Turning to Joy

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Luke 15:1-10.

Three or four years ago, when Lee and I were still pretty new to the Shenandoah Valley, one pretty spring day we went for a hike out in the wilderness area at Ramseys Draft – and we got lost. Oh, not seriously lost, not hopelessly, blindly, “we're going to wander around in circles out here until we die” lost. But lost. We got off the trail – apparently at one point the trail went right and we went left – and we ended up following a track that looked like it was meant to be a footpath but that probably wasn’t made by humans, and that ended up taking us places we really hadn’t intended to go. First it took us through a very muddy patch, where there weren’t even stepping stones to get across. Then it took us through a thicket, where young trees were growing close together and the branches were catching at us as we went through. Finally it took us up the side of a really steep bank, where our footing grew less and less sure; and we ended up kind of stuck on the shoulder of a hill where we weren’t exactly in danger, but where a single misstep could have sent us tumbling down a steep slope to a bruising landing in the river. We were lost, stuck, not quite sure where we were and not at all sure how to go forward. So we didn’t. We turned around. We picked our way back along the false trail, until we found ourselves on the real trail, and from there could make our way back to the parking lot and our car. And I have to say I have rarely been happier to see my car than I was on that day.

I share that story with you this morning because I think it helps clarify something going on in our Gospel reading for today. In this Gospel story Jesus is having an argument with some Pharisees – something that happens in a lot of Gospel stories – and this argument is all about repentance. The Pharisees are upset with Jesus because he is eating and drinking with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners, and the Pharisees think this is sending the message that God is soft on sin, that God accepts sinners before they’ve shown adequate evidence they really are repenting. Jesus, on the other hand, seems to be saying, “Look at them! – look at them sharing and giving and receiving in generosity and grace and showing compassion and enjoying! These are people who usually care only about themselves. Isn’t what they’re doing evidence enough that they’re repenting?” This whole argument between Jesus and the Pharisees seems to turn on what exactly you mean by repentance.

I think that for most of us the whole idea of repentance feels like a pretty negative thing. Repentance to us means feeling regret for our sins – negative. It means feeling remorse over our awareness of all the things we have done wrong – negative. It means making a firm resolve that we will not do those wrong things again – and I suspect that often that resolve takes the form of thinking “Oh, I really want to do that! But I know I shouldn’t, so I will deny myself what I really want” – negative. Is it any wonder we think of repentance as a spiritual downer, as one of the hard sayings of Jesus that seems to us not to be very good news?

But when Jesus talks about repentance in this Gospel today, he seems to be talking about something very different from regret and remorse and resolve. In fact, that language that Jesus uses around repentance is all about rejoicing and celebrating and partying in heaven. In spite of what the Pharisees think, and in spite of what most of us today tend to suppose, it seems that for Jesus the heart of the experience of repentance is joy.

Look at what happens in the parables Jesus tells today. Out of a flock of a hundred sheep, one sheep goes astray – at one point the flock went right and the sheep went left – and now it’s all alone, out in the wilderness, not sure where it is, not sure where to go, not sure if it’s going to find grass if it keeps going across this stony ground, not sure if there are wolves hiding just behind that rock over there – until the shepherd comes and finds it. And when the sheep is found, the result is joy. Out of ten coins, one coin falls out of the purse, and it rolls across the floor, and gets stuck between the floorboards or wedged between a couple of stones in the fire-hearth – and nobody knows where it is, and it can’t do any good, and its potential value going to waste – until the woman sweeps it up and finds it. And when the coin is found, the result is joy.

In these parables, Jesus seems to be saying that repentance is a joyful thing – not negative, not regret and remorse and resolve – but repentance is that thing that makes the difference between being lost and being found. Repentance is the thing that makes the difference between going down a path that isn’t taking you anywhere and is just getting you stuck in a dangerous place, and turning around and going back until you find yourself on the true path that takes you to sharing and giving and receiving and compassion and generosity and grace. Repentance is the inward and spiritual version of what Lee and I did on that false trail above Ramseys Draft. Repentance is backing away from what isn't working for you, and turning to God and letting God find you where you really are and lead you to where you really need to be. And the result of being found by God is joy.

So what might that be like for you? Is there some part of your life where you feel like you’ve been going down a path that isn’t taking you anywhere – at least not anywhere you want to be? Is there some place in your life where you feel like you’ve rolled between the floorboards, gotten stuck between a stone and a hard place, and you can’t go forward and you can't do any good and your value is going to waste? Is there some place in your soul where you can imagine turning around from what isn't working and going back and finding yourself on the true path that takes you where God is really leading you to go? And if you can imagine that, can you imagine the joy that God and the angels and you will feel when you are found?

In a few moments we will say together the General Confession. And in it we will express our regret that we have not loved God with our whole hearts, we will express our remorse that we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. That is part of our repentance. But today I want you to pay very close attention to the words that come next, to the words that express what we feel after regret and remorse. In those words we pray that we may delight in God’s will and walk in God’s ways: in those words we pray that we may be found on the right path, and that being found there we will know God’s delight.

That’s the part of confession Jesus would have us pay attention to today. That’s the invitation to turn around and come back to joy that Jesus opens to us today. And in this Eucharist today Jesus is with us to break the bread and pour the wine and prepare the party for us to join. Amen.

Seeing Persons

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Philemon 1-21.

What happens when you look at a person, and see something more than just stereotypes, or prejudices, or social conventions? What happens when you look at a person, and see them as something other than just a screen where you project your own fears or desires or ambitions or threats? What happens when you look at a person and see – a person: a living, breathing, thinking human being, who has hopes and fears and dreams just like you do, and who might, just might, be someone you could relate to?

I think that question is a lot more complicated than it sounds. Because I think – and a lot of psychological and social studies find – that we human beings do a lot of projecting onto other people. We do a lot of sizing up of other people, assuming that we know what they will do or how they will act or what they might say or whether we can approach them or whether we need to run away from them, depending on how we see them as black, or white, or Hispanic, or teenagers, or elderly, or running in gangs, or all by themselves, or men, or women, or rich, or poor, or powerful, or victimized. We have a way of making judgments about people based on the categories to which our perceptions assign them. And we have a way of doing that so quickly, so unthinkingly, so unconsciously, we’re not even always aware that we’re doing it. So the question what it would be like if we could stop doing it isn’t even a question we are likely to think to ask. But what would it be like to look at someone and see, not what we expect, but see who they are?

Our Epistle reading this morning puts that question before us in a very particular way. Paul’s letter to Philemon is one of the shortest letters in the New Testament – in fact, it’s one of the shortest books in the entire Bible – and it is written for one purpose: to get Philemon to look at his slave Onesimus, and to see him not just as a slave, but as a brother in Christ.

The letter doesn’t tell us enough to know exactly what’s going on here. We don’t know if Philemon sent Onesimus to Paul to serve him while he was in prison. We don’t know if Onesimus ran away from Philemon and fled to Paul for protection. We don’t know if there is enmity between Philemon and Onesimus that Paul is trying to reconcile. All we do know is that, according to the conventions of Roman law, Onesimus belongs to Philemon; Onesimus has no rights, no privileges, no status in society, other than what Philemon chooses to give him; and Philemon can do just about anything he wants to Onesimus, up to and including having him executed if he is returned as a runaway slave. What we do know is that Onesimus has no life of his own to speak of, and that Philemon can project onto him just about anything he wants to.

And that is the point that Paul is addressing. Because Paul is sending Onesimus back. Paul is fulfilling the requirements of Roman law, and he is instructing Onesimus and Philemon to fulfill those requirements, too. But Paul is also adding something new to the picture: above and beyond Roman law, Paul is adding Christian reality to the mix. While Onesimus was with Paul he was converted, he was baptized, he is a Christian now; and that means that Onesimus and Philemon are brothers, they are equals before God,  both of them called to mutual love, both of them called to active compassion, both of them called to work together in effective faith. Outwardly, according to law, they may still be master and slave. But when Onesimus gets home, he and Philemon are going to have to learn to see each other differently. Philemon must look at Onesimus and not see “slave.” Onesimus must look at Philemon and not see “master.” Both of them must look at each other and see past all the baggage, all the expectations built up by unjust power, and learn to build a new relationship as persons, children of God, with strengths and weaknesses, and gifts and talents, and needs and shortcomings, and faith and love, there for each other, and there for the church, and there for the world.

What happens when we can look past baggage and stereotypes and expectations, and see each other as persons, held together by Christ? What happens is that lives are changed, and lives are saved.

About three weeks ago, on an ordinary Tuesday at the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy elementary school in Decatur, Georgia, school clerk Antoinette Tuff was at her post in the school office when a young man named man named Michael Brandon Hill walked in carrying an assault rifle and other weapons and a backpack that was suspected of holding explosives. Hill said he had no reason to live, and that he expected to die that day – and Tuff said she could see in his eyes that he was ready to kill and it didn’t much matter who.

Now I would guess that most of us, in that kind of situation, would have looked at Hill and we wouldn’t have seen a person at all. We would have seen the rifle. We would have seen the threat. We would have seen a gunman – not even a whole man at all, but just a gun-man. But Tuff saw something different. Tuff saw past the stereotype and the expectation and the threat, and she saw a person: a person in pain, a person who was lost, a person for whom she felt real and genuine compassion. So she reached out to him as a person. She told him she could see he was having a hard time. She told him she was having a hard time, too. She told him she’d lost hope when her marriage of 33 years ended, and she could understand if he didn’t feel any hope in anything. But she said she was getting through it – and he could get through it, too. She’d help him get through it. And she’d start by helping him put down his gun, and lay down on the ground, and let the police come in without shooting – and she would stand over him and not let the police hurt him. Antoinette Tuff saw Michael Brandon Hill not just as a gun-man but as a person; and she reached out to him as a person; and she saved his life, and her life, and the lives of who knows how many schoolchildren and police.

What happens when we can look past baggage and stereotypes and expectations, and see each other as persons, held together by Christ? What happens is that lives are changed. What happens is that lives are saved.

May God grant us grace to look at those around us and see past the stereotypes and preconceptions and prejudices that divide us, and to see each other as persons, held together in Christ’s love, and working together to bring Christ’s love to the world. Amen.

United and Healed

by the Rev. Jim Gilman

This sermon is based on Luke 13:10-17.

Many of you know that this Wednesday, August 28 is the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington. In fact, some of you like me are gray-haired enough to remember the original event; perhaps some were even there. It was a big step in the journey of racial healing in this country. It contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights bill and the Voting Rights act in the mid-60s. But that journey of racial healing is not yet complete and indeed is proving to be rough and precarious.

Our gospel lesson from Luke is a story of healing. It is a story about two people who are crippled by two different kinds of ailments. The crippled woman suffers involuntarily a physical ailment from which Jesus sets her free. The leader of the synagogue is crippled voluntarily by a spiritual ailment: legalism. Jesus offers to heal him and the congregation to “untie” or set them free from the suffocating prison of legalism

“Untied” and Healed

            The context of Luke’s story is a journey Jesus takes through Samaria up to Jerusalem. Along the way Jesus stops to teach. In our episode, he stops at a synagogue in Samaria. As he is teaching, a woman appears who is in bondage to a crippling disease. Jesus sees her in the congregation and immediately his teaching turns into an invitation. “Come here,” he says to her; and she comes. What happens next is miraculous and amazing to everyone: As Jesus lays his hands on her he says “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” You can just imagine people gasping as the woman feels strength surge through her bones, feels her broken, bent body straighten. At one moment she is in bondage to a crippling disease and the next moment her body is liberated and she is “set free”. Wow!!

            Well, you might think that would be the end of the episode; but not when there are clergy around; we didn’t go to seminary for nothin’. So, the leader of the synagogue has his say. He’s “indignant”, Luke says, not because Jesus heals the women, but because he heals her on the Sabbath instead of one of the other six days of the week.  Of course, the leader did not think to ask the woman what she thought of being healed on the Sabbath. But Jesus speaks up for her. He is a practicing Jew and not against Sabbath regulations; he is only against the abuse and misuse of them. In this case, the leader of the synagogue suffers from a spiritual sickness—legalism; he is misusing Sabbath regulations by trying to use them to dominate Jesus and manipulate a situation that he feels is getting out of his control. He doesn’t seem to care at all that the woman is healed or not. But Jesus has none of it; he is not about to allow the leader to misuse Sabbath rules to suppress compassion and healing. He is not about to allow the power of love to be in bondage to anger and legalism. Recall what Jesus says: “You hypocrites!” You untie your ox and donkey on the Sabbath and lead them to water so that they can live well. But you say I can’t untie this woman and heal her of her disease on the Sabbath.  Come on! That’s hypocritical.……………Well, that kind of shut the opposition up.

            Jesus offers moral and spiritual healing to the synagogue leader and the congregation. He rejects the fear and suspicion that misuses Sabbath regulations to try and dominate and intimidate. He demonstrates that “untying” and setting free from fear and suspicion heals and is always a good thing in God’s Kingdom.

Application

            Luke’s gospel is filled with stories of compassion and healing. Compassion and healing never go out of fashion. Luke’s lesson is our lesson; Jesus comes to “untie” us from the bondage of whatever ails us. Not only as individuals but also as a society, we are in need of healing, in need of being “untied” from the bondage of certain collective diseases.  

One social ailment that is on my mind these days is disease of racial fear and mistrust, represented specifically by the Trayvon Martin tragedy. The need for the March on Washington and the demand for racial healing is as urgent today as it was then; our society suffers from the disease of racial fear and suspicion and mistrust. Some say justice was done when George Zimmerman was acquitted. I don’t thinks so, even though procedural rules were followed as strictly as Sabbath regulations. Our society is still bound by the injustice of racial fear and suspicion and mistrust. For example, if it was my white son who was walking to the store through the same neighborhood as Travyon, George Zimmerman would barely have noticed him let alone fear him and hold him in suspicion. If it was my white son he would not have stopped his car, he would not have gotten out and followed him; he would not have engaged him in a tragic encounter; he would not have shot and killed him. This tragedy happened because racial fear and suspicion still plague our society For all the good rules and regulations do, for all the great progress in civil law and human rights we have made in this country, we still suffer from a disease of racial fear and suspicion that leads to discrimination and injustice. Indeed, the “stand your ground” law in Florida was misused, like Sabbath rules, to try to control and intimidate Trayvon; and it ended in tragedy. 

Christians need to constantly reform the church as a power that heals and sets free—in this case from the disease of racial. As Christians we carry in our spiritual blood a mission of mercy and freedom and justice, a mission that has the power to heal and transform racial fear and injustice.  

There is today still a lot of racial mistrust and injustice in Staunton, in our neighborhoods, in our public schools, in our courts and justice system, in our homes and even in our churches. Trinity’s challenge, from Luke’s gospel, is to follow Jesus in giving voice to the voiceless, to those that live in the shadow of racial fear and suspicion; to untie our society from its racial fear and mistrust; to offer to what Jesus offers, the healing of God’s love and mercy and reconciliation.  Jesus is here amongst us today to heal our racial fears and suspicions; he unties the church from that bondage of mistrust so that we can live fully and freely with all races.

The church’s challenge today is to continue to fulfill the promise of the March on Washington. It needs to be on the frontline of the March, offering racial healing, overcoming racial mistrust, injustice and indifference. Compassion and healing are always in fashion for the church and for society, even on the Sabbath. May God empower us as a community of mercy and justice to heal others just as Christ has healed us.

Fire

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Luke 12:49-56. 

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"

I have to confess, I find these words from today’s Gospel to be ambiguous at best, and downright frightening at worst. This image that Jesus uses, this image of fire, has always had a double edge, it has always signified both positive and negative realities.

On the positive side, in the biblical tradition, fire has been used as a powerful sign of the presence and the power of God:

• Moses saw God in a bush that was on fire but was not consumed.
• The People of Israel were led out of bondage in Egypt by God in a pillar of fire.
• The prophet Isaiah had a vision of God when he was burning incense in the Temple, and the flames on the incense altar became fire angels, seraphim, who called to each other “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts” — and whose song we repeat in every Eucharist.
• The prophet Jeremiah said that the Word of God was like a burning fire which breaks through dreams and lies and deceit and brings the uncompromising truth of God.
• John the Baptist promised that after him was coming one that was mightier than he, who would baptize with fire.
• When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in the upper room at Pentecost, it appeared as flames of fire dancing on their heads.
• And we continue to echo that biblical symbolism in our own religious practice today:
  • We put candles on our altars, so that the fire can remind us of God’s presence with us in worship.
  • We keep a single candle, an eternal flame, burning above the aumbry, to signify the presence of the consecrated sacrament within.
  • At the Easter Vigil we kindle a new fire — and it's usually a big, bright, roaring blaze — as a symbol of the light of Christ's resurrection bursting forth from the night of the tomb.

Throughout the Bible, fire is used as a sign of the presence of God.

And fire can be a very positive thing in our ordinary, not-especially-religious experience, too:

• When I was younger, my family used to take camping vacations — it was a great way to go new places and see new things relatively inexpensively for a family with two adults, three kids, and one St Bernard. One of my favorite parts of camping was of course the nightly campfire, where we'd gather round, toast marshmallows, make s'mores, watch the flames dance over the dark shapes of the logs, see the glowing embers emerge from the grain of the wood. There was something kind of primal, even primally reassuring, about acting out that ancient human scene of a family gathered in the light and warmth of the fire, our backs turned outward to the deep and mysterious dark.

Time and time again for us, fire is a sign of the creating, inspiring, empowering, reassuring presence of God.

But fire is unquestionably also a destructive force. In the Bible:

• God responded to the sinfulness of Sodom and Gomorrah by raining down fire and brimstone to destroy them.
• The prophet Elijah called down fire from heaven to burn up the soldiers of the king who had come to take him captive and punish him for speaking the word of God.
• John the Baptist warned that the axe was laid to the roots of the trees, and every tree that did not bear good fruit would be cut down and thrown into the fire.
• The seer of the Book of Revelation saw that those who rebelled against God would be ultimately confined for eternity in a lake of fire.

And we experience fire as a destructive force in the world, too:

• While we had a very wet spring and early summer here in the Valley, elsewhere n the country there has been extreme drought this summer, especially in the west, and that has contribited to wildfires burning out of control – at last count, three dozen major fires in five states, including one that claimed the lives of 19 firefighters in Arizona in June.

We know very well, in religion and in life, how destructive fire can be.

And Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” What is ambiguous about these words is whether Jesus means to bring the fire that destroys, or the fire that creates.

Or perhaps Jesus means both. The positive and negative, the destructive and creative sides of the fire symbol come together when fire is a sign of transformation, when fire is a sign of renewal, when fire purifies and tempers and strengthens:

• Job in the midst of his suffering remembers the legend of the phoenix that dies in fire and is reborn from its own ashes.
• The prophet Zechariah says that God will refine the holy people as silver is refined in the fire.
• St Paul says that all our life’s works, all that we’ve built on the foundation of Christ, will be tested with fire; the hay and the straw will be burned, but the gold and silver and precious stones will be made pure.

And we see that in the world, too:

• When there is a fire in the forest, new life colonizes the burned area almost at once — there are even certain plants and trees whose seeds can only open up and sprout in the heat of a fire: without fire, they don’t come to life — and the new plants move into the burned area start turning the ash into usable nutrients for the next generation of forest.
• Years ago I heard the story of a church that burned down — and as the congregation rallied around rebuilding their building, they found it was also an opportunity to renew their sense of being church. As they thought about what they wanted their new building to look like, how they wanted it to function, how they wanted to use their building, that made them stop and rethink their sense of mission, the ministries they felt their congregation was called to do. As they thought about their worship space, that made them think about what kind of relationships they wanted to cultivate among worshipers. As they thought about their meeting and educational space, that made them think about wanting to spend more time studying the Bible together, dwelling in the Word together, learning about their gifts for ministry and releasing their passions for mission together. As they thought about making their building feel welcoming to visitors and newcomers, that made them think about what they could do to be a more genuinely welcoming and hospitable congregation. In ways both small and large, the project of rebuilding their building after the fire became a call to renew their congregation.

And there's no reason why that same fire of Christ cannot be kindled in other congregations — even our own congregation — and we don't need to wait for the building to burn down to get that started!

Because it is that kind of fire, that fire of transformation, that Jesus promises in the Gospel today. Jesus’ words to us today are frightening, but they are also full of promise. Frightening, because the fire of Christ will burn us, it will hurt, as it burns away our impurities, as it gives us light to interpret the signs of this difficult present time, as it enlightens us to see things that, perhaps, we would be more comfortable not seeing — things like our complicity in injustice, our perpetuation of racism, our environmentally unsustainable practices, our failure to commend the faith that is in us. Jesus’ words about fire can be frightening. But Jesus’ words today are also full of promise, because the fire Jesus brings is the fire of God’s own love, the fire of God’s transformation, kindled in our hearts, warming us and enlightening us and changing us and radiating out from us to bring new life to the world.

The Good News of this Gospel today is that, although it may be painful to burn away the obstacles that keep us from drawing closer to God, nevertheless, the pain of that fire is worth it for the joy that is set before us, the mission God inspires in us, for the passion the Spirit ignites in all our hearts.

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"

Let it be our prayer today that the fire of Christ may indeed be kindled now, here, today, in us. Amen.

Up Close and Far Away

by the Rev. Dr. Paul Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Luke 12:32-40. 

It's good to be home! Lee and I had the kind of vacation where it was good to be away, good to be going where we went and doing what we did; but now it's good to be home, too, back in our community and back in our church.

A few days ago, though, I was sitting on a rock in Acadia National Park in Maine, with the Atlantic Ocean and the Maine coastal islands spread out in front and to the right, and to the left and behind the rocky hills and headlands of the Acadian coast. As I was trying to drink in the entire place, I noticed my attention kept shifting. For a little while I'd look at the rock and the waves right in front of me: I'd watch the shape of the water as it flowed around the edges of the rock; I'd notice the tiny shells and the fronds of seaweed that showed how deep the water would be when the tide was fully in; I'd see how each wave seemed a little higher because the tide was rising; I'd catch the sunlight glinting off each wave in a unique pattern because no two waves flowed quite the same; I'd realize that each wave was its own tremendously complex individual reality. Then after a few moments watching the waves I'd lift my eyes up to take in the horizon: the whole sweep of the bay; the shapes of the hills that almost looked like waves made of rock themselves; the wind that ruffled the surface of the water yards away until it came ashore and ruffled my hair as I sat there. I kept alternating between trying to focus in detail on what was right there in front of me, and trying to connect that detail to the whole wide world spread out before me. I realized those two beauties were intertwined: the beauty of each wave depended on the beauty of the bay; and the beauty of the bay was expressed and brought home by the beauty of each wave. I had to keep looking at both to see the beauty of the whole.

And it occurred to me as I was doing this that it was a good metaphor, it was an active example, of the spiritual life. The life of prayer, the practice of the spirit, is a kind of alternation between paying very careful attention to what is right there in front of us, and trying to connect that to the bigger picture, the wider horizon, of God's mystery and God's creativity and God's work of love in the world. The work of prayer is to develop a kind of binocular vision, where we can really see things as they are in themselves, and at the same time see all things as they are in God. We have to look at what's in front of us, and we have to look toward the horizon, and we have to look at them both if we are to see the beauty of the whole.

I think Jesus is telling us something like that in his sayings recorded in our gospel reading today. Jesus says: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom; therefore be like slaves who are doing their tasks, alert for their master to return from the wedding banquet. Jesus says here it is God's will to give us the kingdom: it is God's good pleasure, it is God's great joy, to catch us up into the work of justice and peace, right relationships for mutual well-being, that is the way God rules in the world. God's reign of love is not yet complete, of course; there is much injustice and disharmony in the world we experience. But the reign of God's love has come to us in Jesus, and it is alreading expanding into the world through the Spirit, and it is God's joy to make us part of that expanding of love through the works of love we do in our daily lives here and now.

The reign of God in creating love in the universe is a pretty big horizon. It encompasses everything from the way the stars move, to the evolution of planets and ecosystems, to the big ideas that can transform societies, to the mysteries and joys and sorrows of births and deaths. Learning to see the big sweep of God's reign of love through creation and history and theology is why we read the Bible and why we study science and why we watch the world around us through the eyes of prayer. We need that big horizon to know that God's love is always already at work no matter where and when we are.

But the big horizon alone is not enough. Jesus says we should be like servants alert at their tasks, we should be doing things close at hand, focused on details, making love manifest, creating justice and peace and communion in the basic actions we take with the people and things around us. Like each wave on the rock was an expression of the entire bay, each wave of activity and response and reflection that comes to us in life is a chance to be part of God's entire reign of love right here and now.

And the work of prayer, the discipline of spiritual growth, is to learn how to see both of them together, both the horizon and the detail, both the great vast reign of God and the task of service here immediately at hand. Like me trying to drink in the scene at Acadia, in the spiritual life we need both the up close and the far away in order to realize the whole beauty God wants for us. We act in the moment with an eye toward eternity; and the eternal ideals of God's reign are made actual in the details of the moments we live. Do not be afraid, Jesus says, God is giving you the kingdom; therefore work the kingdom out in every service you do.

And among the best prayer tools we have for developing that binocular vision of the spirit are the sacraments. The work of a sacrament is to take a simple, ordinary, here-at-hand thing – washing with water, anointing with oil, sharing a taste of bread and wine – to take an ordinary thing and situate it, set it in a context, that allows us to see through that thing to the great horizon of God's reign of love. The work of a sacrament is to take the good news that God's love reigns, that God's life-giving creativity is what rules the world, despite all temporary appearances to the contrary, to take that good news and make it now it in the simplest, most undeniable experiences of taste and touch and togetherness. That's what we're doing for Victoria here in her Baptism today: the whole vast cosmic drama of creation and redemption and sanctification is gathered up and brought together and played out for Victoria – all of it for Victoria! – in this simple gesture of water and oil. That's what we're all doing in this Eucharist today: the entire mystery of the creative Word of God made mortal flesh in Jesus is gathered up and brought together and committed to us – all of it for us! – in this blessing and sharing of bread and wine. The sacraments teach us how to use the binocular vision of prayer in all our experiences. The sacraments teach us to see the eternal in the moment, and the moment in eternity, to see the kingdom in the task and the task in the kingdom; and because we see, then we can do, with fearlessness and compassion and faithfulness and joy.

Jesus teaches us to be mindful of the great vast reign of God in every simple work of love we do. I caught a glimpse of that sitting on a rock on the shore of Acadia Park. We are offered that vision in our sacraments today. Where will you carry that vision with you in the week to come?

Hosea 11:1-11

by the Rev. Allison Liles

This sermon is based on Hosea 11:1-11. Click here to listen to an audio version of this sermon. 

About this time last year I was in Chicago at the Cenacle Sisters Retreat Center empowering and training young adult peacemakers. That’s what I was technically doing, anyway. What I was really doing was being totally transformed by the Reverend Becca Stevens, our retreat’s keynote speaker and facilitator. Becca is known around her hometown of Nashville as the patron saint of last chances thanks to a three-part story on NPR’s Morning Edition in 2011. She was ordained a priest in 1991 and has served as chaplain of St Augustine’s Episcopal Chapel at Vanderbilt University since 1995. But the reason why President Obama named her one of his Champions of Change is because of her work with Magdalene and Thistle Farms.

Becca founded Magdalene in 1997 as a free two-year residential program for women with a history of prostitution and drug addiction. She created this community to offer women a safe, disciplined and compassionate place to recover and heal from their histories of sexual abuse, violence and life on the streets. But then she soon found out that when the women graduated from the program, they didn't have marketable skills to earn an “honest” income. So Becca’s dream of a non-profit business run by the women of Magdalene became a reality and Thistle Farms was born. Women create natural bath and body products that are sold online and in over 200 businesses around the country. Every product is created with the belief that freedom starts with healing and love can change lives. 

Hearing the Old Testament reading last week from Hosea stirred up all of my encounters with Becca, the women of Magdalene and my two visits to Thistle Farms. If you weren’t here last week or if you don’t remember the short reading it recalled the moment during the 8th century BCE when God calls upon the prophet Hosea to marry Gomer, whom Hosea delicately refers to as “a whore.” God wants Hosea to marry this woman of ill repute to symbolize the covenantal relationship between the always- faithful God and the continually unfaithful Israelites. And God doesn’t just tell Hosea to marry Gomer once, God pleads with Hosea multiple times in the first three chapters of this book: “The Lord said to me again, ‘Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods.” Israel has become the promiscuous woman who violates her marriage vows. For three chapters Hosea describes Israel’s behavior as his wife, the streetwalker, who searches high and low for her next sexual partner as if she yearns for this adulterous behavior.

But what Becca Stevens has learned about these so-called “whores” is that they are victims. Becca says she’s has yet to meet a prostitute who was not sexually abused as a child -- most of the women at Magdalene started being sexually abused between ages 7 and 11. 7 and 11. They’ve never known a true, authentic love and therefore keep circling in the same destructive patterns. Women today are treated just like Gomer in the 8th century BCE. Property to use and toss, use and toss. A clergy colleague wrote this week that “we don’t sit down and listen to Gomer enough” to hear her side of the story. And when we add today’s reading from Hosea’s chapter 11 I feel like we’re just rubbing salt in her wounds. 

 
Chapter 11 begins with God’s mothering acts on full display: “I loved … I called … I taught … I took them up … I healed … I led … I bent down … I fed.” All the attributes Gomer is denied as a woman described as choosing promiscuous sex over nurturing her own children. While we’re told Gomer loved earning her pay as a prostitute on the threshing room floor (9.1), the Lord is described as loving Israel above and beyond anything else. “When Israel was a child, I loved him,” God says, “and out of Egypt I called my son.” God speaks of calling to the child, begging the child to come home, but the child resisting, going away. “Yet,” God says, … it was I who taught [my child] to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them (11:3-4).

While I think this metaphor is incredibly insensitive to Gomer, I find it helpful for you and me who are all children belonging to somebody. Perhaps in this day and age, when a father is just as easily likely to be the primary caregiver for a young child, these words in chapter 11 don't have the same impact on us. But for Hosea's original hearers, make no mistake: these were the actions of a mother. Verse after verse, line after line, the motherly love of God is related. But Israel proved to be a wayward child despite the attentive nurture and loving care of the faithful parent. According to the Torah, rebellious sons are to be stoned to death (see Deuteronomy 21:18-21). As for Israel, it deserves destruction but God can’t bring Godself to follow through with what is deserved. In response to what sounds like a suggestion that this loving mother simply give up on her incontrollable child, God replies with perhaps the most comforting words in all of scripture, “How can I give you up…? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender…” [Hosea 11:8].

It’s clear to me from last week’s text describing a one-sided marriage and this week’s recollection of a wayward child and devoted mother, Hosea employs the most viscerally-experienced relationships and all of their emotions to paint the picture of what it must be like for God to suffer such unrequited love. One of the ways we understand our relationship with God is through the lens of our own human relationships. Every metaphor has its limits, and this one in chapter 11 is no exception. There are wonderful mothers who cannot save their children from unendurable pain, and there are dreadful mothers whose children overcome abuse and neglect and thrive later in life. There are mothers like Gomer who appear to choose infidelity over parenthood; like women in the Magdalene community who chose to feed their addictions rather than their children’s rumbling tummies.

But, shortcomings aside, if we embrace these metaphorical words from Hosea about God as Israel’s mother we learn that it is God who brings us to birth, who knits us together in our mother’s womb. It is God who holds us, who nourishes us. It is God teaches us the basics of what we need to know. It is God who heals us, holding us in the divine embrace…even when we disobey God, God loves us. Even when we fall victim to other gods, and cause God to pain and suffering, God never stops loving us. 

 
Hosea gives us peek at God’s suffering love when we go astray in verses 8 and 9:

My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim; (11.8-9)

In English we have turned the word “heart” sentimental and soft, but in Hebrew the word translated “heart” contains layers and layers of meaning, including the “inner person,” the “mind,” the “will.” This word indicates something fundamental about one’s very being. And the heart of who God is does not will punishment or suffering on God’s children. “I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath,” says the Lord (11.9b).

We come to the table today perhaps with many memories of dinners prepared by our mother—or maybe our father. This table before you is hosted by our heavenly parent - -- God is the provider of this meal, the founder of the feast. God has prepared this life-giving bread and wine out of genuine love for us. There is nothing we can do to earn that love. And there is nothing we can do that will cause us to lose that love no matter how out of control or promiscuous our life may be. We are loved, completely, perfectly, passionately, by God. And so we come to the table for the meal given to bring us life and strength, and we can trust that this motherly love of God will continue to touch us and heal us and make us whole. Becca Stevens understands the power of this transformational love. She knows that God’s love can heal even the most broken and scarred members of society. The Holy God who is just and righteous is, above all things, compassionate. As the anger subsides and the love is rekindled, God finds a way for grace to prevail and calls us back to this table. And to that I say, Thanks be to God. Amen.

Luke 11:1-13

by the Rev. Allison Liles

This sermon is based on Luke 11:1-13.

After a year out of the pulpit I can say with great conviction that I am excited to be here with you today. I was ordained seven years ago and served as a parish priest for six years before putting my collar on the shelf for a little while so I could focus on my calling as a parent of two small children. Presently I work part-time as the Executive Director of Episcopal Peace Fellowship and full-time as mother to Hill and Pailet Liles. Fortunately my life as a parent has proven to be equally as sacramental as my life behind the altar. While my attention might no longer be on bread or wine, I still find that I’m blessing and sanctifying things all day long: skinned knees, butterflies, altars built out of tiny stones in the backyard. I’m praying over the water in our children’s bathtub rather than that within the church’s baptismal font. My life as a priest has changed, not ended.

And some days priesthood and parenthood collide…Like the day in March when our four-year-old son asked me how to pray. During a video chat with an Alabama friend over the computer Hill heard his friend Catherine Ellis say the Lord’s Prayer, which she recently learned from her momma. Catherine Ellis knew something that Hill did not and his words to me later that night could have come right out of the mouth of the disciple from our gospel reading today. “Mommy, will you teach me how to pray like Megann taught Catherine Ellis?” And so it began. By the 4th night he had learned the Lord’s Prayer and it now accompanies all his other prayers of petitions and thanksgivings at bedtime.

This question posed by an unnamed disciple is the only time in the gospel accounts when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them something… Every other example of Jesus teaching the disciples is initiated by Jesus. It is not surprising when you think about it because prayer seems to be one of those things in which most people feel perpetually inadequate. We’re told as people of faith we need to pray, that we should pray and yet it’s one of the things we struggle the most at putting into practice. Perhaps because so many of us never really learned how to pray. We make New Year’s Resolutions, we take on Lenten Disciplines. We buy books on prayer and try to teach ourselves what we are too afraid to ask. So one of the disciples, probably speaking for most of us, comes to Jesus and say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And Jesus responds with a sample prayer, a parable and some additional sayings about prayer that make it all seem so easy.

But prayer is not easy – it’s a spiritual discipline that requires a lot of patience and practice before it begins to feel natural. It requires that we look at our own strengths and weaknesses to find the best form of prayer that suits us. The way I pray might not be the way for you to pray. And the things that will cause me difficulties will not be exactly the same as what causes anyone else difficulties.

I took a course on prayer in seminary from a visiting professor who belonged to the Society of Saint John the Evangelist monastery in Cambridge, Mass. This Episcopal monk deeply believed that we should pray using our weaknesses so that we are more fully dependent on God’s assistance and intervention. An artist should not pray through icon writing, but instead try praying through lectio divina. A literal minded mechanical engineer would benefit from Ignatian Prayer or another form of praying through imagination. With that in mind I, an easily distracted person who enjoys being in control, tried centering prayer. For years I tried centering prayer and it took a long time before I felt it actually working. Working in the sense that I felt like I was praying. For weeks I found myself making to do lists in my brain rather than mediating on my chosen word. I felt my muscles twitch & my back itch rather than falling into complete stillness. I looked like I was praying to other people in the group, but certainly didn’t feel like I was praying. I think this might be what my son feels like when reciting the Lord’s Prayer each night. Those first few nights we talked through all the difficult words like trespasses, temptation, thy, and evil. And he memorized it quickly and now says it nightly even though it’s not yet something he believes. But praying shapes believing. Our faith is formed through regular prayer so Hill keeps saying those words…just like 9 years ago I kept at centering prayer.

Prayer is not easy – it’s a spiritual discipline that requires patience and practice but also courage, honesty and vulnerability. Real prayer is something that takes us into unfamiliar territory. We do not know how the prayer will be answered and the deeper we journey into the experience of a routine prayer life, into the experience of an ongoing intimate communion with God the more unfamiliar the territory becomes. Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” But what will be given? What will we find? What door will be opened? These answers come with time and vulnerability … not from one prayer offered at a time of existential crisis.

I think many of us avoid our routine prayer life because of this unfamiliarity. We fear we don’t know how to pray but also fear how God will respond to our prayers. And so many of us hang around in our safety zones, going no further than we’ve been before and where we still maintain control. We offer petitions. We offer thanksgivings. But we don’t ask questions, we don’t listen for answers even though deep down we know that’s what we should be doing. I struggle with my prayer life and I’m a priest. I often feel inadequate about my relationship with God. I feel a hunger to go further, to connect with God more deeply, to journey into the mysteries of God that lie beyond the end of my safety rope. But I’m scared. I know God talks to me. I know God calls me to great actions. I’ve heard and felt that call multiple times including at St John’s Norwood Parish in Chevy Chase, Maryland during my centering prayer sessions … but now I’m a wife and a mother and that voice from God is provocative and risky. I don’t always want to hear it – so I stop short in my prayers, never venturing into that unfamiliar territory.

And I think Jesus understands this hesitation. It’s why Jesus gives us a sample prayer. It’s why Jesus invites his disciples into a deeply personal relationship with God, encouraging us to call upon God using the same name he uses -- Abba, Father. He invites us as his disciples to call upon God as children call upon a loving parent, trusting that they belong to God and that God wants for them what is good and life giving. What Jesus says at the end of our gospel reading today reinforce this invitation. If human parents, with all our faults, know how to give our children gifts that are good for them, how much more will our heavenly Father give to us who ask? Praying seems risky because God’s answer is beyond our control. We do not know what the outcome of our prayers will be but are still called to trust in God’s response. Even if that response is no. Even if that response sounds risky.

Jesus calls us to be shameless in our prayers, to keep bringing our needs and our hopes to our heavenly Father, trusting that God is listening, trusting that God loves us. Establishing a regular prayer life will be difficult at first. But what’s essential in moving from nervous paralysis to competence and confidence is practice. It requires us going through the motions even when we don’t know what we are saying or when it feels awkward or when we feel like we aren’t even praying. We have to keep at it because prayer is something we learn by doing. Establishing a routine prayer life will require our honesty. Jesus’ parable invites us to imagine that, like a man confident of his neighbor’s hospitality, we should ask God for whatever we need. Prayer isn’t about saying the right words or sounding particularly eloquent; it’s about being vulnerable and saying what’s on our heart in our own words and being courageous enough to hear God’s response. We just have to do it. We don’t have to be “good” at praying for God to hear us. There are neither prayers that are too small nor are there wrong ways to pray. There are no wasted prayers. So however you pray be it contemplative or corporate, silently or aloud, with words or deeds or disposition, trust that God is eager to hear and receive and respond to our prayers because there is, I believe, nothing more that God wants than to be in relationship with us –all of us – and for us to flourish in this life together and with each other.