Boldly Sin, Boldly Change.

A reflection on the readings for Lent 3C: Isaiah 55:1-9by the Rev. Karla J. Miller

This winter and spring, my congregation is exploring the ideas in progressive Christianity.    We did a book study on Marcus Borg’s book, “Speaking Christian”, and we are using the book to guide our lenten conversations around God, Jesus, Forgiveness, Mercy, and Salvation.   What I am learning from my congregation is that although they think progressively, act progressively, and love progressively,  they don’t always have the theological language with which to speak progressively. Especially about God.

So, we are working on that.

Most of my people understand God as Love.  As an immanent, transcendent reality that is present in the world.  The ground of all being, in who we live and move and have our existence (Acts 17:28).   The idea of God out there, separate from the universe, controlling, authority-figure that is often the God that atheists argue against its existence, is not the one they know.  This is the God they see splashed across the evening news when a religious expert (usually from a radically conservative perspective) is called upon to speak for God. 

I think about this God in the context of the gospel lesson this week.  You see, I think that Jesus was trying to point out to the “some present” is that their idea of sin and the Divine was humanly skewed.   Jesus was offering a message of real change--you don’t have to “think it in the way you were taught”  without questioning; you don’t have to “do it the way it always has been done”  because guess what?  The old paradigm doesn’t fit anymore.   God is Love.  God doesn’t give a rat’s ass about these little picky “sins” as you name them.  God cares that God’s message of Love is offered to all.

Can’t you  just see Jesus saying to us, the Church, “Just look at your empty pews!  The old paradigm is clearly not working, so why keep trying to tweak it and patch it and dress it up and dress it down?  Unless there is true, bold change at the very heart of it all, it’s not going to work.”

We all know change is incremental in institutions.   Especially the Church.   And yet, while within our walls on Sunday mornings, where our comfortable worship and hymns cling to words that address  Our Father who are in heaven,  a heaven that is out there, and a hell that is down there--there is a dying, crying world outside--OUTSIDE--on our streets.   There are children in the wet, bitter cold of Syria who have no shoes--literally, walking barefoot or in flip-slops in icy mud, where human waste ferments because of lack of sanitation.  There is the twelve year boy in your catechism class who is already diagnosed with anorexia, because it’s the only control he has in his life.  And then there are those polar bears, the mama and cub, stranded on an ice floe, surrounded by water, because of global warming, and they will simply perish, because there is no way out. 

Don’t they need a God who is with them?  Don’t they need to know that the pain, the suffering isn’t their fault? Don’t they need you,  us, the Church--to be healing love, rather than what it is perceived to be?

Our gospel lesson calls us to Repent.  Now.  Change. Now.  Not in incrementally so that we are comfortable and don’t feel the uneasiness of it all.   We are in a time in Christianity, where we need to embrace that fact that we are indeed in living in a post Christian world.   Where we are called to make Bold Decisions.   Where we are called to prophesy, “God is GOOD!  God believes in you!”  and where we act, outside of our walls, because we believe that God cares--about the polar bears and freezing children and lost teenagers.  

The good news in this text, though, is that Jesus recognizes that a little time is needed, though, for change.  He gives the fig tree a year to bear fruit--and if it doesn’t--then it might as well be cut down--to make room for a tree that does.   We, the Church, have a little time.  If the pews aren’t full on Sundays--then maybe we need to take the pews to the people, to the world.  We have some time to do that, and hopefully, as we boldly lead, the liberating, nourishing Ground of All Being Love will bring new life in our world. 

Lent 2C

A reflection on Psalm 27 by the Rev. Anne Fraley.

Psalm 27:1, 14 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? … Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!

This past week I took part in an icon-writing workshop. This was the fourth time I have had the privilege of serving as chaplain in this annual offering by our local cathedral’s program for the arts. As in previous years it afforded me an opportunity to release the concerns of daily life to be immersed in communal silence, and in the same way that the image of my saint emerged on my canvas, some of my own soul came into focus in a new way.

The icon I wrote was St. John the Theologian dictating to St. Prochorus, an obscure biblical figure who went on to be a bishop and martyr in the early years of the Church’s development. The icon is full of details, from the position of John’s turned head to receive divine wisdom, to the elevated position of the two men in front of a cave of darkness.  The mind and heart can swim with contemplation while painting layers of color, and as the image came into relief with the application of lightening layers, my soul was drawn more deeply into the ancient truths the icon is meant to reveal.

I went into this week of creative devotion fresh on the heels of reading columnist Susan Campbell’s memoir Dating Jesus, subtitled “A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl.” A self-described recovering fundamentalist, Campbell shares the story of how she wrestled with and extracted herself from a Christian tradition that extolled her adored Jesus while subjugating women through a literal interpretation of holy writ. Her narrative is familiar to us, and though her journey toward spiritual maturity bears little resemblance to mine, her pain reverberated in the corridors of my own experience.  As I faced a blank canvas ready to be immersed in this ancient spiritual practice, Campbell’s courage to depart from the tradition that shaped her life so firmly and fiercely inspired me to take a modest risk with my icon. Unhappy with the patriarchal tradition of men portrayed as sole guardians of the Word, my Prochorus would be depicted as feminine, Prochora.

This was far from a scandalous act, but it was a significant choice for me as a woman and a preacher of the Word to add curling locks to the saint of old. It wasn’t just about adding a feminine image to a genre dominated by men (with the exception of the prevalence of the Holy Mother). It was a declaration that in spite of appearances and experiences to the contrary, for centuries women have been entrusted with receiving and sharing God’s wisdom and the incarnate revelation of Christ. In this icon in particular—with John’s face turned away from his scribe—the sacred trust implicit in the theologian’s posture conveys an equality of the sexes that underscores a truth that many of us have received over the years. 

Such a declaration is not meant to deny or diminish the oppression of women during these same years, especially by a Church that professes to proclaim the Good News that ought to have liberated our sex and rejoiced in its equal participation. It is, instead, intended to acknowledge what has been hidden by the darkness of patriarchy. In the same way that icons are painted beginning with the darkest layers, revealing its details with successive of layers of increasing light, so is the Church in many quarters now in a place where the barriers of gender are being shed. It is a journey far from concluded, but the voices of women now heard from pulpits and shared in decision-making circles have reached a tipping point of no return.  As the psalmist proclaims, with the Lord as light and salvation, there is no place for fear. Strength and courage are endowed to us through whatever waiting we endure.

Feast of the Transfiguration

A reflection Luke 9:28-43 by the Rev. Crystal Karr

 

²⁸Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.²⁹And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.³⁰Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.³¹They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.³²Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.³³Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said.³⁴While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.³⁵Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”³⁶When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

³⁷On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.³⁸Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.³⁹Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.⁴⁰I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”⁴¹Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”⁴²While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.

 

I adore Peter, probably because I can relate.  Here Peter is confronted with an amazing site—the man he’s been following transformed into a vision of whiteness while talking with two other men—Elijah and Moses.  Still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, unable to take in all that he is witnessing, rather than taking a moment to process what is going on (not that he could have anyway) he blurts out the first thing that comes into his head—to make a lasting marker on the mountain for each of the great men before him.  Then comes God’s voice, “Just stop!  Shut up and listen!”  I can imagine Peter, stumbling and embarrassed.  He wants desperately to please Jesus, to be the one who gets it, who understands…even when he clearly does not.

 

This week I subbed as the librarian at an elementary school.  As I envisioned Peter on the mountain top with Jesus, Elijah, Moses, and the other disciples I was reminded of one of the books, The Dinosaur’s New Clothes

 It’s a new take on the old story of The Emperor’s New Clothes—two swindler’s come to town proclaiming a glorious robe made of cloth only intelligent and “dinosaurs fit for their jobs” can see.  Everyone utterly afraid that their foolishness, stupidity, or unfitness for their job would show through they lied about seeing the robe.  Peter on the other hand, sees the glory of Jesus blazing before him.  He wants everyone to know that he sees it, that he understands it.  He wants to make it known.  I imagine he wants to tell the story so that everyone knows that he was there, he put up the dwellings, he saw it first.

 

How much trouble in this world is caused by wanting to prove ourselves worthy?  Prove ourselves intelligent?  Prove ourselves fit for our jobs?  Too often in moments in which we need time and space to breathe, to take in the experience, to simply sit and process so what we witness can make a lasting significance in our heart and lives, we jump to bragging about being their first, how to fix it without thinking first, or we go along with the crowd so not to be considered stupid and unintelligent. 

 

Too often in our rush to prove ourselves we, like Peter, miss what is going on around us.  We miss the glimpses of God in action, in the act of transforming our world.  We need time to process just as we need time to act.    The more we take time to sit and listen and be with God, the more relevant and transformative our actions will become.  We live in a knee-jerk world in which stopping to listen to the voice of God, stopping to process and understand those we are dealing with are practically dead arts in many circles.  In order to transform our world we must leave our needs to be right, to be first, and to prove ourselves aside so that we may go deeper listening to God, listening to the “others” and then responding with relevant and transformative action. 

Baptism of Jesus

 A reflection on the readings for the Baptism of Jesus: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 by the Rev. Terri C. Pilarski

Our reading this morning conveys a key theme in the Gospel of Luke – prayer. Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets, helps us understand how to pray

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.   (Mary Oliver ~ Thirst)

Oliver reminds us to keep it simple, patch a few words together, don’t try to be too elaborate, give thanks and let there be some silence so God can speak too.

Jesus, after his baptism went off to pray, something Jesus does a lot of in the Gospel of Luke. Prayer is central to who Jesus is and how he lives out his ministry. Prayer is central to our faith life too and how we are invited to live out our various ministries.

 In the Bible Jesus gives us a simple prayer to pray, we call it The Lord’s Prayer. There are two versions of it in our Book of Common Prayer which you can find if you turn to page

There are also two versions of the Lord’s Prayer found in the Bible – one is in the sixth chapter of Gospel of Matthew  and it goes like this:

 “ Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you;  (Matthew 6:9-14)

And, one in the Gospel of Luke and it goes like this:

(Jesus) said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”  (Luke 11:1-4)

The versions of the Lord’s Prayer that we have in the Book of Common Prayer are similar, one to the Gospel of Matthew – which we use most of the year and call it the traditional version – and the other to the Gospel of Luke – which we use in the summer and call it the Contemporary version. Both versions are based on how Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. 

N.T. Wright, a Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and a New Testament scholar says this about the Lord’s Prayer: “(it)is not so much a command as an invitation: an invitation to share in the prayer-life of Jesus himself…..”[i]

All Prayer is an invitation into the inner life of the Divine one and brings with it an opportunity to experience something of that divine life. Prayer is an invitation into mystery and the idea that there is something at play in the world that is bigger than we are. This something we call God – the divine source of all creation, the one who brought forth all life and called it good. We, being made in the image of that divine source are made good to do good.

For Christians baptism is the invitation into the life of Christ. An invitation into prayer, an invitation into an understanding of life that helps us make meaning out our lives, helps us navigate the challenges of life, a life of community and faith, a life in which we are never alone.  In baptism we are given the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the gifts which become our strengths, the gifts which define our lives. Jesus’ gift is teacher – he teaches us how to live as God desires, how to live as Jesus did, a life of boundless compassion, love, mercy, and grace for all people, all creation.

Mary Oliver has something to say about the mystery of life and prayer in another poem, The Summer Day. Here is a portion of that poem:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,….
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Today we have come to baptize Lexi into her new life in Christ.

 As a parish family we have been praying for Lexi and her parents  and godparents, for many months – all during the adoption process. Now today we join our prayer with her prayer and offer our lifelong commitment to nurture her in her life in Christ. Every person we baptize we embrace with delight their potential, their new life in Christ, and we look forward to finding out just:

“What is they will do with their one wild and precious life!”  

 Let us now prepare to welcome Lexi into her new life…

---

[i] http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Christian_Prayer.htm

Epiphany

The Epiphany of Our Lord: a reflection on the readings - Isaiah 60.1-6, Psalm 72.1-7, 10-14, Ephesians 3. 1-12, Matthew 2.1-12 By the Rev. Dr. Sarah Rogers

Well I woke up this morning, and over my cup of coffee began thinking about what I needed to get done today and as the caffeine kicked in realised that I hadn’t written my reflection for this blog.  So, I have sat down with a second cup of coffee to write it.  Apologies for the lateness, it should have been done by Saturday, I don’t really have an excuse, I simply forgot.  It seems that it is easy to forget things at this time of year, everything is so different...our normal routine is thrown out of kilter, the children are off school, family we haven’t seen for months come and visit, there are all Christmas parties and Church services.  One of my parishioners completely forgot to come to church last Wednesday as she would usually do because she’d had the family around on New Year’s Day for a roast dinner and so thought it was Monday...everything is in a muddle.  For me, I had an ‘Open House’ on Saturday, a Christmas celebration at the vicarage for my Parishioners, and because the first Sunday in the month is always Family Service, I wasn’t preaching as such yesterday. 

It is entirely appropriate that at this time of year our routine is disrupted, the coming of the Messiah is an event that should cause disruption even today as we recall that great event.  Mary and Joseph had the upheaval of going to Bethlehem, the shepherds were sent out of the fields by the angels to find the Christ-child, and the appearance of a great star in the sky brought the Wise Men from distant lands to worship the baby Jesus.  The arrival of this new baby, the king of the Jews also frightened Herod leading him to order the execution of all baby boys under the age of three, we can only imagine what agony that brought to their mothers and fathers, life for them would never be the same again.

We don’t know how many Wise Men there were, all we know is that there was more than one and that they brought three gifts, so we assume there were three, each of them bringing a gift.  They are called Wise Men because they were star-gazers, but they are also known as ‘Kings’.  Tradition has it that Melchior was a Persian scholar, Caspar an Indian scholar and Balthazar an Arabian scholar.  These traditions have come about as scholars over the last 2000 years have attempted to find out who these mysterious Wise Men were.  They must have been reasonably wealthy to offer gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and they were obviously quite distinguished gentlemen.  I can’t help wondering whether they really travelled alone or whether they had an entourage with them, did they bring wives and servants, who else greeted the baby Jesus. In reality it doesn’t really matter, we can get too bogged down with the nitty gritty of working out who these Wise Men were, what really matters is WHY they came. 

They came because God sent them, leading them by a star to Bethlehem.  God has been playing a very long game, beginning with Abraham, gradually building a nation.  But Jesus was not just for that nation, God was sending him into the world for everyone.  So, the Wise Men come to represent us all.  They remind us that it doesn’t matter where we come from, what we look like, who are parents were or what language we speak.  Everyone can know God.  The Wise Men represented all the nations, so God not only welcomed them, but us as well.

Now that Christmas is over life is getting back to normal.  The children are returning to school, work routines are back to normal.  But, let us not forget the disruption that the arrival of the Messiah caused as we welcomed him again at Christmas.  Over the next few weeks the Messiah will be revealed to us when John Baptises his cousin, through the first miracle at the wedding at Cana when water is changed into wine, when Jesus reveals that he is the fulfilment of the scripture in the synagogue in Nazareth and finally in the Temple at Candlemas when Simeon and Anna see Jesus they recognise the child as the Messiah, but not just the Messiah of Israel but as Simeon says ‘a light for revelation to the Gentiles.’  For those who witnessed these events there must have been great confusion, they must have been disturbed, unsettled.  As our routines get back to normal, let us continue to be disturbed by God, but also to make sure that in all we do we make sure that the presence of God disturbs those around us as well.