Sermon: In Plain Sight

Pentecost 3B

June 17, 2012

The Rev. Marguerite Alley

 “In Plain Sight”

 One of the shows I like to watch these days is called In Plain Sight. The story line is about two federal marshals who help protect people in the  “Witsec” program. The Witsec program is a witness protection program for people identified by or testifying in a federal criminal case, and who are in danger as a result. Once they testify they are moved to a new city, given new names and  “start their lives over” so to speak, as different people. The stories each week focus on the challenges of letting go of our past. The title of course, comes from the notion that the best place to hide people is “in plain sight”..in other words, they become different people, but people just like you and me. We have often joked with each other about things lost and found in plain sight, so clearly this is a common human phenomenon.

Jesus is at the beginning of his ministry when he shares this parable. There are four things that kind of stand out about Jesus and his teaching. First, he is claiming to be the messiah. He actually mentions this in the first chapter as he says “the time is here”. Clearly, he has accepted his role and wants his followers to understand it as well. Second, he only trusts his followers with that info. He does not intend it to be shared publicly yet. Third, the vision of God and the kingdom that Jesus is offering the world is radically different from the established religious practice of the time. What he is offering doesn’t feel like an organized religion at all to his audiences. Fourth and finally, Jesus has this unusual fondness for being indirect…or to put a finer point on it, to speak of two things at once. “I will make you fishers of men”…….relating a business with which his audience is well familiar to something that will challenge them is a good example.

 The gospel for today is a bit puzzling. We are only in the 4^th chapter of Mark at this point. If this were the only gospel (and we assume the writer thought he was doing something novel) then we have had very little time to get to know Jesus, to ruminate on his unusual teaching style and to digest the import of his message. For us here at Emmanuel, we are going to spend the rest of the summer and a good part of the fall hearing stories and getting to know the real Jesus, not the Hallmark Jesus we have at Christmas and Easter. But now, we arrive here in the 34^th verse of the 4^th chapter  and we are told that Jesus never spoke plainly to people. He always taught in parables and then explained them privately to his disciples. I have often wondered at this. Since his disciples were with him everyday we would presume that they, of all people, would “get” his teaching and that he would only need to explain it to his other audience. Instead we are told, he never explained it to his larger audience. So either Jesus is a terrible teacher, or he feels that we are smart enough to get it on our own and the disciples were dufus’s…or there is some other explanation….hidden in plain sight, or kept in secret like the mustard seed.

It is important to note that in this and all the other parables about seeds, growing and sowing  the kingdom is what is sown….not the result. Like the kingdom is not a flower or a head of grain…but is the seed that sits in the dark earth, waits to be watered, needs the sun to grow and the kingdom itself is what produces the fruit or the grain….it isn’t the fruit or the grain. This is an important distinction.

Now if we examine this TOO closely and too scientifically we know there are seeds smaller than the mustard seed, and bushes that grow larger. It is not the point. The real point of this parable is the amazing difference between the seed hidden deep in the earth and the amazing living thing it becomes.  Frankly, I am surprised that he never used the baby being conceived in secret, growing inside unseen by the world and bursting forth, a new and living thing as a metaphor for the kingdom. Perhaps that is because of cultural considerations or because of how women were viewed. Imagine how that image would have turned their thinking upside down….women giving birth to the kingdom! A seemingly lifeless seed becomes a miraculous and useful living entity…all in “secret”. Actually, he does use this comparison in a later metaphor! This “in secret” thing is another image that Jesus is fond of . Interesting how the church picks up on some of that….”the mystery of the word made flesh”, “from you no secrets are hid”, but not on  his other images like non-violence (turn the other cheek) and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Well I, as a teacher, am particularly interested in this notion of why Jesus only uses parables. It would certainly be a lot easier if he were more direct and just said what he meant in plain language. Just tell us what to do, how to act what to believe and so forth….the world would be a better place, don’t you think? If anyone is “qualified” to speak about God and the kingdom, to explain it to us, it certain must be Jesus..and yet he uses all these confusing little stories and quips and makes comparisons between things that are un-related, at least on first look. He intentionally hides the meaning in a sense. Is he trying to be abstruse? Is he trying to confuse us? If you are going to start a new religion, then for goodness sake just tell us what we are expected to know and do to belong! It really is exasperating!

I certainly don’t pretend to know the mind of Jesus. Perhaps our traditional interpretation of this parable is correct….if you have even a tiny seed of faith, you can grow to become something really useful and spectacular, like saving pennies or putting money away for a rainy day and not realizing how those little deposits have added up….but that seems a bit too obvious, given what we know about Jesus. What my reading tells me is that a more authentic interpretation of this leads us to the idea that there is nothing we can do, that the kingdom is already within us, waiting to be discovered; that our faith is the result not the impetus. The seed is in ground, no one can see it until it breaks ground and grows in plain sight. Even then, we have to really look at it, acknowledge it, tend and nurture it or it remains hidden in plain sight. Once we begin doing this, it grows out of control!

The last thing I want to say about this is about how we sometimes find great stuff in ordinary things. Like a rare book in a used book store, or a Stradivarius violin in a yard sale. Often, the thing of great value is found in the most ordinary places. I suspect that another reason Jesus doesn’t make things very plain or obvious is to remind us that sometimes we are surrounded by great treasures in our ordinary lives and we fail to recognize them. If we cannot recognize them here, we aren’t likely to be able to find them anywhere else. We are where the mustard seeds are sown and what we become as a result is the kingdom.

  

Reflections: I have been thinking about Ephesians 3

June 13, 2012
The Rev. Marguerite Alley

       I have been thinking about Ephesians 3:20 this morning and the phrase “exceedingly abundantly” keeps bubbling up for me. Last evening was my final high school orchestra concert. I was more than a little anxious about this, largely for purely egotistical reasons. I know I should have been sad about it being my last, I should have been thinking about all the details I needed to take care so that it would be a really special evening for our seniors. I should have been thinking about how blessed I have been in 28 years (26 of them at First Colonial) to have had the pleasure and privilege to have taught some extremely talented and fabulous musicians, and a lot of generally awesome young people. However, most of the day I was more concerned with whether or not they would perform well in public and if they didn’t, how that would reflect on the program I have tried to create. As a musician, we are trained to hear things with a critical ear; to fine tune everything and then do it again. It is very easy for the perfectionist in me to take the drivers seat when I walk on stage. But last night, I believe that God spoke to me in a rather different way. As I walked to the stage, I was strangely calm and as I poked at that in my mind, I very clearly heard, “it is still not about you” and I thought to myself (with just a hint of whine), “when will it be about me?”

      I have spent 28 years of my life locked in a room 7 hours a day, 189 days a year with kids from the ages of 10-18. I have tried to share with them the joy of all kinds of music but especially classical, and I have tried to teach them a bit about goals, pursuing excellence and self-discipline. I have helped them celebrate college acceptances and to learn to overcome adversity. I have offered bits of wisdom about life after high school and being good people. I have opened their eyes to the world in trips to Europe, Toronto, Orlando, New Orleans, Atlanta and New York. I have pushed them to give me more and to put more into their playing. I have been hard on them at times, and at others let them get away with a few things. I have driven around in search of them when they call because they ran away or got themselves into situation they didn’t know how to get out of. I have talked to their parents when they didn’t have the words to explain. I have visited them in the hospital and in jail. I have endured the rage of parents when I failed to recognize that their child, struggling to read music, was Julliard material. I have enjoyed the assistance of many wonderful and committed parents who have supported and assisted me in our many program endeavors. I have fought for funding of our program and for recognition of the accomplishments of my students in a world obsessed with sports. I have pushed them to play in public, tried to prepare them for auditions, and encouraged them to play for life. Through the years I have wondered at the decisions made by school administration, building administrators and program coordinators. I have worried about the decisions parents have made, or not made for their children and how it would affect that child’s future success. I have lamented with my colleagues about “the good old days”, the state of the program, and how the kids have “changed” since we started teaching. And yet, at the end of each year, I have planned for how I could do a better job for them, for this, that or the other. I have struggled with what music to choose that will be exciting, challenging and playable in my groups. I have written detailed lesson plans and unit plans only to have to scrap them when a new group comes in with different abilities than I expected.

      In all of this, one thing stands clear now. It has never been about me and I guess it never will be. It has been about being a better teacher, being a better conductor, being a better musician, being a better role model and being a better person. I am quite aware that there are many teachers out there who are far more skilled than I. They spend more time working on plans, they are more creative and more dynamic. They certainly have more energy. I hope that when they reach this point in their careers they have as many fabulous memories as I do, and as many young people who are successful as I enjoy now. I can truly say that God has richly blessed me exceedingly abundantly with more than I could ever ask for or imagine and for that I am truly grateful.

Sermon: Hatred

The Rev. Julia W. Messer
June 10, 2012
Mark 3:20-35

Hatred

Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying nothing is certain in life but death and taxes.  I wish I would be able to amend this statement to say nothing is certain in life but death, taxes, hope and love.  Unfortunately this is not true for all, but what is true is that we could almost guarantee the addition of another, hatred.  Nothing is certain in life but death, taxes and hatred.   

We live in a world where people can hate us simply because of the fact that our personalities may clash or people may dislike us over a perceived slight. Some people may hate something about us, such as the color of our skin, sexual orientation, the political party we associate with, or even our nationality.

It is human nature to try to distinguish who we are from who we are not. It is normal to notice people’s differences; the problem is when we use it to harm others or to continue to perpetuate hate. Think back to high school…it is humanity at its rawest.  Us vs. them. There were people who were cool, athletic, dorky or grunge.  Think of the rate gossip spread though the school.

It’s no different today. Read a newspaper article online; some of the comments people post are nice but some of them are downright mean!  Look at Facebook, blogs, and other digital mediums.  They are new ways for people to communicate and can be used as a way to stay in touch with friends.  Unfortunately some use them to bully or hurt other people. These resources are not negative or positive in of themselves; it just depends on how we use then.  They become a problem when we use our words, our actions, or other mediums, and turn them into weapons to hurt others.

Jesus faced these issues in his day. When Jesus stood in front of the crowds, the scribes tried to discredit Jesus by calling him the ruler of demons or actually Satan. To this Jesus replied that people are forgiven of their sins, except whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said that if we do this, we can condemn our souls as unclean souls. What exactly did he mean?  This sentence can be taken in two ways. The first is if a person declares his unbelief in the Holy Spirit. The other way to look at Jesus’ statement and to examine more closely what blasphemy means. The definition of blasphemy is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for a religious deity.  So to blaspheme would to be to insult or continue to show contempt for the deity. This is not do and done act; I take this to mean that if one consciously leads a life that is filled with continued acts that are insulting or show contempt for the divine then one is said to be blasphemous .

This can take form when there is a deliberate continued attempt to injure or harm another person using God’s name. It is by our actions over a lifetime that are done out of hatred toward others that we harden our hearts. Then we make it blasphemy when we use this hate and say that we do it in the name of God.  And let’s face it, history is filled with these acts from the Crusades to slavery.  Today it would begin by posting mean replies to articles, or spreading gossip about others, or to continue to hold hatred for another person.

To understand the link between the two in today’s society, I think it is easier to understand if we look at what we stake our faith on. We believe and know that we belong to God, that we are loved by God, and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Then it stands to reason that when we hurt another one of God’s creations on a regular basis, we then blaspheme.

The Gospel goes further to explain this with the parable that in order to steal from a house of a strong man, one has to first tie up the strong man. What I take this to mean is that people have to make the choice to let the hate enter into their homes, into their lives, and into their hearts. They have to tie up their conscience -- what they know is right, so that a negative can happen.

We can choose to listen to the naysayers, the people who will try to hurt us or condemn others. It is a choice to then pass it on the hatred or take it on.

This belief is in every culture. For example in China there is a parable about a simpleton who came up to old wise man and said horrible things to him. While he was insulting the old wise man, the old wise man listened in silence, but when the simpleton finished, the old wise man asked him, “Son, if a man declined to accept a present to him, to whom would the present belong to?” The man answered, “To him who offered it.” To which the old wise man replied “Well then, I decline to accept your abuse, and request you to keep it for yourself.”

This is exactly where Jesus was; he was at odds with the crowd, his family, the scribes, and the evil that was being put out there. Imagine the scene:  the crowd closed in on Jesus so much so that he could not even get enough room to eat.  Even his own family and those he loved went to him to try to restrain him. Yet Christ spoke the truth. He loved those around him even when they pressed down upon him. But what Jesus did next was to separate from all that hate that was bearing down on him and spoke what was true. He distinguished himself from him and them; he separated the truth from hate.

The same is true for us. Do we choose to pass on the negative about another person or do we change the action and pass on the good? Instead of posting about what is wrong post about what is right. Instead of saying God was not with them, take a look at the situation and instead of wondering if God is on our side, wonder if we are on God’s side.

 These may seem like small actions not comparable to Jesus’s guiding truth about blasphemy.  But that is where we may start to slip and then we may never recover ourselves. For you see it is these small seemingly insignificant actions that make up our habits and our habits shape how we live our lives. How we live our lives is who we are. And if we are blasphemous then THAT is what Jesus condemned. That is what makes our souls unclean.

In closing I end with the collect from today: Let us pray:

O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding, may do them, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Collect for the 2^nd Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 5)

Trinity Sunday Sermon

June 3, 2012    John A. Baldwin

Today is Trinity Sunday......a curious day in the Christian calendar year.....when we remember and celebrate a theological understanding of the divine: One God in Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is one of 4 major Feast Days celebrated by the Church down through the centuries, the others being Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, each of which celebrates a different Person of the Trinity. Christmas, although the birthday of Jesus, is actually the date on which we celebrate God the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth, the first person of the Holy Trinity, who according to Christian theology, enters into human flesh in the form of a little baby. The heavenly choir is singing praise to the Father who is making this bold new initiative in Creation (Luke 2:13). Easter is the day we celebrate Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, who having finished his earthly life on the cross, has now been resurrected to new life. On Pentecost we celebrate the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, God's indwelling presence, on into the future, in the lives of all who love the Lord. Trinity Sunday is the fourth feast day, on which we celebrate the 3 distinctly unique ways that God Almighty reveals himself.

The concept of the Trinity, though woven throughout the Old and New Testaments, did not become a distinctive doctrine in Christian theology until the 4^th and 5th centuries, when 4 Church Councils (Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon) put this mystery (one God in 3 persons) into words. In the process, the reputations of some leading theologians were enhanced, while others were ruined. One heated debate concerned whether to use the word "homoousion" ("of one substance") or homoiousion" (of like substance") with the Father. Out of that heated debate came the expression "one iota of a difference".

Over the centuries, preachers have walked a very fine line indeed in trying to explain what the heck the TRINITY is all about, leading to a lot of pretty esoteric and, in some cases, very boring sermons. While I believe it's important to deal with the Holy Trinity on this particular Sunday, I'm going to attempt to make my sermon more concrete and hopefully not too boring, by sharing some personal reflections on how I became Trinitarian in my theology. It didn't happen all at once. In fact, I may be a slower learner than others.

When I was a kid growing up, I was fortunate to have a father who loved the outdoors. At an early age he introduced me to sailing, to bird-watching, to star-gazing on dark nights in the field in front of our summer cottage, and to hiking in all kinds of weather conditions in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Green Mountains of Vermont. A Creator God, awesome in wonder and power, became intensely real to me at an early age. Every advance in understanding that science has uncovered, far from explaining God away, has only increased my awe in the Master Creator of the Universe.

The second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was harder for me to grasp and embrace. The Virgin Birth, his miracles, walking on water, multiplying loaves and fishes, his Resurrection and Ascension, all defied logic and common sense. I liked his parables, teachings, passion for social justice, compassionate love, high regard for women, and his willingness to defy social convention in his outreach to sinners and outcasts. But I had my questions, doubts and wonderings. Was this man for real? the Son of God???? I wanted to satisfy for myself that all of the claims about Jesus had a foundation in reality, and were not just wishful thinking.

When I entered seminary in 1974, I met twice a week in a discussion group with 6 classmates, two seniors and two professors. We had lively debates about faith, hope and religion. On one occasion we were given the task of reading the accounts of Jesus' Resurrection and writing a short reflection. In doing so, I was struck by a portion of Matthew's account in which the Pharisees ask Pilate to place a guard at Jesus' tomb lest his disciples steal his body and claim he'd been risen from the dead. What a horrible thought – all this might be nothing more than a cruel hoax. All of those other stumbling blocks – miracle stories, Virgin Birth, walking on water, paled in comparison.

This was the real deal breaker....if Jesus wasn't resurrected from the dead, I mused, he is little more than an insightful, spiritual leader akin to the Buddha or Confucius. When I shared my concerns with my group, with quite a bit of anxiety I can assure you, one of our professors recommended that I read The Passover Plot, whose author, Hugh Schonfield, asserts that the Resurrection is indeed a hoax. Decide for yourself, he urged, whether you think his argument has merit. Wouldn't you know it, that very afternoon, while browsing in a bookstore, I came across The Passover Plot. I summoned up the courage to read it, and came away totally unconvinced that the Resurrection is a hoax. The incredible changes that happened in the lives of the disciples, turning them from timid, fearful men into bold proclaimers of the Gospel, could not have been sustained, I believe, on the back of a hoax...nor could the profound effect the life of Jesus has had on millions of people across 2000 years of human history.

This was a significant turning point in my spiritual journey. I found myself saying along with the father of an epileptic boy in Mark 9:24 “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.” I let go of the need to solve mystery logically, and relaxed into the arms of a merciful Lord. I accepted Jesus as the window, the gate, the doorway to God. If we truly want to know the personality of the divine we have only to look to Jesus. As Jesus asserts in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one”.

This brings me now to the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Growing up, as I did in the Episcopal Church, I held a pretty intellectual view of the Holy Spirit. It's what inspired writers of scripture. It's what the disciples experienced on the Day of Pentecost. It's God's presence in people's hearts and lives down through the centuries. But.....all of that Holy Roller stuff, Charismatic Christianity, talking in tongues, and being slain in the Spirit...it seemed so undignified, and to be perfectly honest, bordering for me on terrifying. Yet, in the early 1990's I accepted an invitation to go to a weekend retreat in the mountains of Colorado hosted by the Episcopal Renewal Ministries.

The only words to describe that week were that I was bathed in the Holy Spirit; I felt a barrier melting between my brain and my heart; I felt the presence of God deep within my soul, and it erased my fears and terror of those who are deeply moved by the Holy Spirit in their lives. The Holy Spirit became for me a reality beyond an intellectual construct. I felt it, I lived it, I breathed it.

It took me a lengthy time to bring the 3 persons of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit together in a unified whole, not just in my head theologically, but more importantly in my heart and soul. There are many different ways of expressing this three-fold nature of the divine, one of my favorites being: God beyond us, with us, and within us. God beyond us as the Creator....far more awesome and powerful than we can even begin to imagine. God with us in His incarnation in Jesus, his ongoing companionship in prayer, support and sustenance, his presence in the fellowship of faith, the Church; and God within us in the still, small guiding voice, in the power of emotion that surges up in prayer and worship, and in the discernment that allows us to acknowledge the presence of the Holy in our lives.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit....Maker, Redeemer and Sanctifier... Blessed be the Holy Trinity...the 3 fold nature of the divine. Amen.

Reflection: Leaving the church?

June 1, 2012

The Rev. Marguerite Alley

In reading blogs and web postings by clergy across the country, I have noticed that many folks spend a lot of time dealing with members of their congregations who are threatening to leave their church for one reason or another.  I think we waste a lot of time and energy worrying about what we can do to make someone stay. In some ways I understand the heartburn over losing even one parishioner. Our numbers are already declining and churches are closing their doors daily. It is pretty scarey to think what  life would be like without Emmanuel!

When we have been together as a church for a while, we become family. We care about each other. Our kids were in in Sunday school and youth group together. We went through break-ups or divorces together. We married and buried (hopefully not in the same week ) our friends together. Not seeing each other in our usual seats on Sunday is like an open sore. It is only natural that we feel this grief and loss when we have shared life together for any period of time.  At the same time, this is a bit bothersome because the church is made up of human beings, and human beings change; both physically, emotionally and spiritually. No one would expect you wear the same clothes you wore as a teen or young adult, because you have outgrown them physically and mentally. But for some reason, we expect the church to either stay exactly the same as it was when we joined 40 years ago, despite the fact the 40% of the congregation has changed, or we expect it to change with us…as in with me personally.  

When a parish is as theologically and/or politically diverse as Emmanuel, sometimes someone decides that they can't handle the gray areas that come with diversity - so they leave for a church that they feel better reflects their ideas.  This type of exit can be a good thing, when handled as growth or change. But pleading with someone to stay, or trying to blame someone is counterproductive and destructive. 


Now, there are some people who reach a truly toxic level.  Nearly every church has at least one person who, for whatever reason, cannot seem to function as part of a family. They seem to have to stir things up, they try to triangulate everywhere they can and they take and make every opportunity to cause dissention. 

The problems can go beyond personal relationships. Many folks like this threaten to stop their pledge. Every event they come to becomes a moment for them to “spew” to others, whatever their issue might be and try to draw others to them. Even with all this negative energy, when they say we are going to leave, churches go into panic mode. Giving irrational and dangerous people power over our community is even more irrational and dangerous!  When there is a misunderstanding, then of course it is important to learn the cause and try to get it sorted out in hopes of preserving the relationship. Even if a person or family still chooses to move on, then we have done our best to hear them, to rectify if necessary and to insure that we taking the necessary steps to avoid repeating the situation. In the case of
toxic people though, there is probably little we can do to pacify them because they aren’t really looking for resolution. They are looking for power.

There is a part of me, though, that worries that in letting them go, I have failed to “love them” adequately. We are called to be compassionate and loving to each other and I worry about that when I find I cannot. But, when Jesus tells the rich young man that he must sell all he owns and give the money to the poor, and the young man says he can’t and walks away, Jesus doesn’t stop him. He doesn’t run and after him and say “wait, wait, we can work something out!” He lets him walk away and goes on with his teaching. Letting him walk away was not lacking in compassion or un-loving. He gave the young man a choice and the young man chose what his response would be. Letting someone leave the church when they are unhappy doesn’t mean that we don’t care, that we don’t love them or that we won’t grieve their loss. It actually means we are treating them with dignity and respect, allowing them to make the choice of belonging to our community or not.
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We want to hear your reflections on this piece. What are your thoughts? Please post below! 

Reflections: Coming Home

May  28, 2012
The Rev. Marguerite Alley

Coming Home

I came across my to-do list from May of 1998 while cleaning out some files at home the other day. I was deep in the throes of planning my Ordination liturgy during May of 98. On the list were things like “call printer about recycled paper”, “talk with Jeff about music” “check with ECW about reception”. I was suddenly flooded with memories of what a fabulous day that was. Friends from my childhood, from Chanco, from college and from the churches I had attended had all come to join the celebration. I imagine more than one of them thought “thank God she has finally figured out what she wants to be when she grows up”! It is hard to believe that was 14 years ago! Each year I tell myself that I am going to mark the occasion of my ordination by doing something intentional to remind myself of the vows I took that day. But each year, the date slips past me, and days, weeks and sometimes even months go by before I remember the anniversary of my ordination! Since May and June are the months when we typically celebrate graduations, it is possible I was doing that instead of remembering my ordination. It is possible that I was reminding folks of the importance of fatherhood instead of thinking fondly of that day. It is possible I was just not “present” and was worried about exams or concerts, or stuff here at the church or whether or not I would get the grass cut before it rained….or any other of a host things that distract me from being intentional about the ways I have been blessed in the years since my ordination.

As a deacon, I answered a very specific call in my ministry. When I was ordained, it was to care for people living with AIDS and HIV. At the time, I expected to spend the rest of my life in and around hospice nurses, hospitals and social workers. My life has changed pretty significantly since that day. Most of the people I cared for are dead now. The support groups I started and ran for so long have ceased meeting and I now find myself working in the field in which I started my “working life” with the church….formation.

Jesus preached often on the themes of “finding life” and losing “losing life” and “finding life once more”. (Mark 8:34)  This doesn’t mean that you actually have to die in order to experience what Jesus is talking about…but you do have let go of who you thought you were, or were going to be, or have become. Try as I might to explain it with the best metaphors and analogies, it must be experienced before one can really understand it from the inside.

About 30 years ago I became very frustrated with the church. I felt it was filled with hypocrites, busybodies, and know-it-alls. So, I left. My self-imposed exile lasted about 3 months. Not very long to most people, but for me it seemed like a lifetime! I was living in Illinois, taking cello lessons from the retired principal cellist of the Cincinnati Orchestra and working at an egg processing plant. (More on that in another post!) I was disappointed in the church. I had made the church out to be some kind of “land of Oz” sort of institution where everyone agreed on things, everyone treated each other with kindness and respect, and where everyone was there for the same reason…..to worship. I was bitterly disappointed when as a student I was licensed as a chalice in the local parish, and had someone get up and move to another position so as to not receive the cup from me….a woman. I was angry when 11 women ordained in the church were told that their ordinations “didn’t count” because they were women. I was hurt when the church I attended in my college town did not minister to me in days and weeks following the death of my father. In short I was bitter, disappointed and angry at the church, and so I left. I was determined I could live without “them”. Interestingly enough, I discovered quite the opposite. I was even more miserable without them! Without that community of support (however fickle), without that time together in reflection and communion each week, I felt as if I had been cut loose and was left adrift in a big open sea, with no sight of land or rescue.

Eventually, I found my way back. Strangely enough, it was through the door I originally entered! I went to church for the first time as a teen having been invited to attend a youth group function. I came back the same way when a friend from my youth group days invited me to help with their youth group. When I walked in the door to the church it was as if my heart “unclenched” for the first time in months and I could breathe again. It felt as comfortable as old shoes, faded jeans or whatever metaphor you want to use. Of course I had to endure the string of questions… “Where have you been”, “why did you stop coming” and so forth. At first I was uncomfortable sharing that because I was afraid people would think I was talking about them, and be offended. But I as told my story as best I could, I discovered many folks had the same experience. Their words of wisdom included, people are people, humans are not perfect, the church is made up of people who are broken and so forth. All of these sentiments did little to help me “forgive” the church. It was not until someone asked me “what did you do to help them see you differently”? that I realized that I was really more in need of forgiveness than any of “those” people. I realized that I had judged, condemned and bailed out on the very people who eventually support me in my ministry and stand for me at my ordination. I realized that in my rush to judgment, I missed the whole point of church. To come as we are, to be who we are, and to share where we are in our journey.

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Sermon on Faith-5/20/2012

The Rev. Julia W. Messer
May 20, 2012—7^th Sunday of Easter
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

Faith may not look the way you expect it to look like.

I grew up going to Episcopal churches and going to an Episcopal camp. While the location and the focus of these two places were different, they both focused on God. Yet to me growing up, the God of church and the God of Camp Kanuga were NOT initially the same God. The God of church was experienced in about two hours and expected us to be quiet, to be awe inspired, and to savor formal music, all within a beautiful structure.   The God of camp was the God that was in stars that we watched from our tents, the God of short services, and the one who loved our camp songs that we sang  at every opportunity—we had Taps and Kumbaya at night, and in the morning and at every meal we sang songs to God. 

I was blessed to meet the God of ritual and the God of wonder and slowly over time began to understand that they were the same God.  I was lucky because God never fit into a certain box for me. And nor did my faith. I knew I could meet God at the altar or in the mountains. God was God, and my faith was my own—well of course with cradle Episcopal leanings!

So when I read today’s first reading from Acts, I couldn’t help but think about how some people think faith should look. In the reading, we learned that the disciples felt that they must replace the twelfth disciple. After Judas betrayed the group that Christ had called together, and after Jesus had left the disciples, the apostles struggled with how to go forward. Do they call another person to make the group twelve strong or do they take another path? Ultimately they followed Peter’s passionate plea and decided they should call someone who had walked with them since the early days. So they narrowed the list down to two names, Matthias and Barsabbas, and then cast lots. The lot fell on Matthias.  But after that, we never hear from or about either of them again in the New Testament.

But what is important to recognize is at this time the followers of Christ had just seen Jesus ascend into heaven so they were without him, and they were waiting for Jesus to send his Holy Spirit to be amongst them. (The sign we know to be the Holy Spirit descending on Pentecost). They were operating when they thought God was silent and while they were filled with faith and expectation, they also were filled with doubt and fear at the time.

          They probably wondered what God wanted from them at that time. I don’t know. But to me, it seems this account is focusing on them trying to make sure their group and how their faith was carried out had to look a certain way. To me I wonder, why the disciples didn’t get that this new faith was NOT supposed to look like how it used to. Yet the Jewish apostles were so used to how the faith was supposed to be and bound by so many laws that they still couldn’t seem to break through them. An example of this was when they were present for Jesus’ transfiguration.  When Peter witnessed it, he wanted to build temples for Jesus, Moses, and Elisha because he knew that whenever they saw or heard God, they were supposed to build an altar to God as so many people in the Old Testament had done.

The apostles knew what their faith should be like when Jesus was right there guiding them and correcting them along the way. But after he had left them they were stuck.   They had experienced God walking amongst them, and now he was gone.  And on top of that their friend had betrayed them and Jesus. What were they to do? What could they do after the mountain-top experiences of faith they had experienced?

Frederick Buechner once wrote “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” He also wrote, “Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and for all.”

What Buechner tried to convey is that everyone does not experience faith or God the same way. That faith is not supposed to look, feel, or be a certain way. It doesn’t fit in a neat little box—that once you experienced faith that is how you will always experience your faith and that it will NEVER change again. So when the disciples tried to make an exact replication of the model that they knew, they were limiting themselves.

Today we can also fall prey to this. Perhaps whenever we experience God we then expect that must be how we will experience God for the rest of our lives. Or we expect church to be a certain way.   We Episcopalians can fall into this trap too when we slip into the familiar statement that most Episcopalians have said at least once in their life: “We have never done it that way before.”

This statement is true as we are people of tradition, but there is a fine line between what tradition is and what is being closed off.  Episcopal churches can use this statement to limit newcomers from joining the vestry, the choir, or the Altar Guild, trying to keep any form of diversity out of their pews.  Or they use it in order to only pray and worship a certain way.

          Now again I grant you that I am not talking about Emmanuel.  It’s pretty hard to worship the same way at Emmanuel because we are indeed a dynamic parish open to new ideas and new ways.  But we do fall into this trap in other ways, in that do we sit in the same pew every Sunday? Do we speak to the same people during the peace or coffee hour?

We all can do this in our personal or business lives when we stick to what is familiar instead of stretching ourselves. Do we take the same way home every time we leave church or work? Do we only see a certain type of movie?

Now I grant you, that as an Episcopalian, there is something comforting and home-like when church is familiar. But have you considered participating in Cursillo, Happening, Camp, Parish Retreat, or any other experience of community and faith outside church? What about how and when we pray—is it always the same prayers at the same time of day?  If for example you always pray at night before going to sleep, try adding good morning prayers—prayers for the day to start with God. Do we only use the daily lectionary? Try reading a book in the Bible straight through.

If our faith becomes too comfortable then we miss out on so many opportunities. So I am going to issue a challenge this week. Look at your past and current spirituality, how has it changed? Currently do you feel close to God when participating in this practice then recognize that you feel God… and rejoice! If not, I invite you to challenge yourself to try something different, to spiritually stretch yourself in a way you never thought of before. 

Remember that “faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and for all.”

 ~~~

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