Nutshell - A Sermon

I am sorry I’m not here today, but Deacon David has agreed to read my sermon so you won’t feel too deprived. To make up for my absence, I have doubled the length of the sermon. Just kidding.

But the context of this sermon IS important. Because what the lessons today talk about is nothing less than the gospel in a nutshell.

One of the things I make the Confirmation Class memorize each year is the summary of the law, which is taken from today’s Gospel lesson. Why would I do that? Because it is the key to life.

In this passage, a man comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus throws the question back at the man who replies: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your strength and with all your mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

That’s it. The entire Good News: Love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Do that, and you’ll live.

But what does it mean? What the heck is Jesus talking about when he says “LOVE?” I tend to be a little more sympathetic to the young man who asks this question of Jesus because I’m constantly confused as to what it means to love -- and as to who my neighbor is. I bet I’m not alone.

Of course, Jesus answers this question with the parable of the Good Samaritan -- which tells us that everyone is our neighbor, and that therefore we are to come to the aid of all who are in need.

HOW do we love: the illegal immigrant, the church that wants to throw us out, the employer who acts unfairly to us, the exec of BP? Or can we limit it to those who need our help?

I don’t know. I have a hard enough time reaching out to those strangers who present themselves to St. James’ looking for financial help. Even when I know their need is sincere and great. Sometimes it’s hard to reach out beyond ourselves -- to really love those who are not close to us.

I do know that this attitude is not new. The prophet Amos proclaimed in a most unpleasant manner God’s condemnation of Israel for not loving their neighbors -- and he did this even while the people of Israel thought they were in God’s good graces.

You see, things were going well in Israel at the time. King Jeroboam is enjoying a period of relative peace, and his priest Amaziah has given him the spiritual thumbs up. Because in that culture, wealth and health were a sign of God’s blessing.

Then comes along Amos from the south, and he says, “This is not what God wants!” He says, “It’s okay to enjoy health and well-being, but never at the cost of ignoring the poor.”

Now, you don’t really get this from this week’s reading -- just that Amos is not doing his prophecy for the money, but rather to obey God. But wait till next week’s reading!

And yet, Amos’s form of love is that he -- initially at least -- is obeying God even when there’s nothing in it for him. He knows he’s going to get grief. He goes because he knows God wants to give the Israelites a wake-up call -- a chance to turn around from their selfish and destructive ways. He calls them to learn mercy and kindness.

Bringing this hard news to people is also loving God and your neighbor. Which is the gospel in a nutshell.

Just one more note. These lessons seem to indicate that love is seen in actions. But remember that the actions are empty if they do not come from within - from a desire to serve rather than to gain. That’s not easy. But since when was love -- that is to say the Gospel -- ever easy? Amen.

What is a Priest? - A Sermon

Happy Mother’s Day! In a way, this sermon would be easier if I were a woman because female priests in our church are called “Mother.” I tried to get my cousin Kristin, who is also a priest, to come, but she’s out in California, so that didn’t work. So, for the moment, pretend you’re looking at my cousin Kristin. Because instead of preaching on the lessons, I want to talk about the kind of Mother that is a priest. Which is to say, I want to talk about what a priest is.

Why? Well, I went to the annual priests conference this week and I admit, we had a great time. We sang along with Pete Seeger, we rode horses, we had great discussions on what it means to live in harmony with creation. All great.

But there’s something else you do at a priests conference. You talk about what it means to be a priest.

At the Tuesday Eucharist, Canon Andy Dietsche preached and told us about a friend of his who wrote mystery novels. His friend – I can’t remember his name – told him that while each novel was different, they all had something in common. The detective.

The detective didn’t have to be a cop or even a private eye. He or she could be anybody as long as they fulfilled one major criterion. He had to live between the two stories. There was the surface story – the story everyone saw. And then there was the deep story – what was really going on – the real killer, the real plot, the real reason for the crime. The detective was the one person in the story that everyone trusted to live between those two worlds. They could relate to the surface but also see at the deeper level what the others could not. In the end, the detective’s job was to help those on the surface level see and understand what was going on at the deep level. They solved the mystery.

Then Canon Dietsche said, “That’s what priests are. You’re like the detectives in a mystery novel.”

What he meant was that a priest has the job of living between two worlds. We live in the world as we all know it where we have bills to pay and kids to chase after, where we’re little league coaches and where we vote at the town hall and go shopping. But then, there is that deep level, the level of the soul, the level where we see and engage with God.

Now, I should say here that we are all priests in the sense of our baptismal vows. Remember, when people are baptized, we say, “share with us in his eternal priesthood.” To a degree, then we all spend time between the surface and the soul.

But every community needs someone to live there. The priest is that person designated by the community to dig deeper, to live between those two worlds. The priest’s job, like the detective, is to slowly reveal the clues that will help others grasp what’s going on at the level of the soul. Little by little, they reveal God at work.

When we talk about living between two worlds, it means that we walk around, we visit, we do chores – we live in every way on the surface. But we also are the person designated by the community to dwell in the place of the soul – we’re trusted to focus our lives studying God, reading scripture, praying and worshiping – all so we can bring what we’ve learned back to the community and help that deep place of the soul become a little clearer.

Now we should note that the job of priest does NOT include being an administrator – Thank You, Jesus! And St. James’ is thankful that parish administration does not fall solely into my hands, though at the surface level, even I have paperwork to do.

If you’ve heard that phrase, “living between two worlds” before, it might be when we talk about deacons. Their job is to live between the church and the world – to bring the world’s concerns to the church and, through their outreach ministries, the church’s good news to the world.

Priesthood isn’t that different. Only, our job is to live in a more vertical “in-between.” The surface to the soul.

Alas, there is a difference between detectives in mystery novels and priests. In every mystery novel I have ever read, the detective finds that bad guy down at the deep level and reveals him – mystery solved.

In priesthood, we don’t often solve anything. We just keep living there, exploring and reporting back as best we can. But it’s not in vain. Little by little, for each of us, hints and glimmers of the Kingdom of God come to the surface. We never get the whole picture, but we get enough clues to give us hope.

The detective’s story wraps up nicely – until the next novel. For priests, our story never ends. And although I don’t want to speak for other priests, I will – we wouldn’t have it any other way. Amen.

Fear and Loafing - A Sermon

If you have not heard the good news, I am delighted to share it with you now: Vacation Bibel School is over! No, really, it was a fantastic week with kids enjoying themselves so much that I’ve received at least two e-mail from parents asking us to keep their children for the rest of the summer! Of course, I mean that the children, asked why VBS could not go on longer.

In all seriousness, there was a special feel to VBS this year, and I think part of it was the phenominal work that so many people put into it, and the remarkable faith that the volunteers expressed. Twice, I went to the volunteers and said, “I don’t know, gang, we may have to cancel.” Twice they said to me, “We can do this, and we want to.”

My fear was that we were competing with bigger churches, using the same program during the same week (don’t ask me how that happened). My other fear was that we didn’t have enough staff or enough kids to justify the work. Sometimes, pastors need to hear words of courage from their parishioners, and that’s what I got from this amazing group.

All I can say is, when it looked to me like the spiritual cupboard was bare, people here found bread to spare.

By the way, four kids actually attended another church’s version of Camp E.D.G.E. in the morning and ours in the evening. Their parents told us that they really loved how even though they were the same programs, they were completely different. So as exhausted as I am by the week, I’m also thrilled.

Now, the kind of fear that I experienced was the kind that said, “I can’t do it. This will fail. Woe is me.” But you know other fears. The fear of David in today’s Old Testament: “I’m going to get caught!” Or the fear of the disciples in the Gospel which can roughly be translated as, “Eek! A ghost!”

All that fear, when you think about it, is rather silly. I mean, King David’s is justifiable because he knows he’s going to get into trouble if he gets caught. And with all his experience with God, he ought to know that he can’t hide what he did from God. But instead, he decides to do even worse harm by committing murder. He is so focused on what’s good for David that he ignores God and God’s people altogether. I’m guessing we’ve all been there. It’s not a good place.

But then, no fear feels good. The disciples were afraid of a ghost even though they have just returned from a mission trip in which they were healing the sick and casting out demons! They’re terrified of what they think is a ghost even though Jesus just fed 5,000 people with a couple of loaves and fishes! Why did they not get it? Are they that slow?

On the other hand, don’t we have enough experience with the disciples to know the answer to that question?

On the OTHER hand, we have even more experience with Jesus -- with God in general -- than David and the Disciples. We’ve heard their stories and seen God’s love and power for millenia. We -- or I should say I -- ought to know that all things are possible with God, that when we are doing God’s will, fear is generally misplaced.

It’s true that we can’t know how things will turn out when we start something new. But we don’t have to, either. The disciples had no idea that they would be able to cast out demons -- but Jesus told them to, so they did.

They had no idea that five loaves and a few fishes could feed 5,000, but Jesus said, “Make them sit down,” so they did.

Yet even so, we shriek in fear at things that we think might embarrass us or expose us to harm or just overwhelm us. We forget the lesson of the loaves just as quickly as we forget the lesson of the cross. And we forget God’s promise.

That promise is that God will feed us with what we need to do the work we’ve been given on this earth. And God will never abandon us but will love us always.

That might not seem like much, but it is enough to drive away fear. We have enough to do the job. That’s all that’s promised, and that’s all that’s needed. We might not know exactly what the job is or how it’ll turn out, but we can always move forward knowing God is with us.

Which makes my fear about VBS seem all the sillier. Fortunately, God knows our fears,forgives them, and helps us move beyond them. Because the thing we can trust most is that God loves us always, and love forgives even our lack of faith and our fear. Amen.

Dangerous Dancing - a Sermon

It is my grandmother’s fault that I can’t dance. Her, and the Methodists.

Inside, I’m Fred Asataire, but outwardly, I look like a Walrus trying to get back to the sea or a chicken trying to take flight.

I blame my grandmother, of course, because she was … a Methodist. Not just any Methodist, of course, but a country Methodist. Of course, they did not allow alcohol, but they didn’t believe in movies or dancing. Especially dancing was dangerous because it led to, well, all sorts of things.

Since Granny never danced, my Dad never danced, and since he never danced, I was deprived of rhythm in my life. Dancing. Do it at your peril.

Now, you would have thought that my grandmother got this idea about dancing from the bible, and if you read the Old Testament and Gospel today, you might think she had a point. The dancing in each of these had a pretty bad outcome.

But, of course, the dancing back then was just as innocent as it is today despite all those terrible things Granny imagined it was guilty of. The dancing was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Take a look at the Gospel for a moment.

King Herod has imprisoned John the Baptist because John criticized Herod’s marriage to Herodias, who just happened to still be married to Herod’s brother Phillip. Got that? But at a birthday party, Herodias’ daughter dances beautifully for him -- the way I do inside, I’m sure -- and is rewarded with a promise of anything she wants, up to half his kingdom.

The girl may have been a great dancer, but she wasn’t very bright. She had to go to her mother and ask what she wanted! Of course, Herodias knew: John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Personally, if I were the girl, I’d have taken a chalet on the Mediterranean. Either way, dancing gets a bad wrap. It was all that darn Herodias’ fault.

Things are even more of a soap opera in the Old Testament. There, King David finally brings home the ark of the covenant and dances in ecstasy as it’s brought into his city. Any king would probably have done the same thing. But his wife Michal sees him from her window and despises him. Why is she such a party pooper?

Don’t be too hard on poor Michal. She and David actually loved each other at one point. But that was when Saul was king, and he only allowed her to marry David because he thought he could use David’s love for Michal to get David killed. As a bride-price, he required David to go get 100 Phillistine foreskins. Saul assumed David would die in the attempt, but David succeeded, and Sau was forced to give her to David in marriage.

But soon David had to flee for his life from Saul. While on the run, David married two other women who are kind to him, and Saul gave Michal to another man to be his wife.

Upon returning and gaining the throne (after battle with Saul in which Saul is killed), David reclaimed Michal. There’s no description of how she felt about it, but just think: when he fled, she was his only wife, and her father was still alive. Now he comes back with other wives - and his army is responsible for her father’s and brother’s deaths. That’s got to put a crimp in the relationship.

So is it any wonder she might find an excuse to publicly despise him? When David brings the ark home with ecstatic dancing -- in which he is barely clad -- she confronts him -- just after the section we read in church -- and argues that he danced nearly naked in front of the servant girls. It was unseemly for a king, she said. She blamed the dancing -- but it’s clear there was a whole lot more to it.

Now you might be thinking, so what? David and Michal lived a loveless life after that, big deal. But for the writer, it was because he ends Michal’s story by saying she died without having children. She was Saul’s last child. No children meant Saul’s line came to an end. It was over for Saul just as it was over for John the Baptist.

These two dancing stories result in tragic ends. But the dancing is innocent! Itjust allows us to see into the soap operas that so often populate the bible. It helps us realize that these were real people, real stories that were complex and conflicted. Even if the stories were tweaked by their authors, it’s real human drama. And that means that they are more like us than we want to imagine. Of course, that also means that we, like they, are dependent on God’s love far more than our own righteousness. Or our ability to dance. Amen.

Little -- A Sermon

So, I was driving my little smart car yesterday, and parked to do something.  When I went back to the car and wanted to get in,  there was a guy peeking in the windows and walking around it.  

Actually that happens quite a lot.  When it does, and they don't notice me approaching, I like to have a little fun.  My key has four buttons on it, and one of them is the red "panic" button.  It sets off an alarm and makes the lights flash.  I don't push that one.  I'm tempted but just can't bring myself to do it.  However, there's another button that unlocks the car.  When you push it, the car beeps just once, and the lights flash on and off.  It's just enough to make someone jump a little.  Maybe a mile or so.  So I did it.  And I enjoyed it.

The funny thing is, this almost always results in a conversation about the car.  It goes like this:  “What is it?  It’s so little!  What’s the mileage?  It’s so little it ought to get 100 miles a gallon.   How long does it take to wind it up?  Is it safe?  I mean, it’s so little!”

The next thing they say is either, “How can I get one?” or “What kind of nut are you for driving something so  little?”

We don’t really have a lot of respect for little in our culture.  Big is beautiful.  Fashion models are amazons.  Athletes are giants.  I can only name one NBA star who was ever my size.   Even in politics, tall wins.  I don’t want to sound defeatist but of all the presidents, only James Madison was shorter than me).    Our houses over the last fifty years went from large to obscene.  And some SUVs have gotten so big that people have to build new garages for them  As for churches, well, see if you can find any television churches with just 80 people in the pews.  

What’s so different about our society from others that makes BIG so attractive, and LITTLE so -- not?

Nothing.  It seems most societies like things bigger.  It makes them seem more powerful, safer, more important.  

Which makes the story of David’s selection as king rather odd.  The prophet Samuel was already unhappy with having to choose a new king.  Saul was still king, and although he wasn’t doing a great job, Samuel was loyal to him.  But in this story, God wanted someone new.

So Samuel went to Jesse as directed and started asking to see his sons.  And when he saw the first he said, “Oooh, he’s BIG.  He’s got to be the one.”  You know how the story goes.  He goes down the list of Jesse’s sons, each getting just a little smaller, until he’s left with the youngest and littlest -- and God says, “This is the one.”

The lesson, of course is,  “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”  It doesn’t hurt, however, that David is handsome and strong -- and that he WILL grow up to be big some day.  

Jesus makes a similar point with his story of the mustard seed.  It is the smallest of seeds, our story goes, but it will grow into the largest of shrubs, and birds will make their nest in it.  Just like little David, that tiny mustard seed will grow to be BIG.

But wait a minute.  All those stories seem to say is that something little can eventually BECOME big.  So BIG is still good?

What if you’re me?  I’m never going to get any bigger than I am!  My car is as big as it’s going to get.  What about that?  What happens if St. James’ continues to attract, say 100 people a Sunday?  Are we failures?

Let’s take a step back and look at our two stories for just a moment.  Did you notice that after Samuel annointed David, there were no trumpets blaring or honor guards?  Nobody bowed down.  More likely Jesse looked at Samuel, then at David and said, “Huh.  That was odd.  Now get back to work.”

It was years before David would then take the reigns of power.  He was not only little but hidden.  Nobody knew what was special about him - or that he would ever amount to anything.  

In the Gospel, we have the same thing.  That tiny seed is planted and then practically forgotten.  Their growth is secret and private; between God and them.  Keep that in mind as we return to folks like me who are little and will never play in the NBA or churches like ours that will never be the Crystal Cathedral.

Is there any value in staying little?  The answer is Yes.  And No.  

Obviously, for me, there’s no choice.  I’m little -- and actually as time goes by, I’ll get littler.  That’s biology.  Our church will possibly stay small, and that’s also okay.  We live in a small town, and though we can grow larger, being a small community is rather nice most of the time.

But what is hidden and between only God and us -- our hearts -- THERE we can grow.  And trust me, we do not want to stay little in our hearts.  Actually we don’t want to stay small in our minds either, because each of us has the capacity to continually grow.  Growing in our minds keeps us alert and engaged.  It helps us understand the world we live in and be an active part.

In the same way, growing in our hearts helps us better understand God, helps us be more like God, more caring and empathetic.  Growing in our hearts forces us out of immature self-centeredness and helps us see how what happens to you -- or a brother or sister halfway across the world -- affects me.  It helps us get beyond fear of death and poverty and such -- all those things we’re constantly trying to defend against or rise above -- and let go.  

To be fully engaged and loving the world yet ready to let go at a moment’s notice, like letting go of a balloon.  That’s where the growing heart leads - which means most of us still have a lot of growing to do.  But that’s okay.  This is growth that’s open to each of us no mattter how big or little we are.

It may not be visible, but then, the best growth never is.  Amen.

A Good Story Ruined - A sermon

Okay, I have a joke for you.  “That boy should have quit while he was a head.”  Get it?  No?  

Well, let’s try another:   “The boy gave this some thought then said to his mother, ‘Wait a minute mom. How do you get into the other kids’ houses?’”

Okay, this isn’t working.  Last try:  “A Lost Camel!”  Get it?

What’s the matter?  It’s like you’re missing part of the joke or something.

Which of course you are.  But that’s the problem with the Gospel reading you just  heard today.  You only get one part of it, which takes away part of the point Luke’s making. 

We heard today where Jesus shows amidst the disciples and terrified them because they think he’s a ghost.  But what it leaves out is that right  before this we have the famous “Road to Emmaus” story where two disciples meet Jesus on the road that first Easter Day, but they don’t recognize him.  So he teaches them about the resurrection, but they still don’t recognize him and invite him for dinner.  Finally, he breaks the bread and they recognize him.  Then he disappears, and they run back to tell the other disciples.

“We saw the Lord!” they say. “We recognized him in the breaking of the bread.”  The other disciples tell them that Simon Peter has also seen the risen Christ, and isn’t it exciting.  Then Jesus shows up again -- and they scream in terror.  They don’t recognize him at all.  They think he’s a ghost.  Even though they had seen him a little earlier, they don’t recognize him the second time around.

Now, granted this isn’t slapstick, but it just goes to show that you can’t understand things when you only take part of the story.  That’s why it’s always dangerous to just read little snippets of the bible -- there’s always more to the story.

And in this story what we get is a couple of things.  First, notice that Jesus is finally recognized in each of these scenes when there’s food around.  In Emmaus, they recognize him in the breaking of the bread.  In the next scene, he asks for food to prove he’s not a ghost.  Read through the Gospels, and you’ll see how important things tend to happen with Jesus when food is involved.

By the way, that’s why we have Coffee Hour -- oh, and communion.

But more important, sometimes things sound better as a story than the reality.  In fact, reality kind of ruins a good story.

All the disciples tell the story of seeing the risen Christ, but actually seeing him is much more confusing and terrifying.

It’s not that different from when we tell stories about our youth, when we were wild and crazy or brave and daring. [We usually tell stories to appear funny, brave, clever, or important] I used to tell friends about hitchhiking across Germany, and they’d say, “That is so cool!”  Until someone was so impressed that he said, “Let’s hitchhike here!”  The truth is, I’d never do it again.  I got cold, it took forever, and at least once I ended up in a car with people who made me uncomfortable.  Trust me, hitchhiking makes a better story than reality.

Then there's the story I wouldn't let my wife tell for ten years.  We were dating, and she had a birthday.  I decided to surprise her at work with a cake.  But she loves ice cream cake, and I was foolish enough to try to get all thirty candles on the cake.  You can guess the result -- the icing caught on fire, the cake melted all over the desk, and I was near tears.  She thought it was cute and funny and loves the story.  But the reality was not so pretty.

We tell a pretty good story in church, too.  Christ has Died.  Christ is risen!  Christ heals.  Christ says Love your neighbor as yourself.  Christ says, Pick up your cross and follow me!

Everything around Jesus sounds so great when we talk about it.  It’s only when it comes down to living it that things don’t seem so romantic.  

Instead, it can be mundane, just living each day trying to be a kind person.  Or uncomfortable -- ever reach out to someone in love who is NOT the type of person you’d prefer to associate with?  Or boring -- reading the bible puts you to sleep, trying to pray gets you nowhere.

Or terrifying -- you hear Jesus in the Gospel say, “sell everything and come follow me,” and you panic.  Because you know some people actually do that, actually give up everything and live in squallor for the sake of the Gospel.  Even that can sound romantic -- until you live it.

The point is, we say a lot about God’s love here in church.  But whatever we say can never touch reality.  Only you can go out there and live that love, live that life of following Christ.  And it probably won’t make a good story most of the time -- it’s not meant to.  But it will make a good life.

Hiding the Healing - A Sermon

5 Epiphany

February 8, 2009

There was once a boy who always carried a bandaid with him because his big brother was a scout, and their motto was “Be Prepared.”  One day he was out playing with his friends, and one of them got a cut.  Out comes the bandaid, and they go on playing.  A couple of days later, they’re out again, and another friend gets a cut.  They go to the boy, and out comes another bandaid.  After that, friends start coming to him for every little cut.  He has become “Bandaid Boy.”  They even get mad at him when five kids come to him at once, and he only has two bandaids. 

Bandaid Boy is a lot like Eternal Doorman.  You probably know Eternal Doorman -- maybe you’ve been him.  You know, you’re going to a restaurant, and you hold the door open for someone (to be polite).  Only, the second you turn around, you discover there’s a quarter-of-a-mile-long line streaming in behind that one person, and you can’t figure out how to get into the restaurant yourself.  Someone even hands you a tip!  

Well, Jesus is like the bandaid boy -- or the endless doorman.  Suddenly, that’s how people see him when that’s not what he came for.

He healed Peter’s Mother-in-Law out of compassion. (For Peter’s mother-in-law, it’s more than physical if only because hospitality was so important in those days -- people went into debt to practice hospitality.  It meant everything.  If she’s sick in bed, she can’t practice it, and she feels shame.  Worse than shame.  If she’s the householder, it’s a big deal.  So, for her to be able to get up and serve is relief.) Which seemed to spark a chain-reaction of everyone wanting healed -- and he couldn’t refuse.  So he took off in the morning even though everyone was looking for him.  He wanted to get back to what he came for.

 

The point of this gospel is that physical healing isn’t the point.  It’s not bad per se, it’s just not the point.  Sure, he healed many because it was the compassionate thing to do, but if Jesus came to raise the dead and heal -- then why would he pick and choose (discriminate)?  And Why would he stop?  Because it’s not the important thing in the big picture.  

What he really came to heal was our relationship with God, the relationship that is way beyond physical.  Because no matter how many times our bodies are healed, we know we’ll die.  We all do.  Healing is always at best temporary.  God’s love is eternal.  

That doesn’t mean we don’t heal those around us.  Of course we do to the best of our ability!  Jesus healed those who asked -- that’s compassion -- but he had to make it clear that it wasn’t his maid task or our main concern.  So do we.

Of course there’s another way to hide the healing going on -- refuse to see it.  When we see God at work -- heck when we refuse to see the good going on around us -- we have hidden the healing that is at work in the world all the time. 

Small example: A comedian named Louis CK was talking about how we live in an amazing world -- and nobody’s happy.  One small example he gave was airplanes.  He said nobody ever says, “Wow, I had a great flight.  We took off, we flew through the air, we landed safely.  I love it!”  No, each flight is a nightmare because they only served peanuts.  Or that the internet -- at 30,000 feet in the air -- was on the fritz.  Or that we had to wait for 40 minutes while they de-iced the plane.  How about looking out the window and thinking -- what a miracle that we can sit in a chair in the sky and go from coast to coast in a matter of hours, not months. 

There are more subtle miracles, too, and we refuse to see them as well.  People whose bodies fail them but who grow so deeply in their souls through a long sickness that they are healed even as they die.  People who find peace in the midst of turmoil, large and small.  This is healing, and we often miss it perhaps because we’re not looking.

This seems to be what Isaiah was getting at when he chides the people of Israel for not seeing God at work.  He calls out in frustration to the people, “Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?”  God’s work seems hidden -- because we choose not to see it.  We too often see only the surface -- hidden healing sees deeper.

So, there are two types of hidden healing -- the kind Jesus hides so he can get to the main point.  So he doesn’t have to be bandaid boy or the eternal doorman.

And the kind we hide because we can’t see the miracles before us -- when we’re the airplane riders complaining about poor internet reception -- when we can’t see God at work before us. 

It seems the remedy for us all is to heal others as best we can -- and to celebrate the healing that is all around us -- but to remember that it’s the deeper, hidden healing in our souls that matters most of all.  Amen.

The Right People, The Right Time - A Sermon

You might not have noticed, but there’s been a lot in the news lately. Less than a week ago, we inaugurated a new president. Less than two weeks ago we had a dramatic airplane crash in our own Hudson River. Those are important real events that speak to today’s scripture.

Which is why I’m going to start by talking about a fake event -- a scene from a movie -- several years ago.

You might remember “The Lord of the Rings.” There’s a scene where Frodo sits in the belly of a mountain and says to the great wizard Gandalf: “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

Gandalf’s wise reply gives him strength: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is, what to do with the time that is given to us.”

I started thinking about that when I read an article in Time about the passengers of that flight that landed in the Hudson. You know, the “Miracle on the Hudson.” One point the article made, which seems to have been forgotten, is that not on the brilliant pilot and brave crew had a role in making sure everybody survived. Each and every one of the passengers played a role, too. We’re all able to take an active role in our salvation.

Then during President Obama’s sobering inaugural address, he reminded us that we are all responsible for the mess our country is in, but that we can all “pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off” and get back to work.

In other words, we will not wait for somebody to make things all better. We’re not going to wait for the right person to come around at the right time, because WE are the right people, and this is the right time.

So, how does that even remotely have anything to do with the scriptures we heard? Think of a single word in the Gospel. Immediately. “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

James and John even left their father right there in the boat. What could have convinced them to do such a crazy thing?

Jesus. They found something in him so compelling, so important that they stood up and said “We’re in. We’ll do what it takes.”

These fishermen did not ask Jesus to come and disrupt their mundane but secure lives. But he came, and they saw the moment that lay before them as life changing -- and life affirming.
In our reading from Jonah, the prophet was startled and upset by the reaction of the Ninevites to his prophecy. He told them that if they didn’t shape up -- and soon -- they would be destroyed by God. He HOPED they would ignore him because he hated them.

They didn’t. They all repented -- immediately. They were partners in their own salvation because they acted. They did not want Jonah’s message, but they saw it as a wake up call -- to rejoin life.

Now the time is ours. We live in stressful, austere times where money is tight, jobs are insecure, and nobody knows how things will turn out. We are Frodo inside a mountain. We are passengers inside a floating plane. We are James and John asked to leave their father. We are the Ninevites facing destruction.

We did not ask for these times -- nobody does. But praise God, we are the right people to deal with them, to stand up and say “I will help lead this congregation not only back to financial solvency, but to the promised land. I will be one who discards spiritual timidity and dig deeper into my soul because Jesus is saying to me -- right now -- “come follow me.”

We are -- you and I -- the people God has called to serve right now -- to bring St. James’ through tough (financial and spiritual) times, to bring the country through. There’s no one else, and no one else is the right person.

Nobody asks for such times. All we have to decide is, what to do with the time that is given to us.

In the Beginning Again - A Sermon

First of all, I want to thank you all again for the wonderful gift of allowing me to go home to my family for Christmas this year.  It was fantastic, though I spent the entire Midnight Mass wondering what was going on at St. James’.

When I got back, I learned that Fr. Schmidt got sick and couldn’t take the service last Sunday, and that Fr. Schnitzer jumped in at the last second but didn’t have a chance to prepare a sermon.  You heard the gospel but no commentary on it, and that won’t do. 

So, you get “In the beginning” again.

We can deal with Epiphany next week.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.

You might not guess how important that passage is to Christianity, but it changed the way people saw Jesus.  Because what it says is that Jesus always was.  

You’ll notice that John doesn’t give a birth story like Matthew and Luke do.  Mark doesn’t either, but that’s because he doesn’t care -- all that’s important for him is what Jesus did.  But John cares.  He writes this remarkably beautiful, poetic preface that mirrors the opening lines of Genesis -- In the beginning.

Only, what he wants you to know is that in the beginning, Jesus was.  This was no mere man.  Through him all things were created.   John believes that Jesus was born, but that’s not the important thing.  What’s important is that Jesus was there before the beginning of time. Jesus always was and always will be.  

Jesus is God.

One big reason for John writing this Gospel was that there was dispute going on at the time about whether God created Jesus.  Sort of like a perfect robot that would follow God’s orders, do God’s will perfectly -- but is a creation of God.  If you saw that movie Get Smart, then you remember Hymie -- looked and acted like a person who happened to be bigger, stronger, and faster than everyone else.  But Hymie was a robot operated by two scientists with a remote control.

John says Jesus is no robot, no creation -- Jesus is God at work.  

What does that mean for us? 

It means that God is personally involved in us.  When God saw the need to become involved in his creation, he did not send a surrogate to do the job for him.  He came himself.  He invested himself in our lives by becoming one of us in every way.  

Which means that God is personally invested in you and me.  That’s what is so important.  It means that God does not see us as mere objects that can be dealt with from a distance.  No, he invests every bit of himself in us.

In these difficult financial times I hear people talking about the corporations they work for -- how there used to be loyalty to the employees, but now how all employees are expendable the moment they no longer serve a purpose.  

What John is saying to us is that God is no soulless corporation, jettisonning us when we become inconvenient.  God is fully invested in what happens to you and me because we aren’t employees, we are God’s children.  

We should note, however, that this investment does NOT mean that God is here to serve us.  No, we are the servants.  We are the children, while God is the parent.  But it is something different to serve a parent who loves us rather than one who sees us as expendible.  It is something different to serve one who desires us to be in joyful relationship with him -- rather than one who only needs us until we no longer can fulfill our function.

So you choose: serve that which sees you as a function or serve one who is totally there with you, totally committed to you.  The one who was always there right from the beginning.  Amen.