Friday Five: Mission Impossible

Revkjarla is in mission trip mode right now, as she gets ready to take a group of youth to DC to do service work around hunger and homelessness issues. So, in that spirit, our FF is Mission Style! So here are your questions:

1) Have you ever been on a mission trip, as a participant or adult chaperone? What was it like?
My family and I (including my mom, sister and our children) all go to Bluff, Utah for a week each year to offer VBS to the Dine' (Navajo) children in the area.  It is a ministry of presence even more than Gospel-spreading.  Relationships are only built over years of going - one year going does not build authenticity in this community.  I usually focus most on the older young women of the group and it has been gratifying to watch them grow into college students.  They are truly breaking cycles of poverty. 
I also am planning a youth mission trip to Bastrop, TX for wildfire disaster clean-up in June.  The youth of St Martin want to travel there to assist.  There is an Episcopal church in town so we are looking forward to working with the people there.

2) What is the worst thing that happened to you/your group on a mission trip (or retreat, or camp, or Habitat for Humanity experience, or something like that--hey, this is YOUR Friday Five, so you get to play it how you would like.)
I was an adult-sponsor (parent) on a trip with middle schoolers from 3 different churches and we stayed at a church.  The church had a septic system that could not handle the capacity of 30 teens plus adults, so the restrooms became unusable.  Having to drive the potty shuttle to the closest Wal-Mart was interesting. 

3) If money were no object, where would you want to go to help and serve? What would you do?
I don't know. I would love to work in NavajoLand as a priest.  I love the people and the land when we travel to Bluff every year.  Once David retires, maybe... 

4) What would be your advice to someone who will be sleeping in a gym with 20 other people for a week?
Modest pajamas - really good blow-up mattress (go to a real camping store) - Ipod for falling asleep - alarm clock - sense of humor 24/7. 

5) Any parting thoughts, stories, or questions you have around the whole theme of Mission Trips?
I have been very mindful of who actually benefits from mission trips after hearing a missionary from South America address the Episcopal Youth Event last year, and listening to one of the God Complex Radio podcasts. It is a complex topic.  Do we unintentionally do more harm than good sometimes?

Easter Sermon

Who are you looking for??

       Everyone is here today seeking something: approval from a family member for coming to church, Easter eggs, maybe even a brush with the Divine – God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit – I suspect maybe all of the above. 

So who are you looking for? 

       If you are looking for a community of people who look and think like you – who all subscribe to the same thoughts about God and who they think God loves and doesn’t, this is not where you are.  However, if you are looking for a community of people who like to think deeply about God, and wrestle with what it means to be Christian in the world today – and may REALLY wrestle with how to love all of our neighbors – this may be the people you are looking for. 

Who are you looking for? 

       God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit: this can make us a bit squirmy can’t it?  Here we are today – saying Alleluias because a human who died was raised back to life – and still lives.  Those who have followed along with the timeline of the last week may be exhausted by the emotional roller coaster.  Last week at this time we were shouting Hosanna in the Highest – then Friday we left the church grief-filled knowing that Jesus was dead.  Really dead.  And now we’re back – celebrating that our redeemer lives!!  It defies logic.  Without the last three days, there would be no Christianity.  Without the last three days, we would have no assurance of a God that loves us enough to walk among us, or the Sacrament that feeds our bodies and souls every week – we would have no hope of life everlasting.

Who are you looking for?

       Here you will find people full of hope.  Today that is what we are given.  Not all of us will feel joyful today – it’s been a rough week.  Maybe you’re having a rough year, or a rough few years.  Joy is not required today – hope is what we find here on Easter.  Just as God led our Jewish ancestors out of Egypt, out of slavery – Jesus leads us out of death and into life.  We will all die – just as Jesus did.  No one escapes death- HOWEVER – because of Easter – because of our belief in Jesus Christ, we know that there is something MORE.  We know that we will one day be reunited with those who have gone before us – we know that even when we leave this life, that will not be the end of our story. 

So who are you looking for?

       This is who we are – we are people of the Resurrection.  We believe that death is never the end of the story.  We believe that God loves everyone – no exceptions.  We believe that Jesus expects us to be his body in this world: his hands and his feet, his mind and his heart, and his love.  We live in the Hope of the Resurrection!  Amen.

Good Friday Homily

The Love Song has been sung – the voice is silenced.  Now what?

This is the time of year when old sore spots come to the surface.  Today I have been thinking a lot about my brother who died of cancer about 12 years ago – today lends itself to grief – and rightly so.  Today about 3pm our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ died of torture.  Today his loving voice and laughing eyes ceased to be.  Today we lose the One who loves us more than we can ask or imagine.  It’s a rough day.

And Why?  Why is a big question today too –

·        Why did this day happen?  I don’t know.  No one else does either – not really – only God knows.  I was raised with the idea that Jesus Christ died on the cross for us – because we are sinners.  I think that is part of the story.  I believe that Jesus did not HAVE to die this way – that there are any number of other ways God could have redeemed us.  However, because Jesus did die this way, we cannot ever think of any situation where we could find ourselves as human beings that Jesus Christ cannot understand – or find unworthy – or unlovable.  And that’s the crux of the human condition isn’t it?  We wonder if we are unlovable at the core of our being.  I believe that the cross, as a shameful instrument of torture, shows us that Jesus Christ is with us no matter where we find ourselves – no matter what we’ve gotten ourselves into – no matter what our own eventual manner of death – Jesus has already been there and is there to walk with us through it.  God knows the grief of dying that way – God knows the grief of losing a child – God is there with us. 

·        Why do we intentionally put ourselves through this every year?  The birth narrative does not have the same meaning for us without this day.  Easter would not be as joyous without the sorrow of today. 

I am not going to leave you with a comforting thought to go away with tonight.  I am going to ask you instead to sit with your grief – sit in it for the next 24 hours – that is the purpose of remembering – in poking at our own grief, we find healing – in taking it apart and examining it, we re-member and put it back together differently.  As you go through it, ponder a life without hope, without reassurance, without Divine love… where we would be without Jesus’ divine death.  I pray for God to bless our journeys in grief.   Amen.

Palm Sunday Homily

As a friend said on Facebook , this is the perfect service for this weekend: “Welcome to the King of Kings!  We will honor you forever!  April Fools!!”  Every year this service jars me – the immediate movement from Hero Worship to Crucify Him - this year it took us 32 minutes to get from there to here.  This morning we get the Cliff notes version of the story, but throughout this week, we will actually get to see and experience what comes in between - the What that Happens between there and here.  On Thursday, Friday and Saturday we will see how we got from there to here and beyond.

And we know how it will end.  So why bother?  Jesus knew how it would end also.  Why did he bother?   He bothered because he loves us. 

God has been singing a love song to us all though Lent.  Have you heard it?  It was no accident that we spent the first four Sundays of Lent reviewing the different Covenants between God and the people – we learned out history with God – we learned who we are to God – that we are Beloved.  We've had a different verse of that song each week:  In week one, we heard "I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth" as God made a covenant with Noah. Week two was "You shall be the ancestors to a multitude of nations" as God made the covenant with Sarah and Abraham.  Week three was "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Week four, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." Last week was "I will put my law within them and I will write in on their hearts – I will be their God and they will be my people."   Today we had the words directly from Jesus "I am the Messiah, the Son of God" - he gave himself up.  This week we will add: By this shall the world know that you are my disciples. And we will have the examples of foot washing and the institution of communion.

 Jesus already knew what would happen – and he loves us enough to show up and ride a colt.  He loves us enough to be an example of being non-violent in the face of injustice.  He loves us enough to feed us every single week – week in and week out – with his own body and blood.  He loved us enough to walk among us, because without Holy week, that cute baby is just a cute baby - the wise teacher is merely a wise teacher, the miracle healer is just a healer - This Week changes everything.  Without This week, This Story is just another story. 

Come this week to walk with Christ and the disciples – Come hear and experience different versions of the same story.  You’ve come this far: Remember that you are Dust and to Dust you shall return.    Come - Finish your Lent this year with a strong understanding of who Christ is – for you, for this community and for the world.  Come and let God sing you the rest of this love song. 

Sermon 3rd Sunday of Lent, Year B

Collect:  Almighty God, you seest that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul – it is a lovely collect for the day and a great summary for the readings today.  Today is one of those glorious days when all the  readings and the Collect inter-weave beautifully.

I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but throughout this Lenten season, we have had Covenant readings in our Hebrew Testament first readings.  The First Sunday of Lent, we had God making a covenant with Noah: “Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”  A flood is certainly an adversity which may happen to the body – and God promises to protect us from an earth-encompassing flood.  What do we have to do to uphold our end of the bargain?  Nothing – the rainbow is the sign that reminds God.  There is no Rainbow Bat signal that we have to flash – it just happens – God makes the rainbow happen and restricts the flood.  Who does this covenant affect?  All of us – every human on the earth.  Some may perish periodically in floods, but never again has there been a flood that covered the entire earth.  When I first saw the previews to Evan Almighty a few years ago, I wondered if the writers had forgotten this covenant.  “Defend us from all adversities which may happen to the body.”

On the Second Sunday of Lent, last week, God made a covenant with Abram and Sarai, who became Abraham and Sarah. Abraham became the father of the three major religions who worship the same God: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity: “you shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations…to be God to you and to your offspring after you.”  And three major world religions followed.  What do we have to do to uphold our end of this covenant:  nada.  “Almighty God, you know we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves.”

This is the Third Sunday of Lent, and we have more covenant language: the Ten Commandments.  This is a covenant between God and the Hebrew people.  As Christians who descend from the Jews theologically and scripturally, we inherited this covenant.  The Quran does not have the Ten Commandments – it has similar teachings, but not in this form like we have it in both Exodus and Deuteronomy.    Do you see how the field is narrowing each time?  All people with Noah; Jews, Muslims and Christians with Abraham, and now Jews and Christians with the Ten Commandments.   And this is where we got to the question: How do we uphold our end?  What is expected of us?  Jesus later narrows it even further for us as Christians as we hear in our opening proclamation every week in Rite I, “Love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbors as yourselves” – the Summary of the Ten Commandments – simplified.  That’s all we have to do to uphold our end of this covenant – simple enough - ha.  “Keep us from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul.” 

So what does all this have to do with Jesus getting angry in the Temple?  God could only be found in the Temple in those days – it was where God lived for the Hebrew people.  We have no concept of how pervasive that thought was for them – God lived there and they went to visit God there as a show of obedience and sacrifice.  Only certain people were allowed to be in the same space as God.  What we know that they did not, was that Jesus incarnate is God.  When He was walking among them, God was out of the building (maybe God had never truly resided there for long), but now God walked and talked and got angry.  I actually like this portrayal of Jesus because I can so clearly see both the fully human and the fully divine here.  Jesus sees the gauntlet people are expected to walk through to get to God, and knows that HE is right there.  Jesus tried to tell them that HE was the temple – the body for God – but they would not get that- really get it – until after his death.  When the curtain of the Temple is torn in two later – it signals that God has left the building, once and for all.  The Holy may visit there, but will no longer ever be thought of as living there.  Ironically enough in John’s gospel, Jesus turning over tables, driving out the money changers, and proclaiming to be the Temple is what made the powers-that-be mad enough to start conspiring to kill. 

We know that God walked in the body of Jesus – we also believe that the Holy Spirit lives in and moves among every person here.  We know that God is not only in a building or a room.    We can look historically and faithfully to see how much God loves us – the covenants point us there.  What kind of clearing out have you been doing in your Lenten discipline?  What have you driven out of your life to make room for the Holy Spirit to dwell more fully there?  What practice have you chosen to help you see God more clearly in this season?  I have begun a practice of writing prayers to God – kind of like journaling – and I am a whole 6 days in so far.  Sigh.  The psalmist reminds us that God’s laws are perfect and sure and clear, and pure – sweeter than honey.  I know that when I pressure myself to exceed God’s laws, I stress myself out.  God does not do that to me – I am reminded that God loves those foolish enough to believe as Paul reminded us today – and that the strength of God is enough to keep and defend me.

And why?  Why does God keep us, defend us, and bind the holy to us – as human beings, as people who believe in Jesus Christ, as spirit-bearers in the world?  Why would God do this?  I’m giving you the soap opera ending - That answer comes next week – you’ll know it when you hear it… Amen.

Good Morning Y'all!!

Welcome to the new named blog!  I will be moving my links over this week.

This blog will be used to post sermons, ask questions, and become a resource page for me in my jobs.  On the parish level, I am a Parochial Associate.  There is no curacy program in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.  There are lots of questions that I have and I wish I could discuss with colleagues.  On the diocesan level, as far as I can discern, there is no one doing the same work I am doing in the re-organizing dioceses. If you know of someone, please send them my contact info!!  I would love to find someone see doing the Reconciliation work also - we are three years post-break and starting to really form plans now.  It is a process that must be worked and there is a lot of grief work involved.

I will still be writing on the anonymous blog as well - if you don't know it and want to, please email me - my only goal with it was that I didn't want a Google search to link me directly to it, but most of the readers there know me.

My email is a google email with the same name on the blog without the spaces.

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany – Year B - Mark 1:29-39

                There are three kinds of people in the world: those who understand Math, and those who don’t.  You can see which category I fall in here. 

                As I looked at the Gospel this week, with the help of 44 of my closest pastor friends, it occurred to us that there are two categories of people in today’s Reading from Mark.  However, it is always dangerous to categorize and simplify – and you’ll see why in a minute.  We decided in the workgroup that the two categories are those who need to be Served and those who Serve.  Let’s start by looking at Simon’s Mother-in-Law and I think you will see the problem also.

                Simon’s Mother-in-Law, who has no name, needs to be Served.  She is ill with a fever. In the days before Tylenol and antibiotics, she might have died from whatever the underlying reason for the fever might have been.  However, Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her up – he strengthened her.  He healed her.  And she began to serve them.  Do you see the problem with the categories yet?

It’s a both…and thing.  The more I looked at this, the more I was struck by the both…and aspect of it because it is exactly how each of us here is.  We all have something that needs to be served in our lives: a worry put to rest, an ailment to heal, a hole to fill…you can each fill in your own blank there.  We all also are called to Serve – to find our ministry to follow Jesus Christ – our own way to proclaim the Good News and participate in the healing of the people around us and the world. 

There is a coarse reading of the Gospel that I have giggled at myself – and probably still will again.  She was healed and she served them.  Sounds very paternalistic doesn’t it?  As I thought more about it though, if I were her, I would want to feel good enough to show hospitality to my houseguests, I would want to be able to set the table and serve a meal, I actually get to do those things in my Call.  I also remember when I have been sick and I just want to feel normal again – I imagine it was a relief to her to be able to get back into the swing of things after being ill. 

Jesus allowed himself to be served by her – and he served the needs of others by proclaiming the good news and healing in this story – another both…and. 

Our diocesan Communications Officer posted a story on her FB page about yet another real life, modern day both...and.  In the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, there is a church that has worked with a severely physically handicapped boy named Victor so that he can Acolyte.  He wanted to serve – and they figured out how to make it work.  He has a buddy that assists him as he carries the cross attached to his wheelchair, and as he collects the offering plates when they are brought forward.  He and his buddy Patrick are each served by the church and serve the church at the exact same time.  It is a great story and I commend it to you. 

Each of us needs to be served and needs to serve – it’s in our nature.  We are a community made up of both…ands.  We respond to those who need to be served in a variety of different ways: from contributing to Community Storehouse, to offering Christian Education to all ages – in a multitude of ways.  We respond to those who need to clarify their Call through prayers, discernment – in a multitude of ways. 

Let us respond to the Grace of the both…and by living gratefully in the both…and.