidst a people of the same kind. God’s otherness, God’s holiness, God’s glory reveal the smallness—the lostness—of the man Isaiah.

And then with fire, a seraph cleanses Isaiah and pronounces that he is forgiven. Isaiah overhears God asking, ”Whom should I send?” He blurts out, ”Here am I. Send me.” And that’s where we usually end the lesson—but not this morning. . .

This morning we hear the awful commission of Isaiah by God to a thankless and incredibly painful task—he’s to speak to the people in ways that will actually keep them from repenting and being healed. Isaiah is called by God to be an agent of judgment—to speak to God’s people who have remained steadfastly resistant to God’s call. Not only will his words fall on deaf ears, but God seems to have given up on the people and decided to leave them to their own devices—to the crushing results of their having shut down— to their refusal to see and to hear. Isaiah can hardly stand it. He asks, ”How long must I do this?”

God’s response is not encouraging—“do it until there is nothing left, Isaiah. Do it until the land is utterly desolate and there is a vast emptiness. Everything burned.”

These are not words I want to hear on a Sunday morning or ever, really. These words expressing God’s frustration and giving up almost on the people of God. God sending his prophet to add to the numbing of the people—to encourage them in the path they have already clearly chosen.

Poor Isaiah. Poor Isaiah’s people. The people of God. The only word of possibility comes at the end of the passage. In describing the stump that is left, God proclaims that the holy seed is in the stump.

This passage reminds me of how stumped we get in our EFM class some Monday nights when we are reading some of the Old Testament passages. It makes me think of how much I like to skip over Good Friday to get to Easter morning.

The only sense I make of it in my own experience is that there have been times in my life when I had to bottom out—I seemed to have to go the absolute end of the path I had chosen—to its depths, its pain, its loss—the fire of it—before I could experience new life. I had to lose all and give up all before I could turn around—turn toward God for the seed of new life to begin to sprout.

It’s discomforting to think that God might have actually encouraged me along this path—helping me to reach bottom—numbing me so that I wouldn’t choose new life before I hit bottom. I don’t know. But it gives me pause as I consider the ways in which I personally, and we nationally might be numbing out to God’s option.

And then there’s Paul and Peter. They had epiphanies, too: one was on a road to Damascus and the other was in a fishing boat. God can come to us anywhere, any time, any place. In the ordinariness of life. In a restaurant.

Peter in the boat after a night of fruitless fishing. Or fish-less fishing I guess. And then with Jesus in the boat he and his friends are overwhelmed with fish. Their nets just about bursting with abundance. Something in that moment led Peter to fall down on his knees and proclaim his unworthiness. There is no earning, no deserving. All the other fishermen hauling in the catch go about their business—perhaps thankful, perhaps amazed. Only Peter falls to his knees in the truth of his humility. Like Paul who knows himself to be the “least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle,” Peter tells Jesus to distance himself from him. He is not worthy. What do you suppose Peter saw that the other men didn’t see? What glimpse did he get of the divine—of the God who knocked Paul off his high horse of righteousness, and Isaiah to the truth of his limits?

Whatever he saw—whatever the others maybe sensed—the story ends with them leaving everything and following Jesus. Following the one who had blown open their ordinary lives and who invited them into an open future. Business as usual—professional expertise hadn’t gotten them anywhere—but Jesus showed them that right in their midst—in the ordinariness of their days—there was goodness and abundance and fullness of life they hadn’t imagined—and off they went into the future—into God only knows what—trusting this light that had suddenly lit up their lives.

Now you and I in our ordinary days find it hard sometimes to find any flickering light—the numbness of business as usual is so overwhelming that we don’t hear, don’t see, don’t think or imagine, don’t even smell the possibilities of the new thing God is doing—the new thing we are called to be a part of—the new open-ended future that beckons. Sometimes all we can focus on is the past—all we can feel in the present is the emptiness—or the fire that burns—and we lose hope. Our children keep making lousy choices, our friends are ill, our church is falling apart, our government is carrying us to desolate places. All is lost and woe are we. That God might be at work in all of this seems impossible to trust.

You’ll have noticed that none of those chosen by God to take part in the mysterious workings of God is really the kind of person you would have chosen. None is of presidential caliber. None is the kind of person who did well on his SATs or the kind of person you’d want your daughter to marry. They are all in their own ways failures—or worse—even after they catch a glimpse of God they aren’t pillars of righteousness. Peter, as we know, failed again and again.

But God calls and transforms them. They take tiny steps or big ridiculous leaps of trust and they become part of God’s working. God’s mysterious workings among us. They lean into the new possibilities. They trust themselves to God’s future.

There is no excuse. Really. No manner of sin or unclean lips. Self-righteousness, ignorance, victimization… Not even persecution of the faithful can get you off the hook.

Have you had any epiphanies recently? Any moments in a restaurant? Any conversations with a friend? Any invitations to let go of your old self and move into the open-ended future of God? Any possibility for making amends, or speaking the truth in love, or forgiving, or encouraging, or calling even the most recalcitrant to new life? Has any light shined on you and called you to be more than you thought you could be—or more than you wanted to risk being? Is God calling us at Incarnation out of comfort into newness?

It is the season of Epiphany which is not to say that God will only disrupt our lives in this time of the year—nevertheless you might keep and eye opened, and ear tuned, a mind alerted, and hand ungrasped. You and I are no more unclean than Isaiah, no more unworthy than Paul, no more a sinner than Peter. Pay attention. The Holy One is in our Midst. You can expect to be reoriented. Revelation means change. Thanks be to God.

SERMON 2 Epiphany 1/14/2007

[THE GOSPEL STORY WAS TOLD INSTEAD OF READ John 2.1-11] One day Jesus and his mother and his friends go to a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Cana is a little peasant village—and weddings are big deals in Cana and in most such villages in Jesus day. A wedding brings together two families and a wedding is a sign of promise—hope that the community is going to continue and be strengthened. A wedding is an occasion of joy and feasting. Usually eating in the village is a kind of meager and boring event—making do with whatever you can get together. But, at a wedding, the party and feasting usually goes on for a whole week, and there is every kind of food and wine and there’s lots of dancing and singing. And there is worship. In fact a wedding is a time when you expect to encounter God in the joy and the blessing. At the door you dip your hands in the water of purification to prepare yourself for that meeting with the divine. You get ready—as ready as you can-- given who you are—to meet God—at the wedding. A few days into the party while Jesus is talking with his friends, his mother comes up to him and in that voice she says, ”They have no wine.” You know that tone of voice. . . the one that no matter what the actual words are--means, “”you--do something! “Woman, what’s that to you or me?” . . .To make his point, Jesus whips out his Blackberry and takes a look at his calendar. “My hour has not yet come.” . . . Then in that way she has, she just turns to the servants and says, ”Do whatever he tells you,” and she walks away. mothers… This is not what he has in mind. He has a plan and this isn’t it. But, of course, he looks around, and notices for the first time that the jars for the rites of purification are large—huge even for this village crowd. Water for the rite of purification really doesn’t have to be that much—enough would be more like the holy water we have at the doorways here—where a little dab will do you. Oh, well, he shrugs to himself mostly. Maybe this is you-know-whose timing. “Not my timing but yours be done,” he mutters under his breath. “Fill the jars with water,” he says to the servants. He stares right back at them as they fix their doubting eyes on him. “Go on.” And, so they do as they are told—with only a few remarks. And maybe with a bit of a rebellious spirit they fill those jugs to the tippy-top. “Draw some out and take it to the wine steward.” They do. [The water has become wine]; the steward tastes it and this is what he says, in a loud, “I’m a big deal kind of person” voice, ”People usually serve the best wine at the beginning of a feast—like on the first day—and then as the party gets wilder and wilder they serve the bad stuff—when no one will really notice. But you have saved the best until now. . . .Like Amazing! No one except Jesus, his friends, and the servants know where all that wine comes from—and oh, yes, his mother… she knows. For them, right there at that little peasant wedding, they catch a glimpse of the glory of God. Right there. Even his mother sees it. THIS IS THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD. What a story. John is careful to tell us its not a miracle story, it’s the story of Jesus’ first sign. A sign is something like an ambulance siren or police lights flashing—a sign isn’t the real thing, but it points to the real thing. It points to the deep thing—the true thing. This is Jesus’ first sign—it points to God. And it happens at a wedding. Weddings are big deals—even today they are. People cry at weddings. Sometimes I think they are crying for grief—losses in their own lives—dreams that have died, relationships gone south, times in their own lives when they haven’t lived up to their promises. Sometimes they are crying out of joy—and hope—hope that the couple—two people can really live out their vows over time—and that their love for one another will transform them into more and deeper and truer people than they were before they had lived into that love. Sometimes it’s a mixture of joy and grief—of dreams dashed and hopes for the future. They cry because they feel vulnerable—almost as vulnerable as the couple do when they pronounce their promises in front of their community. Love makes you vulnerable. It does that. People still dance and sing and feast and drink at weddings—to differing degrees and with differing styles—but a wedding is an occasion of joy—and people clap and cry out hurrah! and congratulations! and best wishes! and God bless! And when a wedding is in church with a priest presiding the couple come not only to make their promises in the context of their community, but also to seek God’s blessing on their relationship—on their love. They come in hopes that they will be met by God here. Kind of like we come here on a Sunday morning. Weddings are so laden with emotion that sometimes people involved forget that the occasion is really about celebrating the love of the couple, their commitment to each other, and their wild hope that God will continue to bless their relationship--that God’s love will in fact flow through them to each other and out into the world. Once I once rashly informed God that I would no longer officiate at wedding for anyone under 70 years of age. This occurred after a particularly painful experience I had officiating at a wedding where the groom’s bachelor party seeped into the church and the bride’s mother had a tantrum. I despaired and drew the line. I was about as successful as Jesus was in consulting his Blackberry. Oh, well…I’d forgotten God’s presence in the midst of that very human celebration—God’s blessing in the mess of it all. The truth is that the Old Testament and the New have all kinds of images of marriage and weddings as metaphors describing the relationship between God and people—between God and us. Isaiah is full of dreams for the people that carry them beyond their present reality. He speaks to a forlorn forlorn people who having survived exile and have now returned to their land that seems so barren and forsaken. But, says Isaiah, they are so beloved by God that God will marry their land and rejoice over the people as a groom rejoices over a bride. The people will get a new name --no longer will they be called Forsaken—now they will be My Delight is in Her. My Delight is in You. Kind of like the voice Jesus heard at his baptism isn’t it? “You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased.” This is who we are at the deepest truest level. People in whom God delights. Imagine that if you can. That’s who you are. Weddings and marriages aren’t the only metaphors for God’s loving relationship with people. And marriage isn’t the only model in the Bible or in our lives for deep intimate long-lasting relationship. Our lives are filled with relationships that nurture us and transform us over time in ways that are signs that point to the ways God’s love and grace make us new people. Mothers and their children, fathers and their children, old friendships, partners, grandparents and grandchildren, …my son had a soccer coach who left his loving imprint on the character of the boys he coached, teachers and mentors, the list goes on and on. We are made for relationship and deep loving relationships are places where we learn about the risks, and abundance and steadfastness of God’s love. For surely whatever else this first sign points to it points to the abundance of God’s love and grace. Jesus’ response to his mother’s insistence goes way beyond what she would have expected. 120-to-180 gallons of wine. Fine wine—the finest—the best saved to the last. In John’s gospel “Jesus’ hour”—the one he says is not yet come—is his death. In John’s gospel Jesus’ death on the cross is the point where the glory of God is most clearly visible. The signs throughout the gospel lead us to that moment of glory. Where the enormity of God’s love, God’s loving embrace of humankind takes Jesus to the depths of what it means to be human—takes Jesus to that place of greatest vulnerability—the place of death. There is no place we can go that is not married to God. No place we can go where God is not. No place of scarcity where God’s abundant steadfastness cannot be found. No place of emptiness so deep that it cannot be filled to the brim with God’s love. For John, that is the last and best sign. This sign is just the first. It takes place at a wedding feast. It is noticed only by some. It points to the God of abundance—the God among us—the God of surprises and newness. Because, of course, weddings are new beginnings. The people being married come with their histories of course, they aren’t newborns. But their commitment to one another and to their relationship transforms them and makes them new. They may even take on a new name. It used to be that women in this culture took on the name of their spouses. Today more and more couples are taking on a hyphenated name or a new name entirely. This recognizes that they are entering new territory. I’ve been thinking about that new name. Isaiah tells us our new name is My Delight is in you. Our names are important aren’t they? Our names carry a history and they carry a promise. When my brother died one of my sons chose to take on the name Moore to honor his uncle—so now he’s Christopher Moore Backman. Some of us spend a lifetime trying to live up to our names. Think about being named Martin Luther King. Some of us change our names and pick one that we’d rather live into than the one that was given us. And of course, others give us names too. I wonder what name this community has. –what others call us. This Church of the Incarnation. There have been times when I wanted to change our name to Incarnation Parish—just because its shorter and easier to write on baptismal certificates. We get mail here sometimes to the Church of the ReIncarnation. But what do others call us? Sometimes when I tell people what church I belong to, they say things like, “Oh, I know! That little redwood church on Mendocino.” or “That Cute Little Church on Mendocino.” Some people call us “The Living Room Church.” Maybe part of what Fr. Matt was saying in our ad last week was that we here in this place want to live into the name of “God’s Wild Abundant Transforming Love & Hospitality to All Church.” Maybe that’s the name we’re being invited into. Because here’s the deal. God has given us a new name: My Delight is in You. That’s the kind of name we cannot incarnate, put our flesh around, grow up into, without being transformed into more than we’d ever dreamed we could be. It’s something we may have known when we were infants, but most of us have forgotten how to live as God’s beloved. It’s more than we dare let ourselves imagine. It’s kind of like asking for a case of 2 buck Chuck and getting 180 gallons of Silver Oak cabernet! We come here seeking God’s love, thinking if we’re lucky we’ll eat a tiny wafer, drink a sip of wine, catch a glimpse of glory, get a few sprinkles. . . instead we get a new name. A new beginning. And, the most real of all relationships with the One who says, My Delight is in You. God’s Wild Abundant Transforming Love and Hospitality to All Church.

SERMON 1 Christmas 12.31.06

Christmas I (1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 Psalm 148; Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:41-52 Good morning! And, Happy New Year’s Eve. We find ourselves this first Sunday in the season of living into the gift of Jesus’ birth—on the same day that the year 2006 is ending. Endings and beginnings. These days are full of endings and beginnings. On Thursday I received a call to go to the hospital to administer the last rites to a woman who is near death—as I left, Fr. Matt was on the phone answering questions put to him by a reporter from the Press Democrat. He too was interested in endings—or at least departures—the announcement by David Miller that St John’s in Petaluma has disassociated itself from the Episcopal Church. An announcement that includes the information that the congregation in Petaluma intends to take the building that has been a part of the Episcopal Church for about 150 years. Through thick and thin the parishioners of that congregation considered themselves Episcopalians and participated fully in our Diocese. But no longer—the congregation in the year 2006 has decided to leave our diocese and become part of the diocese of Argentina. At the hospital I was struck as I have been before with the similarities between birth and death. More than once I have visited a family gathered around the bed of a dying person—surrounding them with love, massaging their feet and legs, holding their hands, getting them drinks of water, supporting and comforting, strengthening and loving the person who is giving birth in a sense to their own death. I’ve been privileged to be present at births of babies too—and at least in today’s less technically medicalized world—the room is filled with the same kind of supporting, serving, love in action. Birth and death can be very alike. I thought as I left the office about how the world outside views the church—views us. About its fascination with our disagreements and our differing understandings of about morality—and its focus on the issue of sexuality. And, of course, we give the press a lot of material to work with. But, meanwhile, the life of the faithful goes on. Meanwhile there are endings and beginnings and we who gather here week in and out know that our faith has much to say and much to give us for living into the very depths of the endings and beginnings of life. For the 150 years in the life of St John’s, Petaluma and for thousands of years in places all over the globe Christians have entrusted their lives to the God of new beginnings and radical inclusive love. As we have done that we have lived together bearing with one another through countless endings, letting goes, and new beginnings. That is central to our faith. What the world outside sees perhaps as disintegration—may in fact turn out to be another of those overturnings of life “as usual” and the wrenching letting go of our zones of comfort as we greet the new thing God is doing. How are we to live in such times as these? What will sustain us through the endings and beginnings of our individual lives, our life as church, and even our lives in the larger community? I doubt that New Year’s resolutions will be enough to sustain us—those by and large being so dependent on our own doing—our own choosing and willing. Jesus and Samuel come to us this morning in their youth. Samuel had been given over to service in the temple by his mother out of her gratitude for his birth. She had been childless for many years. The linen ephod was a garment of his priesthood—its white color symbolized the purity of the One he represented. Kind of like the white albs the ministers of the Eucharist wear. I think of that once a year visit made by his parents to Samuel and the way in which his mother handed him that robe the one gift she could give him. Our text says Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord. And this oh so familiar story of Jesus as a boy of twelve driving his parents batty by staying behind in the temple without telling them, to listen and ask questions of the teachers. A defining moment this one—Jesus telling Mary and Joseph that didn’t they know, he must be in his Father’s house? That line really is better translated as “Did you not know that I must be in the presence of my Father?” It wasn’t about a building really, it was about being with God. Being in God’s presence. Like Samuel given over to God by his parents—Jesus claims his identity here as God’s own child. Before his baptism—even while he returned with his parents, obedient to them. He knew he must be in his Father’s presence. That’s who he was most deeply. God’s own. This amazing little passage from Colossians addressed to us as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved begins with a word left out of our reading this morning. The word is therefore, and what precedes the therefore is the fact that we who have died with Christ have been raised with him. “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all,” says Paul. My granddaughter and I went to see the movie The Nativity this past week. After the birth of Christ the wisemen come and one of them gazes on the baby in the manger and says, “God clothed in human flesh.” She asked me what that meant exactly. Such a question. Divinity in human body. In human bodies. Christ is all and in all. What does that mean exactly? Paul suggests to us that if we remember that we have been raised with Christ—if we remember who we are and whose we are then we’ll have what we need to live into the endings and beginnings of our lives. We’ll clothe ourselves as Samuel did in something like an ephod—in Christ. No matter what we are actually wearing—whether we’re dressed up to go out on New Year’s Eve, or in jeans and a sweat shirt—no matter we’ll know that we are clothed in Christ. Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, whatever choices we face, whatever endings or beginnings, we’ll be given the spaciousness and graciousness to live into our lives. Live into Christ. This description of life in Christ: compassion, kindness, humility, patience, forgiveness, thanksgiving, love and peace—this is not a list of things we need to make new year’s resolutions about—not a to do list. Rather it’s a calling—it’s a description of how we are transformed in Christ by the grace of God. Christmas Day a parishioner brought one of her grandchildren to church. A grandson, whom I’d baptized maybe four or five years ago. He was about 11 then—kind of like Samuel maybe or Jesus in the temple. Now he’s a tall strapping young man with clear eyes and a firm handshake. I looked at him and wondered—I wondered if he still knew who he is. I wondered how in his life he had grown into his truest identity as “marked as Christ’s own forever.” How had God’s forgiveness so freely given to him freed him to forgive those who have hurt him? How has God’s love freed him to live into the hard work of loving others: the listening, the being willing to be changed and moved by another person, the standing with thru thick and thin that marks loving relationships. I wondered about him. I wondered about myself. I wondered about us. You and I, like Samuel and Jesus, are those called to grow up in the presence of God. That’s who we are—we are marked as Christ’s own forever. There is nothing left outside—there are no godforsaken moments—no place where God isn’t. We come here to give thanks, to let the word of God dwell within us, and to sing to God. Such simple acts—and yet they are transforming—they help us to become the people we were created to be, to bear with one another, and to find grace in all the endings that lead to new beginnings. Happy new Year. Remember who you are.

Sermon Christmas Eve 12.24.06

Merry Christmas! How’s the season been for you--so far? . . . I don’t know about you, but I’ve found it to be perhaps more hectic than usual. On Friday afternoon I thought to drive to Petaluma—that was a silly notion. I couldn’t even get on 101, and then I tried Stony Point and Petaluma Hill Road… no dice. I finally just did an illegal U turn and went home. I can’t even testify to what the malls were like. I managed to avoid them all—but I did participate several times in that incredibly slow Santa Rosa Avenue parade. One of my granddaughters told me she actually visited with Santa in one of the malls. She sat on his knee and when asked what she wanted for Christmas she told him, “A bell from Santa’s sleigh… and a box of crystals.” I tried to imagine his face—the one behind the beard—when she requested one of the bells from his sleigh. . . I’m not sure she will get what she wants this year. You and I may have spent a good deal of time trying to make sure our Christmas gift giving matched the wants of those we love. I watched this week as the women of the Living Room—our day center for homeless and at-risk women and their children—I watched as many of them worked to earn credits to make their own Christmas gift purchases for their children and loved ones. We have a Christmas shop here stocked with hundreds of donated toys and gifts and staffed by volunteers. The women work hard just like the rest of us to be able to give their children what they want for Christmas. They are proud of the way they can provide for them this way. It’s a beautiful part of Christmas here at Incarnation parish. But, of course, the truth is what we celebrate here tonight is really not centered on our wants—it’s really not about the things we want, or even the things our children want. God is not Santa Claus. I know that’s a shocking thing to say out loud—but here in this place I think I can dare to speak the words. God is not Santa Claus. God in Christ is smaller than Santa—and God is also more enormous than the largest Santa. We can start right there. God is smaller than Santa and larger too. Santa may in fact still hold up before us some echo of the beauty of St Nicholas—in his care for children and his gift-giving. But Santa Claus in the mall is a far cry from St Nicholas—and he is certainly not God. Not the God who has acted in this old familiar story we just heard. And our wants and the wants of our children generally pale beside the desire, vision, and passion of God. Oh, its quite possible that my granddaughter was really asking for Truth when she asked for a bell from Santa’s sleigh, and maybe she was asking for Beauty when she asked for the box of crystals. I’m not sure. But in our consumer-driven economy most of our wants for things at Christmas are far removed from our deepest desires—our holiest aspirations—our truest longings. You can see this just a week or two after Christmas when so many of the toys around the tree are of little interest to anyone. Usually we have not dared to ask for those things most precious—most-life-giving: healing, love, relationship, forgiveness, joy, peace, freedom. Those we haven’t asked for perhaps out of fear that Santa won’t or can’t bring them. Those aren’t among the things made in his workshop. That’s why it’s such great good news that God isn’t Santa Claus. Really. The birth of the child in the manger—born dependent on his parents as all babies are born. This little birth in a tiny out of the way place in the simplest of surroundings. This birth is NOT about fulfilling our tiny little list of wants. It’s about God’s wants. God’s wants to be with us—to be among us—to invite us into transformation—into all those most precious things we haven’t dared ask for. I read somewhere that on the island of Patmos where John wrote his Revelation there is an Orthodox church that has a painting of the nativity. Mary and Joseph and the babe in the manger. Only in this painting the manger is a sarcophagus—a coffin. The manger is a coffin. Jesus is lying in a little coffin, wrapped not in swaddling cloths, but in burial cloths. Oh, my God. What an image. It’s almost more than we can take in-- this image of the nativity. So powerful is it to consider that this birth might mean not just new life created in the kind of ordinary way of a mother giving birth. But, this birth is about the triumph of life over death. It is about God-with-us in vulnerability—God-with-us in our deepest longings and desires—God-with-us in the truth of this season which so often is filled with sadness and grief as well as laughter and joy. It is about the shock and surprise of God’s creative energy at work in our own world. Bringing life where there was no expectation or hope for it—bringing life where there was only barrenness. Bringing inconvenient life—life that upsets the rhythm that we had organized. The patterns, the laws, the smallish expectations we had of how things are going to be—how they will play out. The story of the birth of Christ is so well-known by us that it is hard to grasp the shocking nature of it. The image of the baby in the sarcophagus can help us perhaps as we try to grasp the dimensions of the gift of Christmas—so far removed is it from the jingle bell rock and the mall Santa Clauses. So predictable are they. We forget the freedom and otherness of this God who has come among us—this beyond our comprehension flow of love and light that has chosen to enter our lives in the tiniest spaces we’ll offer—whether the manger or the tomb. There is no place where God isn’t—no one God doesn’t journey with—no impossibility so great that it can’t be surpassed. Rejoice! Again I say, Rejoice! God is not Santa Claus. Your deepest longings and wildest hopes don’t hold a candle to God’s. And God is here among us—still at work in the nooks and crannies of our lives—offering new life—inviting us to dive deeply into our own lives to find both truth and beauty—and so much more. We are NOT in this alone—the One who is both smaller than Santa and larger—so much larger—has deigned to come in the flesh. This evening we celebrate his coming as an infant—like all infants inviting us to become more than we have thought ourselves to be—inviting us to reach out in love, in concrete acts of love—inviting us to turn from our own wants to the needs of others. Inviting us to join in the greatest of all adventures. Indeed, I tell you, that wild and outrageous grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all. AMEN

Sermon 1 Advent 12.03.06

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-10; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36 So, how do you read the signs of our times? What sense did you make of the tsunami? Katrina? the earthquake in Pakistan? What do you make of oil prices? the melting ice caps? Darfur? Russians dying of radioactive poisoning? the wars in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan? Are you filled with fear and foreboding? How do you read the signs of our times? The signs in the stars and the heavens, the signs in our Anglican communion, in mainline churches, in our community? the detours, traffic delays, road closures… How do you read the signs of our times? Holiday sales, jingle bell rock, plasma tvs, stock market ups and downs, and ups, housing market downs, and downs and downs. How do you read the signs of our times this Advent? Jesus suggests that the signs are as easy to read as the signs of spring. When we see the buds on the fruit trees and the leafing of the vineyards… those he says are as easy to read as the signs of unraveling: the roaring of the seas, the earth in distress, people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming. The decomposition of what we’d always assumed was composed. The dis-ordering of what God had once ordered in creation. This is one of those apocalyptic texts. The apocalypse: the great time of unveiling.. the unveiling of the truth—the unveiling that comes in just that kind of distressing time. Right then. “Stand up. Raise your heads. Your redemption draws near.” One of our Education for Ministry class members reminded us the other night about “duck and cover,” that famous advice given to school kids by our government in the 50s and early 60s I think--in the event of nuclear war—we were instructed to duck under our desks and cover our heads—and all would be well. But, Jesus says, “Stand up. Raise your heads. Your redemption draws near.” This is not easy is it? I can read the budding of the fig tree and the leafing of the vineyards. But in times like ours I have to fight my instincts (or my early training) to duck and cover. I am so often faint with fear and foreboding. Advent is the season of anticipation of the known and the unknown. Strange isn’t it? We await the coming of the Christ child so well known as to be embedded in the depths of our hearts…….”In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus. . . “ “. . . she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him . . “ And, then there is the unknown coming of God: on a cloud no less in the midst of these signs… Some would tell you that these words of Jesus are just about the end times: the END TIME, capital E-N-Dand his warning to us so that we are not LEFT BEHIND… But there is more to this text—more to Jesus’ words than that. For us these centuries later these beginning of Advent texts are about how God comes to us—to us—not just in in the memorized heart embedded Christmas story of a long time ago—and not just at the End Times capital E capital T, but most especially, in the not-yetness—in the surprising displacements. The disruptions, the unsettledness, the fainting, the fear, the foreboding, the losses… of our own days. The signs of the times are described by Jesus to call us into daily living that opens us to receive the one who comes in the here and now in our lives. These texts and others like them in the Bible were written and preserved by the faithful at times when the threat of end time oppression was vivid—palpable. Last week Fr Matt preached a sermon warning us of the danger of taking Christ the King as license to judge those who don’t share our faith—or those who don’t share our own particular brand of Christianity or Anglicanism for that matter. I would not argue with him—our world is replete with evidence of the havoc wrought by those who believe they have all the truth about God and that their God is King. But, one way to understand Christ as King or even this image of Christ coming on the cloud—is to understand that for those who wrote the gospels these images were ways to describe a power different and more real than the “powers that be.” These metaphors may not be have lost their oomph today when kings are more likely to be presidents or drug cartel bosses and jet planes swoop across the skies with regularity—but the conviction that God—the God who filled Jesus—was always present and at work bringing newness where there was only oldness—life where there was death—that is an understanding at the heart of our faith—even today… in the midst of the signs of our own day These images also invite us to come closer to the millions who live today with the harsh realities of the oppressive powers-that-be and with the ever-present possibility of the end of their own times. I think here of civilians caught in the cross-fires of Iraq, the women and children in Darfur, even the homeless wandering the streets of our American cities. These people live with an understanding of the fragility of their lives and with their relative powerlessness against the powers that be. That’s an understanding we sometimes lose track of—until something reminds us. Perhaps a sudden death, an accident, an image on tv, the onset of an illness, the birth of a child, an encounter on the street, something. . . brings us face-to-face with the fragility of life—with its disruptions, with the power of the powers that be—and then—just then these words of Jesus make sense in a way they perhaps didn’t before. “Stand up. Raise your heads.” says Jesus, “Your redemption draws near.” Just when it is your instinct to duck and cover, Jesus says, stand up—expect God. God is in this very moment of fragility—of loss—of upside-downess. Advent signs of the times are so much about crises. And crises have one thing in common: they have a way of uncovering. A way of revealing the truth. You know how it is in a crisis: things are laid bare. Go into a hospital room where the family surrounds the loved one—and you’ll see unveiled the truth in a way you’d never see it during business-as-usual time. Work in the Living Room for awhile and you’ll see strength and fortitude you’d never believe—you’ll come to know tragedy—weakness, fragility, pain—and you’ll see courage and love and caring that you wouldn’t have guessed. Crisis has a way of revealing who we are and who we have become like nothing else. Jesus tells us to be ready for God in the midst of the crises—and the times of unsettling disruption— Just when we might be overcome with fright and tempted to duck and cover—when we’re most aware of our fragility--he suggests we ready ourselves and live into hope. When the truth is unveiled whatever it is, it will be the truth of God’s presence. Sometimes the unveiled truth is hard to look at—consider the truths unveiled by Katrina or the war in Iraq. Consider the disruptions, the crises in your own life—in that of your family—perhaps there have been times when what you have seen of yourself or others has been almost more than you could bear. But, Jesus says, “Stand up! and look!” Live in the expectation of God’s coming. There is no truth that escapes God’s love, God’s presence, God’s capacity to bring new life. How do we live into hope? I suspect that Advent with its quiet traditions of small acts focused on the tiny coming of this surprisingly birthed King of Kings gives us direction. Rose Marie Berger in a little article in Sojourners calls us to “yoke ourselves to disciplines that generate hope.” The Advent wreath is not so much about counting the days until the presents appear as it is about proclaiming the light of God in the midst of darkness. Advent practices of prayer, doing good, offering hospitality, choosing to be forgiving when we could be condemning. All of these are practices of hope. Serving those who live on the edges in fullness of their fragility—entering the truth of our own fragility. These are Advent practices. I think of the signs of death in mainline churches and our own commitment in this place to reach out to those who are not here on a Sunday morning—our small effort to bring the good news to people who have not thought to seek it in a church. I think of those who read the signs in their own families and reach out in compassion rather than judgment. Those who read the signs of our wounded environment and choose the little way when they have every power to choose the extravagant—the resource-devouring way. The parents-to-be who set out on the journey ordered by the earthly king, and the child born almost unnoticed in the midst of the signs of distress in his own day call us to lives of courage and hope—where we choose to stand up and look for God’s transforming presence. Where we dare to open ourselves to that reality—be changed by it and become channels of it. This is our faith and our practice. Our Advent faith—our Advent practice.

All Saints Sermon, November 5, 2006

Isaiah 25:6-9, Pslam 24; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44 Yesterday at about 11 AM, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori knocked three times on one of the doors of Washington National Cathedral. The door was opened by the Bishop of Washington and the Dean of the Cathedral. Bishop Jefferts Schori was presented to be our 26th Presiding Bishop. The 25th Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold greeted her with these words, “Katharine, Bishop in the Church of God, we have looked forward to your coming with great joy. In the name of Christ, we greet you.” “I hope to serve among you in Christ’s name and in the joy of the Spirit,” she said. Only God could have imagined this. The first woman in Anglicanism’s 5-century history to serve as presiding bishop. The first-ever woman primate (primates in Anglicanism are the species who head up our communion’s 38 member provinces). Only God could have imagined this. At a General Convention anguishing over the proper response to the Windsor report. Struggling to figure out how to honor the criticism coming from parts of the wider church of our decision three years ago to approve the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire. In the midst of that came this unlikeliest of elections of our Presiding Bishop. God moves in mysterious ways. Ways that so often defy our wildest imagination. This woman, former university professor, oceanographer, airplane pilot, ordained not that long ago, and Bishop of one of the smallest Western dioceses in our church for five years. . . Talk about Daniel in the lion’s den. Here she is—cheered by thousands at the Cathedral, but 7 American dioceses have requested alternative oversight from the Archbishop of Canterbury—because they can’t bear to have this woman as their Presiding Bishop. Here she is—heading off to meet with her fellow Primates—some of whom refuse to be in the same room with her. . . . Only God could have imagined this. “Katharine, we have looked forward to your coming with great joy. In the name of Christ we greet you.” “I hope to serve among you in Christ’s name and in the joy of the Spirit.” “Unbind him and set him free,” Jesus tells his friends after calling Lazarus out of the tomb to new life. Those words sum up our hope and our calling. The hope and calling of all who have sought to follow Christ. The hope and the calling of the saints who surround us— This is All Saints’ Day—and as our new Presiding Bishop takes her seat at Washington Cathedral for the first time, we gather to celebrate the saints, those who have sought God in their lives by following along the Way. We come here to give thanks for the famous saints like Francis, and Martin, Mary and Mother Teresa. We come here to give thanks for other lesser known saints—people in our own lives who have loved us, forgiven us, challenged us, nurtured us, taught us, shown us the way. In little ways and big ways. The saints are a motley crew. The famous ones—if you’ve read about them or come to know them--are a weird lot. Some did outrageous, crazy things, they fasted forever, wore strange clothes, and occasionally, no clothes, some spurned marriages, gave away fortunes, marched into coliseums with smiles on their faces and songs in their hearts only to be ripped apart by wild animals. Some were scholars, some were big deal politicians, some were almost unnoticed in the annals of history, they washed dishes, fed the poor, said their prayers, and visited the sick. Some were geniuses and some you wonder about. The same might be said for the ones we’ve known personally—the lesser saints you might call them. The people of faith who have impacted our own lives. Our grand mothers or fathers, aunts, cousins, a parent, a teacher, a frail child battling a big disease, neighbors, friends, elders, youngers. A few of them well-known perhaps. Most not. Yet to us—they are saints. Only God could have imagined them. Consider for a moment: God’s imagination: God’s wild dream and promise—that banquet table where all are invited, all are fed—no one’s full stomach the result of someone else going hungry. That place where peace is found—not the peace that comes when the guns stop firing—but the peace that is found when all are set free—when all are welcomed home—when all know deep in their bones that God’s love and forgiveness, God’s wild abundant table is set for every last one of us. None are left out. That’s the dream and the vision. The new heaven and the new earth. The home of God is among mortals. God dwells with us and we are God’s, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Yours and mine. The tears you’ve cried, and felt like crying, the ones you’ve choked back, the ones you dare not start crying because you’re afraid that if you do, you’ll never stop. Those tears. Tears for yourself—your losses, your own brokenness. Tears for your family and friends—for broken relationships and a lack of forgiveness. Tears for our cities—for the homeless-for the mentally ill who roam our streets—and for families one pay check away from being on the streets—tears for the elderly home alone, and hungry—tears for that man on the corner begging--tears for the world—for the people killing each other—for innocent victims—for refugees and migrants. Tears for the earth, for the ways we’ve damaged it, for the animals and the forests, and the air and the water. Tears. Jesus cries too. In this story about the raising of Lazarus Jesus begins to weep. Tears. The tears that God will wipe away. Jesus weeps. What do you make of all of this? The promise of God—the dream of God—and our reality—that brings us to tears and makes it so hard to hold onto the promise—to entrust ourselves to it. The reality that stunts our thinking and shrivels up our imagination. leaves us expecting the worst, and the least. We’re fearful and numb. No hope. No imagination here. Only tears. Jesus tears were maybe frustration—his imagination was so hooked into God’s dream that it was hard for him to be surrounded by people so focused on death. The gap between God’s dream and vision and the fear and the numbness of the people was maybe almost more than he could bear. My tears are not like Jesus’. I am not like Jesus. I’m much more with Martha at the tomb focused on the smell of death. I am often in the fear or the numbness. So overwhelmed by bad news that I’ve stopped my subscription to the PD——I’m so consumed by this culture of consumerism and my own sense of complicity in the forces of death that I just shut down and do nothing. I’m so numb I’m like Lazarus--the walking dead. Other times, I’m so fearful of all the things I’m told to be fearful of that I forget the dream of God. When I act out of that fear, I act in very unimaginative ways—judging others, rejecting, blaming. You know what I mean—small-minded. Unimaginative. Saints are people with imagination. They have a hold of the dream. That wild imagination of God that is always at work bringing life out of death—reconciliation out of division. Freedom out of imprisonment. They are ones who entrust their lives to the imagination of God. They refuse to see as others see. They see beneath the superficial—and they dare to act on what they see. They dream impossible dreams and act as though their dreams were realities. They go about unbinding others—sharing the dream of new possibilities. Some of them do big deal things—others maybe those in your life just held on to their dream that you could be more of a person than you imagined, saw you through God’s eyes and loved you with God’s heart. Wiped away your tears. Where is God’s dream, God’s imagination or one of God’s saints calling you out of your fear or numbness? Calling you to unbind another and set him or her free? Calling you to join in God’s raising of the dead—calling you in your daily life to reach out to serve, to love, to reconcile, set free. Look at you! Only God could have imagined you! [You can’t argue that point!] Only God could have called you, loved you, forgiven you, enspirited you. Only God welcomes you home. Who can imagine our church in the years ahead? Could its future be something we haven’t yet imagined? Perhaps only God can imagine the people of God. I don’t know, but I do know one thing: As God has called Katharine, God calls us—you and me. We share in her calling and her hope. The dream—the vision—held deep in our bones--assures us of that. We are in this together. And, so I greet you this morning: “We have looked forward to your coming with great joy. In the name of Christ we greet you.” And, in your hearts, you say: “I hope to serve among you in Christ’s name and in the joy of the Spirit.” AMEN AMEN

SERMON OCTOBER 15, 2006

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31 I think it was Kierkegaard who remarked that Jesus has many admirers, but few followers. And no wonder. After Amos blasts the comfortable people of his day and us with the sad truth of our sins—our pushing aside the needy at the gate, and the author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that the word of God is piercing and active, sharper than any 2 edged sword, here comes Jesus looking with love at the rich man—or so the text tells us--and telling him he should sell all he has, give the money to the poor, and then come follow me.” “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Now that’s the question isn’t it? The question you and I are asking in some measure or we wouldn’t be here this morning at all. We’d be home reading the paper, or still sleeping in, or we’d be at a soccer game, or doing the laundry, or who knows what? What must I do to live in good relationship with God and with my neighbor? What must I do to be –not just an admirer—but a follower of Christ? And, if truth be known many of us if not most of us here this morning—don’t need to hear Amos’ ranting. We don’t need to hear it and we don’t want to hear it because we already have some inkling that what he’s saying is the truth. He’s describing some of our reality when he speaks of our evil time. And its not that you or I have been taking bribes or physically pushing aside the poor at the gate—although in truth, there have been mornings when more than one of us has stepped over the body of a poor person lying at our gate here at the Church of the Incarnation. It’s not that we are most rich or most powerful. Some of us have never been wealthy, never had much to let go of to give to the poor. Many of us are just trying to pay our bills, take care of our families, and make good on our pledge. That’s the truth. But in today’s world we also know you and I that we are among the richest people on the planet. My income and the income of most of you who have income is in the top 1-4% of all incomes earned by the billions of people in the world. And, you and I use up and inordinate amount of the natural resources of the world to maintain this lifestyle we enjoy. We know these facts. We know them. And we know that the gap between the wealthiest nations and the poorest nations is getting worse not better—and in our own country the gap between the richest and the poor is the highest of any of the so-called first world countries—highest in the world really with the exception of Brasil. You probably knew that before you came here this morning. If you are like me you know all these facts and they are unsettling. I know that my comfort is built on the hard work and hard lives of people who live in distant countries working for a pittance—many of them in terrible working conditions. I can’t figure out how to buy clothes, electronics, or almost anything these days that isn’t made in China. And when I do I wonder about who made that shirt and what they got paid and what conditions they live under. I think of these folks as the poor at the gate. They join the other poor at the gate who live right here in Santa Rosa. You and I are related to them. Maybe some Christians don’t see any connection between following Christ and these realities of our own evil time. But anyone who is here this morning and has heard these lessons, or anyone who has really read much of the gospels knows that just isn’t the case. The Bible, I’ve heard, has something to say about money and riches more than almost any other ethical issue –and you may be shocked to know that Scripture says much much more about money than it does about sex for example. That’s a pity… when you consider how most of us seem to talk about sexual practice so much and how we avoid talking about money and possessions. Our wealth is something worth thinking about—worth struggling about—worth bringing to God. Wealth to a large extent tends to order our relationships—wealth and class together, which in many ways are so deeply intertwined. Jesus I think here is talking about relationship. He’s telling the rich man to release his grip on his wealth and sell all his possessions and give them to the poor. He’s maybe telling him that by doing so he’ll grow closer to the precious fragility of life and to those who live there day in and day out. Then, he will be able to come and follow Jesus. . . Maybe that’s what he meant…. He’s telling him he will know the fullness of life when he lets go of everything his culture has told him is the fullness of life. I have to confess to you that I’m not sure I trust Jesus on this one. And this is no joke. I read somewhere that if you want to find out if you really believe the rich man should give away all his possessions ask yourself how you’d react if he were one of your children. Let’s just imagine for example, that Francis had been your son? (Francis of Assisi I mean) You are a hardworking and successful merchant—taking good care of your family. So, once when you are away on a business trip, Francis takes your hard-earned cloth out of the warehouse where you’d stored it for sale and he sells it to raise money for some lamebrain effort to rebuild a falling-down chapel over there in Graton I think it is. What if things get to a place where you decide to bring the issue up to your community. So you all gather in the downtown plaza -- all the city fathers and perhaps a few city mothers, and even the Bishop –and there you are and Francis walks down the middle of this group stark naked with his fine clothing (which you’d paid for) in a pile in his hands, and the money he earned from selling your cloth in a little bag on the top of the pile—and while everyone gasped out loud he hands you the clothes and the money and tells you that he’d called you Father for all his life, but now he was giving his life to his Father in heaven. What would you think? What feelings of loss would lie under your anger and embarrassment? What concerns? Would you worry about his safety? His comfort? His health? What about his retirement plan? And to bring it to a more contemporary times. What if you were the mother of Teresa? Mother Teresa. And one day she comes to you and tells you, “I’m selling all my possessions and going to India to pick up the dying by the roadsides and care for them. This will be my life.” What if your child said that to you? What would be your reaction? Your fears? Concerns? Would you trust that this radical act would actually bring her closer to God? Would that make up for the loss of material security? Would you tell her that you are glad someone is picking up the dying along the roads of India but you didn’t want it to be her. Would you ask her to consider the Peace Corps—only a two year commitment. What would that mean—your reaction? Can you trust Jesus’ words for your own child? I’m not sure that you and I really believe we can find the fullness of life by releasing our material possessions. Funny isn’t it? Since of course at the end of our lives we will all do just that. We will do exactly that. Finally perhaps we will explore what Jesus had in mind. A little late though to live into its truth in our bodies. I don’t have the answers. I keep working at the answers for myself and thinking about the answers for us. But I do know three things. Jesus is serious. His words about selling possessions and giving the money to the poor need to be taken seriously if we want to be his followers. His words about leaving lands, and houses and family to follow him are ways of telling us what is most important. Our relationship with God and with others. We are called as Christ’s friends were to let go of the things that separate us from one another and God. This is not about charity. It is not about sending a check off some where. Maybe it’s about talking together about what’s enough. Maybe it is about taking stock, it is about talking to one another—sharing our struggles and our doubts—it’s about wondering together how we can begin to choose life in the midst of the tangled webs of death that are real. It’s about praying together and supporting one another as we make our choices to ungrasp our hands. Jesus loves us. He loves the ones who leave and the ones who are left. He calls us both—Francis and his father. Both of us to leave and to let go. Jesus has called us because he loves us. He looks at us with love—every moment of every day. He loves us and then he calls us. And, finally, of course, the greatest of the goodest news: we don’t have to do it. Grind our teeth and do it. We don’t earn the kingdom—the fullness of life—by divesting ourselves of all our possessions with gritted teeth. We don’t earn the kingdom by clutching at our goods either. We don’t earn it at all. Letting go and opening the gates to our relationship with the poor—to the knowledge of our own poverty—is a spiritual practice that is essential. And for you and me in this time and place that may well be about our material possessions. But God’s grace is what’s at work. Not our doing. Our longing for relationship with him—our longing for meaningful life—here right now—our coming together here to be fed—to acknowledge that our doing is not enough—all of these are honored by the One who came among us in love. Transformation is not easy—never painless. But: no transformation is impossible for God. None. Not mine, not yours. None.

SERMON 9.24.06

A few weeks ago Eric, my oldest son, and Sawyer, one of my granddaughters, and I went to visit my other son and his family in Chico. While we were there we visited a Farm Animal Sanctuary. It was an amazing place—in the middle of farm country in the foothills of northern California. It provides a safe place and care for farm animals who have in one way or another been rescued from industrialized farming and slaughter houses. Sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys… As you can imagine part of the walking around tour provided by the Sanctuary is devoted to telling the story of how it is for the animals NOT in the sanctuary—those who are raised for meat. Sawyer, my granddaughter is six. And some of the literature at this place was almost more than an adult could bear to look at. And that’s a fact. We’re not talking family farm here or Native Americans hunting deer. So my son, thinking about all this, went to the tour guide and asked if we could have a tour lite—kind of like a latte—if you know what I mean. We wanted to see the benefits of the sanctuary without dwelling on the horrors of why it exists. Those seemed to be too much and inappropriate to ask a child to live into. And so we got the Lite Tour—and I thought about that when I read today’s Gospel lesson. For it is not Lite. Quite the contrary. This gospel lesson is a scandal. Think about it. It starts with Jesus telling his friends that he will be killed and in three days rise again. This is a private discussion—just between him and his disciples—no crowds, no Pharisees or scribes—no rich young man. Jesus and his friends and he tells them he will be betrayed and killed and rise again. Betrayal and murder—not a pretty picture—whatever the “rise again” might mean. And God knows his friends didn’t seem to have a clue about any of it. And like you and me I venture to say, when they hear these words that lead them down paths they do not want to go they change the subject. They do not ask for clarification. They do not respond at all. They talk amongst themselves not about death, but about something else, anything really—they talk about who is the greatest among them. It is as though they had not heard Jesus at all. Not at all. You know this kind of conversation. We know about this. You and I. We know about how to avoid the ugliness that might lie ahead. So, let us not make light (lite) of these disciples and their argument about the greatest. Let’s not ridicule them. Let’s not comfort ourselves thinking we’d never go down that path. A mother tells her son she is is dying. He talks to her about his business ventures and how well they are doing. A child asks the question, “Where is Uncle Harry? Why isn’t he here this Thanksgiving?” “Why don’t you run along now, go outside and play. We’ll call you when dinner is ready.” The rejection that Jesus faces—from both this friends and the powers that be—stand in such stark contrast to the welcoming of the child. We move from betrayal and killing to a child. It’s a scandal this lesson. Who would bring a child into this mix? The betrayal and killing are of the kind that no adult wants to talk about. They are of a kind that soldiers returning from war do not speak of—except in monotones to fellow soldiers—the horror of it lasts a lifetime. There is no way to put words to it really—not in normal society—whatever that is. Who would bring a child into this? Rejection at the front end—welcoming at the backside. This is Jesus. What are we to make of this? You and I? How could it be that Jesus calls us to welcome a child—the least, the most powerless, the least able to pay us back for our hospitality, the most likely to forget us the minute someone more interesting comes along? What might this mean that we are invited to welcome the child? We are told in welcoming this child we are welcoming God? A child and Jesus. God’s ways are clearly not ours. I mean that’s one thing we can say—can’t we? Our diocesan transition committee has been planning for our new bishop’s ordination in Sacramento next weekend. 20 Bishops from around the country are expected. That’s a lot of bishops. And we’ve spent a lot of time figuring out hw to meet them, greet them, transport them, party them, and honor them. But when someone asked me if we were providing child care I had to admit that we aren’t. And there are a thousand good reasons why not. But the fact remains. This is who we are. This is symbolic of the issue for us. We welcome the ones we perceive to have power. We have forgotten the little ones. God would have it otherwise. James’ irritating little letter continually reminds me of this. The wisdom that comes from above—from God—is not like the wisdom we usually grasp after. You and I –we’re conflicted—right? We’re like those that James describes who get into trouble because their desires are so many and so much in conflict with each other that they run after one thing and another and forget about God. When I get what I want, what will I have? That’s a good question to ponder. When I get what I want, what will I have? So many of my desires—are just mine. Purely about me. James reminds me that desires ordered by the divine always involve others. They are not defined by a heart turned in on itself. No. True wisdom is not just about spouting wise saying and looking holy—or holier than thou. It’s about living into relationship with God and with others. If you want to know how much wisdom you currently have—look to the quality of your relationships. That’s James for you. And I suspect that’s God for you. And, those relationships may involve pigs and children and chickens as well as your husband and wife or your neighbor or your Uncle Harry—wherever he is! How would we organize an ordination of a bishop and make our priority welcoming the children, or young adults, or the homeless or others who are powerless or not usually here—the beneath our radar folk--? How would we organize our business lives to let the least powerful in? Make decisions? How can we open our arms and ourselves to those we are least likely to let ourselves notice? What are we talking about here? This is crazy. The world doesn’t work this way. Which may be the point. God’s ways are not our ways. Somehow Jesus betrayed, and on the cross, and resurrected is the key. How this man—the serenity and spaciousness of his life*—a life not driven by fear of death—how that life could walk into rejection, into the jaws of ignominious death—death so horrific you wouldn’t want to talk about it—not among adults and never with children present. How that death and resurrection act could give us the promise and hope that our own lives are not bound up in fear of death. How that freedom could set us free to enter any place—the farm sanctuary lite, the realities of industrialized farming—the deathliness of our world, wherever: Iraq, Lebanon, Washington, DC, the streets of Santa Rosa, Darfur, the poverty of Oakland and the realities of our immigrants living in the canyons, the child left behind, the empty streets of New Orleans, the pain of marriages breaking apart, of parents and spouses with Alzheimers, the angst of the spiritually rootless. I could go on and on. There is no place we dare not tread. No truth too hard to enter. No darkness too dark. No innocence too precious. No child too vulnerable that we cannot welcome them. To do so is to open ourselves to God. God’s very self. Don’t think this comes in a flash or a moment of insight. It takes some getting used to. There is fear that the promise might not be true. It involves change. It is a slow process this process of attaining wisdom-- of being brought up into being human. This conversion into the truth that you and I were not meant to live as beings bent toward death. Our destiny is to live into the fullness of life. And we do that by drawing near. Like those disciples—God love them—who in spite of their fear, their doubts, and ignorance. In spite of Jesus chastising and challenging them in the most outrageous ways—in spite of all that they kept coming back. Think of it. They kept journeying on. Kept putting themselves in the place where they could be transformed and healed and made new. Draw near to God, God will draw near to you, says James. Here we do the same this morning. God’s ways are not our ways. We long to be transformed and made new. To be set free from the fear of death. We long to learn to live as God calls us. So, somehow we stay put --trusting that wisdom from on high that comes from the lowliest of places. Oink. Oink. ** This phrase and the discussion of the ideas of Rene Girard in “Violence Undone” an interview with James Alison, Christian Century, Sept. 5, 2006.

Sermon September 3, 2006

Song of Solomon 2:8-13; Psalm45:1-2,7-10; James 1:17-27; Mark7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 “Lift up your hearts” the celebrant at Eucharist invites the people. They stand. “We lift them to the Lord.” …One of the ritual actions of our Sunday worship that echoes Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel reading. He reminds the Pharisees and us that it’s not so much what comes into a person’s body as what is within in the human heart that is important. For Jews of Jesus’ day and for Mark’s community the heart was not the source of mushy valentiney kind of emotion—but was the moral center of a person. Your moral ground is your heart. When we stand, lifting our hearts to the Lord we are making a statement. Mark depicts the opponents of Jesus’ as kind of caricatures. Mark’s Pharisees have declared themselves the authorities when it comes to interpreting the law and telling others how to follow it. They criticize Jesus and his disciples for not following the law and for eating food from the market with hands that had not been washed. Gentle Jesus meek and mild, he is NOT. He lashes out at them and quotes Isaiah accusing them of following the letter of the law but in their hearts being far from God. He calls them hypocrites a word that referred to actors on a stage who assume an identity that is not their own and who act to gain the approval of the audience. This is strong stuff—and hypocrites is a word we Christians hear about ourselves a lot. At least if you talk to non-church goers that’s how we are so often criticized—as hypocrites. Pretending to be something we are not. Jesus directs his critic’s attention away from their external actions to an examination of their own interior selves. To their hearts—to their evil intentions. Those he says are what really defile a person, not the failure to carry out some ritual act. Now of course you and I belong to a tradition that puts a lot of emphasis on ritual—we are among the most ritualistic of Christians. We come here week in and week out and pretty much do the same things every Sunday. We stand, we sit, we kneel, we sing, we pray, we give thanks, we bow, we scrape, we, some of us, genuflect, we, some of us, make the sign of the cross, the priest washes his or her hands before celebrating communion, we pass the peace, we lift up the cup and the bread toward the roof (where we are sure heaven is), and then toward the people, we eat the wafer and drink the wine, we clean the dishes and put the leftovers away very carefully, we go out the door into the world. All ritual. Do we do these things to earn God’s favor? or what? What is the relationship between these ritual actions and our hearts? Is it possible to come here every Sunday, do these things, and leave this place and commit fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride and folly? You bet! Are we a people who can get all up tight like these caricature Pharisees did about the letter of the Law and doing things the way we’ve always done it? You bet! Some of you may remember what it was like to revise our prayerbook, or move the altar out from the wall, or have the priest face the congregation during the Eucharist, not to mention women priests. . . . Or, just consider moving these pews to a new configuration, consider a jazz mass at 8 o’clock (AM), consider extemporaneous prayer, consider the acolyte draping the lavabo towel (the what??) over his left arm instead of his right arm, consider acolytes in flip flops. AAAAAAKKKK! What’s essential? Is there only one way to express reverence? Would we rather focus on these matters than the state of our hearts? Your heart? My heart? You bet! As usual, Jesus has a point. Think for a moment about ritual. How it expresses our hearts deepest convictions, how it helps to form our hearts, how it sustains us and bores us, and reminds us, in ways we hardly notice, that there is a God who is stable and loving, and there is a divine order. It’s like teaching your child manners. So what’s the big deal if the little boy eats with his mouth open, macaroni spilling out—or so what if the family never eats a meal together. Or why care if the little girl forgets to say thank you. If she forgets often enough she may forget she has anything to be thankful about. She may begin to think instead that she is deserving—she may develop a sense of privilege. She may. At our best, our ritual actions spring from the posture of our hearts. Toward one another and toward God. Hence we bow sometimes, kneel sometimes, stand sometimes, praise sometimes, bewail our manifold sins sometimes, ask for forgiveness from God and each other, the priest washes her hands symbolically reminding us perhaps of our baptism, perhaps of the fact that no matter how much of a hypocrite the priest is, when she celebrates communion she’s been washed and the people receiving the communion can count on God to do the washing and to be present no matter the state of the priest’s heart (or which arm the lavabo towel is on). The Law—obedience to the Torah—was and is not about hygiene and it is not about earning favor with God. It is about offering a witness to this world of ours—this tired and often chaotic world of ours—that there is a loving God who is dependable. There is order. Ritual action is about defining who you are and to whom your allegiance is. At our best our rituals help form our hearts into the hearts they were born to be. Our rituals and the very ritual of our coming together every week to turn intentionally to God to say thank you-- these help change us from hypocrites to persons of integrity. As the letter of James points out “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above coming down from the Father of lights”—who never changes. That loving abundance is the gift first given—opening our hearts to receive it is a key to becoming Jesus-people, folks who cannot NOT respond in love to God and to our neighbors. I read the other day that Albert Schweitzer, turned away from his highly accomplished career as a philosopher, musician and theologian to become a doctor in heart of Africa in the early years of the 20th century.* He wrote: ”For years I have been giving of myself in words,” but now, he wanted to walk the talk and live a more authentic life. Or, as he put it, “My life is my argument.” . . . .”be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves,” as James puts it. And the truth is that we long to grow up into Christ so that our words and actions, our hearts and our rituals, may be congruent—authentic and real. We aren’t there yet, we’re all hypocrites “playing a role that isn’t entirely ours yet.” Some of us perhaps come here to persuade God that we are worthy. To earn heavenly credits. And, yes, it’s possible to do the rituals, speak the words, eat the bread and drink the wine and forget why we do them. An autopsy might find our hearts shrunken and our arteries clogged. A police report or our own family members might find our that actions speak louder than our words. But we come here because we’ve been invited to the feast given by the God of abundance. We come here indeed to lift up our hearts. And, we come to subject ourselves to the ritual acts, trusting that saying thank you, praising God, passing the peace, asking for forgiveness, eating the bread and drinking the wine will indeed soften our hearts and unclutch our hands and gentle our spirits. And, in the world outside we practice other ritual actions: we practice loving and serving, caring for widows and orphans, forgiving our friends and enemies, standing with the poor and working for justice and healing. We do so NOT to earn our salvation or God’s approval. We do so in response to God’s abundant love, and as we do so, we open ourselves to the flow of God’s transforming grace until we too can say, ”My life is my argument.” * Stephen Bauman, Simple Truths: On Values, Civility, and Our Common Good, Abingdon Press: Nashville,TN,2006, p. 83

Sermon 8.27.06

John 6:56-69; Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18; Ephesians 6:10-20; Psalm 34:15-22 “Do you also wish to go away?” Jesus asks his closest friends, “Do you also wish to go away?” away—that is—from me? I’ve often wondered about his tone of voice right there. The emotion that might have been in it. Was he curious? A little angry? Feeling misunderstood? Afraid even? I knew a woman once who spent much of her time making it difficult for others to be friends with her. Making it hard to be in relationship with her. By the time she was about my age, she hardly had anyone in her life that she could call a friend. She’d rejected, criticized, mocked, ignored, hurt, almost everyone who came close—even her own children found they couldn’t be around her. On her death bed she told the hospice nurse that everyone had gone away. She was abandoned. “Do you want to go away too?” she asked. The question hung there in the air. After a bit, the nurse assured her that no, she would not abandon her. But later she confided in me that actually she did—she did want to go away—because this woman was so demanding, so critical, so impossible to care for. She was searching for ways to care for this woman without resenting her—to care for her with love. The fear of abandonment runs deep in most of us—almost everyone of us has felt abandoned at some point. It starts early-- in elementary school when the little girl we thought was our best friend suddenly abandoned us for another more exciting child. And, some of us were abandoned in significant ways by our parents—ignored when we needed help, left to fend for ourselves in the face of danger. Others have known the feelings of abandonment that come with the death of a parent or sibling, or with divorce. One of my closest friends was abandoned by her husband who left her and their two little boys when she was 7 months pregnant. She could hardly leave her house for almost two years she was so wounded and at loss. Maybe there was some hint in Jesus’ voice of foreboding—some knowledge that at the end of his life his friends would leave—leave him alone to face death. Maybe there was some fear—some grief in that voice. But, I suspect there was compassion as well. Jesus’ words are spirit and life—but they are hard to understand—hard to accept—hard to trust—hard even to imagine. That was true then—and I venture to say its true now. Today. Right here. ”Whoever eats me will live because of me.” “The one who eats this bread will live forever—not like the bread your ancestors ate—and then they died.” And if that isn’t enough, how about, “what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” Or, ”no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Is there a choice or not here? What does live forever mean in the here and now? These are difficult sayings, and it would be preposterous for me to tell you that I fully understand them. But, I have heard Jesus asking me that question, “Pat, do you also wish to go away?” Like my hospice nurse friend I have to admit that there have been times in my life when the answer was yes. Because there have been times in my life when the darkness seemed too dark to be penetrated by God. There was a time when I stood beside a mother whose son had just been brain damaged unto death in a skate board accident. I thought about going away—being somewhere else. I wondered for just a moment if Jesus were there or if we had been abandoned and left to our own devices—that mother and I. “Do you also wish to go away?” How about the times when I catch myself lying—to avoid the truth. How about the times when I refuse to look the man on the corner in the eye. I don’t want to see the face of poverty. How about the times I read the headlines and lapse into fear. I eat the bread of anxiety. Then there are the moments when I let the depth of the ecological crisis into my mind and heart and I want to run away from the truth and live in some delusion. How about those times when I consider the life changes my faith might require of me—or the ones that might be forced upon me—and wonder if I can trust that letting go might actually bring new life. “Do you also wish to go away?” Sometimes I answer yes because I fear that I cannot (or rather will not have the courage) to choose Jesus’ way. Sometimes I get so satiated on the bread of anxiety that fills our televisions, newspapers, radio waves, airports and neighborhoods—sometimes I am so stuffed with that bread that I can’t make room for the Jesus bread. Sometimes, to be honest, I begin to move away because I am not sure I can trust that the bread of Jesus will actually feed when I need it most. “Lord, to whom can we go?” says Peter. “You have the words of eternal life and we have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Believe here for Peter means give yourself to—means give your heart to. Peter says he and his friends—have given their hearts to him and that’s all there is to it. There is no one else to go to. Of course, many of us have probably tried some others—we’ve gone to others in your search for life—for the divine. Maybe we’ve tried drugs, or alcohol, or success, or possessions—or maybe we’ve tried to escape to a fantasy world. Perhaps you’ve tried other faiths, and you may have found solace or prayer practices or ways of understanding the world there that have enriched your life. I know more than one faithful Buddhist Episcopalian. ...But for some reason you are here. Here today in this church. Hoping against hope maybe that here in this someone Jesus you’ll find who and what you are looking for. The hardest thing about Jesus is that the God he proclaims—the Father that he was so in tune with—the divinity that flowed through him is outrageous. Is unthinkable. Is not what we expected. Is so inverted—so paradoxical—so unlikely—that we can’t take it in. Not just the words we can’t quite grasp—but the actions—the life of Jesus. God in the flesh. Incarnate. One of us. Among us. Not the rescuer on the white horse. Not the distant clock maker leaving his clocks to run themselves down and occasionally winding one up. God’s power seemingly weak in human flesh. Vulnerable. Love in its vulnerability risking pain. Standing up before the earthly powers that be—the violence of his day—and waiting in love. Living, breathing, crying, laughing, suffering, abandoned by his friends, ridiculed—you name it. Ascending to the place he came from on a cross. Jesus is --we dare to say in our clearest moments-- God with us. We have come here really because of the question, “Do you also wish to go away?” We’ve come to answer it. And no matter what shape we’ve come in, no matter the quality of our faith or our doubts, no matter how much bread of anxiety we’ve consumed this week—no matter. Our coming here is our answer. Instead of leaving we have come. And, we’ve come because somewhere, sometime in our lives we’ve asked that same question, “Do you also wish to go away?” We’ve asked it of God. We’ve come to believe that in Jesus we know God’s own answer. In Jesus we know we are never alone—never abandoned—never left to our own devices. Standing with the mother and me—in the wounds of the abandoned wife—in the man standing on the corner and with me, my eyes averted. And by the granting of the Father, “the grace of God” we can keep on drawing near—keep on seeking—keep on searching here in this place and in every place we find ourselves—keep on opening ourselves to the depths and heights of the love of God that is at work in us-- setting us free to live as God’s own outrageous, unlikely, unthinkable—really—people. Christians.

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