Lent 1

The Rev. Julia W. Messer
1 Lent 2012
Mark 1:9-15
“Shakers, Divine GPS, and Lent”

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Message of Lent: The place you are called to be may not be the place you expect to be but it may be the place God calls you to be.

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                In days past, the Shakers had a song they would sing, called “Simple Gifts.” The group would gather around in a circle singing the words: “‘'Tis the gift to be simple, 'Tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, It will be in the valley of love and delight. // When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed, To turn, turn, will be our delight, 'Til by turning, turning, we come round right.”
        The Shakers would dance around the room in the circle and at the end of the verses when they finished singing, “When we find ourselves in the place just right,” and “We come round right”, they would jump into the air and wherever they landed, that was where they believed they were meant to be.

        Life today doesn’t seem so simple.  I don’t know about you, but for me there have been times in my life when I’ve wondered if I’ve been on the right path or I felt myself in a spiritual wilderness.  There have been times when I couldn’t figure out what path to take and there are times when I knew the path that I was on was where God had called me. I seem to do okay when I know the right path because it is very clear to me.  The gray areas get to me, making me second guess myself and wonder.  For me it’s the completely unclear paths that I struggle with; these are the ones that pull me to my knees in prayer. And it can be scary when I find myself in a wilderness and cannot discern where God is calling me to go…that the place I am right now may not be where I am meant to be.

Today’s Gospel reminds me of this Shaker song, in  that the place we may find ourselves in our journey may not be where we want to go, but it is where we could be meant to be. Jesus did not plan to set out into the wilderness but that was where he needed to go.

In the Bible, the wilderness was both a frightening and a powerful place. To look at wilderness as a physical location, it was a location that was uninhabited and uncultivated. Applied spiritually it takes on an even more powerful meaning. Wilderness was a time when people of the Bible underwent temptations and they used this time to get a clearer sense of where and how God was calling them. It was the time and place that they used, like Christ, to face their adversaries.

Lent is the church’s time set aside for us to consciously go into our wildernesses.   Lent lasts for 40 days, the same amount of time that Jesus found himself in the wilderness.  Lent is a time that we are called to unite ourselves with the mystery of Jesus in the desert, who faced temptation through the hand of the devil and yet, did not sin. As we prepare to celebrate the Easter mystery, Christians are called to use this Lenten season as a time to consciously look at our lives and find ways to draw closer to God.

  Even Jesus was called to do this. Immediately after he was baptized, he went into the wilderness, to really look at himself and recognize what God’s plan for him was to be. To me, it was as if Jesus had to figure out what his ministry would be and come to terms with that and what it meant to be the Son of God, the Beloved. As Christians, during Lent, we are invited and encouraged to look at ourselves and ask one way or another, “What does it mean to be who we are,” and “Who we are meant to be?”

        Lent can be a time to take on or give up. We can take on an action that will draw us closer to God through more devotion to prayer, to consciously perform acts of charity, or to even take up some action, some behavior, that will improve our relationship with God.  Or we can give up something.  Giving up something can either be as a symbolic gesture of sacrifice (that reminds us of all that Christ forfeited for us) or to give up, not just for Lent, but permanently, something that tempts us away from our relationship with God.

        Lent is a season of challenge, to honestly and truly look at ourselves and the areas in our lives where we are more prone to giving into temptation that leads us into sin. As an unknown author once wrote, “Temptation is not a sin.  It only becomes a sin when it is yielded to.  Even our Lord was tempted.”

        Honestly, I almost wish sometimes that a very clear Divine GPS would be available to us. It would say, “Turn here,” or “Choose this path”.  We could use it when we are in our difficult times, such as when we are faced with an unexpected relationship problem or job loss.  We could use it when we try to discern what our future will hold and map out the best route to take to be a Christian and “Detour” around ALL wilderness experiences. 

But as the Shaker song says, the place we find ourselves is where we are meant to be and we can use these wilderness experiences to grow closer to God. We may not like or want to be in the place we are now, but it may be just exactly where God has called us to be.

Remember Lent is not suppose to be easy; it can be disheartening and upsetting, especially if we honestly look at ourselves and see both what we are becoming and what we are failing to become.

We began this season with the imposition of Ashes, and I pray that something as joyous as Easter may be at the end of it for all of us. And that we will find ourselves in the place just right.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

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February 5, 2012       John A. Baldwin

This morning's Gospel gives us a glimpse into the healing ministry of Jesus. Not only does he heal Peter's mother-in-law and others in Capernaum, but Jesus also goes about casting out demons. Some have suggested that the term "casting out demons" is a quaint way of saying that Jesus healed people of their mental illnesses - schizophrenia, bipolarity and the like. Perhaps so. Jesus may well have been an early practitioner of psychiatric cleansing and healing.

On the other hand, all of the demons Jesus cast out may not have been quite so exotic as paranoia or obsessive-compulsive disorders. They may have been unclean spirits present and familiar to us in our own lives, yet nonetheless just as powerful and debilitating.

The Gospels portray Jesus as possessing an acute sense of discernment. He had an amazing ability to see into a person's heart & soul, and to know what's blocking their growth towards wholeness & maturity. Jesus knew the names of these demons - envy, fear, hypocrisy, judgmentalism, and the like. He called them forth by name, rebuking them & exorcizing them from people's lives.

Knowledge gives power. Evil flourishes in the dark, and withers in the bright light of the truth. This perhaps is what lies at the foundation of Jesus' casting out demons. Consider an "AHA" experience you may have had in life, when it became clear why you'd been acting the way you were. Effective counseling leads to many "aha" experiences and the opening to transformation in our lives. When the hurts and fears which trouble us are called by name, they become less powerful & menacing. When we become aware that our wounds are shared by others, they become more bearable and manageable.

Adult children of alcoholics, for example, have been known to say, "When others began describing their childhood experiences, it was truly amazing. They sounded just like mine. I had a new sense of awareness & understanding." When we are able to name our demons, they lose their power to control and cripple us.

Jesus was able to name and address unclean spirits with authority because he was as whole and healthy in mind, body and spirit as a human being can be. The unclean spirits knew that they were diseased when they encountered Jesus, and this is what gave Jesus power and authority over them.

Have you ever wondered what it might be like, if we were walking through a park & there was Jesus himself sitting on a bench, inviting us to join him in conversation? Would you expect it to be all warm fuzzies, or would something within our spirit feel mighty uncomfortable. Would Jesus look deep down inside us, recognize some unclean spirits, & call them forth.....spirits we've perhaps become too comfortable with, like excuses for our behavior, laziness, egotism or self-absorption. It's hard to maintain illusions of sweetness & light when we meet health & wholeness in its power & might, and know we have a long way to go.

During the summer before my final year of seminary, I entered a 10 week Clinical Pastoral Education program at Boston State Hospital where I served as chaplain in an acute schizophrenic ward. It gave me plenty of opportunities to see unclean spirits in action, and to reflect on how they might be affecting my own soul as well. The head chaplain for the program, the Rev. Joe Woodson, was a crusty Baptist minister who had a reputation (like Jesus) of being able to see into the souls of the ministers in training, past our defenses & pretensions, and nailing us in our weaknesses & vulnerabilities, so as to enable us to mature and grow strong in our abilities to be pastors in a hurting world.

Fortunately for me, Joe Woodson was retiring at the end of this summer. He was on autopilot, and I escaped his intense scrutiny. This made for a much more comfortable summer experience for me than I had anticipated. In later years, however, I've come to the conclusion that I was actually the poorer for it. Escaping his scrutiny meant my avoiding having to deal with the issues, wounds & liabilities which impeded my full effectiveness as a pastor & minister until later in time.

I have little doubt that Jesus could find traces of unclean spirits in every one of us were he to focus his scrutiny upon us. He certainly saw them in the Pharisees & Sadducees of his day, who though very pious & religious, were lacking in their compassion for the poor, the marginalized, and the “sinners” in their society. They resented Jesus deeply when he named their hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

Unclean spirits do not like being exposed at all. They react with anger, defensiveness and indignation. They are subtle and devious too, masters of the lie, and adept in distorting the truth. I think, for example, of that little demon who whispers to us, “Am I my brother's keeper?” who was surely present when the priest and the Levite stepped around the victim on the road to Jericho in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and who is present in all of us when we express little concern for the very poor or homeless.

I think of that little demon who was present in Jesus' parable about the Pharisee who stood up in the temple flushed with pride that he was not like other men - extortioners, unjust, adulterers or like that miserable tax collector over there, and who is present in us whenever we look upon others with scorn or contempt.

When we read, mark, learn, reflect upon and inwardly digest the parables and teachings of Jesus, it seems clear that he is getting at all of the ways in which we allow demons, unclean spirits, fears and anxiety, selfishness and greed, to impede our growth towards health, wholeness and closeness to the heart of God. We make a huge mistake when we only see the flaws and impediments getting in the way of others, and don't discern them within ourselves.

Perhaps it may seem too scary for us to make honest, moral inventories of ourselves, but therein lies the only sure and certain path to spiritual health and wholeness. I believe we may draw deep courage to face and overcome our demons and unclean spirits in this scripture passage from the First Epistle of John: “God is love, and he (or she) who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. …..There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because he first loved us.” (1Jn 4:16,18).

Last Sunday after the Epiphany B

The Rev. Marguerite Alley

February 19, 2012

Are You My Mother?

Let me tell you a story. It is a short story, but a touching story. It is not a true story, but it is very much the truth. It is not a story about anyone in particular, but it is a story about us. Once upon a time there was a bird, and she laid an egg. She left her nest in search of food for the day when the egg would hatch. While she was gone, the egg did indeed hatch. The baby bird couldn’t find its mother, so rather than patiently wait, and being somewhat impulsive and of a mind that surely he could do anything, he set off in search of his mother. He asked everyone he came upon, including a large assortment of animals and even an old car. Each said no they were not it’s mother and the baby moved on.  Finally the baby came upon a steam shovel named Snort and it was Snort who returned the baby bird to his nest where he finally met his true mother.  You may recognize that as being the wonderful and charming children’s book by P. D. Eastman called “Are you my Mother?”  I sometimes wonder if we aren’t  metaphorically just like this baby bird. We are born hungry and we begin looking for our mother the moment we are born because we know deep down that she is the only ne who can feed us. If we don’t immediately see her, we begin searching. Since we do not know what she looks like we don’t really know what we are looking for. So, we ask everyone and everything “Are you my mother”?  Metaphorically speaking we ask money “are you my mother”? We also ask fame, education, status, cars, jobs, titles and a host of other things “are you my mother”? Can you feed me?

Each of these replies  No! I am not your mother”! So we are faced with a dilemma: we can “bed down” with one of these folks, knowing full well that they are not our mother, and cannot fill that role or we move on and keep asking. Some of us choose the former, and some of us choose the latter. To carry this metaphor a bit further, let’s say that we come upon a flock of birds. We are excited because they look just like we do…assuming we know what we look like. And we immediately latch onto them because they look and sound so much like ourselves. After a while though, we begin to notice some differences….their song is not exactly the same as ours. Their looks are not exactly a match….and most important none of them has lost their baby. Again, we are faced with a dilemma: do we stay because them seem familiar or do we go? They are so much like us…but not quite…and they are not looking for us or welcoming us to their flock. Finally, we encounter Snort the Steam Shovel. Snort is big, ugly, noisy and very scary. He scoops us up and deposits us right back where we started and right then our mother returns with food for us and we are united. In our metaphor the role of Snort can be played by any number of big, scary, noisy things. Addiction, health scares, relationships, loss, grief, anger. Really the list is endless.  I hope you can see the many ways this children’s story is our own story!

Now let’s look at the Gospel. Just before our passage for today begins, Jesus is in the villages of Ceasarea Philippi with his disciples. He asks them “who do you say that I am”? It is almost as though the disciples had asked “are you my mother”?  They answer as best they can, he teaches them more about what will happen in the days to come. Now, in today’s passage, Jesus gathers Peter, James and John and leads them out away from the others, to a secluded place on a high mountain. (we know how God loves this sort drama on big, high cloudy mountains! Kind of like Snort!) Right in front of them, he is transfigured into something other. This moment serves as another teaching tool in the revelation of who and what Jesus really is. He is standing with 2 of the most important prophets of the Jewish faith …….yet he is the one is glowing, He is the one who is brilliant white.  Peter, being very excited and touched by this revelation suggests that they build three dwellings so that they can stay and savor the moment.  And  suddenly, a voice from the clouds proclaims “This is my son, the beloved, listen to him”.  In this moment we are led to some very important revelations. Of course, we immediately see that God demands to have the last word. We all know what lies ahead for Jesus…so God chooses this moment to transfigure “hell” Jesus’s suffering, into heaven for a moment. But there are other revelations in this moment as well. Of particular note is the fact this transfiguration does not occur in private. It is not an affirmation for Jesus. Jesus has known all along that he was God’s beloved…or that God is “his mother” so to speak. This revelation is for the witnesses. It is for the public.

Today is the last Sunday of the Epiphany season. During this season we have learned about Jesus and the role he was meant to play and we have been called to be “light for the world”, a role which becomes really important in the dark days of Lent to come. Today also happens to be World Mission Sunday where we remember our mission projects and missionaries around the world. If we might look back to our metaphor for a moment, I think we sometimes get a bit mixed up as to what our mission really is. Is it our mission to show others who our mother is even though their mother may look a lot different than our own? Are we to assume and say to them this is our mother, therefore it must be yours as well? Is our mission to find out for ourselves who our mother is because we have not yet met her and we are hungry for what only she can give us? Or is our mission to re-affirm for ourselves who our mother is because we do know who she is and what she looks like, but because she doesn’t look like other mothers, we have begun to question?  As a church what exactly is our mission? The Gospel says (at least to me) that we are called to seek out the transfigured Christ in each other and in the world.  It also says that we are called to “listen” to the voice of Jesus, and to each other. No where does God say, “preserve his words in a book and treat them like an historic artifact. Look at them, adore them and them go home a glow with the knowledge that you have seen them.” God says “listen to him”…..subtext, absorb, think about, reflect upon, incorporate. 

 Here at Emmanuel we have recently taken some important steps to be transfigured before our witnesses. We have made intentional steps to be more welcoming, to be better stewards of creation, and to care for each other more intentionally and carefully. This is our public transfiguration. Each of us also has many opportunities in our daily lives for individual public transfigurations. The trick is to see them for what they are, to listen for the voice of Jesus, and to be willing to stay on that high scary mountain until we are certain whose voice we are following. As we begin our Lenten journey this year, I pray you will consider the ways in which you might be transfigured. This transfiguration might involve some anxiety. It will also involve letting go of our impatience, our strong willed independence, and our constant need to ask  “are you my mother”? And when we return home, perhaps in the bucket of a Steam Shovel named Snort, we will have learned that if we had been a bit more patient, we would have been fed, by the only one who can feed us.

Leper

Mark 1:40-45 : The Leper. Then and Now.       

The Rev. Julia W. Messer
2.12.2012

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When I was studying to become a priest, I met with some opposition, not only because of my age, but because of my gender. I got everything from, “What is wrong with you that you want to be a priest,” to “Why don’t you just marry a minister?” And the one that stood out in my mind was when I was down in New Orleans doing some mission work following Hurricane Katrina.  I was to stay at a conservative/’Anglican’ parish but I was warned before I went down not to tell anyone I was in the process to become a priest. However, the moment I got there I was introduced as a seminarian, to which several people stated “You know we don’t believe in you.”  To them, I replied, “That is your choice. I’m down here to work, not to be your seminarian.” At that time, I really didn’t understand what my presence meant to them and how troubled that presence made them. The good news is that by the end of the week the church had invited me to be the first woman to serve behind the altar, to read Good Friday’s Gospel, and to be a chalice bearer.  I believe this change happened because the church got to know me, not the hypothetical crazy female whom they feared was out to destroy the Episcopal Church.  Regardless of age or gender, I was one working with them to assist, in the small ways that I could, as they healed after Hurricane Katrina. The Holy Spirit moved them and they came to see me as not someone to fear but as a person who believed in and worshipped the same God in the same way.

This memory stands out in my mind when I read today’s Gospel.  I realized that I was someone that people viewed as not fully fit to serve God, they saw me as an “other” and that got me thinking about what in our lives do we feel makes us an “other”, a leper, and what ways do we view others as lepers. This circular thinking sent me to reflect on how people, including me, view “others”.  I know that in some ways I can be viewed as a dork. Let’s face it, I’m officially a Church Dork. And on top of that, when I turned thirteen, all of a sudden—at least it seemed that way to me—I got curly hair, braces, glasses and acne.  I like Jane Austen to Star Wars, I like sports and being slightly preppy. Growing up I did not fit into a stereotypical stereotype, so dork covered it all.  I was the same “me” inside but I was so dismayed with all the awkwardness that I was sure others saw me as “other”. How often do we all—I know I do it-- see someone who looks or acts differently and label them with our own 21^st century label of leper?

Today, leprosy is known as Hanson’s disease, but in Jesus’ time, leprosy was a word that encompassed many diseases.  The label, leprosy, would have been used for anything that made a person look deformed, especially any disease that affected the skin, and particularly anything exposing raw flesh.   These people were considered unclean, not necessarily because they committed a sin, but because they were viewed as not fit to worship God. The culture saw them as unclean and therefore they were treated as such, and came to believe that they too were unclean.

In today’s Gospel the leper went up to Jesus, and I can almost hear his voice sounding deflated, begging Jesus, he said “If you choose, you can make me clean.” The leper did not ask Jesus to heal him; it is almost as if he did not think he was worthy of it. And Christ was moved with pity, not because of the man and the burden he bore, but I believe Jesus was moved with pity because the leper despised himself and felt he was worth nothing, not even worth asking Christ to heal him. 

The leper had to deal with his own internal struggle of not only the disease, but how he viewed himself. And on top of that, he had to deal with how others felt about him--how they turned from him, rejected him, and how they viewed him as not even worthy of God.

To not even feel worthy enough to worship God is an absolutely horrible place to be.  Yet there are people who have been in this position because they have done something or they are viewed as not worthy.

Today leprosies and their manifestations can come in many different forms. People with self-esteem issues can feel like everyone is watching them and that they aren’t worthy enough to be heard or cool enough to be in a particular situation. There is also the leprosy of social rejection from the want to separate us from the people who are different from us, especially from the homeless, who are the unclean of today. Leprosy today can be dismissing someone because of a mental or physical illness or disability. Or it can take on other forms—such as the animosity and bitterness between Democrats and Republicans today who won’t listen to each other, but reject, out of hand, based on political affiliation.

Modern day leprosies can be self-inflicted or they can be placed there by other people. Yet what I love in today’s Gospel is that in one second, Jesus made the leper clean. Can you imagine being able to be healed of our burdens, to put down the burdens that we have been carrying for a long time… and just be healed? It’s miraculous….and in most cases miracles don’t work like this. To put down the leprosy that we have been carrying for years is not something easily done.  But it can be done.

What the leper did was he acknowledged the issue he was carrying. In a week and a half Lent begins…the season of conscious acknowledgement of the areas in our lives that pull us from the love of God.   Now is the perfect time to begin to look at the areas in our lives that need to be cleaned, to be healed. What do we do or what burden do we carry that makes us feel unworthy of God’s love? What opinions, or whose opinion do we hold that keep us from reaching out to others?  What areas and reasons do we find to judge others as less-than ourselves?

We are ALWAYS worthy of God’s love and forgiveness.  All we have to do is approach God and be honest with Him and ourselves. It is that easy but it can be a challenge to lay down the burdens we have carried with us thus far. Today, all we have to do is to see the “us” that God sees and loves, and to see the person in our neighbor that God sees and loves.           

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In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.