Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said unto him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard." Luke 1: 11-13
Yesterday our diocesan intern, Sanford Groff, preached a barnburner of a sermon about answering the call of God's angel. Sanford talked about how terrifying the angel Gabriel must have been to Mary and then proceeded to recount the terrifying calls of Zechariah (see above), Mary and the people of God. I never really thought of how the angel Gabriel might be terrifying to behold. Then yesterday our offertory hymn was Hymn 265 (Hymnal 1982) and I found myself singing these words: "The angel Gabriel from heaven came, his wings as drifted snow, his eyes of flame." Wings as drifted snow sounds like a peaceful and kindly angelic presence. Eyes of flame is a bit more disturbing. But it makes some sense since a call from God in our lives--a seemingly impossible call from God--contains both the calming peace of God AND the stirring flame of God's Holy Spirit. Paradoxically, a call from God is unsettling and deeply serene all at the same time.
Sanford went on to preach about how we turn aside from God's impossible calls in our lives. The impossible calls that come when we are just minding our own business in our everyday, ordinary lives. Since yesterday, I've been thinking about the seemingly impossible calls in my own life---calls that we all answer and calls that are particularly our own. Learning to walk is a call that virtually all of us master as a toddler...but think about it, isn't it a miraculous thing to learn to walk as an infant? Although I can't remember the urge to walk, might it not seem impossible at first? Leaving home for a full day of school is a seemingly impossible call for a 6-year old. Learning to read. Learning to write. Learning to cross a street and to drive a car. The miraculous calls just keep coming as we move into adulthood. Getting married. Having a baby. Buying a house. Doesn't it seem impossible at some early point in every call? As young children and young adults, we see possibility everywhere. When an angelic presence in our hearts and spirit calls to us to a new possibility, we may be a bit afraid, but we often give it a try.
But as we age, we often learn to turn aside from those angelic summonses. We turn aside from the snow-white wings and especially the fiery, penetrating eyes. We start to look for disappointment and failure instead of hope and possibility. Maybe the hard-knocks of life do this. Maybe we grow tired of disappointment. Whatever the reason, we learn to live into fear. We make a habit of avoiding any new idea. Somewhere along the line, we give up on those angels. We give up on believing that God has a plan for each of us. A plan that involves building God's Kingdom with God's everlasting love. We settle for the Kingdom of this world. We just try to hang on another day.
Yesterday Sanford reminded us that we not only do this with our lives, but in the lives of our beloved communities. He challenged Memorial to remain that dramatically and radically prophetic community that Memorial has been for decades. And Sanford challenged us, in these unsettling economic times, not to settle for just staying open, but to live into a vision where Memorial opens its doors in new and dramatic ways. It's a conversation worth continuing into Christmastide and the Epiphany season. It involves enfolding each other in those snowy angel wings of God's love and stirring our souls with those fiery eyes of the Spirit. That can be frightening if we tried to do it alone, but together, new calls are born.
This Christmastide, where might God be calling you to cast off fear and say YES in your life and in your community of faith. Remember NOTHING is impossible with God.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Patience before the Feast
They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. Jeremiah 31:12-13
Erv+ preached on Sunday about patience. About this time of year, as the cultural Christmas season is in full swing, we all become a bit weary of all the insistent over-preparation....have we bought our beloved a new luxury car yet?.....and are ready for the Christmas feasting to begin...and then a good nap to be had. Some of us just want the whole crazy celebration to be over, stop the traveling and enjoy those quiet days between Christmas Day and New Year's at home. Perhaps to settle by the fire with a good book for the quieter souls among us; to dance and sing and relax together for those who like a bit more activity without all the Christmas fuss.
There is a story told by Thomas Merton about an elderly monk at the Monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky where Merton spent many years of his professed life. This elderly monk loved to garden above all else. He liked nothing better than to putter around the garden all day in all kinds of weather---digging a hole there, pulling weeds, organzing his tools in the shed on rainy days. For a long time, the abbot of the monastery decided that this love of gardening needed some pruning in the life of this elderly monk....and he forbade him from gardening---just on monastic (and maybe puritan) principle. Finally the abbot died and the new abbot decided that this elderly monk was not going to do anything EXCEPT GARDEN. So, as Merton tells it, the monk "just gardened from morning to night. He never came to Office, never came to anything, he just dug in his garden. He put his whole life into this." (Advent and Christmas with Thomas Merton, p.29) When I read about this Gardener of Gethsemane, I rejoiced with him in his gardening life at long last, but I also wondered how he had the patience to wait out the old abbot's non-gardening decree and trust that God would see fit to have him garden once more. And I also wondered: did he ever tire of continual gardening in the days to come?
Sometimes we all just want to do what WE want to do. One of my favorite parts of Christmastide is arriving at Christmas Day afternoon when I get in my pajamas, sit on the coach and watch "It's A Wonderful Life." I don't move for hours. After the movie, I read and read and read. Nap. Watch a football game. Eat a bit. Then go to sleep (and no need to change clothes!)It is great! But I have also learned to love to wait for that moment and to delight in all (well, maybe most) of the activities that come before that. I love the Christmas eve services. I love preparing my sermon for the late service and the pastoral visiting of the week leading up to Christmas. I love that moment when I come home from Christmas Eve, prepare the Christmas stockings and watch the Pope celebrate Mass in Rome. And I even enjoy the trip to the MALL for that last minute gift that we always end up needing.
I don't think I would love these few days of Christmas at home if I didn't have the patience to wait for those days and do the work I'm called to do. If I weren't present for the days of Advent, would Christmas be a real celebration or just another tiring-thing-to-do-and-put-behind-us? And I wonder, did the elderly monk one day just get a little tired of gardening and long to be in the kitchen peeling potatoes with a few of his brother monks or in the sacristy preparing for Eucharist?
Like the Gardener of Gethsemane's abbot, I believe we all need some structure to keep us from revving up the celebration engines too high, too soon. We need the season of Advent, just as humans need the practice of Sabbath. In order to enjoy the things we love, we need the patience to wait and watch and prepare. We need to take a break from gardening, in order to love the garden. We need to take a break from the feast in order to love the feast.
So take a break from the cultural Christmas frenzy---and try not to celebrate too much, too soon. Enjoy the quiet days of waiting for the celebration. Then rejoice and sing as you are called---including wearing your pajamas all day if you like!
Join us at Memorial Church as we green the church this coming Sunday after the 10:30 service. A way to slowly begin to see the Feast of the Incarnation take shape.
Erv+ preached on Sunday about patience. About this time of year, as the cultural Christmas season is in full swing, we all become a bit weary of all the insistent over-preparation....have we bought our beloved a new luxury car yet?.....and are ready for the Christmas feasting to begin...and then a good nap to be had. Some of us just want the whole crazy celebration to be over, stop the traveling and enjoy those quiet days between Christmas Day and New Year's at home. Perhaps to settle by the fire with a good book for the quieter souls among us; to dance and sing and relax together for those who like a bit more activity without all the Christmas fuss.
There is a story told by Thomas Merton about an elderly monk at the Monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky where Merton spent many years of his professed life. This elderly monk loved to garden above all else. He liked nothing better than to putter around the garden all day in all kinds of weather---digging a hole there, pulling weeds, organzing his tools in the shed on rainy days. For a long time, the abbot of the monastery decided that this love of gardening needed some pruning in the life of this elderly monk....and he forbade him from gardening---just on monastic (and maybe puritan) principle. Finally the abbot died and the new abbot decided that this elderly monk was not going to do anything EXCEPT GARDEN. So, as Merton tells it, the monk "just gardened from morning to night. He never came to Office, never came to anything, he just dug in his garden. He put his whole life into this." (Advent and Christmas with Thomas Merton, p.29) When I read about this Gardener of Gethsemane, I rejoiced with him in his gardening life at long last, but I also wondered how he had the patience to wait out the old abbot's non-gardening decree and trust that God would see fit to have him garden once more. And I also wondered: did he ever tire of continual gardening in the days to come?
Sometimes we all just want to do what WE want to do. One of my favorite parts of Christmastide is arriving at Christmas Day afternoon when I get in my pajamas, sit on the coach and watch "It's A Wonderful Life." I don't move for hours. After the movie, I read and read and read. Nap. Watch a football game. Eat a bit. Then go to sleep (and no need to change clothes!)It is great! But I have also learned to love to wait for that moment and to delight in all (well, maybe most) of the activities that come before that. I love the Christmas eve services. I love preparing my sermon for the late service and the pastoral visiting of the week leading up to Christmas. I love that moment when I come home from Christmas Eve, prepare the Christmas stockings and watch the Pope celebrate Mass in Rome. And I even enjoy the trip to the MALL for that last minute gift that we always end up needing.
I don't think I would love these few days of Christmas at home if I didn't have the patience to wait for those days and do the work I'm called to do. If I weren't present for the days of Advent, would Christmas be a real celebration or just another tiring-thing-to-do-and-put-behind-us? And I wonder, did the elderly monk one day just get a little tired of gardening and long to be in the kitchen peeling potatoes with a few of his brother monks or in the sacristy preparing for Eucharist?
Like the Gardener of Gethsemane's abbot, I believe we all need some structure to keep us from revving up the celebration engines too high, too soon. We need the season of Advent, just as humans need the practice of Sabbath. In order to enjoy the things we love, we need the patience to wait and watch and prepare. We need to take a break from gardening, in order to love the garden. We need to take a break from the feast in order to love the feast.
So take a break from the cultural Christmas frenzy---and try not to celebrate too much, too soon. Enjoy the quiet days of waiting for the celebration. Then rejoice and sing as you are called---including wearing your pajamas all day if you like!
Join us at Memorial Church as we green the church this coming Sunday after the 10:30 service. A way to slowly begin to see the Feast of the Incarnation take shape.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Holy Anticipation
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah: "See, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'" Mark 1:1-3
So begins the Gospel of Mark. No nativity narratives. No prologue about the Word made flesh that comes to dwell among us. The Gospel of Mark, which is our Gospel for most of this lectionary Year B, is short and sweet. Just the facts. In our New Testament class, we are using Mark Allan Powell's textbook on the New Testament. Dr. Powell suggests reading the first chapters of each Gospel as a kind of overture. In a musical, the overture gives you a little bit of each of the main songs and musical themes. So what might be Mark's Gospel trying to tell us in the first chapter? There is no nativity story. The good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begins with the words of the prophet Isaiah talking about a holy messenger. Then John the Baptizer appears out of the wilderness and baptizes Jesus. Jesus is immediately driven into the wilderness to be temped by Satan and then he is off and running in his Galilean ministry---with almost nary a breath. Healing the sick, driving out demons, calling disciples, praying in a deserted place, then off again to heal and teach. In Mark, Jesus has very little of what we call "down time." What kind of model might that be for us in our ministry? However, the first chapter of Mark does begin with the words of the prophet Isaiah which speak of preparation and beginning.
Advent is the time of the church year that we set aside to prepare for the birth of Christ once more in our lives. It is a time of preparing, of anticipating. An overture does much the same thing. At the theatre, when the lights go down and we settle in our seats, the excitement truly builds with the orchestra's first notes of the overture. As we listen to the orchestra, if we know the show, we start to live into the story all over again---the tragedy, the humor, the redemption. But there is that moment before the music starts---when the theatre is quiet and still. A time of great anticipation.
That is what the season of Advent should bring forth in our souls. Anticipation. A kind of holy anticipation. Waiting for the birth of something new in our lives---in Advent, we may get just a hint of the tune of the new adventure ahead, but if we quiet ourselves, we can begin to see a path being prepared. A path which is straight and true and allows us to fully live into a new life in Christ.
In this year's issue of Weavings, a poem was on the back cover which struck me. The poem describes Holy Anticipation as "that breathtaking space inbetween what has been, what is, and what is to come." In the holy anticipation of Advent, we are called to settle into our seats before the show and listen for the first notes of the new life to come.
What notes of a new tune are you hearing in your life in the overture of Advent? The tune may not be complete---but what is coming into your vision and hearing and heart that makes you think a new life in Christ is being born in you this year?
So begins the Gospel of Mark. No nativity narratives. No prologue about the Word made flesh that comes to dwell among us. The Gospel of Mark, which is our Gospel for most of this lectionary Year B, is short and sweet. Just the facts. In our New Testament class, we are using Mark Allan Powell's textbook on the New Testament. Dr. Powell suggests reading the first chapters of each Gospel as a kind of overture. In a musical, the overture gives you a little bit of each of the main songs and musical themes. So what might be Mark's Gospel trying to tell us in the first chapter? There is no nativity story. The good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begins with the words of the prophet Isaiah talking about a holy messenger. Then John the Baptizer appears out of the wilderness and baptizes Jesus. Jesus is immediately driven into the wilderness to be temped by Satan and then he is off and running in his Galilean ministry---with almost nary a breath. Healing the sick, driving out demons, calling disciples, praying in a deserted place, then off again to heal and teach. In Mark, Jesus has very little of what we call "down time." What kind of model might that be for us in our ministry? However, the first chapter of Mark does begin with the words of the prophet Isaiah which speak of preparation and beginning.
Advent is the time of the church year that we set aside to prepare for the birth of Christ once more in our lives. It is a time of preparing, of anticipating. An overture does much the same thing. At the theatre, when the lights go down and we settle in our seats, the excitement truly builds with the orchestra's first notes of the overture. As we listen to the orchestra, if we know the show, we start to live into the story all over again---the tragedy, the humor, the redemption. But there is that moment before the music starts---when the theatre is quiet and still. A time of great anticipation.
That is what the season of Advent should bring forth in our souls. Anticipation. A kind of holy anticipation. Waiting for the birth of something new in our lives---in Advent, we may get just a hint of the tune of the new adventure ahead, but if we quiet ourselves, we can begin to see a path being prepared. A path which is straight and true and allows us to fully live into a new life in Christ.
In this year's issue of Weavings, a poem was on the back cover which struck me. The poem describes Holy Anticipation as "that breathtaking space inbetween what has been, what is, and what is to come." In the holy anticipation of Advent, we are called to settle into our seats before the show and listen for the first notes of the new life to come.
What notes of a new tune are you hearing in your life in the overture of Advent? The tune may not be complete---but what is coming into your vision and hearing and heart that makes you think a new life in Christ is being born in you this year?
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Our Lives are not Our Own
As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Matthew 4:18-20
Yesterday was the Feast Day of St. Andrew. Andrew was one of the first disciples to be called by Jesus. He is mentioned several times in the Gospels and, in three separate incidents, Andrew brings other people to Christ (John 1:41ff; 6:5ff, 12:20ff) In parts of the Anglican communion, St. Andrewstide is often observed as a special time of intercession for the mission of the Church.
Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day and therefore an apporpriate day of prayer in St Andrewstide!
The combination of Advent, St. Andrew's Day and World AIDS Day leads me to ponder what it means to follow Jesus. At our Tuesday morning Peace and Justice Eucharist this week, I was struck by the phrase in the paragraph we read about Andrew from the Anglican Church in Canada. The phrase that has been working on me is this: When Andrew left his net to follow Jesus, his life was no longer his own. No longer his own? This is decidely so deeply counter-cultural for an American individualist to consider. What does it mean to follow Jesus and accept that our life is no longer our own?
Preparing for Emily Cox's funeral tomorrow has underscored for me what it means to live a life not our own. A good funeral preparation will always do this for in preparing to celebrate the life of one of God's good and faithful servants shows what it means to follow Jesus. Emily's ninety years on this earth are testament to what that phrase means. Emily served her country during World War II and was stationed in Paris and other parts of France during her time overseas. Although she lost her husband of five years in the 1950s and never had children of her own, she considered her neice and godson as her children. She gave her life to then, her country, to the city of Baltimore and to her family and friends. She spent a good deal of time at the Waxter Senior Center playing Scrabble. She hosted large Thanksgiving and holiday dinners. And she loved her church. The fountain in our renovated garden is in memory of her husband and it was such a lovely surprise when she made the contribution that enabled that fountain to become a reality. Now, when anyone walks by our garden--a MICA student, a neighbor walking a dog, a child on the way to the pool in the summer-- and sees and hears the fountain, they are blessed with a moment of peace and hope. That was Emily. Here every Sunday and altar guild at most all Memorial Apartment Eucharists. Faithful and true. She knew that her life was not her own--but belonged to the community to show the glory of God.
In reflecting on Emily's life, it is a good and freeing thing to know that one's life is not one's own. That our lives are an intregal part of building the Kingdom of God. That we matter beyond ourselves. That we matter to God.
Join us for a Celebration of Emily Cox's life at 11 am at Memorial Church tomorrow, Friday, December 2. We also gather Friday evening for dinner together in community at 6 pm with a meal cooked with love by Earl Huch and Lois Eldred in Upper Farnham Hall followed by Advent Lessons and Carols by candlelight in the church at 7 pm.
Yesterday was the Feast Day of St. Andrew. Andrew was one of the first disciples to be called by Jesus. He is mentioned several times in the Gospels and, in three separate incidents, Andrew brings other people to Christ (John 1:41ff; 6:5ff, 12:20ff) In parts of the Anglican communion, St. Andrewstide is often observed as a special time of intercession for the mission of the Church.
Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day and therefore an apporpriate day of prayer in St Andrewstide!
The combination of Advent, St. Andrew's Day and World AIDS Day leads me to ponder what it means to follow Jesus. At our Tuesday morning Peace and Justice Eucharist this week, I was struck by the phrase in the paragraph we read about Andrew from the Anglican Church in Canada. The phrase that has been working on me is this: When Andrew left his net to follow Jesus, his life was no longer his own. No longer his own? This is decidely so deeply counter-cultural for an American individualist to consider. What does it mean to follow Jesus and accept that our life is no longer our own?
Preparing for Emily Cox's funeral tomorrow has underscored for me what it means to live a life not our own. A good funeral preparation will always do this for in preparing to celebrate the life of one of God's good and faithful servants shows what it means to follow Jesus. Emily's ninety years on this earth are testament to what that phrase means. Emily served her country during World War II and was stationed in Paris and other parts of France during her time overseas. Although she lost her husband of five years in the 1950s and never had children of her own, she considered her neice and godson as her children. She gave her life to then, her country, to the city of Baltimore and to her family and friends. She spent a good deal of time at the Waxter Senior Center playing Scrabble. She hosted large Thanksgiving and holiday dinners. And she loved her church. The fountain in our renovated garden is in memory of her husband and it was such a lovely surprise when she made the contribution that enabled that fountain to become a reality. Now, when anyone walks by our garden--a MICA student, a neighbor walking a dog, a child on the way to the pool in the summer-- and sees and hears the fountain, they are blessed with a moment of peace and hope. That was Emily. Here every Sunday and altar guild at most all Memorial Apartment Eucharists. Faithful and true. She knew that her life was not her own--but belonged to the community to show the glory of God.
In reflecting on Emily's life, it is a good and freeing thing to know that one's life is not one's own. That our lives are an intregal part of building the Kingdom of God. That we matter beyond ourselves. That we matter to God.
Join us for a Celebration of Emily Cox's life at 11 am at Memorial Church tomorrow, Friday, December 2. We also gather Friday evening for dinner together in community at 6 pm with a meal cooked with love by Earl Huch and Lois Eldred in Upper Farnham Hall followed by Advent Lessons and Carols by candlelight in the church at 7 pm.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Thanksgiving Rejoicing
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for that is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Paul's Letter to the Thessalonians 5
The wind is blowing today in Western Maryland. Most Thanksgiving days that I remember were just a bit chilly with a breeze in the air. As a little girl, I would be settled into the back seat of the station wagon as my parents and I drove from Virginia to Maryland--up the George Washington Parkway and over the Cabin John Bridge to Garrett Park, Maryland. Garrett Park was the small town where my grandmother as well as aunt and uncle lived. When I entered the house, the smell of turkey mixed with sauerkraut (a mid-Atlantic Thanksgiving tradition) bowled me over and I was swept into the Spirit of the Macgill-Rucker family atmosphere. It was an atmosphere of rejoicing, of being together. As an only child, I often hid behind my parents for a moment or two when I first walked in the door but soon joined in with my cousins playing Barbies upstairs or hide and seek in the yard.
Now, I make my way out to Western Maryland and we have a family Thanksgiving here. This year there is special excitement since in addition to the traditional feast, we also will have a feast of football with Anna's boyfriend Michael rooting on the Detroit Lions and all of us rooting on the Ravens in the Haubaugh Bowl. As I make my way inside and out preparing for the feast (including welcoming the cable guy for NFL Network), I catch a burst of the wind. I feel like kicking up my heels and rejoicing. We are healthy and happy and together. There will be much eating, much napping, a fierce game or two of Scrabble, a trip to the bowling alley for more competition and more. Such blessings are always to be given abundant thanks....since we have all had Thanksgivings when someone we love is missing for the first time or one of us is struggling with health or other issues and we have trouble rejoicing much at all. It is good to know that there will be a season of joy again.
Moreover, in my life in Christ, I find that the Thanksgiving wind also ushers in the season of Advent. The season of holy anticipation. That pause between what was and what will be. I look forward to anticipating and pausing with you as I blog and write most days.
So, take a pause this Thanksgiving. Rejoice and give thanks. Pray without ceasing. And watch for that wind of the Spirit, blowing around you, reminding you that new things are afoot!
The wind is blowing today in Western Maryland. Most Thanksgiving days that I remember were just a bit chilly with a breeze in the air. As a little girl, I would be settled into the back seat of the station wagon as my parents and I drove from Virginia to Maryland--up the George Washington Parkway and over the Cabin John Bridge to Garrett Park, Maryland. Garrett Park was the small town where my grandmother as well as aunt and uncle lived. When I entered the house, the smell of turkey mixed with sauerkraut (a mid-Atlantic Thanksgiving tradition) bowled me over and I was swept into the Spirit of the Macgill-Rucker family atmosphere. It was an atmosphere of rejoicing, of being together. As an only child, I often hid behind my parents for a moment or two when I first walked in the door but soon joined in with my cousins playing Barbies upstairs or hide and seek in the yard.
Now, I make my way out to Western Maryland and we have a family Thanksgiving here. This year there is special excitement since in addition to the traditional feast, we also will have a feast of football with Anna's boyfriend Michael rooting on the Detroit Lions and all of us rooting on the Ravens in the Haubaugh Bowl. As I make my way inside and out preparing for the feast (including welcoming the cable guy for NFL Network), I catch a burst of the wind. I feel like kicking up my heels and rejoicing. We are healthy and happy and together. There will be much eating, much napping, a fierce game or two of Scrabble, a trip to the bowling alley for more competition and more. Such blessings are always to be given abundant thanks....since we have all had Thanksgivings when someone we love is missing for the first time or one of us is struggling with health or other issues and we have trouble rejoicing much at all. It is good to know that there will be a season of joy again.
Moreover, in my life in Christ, I find that the Thanksgiving wind also ushers in the season of Advent. The season of holy anticipation. That pause between what was and what will be. I look forward to anticipating and pausing with you as I blog and write most days.
So, take a pause this Thanksgiving. Rejoice and give thanks. Pray without ceasing. And watch for that wind of the Spirit, blowing around you, reminding you that new things are afoot!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Hakuta Matata--Do Not Worry
Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, or about your body, what will you wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them….And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? Matthew 6:25-27
On Sunday, our preacher Sanford Groff let loose with a sermon on our wants. Using the context of the Ten Commandments, he talked about coveting. Wanting something someone else had…and, as they say, wanting it real bad. Sanford talked about his long car trip up the interstate where billboard after billboard advertised the lottery---in particular the megamillion lottery. He saw so many signs mile after mile that he began to believe that he, too, wanted to win the lottery. He figured out his odds. He figured out his income for the year after a big payday. I seem to remember that his annual income would be about 4.5 million if he won the megamillion jackpot. One thing he focused on buying was a new flat-screen television.
For those of us who grew up with depression-era parents or grandparents, we know that in humans there exists the condition called “never having enough.” Some of us become hoarders (hence the reality tv show of the same name) due to the worry, the fear, of not having enough for our needs.
At my continuing education conference last week, we began each day as a House in Prayer. We prayed the daily lectionary (in the back of the Book of Common Prayer) in chapel and after breakfast, before our speaker, we had an hour’s worth of small group bible study on the daily lectionary passage. Last Monday’s lectionary was this selection from the Gospel of Matthew. It’s always a good one for meditation, prayer and study anytime, because it speaks to the most common of human conditions that leads to addiction, sin, distance from faith and trust and relationship with God---worry about tomorrow. Worry that there will never be enough to care for our needs.
As I started out my Monday this week with worries aplenty, I tried hard to focus on creation. Maybe the birds of the air would bring me to a place of trust and peace. I didn’t really see any birds on Monday---it was raining again. So, I came into the office and went through my usual routines. I saw my spiritual director. I had lunch with a colleague. And, in the midst of my day, I realized that worry can take on a life of its own. You don’t even know what you are doing as you go through your daily routine—except worrying or complaining inwardly about the shortcomings of your life. One conversation helped me to snap out of the never-ending treadmill of worry. A friend reminded me of my time in South Africa. And I remembered how I went through my days there with a sense of faith in God and creation. The culture around me had so little in some ways and so much in others. Yet it was not a culture that worried. And that faith in the goodness of God and creation just surrounded me as I walked down to church or drove through the back roads of Walkersville. Of course, that very same God and very same creation surround me here. In I remember to listen carefully, I can hear my South African friends whispering in my ear as they were prone to do to me, the worrisome American: “Do not worry. God is good.” Just remembering that life can be other than worry—and remembering being in a culture that celebrated that value, changed my day.
Today the blue sky and sun are back. Worries seem to have left me for today. They will come to me again, I’m sure. But what can worry do but make you forget about the beauty and blessing everywhere in your life? Hakuta Matata---no worries!
On Sunday, our preacher Sanford Groff let loose with a sermon on our wants. Using the context of the Ten Commandments, he talked about coveting. Wanting something someone else had…and, as they say, wanting it real bad. Sanford talked about his long car trip up the interstate where billboard after billboard advertised the lottery---in particular the megamillion lottery. He saw so many signs mile after mile that he began to believe that he, too, wanted to win the lottery. He figured out his odds. He figured out his income for the year after a big payday. I seem to remember that his annual income would be about 4.5 million if he won the megamillion jackpot. One thing he focused on buying was a new flat-screen television.
For those of us who grew up with depression-era parents or grandparents, we know that in humans there exists the condition called “never having enough.” Some of us become hoarders (hence the reality tv show of the same name) due to the worry, the fear, of not having enough for our needs.
At my continuing education conference last week, we began each day as a House in Prayer. We prayed the daily lectionary (in the back of the Book of Common Prayer) in chapel and after breakfast, before our speaker, we had an hour’s worth of small group bible study on the daily lectionary passage. Last Monday’s lectionary was this selection from the Gospel of Matthew. It’s always a good one for meditation, prayer and study anytime, because it speaks to the most common of human conditions that leads to addiction, sin, distance from faith and trust and relationship with God---worry about tomorrow. Worry that there will never be enough to care for our needs.
As I started out my Monday this week with worries aplenty, I tried hard to focus on creation. Maybe the birds of the air would bring me to a place of trust and peace. I didn’t really see any birds on Monday---it was raining again. So, I came into the office and went through my usual routines. I saw my spiritual director. I had lunch with a colleague. And, in the midst of my day, I realized that worry can take on a life of its own. You don’t even know what you are doing as you go through your daily routine—except worrying or complaining inwardly about the shortcomings of your life. One conversation helped me to snap out of the never-ending treadmill of worry. A friend reminded me of my time in South Africa. And I remembered how I went through my days there with a sense of faith in God and creation. The culture around me had so little in some ways and so much in others. Yet it was not a culture that worried. And that faith in the goodness of God and creation just surrounded me as I walked down to church or drove through the back roads of Walkersville. Of course, that very same God and very same creation surround me here. In I remember to listen carefully, I can hear my South African friends whispering in my ear as they were prone to do to me, the worrisome American: “Do not worry. God is good.” Just remembering that life can be other than worry—and remembering being in a culture that celebrated that value, changed my day.
Today the blue sky and sun are back. Worries seem to have left me for today. They will come to me again, I’m sure. But what can worry do but make you forget about the beauty and blessing everywhere in your life? Hakuta Matata---no worries!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Grace of Coming Home
A Meditation for Homecoming Sunday:
The Sacrament of Home
When I think of coming home, I think of our dining room table. Whatever age I was growing up, I came home to supper around the family dining room table. This has been true throughout my life---when I came home from grade school, high school or college or when I married or became a mother. When I think of family, I think of the dining room table.
My dining room table is made of cherry wood. It is a large, round table—probably 6 feet in diameter. Since my mother bought the table, I know it is an antique—a Queen Anne dining room table---but beyond that I know little of its past history.
But it’s recent history—say for the past 53 years, I know well.
Eight people can sit around the table. During most of my life, there have been four people. When I was a little girl, there was my mother, my father, my grandmother and me. The table came to my home as an adult and soon there were four around the table once again---my husband, my son, my daughter and me. During certain periods of my life, we have used the table as a sideboard, its leaves down. That’s where it is now---since there are only two people at our table. Empty nesters both.
But back when the table was opened in all its glory, it was a central feature of our home life. As a family, we generally only ate supper at the table---or perhaps a special meal such as Thanksgiving, a birthday celebration or an Easter lunch. Growing up, breakfast and lunch took place at the kitchen table. As a child, I spent a good deal of time under the dining room table—communing with our dog and reading books. But the very best part of the dining table was this—it was the place where we would catch up with each other. At dinner---when I was a child and as an adult---we would review our days around the table. We would recount the good and not so good, our challenges and victories, what made us sad and what made us happy.
So, for me, when I think of homecoming, I imagine a darkened evening, walking up to the house, seeing a warm light in the window. I come in the door, smelling something good from the kitchen (unless it was sauerkraut and liver night). I see the dinner table set---with a place set just for me. A place of inclusion, sustenance and love.
But it is more than just a place set for me on a certain day. That symbol of Homecoming—my dining room table—has multiple layers of meaning. It is the place that I have been fed and nourished since I was a baby. It is also a place that my soul felt nourished by family support night after night for years. It is the place that I remember family members that I see no longer…and as my own children sit around the table in the place of my parents and grandmother, I realize from a place deep inside that at that table, my whole family, living and past, is gathered in some mysterious way. That even though I no longer can call up my father and say, “Guess what happened today?” or ask my mother “What I should wear?” to a special event, when my day is recounted around the table to my present family, they know too. Somehow they know. All my dearly beloved know my children and in time, perhaps, my grandchildren. Every time I sit down at that table, everyone is there.
We all have symbols that instantly bring us home. The church has a name for these symbols. The church calls them sacraments: outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. And the church’s table brings us home week and week. When we celebrate the Eucharist, we come home to Christ at that holy table, the altar. And, likewise, in that symbol of the Eucharistic table, earthly time falls away and eternity shines. Like our dining table at home, at the Eucharistic table, everyone is there.
The Sacrament of Home
When I think of coming home, I think of our dining room table. Whatever age I was growing up, I came home to supper around the family dining room table. This has been true throughout my life---when I came home from grade school, high school or college or when I married or became a mother. When I think of family, I think of the dining room table.
My dining room table is made of cherry wood. It is a large, round table—probably 6 feet in diameter. Since my mother bought the table, I know it is an antique—a Queen Anne dining room table---but beyond that I know little of its past history.
But it’s recent history—say for the past 53 years, I know well.
Eight people can sit around the table. During most of my life, there have been four people. When I was a little girl, there was my mother, my father, my grandmother and me. The table came to my home as an adult and soon there were four around the table once again---my husband, my son, my daughter and me. During certain periods of my life, we have used the table as a sideboard, its leaves down. That’s where it is now---since there are only two people at our table. Empty nesters both.
But back when the table was opened in all its glory, it was a central feature of our home life. As a family, we generally only ate supper at the table---or perhaps a special meal such as Thanksgiving, a birthday celebration or an Easter lunch. Growing up, breakfast and lunch took place at the kitchen table. As a child, I spent a good deal of time under the dining room table—communing with our dog and reading books. But the very best part of the dining table was this—it was the place where we would catch up with each other. At dinner---when I was a child and as an adult---we would review our days around the table. We would recount the good and not so good, our challenges and victories, what made us sad and what made us happy.
So, for me, when I think of homecoming, I imagine a darkened evening, walking up to the house, seeing a warm light in the window. I come in the door, smelling something good from the kitchen (unless it was sauerkraut and liver night). I see the dinner table set---with a place set just for me. A place of inclusion, sustenance and love.
But it is more than just a place set for me on a certain day. That symbol of Homecoming—my dining room table—has multiple layers of meaning. It is the place that I have been fed and nourished since I was a baby. It is also a place that my soul felt nourished by family support night after night for years. It is the place that I remember family members that I see no longer…and as my own children sit around the table in the place of my parents and grandmother, I realize from a place deep inside that at that table, my whole family, living and past, is gathered in some mysterious way. That even though I no longer can call up my father and say, “Guess what happened today?” or ask my mother “What I should wear?” to a special event, when my day is recounted around the table to my present family, they know too. Somehow they know. All my dearly beloved know my children and in time, perhaps, my grandchildren. Every time I sit down at that table, everyone is there.
We all have symbols that instantly bring us home. The church has a name for these symbols. The church calls them sacraments: outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. And the church’s table brings us home week and week. When we celebrate the Eucharist, we come home to Christ at that holy table, the altar. And, likewise, in that symbol of the Eucharistic table, earthly time falls away and eternity shines. Like our dining table at home, at the Eucharistic table, everyone is there.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Days of Loss and Gratitude
Mother Martha’s Meditation for the week of September 4, 2011
We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away….Yet, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64: 6b, 8.
As we approach the tenth anniversary of September 11th, those of us on the East Coast have had some weeks to ponder our insignificance once again. To realize that we can only control so much in our lives. In the space of a week in Baltimore, we had a significant lightening storm followed by an earthquake followed by Hurricane Irene. The aftermath of Hurricane Irene left many of us without power for a few hours, days or even up to a week. In the silence and darkness of a powerless home, many of us were unsettled---as we were in the days after September 11th when flights were grounded and the heavens around us eerily quiet.
It’s often said that “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” That is true on so many levels of life. The security of airports, flights, and national transportation in general. When the earthquake happened in Baltimore (and New York city), many office workers first thought was another terrorist event, not an event from the nature. We’ve lost some of our confidence in our national security to protect us from all disaster. But if we live long enough, we realize that there is only so much humanity (much less a government) can control.
If we live long enough, all of us will lose someone we love to death. Relationships that we value come to an end. Our bodies betray us. So much of our advertising leads us to believe that we can outwit or out-think illness and death. Most of us know that this is the great denial strategy of our time. The day of the earthquake, our 13-year old German Shepherd died. The vet had told us that, at this stage of her life, every day was a gift. But it was easy to think she would defy all odds. In the last few months, she was just a bit slower. A lingering worry began to appear on the edge of my consciousness. That day, as we relaxed on the dock, she stood up and had a stroke. And in a few hours, she was gone, faded away like the wind. A great companion for our family now absent from us. The grief we all felt was intense. Home is awfully quiet now. Someone is missing and life is not the same.
In fact, each day of life is never the same. There are small losses and small gains each day. Some days hold more loss than others. As we approach the anniversary of September 11th, a day of national tragedy will bring forth feelings of shock, dismay, anger and sadness. Such is also true for Americans of a certain age when we come to late November and remember the day of John Kennedy’s assassination or early December and Pearl Harbor. But there is another feeling as we approach the anniversary of a great loss in our lives or in the life of our nation. There is the feeling of gratitude. Gratitude for the resilence to get up another day. Gratitude for family, friends and communities that support us in getting up that next day. Gratitude that somehow, some way, we have made it past the loss.
For many of us, our faith community is the foundational place where we give thanks for the blessing to rise another day and to rise another day enfolded in the love of God. This coming Sunday is Homecoming Sunday at Memorial Church---the Sunday we reconvene to celebrate the beginning of another program year in Christ. As we remember the grief and loss of September 11, 2011, we also remember that on that horrible day, Memorial Church gathered that very night as community---to pray for peace and be sustained by the sacrament of the Eucharist. As we have done Sunday after Sunday for ten years since…..and hopefully for many more. And all through these days and years, we are beig molded through each loss and gain. We are all the work of God’s hands—and each molding, however painful or blessed, transforms us.
Join us in gratitude at 10:30 am on Sunday, September 11 for a Festive Eucharist of word and song, including bagpipe, brass, choir and organ. As we join together, let us give thanks for another day, another day in the Lord together.
We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away….Yet, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64: 6b, 8.
As we approach the tenth anniversary of September 11th, those of us on the East Coast have had some weeks to ponder our insignificance once again. To realize that we can only control so much in our lives. In the space of a week in Baltimore, we had a significant lightening storm followed by an earthquake followed by Hurricane Irene. The aftermath of Hurricane Irene left many of us without power for a few hours, days or even up to a week. In the silence and darkness of a powerless home, many of us were unsettled---as we were in the days after September 11th when flights were grounded and the heavens around us eerily quiet.
It’s often said that “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” That is true on so many levels of life. The security of airports, flights, and national transportation in general. When the earthquake happened in Baltimore (and New York city), many office workers first thought was another terrorist event, not an event from the nature. We’ve lost some of our confidence in our national security to protect us from all disaster. But if we live long enough, we realize that there is only so much humanity (much less a government) can control.
If we live long enough, all of us will lose someone we love to death. Relationships that we value come to an end. Our bodies betray us. So much of our advertising leads us to believe that we can outwit or out-think illness and death. Most of us know that this is the great denial strategy of our time. The day of the earthquake, our 13-year old German Shepherd died. The vet had told us that, at this stage of her life, every day was a gift. But it was easy to think she would defy all odds. In the last few months, she was just a bit slower. A lingering worry began to appear on the edge of my consciousness. That day, as we relaxed on the dock, she stood up and had a stroke. And in a few hours, she was gone, faded away like the wind. A great companion for our family now absent from us. The grief we all felt was intense. Home is awfully quiet now. Someone is missing and life is not the same.
In fact, each day of life is never the same. There are small losses and small gains each day. Some days hold more loss than others. As we approach the anniversary of September 11th, a day of national tragedy will bring forth feelings of shock, dismay, anger and sadness. Such is also true for Americans of a certain age when we come to late November and remember the day of John Kennedy’s assassination or early December and Pearl Harbor. But there is another feeling as we approach the anniversary of a great loss in our lives or in the life of our nation. There is the feeling of gratitude. Gratitude for the resilence to get up another day. Gratitude for family, friends and communities that support us in getting up that next day. Gratitude that somehow, some way, we have made it past the loss.
For many of us, our faith community is the foundational place where we give thanks for the blessing to rise another day and to rise another day enfolded in the love of God. This coming Sunday is Homecoming Sunday at Memorial Church---the Sunday we reconvene to celebrate the beginning of another program year in Christ. As we remember the grief and loss of September 11, 2011, we also remember that on that horrible day, Memorial Church gathered that very night as community---to pray for peace and be sustained by the sacrament of the Eucharist. As we have done Sunday after Sunday for ten years since…..and hopefully for many more. And all through these days and years, we are beig molded through each loss and gain. We are all the work of God’s hands—and each molding, however painful or blessed, transforms us.
Join us in gratitude at 10:30 am on Sunday, September 11 for a Festive Eucharist of word and song, including bagpipe, brass, choir and organ. As we join together, let us give thanks for another day, another day in the Lord together.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Spring abounds and unbinds!
Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!: The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let hinm go." John 11:42-44 This weekend at Orkney Springs, the sun finally emerged on Sunday out of the rain, mist and fog of Friday and Saturday. On Sunday morning, I was at Shrine Mont Retreat Center at the end of the Women's Retreat. We gathered at the outdoor stone shrine for Eucharist. The altar area of the shrine is a stone archway that ressembles a stone tomb. As I stood in the "opening" of the tomb and heard this gospel read, I started to feel as though spring had come and, in my soul, some new freedom was awaiting to be born at Easter. The weekend was about telling stories of our mothers, grandmothers and other important women in our lives. My daughter Anna was a presenter and talked about Barbara Swain. She particularly recounted Barbara's image of being Xena, Warrior Princess as she fought her illness of the last year. On the altar that Sunday, there was a picture of Xena, Warrior Princess that someone had cut out of a magazine. Sometimes we all--men and women--need to channel that warrior within to come out of the tomb of our own suffering. But we need not just our inner warrior but also the help of our communities of support to unbind our bands of cloths. It's time to let our wounds heal in the light and air of day. That's what it felt like on Sunday---coming out of the dank, dark tomb and into the fresh air. Ready to be unbound and ready to live again. Holy Week is the time to unbind our wounds through the story of Jesus' passion. To experience through his suffering and death, our own woundedness and vulnerable places in our lives. Time for those parts of ourselves to see the light of day. To be unbound. To come to Easter Day squinting just a bit from the bright light of God's healing love, but ready and willing to be healed. To move on to new life. Thanks be to God for spring. Spring abounds and unbinds!
Friday, April 1, 2011
Fear of Sacrifice
For I solemnly warned your ancestors when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of an evil will. Jeremiah 11 In the Daily Lectionary, we are solidly in the early chapters of the prophet Jeremiah. As those who were at Evening Prayer on Tuesday know, Jeremiah is prophesying directly and forcefully to the wayward people of Israel. This Friday and Saturday, I am facilitating a Vestry retreat for another parish in the Diocese of Maryland. We will be talking about goals moving forward. In order to do that work, we need to talk about what we are willing to change in order to allow forward movement to happen. Often the fear of change leads to sin. We fear sacrificing well-known and comfortable ways of living. Our comfortable ways become our weaknesses. And when we rely on our comfortable weaknesses, we often sin against self and others. In his book Keep Going: The Art of Perserverance, Joseph Marshall tells another story from his grandfather Old Hawk. This time on new ways and change: Old Hawk gestured up at the tall, old cottonwood tree towering above them. Its girth was so large that a grown man could not put his arms around it. Old Hawk's father had planted it as a sapling in 1896, the same year he had received an allotment of land from the government. "This tree," he said, "has stood guard over our family all its life. Strength is what I feel each time I look at it. Yet, there have been moments when its great strength was also its weakness." "That is hard to believe," said his grandson. "It's the biggest tree for miles around." Old Hawk pointed at a thicket of chokecherry shrubs in a dry creek not far away. "Look there," he said, "those chokecherry trees are small and weak in comparison to this cottonwood. But when you were a child, they survived a tornado without losing a branch. This old cottonwood, on the other hand, lost several branches. Do you know why?" "No," said his grandson. "Because, in that instance, the cottonwood's great strength became its greatest weakness. It stood up, but it could not bend with the wind the way the chokeberry trees could." "Sometimes we give into our weaknesses." Lent is about recognizing our weakness and choosing to bend with the winds of change that usher in our future life. I know we all have lost some branches in life's storms from refusing to bend just a bit.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Keep Standing
Is the Lord among us or not? Exodus 17:7 When I was a little girl, my parents taught me many lessons around being aware of the blessings in my life and being thankful for them. As Depression-era children, both my parents were careful to conserve all good gifts----including those very precious gifts such as water, food, electricity and shelter. In particular, I can hear them saying: "Please don't leave the water running!"---no matter if that water were from the garden hose, the bathtub, or the kitchen sink. In Japan, water is a mixed blessing. Water can be the destructive force as well as the very essence of life. When the radiation from the damaged nuclear power plants began to affect Toyko's water supply, it all became more real. What would it be if we did not have easy, indeed bounteous, access to water? How would we live differently? Would our sense of thankfulness change? Would we feel like giving up? Would we work together or grow further apart? The Japanese, for the most part, have banded together. Our past Sunday lectionary illustrated the repeated inability of the Israelites to band together and be positive in their wilderness wanderings. When we feel that God might be absent, we humans often move further apart. Back in Japan, where the Japanese peoples' legendary endurance is in full display, a curious thing happens every night in shelters in northeastern Japan. When everything has quieted down and most are sleeping on their mats, lone figures gather at the space heaters interspersed throughout the shelter. Yukiko Yamaguchi, 73 uears old, lost her home in the tsunami. She is one of those who can't sleep and so search out warmth and surely companionship in the middle of the night. Somehow, through this early hour gathering, she feels she can stand one more day. (See Cover story in the New York Times, Saturday, March 26, 2011) Perhaps this is what drew the Samaritan woman to the well----not in the middle of the night---but in the middle of the day. A thirst for water, but perhaps a longing for something more. A longing to know if there was a God in her life of ruined relationships. Perhaps she woke up that morning--like so many days---wanting to give up. But something inside her made her get out of bed and try once more. And so she comes to the well in the heat of the day, hoping for her thirst to be quenched but also her soul to be soothed. And that day there was a man at the well, a Jewish man, a man called Jesus. He asks her for a drink---she responds. And a whole world of God's healing opens up for her in that moment. Because that day she chose to keep going. In an effort to still stand strong against the storms of life, she gained much, much more. As Jospeph Marshall says in his book "Keep Going: The Art of Perservering," : Standing up to the storm, no matter how many times it blows us down, should teach us that we don't need to be as powerful as the storm to defy it. We only need to be strong enought to stand." Some days we stand and we make it through another day. Some days we stand and we meet Jesus. And the world opens up larger and more joyous than we could ever have imagined. And we know the Lord is among us.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Earthquake, Fire and Flood
From lightning and tempest; from earthquake, fire, and flood; from plague, pestilence, and famine,
Good Lord, deliver us.
From all oppression, conspiracy, and rebellion; from violence, battle, and murder; and from dying suddenly and unprepared,
Good Lord, deliver us.
The Great Litany, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 149
In 467 c.e., when the city of Vienne was terrorized by earthquakes, Marmetus, the bishop, inaugurated processional litanies on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Day. Ever since, litanies have been used in the church to pray in times of disaster. The original meaning of "litany" in Greek was "prayer" or "supplication," but a modern litany has generally consisted of short biddings and petitions by a cantor or leader followed by a short response by the people. The Great Litany in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer was first published in English in 1544 as a special supplication when Henry VIII was at war with Scotland and France. (For more information on The Great Litany (and the Prayer Book in general), see Marion Hatchett's Commentary on the American Prayer Book)
In the Episcopal Church, the Great Litany is generally sung or said at the beginning of one or more Sunday services in Lent. This was my first introduction to the Great Litany. However, as I preached on Sunday, since September 11, 2001, the Great Litany is now forever a part of my prayer life when trials seemingly too great to endure present themselves in my daily life. On that horrific morning of September 11, when I had watched on a gym television the second tower hit and then the Pentegon, when I had rushed to pick up my children at school and then come home to watch the twin towers crumble to the ground, all I knew to do was go to church and pray. And the only prayer that seemed to make any sense was The Great Litany.
Now, this year, it seems that the Great Litany is timely once again. Wars for liberation, wars for oil, wars against terrorism rage around the world. Earthquakes have battered now only Haiti but now Christ Church, New Zealand and Northern Japan--a country that has been devastated by not only conitnued earthquakes but a tsunami. As I read about the recovery effort in Japan and the new fear of radiation in the tap water in Tokyo this morning, I wonder who might be in the need of the Great Litany prayers. There are folks still looking for loved ones. Walls have gone up---just like at Ground Zero---at various locations to post notes asking loved ones to get in touch. Hope continues even in the face of people missing for days on end.
In the midst of the overwhelming destruction and death in Japan, in the midst of violent war in Libya and Afghanistan, how does one find hope? When one own's world is rocked by a unexpected death or illness or change, how do we go on?
For me, a simple prayer can reset my spiritual compass for a few hours or for a day. In the spring, the sight of crocuses or daffodils or a flowering tree can do the same. In Northern Japan, I wonder what flowers are blooming (cherry blossoms?)even amidst the destruction that can bring a moment of hope. In Libya, will a cool rain one night give a person that will to rise the next day and face a world at war? Can a kind word to a stranger do the same?
In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death.....and in the moments of grace and hope.....Good Lord, deliver us.
Good Lord, deliver us.
From all oppression, conspiracy, and rebellion; from violence, battle, and murder; and from dying suddenly and unprepared,
Good Lord, deliver us.
The Great Litany, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 149
In 467 c.e., when the city of Vienne was terrorized by earthquakes, Marmetus, the bishop, inaugurated processional litanies on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Day. Ever since, litanies have been used in the church to pray in times of disaster. The original meaning of "litany" in Greek was "prayer" or "supplication," but a modern litany has generally consisted of short biddings and petitions by a cantor or leader followed by a short response by the people. The Great Litany in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer was first published in English in 1544 as a special supplication when Henry VIII was at war with Scotland and France. (For more information on The Great Litany (and the Prayer Book in general), see Marion Hatchett's Commentary on the American Prayer Book)
In the Episcopal Church, the Great Litany is generally sung or said at the beginning of one or more Sunday services in Lent. This was my first introduction to the Great Litany. However, as I preached on Sunday, since September 11, 2001, the Great Litany is now forever a part of my prayer life when trials seemingly too great to endure present themselves in my daily life. On that horrific morning of September 11, when I had watched on a gym television the second tower hit and then the Pentegon, when I had rushed to pick up my children at school and then come home to watch the twin towers crumble to the ground, all I knew to do was go to church and pray. And the only prayer that seemed to make any sense was The Great Litany.
Now, this year, it seems that the Great Litany is timely once again. Wars for liberation, wars for oil, wars against terrorism rage around the world. Earthquakes have battered now only Haiti but now Christ Church, New Zealand and Northern Japan--a country that has been devastated by not only conitnued earthquakes but a tsunami. As I read about the recovery effort in Japan and the new fear of radiation in the tap water in Tokyo this morning, I wonder who might be in the need of the Great Litany prayers. There are folks still looking for loved ones. Walls have gone up---just like at Ground Zero---at various locations to post notes asking loved ones to get in touch. Hope continues even in the face of people missing for days on end.
In the midst of the overwhelming destruction and death in Japan, in the midst of violent war in Libya and Afghanistan, how does one find hope? When one own's world is rocked by a unexpected death or illness or change, how do we go on?
For me, a simple prayer can reset my spiritual compass for a few hours or for a day. In the spring, the sight of crocuses or daffodils or a flowering tree can do the same. In Northern Japan, I wonder what flowers are blooming (cherry blossoms?)even amidst the destruction that can bring a moment of hope. In Libya, will a cool rain one night give a person that will to rise the next day and face a world at war? Can a kind word to a stranger do the same?
In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death.....and in the moments of grace and hope.....Good Lord, deliver us.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Jesus and Nicodemus
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night. John 3:1-2
Not wanting to be seen fraternizing with Jesus in the light of day, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night---in person---to have a discussion about being born again and about having faith. On Sunday morning at the 8 am Eucharist in the Round, we had a discussion about how we talk about our faith. We started at 8 am and had to stop at 9 am. We could have gone on much longer. Speaking on matters of faith necessitates speaking to one another in person. While we can write and ponder on blogs and in books, real faith conversation needs a community and a conversation.
I continue to ruminate on how we have these important discussions of faith when we all lead lives of such speed and busyness that we often only communicate with a text message or a quick e-mail. Voice mails are now becoming obsolete. My college-age children never really listen to my voice mails left on their cell phones. They see I have called and just call me back. They do respond to text messages.
The home phone is even more obsolete. Many folks don't install a landline anymore. We have just moved to a house on the Gilman campus. We did have a landline installed and were able to keep our same number. I have been asking Bryan over and over: "Are you sure the phone works?" No one has called. Not even sales calls. It seems so strange.
In my favorite section of the Sunday New York Times--Sunday Business--yesterday's Corner Office feature interviews Irwin D. Simons, who is CEO of Hain Celestial Group, maker of natural and organic foods and personal care product.s He says: "I'm big into communicating face-to-face, eye-to-eye and not through e-mail. Part of what's happened today is we lose a sense of communication because everything is done electronically." The interviewer then asked Simons this question:"People may say that sounds great, but there's just no time to do it face-to-face." Simons replies: "It comes back to, what are your priorities? Am I doing that for everybody ine very place? No. But I live by this philosophy: I juggle 13 balls, and there are certain balls I never drop."
One of the balls that I never want to drop as a pastor, as a rector, and, most of all, as a person of faith is the ball which places in-person communication as a priority in conversations around faith, around pastoral care and around community. I wonder how Jesus would be communicating these days. Would Nicodemus have sent a late night e-mail or text today? How would that make the conversation different?
Not wanting to be seen fraternizing with Jesus in the light of day, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night---in person---to have a discussion about being born again and about having faith. On Sunday morning at the 8 am Eucharist in the Round, we had a discussion about how we talk about our faith. We started at 8 am and had to stop at 9 am. We could have gone on much longer. Speaking on matters of faith necessitates speaking to one another in person. While we can write and ponder on blogs and in books, real faith conversation needs a community and a conversation.
I continue to ruminate on how we have these important discussions of faith when we all lead lives of such speed and busyness that we often only communicate with a text message or a quick e-mail. Voice mails are now becoming obsolete. My college-age children never really listen to my voice mails left on their cell phones. They see I have called and just call me back. They do respond to text messages.
The home phone is even more obsolete. Many folks don't install a landline anymore. We have just moved to a house on the Gilman campus. We did have a landline installed and were able to keep our same number. I have been asking Bryan over and over: "Are you sure the phone works?" No one has called. Not even sales calls. It seems so strange.
In my favorite section of the Sunday New York Times--Sunday Business--yesterday's Corner Office feature interviews Irwin D. Simons, who is CEO of Hain Celestial Group, maker of natural and organic foods and personal care product.s He says: "I'm big into communicating face-to-face, eye-to-eye and not through e-mail. Part of what's happened today is we lose a sense of communication because everything is done electronically." The interviewer then asked Simons this question:"People may say that sounds great, but there's just no time to do it face-to-face." Simons replies: "It comes back to, what are your priorities? Am I doing that for everybody ine very place? No. But I live by this philosophy: I juggle 13 balls, and there are certain balls I never drop."
One of the balls that I never want to drop as a pastor, as a rector, and, most of all, as a person of faith is the ball which places in-person communication as a priority in conversations around faith, around pastoral care and around community. I wonder how Jesus would be communicating these days. Would Nicodemus have sent a late night e-mail or text today? How would that make the conversation different?
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A holy Space for God (with text!)
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." John 2:13-17
On Tuesday evening, we gathered in the Memorial chapel to say Evening Prayer before our Lenten supper and program. The topic for the evening was how we worship in our Memorial space. The lectionary apppointed for the daily office was the Gospel passage above---Jesus cleaning the temple. It is amazing how the daily and Sunday lectionary can so clearly speak to our daily lives. It was as if god had handpicked the passage for Tuesday night!
Worship is the heart of who we are as Episcopalians. Our Book of Common Prayers centers our worship in the Eucharist each Sunday and in the daily office during the week. Some of us take in another Eucharist mid-week. The space that we use to worship is critical to our worship experience. Liturgical theologican William Seth Adams in his book Moving The Furniture talks about four characteristics of good worship space: (1) Worship Space as comfort, safety and security. A sense that our worship space brings us home to God. I felt this so vividly on the day of Setpember 11, 2001, when we gathered in the chapel to say the Great Litany at Noonday and for Eucharist that evening. (2) Worship space as the ground of our identity as God's people. We find what it is to follow Jesus as Lord in our worship space. (3) Worship Space as a place for movement of bodies in praise and prayer. The worship space should allow us to stand and sing in praise, to kneel in prayer and to walk to the altar rail to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, (4) The worship space should give us some tangible sense of the Kingdom of God that is being built right before our very eyes. On Tuesday night, we pondered how the Memorial worship space brought us close to God and one another through these four lenses.
We also talked about what ONE ELEMENT was crucial to our experience of worship at Memorial. The majority of us gathered said the altar. Not the historic stone altar, but the wooden free-standing altar. This was a central focus for most of us. If it was moved out of place, we felt as if our very security and comfort was missing. What does this mean for all the ministries that take place in our worship space that do not involve the altar? What does it mean to move the central focus of worship, even if we put it back for Sunday worship? Our conversation continues. What is the most important element of oru worship space for you?
On Tuesday evening, we gathered in the Memorial chapel to say Evening Prayer before our Lenten supper and program. The topic for the evening was how we worship in our Memorial space. The lectionary apppointed for the daily office was the Gospel passage above---Jesus cleaning the temple. It is amazing how the daily and Sunday lectionary can so clearly speak to our daily lives. It was as if god had handpicked the passage for Tuesday night!
Worship is the heart of who we are as Episcopalians. Our Book of Common Prayers centers our worship in the Eucharist each Sunday and in the daily office during the week. Some of us take in another Eucharist mid-week. The space that we use to worship is critical to our worship experience. Liturgical theologican William Seth Adams in his book Moving The Furniture talks about four characteristics of good worship space: (1) Worship Space as comfort, safety and security. A sense that our worship space brings us home to God. I felt this so vividly on the day of Setpember 11, 2001, when we gathered in the chapel to say the Great Litany at Noonday and for Eucharist that evening. (2) Worship space as the ground of our identity as God's people. We find what it is to follow Jesus as Lord in our worship space. (3) Worship Space as a place for movement of bodies in praise and prayer. The worship space should allow us to stand and sing in praise, to kneel in prayer and to walk to the altar rail to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, (4) The worship space should give us some tangible sense of the Kingdom of God that is being built right before our very eyes. On Tuesday night, we pondered how the Memorial worship space brought us close to God and one another through these four lenses.
We also talked about what ONE ELEMENT was crucial to our experience of worship at Memorial. The majority of us gathered said the altar. Not the historic stone altar, but the wooden free-standing altar. This was a central focus for most of us. If it was moved out of place, we felt as if our very security and comfort was missing. What does this mean for all the ministries that take place in our worship space that do not involve the altar? What does it mean to move the central focus of worship, even if we put it back for Sunday worship? Our conversation continues. What is the most important element of oru worship space for you?
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Wedding at Cana
When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. John 3:9-11
Jesus was thirty years old when he began his public ministry. His public ministry began in the temple and at the River Jordan, at the Sea of Galilee and at the wedding at Cana. What was Jesus like before his gifts became public? Was he a carpenter's apprentice to his father Joseph? Many folks come to be serious about their ministries in Christ around age 30. Many of us (me included) spend the first decade of adulthood wandering from thing to thing---some of us following our parents' vocations or anything but. Like a good wine, sometimes it takes a while for our gifts to mature. But sometimes we sit on our real gifts....not ever quite ready for them to see the light of day.
Yesterday morning at our Rite 13 Sunday School, we talked about our gifts and talents, using the parable of the talents as a jumping off point. We talked about how the person who had 10 talents went out and doubled his talents. The person with one talent was afraid to lose his talent and so, rather than go out into the world and risk doubling or losing his one talent, he buried the talent in the ground. Mentor Kris asked our Rite 13ers: How many talents do you all think you have? Everyone said 10! Everyone said: "We have lots of gifts and talents!" And then we proceeded to share all our talents and gifts. As I struggled with what truly were my own gifts and talents, I wondered: What happens to us as human beings as we grow older? Does the world knock us about so that we no longer want to put forward our talents and gifts? Why do we become afraid?
What would it take for us to let our gifts see the public life of day? Lent might be about wondering what prevents us for using our unique, God-given talents and so prevents the Kingdom of God from growing more fully. Is it an old tape of shame? A place where we were brought down to earth in an unkind way? Is it the fear of losing face?
Jesus took a risk changing the rule of serving good wine first as well as changing water to wine. He began his ministry in a public place---and the first to recognize his gift that day were the servants. But perhaps someone else knew his gifts even before the wedding at Cana. Mary, his mother, knew that he could do something about the situation...she knew he was gifted in ways that no one suspected. Perhaps the people that love us best can help us see what gifts we have buried in the field
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Golden Calf
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from teh mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. Exodus: 20:1
In our Education for Ministry classes, we have been immersed in the Book of Exodus. Recently, we spent time discussing the story of the Golden Calf. Moses was doing the Lord's work up on the mountain, in conversation with the Lord. He took a little longer than usual to return down the mountain to the Israelites. What do the people do? They get tired of waiting. Tired of not having Moses with them to lead them. Maybe they were bored in the wilderness. Most likely, they were scared. But whatever the reason....when human beings get bored or scared, what do they do? They make mischief for themselves or others. They created golden calves of their own choosing.
We all create golden calves in our lives. When we become disillusioned with our jobs, our relationships, our church communities, we begin to grumble. We wonder: "Is that all there is?" And after we grumble, we look for the golden calf. It could be a new job, a more exciting partner, a new leader or a new community. Just like the Israelites and Moses, we displace the blame for our own fearful behavior onto another person or situation. And when we do this, we turn away from the dignity that is the glory of human nature. We begin to act like the Israelites in the wilderness. The scene plays out like when a parent comes upon reveling teenagers who are doing what they know they shouldn't be doing. Lent is a time to catch ourselves in these behaviors. It's time to turn from false gods of our own creation and choosing and turn back to God with our all hearts. To find our human dignity as God's people once again.
In the story of the Golden Calf, God is infuriated at the Israelites, burning their gold into a calf that they dance around and worship. His anger burns hot. Moses intercedes for the people, imploring God to turn from his fierce wrath, change God's mind and avert disaster. God listens.
And whether we believe that God is a God of anger and wrath or not, I believe that God does listen. God knows our weaknesses (in language of the past..."our wretchedness") Lent is a gift to us to call us home once again...for the hundreth or thousandth time. What might be that golden calf that you dance around?
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness (weaknesses), may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Collect for Ash Wednesday, Book of Common Prayer, p. 325
In our Education for Ministry classes, we have been immersed in the Book of Exodus. Recently, we spent time discussing the story of the Golden Calf. Moses was doing the Lord's work up on the mountain, in conversation with the Lord. He took a little longer than usual to return down the mountain to the Israelites. What do the people do? They get tired of waiting. Tired of not having Moses with them to lead them. Maybe they were bored in the wilderness. Most likely, they were scared. But whatever the reason....when human beings get bored or scared, what do they do? They make mischief for themselves or others. They created golden calves of their own choosing.
We all create golden calves in our lives. When we become disillusioned with our jobs, our relationships, our church communities, we begin to grumble. We wonder: "Is that all there is?" And after we grumble, we look for the golden calf. It could be a new job, a more exciting partner, a new leader or a new community. Just like the Israelites and Moses, we displace the blame for our own fearful behavior onto another person or situation. And when we do this, we turn away from the dignity that is the glory of human nature. We begin to act like the Israelites in the wilderness. The scene plays out like when a parent comes upon reveling teenagers who are doing what they know they shouldn't be doing. Lent is a time to catch ourselves in these behaviors. It's time to turn from false gods of our own creation and choosing and turn back to God with our all hearts. To find our human dignity as God's people once again.
In the story of the Golden Calf, God is infuriated at the Israelites, burning their gold into a calf that they dance around and worship. His anger burns hot. Moses intercedes for the people, imploring God to turn from his fierce wrath, change God's mind and avert disaster. God listens.
And whether we believe that God is a God of anger and wrath or not, I believe that God does listen. God knows our weaknesses (in language of the past..."our wretchedness") Lent is a gift to us to call us home once again...for the hundreth or thousandth time. What might be that golden calf that you dance around?
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness (weaknesses), may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Collect for Ash Wednesday, Book of Common Prayer, p. 325
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Ash Wednesday 2011--Finding Dignity in Lent
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend youor hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Joel 2: 12-13
I always breathe a sigh of relief when Ash Wednesday comes around once again. In the midst of a long winter, Ash Wednesday signals the start of a turning towards new life and birth. Although the time-honored phrase "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return" is a stark, haunting reminder of our mortality, Ash Wednesday begins the acknowledgement that even in the midst of death, we are called to live.
I have just returned from a conference with Episcopal clergy from around the country. Our main topic for the week was Dignity and Reconciliation. In our discussions of the word "dignity," we realized that the word is often used to define a good death. We want for our loved ones and ourselves to die in dignity. At the time of death and at the funeral, we expect our loved one's body and life to be treated with honor and respect....dignity. That is what the hospice movement is all about. However, it is also important to live with dignity. That is a bit harder to understand how to do.
The Litany of Penitence in the Book of Common Prayer (pp. 267-269) appointed for Ash Wednesday gives us a good idea where to start. The first petition is this:
We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.
I would add one phrase to the petition. We have not loved our very selves with the love of the Creator.
Dignity starts with loving God and then loving ourselves as a child of God. For if we cannot honor ourselves as worthy of God's love, it is near impossible to truly love and respect the dignity of every other human being in our world.
Today. Ash Wednesday, we remember we are but dust. We also remember that while we live, we are a precious child of God, entitled to dignity and honor.
So to Psalm 51 and 103, let's add a verse from Psalm 139 this Ash Wednesday: While I live, I will thank you for I am marvelously made. Psalm 139: 13
This Ash Wednesay, thanks be to God that today, in the midst of death, we live. Let us live with dignity, honoring our lives and the lives of those around us. Amen.
I always breathe a sigh of relief when Ash Wednesday comes around once again. In the midst of a long winter, Ash Wednesday signals the start of a turning towards new life and birth. Although the time-honored phrase "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return" is a stark, haunting reminder of our mortality, Ash Wednesday begins the acknowledgement that even in the midst of death, we are called to live.
I have just returned from a conference with Episcopal clergy from around the country. Our main topic for the week was Dignity and Reconciliation. In our discussions of the word "dignity," we realized that the word is often used to define a good death. We want for our loved ones and ourselves to die in dignity. At the time of death and at the funeral, we expect our loved one's body and life to be treated with honor and respect....dignity. That is what the hospice movement is all about. However, it is also important to live with dignity. That is a bit harder to understand how to do.
The Litany of Penitence in the Book of Common Prayer (pp. 267-269) appointed for Ash Wednesday gives us a good idea where to start. The first petition is this:
We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.
I would add one phrase to the petition. We have not loved our very selves with the love of the Creator.
Dignity starts with loving God and then loving ourselves as a child of God. For if we cannot honor ourselves as worthy of God's love, it is near impossible to truly love and respect the dignity of every other human being in our world.
Today. Ash Wednesday, we remember we are but dust. We also remember that while we live, we are a precious child of God, entitled to dignity and honor.
So to Psalm 51 and 103, let's add a verse from Psalm 139 this Ash Wednesday: While I live, I will thank you for I am marvelously made. Psalm 139: 13
This Ash Wednesay, thanks be to God that today, in the midst of death, we live. Let us live with dignity, honoring our lives and the lives of those around us. Amen.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Daily Lenten Meditations--A Garland instead of Ashes
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengenance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion---to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of priase instead of a faint spirit. Isaiah 61: 1-3
The prophet Isaiah brings encouragement to the exiled and the oppressed in this selection from the Book of Isaiah. This passage of Scripture is also recommended to be read at funerals. This was read at Memorialite Barbara Swain's funeral just a week or so ago. It is a hopeful passage for those of us who are separated from God in any way---whether through the death of a beloved, an illness, or a dark night of the soul.
This Lent, I will use the theme "A Garland instead of Ashes" for a daily Lenten mediation. I invite all to send your comments on this theme in to this blog. I look forward to walking the way of the cross with you this Lent....for it is the way of life. Daily Mediations begin on Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011.
Blessings in Christ, Martha+
The prophet Isaiah brings encouragement to the exiled and the oppressed in this selection from the Book of Isaiah. This passage of Scripture is also recommended to be read at funerals. This was read at Memorialite Barbara Swain's funeral just a week or so ago. It is a hopeful passage for those of us who are separated from God in any way---whether through the death of a beloved, an illness, or a dark night of the soul.
This Lent, I will use the theme "A Garland instead of Ashes" for a daily Lenten mediation. I invite all to send your comments on this theme in to this blog. I look forward to walking the way of the cross with you this Lent....for it is the way of life. Daily Mediations begin on Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011.
Blessings in Christ, Martha+
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)