Tag Archives: discipleship

Missional Communities and God’s Dream/Sermon for Aug. 23, 2015

This has been the week that a lot of parents are sending their children off to college, many for the first time. Our son is already in college and now soon to go back to school, and tomorrow our daughter is continuing her high school career. It hit me this week that my husband and I in being there for the big starting days of our son’s academic career, stood as witness to the days that began to change his worldview. As we dropped him off at preschool for the first time, and later dropping him off at college for the first time.

The big experiences change our worldview, but we still see them through the lens of our choosing. Image: iStock.

The big experiences change our worldview, but we still see them through the lens of our choosing. Image: iStock.

The big transitions in your life may have involved sending a child off to college, or maybe it was something else, like moving away from your parents, getting married, or going off to boot camp. Whatever your big events have been, they sparked a change in your worldview – for better or for worse, you never looked at things quite the same way again.
Other times our community worldview changed, globally or nationally or locally. The Renaissance, Industrialization, the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, the Internet, Smartphones. All changed our worldview. And you can’t change your worldview without spinning the globe around a bit. These experiences are new, and unsettling, and scary. And different, and exciting, and – new.
The worldview was changing fast for the disciples of Jesus in today’s Gospel reading from John. It must have felt a little like their globe was spinning. Jesus is teaching in the Synagogue at Capernaum, and guess what, like us deep into Pentecost, they are getting yet another lesson on bread. Bread, bread, bread. But not just any bread – Living bread! And Jesus is asking them to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
There’s an interesting story about King David described in First Chronicles and Second Samuel. David and his army are fighting the Philistines, who have overthrown David’s home town of Bethlehem. At one point David starts talking about how good it would be to have a nice long, cool drink of that great Bethlehem well water – a well currently under siege by the Philistines. So three of David’s best soldiers go out and break through enemy lines, sneak into Bethlehem, hit the well, and bring their king back a big cup of his favorite water.
According to N.T. Wright, David knows that he can’t drink the water – because it would look like he was profiting from the death-defying work of his soldiers, who risked their life-blood for him, and that would be tantamount to drinking their blood – breaking a Jewish law against it, while at the same time making him look like one spoiled ruler. So he poured the water out onto the ground as an offering to God.
Jesus goes David one better. Jesus hopes that those around him will profit from his blood sacrifice. He invites us into the profit, into drinking his blood so that our life may be in him, and that he will raise us up on the last day.
The bread and the wine we take together in the Eucharist are a foretaste of the ultimate moment when our worldview changes, when into our vision is the fully revealed Kingdom of God. This is our peek into the eternal banquet already in progress around the throne of God. This is our reminder of the power of the Holy Spirit that is in us – of our Communion with God, the source of all power and love, and with the angels and archangels and the saints who have done their good work and gone on before us. This is the worldview we share, and are called to share with the world.

Worldview changes are unsettling. But God's Creation thrives on the unsettled messiness of searching, discovery, and growth.

Worldview changes are unsettling. But God’s Creation thrives on the unsettled messiness of searching, discovery, and growth.

Exactly how that communion happens is one of God’s holy mysteries. But we know this is where we encounter Jesus Christ, because this is where he asked us to meet him. The disciples didn’t have it figured out any better than we do. And they weren’t too happy about it. “Eat your flesh? Drink your blood? Eternal bread? This is hard stuff!” they said, complaining. “Who can deal with that?”
Jesus gives them a little something to think about – “Oh, you think accepting that is tough? What if you saw the Son of Man going right back up to where he came from?”
He’s telling his disciples that if they think wrapping your brain around what he’s said so far is hard, they’d better pace themselves, because there’s a lot more coming – his trial, death, resurrection, and his astounding ascension are still ahead.
Jesus calls them to quit trying to rationalize what he is staying to the exclusion of their faith in what he is doing. It is our spirit that gives us life, the eternal part of us God has created in us and through which Jesus reconciles us to the Father. Our spirit is what feels the authenticity of the love of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit. The flesh by itself won’t get you anything, Jesus says. God lives in you through the Spirit.
A number of disciples, following Jesus in addition to the original twelve, can’t accept his teaching, and they leave. This Messiah they encounter is not the stuff of their legend. He is not the Mosaic superhero King of the Jews casting down the Romans, and restoring the Jews to political power. The words and actions of Jesus offer a worldview they refuse to consider. And so they leave.
Jesus, knowing full well what is to come and how each of the twelve disciples will act, ask those remaining whether they will also go, offering them a chance to affirm their belief. “We won’t. You hold the words of eternal life,” they say.
The transforming, eternal worldview is God’s dream for us. A dream of the Word of God made flesh and walking among us. A dream that we will follow in the footsteps of Jesus and walk humbly, and carry his peace and grace and mercy into the dark places where hope and love and justice live outside the door.

The re-Evolution of God's Kingdom happens in and through relationships.

The re-Evolution of God’s Kingdom happens in and through relationships.

More than 2,000 years later, his Church the Body of Christ continues to wrestle with accepting God’s worldview. As our communities change shape and evolve around us, we struggle to adapt. We are losing our vision for how to live into God’s dream for his world, and the question before us is this: Will we have the courage to adjust our worldview, and keep working toward that Kingdom dream, or will we walk away because it’s too hard?
Yesterday, three members of our congregation and I attended a Missional Community Workshop with Bishop Doyle in Houston. If you’ve never heard the term “Missional Community” before, you will. It is in short, a satellite faith community of a larger sending Church, a community of Christian service that exists completely outside the main Church. Missional Community offers people a different place to plug in and experience the love of Jesus, and to discover what it means to serve him together right inside their own neighborhood.
Our bishops and our new Presiding Bishop-Elect Michael Curry are on fire to move the Church ahead quickly into the future so that we can unleash the power of the laity and the clergy that God has already given us through his Holy Spirit. We have to have the courage as a Church to get out of our own way. This worship space we are in today is sacred and beautiful – but it was never meant to be the end. We are meant to take what we experience here and go out and make more of it, and on and on.
What does that look like? How are we going to do that? If you’re confused by it all right now – that’s ok. One of the first things to understand about Missional Community work is that it can’t be tightly defined. God’s work cannot be boxed in to a definition because he is always doing a new thing.
Here’s the important thing to know today: if St. Paul’s wants to be a church that does the best we can for our congregational vitality, if we want a future where we don’t just survive, but thrive in God’s dream for us, then it is going to take some courage to take a good look at who we really are, and who our neighbors really are. We need to listen to them and with them about what they need, and what missional work makes sense for us in our community. It will take courage to adjust our congregational worldview, and transition our church culture according to those truths.

Image: Missio Dei Church.

Image: Missio Dei Church.

I want to be really authentic and very vulnerable with you, and say that right now, I don’t know what this means for us. I don’t know if this is something we are going to be able to do – or something enough of you will want to do. I don’t have any agenda or pre-conceived notion of what this kind of future would look like for St. Paul’s. This is very new to me. I don’t know where Missional Community will take us. I don’t know where it will take each of you. I don’t know where it will take me.
I do know one thing: God is with us. And knows our hearts. He knows the uncertainty and the excitement that the calling of the Holy Spirit causes in us. He know how it sounds when he asks us to live on his flesh and blood. But he knows how we benefit from life in him, and he asks us to have faith Because if you think where he’s taken us already is really something, wait until we see him lifting us up into God’s dream for us.

Visit St. Paul’s Episcopal Church online here.

Now is the Time: Charleston and the Secret Meeting Sermon 6/21/15

Now is the time. Last week when Bishop Jeff Fisher was with us, we were queued up with the choir for procession, listening to the choir sing the Spirit Song, “Jesus, Come and Fill Your Lambs,” when one of the choir members got my attention and pointed to the small clock posted about the entrance to the worship space. The hands were spinning out of control. They hadn’t been doing that just a few minutes before, as I was nervously checking the time, wanting my first visit as priest from a bishop to go p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y. I got the Bishop’s attention and pointed toward the clock. We both chuckled and smiled. We were entering God’s time. Today again we enter God’s time. Today we are getting into the boat, pulling away from shore and heading into deep water. Deep ocean I’m going to tell you about the first time I met Ben Bythewood. I always hoped that some day it would be the right time to tell this story about the young former mayor of Woodville, Texas, but I never imagined it would be this soon. And I never imagined that it would be because of this set of circumstances. A couple of weeks ago, nobody imagined that Ben would go out on a cruise with his cherished wife Amy – one of my high school classmates – and that on that cruise, the Lord would take him home. This past Wednesday night, nobody imagined that a young man would kill nine people in a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Nobody imagined that our personal lives, our community and national lives could get so stormy…that the wind could blow so hard, the water could come into the boat, and we could be so shaken in sorrow and fear. Nobody imagined. But now Ben is gone, standing face to face with his Creator, beside the nine from Charleston. And this is the time. The time is now.

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The Hon. Ben Bythewood, former Mayor of Woodville, Texas, and a true man of God. May he rest in peace and rise in glory. Photo: Ben’s Facebook page.

I was standing with Amy and Ben at a gathering at Woodville Methodist Church as we were meeting each other and making introductions for the first time, and suddenly Ben – the huge, tall bear of a man he was – leaned in and whispered to me. He said, “Can I ask you something?” Not having any idea what he was going to say, I said, “Sure.” He looked fearfully to his left and his right and leaned in further, and in hushed whispers, asked me if I’d be willing to be part of a gathering of a few local ministers to begin an effort to work together on race relations in Tyler County. I was brand new to St. Paul’s and Woodville, and I really had no idea what the state of racial relations was in Tyler County, but I knew my answer: yes. Ben whispered that he’d have his secretary call me. A few weeks later, about the time I thought I had imagined it all, I got a call from Ben’s office, inviting me to “the meeting.” Soon after, I went to the meeting. It was a mixture of black and white ministers and some regional officials. We had a meal and spent time telling our stories – about our raising and our backgrounds, being honest with each other, and vulnerable to each other, about our upbringing and life experience as it related to racism. Then the tenor of the meeting changed. We talked vaguely about what areas we might be able to have an impact on. “You know we need to get into the schools!” We talked about it, but we didn’t really know what the next step was. We prayed together. To be very honest, it felt like a weak effort and I went away disappointed. I’m not sure what I expected, but it didn’t feel very glamorous to me. I wish I’d made time to have this conversation with Ben. But now is the time to have it with you. And for you to have it with each other. And for us to have it with this community. The time is now. Our scriptures today remind us that whether you are facing Goliath or facing the storm, the nature of God’s power is hidden in the appearance of weakness. God works his mighty power through what seems small and vulnerable. Empires cannot stand against the true power of God. The empires of violence and racism cannot stand against the true power of God. In Samuel, it seems like Goliath is an insurmountable force, but David goes to meet him in the storm of battle, not with the heavy armor of Saul but just as he is, just like Jesus was when he got into the boat – armed with faith, walking in the way of the One True God, believing that God is working in the world.

Illustration by The Beke.

Illustration by The Beke.

In Mark, the disciples are afraid of the storm and rush to wake up Jesus, desperately asking, “Don’t you care that we’re about to die?” They don’t yet understand that God is already at work. He is already on the boat with them. So to show them again, he rises and calms the storms. Jesus is the King of all Creation, and the power to calm the storm is in his hand. God is at work stilling the storm. Are you listening? Or are you still, like the disciples, stuck at “Who is this?” God is already in the boat with us, and he is at work stilling the storm. How, where? He was on that cruise ship – blessing Amy and surrounding her with helpers who supported her and her family. And when she got home, he was there in the outpouring of love from this community to shield her and hold her up through these difficult days. God is at work in that beautiful, bright blue-eyed grandson she holds that looks so much like Ben. God is at work calming the storm. God was at work when that 21-year-old man from Charleston stood up before a judge for his arraignment, and one after another, family members of his victims stood with heartbroken voice and said, “We forgive you. We forgive you. Every fiber of our being is aching, but God says to forgive. Turn to Jesus. We forgive you.” As people sank to their knees outside that hearing and outside Emanuel AME, as they stand this morning inside church after church across the country and hold hands and embrace in peace, as we sing and pray, God is at work calming the storm. I wish Ben were here today, because I would apologize to him. First I would apologize for thinking that he didn’t accomplish much at that meeting. I would apologize and beg his forgiveness, and God’s, for failing to have enough faith to see that the nature of God’s power is hidden in the appearance of weakness. I went away disappointed because I didn’t realize that God was at work in that group of pastors who felt helpless, but who still had the courage to come together and start SOMEWHERE. I see it now. Thank you Ben. May we have the courage to continue what you started. Now is the time to go out into the storm and face our Goliath. Now is the time to stand up for God’s justice, to love with his mercy, and to walk humbly with him when we find ourselves being Goliath. This week our bishops have put out a call for us to pray for Charleston, and for priests to speak a call to action from our pulpits. I share these words from Bishop Doyle with you: “Now is not the time for a cowardly church but a proclaiming missionary church which is at work offering a vision of a kingdom that is being built and a reign of God underway. Now is the time for bravery and commissioned missionary work where our hands join the hands of God to still the storm of the world and to heal the sick, help the blind to see, and the poor to have good things. “Now is the time for our voices to join the voice of God and still the storm around us. It is our opportunity as missionaries to name God in the world putting down the forces which seek to destroy God’s creation and the creatures of God.” God is at work. Now is the time.

On Ferguson, the Church, and What We Believe

“We’ve got a long way to go to get there, but I think we stand a chance if we are willing to be open to what we say we believe.” – Catherine, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church, Morrow, Georgia/Episcopal News Service

What follows is a sermon I preached to my rural East Texas community Episcopal church in August, at the height of the racial uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri. As the nation waits tensely again this week for legal decisions, and Missouri communities gather offering peace and shelter, I encourage all pastors to redouble their efforts to preach peace and unity from their pulpits, and for all Christian people, particularly my Episcopalian brothers and sisters, to live what we say we believe:

Twenty years ago while a student journalist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis I became familiar with racism, and with Ferguson, the neighborhood located directly north of campus. Ferguson has stayed in the national eye these last few weeks as racial tension, violence, and calls for peace continue to be heard in that neighborhood. Twenty years ago, the racism I witnessed was also deeply troubling. The Missouri Ku Klux Klan was by its own description attempting to get stronger and more powerful by attracting more affluent and well-educated members by attempting to sponsor programming on the university radio station. The station refused to cooperate, and so the klan sued the state of Missouri in federal court to try to force the station to take its money, and read a promotional underwriting statement for the klan on air. At the federal courthouse in downtown St. Louis I had the opportunity to interview the leader of the Missouri klan. Someone might be tempted to be sympathetic to his cause, as long as that someone hadn’t bothered to educate themselves on 150 years of klan history. When listening to voices in controversial moments in time, people of good faith should be careful to listen and feel for the presence of that deeper grace generated through the love of Jesus Christ. That grace will reveal the sinful from the just.

From a St. Louis art exhibit promotion/maatology.blogspot.com

From a St. Louis art exhibit promotion/maatology.blogspot.com.

The most telling thing in that interview happened in the last couple of minutes of our conversation. That’s when it became clear that what he was saying and what he was doing were two very different things.
Jesus talking to his disciples in Matthew 16 asks them to describe who the people of Caesarea Philippi are saying he is. Caesarea Philippi is an interesting location for this conversation to take place. Located about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee, Caesarea was the center of worship for a number of pagan gods, the local community attraction being a huge natural spring feeding the Jordan River. Jesus and his disciples traveled there after an encounter with the Pharisees and Sadducees, who had teamed up to trap him, demanding he show them a sign to back up his claim of power. Instead, he makes a bold move for justice, confronting them in return, naming them as evil and unfaithful followers of God, who could understand the signs of impending weather, but who failed to recognize all the signs of their own hoped-for Messiah. And so into this atmosphere of blindness and accusation by God’s own people, into this town filled with pagan worshippers, Jesus puts the question to his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” The response varies – some say Elijah, some say John the Baptist, or Jeremiah. Then Jesus asks Simon directly, “Who do you say that I am?”

"Who do you say I am?" - Jesus

“Who do you say I am?” – Jesus

Simon’s answer is you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. This very interesting answer brings together both Hebrew and pagan traditions to claim Jesus’ kingship, the titles acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. In Hebrew that is the royal title of “anointed one” and the Son of God, another Hebrew title for royalty. Son of God was also used by Greek leaders, including the first Roman emperor Augustus, as a title of divine authority. Of course, we have inserted here that Jesus is son of the Living God. Not a cold pagan statue, or some pagan God in some undead netherworld who has to be charmed into appearing – a living God who walks among his people and gives them eternal life.

"You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." - Simon Peter

“You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” – Simon Peter

Jesus renames Simon as Peter, a play on his name, which means rock, and names him as the rock he will build his Church on. To be more exact, Jesus proclaims not Peter himself, but his faith, as God-inspired. Not the result of any experience Peter has had of his own effort, but that his faith is built by the work of God himself. The kind of faith God establishes in Peter is the faith that Jesus names as the foundation of the Body of Christ, the living Church that will remain on earth after his death, resurrection and ascension. The living Church that is charged with loving in his name and building the kingdom until Jesus returns to complete his work in the remaking of Creation.
To his Church represented by Peter, Jesus leaves the keys of the kingdom and the authority to act in his name with heavenly power. The keys of the kingdom is the knowledge inspired by God in Peter, the understanding Jesus leaves with us that he is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one through whom we are reconciled to God in his sacrifice and through whom we have access to eternal life.
Our authority is the power of God lived through the Church to the world. The keys and the authority – these are the tools of our Gospel mission. What we say, and what we do. Holding the keys to the kingdom means we have a responsibility to say to others that there is a saving grace in knowing Jesus Christ. Having authority means that we have a responsibility to do actions that build up the kingdom – to do acts of love, mercy and justice in the world in his name.
As members of God’s holy, catholic and apostolic Church, what we say is as important as what we live. What we live is as important as what we say – because in both of those things, as representatives of the Church, we are speaking for Jesus Christ. We are living for Jesus Christ. In all places, at all times.
With the events in Ferguson and what seems to be a growing racial divide around the country, there is a growing call from within the Church for us to use our voices and our actions to live what we claim to believe – the love of Jesus for everyone, everywhere. Some of the hardest conversations we have and most challenging actions we take are in the course of race relations here in East Texas. Yet Jesus calls us to say and to do words and actions of justice, mercy, and grace – in all places, at all times. This week there were a lot of words and actions in Ferguson, words and actions of hate and peace.
Be reassured that God is with us in these difficult days – he never leaves us nor forsakes us. I want to close with some encouraging words of grace I came across in an Episcopal News Service story this week. It is a quote from a woman named Catherine who is a member of St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Morrow, Georgia, near Atlanta:
“My hope lies in the fact that I believe in the church we have a chance. Celebrating Holy Communion is so important because it reminds us that we’re committed to something bigger than ourselves. I believe the church is the place where we can develop real dialogue, real trust and model a different way to be with one another. We’ve got a long way to go to get there, but I think we stand a chance if we are willing to be open to what we say we believe.”
May what we say, and what we do, be what we believe.

Read, mark, and inwardly digest.

Dear fellow Episcopalians: Read, mark, and inwardly digest.

 

 

Get Out and Start Walking – Sermon Aug. 10, 2014

Yesterday, Steve and I had the chance to take a tour of a B-17. During World War II, my grandfather flew on one of these airplanes. I’d heard about B-17s all my life, and seen them in photos and the movies and on old news reels, but I’d never actually been in front of one in person. For some reason, I’d always thought they were pretty huge, but they’re not. You know it couldn’t have been too big, because this one landed at the Angelina County Airport in rural East Texas, not exactly a military or commercial-length landing strip.

The "Texas Raiders," a B-17 in the Commemorative Army Air Forces that we toured when it visited Lufkin, Texas.

The “Texas Raiders,” a B-17 in the Commemorative Army Air Forces that we toured when it visited Lufkin, Texas on Aug. 9, 2014.

My grandfather was a second lieutenant and the navigator on a B-17, and I got to go underneath the cockpit area and stand for a while in the little space overlooking the windows toward the nose, where he would have sat during missions on the left side at a small wooden desk, working with his maps to keep the plane on course.

My grandfather's "office" space, the navigator's desk.

My grandfather’s “office” space, the navigator’s desk.

What struck me as I stood there was how he and the crew must have felt as they got into that plane day after day, facing this hard, and uncomfortable, and dangerous work, knowing they were going into harm’s way. They were all so young, men in their early 20s, mostly. There were pretty much ordinary guys, with families waiting for them back home. So, how did they do it? Where did they find the courage?
In Matthew 14 we have twelve disciples who Jesus has compelled to get into a boat and go around to the other side, while he breaks up the huge crowd they’d fed in the miracle of the loaves and fishes we heard about last week. I’m sure the disciples didn’t want to be parted from him, or to leave him alone without any support. But the Scripture doesn’t say he asked them politely, or begged them, or gently hoped they’d get into the boat. It says he made them get in. The crowd goes home and the disciples are in the boat, and he gets back to the solitude and prayer that he’d been heading for when the crowds found him. He spends the better part of the night on the mountain, and meanwhile a storm has whipped up and blown the disciples’ boat from the shore out into the sea, and they can’t get back to Jesus because the wind is against them.
This is like their experience in Chapter 8 when the disciples are together in a boat in a storm and their ship is getting swamped and they all think they’re going to die – but Jesus is with them, although he’s asleep, and they wake him up and he said then, like he says in today’s story, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he calms the wind and the sea with a command, and the disciples wonder what kind of man he is, that he can control the elements. Did you catch that? They wonder what kind of MAN he is. Not whether he’s God, but what kind of man he is.
In today’s story Jesus blows any kind of doubt about who he is out of the water – literally. The disciples spot him walking toward them across the water through the storm. They are terrified. It is storming, but they’re not afraid of the water. They think what they see is a spirit of some kind, Jesus’ ghost, or possibly some kind of evil that is heading toward them, and they’re stuck with no Jesus to wake up and help them this time. Jesus calls out to them, immediately, “Take heart.” In some versions it reads “have courage.” Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. This “it is I” phrase Jesus uses here is the same translation of the Hebrew name God uses for himself in Exodus 3 with Moses in the story of the burning bush when he says “I AM who I AM,” “tell them it is I AM who has sent you.” Jesus is in the storm, telling the disciples exactly who he is and who has sent him. “I AM God. This is who has sent me. Don’t be afraid.”

My favorite wall hanging in my office space at church. Jesus, walking on the water toward his disciples in the pre-dawn light, perhaps already calling to Peter, "Come!"

My favorite wall hanging in my office at church. Jesus, walking on the water toward his disciples in the pre-dawn light, perhaps already calling to Peter, “Come!”

Peter, always the one to push the envelope, asks Jesus to further prove who he is. If that’s you, call me out into the water, he says. And Jesus says, “Come.” Peter gets off to a good start, but as soon as he pays more attention to the situation than to the Savior, he starts sinking, and calls out for Jesus to save him. Jesus immediately reaches out a hand and pulls him up, asking, like he did before, “Why do you doubt, You of little faith?” They climb into the boat together and the wind dies, and the disciples, finally, understand – at least at this moment – and worship him as the Son of God.
We live our lives in an ocean of change. One day things are calm, and suddenly, without any warning, we may find ourselves in the midst of a storm. There are storms we face on the outside, caused by circumstances or people beyond our control, or storms happening within ourselves. There are storms that happen in our families, our church, our community, and sometimes, you may feel like you’re sinking. How do we handle that? How do we get up every day and keep doing this hard and uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous work of living in this stormy world? God is always with us, and we can be sure that when we cry out to him, Jesus hears us, immediately. And his Holy Spirit comes to comfort us, immediately.
Those men on that B-17 – they did it because they shared a common goal. They were ordinary guys, who were bound together in a mission to fight for freedom and to make the world a better place, especially for the families they were hoping to get back to. Some of them made it, and some of them, like my grandfather, didn’t. Surely some of them, probably most of them, were scared at times, but they still answered the call to serve. God was always with them.

The disciples were ordinary folks who answered an extraordinary call to serve, and God empowered them for ministry.

The disciples were ordinary folks who answered an extraordinary call to serve, and God empowered them for ministry. He still calls – and empowers – his disciples for extraordinary things today, if we’re willing to get out of the boat.

The disciples were ordinary people – fisherman, tent-makers. They were regular guys who had families waiting for them back home, but they were bound together in a common mission. They had all answered Jesus’ call to ministry. They were at times also called to face ridicule and even death. They had to go out into real storms, more than once, and they were scared, and some of them handled it better than others – but they were never abandoned by God.
We are the Body of Christ. We are the Church. We all have gifts for ministry, but we are also all ordinary people, people who come from regular jobs and regular lives to answer God’s call to serve, and this binds us together in a common mission to love others in the name of Jesus. Sometimes we handle our mission to love others well, and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we find ourselves faced with heading into a storm. Even then, God is with us.
Notice in both storm stories that Jesus doesn’t make everything peaceful first and then says, “Everything’s all right now, I’ve fixed it. You can look.” No, it’s still storming and the wind is still blowing when he reveals himself and says, “Don’t be afraid, I am God, and I am here with you.” It’s not until after he immediately comes to comfort us that he calms the storm. God is sovereign over all creation, and nothing will stop him from working out his purpose – even the worst of storms.

The truth is that sometimes we don’t have the courage to get out of the boat. Years ago, a pastor named Ernest Campbell said “the reason that we seem to lack faith in our time is that we are not doing anything that requires it.”
Like Peter, Jesus is calling to us to get out of the boat and to start walking. He calls us to walk into places and situations in our church and community ministries that require faith, because they require us to be uncomfortable, and to take risks for the sake of the Gospel. The key to finding peace in the storm is in understanding that we don’t take our comfort from situations. We don’t take comfort from trying to keep everything perfect. We take our comfort from God. We have a God who reveals himself to us when we are scared, who hears us when we call out to him, and who reaches out and pulls us back up to safety first, before he ever stops to calm the storm.

I read something interesting this week on the phrase “you of little faith.” When Jesus said in both disciples’ storm stories, “Oh you of little faith, why do you doubt?” what if we look at the phrase not as a negative, not as saying they don’t have much faith, but as a positive, like the story of the mustard seed. True faith is so powerful that all it takes to do a great thing is to have a “little faith.” Peter had just enough faith to step out of that boat and start moving toward Jesus, and that’s the same guy, this guy who started sinking, who became the rock that Jesus chose to build his church on. That gives me a lot of hope, because even if we fail in our faith at times, just getting out of the boat can make a difference in God’s Kingdom. If we will focus on having just a little faith, then we have all we need to start walking.

I told you it was my favorite. Look again: Could this be Peter, walking toward Jesus? Is it you, answering Jesus' call to get out of the boat? Have courage, start walking!

I told you it was my favorite. Look again: Could this be Peter, walking toward Jesus? Is it you, answering Jesus’ call to get out of the boat? Have courage, start walking!

Texas Independence and the Transfiguration of Jesus

So what exactly do Texas Independence Day and the Transfiguration of Jesus have to do with each other?

My daughter, pointing out our ancestor's name on the list of signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

My daughter, pointing out our ancestor’s name on the list of signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

On this day we are observing Transfiguration Sunday. Also on this day, March 2, in 1836, 178 years ago, a group of convention delegates gathered at Washington-on-the-Brazos to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence. One of those delegates who signed the declaration was my Uncle Elijah Stapp. My great-great-great-great-great uncle, actually. A few years ago, my father, my husband and I took the kids to Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park. We toured the museum and grounds, took in a stage show and made a point of hunting for Elijah in group portraits, and in the list of signer’s names on the monument outside.

One of the more interesting parts of our visit was seeing people in period dress re-enacting pioneer life in the 1830s at an outdoor campsite. My favorite was the guy who portrayed Sam Houston – you know, the guy that huge city in Texas is named after? That’s the one. I’d first seen him leaning against a wall inside the museum, and confess I got a bit giggly with excitement. I’m not sure if there’s a Sam Houston fandom, but I might be the de facto fan club president. Years ago, I started my college career at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, and several of my friends graduated from Sam, as SHSU students called it. My best friend in college (now my kids’ godmother) was studying to be an archivist, and she and I spent a lot of time wandering around the Sam Houston museum on campus. My husband and I were actually engaged right on the museum grounds. So that day visiting Washington-on-the-Brazos with my kids, seeing Sam Houston in person was awesome. Like the original, reported   to

He wasn't really this big - he just acted like it. This is his statue at Huntsville, Texas.

He wasn’t really this big – he just acted like it. This is his statue at Huntsville, Texas.

be about six-feet-six-inches tall, this guy was imposing, with great-big mutton chop sideburns. He was the well-dressed version of Sam Houston, in a cutaway Southern gentleman’s coat and shiny, knee-high leather riding boots. The actor really got into the part, striding about confidently on his long legs. He was what you would picture a larger-than-life character from the pages of Texas history would be like. He WAS Sam Houston.

 Later, while touring the grounds, we spotted Sam Houston walking across the lawn. “Look kids! There goes Sam Houston!,” I said excitedly, my outstretched arm tracking his trajectory. “Look, he’s walking into the parking lot…he’s looking for something. ….He’s – getting in his Nissan Sentra and driving away. Um. Bye Sam Houston.” My pointed arm turned into a wave at his departing vehicle. Talk about bursting my bubble. Of course, the kids didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all – it was really me who was reacting like Santa Claus had pulled off his beard in front of my kids.

This last Sunday in the season of Epiphany we are observing a transformation that doesn’t disappoint – Transfiguration Sunday. Christ’s physical revelation of himself as the Son of God, described in Matthew 17. There’s a sense of completeness as we finish Epiphany as we began it all those weeks ago at Christmas with the first incarnational revelation, God revealing that he has become flesh and blood in the Baby Jesus. And today, we end Epiphany with the Transfiguration, the flesh and blood man revealing that he is, in fact, also God. For Peter, it’s just a few days after he acknowledges that the One he is following is the Messiah, the Son of God. Peter is the rock on which Jesus plans to build his Church. Yet Peter, James, and John are struggling to accept the news that together with Christ, they are journeying into Jerusalem and toward his sacrificial death, and resurrection. We’ve all lost friends, but I can’t imagine how hard it is to ponder losing the one you’ve give up everything to follow, who is your hope for the salvation of your people.

Jesus takes Peter and James and John up the mountain with him, and before their eyes, he is transformed. His face shines like the sun, his clothes are radiant white. And if that weren’t enough, appearing with him are two pillars of the Hebrew faith, Moses and Elijah (the original one, not my uncle). Suddenly Christ’s disciples see in him a real, tangible vision of who he really is – God’s son, the fulfillment of both the law and the prophets.

Transfiguration, abstract. Lewis Bowman.

Transfiguration, abstract.
Lewis Bowman.

And Peter, the Rock, the Foundation, has a predictable reaction. He suddenly wants to start building right there and then. This is great, Lord, to be here, he says. We’ll build three places for you, Elijah and Moses. You’ll stay in them here awhile and….God cuts him off. While Peter is still talking, God interrupts and makes his pronouncement over Jesus, the son with whom he is well pleased, calling Peter to stop building and to start listening. God demands Peter acknowledge the moment happening before him, the moment of God revealing himself. Understandably, they are terrified and fall on their faces. The next sensation they experience is Jesus, his hand touching them, his words gently reassuring them to get up and not be afraid. It’s not like they’ve been through much – seeing God’s glory, hearing his voice, and all. “Oh, and don’t tell anyone about this until later,” Jesus says, as they’re walking down the mountain. That may seem less than compassionate for their fears, even harsh. But in today’s reading from 2 Peter, we discover the wisdom in Jesus’ response. Jesus is preparing his disciples for the work ahead. They need time to process their growing understanding of who he is, and they will need these epiphanies as anchors to hold them through the rough times, to hold up against their experiences in both the glory and the dark days of Christ’s ministry to come. They are witnesses to the fact that the Gospel is not a myth – because they have seen it with their own eyes.

Get started slowing down for Lent. paulist.org.

Get started slowing down for Lent.
paulist.org.

As we get ready to enter Lent this week, it’s time to slow down. To look at how we encounter the revelation of God’s glory in our life and ministry, particularly when it comes to suffering. This Lent, as we walk with Jesus through Jerusalem and toward his cross, we understand again how he suffered for us, and how we are witnesses to the fact that he is with us in our suffering.

 Because of this epiphany – understanding God’s sacrificial love for us – we are a people whose particular ministry can include the ability to sit with those who are suffering in a way nobody else can. People who are dying, who are ill or who have lost dear loved ones want a safe place to talk about it. We can be that safe place. Fear of what to say to the grieving is what keeps us from doing ministry. It’s what keeps us from making a hospital or nursing home visit, or picking up the phone, or going to the house where somebody’s lost a loved one. But the good news is that we don’t have to know what to say: Instead of the typical response of shutting up the grieving with “Everything’s going to be ok,” or telling a joke or whatever we think we have to say instead of listening, we can stop building excuses and instead be quiet enough to listen for what nobody else will let them say: I’m scared. I don’t want to die. I don’t know how to live without my child.

The reason we can do that is because we don’t serve a myth. We serve a God who offers us freedom and independence from sin in Jesus Christ. We serve a God who reveals himself in the midst of suffering. And because of this, we are witnesses who can tell the firsthand story of his glory, revealed in shining moments, or in a gentle touch on our shoulder, saying, “Get up. Don’t be afraid.”

The Uncomfortable Confusion of Advent

Sermon preached Dec. 8, 2013 at the Iona School for ministry, The Episcopal Diocese of Texas

A senior student in priesthood studies, I began this Advent 2 sermon – a practicum given before the dean, faculty and students, after standing in silence in the pulpit for the first few minutes.

Interesting, isn’t it – what happens when we wait, especially when we’re not quite sure what’s coming next. Depending on your perception of what was happening the last couple of minutes, whether you figured out what I was doing, or you were somewhat confused, each of you were probably at least a little uncomfortable. You may have thought “Oh no, she’s living out one of those Iona School nightmares: she’s hit the homiletic wall and it is Deer in the Headlights Time”. Now I’m not going to say that will never happen to me, but at least that wasn’t what happened today.

Today I want to invite you to explore with me this feeling of uncomfortable confusion. It’s a feeling that doesn’t set well with us here at the beginning of the second week of Advent. As the rest of the world rushes and hurries into a premature Christmas season, this is the time when we who follow a liturgical progression through our walk of faith intentionally turn down a different path. We pace ourselves, working from the very first day of Advent to be quiet, reflective, peaceful, waiting an entire month to complete lighting one wreath. Putting our trees up late and leaving them up while all the others are back in boxes the day after Christmas or turning brown on the curb. It would drive most people up a wall to wait that long, but to us this annual slow intention is very familiar, very comforting.

            Yet our readings this Advent are far from quiet and comforting. The Gospel of Matthew gives us John the Baptist. John, an imposing figure to say the least. The colorful details of his location, clothing and diet form an image of a wild and wooly prophet: Living in the wilderness, dressed in a shaggy camel’s coat with a big, thick leather belt cinched at his waist. He’s lean to the point of that startling kind of gauntness from a diet of honey and bugs. 

No exactly kind of guy who inspires comfortable thoughts of "peace" and "quiet."

No exactly kind of guy who inspires comfortable thoughts of “peace” and “quiet.”

His speech isn’t any more comforting than this appearance. His simple but startling call to Repent!, and his warning that this foreign kingdom is right on our doorstep cuts across the layered practices of Jewish religious life, disturbing the comfortable, dependable structures of written law, tearing his way through the hedges of the Mishnah to proclaim the arrival of Salvation through the Messiah. “Comfort” and “peace” are not the words that come to mind when picturing an encounter with John the Baptist.

            Yet people from all over were flocking to him, drawn to his message, his proclamation of the advent – the coming – of the Lord. We have this idyllic, pastoral scene of people streaming in toward the River Jordan, and John taking them each in turn, one after another, drawing up in his arms soul after soul washed clean of sin in the waters of baptism. But just as we’re settling into that lovely idea, the peace of this image is quickly broken as the John the Baptist confronts the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, with one of the most venomous direct condemnations by a prophet recorded in Scripture: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” 

Walken into that uncomfortable part of Scripture right. about. now.

uncomfortableHow dare you presume to think you’re going to get a free pass on what the Lord requires of you – just try slip by without true repentance. He’s ready now to wipe you out. I may be using water to baptize you, but he’s going to use the Holy Spirit and fire. He will clear this place out, keeping the good for himself, and burning up the bad.

            Not really much room in there for a peaceful Advent. In fact, as we slip into our familiar, cozy practices of preparation and gentle anticipation, few of the rest of our Advent lectionary readings to this point have been comforting or comfortable. Instead they include calls to action, end-time Kingdom visions, fervent, unsettling warnings to stay awake and alert, and to be prepared for the triumphant, unexpected, thief-in-the-night return of Jesus, who brings not a quiet peace, but a peace forged in God’s unexpected justice and mercy, handed out with a love like nothing the world has seen or can understand.

C.S. Lewis filled several notebooks with writings on grief after the death of his wife. Those notebooks were published as the short book, “A Grief Observed.” In it, Lewis is struggling to come to terms with her loss, and finds himself worrying over the accuracy of the photos that he has left of her. He fears that along with the photos, his memories of her, his perception of how he experienced her, are all he has left to define her image – and he is scared that never again will he know a fully real and accurate version of who she was.

            His experience of time spent moving through this very uncomfortable grief, transforms his view of his attempts at understanding God, and who he is in relationship to the Divine.“My idea of God is not a divine idea,” he writes. “It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself. God is the great iconoclast.” Lewis goes on to say that the very act of God shattering his own image is one of the marks of the presence of God, with the Incarnation as the supreme example that leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins.

            As we continue to move through Advent, I encourage you not to be afraid to feel uncomfortable with your thoughts on where God is in your life, and who you are in relationship to him. I encourage you not to be afraid to sit with those who are also experiencing discomfort. 05262012_Mind-Spirit_Are-you-comfortable-being-uncomfortable-IMAGE_Shepherd1-300x206This is a season to take courage to look deep into ourselves. This is a time to face and acknowledge the selfish, hateful, sinful things we may find there, and with God’s grace to pull them out by the root, making straight the path for God’s continued entrance into our lives, and the lives of those we serve. This is the time to sit with the uncomfortable grief over what has been or is being taken away from us, so that we can rediscover that God is not only about taking away. In Advent we discover again that God always gives and is giving to us a new life, and a new purpose. He is always about the work of building his Kingdom through us.

Writer Martyn Jones says that in his grief C.S. Lewis’ theology, collapses but is raised again to show the signs of its wounds. I believe it is the collapse that we fear, yet it is in those shattering experiences that we encounter the presence of the Divine Healer, who is always working out his purpose in us. The times in our ministry where we walk with the grieving can be among the hardest work we do – to sit in pastoral care with the uncomfortable, to see up close and personal, and perhaps reflected in ourselves, the fears of the people sitting in our pews and walking our streets, whom we love and serve as ministers of God’s Church. ChangeIsUncomfortable

Advent is the time to take a deep breath and to come to terms with the uncomfortable reality that the Jesus whose body was broken for the sake of the world, this same Passover sacrificed for us, is also the peace-bringer we are quietly seeking. We are called to preach and to teach that a Resurrected, Scarred Savior heals shattered lives. In the course of our ministries there will be times when we will ask the people trusted to our care to enter peacefully into that uncomfortable space of God’s taking away, and God’s restoration. Whether we minister through tragedy or well-being, as clergy we are called to live an active peace, a peace centered in the unsettling confusion of waiting with God’s people for his purpose to be revealed and fulfilled.

Be aware this Advent of becoming too quiet too soon. Of being unprepared by settling too quickly and easily into spiritual practices that fail to offer the gift of discomfort . Peace does not begin with us. It is not of our own making, but comes through the working out of God’s uncomfortable justice. This Advent season we do not start with peace, but daily we are arriving at a peace that will be completed on that silent and holy night, when Emmanuel, God With Us, will shatter the world’s idea of a Savior. Amen.

 

Life Beyond the Door/St. Paul’s sermon Oct. 20

Robert Coney, 76, a free man, holding his wife's hand outside the Angelina County Jail in Lufkin, Texas/Photo:The Lufkin Daily News

Robert Coney, 76, holding a family member’s hand, walking out of the Angelina County Jail in Lufkin, Texas in 2004./Photo: The Lufkin Daily News

In 1962, Robert Coney was a young, African-American male traveling through East Texas when he was caught up in a nightmare. The victim of a case of mistaken identity, Robert was arrested and charged with robbing a grocery store, and convicted to life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He had not been allowed to speak to an attorney until the day he appeared before a judge, a guilty plea forced out of him by crushing two of his fingers between the iron bars of a jail cell. In 1976, a judge looking at the case set aside Robert’s conviction. But for reasons still unclear, that decision was never communicated to the right people in order to set him free. And Robert, sitting in prison, never knew he had in fact been freed – at least on paper. In 2004, another judge going through old files came across Robert’s case and found the error and evidence of a wrongful conviction, and immediately set in motion having the case overturned. A young journalist covering the crime beat at the time, I was there the day Robert Coney, 76, walked out of prison and into the arms of his family. The story made national news. How could it not? A black man in the South set free after serving more than 40 years of a life sentence for which he was wrongfully convicted, was compelling news, to say the least. I couldn’t help thinking of him that evening and the next day, and for several days after. The question that lingered was this: if you’ve spent a lifetime without hope, how do you live into that justice when it finally arrives at your door? I had this image in my head of Robert Coney waking up that first free morning at home, standing in the doorway of his bedroom, waiting for some imaginary steel door to slide open and a voice of authority to order him about the business we all take for granted, like showering and eating breakfast. Robert’s story came to mind this week as I read the Gospel lesson from Luke 18:1-8, about the persistent widow and the judge with no respect for God nor man who finally granted her justice because she didn’t give up. How much more, Jesus says in this Parable to his disciples, does our Eternal Judge, the God who loves us, desire to give justice quickly to his chosen who cry to him day and night? Will we be persistent in the Faith, praying to our Heavenly Father and placing all our trust in him in the midst of an unjust world? Or will the Son of Man return to find us without faith? Like Robert, we may feel hopeless. We may have suffered injustice in our life and feel there is no way out. We may know others who have. But unlike Robert, we do not have to miss out on the story of our own freedom. We will go out of here today with a message of freedom and hope for ourselves and for others. The message is this: Jesus Christ died and rose again for our sins and we are forgiven and reunited with God in that act of redemption. We are free. Even as we wait for justice, we are free. We have a hope in us that carries us forward, safe in knowing we have a God who loves us and gives us strength. As others search for their justice, they are already free in Christ Jesus. But like Robert, they may not know it. It is our work as Christians to tell them the decision has already been made. They are free, and they can begin to live their lives knowing the hope of God that is in them. So when God’s justice arrives at their door, they will be able to live into it. We as the Church are called to go to our own doorway and to step out of it into the world, without waiting for someone to come by and open it. Without waiting for someone to tell us we can go and serve. We are free. It is time to start living our freedom. It is time to start living God’s justice in the world. Amen.