Thank You Notes

My favorite Church Season is Advent primarily because I love preparing and anticipating the coming of Christ. I don’t know why this is because I am not a patient person. It probably has something to do with the building of energy that leads all the way up to Christmas Eve. Everyone gathered together with so much warmth, love, and all those presents still to be opened! If there was a holiday that I could not stand growing up it was the aftermath of Christmas partially because everything had already been opened, and also due to another nagging annoyance.

From the time I was old enough to write my mother urged me (read: made me) sit down with a list of all of the presents I had received and from whom I had received them. Then, she not so gently persuaded me (read: made me) write thank you notes to all the gift givers. I loathed this task to the point that I didn’t want as many presents, so that I did not have to write as many thank you notes.

For years and years I dragged my feet on this chore, which expanded from Christmas presents to any gift received from a friend, family member, or neighbor. I did not understand why I was supposed to sit down and write a thank you note. I had told them thanks already. Wasn’t that enough? Did the people receiving the messages of gratitude even notice them? The never said anything about the notes!

Recently a medical group published an essay entitled, “Boost Your Health with a Dose of Gratitude”  which found links between mille
nnia of philosophical/religious wisdom on gratitude and healthy living. In other words, grateful people live healthier, longer, and happier lives. Perhaps my mother knew this little secret and she was trying to teach me that being thankful leads to a better bill of health. Yet, more exists to this story and in our lives than heartlessly writing words down on a meaningless thank you card.

Jesus was heading to Jerusalem by way of Samaria, a place of ill repute according to his people. As he passed through the Samaritan land 10 lepers came to him. Leprosy as a disease of those days should not be understated in terms of its impact. Those who had it or were suspected of having it would have been sent away from their spouses, children, parents, and even the entire community in which they lived. For Jesus to happen upon 10 lepers would have meant that these lonely, exiled, deserted souls bound themselves together in a sort of “misery loves company” commune.

They beg Jesus to heal them. Immediately the request is granted by Jesus. The incarnate Christ asks them to head to the priest who would have been the person to verify that they had indeed been healed (remember this was before modern medicine, so the rabbi would have been the medical and spiritual consultant of the day). All of them scurry off overjoyed by the new life that lay ahead of them. They can return to their lives! Yet, one of them a Samaritan, a despised one, thinks to turn back toward Jesus. The one-time leper bows before the Christ and offers his most sincere appreciation.

Jesus wonders why the others did not return, but never revokes his gift of healing. Rather, he says something peculiar to the Samaritan. “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” In this moment the one who turns back to Jesus receives something beyond what the others obtained. This one no longer a leper accepts a further blessing, another healing, and a fuller life moving forward than those who asked and received what Jesus offered.

Faith, according to Jesus, intricately connects to giving thanks. To have faith is to give thanks to the one who gives us everything including our healing. If we never learn to have a grateful heart or we refuse to give thanks we may still be healed, but we will never truly find the depth of our faith in Christ. What my mother was attempting to do when I was a child was not enacting torturous task of politeness, but rather to teach me that giving thanks is a part of my life within a community with other children of God and when we begin with gratitude we find a depth to our faith not otherwise obtainable.

Today I wonder for what are you grateful? Who might you thank for it? And, how will you turn to God to thank God for your renewed life?

Keep Me Burning

You can find the audio for this sermon here, or by copying the following into your web browser: http://s3.amazonaws.com/dfc_attachments/public/documents/3199407/VN810273.MP3.

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine with me the most beautiful wedding you have ever witnessed. The church adorned with fragrant flowers, candles enlightening the space with such warmth, the groomsmen dressed to the nines, the groom anxiously waiting at the front of the church, the bridesmaids reflecting the bright radiance of young love, and if you listen closely you can almost hear the music of this special moment. [Foster plays a few notes of bridal entry music]

I truly appreciate Foster for helping me out with that one. You can obviously open your eyes now. In that time of thinking about the most beautiful wedding you’ve ever attended did the thought at all cross your mind of some mishap, misstep, or mistake in the ceremony? Probably not! Yet, every wedding I’ve ever attended had a moment in which something went wrong. These moments though seem to add some tenderness to the nuptials: The groomsmen almost forgetting their tuxedos. The bride’s hair falling down from the humidity. A rain shower forcing the reception into a cramped space. Or even the bridesmaids forgetting the oil for their lamps. Wait, what?

Jesus uses the tender moment of a wedding ceremony in today’s gospel to help us understand something about the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet, from our vantage point his message of what heaven is like comes off as harsh, scary, and hellacious. To better understand what Jesus means we need to know more about wedding customs of Jewish people two thousand years ago.

Just like today, marriages back then were fraught with emotion. Two families coming together to form a new family tends to expose the underlying tensions, strengths, and weaknesses of both the bride’s and the groom’s upbringings. Yet, unlike today, the ceremony would have begun at the home of the bride. As the bridegroom approached, the guests including the bridesmaids, would have lit torches, which we are reminded of in today’s ceremony when the bride and groom leave their reception accompanied by guests lighting sparklers. The festive occasion back then would continue with all the guests processing to the groom’s home where his parents would have been preparing a feast for the ages!

In today’s gospel lesson though something goes horribly wrong. The groom does not show up. Often the ceremony would have begun at sunset, but in this story dusk quickly fades to dark and the groom is nowhere to be found. Ha, you thought the best man forgetting the ring was bad, think about the groom being delayed for six hours. So instead of the festive occasion of heading towards the groom’s estate, the guests and the bridesmaids wait and wait and wait. Finally though they all feel drowsy and every one of them falls asleep.

“Look, here is the bridegroom,” someone shouts, “Come out to meet him!” To make it from the bride’s house to the groom’s house one would need a lantern at midnight, as there were no street lights or cell phones with flashlights built into them. To be prepared for such a situation would be wise certainly, but I am unsure if it would have been normal. It seems that these wise women would have been the girl scouts of their day, always being prepared.

So we know what happens next the foolish ones ask their wiser companions if they might borrow some oil, but the journey being long and requiring an abundance of fuel the wise ones say no. Desperately the foolish maids go seeking oil from a merchant. The likelihood of someone coming to the door at midnight for such a request seems more foolish than forgetting oil. In their hurrying around these women miss the procession and arrive once the doors to the party have long been shut. Even after knocking and crying out, “Lord, lord, open to us,” the opportunity has been lost. The master does not recognize them, saying, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the hour nor the day.

We might have heard someone on the street corner yelling this last statement out, so that we might repent and turn away from our sinful ways. Many people believe the end of days, the rapture, will be scary. So they take keep awake to mean become paranoid, but interpreting Jesus’ parable in this way seems to miss the point and overlook the truth of Christ’s return.

The groom who represents the returning Christ comes late. Actually later than even any polite person could have been expected to wait, except those five wise women who packed the extra oil. We’ll come back to the oil in a minute. The foolish five ran off when they realized their sisters would not give them any oil. I wonder though why these fools did not just stay put. Even if they could not borrow oil, they could have borrowed the light of those who had the oil to keep on burning. Certainly the groom would have allowed them to enter if they were walking together arm in arm!

Still that is not how the story goes. The five fools go off in pursuit of oil to rekindle their lamps from some other source. Yet, I wonder if these women could have asked the groom for some oil to keep their fires lit. Again, this is not how the story goes.

We might hear keep awake and believe that we are to live a paranoid life looking for Jesus to pop out from behind every corner we walk around like a sort of holy jack-in-the-box. Yet, that is not what this parable indicates to us. The maids, all of them the foolish and the wise, fall asleep. The difference between them is preparing for the coming of the bridegroom, that and oil.

We need oil in our lamps to keep them burning. Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning, as the old song goes. We cannot get that oil, it seems, at the last minute from our fellow banquet-goers. However, I look around this church and I see oil everywhere I look. Not kerosene, nor something else flammable, not even olive or palm oil, but rather the oil of hope, the oil of peace, and the oil of love.

If you need oil for your lamp I believe that God has drenched us in it here at St. John’s. Whether it’s in practices of piety, prayer, study, outreach, spirituality, or some other Christian action this is a great place to fill up your lantern. Yet, no one can do it for you. Each of us must spend time daily replenishing our stores of oil.

So keep awake, or rather be aware of the light of Christ that shines within you. And take care so that you have enough oil to make it through the dark nights ahead, for we all have been invited to a heavenly banquet, but we know neither the hour, nor the day. Amen.

Canoes and Cursing and Christianity Outside the Box

Sermon audio from yesterday: here or (http://s3.amazonaws.com/dfc_attachments/public/documents/3199298/VN810271.MP3)

While I will never advise to break many rules, I also do not like those people who follow rules so precisely that they can’t help but open their big mouths when others make the slightest error. There is of course a saying that if you do not like a trait in someone else it is because you possess that same characteristic. We can’t stand it when someone loses their temper with us thinking how she or he needs to control emotions, then we turn around and blow up at someone else. Or there is the classic, “I don’t ever want to be like my mother,” which turns into “I cannot believe how I am just like her now.”

I don’t like those people who follow all the rules because I tend to be someone who follows all the rules. When I was a kid growing up at camp during the summer I knew every tradition, every rule, and every guideline. Sometimes my counselors would even turn to me to get a particularly misbehaving child to follow the rules once more. Even though I was only seven or eight years old I couldn’t stand it when someone broke a rule, like the time I went canoeing with a truly juvenile leader-in-training.

For some reason as the rule abiding child I was I decided on this day to ride in the “dry” canoe. Other boats might engage in some splashing and even “tumping” the canoe, but not me. I did not want to walk around all afternoon wearing a wet bathing suit. Thus, I rode in the dry boat.

Well, one childish older camper who was supposedly learning to be a leader decided that it would be funny to break the no splash rule and he began to soak me and my counselor with nasty creek water. Something in me snapped. I began cursing like a sailor telling this so and so that if he didn’t stop I was going to do something with the canoe paddle that would not be pleasant.

To this day I do not actually remember this happening. I don’t recall what I said. I have pieced this much together from others though that I was so very angry and I let him know it. I could not stand that someone had broken the rules and in the process gotten me soaking wet. Nevermind that my response was to break all sorts of camp rules with the language I used. This is a Christian camp I’m talking about, and I was not using charitable words toward my neighbor.

I was and still can be so much like the leader of the synagogue. Unable to see that there is life beyond the rules. By no means am I advocating for an anarchist, lawless society; however, I do believe that Jesus calls us to see beyond what is mainstream, normal, or within the box. Jesus brings healing into the world in ways that we may never understand. That healing may even make us uncomfortable or change how we see God.

God wants us to receive His healing power regardless of the day of the week. Yet, when we cling too closely to following all the rules we can miss the joy of splashing around in a canoe. Jesus’ grace abounds in this world transforming our lives. We can chide others and ourselves for being open to that healing or we can take part in a little holy rebellion.

Names Written In Heaven

Jesus has just turned his face towards Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel account. He does not have much time left in his earthly ministry. Knowing this, he sends forth seventy followers, saying, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” Jesus’ suggested packing list consists of nothing but his blessing of peace and his instructions to ignore those whom they meet on the road. Instead he prompts his followers to focus on meeting people where they are, where they live. They are to extend peace and to heal the sick in their homes.

The instructions for following Jesus are radical. Go forth without a coat, extra clothes, or spare sandals. Take no supplies for the journey and instead rely upon Jesus. I am not good at this. When I travel I want supplies for every potential scenario I might encounter. Yet, Jesus requires that in lieu of a material crutch we rely instead on the kindness of others and upon his peaceful presence.
Today’s gospel reading reveals that the seventy have safety returned. Not only this, but they have succeeded. They have relied solely on the power of their Savior. As they return they excitedly proclaim what they have done, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” These followers have put their trust in God.

We too are travelers on a different journey, but still sent by Christ into the world to provide his healing and his peaceful presence to those whom we meet. Yet, in this context, this public service of healing and Eucharist, we come to Christ for refreshment, healing, and the spiritual food of Christ’s Body and Blood. As I hurry around preparing for this service I sometimes forget that this is a time not just for you to be refreshed, healed, and fed, but also for me to experience Christ’s peaceful presence in this place.

Over the weekend a seminary classmate and one of my best friends Clay Towles committed suicide. As I continue to experience the pain of this loss I swing from denial to guilt to rage and I land in heartbrokenness. I long for God’s healing to wash over me. I yearn for Christ’s compassion. I ache for the soul of my friend.

While I am certain that Christ comforts all of us who come to him, Jesus urges us to look beyond earthly healing to see the ultimate aim of our lives. “Nevertheless do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Christ writes our names in heaven as he remembers us who follow him.

Whenever we gather together we remember Christ, putting together the body of Christ. Yet when we gather as the Body of Christ we not only recall Jesus, but we also draw together all His followers across time and space: our loved ones who have died, the saints of ages past, the saints living on the farthest shores and the saints who have yet to come. My friend Clay loved the Eucharist. He was almost always in chapel. And I believe that he now is even closer to God’s banquet table. We may struggle to feel God’s healing in this moment or even in this lifetime, but Christ remembers us in heaven and asks that we too might remember him as we gather together around his table together with all past, present, and yet to come.

God's Multiplication

From left to right: Dean Cynthia Kittredge, Clay Towles, Seth Olson (me), James Franklin, Jared Houze, Michael Carriccino, CJ Meaders, and Jeremiah Griffin

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of substituting for one of the regulars at our Banks-Caddell Homework Helpers program. If you have not had an opportunity to volunteer in that ministry, I highly recommend it. For most of the hour and a half I worked with four boys who were doing their math homework.

I quickly remembered some aspects of elementary mathematics. My multiplication table easily popped back into my mind (thank you Mrs. Albritton), but I struggled to distinguish between the distributive property and the communicative property. Do not even ask me what chunking is, for I still do not understand that demonic art! Yet what struck me more than my inability to remember mathematics was the spirit of the boys with whom I worked.

They were chipper and happy with just a pinch of rebelliousness. As I worked through their math worksheets with them I could see through some of their mischief, as one child in particular attempted to trick me into doing all of his work for him. After I convinced him that he should do his own work we worked together on a question asking another way of writing 8x5. The answer was clearly 5+5+5+5+5+5+5+5, but when I asked how he would write out 8x5 the boy answered, “50,000! NO! 50 thousand, hundred!” Maybe he was happy to get his homework completed, or perhaps it was working with friends, or even it might have been an adult sitting with him, but this child’s shear positivity overcame both his horrendous math skills and his inability to choose one of the four choices on the page. While I corrected him, I could not help but feel that his positive energy was hinting at a larger truth about God.

Sometimes in our world we can believe that the answer to our problems is one of four multiple choice answers. We might believe that we only have a few possible solutions to our challenges:

A. Make more money
B. Buy more things
C. Go it alone
D. Ignore the problem altogether

Yet, what this child of God reminded me is that God’s ability to multiply our time, talent, and treasure, our gifts, our prayers, and our lives themselves cannot easily be understood. 5x8 might as well be 50 thousand, hundred when God is at work! However, life soon challenged my new understanding of God’s greatness.

When I arrived home last night I discovered that Clay Towles, one of my best friends from seminary, had tragically died. The good feelings from Banks-Caddell melted away and I began struggling with all of the questions swirling around in my mind: Why did this happen? What could I have done to prevent his death? How could the church let one of its leaders suffer all alone? Why did Clay not reach out to others?

I fought hard all night with these questions desperately and irrationally hoping that by answering them Clay would return. He sadly will not. Instead I am left in a numb, heartbroken, and enraged mess. Somewhere buried in the tomb alongside our Savior Jesus Christ rests every bit of my grief, guilt, pain, fear, doubt, shame, anger, and confusion in the face of Clay’s death. Clay too is buried within that tomb.I do not know when or how or where it will happen, but Christ will raise all that is buried with him. One day the tomb, Clay’s tomb, will be empty. One day all those who believe will be resurrected to new life. One day all that we give over to God will be transformed in the mystery of God’s love. This is how God multiplies our lives: the pain of the Cross and death is transformed into the joy of the Resurrection.

A Shift In Perspective

This sermon is based on Luke 7:18-35 from today's the Daily Office Lectionary.

I sometimes think about the absurdity of a Martian looking down from outer space observing our day-to-day lives here on earth. Among other things I think about how that Martian, let’s go ahead and call him Marvin, would think that dogs, and certain cats, are the most sophisticated and most advanced species on earth. Dogs lounge around all day long taking naps wherever they please. They are massaged and groomed. They are loved and cared for by their “owner,” maybe we should change that to “servant”? From the perspective of Marvin life for a dog is ideal. Yet, we who are down here on earth have a different perspective.

We know that dogs are often cooped up all day long. We know that they often do not have as much freedom as they would like. We understand that, at least from our point of view, we have more ability and privilege.

One’s perspective can make all the difference in the world. To the tax collector who was seen as an outcast, John the Baptist’s ministry offered the opportunity for rebirth. Evan talked about this last week at this service that tax collectors were the most despised persons who were hated everywhere they went. He likened them to child molesters of our day who cannot go anywhere without shame and ridicule. To the most rejected person any form of redemption can start to transform life itself. Imagine being completely rejected everywhere you go for years and years. No one loves you. No one will marry you. No children to comfort you. This was life for tax collectors and is life for many still today.

After torturous existence, finally someone offers not just a glimpse of hope but a promise of an opportunity to turn back to God to be counted as one of his own children. This was the perspective of the wretched tax collector and all those sinners who journeyed out into the wilderness to experience the cool, transforming waters of the Jordan River! What did they go out to see? A reed blown by the wind? OF COURSE NOT! They went to see a prophet who would call their lives back into order. Yet, this was not the perspective of those wearing the soft robes (Hey, this robe is pretty soft).

I consider myself somewhat of a Pharisee. It comes with the territory of being a priest. Soft robes were not seen in the wilderness, rather they were what the Pharisees would have worn within the Temple and what the Roman leaders would have worn while occupying Israel. The Pharisee’s perspective was different than that of the tax collector, as different as a Martian and our own perspective. They were so accustomed to being in the places of honor that they ignored anyone outside their well-dressed circle.

We can make a related mistake if we are not careful. Our worship, the liturgy that we so love, and the beautiful vessels and vestments that help us to remember God’s worthiness and ultimate place within our lives is to help us to remember. We use our religious practices to help us to come back together as the Body of Christ. The Pharisees mistakenly put religion in the place of God. They cared more about the soft robes than the call from the wilderness. If we are not careful we too can miss John’s call for us to prepare a way for Jesus. Jesus in turn puts at the center of our perspective our constant need to turn back to God.

We cannot rely upon our religion alone to save us. It will help us to shape our lives and it gives us a framework to remind us that we need God in our lives. Yet, what John the Baptist called everyone to do and what Jesus continues to whisper in our hearts tells us to turn around and come back to Our Father in Heaven. No matter what our perspective, tax collector or Pharisee, sinner or Saint, Earthling or Martian, we are all in need of repenting and receiving the healing power that awaits when we return to the embrace of God!

Is God a Dog person?

I am a dog person. It’s not that I don’t like cats, but having been highly allergic to them as a child I did not get to know them all that well. This was not for their lack of trying, of course. Cats somehow knew that I was not so fond of them, so they would instinctively come up to me just to make me sneeze.

Talking about the differences between cats and dogs makes me think of a song by a musician named Fran McKendree. Perhaps some of you have heard his music. He writes mostly very deep, theologically significant, yet stunningly simple lyrics. Although the song I’m thinking of has less to do with how we talk about God and more to do with cats and dogs.

Fran penned a song called “Excerpts from a Dog/Cat Diary.” During the dog portion he plays upbeat music and gives the thoughts of a dog, “8 o’clock breakfast… my favorite, 8:20 go outside… my favorite, saw a squirrel my favorite… 3 o’clock kids home… my favorite, rub my belly… my favorite…” Then when describing the same day in the life of the cat, “This morning I awoke from a dream of freely roaming the woods to realize that my captors still have me locked within this minimum security fortress. After seeing the dried disgust that they call ‘food’ I snuck outside to find real meat. To show my disapproval I brought the head of a chipmunk and laid it upon my captors’ bed.”

The difference between cats and dogs sometimes gets overplayed like in this song, but quite often we identify ourselves as a cat person or a dog person. Today though we celebrate the life of a man named Francis who showed compassion to all creatures that he met, and in turn allows us to see a deeper reality about God.

Francis was a man who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries. While he was born into the family of a wealthy merchant in Italy after an experience of sickness and service in the military he heard God’s voice calling him to “repair my house.” He sold his possessions, which made his family very angry, to pay for repairs to the dilapidated church.

Soon he was living with the local priest and serving the poorest of the poor by treating their diseases, providing them with food, and showing them love when others would not. As Francis grew in popularity followers began to come and immolate his ways. Soon stories began spreading about the miraculous ways he cared not just for other humans, but also for other animals.

Francis gave sermons to birds who sat and listened to him until he sent them away with a blessing. He had animals like fish and rabbits follow him until he made another brother send them away. The saint even changed the heart of a ravenous wolf, such that the creature no longer terrorized a village that had lost not only sheep but also people to the animal’s teeth. To this day when you go into many gardens, including our own McKimmon Garden here at St. John’s you will see St. Francis bidding the creatures to come and receive his blessing.

St. Francis was not a dog or a cat person. He welcomed all creatures to come and receive a blessing from him. In this way he emulated our Creator who made all things good and Jesus Christ who beckoned for all of creation to turn to him for restoration and unloading of burdens. Today we gather to celebrate the blessing that all of these creatures are to us and to remember our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer who continues to bless us and these pets through our relationship together. As we take part in this blessing of the animals let us remember that God is not a dog or cat person, but rather God is a lover of all creatures… God is a critter God who blesses these creatures and us through his sustaining love. Amen.