Trinity Sunday 2011

June 19, 2011

The Rev. John A. Baldwin

When Easter comes late in the year, as is the case in 2011, two important dates coincide on a Sunday morning, Father's Day and Trinity Sunday. Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers here this morning, and happy Trinity Sunday to everyone else.

Father's Day receives a lot less hoop-la than Mother's Day, with florists and retailers not enjoying nearly the same level of business they did earlier in May. Father's Day is nonetheless an important occasion, because it recognizes the great blessing children receive when they have a father who is caring, nurturing, protecting and affirming. The role model our fathers play in our lives can be wonderful, powerful, and life-affirming.

On the other hand, relationships with fathers for many people are often complex. Far too many fathers are absent from their children's lives physically and/or emotionally. My relationship with my own father (who died 3 years ago) was far more complicated and difficult than I would have liked it to have been. Even well into my adult and professional life he felt he had free license to be critical, believing that in doing so he was helping to make me a better person. It was hard to live with at times.

More recently I have been deeply blessed to become a father figure and role model for my grandson, Landon. I am trying to be for him what I longed for my own father to be for me, affirming and nurturing. We'll see how successful I am in doing that as the years go by.

How we view our fathers & their role in our lives does affect our language and understanding of God, the creator & maker of Heaven and Earth, whom the Church down through the centuries has traditionally referred to as "the Father". This was brought home strongly to me when I went off to seminary at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and encountered Feminist Liberation Theology for the first time.

It was unsettling to have the images of God I'd grown up with, challenged at their very roots. How can people have a positive, loving relationship with the divine, it was asked, if we've had abusive, hurtful, painful experiences with our biological fathers, and we limit our language about the divine to "Father God"? If a father has been absent from our life, how can we feel any warmth or intimacy with God as "Father"? How much pain and suffering has been inflicted on humankind, it was contended, by patriarchal dominance that relegates women to second-class citizenship? I was stretched & pulled in seminary to become more of a "feminist"  man... that is to say, someone secure in my own masculine spirituality, not threatened by feminine spirituality....and instead, aware of & nurtured by the feminine that resides in every complete and whole male person.

Later in time, here in the Diocese of Southern Virginia, I was blessed to experience, unpolluted, feminine spirituality in all of its glory, when I served as the only male clergy person on an all-female Cursillo weekend. Just a few years later I was also blessed to serve on an all-male team, and to savor masculine spirituality at its very best.

At seminary, after some of the initial shocks & challenges to my theological framework, I found I could cope intellectually with an expanded range of images. Of course God is not male or female, but rather both, and much more. How foolish we really are, when we diminish the awesome power & majesty of God by seeking to make God too small, trapping God in language that fools us into feeling like we are in control.

And yet, how is it possible for us not to use human language and images in our theological discourse, and have any kind of intimacy. Praying to an amorphous cloud of gas has no appeal whatsoever. It's only as we personalize God that our religion, our faith, our hope, has the power to move us inwardly and deeply. By referring to God as "Father" (or "Mother" as feminist theologians might prefer), we are making possible a personal relationship with the divine. It's important not to let our less-than-perfect experiences with our parents color those terms too deeply, but to envision what fatherhood or motherhood at its very best is all about, and then focus on that as we envision God as loving, nurturing & affirming. 

One of the theologians who really connected with me in seminary was John McQuarrie, who convinced me that the world religions are not as different & disconnected from one another as some would like us to believe. All religions may be placed upon a continuum, McQuarrie asserted, from God as Transcendent (unknowable, beyond us, distant) at one end, to God as Imminent (in all things, close at hand) at the other end of the continuum.

So for example, atheists would be at one end (transcendence) - God is so far removed from us that there's no evidence God exists at all. At the other end of the continuum (Immanence) would be primitive religions (animism and fetishism) in which God is so close at hand that the divine is present in the good luck charm I hold in my hand, or the idol in my living room shrine.

MacQuarrie views Christianity as being rock-solid in the center of this continuum, affirming both the otherness & transcendence of God, and the closeness & imminence of God, with Hinduism & Buddhism being more focused on God's imminence, and Judaism & Islam focused more on God's transcendence. Thus in the Christian faith we can refer to God in personal terms, yet also being fully cognizant of God's power and might.

Now I know I'm straying here into a lot of theology on Father's Day and Trinity Sunday, and I hope your eyes haven't glazed over yet. Hang with me just a moment longer. The Holy Trinity is one of the unique contributions that Christianity has made to world religions. The transcendent God and creator of all things, becomes fully present and imminent in a human life, Jesus of Nazareth. That presence is not just a once upon a time, historical event, but is an ongoing, ever-present reality in the Holy Spirit of God, which is present in every worshipping community, and in every human heart and life. Although the feast day of Trinity Sunday might seem to be about an abstract theological doctrine, it's really about a reality of our universe. One way of affirming this is with these words, God beyond us, with us, and within us.  Amen.

Pentecost Sunday 2011

The Rev. J.W. Messer

Day of Pentecost
WhitsundayActs 2:1-21, Psalm 104:25-35, 37, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13, John 20:19-23

PENTECOST 2011

I can’t believe it, but today is a special day for me.  Exactly one year ago, to this date, I was ordained to the transitional deaconate.  And one LITURGICAL year ago, I interviewed at Emmanuel, and knew I was called here.  I was on these beautiful grounds, had met with the clergy, vestry, staff, & many parishioners and recognized what a happy and healthy parish this was (and is). It was on that Pentecost Sunday one year ago, that the Holy Spirit called me to Emmanuel.

Pentecost is a very special day in the life of the Church.  Today, we celebrate the birth of the Church and the power of the Holy Spirit. Even after our readings today, understanding who the Holy Spirit is can sometimes be confusing. Perhaps a story will help. 

Once there was a Sunday school teacher, named Mrs. Smith, who was trying to explain to her class who and what the Holy Spirit is. Mrs. Smith talked about how the Holy Spirit can inspire people, even make leaders out of people who most would not think would be. She explained how the Holy Spirit even gave the followers of Christ the ability to speak in the native tongue of others. Mrs. Smith closed by saying that the Holy Spirit was moving and embodied in flame and wind but the Holy Spirit could also be invisible and inspiring, and could appear anywhere.

Little Tommy, who usually was up to trouble, was really listening to what the teacher had to say, and finally spoke up. “Mrs. Smith, the Holy Spirit sounds cool! It can make people do some awesome stuff, huh!” “Yes Tommy, the Holy Spirit does; that’s very good.”  Tommy went on to say “So if the Holy Spirit is God and God is everywhere and can be big and can be small, then the Holy Spirit is everywhere?” “Yes! Tommy that is right!” “So can the Holy Spirit be in this Church right now?” “Yes, the Holy Spirit can be and is in this church right now!” “Can the Holy Spirit be in this room?” he queried.   The teacher was really proud of Tommy and the fact that he was paying attention made her pretty sure that the Holy Spirit WAS indeed in that room at that moment.  So she affirmed that the Holy Spirit was in the room. Then Tommy held up a glass and said, “Can the Holy Spirit even be in this glass?”  A little more hesitant, Mrs. Smith still affirmed that the Holy Spirit could even be in the glass. SLAM! Covering the glass with his hand, Tommy gleefully looking around, smiling and said, “GOT HIM!”

The idea of a little boy wanting to capture and almost bottle the power of the Holy Spirit can be viewed as an amusing story.   But I think it also touches on an important point--we do not know how, when, where, or why the Holy Spirit inspires.  We just see the results.

We see this on the day that the Church was born, the day of Pentecost. As revealed to us in the First Lesson, Acts 2:1-21, a rush of a violent wind came into the house where the followers of Christ were sitting.  Then suddenly a flame appeared above the heads of everyone there and they were able to speak as if they were native speakers in other languages. 

The significance of the first act of God’s spirit at Pentecost, and at the creation of the Church, is that it honors the diversity and individuality of believers. Everyone is not going to hear or experience God in the same way. And God does not make everyone experience the Holy Spirit the same way.  The disciples came with their own life’s experiences and when they went out into the world, they all had their own unique experiences. 

We are all given battles to fight and abilities to reach others through our gifts and our experiences. Each of our own gifts and abilities work together to help build up the body of Christ, which we heard about in Corinthians. We hear that each of us have been given portions of the Spirit to use for the common good. But it is when individuals work together that the body becomes stronger. No gift is greater than another, no one way to use our gifts is greater than another way, as long as it is done to build up the Body of Christ and to build up each other.

As St. Teresa of Avila so aptly and poignantly wrote:

Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
Compassion on this world
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good
Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world
Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are His body
Christ has no body now on earth but yours

We are the body that must work together, and it’s not always the easiest of tasks. We are all scarred; we are all working through our own issues. We bring our issues to the table, just as we bring our gifts and abilities. We bring the ability to make dinners for the food kitchen or for each other at events.  We may have the ability to lay flooring for a house through the Faith Works Collation. We may have the gift of a green thumb that offers beauty and joy to all who see the flowers.  Whatever our call, or whatever our gifts, we are all guilty at some point of discrediting our gifts, by seeing them as nothing special, or seeing them as simple gifts.  Simple gifts are never simple. The call to use our gifts is a powerful one.  If used as God intended, our gifts will bring joy to us and those around us.  The want to share these gifts can set our hearts on fire.

No gift is greater than another; what is important is to try to discern what our gifts are, and how to be involved and participate in the life of the community. The Holy Spirit is a uniting force, which builds the Community of Christ together.  We may not know where our paths will go, but we are called to be open to the Holy Spirit.  Through the Holy Spirit we may be reached by God or we can reach others.  Being open to the Holy Spirit allows our gifts to be used to build up the body of Christ.  Our talents, our gifts, may not appear as we think, but can be shared by simply being present and being open to a ministry of presence. What we are called to do is to use our gifts in the world, to be able to be open and inspired. And we pray that our hearts may be set on fire. 

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

Sunday, June 12, 2011 - Year A

The Seventh Sunday of Easter/The Sunday after Ascension Day

Sermon

June 5, 2011

Lynne Coates

Acts 1:6-14   Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35    1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11  John 17:1-11

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.  Amen

There was a rabbi who was having a heated dispute with his congregation; they couldn't agree on anything. The president of the congregation said, "Rabbi, this can't continue. There has to be a conference, and we have to settle this once and for all." The rabbi agreed.

At the appointed time the rabbi, the president of the congregation, and ten elders met in the conference room of the synagogue. After much heated discussion, it became more and more apparent that the rabbi was a lonely voice in the wilderness. The president of the synagogue said, "Come, Rabbi, enough of this. Let's vote and allow the majority to rule." He passed out slips of paper; the votes were collected, and the president said, "You may examine them, Rabbi. It is eleven to one against you. Eleven to one. We have the majority."

Offended, the rabbi rose to his feet and said, "So, now you think because of the vote that you're right and I'm wrong. Well, that's not so. I stand here and call upon the Holy One of Israel to give us a sign that I'm right and you're wrong."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth when there was a deafening clap of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning that struck the conference table and cracked it in two. The room was filled with smoke and fumes, and the president and the elders were hurled to the floor. The rabbi stood untouched, his eyes and smile flashing with triumph. Slowly, the president lifted himself out of the rubble. His hair was singed, his glasses were hanging from one ear, his clothing was in disarray. Finally he said, "All right, all right! Eleven to two. But we still have the majority." 

We know that at times there has been discord and disunity in the Church. This disunity is apparent in the numbers of denominations that we have.

In the 16^th century, the “protesters” became the Protestants and they split from the Roman Catholics. But once the squabble started, it snowballed. It wasn't long before the Protestants began disagreeing with each other and different protestant faiths are the result. But then, I believe that God wants us to stand back and look at what we’ve done and understand that we are one. We are all called to love God and love others, no matter what faith we are. These are the two greatest commandments.

Bishop Jack Spong says that what distinguished Jesus from us is that he was able to become fully human. Now, we may not think so much of our “humanness.”  But what I think it means to be fully human is to be truly what God calls us to be. We do have our moments. We can in those moments be like Jesus. When we deny our own comfort and reach out to another, we are being like Jesus. We are being fully human.

Jesus said in the today’s gospel: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” Jesus was giving the disciples his legacy, his call, his own discipleship. He left them with everything they needed to continue his work in the world. The result of that work is of course our church with all its Catholics, Protestants and others who struggle to love God and love others.

There will always be that which separates Christians from Christians and denomination from denomination. Loving God and others is not determined by whether we agree with each other about every interpretation of scripture or doctrine or form of church government. Our unity is determined by whether we love one another, and whether we reflect the love of God in Christ for the world, as we were charged to do at the Ascension. And this is Ascension Sunday.

Shortly after the end of the Civil War, in a fashionable Richmond church, during Communion a black man walked down the aisle. A tense silence gripped everyone. No one got up to go receive the bread and wine, although many had not yet received Communion. The black man started to kneel alone.

 Quietly, a tall, graying man with a military bearing came up to receive Communion. Together, they knelt. People realized that the person kneeling beside the black man without showing any distinction was General Robert E. Lee. Although Lee said nothing, everyone knew he had shown his faith through the act of joining that lonely black worshiper at the altar. Certainly no big deal today. 150 years ago, it was a very big deal.

What if a bedraggled and dirty homeless person struggled up to receive Eucharist in this church. Would we go up and kneel beside that person? The way we kneel beside each other and beside our children? I like to think all of us would. Or do we cast ourselves as judges of others?

 I confess  that when I was young I struggled with tendency to judge others at times as if I were somehow given the wisdom to find fault  and to inform someone else that I had all the answers if he or she would just listen to me. Right? And God must love me more because I was possessed of this wisdom. What I have learned and continue to learn is that God loves all of us equally, no one person more or less. If this is what God does, then this is what I must do. What we must do. I remind myself that the job of God is taken and not by me. I pray that I am not ultimately defined by that long-ago behavior.

In the epistle appointed for today from 1Peter, we hear: “Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” That passage frightened me greatly when I was little. I figured that my sins were so great that roaring lion would surely have me for lunch. What I see about this passage today is that whatever passes for the devil is that which I must cast off about myself in order to become the disciple Jesus needs in the world. The passage further reads: “…the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen and establish you.”                                                   

In my research for this sermon, I ran across a story about a Roman Catholic deacon who had lost his way, and his work at church had been failing for some time. He had been negative and judgmental toward others. He was asked by his priest to drive some young people to a nursing home to sing. He agreed reluctantly. As he stood in the back of the room and waited for them to finish, he looked down, and there was an old man in a wheelchair. The old man reached up and held his hand all during the program. The next month it was the same. The man in the wheelchair came during the singing and held the hand of the deacon. It happened the next month, and the next month, and the month after that, and the month after that.

Then one Sunday the old man wasn't there. The deacon asked a nurse about him and was told, "Oh, he's down the hall in his room. He's dying, you know, but if you want to go down and pray over him, I guess that would be all right."

So, the deacon found the old man, seemingly unconscious, took his hand and prayed that God would receive him, that God would ease his passage from this life into the next and give him eternal healing.

            As soon as he finished the prayer, the old man squeezed the deacon's hand and the deacon knew that he'd been heard. He was so moved by this that it brought him to tears. He stumbled out of the room and bumped into a woman. She said, "My father’s been waiting for you.”

            The deacon was amazed at this. He said, "What do you mean?"

            The woman said, "Well, my father would say that once a month Jesus came to this place. He would take my hand for a whole hour. I don't want to die until I have the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.”

This story tells me that we can all be the face and the heart and the hands of Jesus for someone else. We can take Jesus’ charge to his disciples at the time of his Ascension and begin to live into it. These moments, opportunities to serve, can take us by surprise sometimes. I pray every day for God to send me opportunities to serve. But I am not always as vigilant as I could be. And I’m sure I miss some of those opportunities. But I still pray.

Those who were present at the Ascension, we imagine, made their way back to where they were staying. With the family of Jesus and a number of women and others they engaged in community-building. They spent time in prayer as they sought to be about the continuation of the work of Jesus. They became the Church. Our Church. Humble, small, tentative beginnings. Now the Christian Church is the largest religious group in the world. How amazing is that!

Now through the Ascension we see Jesus set free from limitations so that his story might continue through the likes of you and me as we are given help and support by the Holy Spirit.

"You shall be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, and in Judea

          and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

A priest once asked his Sunday school pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun. "Could it be," asked one student, "when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it's a sheep or a dog?"

 "No," answered the priest. That’s not the answer I’m looking for.”

Another asked, "Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it's a fig tree or a peach tree?"

 "No," answered the priest. “It’s still not the answer I want.  "Then when is it?" the pupils demanded.

"It is when you can look on the face of any person and see the face of Jesus. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night."

Amen

Easter 6-A

May 29^th, 2011

The Rev. Marguerite Alley

Many of us were fortunate enough to grow up in families where we experienced first hand the meaning of “unconditional love”. Some of us did not. For some of us there were always conditions, and sometimes they were hidden conditions. When a person grows up in a family where the concept of love has strings attached to it, it damages us. Often for life. We grow up believing that we must earn love and that we often will fall far short. We grow up believing that when we don’t live up to other’s expectations, their love will be withdrawn and we will be left alone in the world. The result is that we grow to be fearful and insecure adults, often afraid to try new things, afraid to express our feelings and deathly afraid of disappointing our loved ones and being abandoned as a result.

In the collect this morning, we prayed “Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire”. In the Psalm we sang “Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer, nor withheld his love from me”. A couple of weeks ago we heard the story of the encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus and then in the room where the disciples were hiding following the crucifixion. Nowhere in these  stories does Jesus admonish his friends for bailing on him or for being cowards. Nowhere does he suggest that there are any strings attached to his love and friendship. Clearly, Jesus loves his disciples with that unconditional love. Even when Thomas refuses to see Jesus for what he is and demands to see his wounds and touch them…..Jesus is nothing but patient and loving.

This started me thinking…..God created the universe for us. God created this world for us. God created us for each other. God created all that exists within our world for us.  We, in return have ignored the simplest of “rules” (if you can even call them rules). We have lusted after, wanted more and murdered each other. With each gift we have demanded more. Each time we have been let off the hook, we have gone on to even greater atrocities. Its kind of ridiculous to think that anyone or any entity could love US unconditionally. And yet…..

We have been taught that God is love. We have been taught that God loves us, just as we are, no strings attached. We have been taught that God knows no other than unconditional love. Each time we have wandered from the path, the shepherd has gently (not always subtly) guided us back. Each time we have ignored, or distorted what we know God is telling us we have been patiently reminded. Each time we have broken our promises or tried to willfully impose our own desires upon God or others, we have been quietly corrected. Never though have we ever been threatened with the loss of God’s love. Never have we been told that God has had it with us and our lack of faith. Until now. Today…..after everything, Jesus says “those who love me will be loved by my father”.

This is a pretty big departure from what we have been taught. We have consoled ourselves with the thought that really…not matter what we do, God will still love us. We have done a lot of pretty nasty stuff with that in the back of our minds. We have not loved God with our whole heart…….because well, it is good to be rich. It is good to be powerful. Society tells us that “he who dies with the most toys wins”.  We have not loved with our soul. We have hurt each other. We have alienated, ridiculed and crushed those who are different. We have not loved the Lord with our minds. We have closed them to new ideas, we have poisoned our children with fear and suspicion. And we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have let them fight their own battles, even when we knew they were horribly out numbered, were already so beaten down they didn’t stand a chance. We are, if truth be told, about the most ungrateful bunch of brats a parent could be stuck with. And yet…until now we have been taught and we have believed that God loves us..no matter what. So what has changed? Was the crucifixion some kind of test that we royally flunked? Was the fact that Jesus’ best friends (the ones who claimed to know and understand him the best) abandoned him in the final hours the last straw?

Those of you who ARE parents, understand this dilemma that Jesus is facing. Each time our children test us or disappoint us…..we tell them, “This is it. You better straighten up and fly right, or else….”but Jesus has never said anything like this. I don’t think any of us really believes that tornados, hurricanes  or earthquakes are God’s way of punishing us for our willfulness.  That being said, it certainly sounds here as though Jesus is saying “if you love me……” It sounds as though now there are some strings attached. But,  I think Jesus is going in a totally different direction with this statement.  When I was a teen, the thought of disappointing my parents was pretty unpleasant for me. It didn’t always keep me from doing bad stuff….because sometimes I didn’t even stop to think before I did the bad stuff. Later, when I had disappointed or hurt them…I often felt worse because I hadn’t stopped to think of anyone other than myself. I think this is what Jesus is really talking about. One time stands out particularly clearly. (Story) It wasn’t until weeks later that we knew that she “knew”. I overheard her saying to my older brother “I need you to stay here for the weekend. I thought I could trust them, but I can’t”.

 When we really love someone, we think of them before we think of ourselves….especially in things that effect both. I think what Jesus is saying when he says “If you love me you will keep my commandments”, is not a statement that suggests the withdrawal of that unconditional love we have come to depend on. I think he is not saying “if you love me you will obey me”  but rather, “when you love me, you are obeying me”. That is a pretty big difference in my mind. The “spirit of truth” is what helps us to see when we are not loving as we are called to, and shows us how we can better be the children of a loving God.  At this point in the whole story, we are still digesting all the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection….yet Jesus is already reminding us that there is more to come by introducing the Holy Spirit. By pointing out for us the steady presence of God in our lives through the gift of the Advocate, Jesus is also reminding us that in fact God’s unconditional love and forgiveness are still offered to us with absolutely no strings attached. And when we choose to love God with our whole selves in return, we are indeed obeying and keeping his commandment.

Mission Sunday: Mission to Haiti and the Holy Trinity Cathedral

The Rev. J.W. Messer
Mission Sunday
5.15.2011

About a year ago, I graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) in Alexandria, Virginia.  During my time at seminary, we were expected to daily attend one of the three services held in the chapel.  For the most part over those three years, I met daily with a 129 year old prayer friend, Immanuel Chapel, on the VTS campus. The VTS chapel was one of my favorite places on campus, and when stressing, it was very peaceful and restorative to go into the chapel when no one else was there and kneel at the altar rail under a great stained glass window that was above the altar. The window depicted THE GREAT COMMISSION, with Jesus preaching with his disciples gathered around him at his feet, and the words inscribed above the window read “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel.”

On the night before graduation, family, friends, seminarians, faculty and church leaders all gathered in the chapel for what is known as A Service For The Mission Of The Church.  This service celebrates the conclusion of the mission of the seminary which was to prepare us for the new state of our ministries in the Episcopal Church.  My class was the last graduating class to gather for this service in Immanuel Chapel.

On October 22, 2010, I lost my prayer friend, and VTS lost the central and the spiritual focus for the soul of campus, in a fire.  Luckily no lives were lost.  The accidental fire demolished the historic Immanuel Chapel, with flames so intense that firefighters could not even enter the building to try to save the historical and sacred objects.  In just 40 minutes or so, our chapel with the iconic window, “Go ye into all the world” was destroyed and lost to us forever.

Current and past students, faculty, staff and friends all grieved together over this irreplaceable loss. Immediately, however, fundraising began in order to build a chapel, one that would be a new chapel for a new century. Money instantly started to pour in; without hesitation VTS is going to replace the building that was, and will be, central to VTS gathering. 

This leads me to today’s Gospel reading where Jesus, in conversation with Thomas and Philip, tells them that God sent Him to prepare a place for them in God’s Kingdom.  Jesus said that if you know Him, then you know the Father.  And since you know Jesus and the works He has done, then we are all to do the works that Jesus has done. Jesus was sent by God into the world to call people to go forward in his name. This is mission, and it is central to the Christian faith. Mission is the act of sending and being sent across significant boundaries of human experience to bear witness in word and deed to God’s action in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.[i] Mission means sending and being sent.  But it is also has a counter, that is, it is important to have a place to return to – a physical place to gather and a place in which to be rooted.  This is why it is vital for VTS to rebuild the chapel. Even a spiritual body of future priests and leaders of the church still need a physical location to gather in, a structure that serves as a beacon to all being formed for ministry and the local community to gather.

However after a disaster strikes, not everyone is as blessed as VTS has been. Ten months before the VTS chapel burned, Haiti was decimated by an earthquake.  This earthquake killed more than 250,000 people and made millions more homeless. Many of the services we expect from the government—healthcare, education, culture—were provided by The Episcopal Church in Haiti. In the wake of this devastating earthquake, about 85% of the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti’s institutions were destroyed or severely damaged.  In Port-au-Prince, Holy Trinity Cathedral was in ruin and rubble.  This Cathedral was more than an historical church of the Episcopal Church’s largest diocese of 100,000 members.  It was also the center for so many, particularly in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, with a population nearing 3/4ths of a million.  The Cathedral was more than a church building; it housed and trained a touring choir and the nation’s only symphony orchestra, providing both cultural development and income in a country where the annual per capita income is less that $400. Holy Trinity also helped to educate the next generation.  It housed a primary, a secondary school, and a Professional School offering education and spiritual guidance to hundreds.  Clearly, many people of the city looked to the cathedral for help as it has served as a focus for so many for so long.

A National effort is being led by The National Episcopal Church in an effort to focus its mission towards our Diocese in Haiti.  While many government agencies from all over the world have been working over the past year to help those left in the aftermath, there is one thing no one else can rebuild, the Holy Trinity Cathedral.[ii] The national church is asking us to help to rebuild, one brick at a time. Brick by brick, we can have a hand in helping our brothers and sisters in Christ to rebuild their beacon of hope to their nation -- all with two simple acts.  First, we can donate our money.  The national church suggests that $10 buys a brick, but by donating even a few dollars, we help our sister Diocese of Haiti as they begin their resurrection projects to rebuild a broken nation, a broken cathedral.  At Emmanuel, we are the recipients of a challenge grant from one of our parish families. Every gift of $25 or more will be matched, up to a total of $1000. And the second act we can offer to them is our prayers. These two acts are simple but have transformative powers.

        We are all called as Christians to go out into the world and make disciples, to help and love our neighbor as ourselves.  We are called to be God’s hands on Earth!  Shouldn’t we use those hands to make a place, a home on Earth for our neighbors? Even if all we can offer is one brick at a time, one prayer at a time, we, as a Christian body, can help resurrect from the rubble the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the beacon of hope for so many Haitians.

        VTS needs and will get its’ chapel rebuilt; there will be a physical location for a community to gather in.  The people of Haiti deserve the same.  The question is not are we able to help, but WILL we help?

Let us at least begin this journey with a pray.

Let us pray:
Almighty and loving God, all of creation is yours.   We are joined together with our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, so that when one hurts, we all hurt, and when one rejoices, we all rejoice together. Today we pray especially for the Diocese of Haiti, for we know what it means to have something we hold dear, something that seems bigger than us, destroyed in a moment. The loss is painful which can shake us to our core, but it is does not end there.  We also face the struggle to rise out of the rubble and to restore our lives to what is now the ‘new normal.’ In all of this, we turn to you for strength and grace.  We turn to our neighbors for a helping hand. You call all of your children to go forth and to be your hands in the world. Help us as we discern how best to use the gifts and talents you have given us to aid our brothers and sisters in Haiti, as they work to rebuild your Church. All this we pray through your name. Amen.[iii]

+And in God’s name we pray. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. +

---

[i] Horizons of Mission pg 18

[ii] Diocese of Haiti website in their plea for help

[iii] Prayer written by JWM

The Fourth Sunday of Easter

May 15, 2011

The Rev. John A. Baldwin

Acts 2:42-47 ,1 Peter 2:19-25 , John 10:1-10 Psalm 23 , 

One of the distinguishing features of the Gospel of John is Jesus' description of himself in "I am" statements: "I am the Vine", "I am the way, the truth & the life", "I am Living Water", "I am the Good Shepherd", "I am the Bread of Life", and from this morning's Gospel, "I am the door of the sheep...if anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture."

Jesus liked to use sheep as illustrations in his stories and parables. He spoke about the importance of seeking out the lost lamb. As the disciples were setting out on a missionary journey, Jesus said to them, "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves." When challenged by the Pharisees about healing on the Sabbath, Jesus replied, "Suppose you had a sheep which fell in a ditch on the Sabbath; is there not one of you who would not catch hold of it and lift it out?"

Having spent nearly 5 months on 3 separate occasions in rural Dorset, England where sheep outnumber residents by a considerable number, I have seen a lot of sheep up close. There is hardly a more peaceable creature. Who has ever been hurt or threatened by a sheep? Yet I've also been told that sheep are not highly intelligent or discerning. If allowed to, they will wander aimlessly seeking pasture. That's why you will never find sheep in England without a fence to keep them in. They are also defenseless against predators. A wolf can find mighty easy pickings in a sheep pasture.

Using sheep as an image or metaphor for human beings is not particularly flattering, but it does point towards some characteristics of human nature that were evident to Jesus: our need for a shepherd to guide and protect us; our tendencies to wander aimlessly through life, without greater purpose at times than keeping our bellies full; and our vulnerabilities to getting lost or being devoured by wolves.

What strikes me about this image of Jesus as the door of the sheep is that it's a two-way door. The sheep have the freedom to go in and out.....to graze peacefully within the protecting walls of the sheepfold, or to stay without, but at the risk of vulnerability to thieves, robbers and strangers. We might well ask: If God entertained such an unflattering view of human nature, why would he allow us to go in and out of the sheepfold, instead of keeping that door firmly shut, and protecting us from ourselves? The answer, I believe, lies in the wonderful, yet terrible gift of freedom that God has given us.

A short film called The Parable was produced for the 1964 World's Fair. In it, a clown in whiteface becomes a Christ figure. He wanders through a circus grounds acting as a servant, carrying pails of water for an overworked elephant tender, taking the place of another in a dunking tank, and dusting the shoes of spectators in the bigtop. Later in the film he straps himself into a harness, taking the place of a "living puppet" in the top of the circus tent. He becomes an actor in a Punch and Judy type show, his arms and legs manipulated with strings by a master puppeteer down below.

In his servanthood, the clown not only stirs up gratitude from those whose roles he assumes, but also enmity in the hearts of those who resent his interference, the bosses and trainers. When the clown straps himself into the harness, they see it as an opportunity to attack him with baseballs, swords and canes. In effect, they crucify him. The master puppeteer, with a lifeless clown now in harness, conducts a macabre dance, moving his limbs in a mockery of life.

This image of the master puppeteer lies close to the heart of what many conceptualize when they think about God. Isn't this what is implicitly meant when people attribute close calls to God's will and plan? For example...the telephone rang as I was going out the door and as a result, I missed by a minute being involved in a fatal accident on I-64. God pulled the string. My friend, my parent, my neighbor has cancer, broke a leg, lost their job (fill in the blanks). It's all part of the plan of the master puppeteer, isn't it? Wars, floods, tornadoes and tsunamis? All part of God's plan. Don't you wonder why some unfortunate people become victims, and others are spared? If God is pulling all the strings, his ways are mysterious and impossible to fathom for sure, but everything happens for a reason, right?

The great theological problem if we ascribe to a view of God as a puppeteer, rescuing some and ignoring others, is that it poses a universe where there is no freedom to choose. We are not free to decide whether to go in or out of the door of the sheepfold. In fact, our decisions really don't matter at all. God will do what God wants to do. We really are like those living puppets, and the dead clown.....helpless participants in a macabre dance of life and death. This seems to me an image more appropriate to Hell rather than to the Kingdom of God.

Basic Christian theology asserts something quite different. God in the self-emptying act of Creation bestowed upon human beings the wonderful yet terrible gift of freedom. We are free to choose between responding to our own needs, wants and desires, or to minister to those of others; to be self-centered, or God-centered; to embrace abundant living, or to nurture those temptations that draw us away from the love of God. Precisely because God values his creation so much, he allows us the freedom to make choices that are foolish even as God fervently hopes we will choose what is loving and good.

In that freedom of choice there is room for error and accident. I can choose to buy a house on an earthquake fault line; to take into my body substances that are harmful to my health; to choose friends whose morals are questionable; to value the outward and material over the inward and spiritual. That's the terrible side of freedom, leading us perhaps to long for a God who pulls strings and saves us from ourselves.

The wonderful side of freedom, however, is that God desires a relationship with us which is truly respectful, allowing us the capability to blunder and then seek reconciliation; to grow in wisdom and strength; to become a new creation; to seek God so as to find Him.

This freedom to choose lies at the heart of our baptismal covenant. Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers? Will you persevere in resisting evil and whenever you sin, repent and return to the Lord? Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?

God forces no one to do any of this, but when we do embrace the baptismal covenant, the door to abundant living in this life and the next is open to all who choose to enter.

The Stewardship of Creation Sunday

John A. Baldwin

The Second Sunday after Easter

May 1, 2011   

I came into the office this past week to find our parish administrator in some distress. The mother eagle in the Norfolk Botanical Garden had been hit by a jet and killed. Donna had been following the birth of the baby eaglets and their mother's nurturing of them for several weeks, thanks to a video link to the internet. What had once been the purview of only avid birdwatchers with binoculars had been brought into the living rooms of Tidewater Virginia, and fascination and compassion had ensued. Not only Donna, but many others who'd been engaged with this extraordinary glimpse of nature, found that they cared about a bird, and the drama of her raising her young.

Imagine that, feeling grief about the death of a raptor (a bird of prey) ! But eagles too have little babies whom they nurture and protect. They, like us, are marvels of creation....different from us, but in their own way perfect specimens of nature's creative force at work. When we feel and experience that connection, we begin to care across-species, and I believe we move closer to the heart of God. Last Tuesday night, at our monthly meeting of BUBBLES (theological discussion over a glass of beer at Salvatore's) we considered the question "Do Dogs Go to Heaven?" Sentimentally, of course, everyone affirmed that Spot, Fido and Rover, would definitely go on into life hereafter. After all, dogs display unconditional love in ways that humans often envy. Why wouldn't God draw them closer to his nearer presence? The discussion at our table moved on into reflection upon whether animals have souls, as we believe humans do, and just what is the reality of heaven? Speculative theology, utilizing the imagination to reflect on matters of faith and religion, always enlivens and fascinates me.

What passages in the Bible say about many things is open to speculative theology because scripture utilizes rich imagery, story, human insight, and historical experience to address issues of ultimate importance. It speaks in new and different ways to every generation, and to every sort and condition of human beings. We look at scripture from different vantage points, and in every reading of it we see and hear it through the filters of our personal experience. Consider for example, what is perhaps the most quoted passage in scripture (John 3:16). "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will have eternal life." We get so focused on the latter part of this quote, that we glide right over the first 5 words. "God so loved "the world" ......It's not God so loved "humanity", but God so loved "the world"....all of it. Humans come dangerously close to sheer pride and arrogance when we forget to recognize that God created all things, and in the first chapter of Genesis, God blessed all of it as "good"....dogs, cats, and eaglets; earth, winds and waters; mountains, rivers and seas, and maybe even mosquitoes, ticks and chiggers (though some have asserted, tongue in cheek, that those had to be the works of the devil!)

The two stories of creation in Genesis One (the creation of the world in 7 days) and Genesis Two (the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden), have important things to say to us this morning as we celebrate the 41st annual Earth Day (albeit a few days late, since this year it fell on Good Friday). Genesis One speaks to our role as participants, allies and co-creators with God in the ongoing work of creation. But it also has those interesting and challenging words within it: "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it". We have been inclined to use the word "subdue" in the modern era primarily as license to conquer, control, own, deplete and use up. But it has a softer side as well, namely to bring into cultivation, reduce the intensity of, tone down. In other words, "to bring into balance." And that is precisely what we see in the beginning of Genesis Two, the Garden of Eden - humans living in harmony with flora and fauna. Trouble sets in, however, as Adam and Eve (who represent all of humanity) decide to seek divinity, to squeeze God out of the picture in the ongoing drama of creation, and go it alone. Adam and Eve fall from grace, not because they are inherently wicked, but because they succumb to pride and hubris. They disrupt the balance within the garden.

Earth Day has evolved over the past 40 years from dire predictions of doom in 1970 to involving citizens from all walks of life into pursuing the goal of a Billion Acts of Green. Back in 1970, dramatic events such as the Cuyahoga River bursting into flame in 1969, the blowout of an oil well off Santa Barbara, and the "death" of Lake Erie due to pollution all fed Americans' concerns. Earth Day 1970 provoked a torrent of apocalyptic predictions. "We have about five more years at the outside to do something," ecologist Kenneth Watt declared to a Swarthmore College audience. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that "civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." "We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation," wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner.

Imminent global famine caused by the explosion of the "population bomb" was the big issue on Earth Day 1970. "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make," Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in an interview. "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next 10 years." Pollution was another big issue on Earth Day 1970. Smog choked many American cities and sludge coated the banks of many rivers. People were also worried that we were poisoning the biosphere and ourselves with dangerous pesticides. The Great Lakes were in bad shape and Lake Erie was officially "dead," its fish killed because oxygen supplies had been depleted by rotting algae blooms fed by organic pollutants from factories and municipal sewage. Beyond anxiety over population, pollution, and pesticides, even more long-term concerns were on display at the first Earth Day, including the depletion of nonrenewable resources, disappearing biodiversity, and global climate change due to human activity--all of which have come to figure prominently in our current environmental debates.

Fortunately, the apocalyptic gloom and doom of Earth Day 1970, while waking a lot of people up, didn't prove as prophetic as we might have feared at the time. While, it's absolutely true that far too many people remain poor and hungry in the world--800 million people are still malnourished--we have not seen mass starvation around the world in the past four decades. Where there have been famines, such as in Somalia and Ethiopia, they have been primarily the result of war and political instability. Far from turning brown, the Green Revolution has made a huge difference in food production outpacing population growth. According to the World Bank's World Development Report 2000, food production increased by 60 percent between 1980 and 1997. What about the fears expressed about the world's population? In 2000 there were 6 billion - 30% fewer than predicted on Earth Day 1970, because total fertility dropped nearly everywhere on the planet from around 6 children per woman in the 1960s to around 2.8 in 2000. In the U.S., air quality has improved significantly over the past 40 years, and similar trends can be found when it comes to water pollution. Lake Erie once "dead" again supports a $600 million fishing industry. 

Earth Day 2011 is much less apocalyptic in nature, much less filled with gloom and doom, yet none the less deeply serious in encouraging each of us to become involved in restoring the balance in nature. In an effort dubbed "A Billion Acts of Green," organizers are encouraging people to pledge online at actearthday.com. to do something small but sustainable in their own lives to improve the planet's health — from switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs to reducing the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals. "Millions of people doing small, individual acts can add up to real change," said a spokesman for the group coordinating efforts. There were hundreds of rallies, workshops and other events around the United States and hundreds more overseas where it is now celebrated in 192 countries. In the years since the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 the environmentalist movement has made great strides with passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, the Endangered Species Act and other groundbreaking laws. Sadly, the bipartisanship that marked the birth of Earth Day — it was sponsored in Congress by Wisconsin Democrat Gaylord Nelson and California Republican Pete McCloskey — is too often missing in discussions about environmental policy today.

My own theological perspective is marked more by optimism than pessimism. I am a firm believer that God is actively involved in all that is going on in the cosmos, and that God earnestly desires for us to be in partnership with Him in the ongoing work of Creation. I believe that the Earth Day movement is moving in a positive direction in evolving from apocalyptic gloom and doom to encouraging each one of us to do our small part in personal initiatives. We have been very fortunate at Emmanuel to have a small but very dedicated Green Team looking faithfully at how we here in Virginia Beach can make a contribution. I invite you to join them in this effort as faithful members of Christ's family, the Church.

~~~

In the name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.