St. Thomas Episcopal Church

Good Friday B, April 10, 2009

admin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:33:09 +0000

Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 22:1-11
Hebrews 10:16-25
John 18:1-19:37

Last Friday evening, I had just finished praying the Stations of the Cross with a few of you. I left here and headed home by one of the many ways I have discovered to get me from here to there. I came to an intersection with a signal where I intended to turn right but there was too much traffic to turn while the light was red so I sat there waiting for it to change. There were no cars in front of me. I was watching the movement of traffic and minding the light when all of a sudden a car sped up. Another one squealed its brakes. That was followed by that awful sound of metal crashing against metal, glass and other car parts breaking into pieces and flying through the air. After the big bump both cars bounced around a bit before they finally came to a resting place. It was not a pleasant sight to see something as big and heavy as a car bouncing around out of control right in front of me.
I sat in my car getting showered with glass and broken parts watching the cars. With each twist and turn it seemed like they bounced closer to me. For a second, it looked like one of them might land right on top of my little car. I was hoping like everything that wouldn’t happen. I did not want to be the third car in the accident. I was just sitting there at a red light minding my own business.
When the cars stopped moving it was quiet — the kind of quiet that you can hear. I forgot about the light, and turning. I think I even forgot about going home. For a split second I was relieved that my car had not been any more involved than it was. Suddenly it hit me that there were people in those cars. Without much thought at all, I put mine in park and got out.
One of the cars landed just a few feet in front of me. The other one leaped the curb and landed on the sidewalk to my right. My car wasn’t as involved as it could have been, but like it or not, I was involved in the accident. I was there. I was the closest one to it. I witnessed the whole thing.
I went first to the car directly in front of me. There was an older gentleman in it. He looked up at me and told me that he was okay. Then I walked toward the other car. The sound of quiet was gone. I heard a child screaming. By that time other people had gotten there. Someone was calling 9-1-1 on a cell phone. I made my way to the window and discovered there were three young children in that car, two boys and a girl. One little boy bit his tongue (that’s why he was screaming). The little girl had a tiny scratch on her neck. But other than that they were all three okay — shaken up quite a bit, but okay. They all said they’d never been in car wreck before. It was obvious to me that it was traumatic for them. They were crying and afraid.
Now I know how people are. I know y’all are curious and that you’d like for me to tell you all the details I’ve left out. But the only other detail of this accident that I want to tell you is as far as I know in the time I was with them, they all suffered in one way or another but no one in either car died. That is very good news!
When I got home I told my husband what happened and why I was late. Then I went outside by myself because I needed to. I prayed for each nameless person whose face was so present in my mind, not only those in the cars but those who came to help too. It seemed like I was with them for hours. It was really less than thirty minutes. But it was the thirty minutes right after I prayed through the Stations of the Cross remembering the events of our Lord’s suffering and death. The prayers got all tangled up together. It wasn’t long before a confession welled up in me. I did not want to be involved in those people’s trauma on my way home. Of all the other ways I could have gone home that day, why did I choose that one? I did not want to be a witness to a wreck. I didn’t like feeling helpless. Oh, I did what I could (which wasn’t much). I held the children’s hands, dried their tears and tried to assure them they were okay. I escorted one to a nearby restroom. Then the medical people took everyone away to be checked out more thoroughly. Tow trucks came after the cars and the police allowed the traffic (which had become very backed up by then) to continue moving.
I guess because it was still fresh in my mind, I started to think of the people around Jesus at his crucifixion, the witnesses. I imagined some of them did not want to see what they saw. I imagined they felt helpless and that they did not like being involved the way they were. I remembered again how God had chosen to be completely involved in humanity; to be born; to be a child like those children I was just with, and that being human means being vulnerable to accidents and sickness, sometimes to violence, and always, always to death.
The testimony of the scriptures is that God chose to suffer through all that. No matter how rebellious and disobedient we were, God evidently thought there was something in humanity that was worth saving. For humanity to be redeemed everything had to be touched by God, every phase of life, including death. As I pondered these things last Friday, I realized the more involved I am with the Jesus I know in the scriptures, a baby born from a woman who grew into a man and then suffered and died – the more I am involved with him, the more I am involved with the life, suffering, and death of other people, people like Jesus and people like me who are vulnerable to those things just because we’re human.
Today is the day that the Church is most involved in our Lord’s suffering and death as it is our privilege to do at least once a year. Over time that changes us. Being present to the memory of his crucifixion and death, present enough to feel his suffering, changes us so that we can’t ignore the suffering of others. We have to do whatever we can even if that doesn’t seem like much to us.
In a few minutes you’ll see a wooden cross. Before you leave this space I hope you will take a minute to press your hand to the wood and try to feel the cross the way our Lord felt it against his flesh. As you take your hand away remember that his hands were nailed to it. As you imagine his physical suffering remember the suffering of his mother and those who loved him, suffering that was not physical but just as painful.
In his life Jesus never tolerated the suffering of others. He took it away from everyone who crossed his path. If that is not enough to grow an intolerance of suffering in Church folks like us, then maybe the suffering Jesus endured in his death mingled together with our own experiences of suffering will be enough for us to grow intolerant of the suffering of others (even willing to suffer for them). And then we will be the Body of Christ that we say we are.
Copyright 2009. The Reverend Pamela S. Morgan

Good Friday B, April 10, 2009

Pam — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:40:46 +0000

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Psalm 22:1-11

Hebrews 10:16-25

John 18:1-19:37

I sat in my car getting showered with glass and broken parts watching the cars. With each twist and turn it seemed like they bounced closer to me. For a second, it looked like one of them might land right on top of my little car. I was hoping like everything that wouldn’t happen. I did not want to be the third car in the accident. I was just sitting there at a red light minding my own business.

When the cars stopped moving it was quiet — the kind of quiet that you can hear. I forgot about the light, and turning. I think I even forgot about going home. For a split second I was relieved that my car had not been any more involved than it was. Suddenly it hit me that there were people in those cars. Without much thought at all, I put mine in park and got out.

One of the cars landed just a few feet in front of me. The other one leaped the curb and landed on the sidewalk to my right. My car wasn’t as involved as it could have been, but like it or not, I was involved in the accident. I was there. I was the closest one to it. I witnessed the whole thing.

I went first to the car directly in front of me. There was an older gentleman in it. He looked up at me and told me that he was okay. Then I walked toward the other car. The sound of quiet was gone. I heard a child screaming. By that time other people had gotten there. Someone was calling 9-1-1 on a cell phone. I made my way to the window and discovered there were three young children in that car, two boys and a girl. One little boy bit his tongue (that’s why he was screaming). The little girl had a tiny scratch on her neck. But other than that they were all three okay — shaken up quite a bit, but okay. They all said they’d never been in car wreck before. It was obvious to me that it was traumatic for them. They were crying and afraid.

Now I know how people are. I know y’all are curious and that you’d like for me to tell you all the details I’ve left out. But the only other detail of this accident that I want to tell you is as far as I know in the time I was with them, they all suffered in one way or another but no one in either car died. That is very good news!

When I got home I told my husband what happened and why I was late. Then I went outside by myself because I needed to. I prayed for each nameless person whose face was so present in my mind, not only those in the cars but those who came to help too. It seemed like I was with them for hours. It was really less than thirty minutes. But it was the thirty minutes right after I prayed through the Stations of the Cross remembering the events of our Lord’s suffering and death. The prayers got all tangled up together. It wasn’t long before a confession welled up in me. I did not want to be involved in those people’s trauma on my way home. Of all the other ways I could have gone home that day, why did I choose that one? I did not want to be a witness to a wreck. I didn’t like feeling helpless. Oh, I did what I could (which wasn’t much). I held the children’s hands, dried their tears and tried to assure them they were okay. I escorted one to a nearby restroom. Then the medical people took everyone away to be checked out more thoroughly. Tow trucks came after the cars and the police allowed the traffic (which had become very backed up by then) to continue moving.

I guess because it was still fresh in my mind, I started to think of the people around Jesus at his crucifixion, the witnesses. I imagined some of them did not want to see what they saw. I imagined they felt helpless and that they did not like being involved the way they were. I remembered again how God had chosen to be completely involved in humanity; to be born; to be a child like those children I was just with, and that being human means being vulnerable to accidents and sickness, sometimes to violence, and always, always to death.

The testimony of the scriptures is that God chose to suffer through all that. No matter how rebellious and disobedient we were, God evidently thought there was something in humanity that was worth saving. For humanity to be redeemed everything had to be touched by God, every phase of life, including death. As I pondered these things last Friday, I realized the more involved I am with the Jesus I know in the scriptures, a baby born from a woman who grew into a man and then suffered and died – the more I am involved with him, the more I am involved with the life, suffering, and death of other people, people like Jesus and people like me who are vulnerable to those things just because we’re human.

Today is the day that the Church is most involved in our Lord’s suffering and death as it is our privilege to do at least once a year. Over time that changes us. Being present to the memory of his crucifixion and death, present enough to feel his suffering, changes us so that we can’t ignore the suffering of others. We have to do whatever we can even if that doesn’t seem like much to us.

In a few minutes you’ll see a wooden cross. Before you leave this space I hope you will take a minute to press your hand to the wood and try to feel the cross the way our Lord felt it against his flesh. As you take your hand away remember that his hands were nailed to it. As you imagine his physical suffering remember the suffering of his mother and those who loved him, suffering that was not physical but just as painful.

In his life Jesus never tolerated the suffering of others. He took it away from everyone who crossed his path. If that is not enough to grow an intolerance of suffering in Church folks like us, then maybe the suffering Jesus endured in his death mingled together with our own experiences of suffering will be enough for us to grow intolerant of the suffering of others (even willing to suffer for them). And then we will be the Body of Christ that we say we are.

Good Friday Sermon

Pam — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:25:29 +0000

Pam=20
Morgan

Good=20
Friday B, April 10, 2009

Isaiah=20
52:13-53:12

Psalm=20
22:1-11

Hebrews=20
10:16-25

John=20
18:1-19:37

Last=20
Friday evening, I had just finished praying the Stations of the Cross =
with a few=20
of you. I left here and =
headed home=20
by one of the many ways I have discovered to get me from here to =
there. I came to an intersection with =
a signal=20
where I intended to turn right but there was too much traffic to turn =
while the=20
light was red so I sat there waiting for it to change. There were no cars in front of =
me. I was watching the movement of =
traffic=20
and minding the light when all of a sudden a car sped up. Another one squealed its =
brakes. That was followed by that =
awful sound of=20
metal crashing against metal, glass and other car parts breaking into =
pieces and=20
flying through the air. =
After the=20
big bump both cars bounced around a bit before they finally came to a =
resting=20
place. It was not a =
pleasant sight=20
to see something as big and heavy as a car bouncing around out of =
control right=20
in front of me.

I=20
sat in my car getting showered with glass and broken parts watching the=20
cars. With each twist and =
turn it=20
seemed like they bounced closer to me. =20
For a second, it looked like one of them might land right on top =
of my=20
little car. I was hoping =
like=20
everything that wouldn=92t happen. I=20
did not want to be the third car in the accident. I was just sitting there at a =
red light=20
minding my own business.

When=20
the cars stopped moving it was quiet — the kind of quiet that you can=20
hear. I forgot about the =
light, and=20
turning. I think I even =
forgot=20
about going home. For a =
split=20
second I was relieved that my car had not been any more involved than it =

was. Suddenly it hit me =
that there=20
were people in those cars. =
Without=20
much thought at all, I put mine in park and got =
out.

One=20
of the cars landed just a few feet in front of me. The other one leaped the curb =
and landed=20
on the sidewalk to my right. =
My car=20
wasn=92t as involved as it could have been, but like it or not, I was =
involved in=20
the accident. I was =
there. I was the closest one to =
it. I witnessed the whole=20
thing.

I=20
went first to the car directly in front of me. There was an older gentleman =
in it. He looked up at me and told me =
that he=20
was okay. Then I walked =
toward the=20
other car. The sound of =
quiet was=20
gone. I heard a child=20
screaming. By that time =
other=20
people had gotten there. =
Someone=20
was calling 9-1-1 on a cell phone. =20
I made my way to the window and discovered there were three young =

children in that car, two boys and a girl. =20
One little boy bit his tongue (that=92s why he was =
screaming). The little girl had a tiny =
scratch on=20
her neck. But other than =
that they=20
were all three okay — shaken up quite a bit, but okay. They all said they=92d never =
been in car=20
wreck before. It was =
obvious to me=20
that it was traumatic for them. =20
They were crying and afraid.

Now=20
I know how people are. I =
know y=92all=20
are curious and that you=92d like for me to tell you all the details =
I=92ve left=20
out. But the only other =
detail of=20
this accident that I want to tell you is as far as I know in the time I =
was with=20
them, they all suffered in one way or another but no one in either car=20
died. That is very good=20
news!

When=20
I got home I told my husband what happened and why I was late. Then I went outside by myself =
because I=20
needed to. I prayed for =
each=20
nameless person whose face was so present in my mind, not only those in =
the cars=20
but those who came to help too. =
It=20
seemed like I was with them for hours. =20
It was really less than thirty minutes. But it was the thirty minutes =
right=20
after I prayed through the Stations of the Cross remembering the events =
of our=20
Lord=92s suffering and death. =
The=20
prayers got all tangled up together. =20
It wasn=92t long before a confession welled up in me. I did not want to be involved =
in those=20
people=92s trauma on my way home. Of=20
all the other ways I could have gone home that day, why did I choose =
that=20
one? I did not want to be =
a witness=20
to a wreck. I didn=92t =
like feeling=20
helpless. Oh, I did what =
I could=20
(which wasn=92t much). I =
held the=20
children=92s hands, dried their tears and tried to assure them they were =

okay. I escorted one to a =
nearby=20
restroom. Then the =
medical people=20
took everyone away to be checked out more thoroughly. Tow trucks came after the cars =
and the=20
police allowed the traffic (which had become very backed up by then) to =
continue=20
moving.

I=20
guess because it was still fresh in my mind, I started to think of the =
people=20
around Jesus at his crucifixion, the witnesses. I imagined some of them did =
not want to=20
see what they saw. I =
imagined they=20
felt helpless and that they did not like being involved the way they =
were. I remembered again how God had =
chosen to=20
be completely involved in humanity; to be born; to be a child like those =

children I was just with, and that being human means being vulnerable to =

accidents and sickness, sometimes to violence, and always, always to=20
death.

The=20
testimony of the scriptures is that God chose to suffer through all =
that. No matter how rebellious and =
disobedient=20
we were, God evidently thought there was something in humanity that was =
worth=20
saving. For humanity to =
be redeemed=20
everything had to be touched by God, every phase of life, including =
death. As I pondered these things =
last Friday,=20
I realized the more involved I am with the Jesus I know in the =
scriptures, a=20
baby born from a woman who grew into a man and then suffered and died =
=96 the more=20
I am involved with him, the more I am involved with the life, suffering, =
and=20
death of other people, people like Jesus and people like me who are =
vulnerable=20
to those things just because we=92re human.

Today=20
is the day that the Church is most involved in our Lord=92s suffering =
and death as=20
it is our privilege to do at least once a year. Over time that changes =
us. Being present to the memory of =
his=20
crucifixion and death, present enough to feel his suffering, changes us =
so that=20
we can=92t ignore the suffering of others. =20
We have to do whatever we can even if that doesn=92t seem like =
much to=20
us.

In=20
a few minutes you=92ll see a wooden cross. =20
Before you leave this space I hope you will take a minute to =
press your=20
hand to the wood and try to feel the cross the way our Lord felt it =
against his=20
flesh. As you take your =
hand away=20
remember that his hands were nailed to it. =20
As you imagine his physical suffering remember the suffering of =
his=20
mother and those who loved him, suffering that was not physical but just =
as=20
painful.

In=20
his life Jesus never tolerated the suffering of others. He took it away from everyone =
who=20
crossed his path. If that =
is not=20
enough to grow an intolerance of suffering in Church folks like us, then =
maybe=20
the suffering Jesus endured in his death mingled together with our own=20
experiences of suffering will be enough for us to grow intolerant of the =

suffering of others (even willing to suffer for them). And then we will be the Body =
of Christ=20
that we say we are.

Easter Vigil 2009

Pam — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:32:14 +0000

April, 11 2009

Easter Sunday – Prelude

admin — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:01:26 +0000

4 Lent B

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:28:08 +0000

March 22, 2009

Numbers 21:4-9

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Ephesians 2:1-10

John 3:14-21

I guess it was about a year ago. I had just bought new cordless
telephones for the house – the best I could find. I was tired of them
wearing out. I took the handset out of its cradle one evening to make
a call to a parishioner and I heard a woman’s voice talking to someone
as loudly and clearly as I’m talking now. My first thought was that
someone was calling me and I picked up the phone before it rang. That
has happened lots of times. But I kept saying, “Hello. Who is this?”
And the woman on the phone kept right on talking to someone else. So
I spoke louder into the phone (like that would help). She couldn’t
hear me at all. I tapped on the phone. I turned it off and on. The
woman kept talking and talking. She had no idea that her words were
going into someone else’s ear other than the one she intended to hear
them. We were connected through the telephone. I could hear her but
she was completely unaware of my presence. After about half an hour I
was finally able to use my fancy shmancy telephone to make a call. It
never happened again after that. Sure was odd though.

Speaking of odd, we had a satellite TV in that house too. Every time
a cell phone rang (didn’t even have to be in the house, the
neighborhood was close enough) there would be a popping static line
across the middle of the television screen. It stayed there for as
long as the phone rang.

There is a connective energy around us. We can see satellites and
cell towers so we know it exists and that those things have something
to do with it. But it is in the air around us and in the ground under
our feet. For the most part, the dynamics of our communication these
days, the digital doodads that carry the plethora of words and stuff
that connect us to each other in all parts of the world are hidden
from our eyes.

We use all those tools for communication. We are dependent on them.
We can’t stand not to have access to them. Many of us, even those who
are proficient in using these tools don’t have a burning desire to
know how or why it all works. Just so it does.

Today you and I are listening in on a conversation between Jesus and
Nicodemus. Nicodemus, as you remember, is a Pharisee, a servant of
the God of Abraham. He is a learned man. Not just a teacher of the
law. He is an expert, like a Supreme Court judge. He knows the law
as God gave it to Moses. He knows the words of the prophets. He
knows the stories of his people. Those things, the law, the prophets,
and the stories, are the things that connect all the descendants of
Abraham to each other, to their history, to their God, and to the hope
for their future. It’s the way they communicate their faith to their
children. Nicodemus is very proficient in using what is available to
him. But the how and why of it is mostly hidden from his eyes.
That’s what Jesus was talking to him about.

Most likely Nicodemus would have known that the serpents in the story
we heard from Numbers this morning recalled the serpent in the Garden
of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned by choosing to listen to the serpent
rather than God. And that God sent poisonous serpents in response to
the people’s griping and complaining against Moses and against God to
teach them that the consequence of their sin is death. But when they
repented of their sin, God who is merciful and just had the power to
reverse the consequence of sin and allow them to live. The bronze
serpent on the pole was like the rainbow in the sky after the flood.
It was a symbol to remind the people that God who created everything
that is chooses to surrender the power to destroy when people repent
of their sins and turn back to God.

In his explanation of the hows and whys of the Kingdom of God, Jesus
is telling Nicodemus that God will give the people another symbol of
God’s mercy and forgiveness of sins when he is lifted up on the cross.
And when it happens as Jesus says it will Nicodemus will understand.
But for now, he is still in the dark.

The cross is for the followers of Christ a symbol that even though sin
is still in the world, (we have not stopped sinning after all this
time and it’s unlikely that we ever will) God still chooses life for
us over the consequence of sin which is death. So much so that
through the cross of Jesus death is for us the opening to larger life.
The cross is for us sort of like a cell tower in that we can look at
it and know that we live and move in a realm of grace and forgiveness
that connects us to God and each other, to our past, and to our
future. It is the Spirit of God that moves among us connecting us to
God and each other. It is the energy that sustains us and gives us
hope that there truly is nothing that can ever separate us from the
love of God. We are as dependant on this grace and forgiveness to
keep us connected to God and each other as we are in the digital realm
of communication we enjoy now.

When we are born again through the waters of baptism we enter a life
infused with the grace of God. It is everywhere, all around us. We
spend the rest of our lives on earth trying to understand how it
works. Our vocation as Christians is to do our best to follow Jesus,
to walk in his steps with all the light we have. When we do that, it
is inevitable that we see our own sin in the light of his
sinless-ness. At the same time, we are able to see in his sacrifice
on the cross that God who has the power to destroy all that is still
chooses life for us.

The young people who will be confirmed today when our bishop joins us
are taking responsibility for that vocation. They will commit
themselves to a continuous journey that leads nearer to Jesus. To ask
questions that will help them understand how this realm of grace that
we are all so dependent on works. And like all of us, when they
become aware of their own sins and the power of God’s forgiveness they
will get a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. They will know how we are
all connected through the power of God’s mercy. Those young people
are on my mind and in my heart today. My prayer for them, for myself,
and for all of us is that we will not be just receptors in this realm
of grace; that it does not just come to us, but passes through us to
bring light and life to the world.

5 Lent B

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:27:16 +0000

March 29, 2009

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Psalm 51:1-13

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12:20-33

I caught a little snippet of an interview on TV the other day with a
man whose work was to play with lions and tigers. He said he couldn’t
imagine ever doing anything else, and that you don’t interact with
those animals the same way you interact with your pet. Well, I guess
not!

He said it was critical that he never ever approach the lions and
tigers without being acutely aware that they are wild animals, not
domesticated like our pets. Even though he was able to gain their
trust, they are still instinct-driven animals. The wildness that is
their nature never leaves them. He said if he ever lost sight of that
he would put himself in great danger.

I started to think then about the wildness in all of nature not just
animals who live in the wild. For example, you don’t approach a river
the same way you approach a swimming pool. They both contain water.
That’s about all they have in common. You can go to a swimming pool
today and go again in a week or even a month and not much will have
changed in it or around it. If you want to, given enough time you can
learn everything there is to know about a particular swimming pool so
that you are completely comfortable and never surprised when you go
there. You can’t say that about a river.

A river is alive in its own way. It moves on its own. It changes
almost daily. I learned living near the White River there are
seasonal changes in the river. There is different plant life in and
around the river in different seasons of the year, and tiny living
things in the water that you can’t see except with a microscope. Wild
animals go there to drink as if the river was theirs alone. Reptiles
make their home in the river. And there is no shortage of dead things
rotting away in the water filling it with bacteria, some good, some
bad. Not to mention all sorts of debris that either comes into the
river on the skirt of the wind or the river picks it up off the banks
after a good soaking rain and carries it for a while.

There is a wildness in all of nature that requires our respect at the
very least to keep us from being in danger if we choose to interact
with it. I suppose we humans have a wildness in us that makes us want
to interact with nature.

In the 42nd Psalm, the psalmist says one deep calls to another. In
the depth of his soul the psalmist longs for God like the deer longs
for the water brooks. And he wonders why his soul is troubled and
disquieted within him. He wonders why yearning for union with God
troubles his soul.

The desire to be in the nearest presence of God, to interact in a
meaningful way with God who is so much bigger and more powerful than
we are is as real as the desire to interact with nature that is bigger
than we are. We know how small we are in comparison, yet we want like
everything to walk in thick green woods teeming with all kinds of
life; to climb mountains; wade in the ocean; watch and play with
animals that are not like us, and to do all these things without fear
of danger, injury, or the threat of death.

I’m hoping you can relate to the longing to interact with nature
whether or not you have ever longed for the nearness of God in the
depths of your soul because I think that has something to do with what
was going on with Jesus in the Gospel for today. Jesus even quoted
the psalmist saying, “My soul is troubled.” He knew that for him death
was near. Soon he would know the fullness of God, the glory of God
that was his by right as the Son of God, as God Incarnate. He also
knew that union with God the Father would not happen for him without
fear of danger, injury, or threat of death. In fact, the glory that
was his, the glory he spoke of, would require injury, suffering, and
death.

In John’s telling of the story after Jesus called Lazarus out of the
tomb where he had been for four days, so many people began to follow
Jesus that the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin
and decided that Jesus had to die. Right then and there they planned
to kill him the first chance they got. So Jesus stopped his public
ministry among the Jews and he went to Jerusalem for the last time to
celebrate the Passover Feast. The news about Lazarus spread like
wildfire and the people made a big fuss over Jesus when they saw him
come into Jerusalem. From then on, it was like a safari gone bad, as
bad as it possibly could, or a river raging out of control. The
wildness in nature (human nature, in this case) took over.

Like the man who plays with lions and tigers Jesus was acutely aware
of all that he was walking into as he entered Jerusalem. He knew he
was in danger and that his life was not his own. It was just a matter
of time before the whole drama played out. He would end up in a tomb
like Lazarus. I’m sure he trusted his heavenly Father to raise him
from death to life, but from the Passover Feast to life on the other
side of death was a string of events there is no way Jesus could have
know the details and nuances of so that nothing that happened to him
was a surprise. To imagine he did would be to deny his humanity.

I was always taught that one of the tackiest things you could ever do
is leave the price tag on a gift. The one who receives the gift
should never know what the giver paid for it. Not so with the gift of
eternal life that you and I received in baptism. It is the gift of
perfect union with God that our souls long for like the deer longs for
the water brooks.

The time has now come, as it does every year, for us to remember the
gift of new life that is ours and the hefty price the Giver paid to
give it to us. I pray we approach this season with acute awareness
fully present to every minute and every event, with an openness to
being surprised and made new come Easter.

3 Lent B – March 15, 2009

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:30:22 +0000

Exodus 20:1-17

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

John 2:13-22

Sometimes houses are named for what goes on inside them. My mother’s grandfather and his wife owned and operated a boarding house in Little Rock just one block in front of the capitol. Because of the location, they had lots of interesting guests who stayed there, people who did business at the capitol. But they didn’t do any state business in the boarding house. They just slept there and took their meals together, or sat on the big porch facing the capitol at the end of the day and drank ice tea while they talked about the day past or the day ahead. They might switch to scotch or brandy after dinner and keep talking out on the porch until time to turn in. People rested there. They were refreshed to be ready for the next day’s work. That’s what goes on inside a boarding house.

In the Bible, the word, house, does not necessarily mean a structure where people live. Sometimes it does. But the word, house, in the scriptures can also refer to what is going on with the people; what the people are doing as a group in a specific place regardless whether there is a structure or not.

When God gave the commandments to Moses God said, “I am the Lord you God, who brought you out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.”

The people God called together through Abraham ended up in Egypt because of a famine. Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, became a permanent boarder in pharaoh’s house. Joseph earned his keep in that house by interpreting the pharaoh’s dreams. After Joseph died another pharaoh came to power who never knew Joseph. He had no appreciation of Joseph or his people who were so prolific they were beginning to out-number the Egyptians, so the new pharaoh made slaves of them. As slaves they had no opportunity and no place to worship God. They had no place to be the people God called into relationship until God delivered them out of that house of slavery.

After Moses led the People of God to the Promised Land, the first thing they did was build a place to worship God, a place where they knew God would be. They called the place, the house of the Lord. They built a temple in Jerusalem to be the dwelling place for God. The Holy of Holies was the room in the temple where they believed God was most truly present. The room was secluded behind a veil and only the High Priest was allowed to go there to offer sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. Many generations passed before the time of today’s Gospel. All that time, the High Priest went in to the Temple and offered sacrifices on behalf of the people of God.

Now Jesus and his disciples have gone up to the Temple in Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. What did Jesus see when he got inside the house of the Lord, or rather what did God see through Jesus, that was not as it was meant to be in the house of the Lord?

Gentiles were allowed in the outer courts of the Temple in the days leading up to the Passover Feast for the purpose of selling animals to the Jews who bought them to be offered as a sacrifice as they were commanded to do. Jews and Gentiles had different coinage, so there had to be moneychangers to facilitate the sale.

What Jesus saw was the people of God carrying on as they had done since the Temple was built, trying to be strictly obedient to the law by observing the Passover Feast, offering proper sacrifices and paying tithes. Jesus saw that their preparation for the Passover Feast, one of the holiest times for the people of God, the time God commanded them to set aside to remember how God heard their cry for deliverance from the house of slavery in Egypt, how God had compassion on them and brought them to freedom, to a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where they could prosper and live long, and worship God without fear. Their preparation for that holy feast had become the business of buying and selling animals.

They thought they were doing the right thing. They had good intentions. But obeying the law concerning the Passover Feast eventually became more important than the reason God commanded the feast in the first place. That was to remember that God delivered them from the house of slavery, that God’s steadfast love and care for them brought them through the wilderness into the Promised Land, into the house of the Lord, the house they built with their own hands.

Over time preserving the Temple through the temple tax, the maintenance and upkeep of the Temple became more important to the people of God than the reason the Temple was built – as a place where God would be pleased to dwell, a place to seek and find God, a place to worship God. The people, by their allegiance to doing what they had always done, had made themselves slaves again – this time to the law and to the physical structure of the Temple.

It is so easy for us to do that. It is easy to be so focused on doing what we’re supposed to do that we forget the reason we’re supposed to do it. Both the law and the temple were given by God form maintaining a right relationship with God. They were a means to an end. They were never meant to be an end in themselves.

Jesus referred to his Body as the Temple, as the dwelling place of God, the house of the Lord, the place where God could be found. And from where we stand, on this side of his death and resurrection, we know that to be so. For us, the Church is the Body of Christ, the place where the Spirit of God is pleased to dwell, a place where people come to worship and serve the Lord. But we cannot let the physical structure of the house of the Lord be for us an end in itself.

We come here to take a holy meal together, to participate in a weekly feast to remember the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus that delivered us from the house of slavery to our own sin. Everyone who wants to be here belongs here. We are all much more like boarders than owners. We could do what we do together in any building or no building at all and still be the house of the Lord. This place and everything that goes on inside it is to nurture and strengthen our relationship with God and each other and prepare us to continue the ministry our Lord entrusted to us. We have to remember that so we don’t make the house of the Lord into something it was never meant to be.

When I meet people around town who are not associated with St. Thomas the first thing they say to me is what a beautiful church this is. I know they mean the physical structure, so I say, “Yes it is. And the people are great too.”

In the heart of every baptized Christian is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. The journey inward in the Season of Lent is like the journey Jesus made to Jerusalem and into the Temple. Just as Jesus was the only one with the authority to clean-up the Temple and restore it to its proper purpose as the house of the Lord, we are the only ones who have the authority to clean up our own hearts and drive out everything this is not about the business of loving God and our neighbors. We cannot clean up anyone else’s heart. Like everything we do in his name, Christ partners with us in attending to our hearts.

Sometimes houses are named for what goes on inside them. The house of the Lord is where the Lord truly is – and the Lord is here, with us, and within us.

2 Lent B – March 8, 2009

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:28:27 +0000

Genesis 17:1-7, 12-17

Psalm 22:22-30

Romans 4:13-25

Matthew 8:31-38

It seems every generation comes up with their own particular way of saying things. When I was a teenager we said things we liked were “Cool.” When we heard something that amazed or surprised us we would say, “Wow.” Some people said, “Far out.” If we heard something we didn’t want to hear or couldn’t believe, I remember saying, “Yeah, right!”

Most of those sayings were still around when my kids were teenagers. Of course they added a few of their own. When they really liked something, they said it was “bad.” The more they liked it, the “badder” it was. When they heard something they didn’t want to hear they said, “Whatever!” It was like a fly buzzing in my ear to hear that.

Now half a generation later when young people hear something that amazes or surprises them, or something they don’t want to hear or can’t believe, they say, “Shut up!” I wasn’t allowed to say “shut up” when I was growing up so I didn’t allow my children to say it either. But they say it now!

When we step into today’s Gospel Jesus has already asked the disciples to tell him who they (and everyone else) thought he was. Peter said Jesus was the promised Messiah. Then Jesus talked to all of them about what would happen to him; that he would suffer and die and rise after three days. When Peter heard that news, he probably said the ancient equivalent for “Shut up!” It was news the Peter did not want to hear. It did not make sense to him that Jesus could be God’s Messiah AND be rejected, even killed by the same people God promised to send a messiah to. What Jesus told Peter was unbelievable, it defied reason so he spontaneously rejected it. Not only did the news confront his reasoning, if what Jesus said was true that would mean heartbreak for Peter and the rest of the disciples too. Surely a wave of dread swept over Peter and he couldn’t help but wonder if what Jesus said was going to happen actually would.

Dear old Abraham. At ninety-nine years old God told Abraham that he and his ninety-year-old wife whose womb had been empty all her life, would not in their old age have a child together. When he heard that, Abraham lay face down on the ground and laughed. That was his way of saying, “Shut up!” For Abraham that news defied all reason. His first response was not to believe it. He always wanted to be a father and Sarah always wanted to be a mother but after too many birthdays and the wear and tear on their bodies, they both gave up waiting for it to happen. At the same time Abraham must have wondered if this news could be true; if what God said could actually come to pass. Who knows, along with an unreasonable hope, there could have been a little dread mixed in too for Abraham, if he could imagine the impact of what God told him, the future God was planning for him and Sarah and their child. Through Abraham, God brought forth many generations. From the empty womb of Sarah God raised up the first of many descendants of Abraham. The testimony of the scriptures is that the whole People of God descended from one old man and woman. All these thousands of years later, that sounds as unbelievable to me as it did to Abraham.

In Paul’s letter we read this morning he mentions Abraham’s faith. Faith is a difficult word. Fifty years ago, theologian Paul Tillich said the word, faith, needed healing before it could ever be used to heal people. I believe that. The kind of faith mentioned in the scriptures, faith in God, the faith of Abraham and of Jesus, is beyond words because God is beyond words. Over the centuries since the resurrection the church has come up with a system of belief, an expression of faith, some words to articulate faith, that the church continues to subscribe to generation after generation but those words don’t really describe what faith is.

We tend to believe faith is important and necessary for our life in Christ. But few Christians who claim to have faith can ever describe what faith is in a way that is convincing to anyone who does not claim to have it. Countless theologians have tried over the years and the best we can ever do is to point to it. Here is my attempt: Faith is a bunch of thoughts and feelings all mixed up like the inside of a baseball. Most of them are beyond words. And God is at the center of it somehow. This bunch of thoughts and feelings that involve God can grow in us all our days, or it can stay the same.

Faith has a quality of wonder where first you reject the unbelievable, the unreasonable as Abraham and Peter did. That is a very important part of faith. Then, you say to yourself, “Well, maybe so. Maybe God could do that. Maybe God will do that.” And then you come to accept things you cannot explain in any rational way. We lack words to defend what God has done and might do again. Yet we want words to defend God. We think we’re supposed to do that. Dread is one of the feelings involved in faith. Because we know God is God and we are not, we know God might choose to do something that we don’t like and don’t want and we can’t do anything about it.

I had a professor in seminary who said doubt is not the opposite of faith. Certainty is the opposite of faith because anything you are certain of does not require faith. Certainty renders faith null and void. I believed that for a while but now I think there is a place for certainty in that ganglion of thoughts and feelings that faith is – certainty of God’s steadfast love and mercy for us as it was revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and certainty that God desires a future with us. I believe both these certainties are necessary for faith to exist.

The good thing about the church, about being in a community of faith, is when my faith falls short, when it’s not strong enough or big enough for me to stay on track trying to trust and obey God then the faith of the community picks up the slack for me. That is why faith is a gift to the church and why we, the faithful who try and fail and try again are such incredible gifts to each other.

The children of God will continue as we have in generations past and for generations to come, to struggle to express our faith in God who is beyond words. Whatever words we use to speak of faith will always be slightly inadequate, but we never stop trying. And I believe that puts a smile on the face of God.

1 Lent B – March 1, 2009

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:27:12 +0000

Genesis 9:8-17

Psalm 25:3-9

1 Peter 3:18-22

Mark 1:9-13

The devil went up to God one day and said, “God I am so bored! Can’t you find something for me to do? I sit around all day doing absolutely nothing and I’m starting to feel bad about myself.”

God said, “Well, why aren’t you out tempting people and leading people to sin? That’s your job.”

The devil said, “Lead people to sin? Those people of yours don’t need me for that. Why before I even show up, they go ahead and sin without me!”

True to the Gospel of Mark, his story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness does not tell us very much. He does not say Jesus fasted, that he was famished and vulnerable to be tempted yet he overcame temptation. All Mark said (and this clear in the Greek) is after Jesus was baptized the same Spirit that descended on him with the gentleness of a dove picked him up by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants and threw him out in the wilderness. Mark said Jesus was there in the wilderness for forty days and he was not alone. There were beasts, and there were angels who served him. Oh, and by the way, he was tempted by satan.

The temptation narratives in Matthew and Luke show us a Jesus who was hungry and vulnerable. Satan tempted him because in his humanity he could be tempted like Adam and Eve were tempted in the Garden of Eden. But unlike Adam and Eve Jesus did not fall. He did not sin. Those temptation stories fit nicely into the church’s season of Lent, the forty-day period of fasting and prayer, repentance and self-denial, that we commit ourselves to – the time when we are intentional about acknowledging our sins and the weight of them, the burden of temptation that is always near to us, and our need for a savior.

Mark’s story of Jesus in the wilderness is different from the others. It is so matter-of-fact. The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. He did not go of his own accord, but he stayed there for forty days in the company of wild beasts and angels who served him. Maybe from Mark’s perspective, the temptation by satan that Mark mentions so casually was whether or not Jesus would stay in the wilderness. He didn’t have a choice about going, the Holy Spirit pitched him out there, but whether or not he stayed was his choice. I think the story we have from Mark is more a wilderness story than a temptation story. It is significant that right after his baptism Jesus was forced by the Spirit to go there.

In this season of Lent, a wilderness story tells us what Jesus found in the wilderness and we can expect to find there. We will find beasts, creatures of the earth that will call to our own instinctual nature as creatures of the earth. Among beasts, we will have a heightened sense of what we need to survive in the wilderness. And, there will be agents of heaven in the wilderness, angels all around to attend to us as they did Jesus. The adversary will be there too — the one who is not God. The one who does not love us as God loves us will be there to tempt us in some way. The temptation may be no more than just to despise the wilderness, to see it as a godless place and spend our energy trying to avoid it when it is really part of our life with God.

For the People of God in the Old Testament the forty years they wandered in the wilderness was not just something they had to endure to get to God’s promise on the other side, though that is what they thought. Actually, the time in the wilderness was the unfolding of God’s promise. God loved them through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. God’s commitment to them to be their God was as steadfast in the wilderness as it was in the Promised Land.

Right after Jesus was baptized he heard the voice from heaven claim him, “You are my beloved Son. With you I am well pleased.” And then the Spirit threw him out into the wilderness. No matter what else was there, God had angels present to make God’s love known to Jesus for as long as he was in the wilderness.

I’m not sure whether I believe the whole Christian journey between baptism and the time we enter the fullness of the Kingdom of God is lived out in the wilderness with beasts and angels, and temptations. Or whether there is a part of every day that the children of God have to spend in the wilderness so we will learn to recognize and accept that God loves us through times that may be frightening to us, when we feel alone among creatures who are not like we are and we wonder where God is.

I do believe that wilderness places are part of life with God, part of being in relationship with God. The wilderness is for us, like it was for the ancients, part of the unfolding of God’s love and care for those God has claimed as God’s own. I believe that the season of Lent gives the Church an opportunity to stay in the wilderness for forty days or as long as it takes (that’s what the number, forty, means in the scriptures) to find both beasts and angels.

One of the best tools we have to take into the wilderness with us in the season of Lent is the prayer our Lord taught us. For all we know, that prayer might have been born in the wilderness. “Give us this day our daily bread.” No more and no less, give us only what we need for this day. “And help us to forgive as you forgive us.” “Lead us not into the temptation to ever believe that you have left us on our own. “Deliver us from all evil desires common to creatures of the earth.’

I invite you to let the Lord’s Prayer be a part of your Lenten discipline. In invite you to pray the words as if they were the only words available to you. And I invite you to let this Lent be a time when you know God’s love for you in all the wilderness places that the Holy Spirit will ever send you.