July 7, 2019 – Dr T Richard Snyder

Again?

T. Richard Snyder, PhD

July 7, 2019

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This morning I want to talk with you about the word again. It is one of the most overused and misunderstood words today.And so I have put a question mark after it. Again?

There are several ways to think about the word. again.

It’s an important word because it can point to new possibilities, new beginnings, second chances.As someone deeply involved in Restorative Justice, I want to claim that word again once again. It's like the lyrics of the old song, I’ll never say never again, again, cause here I am in love again. I’m reminded of the person whose spouse had died after a fifty year marriage.In grief, the words inscribed on the tombstone were, the light of my life has gone out. After a few years, however, a new relationship blossomed, so the inscription was added, but I have struck another match. Sometimes again can be about a new beginning.

It’s also a dangerous word because it has become the foundation for many empty promises and false hopes.We are promised that America will be great again and millions get in line with no understanding of what that again might mean and with no clarity about the future that is to come. Many of my born-again friends refer to Jesus' admonition to Nicodemus that he must be born again., if we want to go to heaven.With that admonition, we are promised something but with no understanding of what that word really means and no clarity about the promise of eternal glory. Yet we are bombarded with promises of again.

Let me set this in the starkest contrast. The word again can be either nostalgic or transgressive. 

For some, the word again is nostalgic: longing for a time of paradise lost: a mythic time when all was harmony and concord with others and with nature. Camelot, the Garden of Eden before the Fall, Shangri-La.While there is no historical record of such a time, the existence of these stories reveal a universal longing deep in the human soul. But we must tread cautiously on the notion of a virtuous golden age that stands in stark contrast to the present. There never was such a time.This is what the Tea Party wishes to do, what the fundamentalist religionists wish to do, what those in danger of losing their privilege and power wish to do”namely to go back to the way things were, or at least as they were imagined to be. Make America Great Again conveniently assumes a past that wasn't marred by racism, male dominance, injustice, imperialism and violence.

But for others, the word again has a transgressive meaning.It is a word of resistance.Langston Hughes, the famous black poet and writer penned these words in his pm, Let America be America Again.

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me) 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed”

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me.

Nor freedom in this homeland of the free.)¦.

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain”

All, all the stretch of these great green states”

And make America again.

It is not an overstatement to say that the way forward demands a radical transformation; a transformation of our imagination, our consciousness, our reasoning, our behavior, and our social structures. Anything less will fall short. We may be tempted to fix or modify the violence of the past by returning to the old days, but doing so will not address the heart of our problem. So where do we turn? We need a new imagination, a total re-orientation. 

We can't go home again, as Thomas Hardy famously wrote,because home never had the complexity, the racial/ethnic mix or the reality of a global world that we now have. We need to distinguish between nostalgia for an illusory past and hope for a new world.

Many Christians interpret the words of Jesus to Nicodemus that he must be born again, as essential for salvation. A closer look at that challenge reveals a better translation and an even deeper requirement.Not, you must be born again but, you must be born from above. You must be captured by a transcendence that goes far beyond mere longing for a lost morality and culture. Nicodemus' response was limited to a return to the past”-to ask how he could enter a second time into the womb. But to be born from above is the promise of something totally new, a transcendence of the past rather than simply a recovery and repetition of what was. What many of the born-again preachers are calling for is a return to a time when marriage was only between one man and one woman, abortion was illegal, the bible was read in the schools, and the church was the center of life. 

Whose again are we looking to recover?Is it a time before the #MeToo Movement when rape isn't considered such a bad thing when it is committed by a nice boy who is an Eagle Scout and from a good home.Is it a time when the United States reigned supreme in the world and could insert its will upon other nation's without regard”when we could overturn the democratic election of Arbenz in Guatemala, fund the Contras to stop the Sandinista revolution and support a military coup that removed Salvador Allende. Is it a time when we were waging a just war against the totally evil Nazi's but closed our borders to hundreds of thousands of Jews desperately seeking to flee the killings of the Holocaust? Is it a time before women's suffrage when only men's voices and votes counted, when it was only men who were created equal?Is it a time when the monuments of secessionist hers and the flying of the confederate flag in the name of state's rights sought to disguise their role as symbols of slavery and overt racism?

Whose again are we looking to recover?

And while legislative changes sometimes achieve desirable results, often those changes merely mask an underlying reality that does not change. The ending of slavery, for example, did not eliminate the racist treatment of people of color. There have been legislative changes along the road, as the racism of slavery was replaced again”this time with Jim Crow, and the racism of Jim Crow has been replaced again “this time by the war on drugs and the resultant mass incarceration and criminalizing of blacks.No matter what we call it, racism, is rampant. Again.

While the Civil Rights Act led to some improvement for blacks, it didn't fundamentally change the beliefs, attitudes, and values of many whites. Similarly, the Voting Rights Act has been circumvented by gerrymandering (that the Supreme Court recently voted to allow), identity requirements, and shortening registration and voting periods.Once again, millions of blacks are disenfranchised. And the Equal Rights Amendment, that still has not been ratified by enough states to make it part of the Constitution, once again has not ended the mistreatment of women. Allowing a few women to rise to the top of the corporate ladder ds not change the underlying sexism of a male dominated culture as we have witnessed with the steadily increasing accounts of sexual abuse by men, and lower pay for women for comparable work. Native Americans have witnessed scores of legislative actions to correct their mistreatment, but they remain marginalized on reservations and largely impoverished. No matter what is legislated, Native Americans again and again are oppressed. And while legislation has created more educational programs for prisoners and proven to reduce recidivism, it does little to change our society's perception of prisoners as undesirable men and women who must be kept away from us good people. Again.

New technologies are often praised as the way to a genuinely new future but too often fall short of the promise. This is especially evident in the development of our military technology. Drones have been developed with the promise of surgical strike capacity, thereby minimizing or even eliminating civilian deaths. But again collateral damage of civilians continues and the advent of drones doesn't change our view of the enemy as evil and deserving of death. What we have created is a technologically advanced form of warfare. The technology may have changed, but wars and a war mentality continue, Again. 

But there is also a transgressive memory”one that points to an entirely new future”, a new America. We Christians are a people of memory: of hymns sung since childhood, of creeds and prayers recited weekly.In fact, some of those memories are burned into us so deeply that almost nothing can dispel them.I vividly recall the experience with my father who was in a rehabilitation center after having suffered a severe stroke that soon led to his death.His communication had been reduced to unintelligible sounds. He could not speak. One Sunday we wheeled him to the chapel service.To my utter amazement, when the pastor led the people in the Lord's prayer, my father joined in, word for word.He never uttered a word after that.Somehow, the memory of that prayer ran deeper than even the effects of the stroke.

There is no substitute for memory.But one of the truths that I have discovered is that it is possible to remember much and understand little.It is possible to remember the words of scripture and prayers but not experience their power.It is possible to know the history of the church by heart but to miss the heart of its history.It is time to claim a liberating memory.A memory that transcends the limits of the past and points to a new possibility. 

I think that is the way it was for the people of Israel during the time of Isaiah's words that we read today.The people were captives in Babylon.They had been forced into exile. The good life was over.Life was a hazy shadow of their former glory.The excitement was gone and rather than living in anticipation they were despondent.And their memory wasn't helping them. They were nostalgic memories of a lost past.They were ephemeral memories. Those memories were not the way ahead.The reality of their exile dominated their thoughts and remembering the past had no power.Their memories were as empty and as meaningless as their rituals.Another prophet, Amos had chastised the people for the emptiness of their rituals, claiming Yahweh despised their festivals and took no delight in their solemn offerings.They were unacceptable to Yahweh because they were empty of the power of justice.Now Isaiah says something similar about their memories. 

He tells them”do not remember not the former things or consider the things of old.Stop living in the past.Your history is not going to help you.I suspect that history had become their horizon.Perhaps they had become so comfortable with the litany of the past that they were unable to see the new things that were brewing in their midst.Perhaps they had become like old friends or married couples who spend their time reminiscing and never allow for new developments in their relationship. Sometimes memory can become a tranquilizer.Apparently, for the exiles, memory has become a substitute for the experience of the living spirit. 

This is the situation of many of our churches and our nation today.Our memories have locked us into a past that is a dead-end. We are living with a myopic memory. To us, the words of Isaiah are timely.Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old.I am about to do a new thing:now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

It's time to cultivate new memories–memories that are transgressive, that point to radically new possibilities. It is time for us to focus on perceiving the news that is emergent.

Watch for the new.Move beyond your memories.It's strange how sometimes even a good thing can become a problem.Just as too much comfort may make us complacent, too much memory may lull us into an assurance that all we will be well when the old days return. 

For modern folks like us, memory is even more problematic than it was for the captives in Babylon, because we have idealized history.We have turned biblical history into a spiritualized story devoid of the material content that makes history.We have tended to think of the powerfully transforming events of biblical history such as exodus and return from exile as coming down magically from heaven.For the prophet, that was unthinkable.History always involved actors, human agency–Pharaoh and Moses, Joshua and the Canaanites, Gideon and his three hundred, Deborah and Jael.All of those dramatic changes involved politics, social structures, and economics.Nothing magical there”rather the stuff of everyday life.

We must move beyond a memory that is merely nostalgic–that fills us with feelings of contentment, of warmth. The problem with nostalgia is that it tends to make history over into what feels good to us”it is like comfort food for the mind and soul.A few years back Carole and I returned to Brazil where I had lived for a time in the 60's.For years I had experienced strong nostalgia for the music, the beaches and the beauty of Rio de Janeiro.I was filled with what the Brazilians call saudades” longings of nostalgia.Unfortunately, when we returned, all had changed, including me–and the reality was shattering.Nostalgia doesn't prepare us for a new day. It merely seeks to repeat the old.Perhaps Israel was caught up in nostalgia. 

And we must not languish in memories that are merely interesting stories, without the power to move us to action.Memory can be benign.There is a form of memory that doesn't harm or heal, it's just a story. Interesting, but without power–a memory that ruffles no feathers, disturbs no order”it simply recounts what everyone already knows or could know.Perhaps for the Israelites history had become a source of comfort that required neither expectation nor action. 

Whatever Israel's problem was with memory, Isaiah tells them to let go of their memories. What is called for now, he says, is not memory but perception.The task now is to perceive the new that is already in process. The prophet exhorts them to perceive the unexpected new thing that God is doing in their midst.It was their dream to be set free.But they certainly didn't see this coming because they were locked into their history and unable to perceive what was already stirring. 

If we listen to the challenge of Isaiah, it is time to stop living in a safe past and to take the risk of faith—to struggle to perceive what is already breaking forth.Make no mistake, the dramatic nature of a truly new life and world involves risk, it involves upset, it involves cost. The future will not drop from heaven simply because we want something better, simply because we pray for it.It will involve digging into a marginalized past, careful analysis, strategic thinking and planning, judicious deployment of resources, sacrifices, perseverance, and a willingness to consider the unimaginable. It will involve different allies, not the ones who brought us this mess. The future will not be easy or perfect. 

We are offered a different kind of memory”a transgressive memory that comes from the margins rather than the center, that comes from the silenced rather than from those whose voice has dominated, that comes from the least of these rather than from those in power. Only that memory can cause us to perceive a truly new future.

In the words of Langston Hughes, Let us make America Again.

June 21, 2019 – Rev. Ralph Moore

St. George Chapel, June 21, 2019

Amos 8:1-13, Psalm 52, Luke 10:38-42

Rev. Ralph Moore

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My mother called herself a Martha. She always seemed to have more to do than she could ever finish at church events and at home. Never rested, never time to think, she felt Martha’s fury when Martha went to Jesus complaining that her sister Mary choose to just sit and listen to Jesus. I guess we all have been around this story many times–Jesus sitting in a room or patio with a circle of a dozen or so people adoringly looking at him as he teaches. We’ve grown up with symbolic stereotypes: Mary the devoted learner, Martha the more shallow doer. Mary described by Jesus as concentrating on “the one thing needed,” the core of spiritual life. Martha distracted, preoccupied. And we’ve also had a kind of Myers-Briggs typology: in each of us is a Mary and a Martha, a contemplative tendency and an activist impatience to do things.

The lectionary throws a curve at our interpretations by pairing this story with the scathing words by the prophet Amos. This forces us to focus on what Jesus might be saying to his listeners. Many quotes of Jesus’ teachings are memorizable parables (prodigal son) and contemporary ethics (the golden rule). But over all is Jesus’ constant insistence that everything he says comes from the law and the prophets, the stories of the people’s struggles and the condemnations by the prophets of social injustice and oppression. This is the background for his thoughts and his actions.

In our picture of him this morning he might well be going over the denunciations of hypocrisy made by Amos. Amos the sheep herder and manager of fruit orchards; not of the wealthy class nor the religious elite. About eight-hundred years before Jesus’ day Amos feels called to leave his homeland in the south, travel to the kingdom in the north, and confront royalty and wealth by exposing their violation of divine commandments for integrity and truth, their material greed, their oppression of the poor, their hypocritical religion. Amos wrote these words himself–literary gems. Martin Luther King, Jr. used many of them regularly. And there’s no relief for us in Psalm 52, coming from a couple of centuries before Amos. The Psalm is addressed directly to the tyrant, the merchant, the powerful–who do evil by lying and stealing and forcing the poor into slavery.

So, we here today, might consider ourselves in that room listening to Jesus as he  challenges us to ponder the society in which we live. For his listeners, it’s living in the Roman Empire’s occupation of their land; the military oppression, the exploitation of their resources, using their religion and their puppet leaders to maintain the status quo. In our day are huge parallels: the world is a horrendous challenge for any of us who seek to live in truth, to be responsible in the ways we use our power and our privilege, to understand the social costs of consumer choices we make, the suffering of millions in the world, in our own nation the trampling of values by authorities–political and corporate and religious. Jesus outlines the disciplines we must develop to not succumb to simplistic slogan and be silent in the face of bigotry and hate, to serve the common good, love of neighbor and enemy, celebrate life with generosity, exemplify Jesus. Jesus does not put Martha down for her fatigue and impatience, nor does he exalt Mary for her taking time out to ponder and contemplate. He does, however, insist that this moment together be valued, used as precious gift, for growth, renewal, and commitment.

Today, we dedicate a cross for this chapel. We’ll remember as we do so that for many centuries before Jesus’ time and many centuries afterward that crucifixion was a common method of execution for those who were perceived to oppose authority, anyone who fails to bow down in total loyalty to the status quo. One commentator has described the Roman province of Palestine as “littered with crosses carrying the bodies of trouble-makers.” Jesus is one of those, one whose death has, for his people, the meaning of life that does not cease in death but, rather, is lived powerfully beyond death. The fear of death is vanquished. God is in this all the way.

A grotesque example of this in the lives of our African American neighbors is rising in our awareness. In that period after slavery ended called Reconstruction, the mid-1860s through the late 1880s, former slaves were granted farmlands and new means for them to establish their economic independence. The vast majority found new freedom in farming. We now learn that the vicious white reactions, especially lynchings, were mostly designed to drive them off their land. Today it is still going on in modern legal terms–developers and county commissions are still finding “legal” ways to do this. One of our most cherished African American theologians, the late Rev. James Cone, (Union Theological Seminary) wrote a moving description of this just in 2012 entitled The Cross and the Lynching Tree. The cross represents experience; faith and belief begin in experience. The cross is the event that defines how power over death comes alive in us as we encounter forces that destroy and kill. Still, today, the lynching tree is that event and therefore the symbol of resurrection power for African Americans. Still today, each of us is affected by the atrocities suffered by others far away and close at hand. Each of us puts aside the cross as adornment, sign of something that happened in the past, a discovers that it is in the lives that we lead.

Another reminder of sacrifices on the Cross comes from the Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, Episcopal Bishop of Alaska (1991-96), Dean of Episcopal Divinity School (1999-2008), and currently teaching at. St. Paul School of Theology. He is a full-blooded Choctaw from Oklahoma (which is Choctaw for “red people). Speaking about the indigenous “native American” experience, he writes about the violent history of recent centuries: “It is not about who is a real American, since only a handful of us can make that claim legitimately, but who dominates, who has the power…the same tragic need to exercise power over others….If we seek a Native American view on the sacrifices [the crosses of our current situation] here it is: you all can stay, but let racism and injustice be banished from our midst once and for all. That is what is un-American.”

So, Jesus says to us in this discussion group, each one of you has had, now has, will have, this event in your life–this insane force of evil challenging all that you cherish, this world of indiscriminate suffering constantly trying to rob you of the good, of the love, of the strength of heart, by which you offer your life in serving one another as neighbors. Lift up your cross and follow me as I carry mine–he actually says that! Christ alive in one is the event of the cross in one–thoughts and actions that have consequences. The law and the prophets. The way the world groans onward to renewal and freedom. You shall overcome.

Dedication of the Memorial Cross

(from the Iona Abbey Worship Book, p. 106)

Do we believe that God is present in the darkness before dawn, in the waiting and uncertainty where fear and courage join hands, conflict and caring link arms, and the sun rises over barbed wire?–Do we believe this? We do.

Do we believe that God is with us and in us in Christ, who walks with us and sits down in our midst sharing our humanity?–Do we believe this? We do.

Do we affirm a faith that takes us beyond the safe place into love in action, into vulnerability, into peacemaking in the world?–Do we affirm this? We do.

As we offer this Cross, do we commit ourselves to live according to its power, loving in Christ’s name, bearing responsibility, taking risks, standing with those who suffer on the edges of societies, honoring all who have gone before us (today we name Margaret Neeson), do we we commit ourselves to life over death, open ourselves to be used by the Spirit?–Do we commit ourselves? We do.

As we behold this Cross–may the light of God lead us; the power of God hold us; the joy of God heal us; the grace of God enfold us; the love of God bless us. Amen.

September 2, 2018 / The Reverend C. Waite Maclin

ST. GEORGE CHAPEL

TENANTS HARBOR

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

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As I was thinking of what I might preach about this morning, our last time together in the chapel till next summer, word came in the news about the not unexpected but still sad news of Senator John McCain.

His death as the death of all people brings us to that universal community of tears.

 I want to spend a few minutes reflecting on the life of this brave man for he so represents the challenging words from the gospel:

“Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;

in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.

And Jesus continued:

 “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

John McCain was a man of integrity, A man who spoke his truth with small concern for the consequences. A man who withstood torture and degradation few of us can comprehend. A man who believed in compromise when many in his party saw it as weakness. A man who gave that iconic gesture of thumbs down during the crucial vote on the Affordable Care Act in the Senate. A man who refused repatriation after his capture in Vietnam until all of the prisoners were released. A man who challenged a supporter when she disparaged the life, religion and even being of Barack Obama

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Now in “full disclosure” – I did not vote for John McCain in the general election and disagreed with him on many of his positions. However I did admired him, particularly in this time of little courage on our political scene. What cemented that admiration was a visit I took a number of years ago to Hanoi, Vietnam and where he was kept prisoner, “The Hanoi Hilton”. The place was stark, brutal, and must have sucked the very breath out of its prisoners.

And you know,

I admire heroes, whether captured or not!!!

Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

As we see in the Gospel reading this morning, Jesus challenged the given wisdom of his day, the given wisdom of his tradition, the given wisdom of his faith – not because they were wrong or evil, but because when misused they, like the Hanoi Hilton, sucked the very spiritual and life-giving breath out of these people whom he loved and came to save.

There were often encounters such as this. Jesus was not challenging them because they were upholding the Law of Moses. Being a Jew, he also believed in the Law. He was going deeper saying that to concentrate on “hand washing in a ritualistic, rigid manner” was to miss the whole point. “It is your attitude, it is your unthinking automatic responses, it is your holding on to what you have been told for generations and never questioned.” There is nothing profound about this unless it goes to the heart of what you have been taught to believe.

 Oh, and do we not all have those places in our own lives where we hold on to the symbol and the external, thus missing the deeper truth.

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So, in some sense, John McCain is a model for us as he tried his best to get at the essence of things as he saw them.

Jesus’ point is clear. It is those biases, conscious or unconscious, it is those biases which have been formed from our history, our family lore, our culture, even our religious traditions, our “given wisdom” that causes our problems, large or small.

And sometimes we do not even know they are there. The present discussion of “unconscious bias” is so important because even in the best of times those biases blast out when we least expect them and we are startled when they do.

I want to share with you an event of which I am not proud but from which I have learned a much deeper lesson.

I had a pastoral counseling practice for 29 years. I have always seen myself as open, liberal, egalitarian –

 just about a perfect specimen of a human beingJ

One day there was a knock at my office door. The visitor was African American, in a ratty overcoat and shabby clothes. My immediate response before he opened his mouth:

“Sir, if you will come back later I think I can help you out. He replied: “Oh Mr. Maclin, I am not here for a handout, I want to become a client.“

 I was embarrassed, chagrinned and ashamed. May I also say, the gentleman and I developed a firm and life giving relationship for us both for two years. Unconscious bias comes out of us when we least expected it, not because we are “bad” people but because it is ingrained, given to us from we not know where. It is in accepting that  reality in ourselves that we are made free.

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 Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

There is a profound line from “The Rainmaker”, a 1956 Broadway Play by N Richard Nash. Starbuck is a self-proclaimed Rainmaker , a charlatan who comes to  this drought ridden western town and promises to bring rain for $100.00. He seduces Lizzie Curry a spinster in a family that is trying to marry her off. Her brother Jim becomes furious and wants to fight Starbuck. His father intervenes and says to Jim:

“You are so sure of what is right, you don’t know what is good.”

The Pharisees, like most of us were so sure of what was right that they did not know what was good. They get a bad wrap from too many preachers who never lived the hard lives of the Pharisees.

So, what do I want for all of us as we leave this holy and lovely place until next summer.

I want us to stay alert to ourselves, our biases, both conscious and unconscious.

I want us to forgive ourselves as we stumble through this journey of living,

I want us to hold before ourselves, models of light such as John McCain. Using their light of integrity to guide our own.

AND . . .

I want us to know that this Jesus whom we worship in love and hope is by our side holding us in all our perfections and imperfections as Children of God.

Amen

July 29, 2018 / The Reverend Susan Flanders

Speaking Truth to Power                                                                   

Susan M. Flanders

St. George’s Chapel, August 5, 2018

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Speak truth to power!  We hear this imperative a lot these days.  It is the rallying cry at marches and protests; it is the lament of so many outraged commentators and op ed writers.  When a person or a group in power is seen to be abusing it, we long for someone to stand up to them, call them to account, convict them with the truth. Who will do this?  What is stopping us?  Why do we stand by when norms and customs and laws are flouted – we must speak truth to power!

Given this, today’s reading from Second Samuel is a dizzying breath of fresh air, the denouement of a great Biblical scandal, the calling out of King David by the prophet Nathan.  In case the details of the story do not leap immediately to mind – here it is. Uriah is married to the very beautiful Bathsheba.  While he is away fighting in David’s army, the king comes upon Bathsheba bathing and is so entranced, he has her brought to the palace where he sleeps with her, resulting in a pregnancy – looks like adulterous rape in our own fraught “me too” days.

The story gets worse; now comes the coverup – so often the undoing of a guilty leader.  David has Uriah brought back from the front and encourages him to take a couple of days’ leave and spend time with his wife – two nights running he urges this, but Uriah remains with the king’s servants and doesn’t go near Bathsheba. So now, with no way to explain Bathsheba’s pregnancy, David goes for the nuclear option – he has Uriah killed. He tells his general to put Uriah on the very front lines where the fighting is fiercest, and so Uriah is indeed killed – out of David’s way, and the king sends for Bathsheba, takes her as wife, and she bears his son. 

This whole sordid tale comes to the attention of the court prophet, Nathan, and here’s where our reading began – with Nathan’s confrontation of the king, one of the great speaking truth to power scenes in all of literature. Nathan appeals to the king’s emotions and sympathy by telling a tale of how a rich man with many flocks steals the one small lamb of a poor man in order to feed a traveler rather than giving up one of his own. David falls for it, and he is outraged at this man who had no pity and who took advantage of the poor man. 

At this Nathan pounces!  We can imagine him drawing himself up before the king, pointing to him with outstretched arm “You are the man!”  His critique is scathing – after all the power and riches God has bestowed on David, he has done this evil, sinful deed, in secret and in cruelty, and God will punish him accordingly. Here, in our story, the confrontation works.  David responds, “I have sinned against the Lord.”  And most of the rest of the court history of David is concerned with all the ways his kingship, his family and his own status are impaired by his entitled, profligate behavior. 

It’s a great story, and given today’s morass of entitled, profligate behavior in high places, I’m of course tempted to draw specific parallels and name names and call out lying and cheating; I’m wondering who are the Nathan’s in our day who will stand up and indeed speak truth to power. 

I suspect that some of the rest of you have this same wondering about what anyone, including ourselves, can do, to bring irresponsible leadership to account.  I actually had an opportunity to do this a couple of months ago back in Washington, DC where I live.

A young lawyer, a friend of one of my son’s,  called me on the phone, knowing I was an Episcopal priest and assuming I would be interested in what he was proposing. He and some of his colleagues had assiduously researched the law concerning alcoholic beverage licensing in the District of Columbia.  They had discovered that one of the criteria for granting a liquor license to anyone was that the person be “of good character.”  They had also ascertained that the President was the owner of the license for the Trump Hotel in DC.  And so they came up with this idea of trying to get a whole group of local clergy to file a complaint, not a lawsuit, but a complaint to the beverage control board, claiming that this license should be revoked due to the demonstrable lack of character of its owner.  They felt that clergy were respected as good judges of moral character and their joining together in this complaint might prove effective, if only to generate negative publicity if not to actually get the license revoked. 

At first, I thought this was very exciting!  As I said to the lawyer, “I’m someone who is always ranting about how no one stands up to all the outrages inflicted by this administration, all the obvious character flaws demonstrated regularly by this president. I’m always criticizing Congress for its passivity, wondering when someone will actually do anything.”  So – here’s my chance, I thought, in a small way, to be sure, to be part of at least one attempt to call the person to account, to publicly denounce a lack of good character.  I was pretty excited, and even though misgivings began to surface right away, I told the lawyer I’d think about it and talk to some other clergy.

I told Bill about it, and he thought it was a totally bad idea, always a good sign that something really is – a totally bad idea.  My reservations began to take shape. This complaint was not actually germane to the many huge objections I have about the way things are going in our country – whether or not the liquor license exists doesn’t really make any difference. The lawyers would just be using this one little clause in a 300+ page licensing law to try to cause trouble.  They would not be standing up to the president on the issues that really matter.  Further, leaning on clergy as moral arbiters immediately reeks of hypocrisy, given clergy sexual abuse, financial chicanery and often collaboration in the unjust wielding of political power.  It would be better if such a complaint were brought by a cross section of well respected upstanding citizens of various walks of life – specific people who are considered above moral reproach.  And then there was the whole problem of mixing politics and religion.  I work part-time for a church, and to involve myself in a legal matter, clearly based mostly on my political views would seem to be overstepping my role. I also talked to some lawyers, all of whom thought it was an interesting idea that would go nowhere and shared the reservations I’ve just mentioned.  So I bowed out, told the lawyer I wouldn’t support him, and why, and felt relieved.  He meanwhile went ahead and did find a group of respected citizens, clergy and judges mostly, and filed his complaint a couple of months ago. I’ve heard nothing further. 

So much for my so-called opportunity to speak truth to power. But whatever the flaws of that venture, speaking truth to power is still important, necessary and, I believe, totally compatible with Christian faith.

For one thing, speaking truth to power is Biblical.  For those who say no, I remind them of the huge tradition of prophets, in the Hebrew Scriptures – not just Nathan, but the harangues about justice from Amos and Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Micah, and on into the New Testament including John the Baptist and Jesus himself.  Whether these men were court insiders or somewhat eccentric outsiders, they took risks and spoke out and addressed both rulers and citizenry.  The truths they spoke were always about fairness and justice and a God whose love encompassed both judgement and mercy.  They were all about accountability; they insisted that those who mistreated others would somehow pay for their cruelty.  They held the sins of leaders up to the light for all to see.  Their witness is to that arc of history that bends towards justice, however glacially.  They will not rest with things as they are, but urge us to envision things as they might be, even as they ought to be.

So, we have the entire heritage of Biblical prophecy as our context for speaking truth to power today. But how?  Those long ago prophets seem so different, so far from us.  What can we do that feels better than sitting by passively, and worse, watching those who ARE in position to speak out and make a difference and take action towards accountability do next to nothing?

Just as I was stuck with this question a couple of weeks ago, right after the arguably treasonous comments of the president after Helsinki, Frank Bruni, the NYT columnist came to my rescue. He wrote, on July 20, a powerful op ed piece entitled “Disgusted With Donald Trump?  Do This” Bruni makes the strongest argument I’ve read for the power of voting, calling it “utterly straightforward and entirely effective” and saying we must stay “fanatically focused on…registering voters, turning them out, directing money to the right candidates, donating time in the right places” as well, of course, as voting ourselves.  He reminds us painfully that only 40% of eligible voters did so in 2016 and fewer than 1 in 2 voters ages 18-29 did so. Bruni convicted me in what I’ve been doing saying “too many people spend too much of themselves on the shouting and save too little for the plotting.”  Bruni challenges us on this – “Does our discipline rise to the level of our anger?  Does our will?” 

Bruni presents voting, not as the last passive option we have for standing up to this president, but as the foremost tool of our democracy. The vote is the one power we all can and must use, an expression of faith in our system, despite its flaws. Bruni’s belief is that the majority of us will opt for honesty in government and a government committed to the well-being of all of our people, and that the 2018 election will indeed be the most important in a generation.

So I’ve decided to stop ranting, stop watching way too much MSNBC, and get serious about electoral politics.  The truth we can each deliver to power is our vote.  Election results do stick and are the only guaranteed way to make sure we bring about a change in leadership.  It may not sound so big and brave and bold as Nathan’s confrontation with David, or Jesus’ attack on the moneychangers in the temple, but actually, what could be a better way of speaking truth to power than defeat by millions of engaged and outraged voters?

Finally, all this talk about truth to power – how would we define this truth?  How can  truth be other than subjective – my truth vs. your truth? Again, the NYT helped me out with a recent letter to the editor from one Ann B. Diamond of New York.  She lists ten things that she thinks almost all Americans would agree on – the things we should vote for instead of wildly partisan single issues. Here they are: 

1. We deserve a president who tells the truth.

2. Cabinet members should be advocates for their agency.

3. Americans want clean air and believe in climate change.

4. Every citizen should be encouraged to vote.

5. No child should go to bed hungry.

6. Canada and Mexico are not our enemies.

7. Russia is not our friend, and is trying to undermine democracy.

8. The press is not the enemy.

9. The tax cut benefits corporations and the wealthy, not the middle class.

10. Children belong with their parents.

We could say what these things, upon which it’s fair to say most would agree, represent the truth we need to speak to both political leaders and the financial powers that fund them. 

There hasn’t been much God-talk in this sermon, although certainly the story of Nathan and David provided a Biblical basis for confronting corrupt leaders. The God part, the Jesus part? Why would faith in God or a desire to follow Jesus prompt us to speak truth to power?  For me, faith in God, involves meaning and value and a sense of the world as a precious creation we are called to protect.  I want leaders who share that sense, no matter their religion. For me, Jesus, as a human being, signifies God’s presence in our humanity, in each of us. Jesus signifies our capacity and call to be God’s love in the world. Within each of us is the capacity and call to be God’s love in the world. One of the most important ways we can do this is to be faithful citizens, responsible caretakers of our precious democracy with whatever tools we have. As we consider our options in this bleak time for our country, we can ask ourselves this question: what are ways that each of us can embody God’s love in the world, not in hatred, not in tearing down, but in the slow and patient rebuilding and reinforcement of the kind of leadership our founding fathers and mothers dreamed of ?  Voting is not nothing, not a pitiful last resort, but something we all can and must do to bring about the kind of leadership we so need and long for today. 

Amen.

August 12, 2018 / The Venerable Mimsy Jones

SERMON ST. GEORGE 2018

Sunday, August 12, 2018

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 Irenaeus, the second century priest and bishop of Lyon, wrote, “The glory of God is a man fully alive.’’ If ever a person was fully alive, with all the glory and pain that life encompasses, it was David, the beloved and celebrated King of Israel who is the central character in the Old Testament books of First and Second Samuel.

 “It would be no exaggeration,” says Harvard professor James Kugel, “to describe David as the most vigorous, realistic, and in some ways the most human of all the Bible’s heroes.  The Bible certainly does not idealize him, but he is all the more appealing for that.  No bit of human hope and despair, bravura, foolishness, bitter melancholy, smoldering hatred or deepest love, is foreign to him.”

 David Plotz, who at age 35 read all the way through the Old Testament for the first time, with the help of no other books or a single expert, and then wrote a fabulous, funny book about it, says quite simply, that King David is ‘the Bible’s Bill Clinton.’

Most of us know the Sunday School version of David as a shepherd boy, a musician, the youth who wiped out Goliath the behemoth with a sling shot, then became Israel’s most famous King. 

The Sunday School lessons gloss over his selfish sexual exploits, his torturous relationships with his children, and the fact that although he was irresistibly charming, he was also manipulative and calculating, prepared to do almost anything to survive.  David was fully alive, all right;  he sang, and danced, and fought valiantly; he also repented mightily, and grieved deeply.

And David, this complicated, most human of all Biblical men or women, full of love and full of dark shadows, was a vessel for God. When Jesus of Nazareth entered Jerusalem on his mule a thousand years later, it was as Son of David that the crowds hailed him.

For all his finery and bravado, David was the quintessential Everyman/ Everywoman.  He had deep faults and a loving heart; he had great courage and deep fears. He was a fragile yet indispensable vessel for God.

In short, David was one of us.  His name could have been Alice, or Phoebe; John, or, (heaven forbid), Mac. His story spans a long life from his youth to his prime and finally to his old age as the grieving father so poignantly portrayed in today’s First Reading when he learns that his rebellious and treasured son, Absalom, has been killed.

Though David had at least nineteen sons and one daughter, the apple of his eye was Absalom, a fabulously handsome man, with a head of hair that was his crowning glory. (The author records that when Absalom cut his hair every year the weight of it was 200 shekels – or 4 1/2 pounds!)

 As you may imagine, there was plenty of palace intrigue, jealousy  and rivalry among David’s children.  When David’s eldest son Amnon rapes his half sister Tamar and David refuses to discipline Amnon,  Absalom quickly takes matters into his own hands.  He kills Amnon and flees into exile. 

 When Absalom returns to Jerusalem three years later, David refuses to see him, so Absalom begins to strut around the city currying favor with the people and becomes almost as irresistible and charismatic as his father.  Absalom attracts members of the military, forms an army and stages a successful rebellion against his father David, who is now himself forced to flee Jerusalem, along with his most trusted general, Joab, and a troop of loyal, experienced soldiers.  

 A  battle between the two forces is inevitable, and when the day comes, David is torn between two conflicting emotions.  On the one hand, he expects his experienced army to crush the revolt; on the other hand, he openly yearns for the safety of his insurrectionist son.

As Joab and David’s army prepare for the battle in the rugged forest of Epraim, David issues a terse order to his generals that barely conceals his ambivalence, “Deal gently with the young man Absalom,” he says, as he sends the troops off to fight.

David’s army soundly defeats the rebels, but Absalom escapes on his mule and in a bizarre, ironic twist, his head of hair, his narcissistic glory, is the instrument of his entrapment.  Hanging there between heaven and earth after his mule runs away, Absalom is killed by Joab, and buried on the spot.

Learning that his son is dead, David is reduced to a stammer of grief and desolation, repeating over and over, my son Absalom, my son Absalom.  O that I had died instead of you….Absalom, my son.  David, the Cinderella shepherd boy who became Israel’s most celebrated King, mourns as an old man, with all the pathos and nobility of King Lear.

—————————————————————————————

 Was Irenaeus thinking of David when he wrote, ’The glory of God is a man fully alive’?  Could be; David certainly qualifies,  but somehow doubt that he was the first person Irenaes thought of a fully alive.  I picture him looking around Lyon, watching the faces of small children at play, or young couples walking together hand in hand oblivious to others around, or senior citizens sitting on the sidelines laughing their hearts remembering at some old story.

I think of a fully alive woman who told me that the thing she dreaded most had happened: her children had taken her car keys away.  “I thought the world would end, but the most amazing thing happened,” she said.  “The world came to me!  I’ve never had so many invitations, so many rides offered, so many options.”

That woman, whose name is Martha, is the glory of God.  Another person I think of that way was a man named Frank, who died recently at age 90. 

At his funeral, the parish priest named Scott, who had only known Frank for one year, mentioned a book by David MacCauley entitled The Way Things Work.  ‘It’s a children’s book’, Scott said, made up entirely of illustrated descriptions of how everything from cameras to nuclear reactors work, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to see it in Frank’s library.

“When I entered his well stocked library,” Scott said, “I could see in a matter of minutes that it was not stocked with books about The Way to Put Things to Work for You.  No, the books on Frank’s shelves – fiction, essays, theology and just about everything else- these books were clear signposts into the mind of a man who stayed deeply curious about how things really work in this world until the day he left it.

“There is a theologically suspect word from the way Frank seemed to feel about his life: lucky.  He felt lucky.  Which means he died grateful.  And I am increasingly convinced that gratitude is a much better marker of the faith Jesus talked about than any checklist of what we now call ‘beliefs.’

“Frank engaged the Christian tradition the same way he engaged everything in this life: with all he had.  With his mind and his heart and his curiosity fully open and intact.  He didn’t dismiss the beliefs of others; he just couldn’t say the Nicene Creed and feel like he was being truthful.  Because it mattered to him.  And he really wanted to know how things work.  Even faith. 

“So he engaged his friend and theologian Marcus Borg and the two went back and forth for a couple of years.  Then one day Frank heard Marcus’s insistence that ‘credo’ doesn’t mean ‘I believe’ as in ‘I believe the sky is blue’; it means ‘I trust’, as in ‘

I am giving my whole self over to this mystery.’  Frank could say that, because giving his mind and heart was something he knew about.

“Friends, I believe that’s the kind of faith Jesus calls all of us to.  That’s engaging the wonder and mystery of being alive in God’s world with all we have, even our doubts.

“I don’t know just what Frank encountered when his heart stopped beating; he wouldn’t want me to pretend that I do. 

“What I do know is that his ninety-year investigation of the way things work in this beautiful life seemed to yield only more childlike wonder and more gratitude by the year.  As if he had struck a goodness that’s eternal in the process…”

—————————————————————————————

The glory of God is, indeed, a person fully alive…yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever.  Amen.

July 22, 2018 / The Rev. Larry Harris

PRAYER

God is Good.

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With this title,

a man from West Africa named George Browne,

one of my seminary classmates for a time,

began a sermon on the 23rd Psalm.

Liberia, the country where George Browne had become the Bishop,

was in the midst of a horrible civil war.

You will recall, said the Bishop,

that on the first Sunday in May,

I asked all of our people to pray,

not to say, but to pray,

the 23rd Psalm.

Carefully.

Meditatively.

And prayerfully.

At least three times a day.

In the morning.

During midday.

And before going to bed.

I asked that you do this for seven days.

Almost all of us did.

And I have received reports of good results in strengthening your faith.

Browne’s sermon included a story about the 23rd Psalm

That’s been around for awhile.

Some of you may know it.

An old man and a young man

were on the same platform

to speak before a large audience.

As a part of the programme,

each was to repeat from memory the 23rd Psalm.

The young man, well-trained in speech and drama,

repeated the words 

in the language of a dramatic silver-tongued orator:

"The Lord is my Shepherd…"

When he had finished,

the audience clapped and cheered.

Many rose to their feet with applause.

Then the older gentleman,

leaning heavily on a walking stick,

stepped to the front of the same platform.

In a feeble, shaking voice, he repeated the same words –

"The Lord is my Shepherd…"

When he was seated, there was silence.

No sound.

No applause. 

The silence suggested a mood of reflection, and deep respect. 

After a minute or so the younger man who had spoken earlier

rose to speak again.

"Friends," he said,

“when I spoke, you filled the air with applause.

Now, following my friend’s words,

you have been silent.

I – think – I – know – why. 

You cheered, because I know the Psalm.

What this man knows is the Shepherd.

And the Shepherd-God he knows is Good.”

The abiding presence and goodness of God

are expressed poetically

in the 23rd Psalm.

The metaphor of the shepherd,

in today’s gospel as well as the 23rd Psalm,

together with the Psalm’s other images:

a lush and fertile pasture,

water flowing steadily and quietly,

a well-trodden walkway,

the steadying assurance of a cane – or walking stick,

a festive dinner-table, and a place reserved to honor YOU,

the gentle soothing of cleansing oil,

a thirst-quenching cup,

the sense of divine presence and holiness in a house of worship:

each of these an image of support and affirmation;

and together, conveying warmth, safe-keeping, and abiding care. 

God is good – good indeed!

Another a passage of scripture,

this one from the heart of the New Testament,

uses the language of prose

to declare the same theme:

the eighth chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

A single verse from that chapter, verse 31:

If God be for us, who can be against us?

A wonderful member of the clergy

writes about how he was embarrassed

about the conditions of the grounds

around his church.

The appearance, he wrote, suggested the appearance of a neglected ball park.

I found I was up against obstacle after obstacle,

not insuperable obstacles to be sure,

but obstacles nevertheless.

The first was the apathy of the people.

The barren ground, neglected, deserted,

had become so familiar

that it was hard to arouse any interest in it.

There was not a great deal of money available

for anything that was not a necessity.

And grass was definitely viewed as a luxury.

Then too, the choir boys had developed a habit over the years

of entertaining themselves before rehearsals

by playing baseball on that area.

And there was a question whether they could be persuaded

to change their habits

so that we could grow a lawn even if we planted one.

And on top of all this, when we got closer to the time of planting,

we realized the area suffered not from a lack of moisture, but from too much;

and the area would have to be properly drained. 

Finally, when the seed had been sown by experts

who did everything they could to ensure success

pigeons flocked to the area

and feasted noisily on quantities of the seed. 

So it was, he wrote, that I thought deeply about Paul’s words,

 If God be for us, who can be against us? (Ferris, This is the Day, p. 112-ff.)

One point which came out of this thought was along these lines:

Is it not true

that in the adversities that come to us

we sometimes find our greatest advancements?

Where would the courage of Jesus be

if the Pharisees in all their legalistic fury

had not consistently challenged him and confronted him?

And how long would Paul be remembered

were it not for the forces in the early church

that so vigorously opposed him?

 Or closer to our own time, How far would the Wright brothers have gone

 if the wind had not been against them?

 Can we not say, then, in genuine honesty,

 that it is by learning to persist and to overcome that we rise to our best?

 And from here we can go on to say

that the human spirit can indeed rise above

even the most overwhelming circumstances

that sometimes seem almost beyond belief.

This can happen because the very spirit of God resting deeply within

translates into an indomitable spirit:

If God is for us, who can be against us?

And we know and see examples

of people who become “More than conquerors” through Him who loves us.

So whenever and wherever we may be down,

and whatever may stand against us,

we can say take a few quiet moments to say to ourselves,

God has made us.

God is for us.

God knows exactly who we are: the best and he worst.

Whoever we are, God loves us.

And God will give us the power and the spirit

to go through and beyond

just about anything that life puts before us.

This is the assuring reality

conveyed through the images of the 23rd Psalm

when our devotion and faith lead US

to trust the Shepherd

because we, too, know 

that God is Good. 

July 15, 2018 The Rev. Dr. T. Richard Snyder

What is Truth?

 T. Richard Snyder

 40 Washington St. #301

Camden, ME 04843

trichardsnyder@gmail.com

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O.T.  Numbers 22: 21-35

N.T.  John 18: 28-38

2000 years ago, Pilate asked a question for the ages.  “What is Truth?”

 In George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984 the ministry of Truth has carved over its door the following words: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. 

When Orwell’s dystopian novel first came out, most of us correctly thought that it was a critique of the Soviet Union. Never in our wildest imagination did we think it might be applicable to the United States.  But, tragically, it seems we were wrong.  We are drowning in claims of fake news, fake facts, and fake truth.  It is almost impossible to believe what we hear.  We are living in a surrealistic nightmare of claims and counter-claims, hoping that when we awaken it will disappear.  But each day the nightmare becomes more convoluted. 

Lying has become the order of the day, the baseline of our culture.  Of course, some lying has always been with us and we have grown accustomed to it. We’ve learned to take it with a grain of salt. We’ve been told that this cream will eliminate wrinkles and make us look 20 years younger.  We’ve been told that the automobile with imperceptible changes is revolutionary.  We’ve been promised that if we invest in this penny stock we will get rich.  We have become anesthetized—knowing that we are living with lies. 

It’s not only advertisers and huckster sales people. Politicians have been notorious for telling us what we want to hear, of spinning the story to serve their interests.  But today things seem much worse. Lying has become a way of life. Everywhere we turn we are accosted by lies and accusations of lies.

Everyone is accusing everyone else of lying.  The Washington Post is famous for its’s Pinocchios. Of the 98 claims made by President Trump at his recent rally in Montana, The Washington Post reported almost half were untrue. The President has claimed that the NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC consistently lie. Fox News has accused most main stream media of lying. We read about allegations of police brutality toward blacks, countered with denials, then refuted with cell phone photos.

 The historian, Doris Kern Goodwin, not known as a radical left-winger, lamented about the lies we are living with. Speaking of the president she said, “What’s different today and what’s scarier today is these lies are pointed out, and there’s evidence that they’re wrong,” she said. “And yet because of the attacks on the media, there are a percentage of people in the country who are willing to say, ‘Maybe he is telling the truth.’” 

But it’s not just the right or the president.  Many on the left have derided those who voted for Trump or Scott Walker in Wisconsin or LePage as ignorant, bigoted, or racists.  That may be true of some but to conclude that that is why they voted as they did is to miss an important point. The truth is that many of them are feeling marginalized, left behind, and facing an insecure future.  They have good reason to want things to change. I’ve recently read The Politics of Resentment by Katherine Cramer and Arli Hochschild’s Strangers In Their Own Land. Cramer wanted to understand why people would vote against their own self-interest, so she interviewed hundreds of people who voted for Scott Walker in Wisconsin.  Her conclusion is that they are not crazy or stupid.  They correctly feel that the rural communities and people are being sacrificed for the sake of the urban areas. They have experienced downward mobility and are afraid of the future. In large measure their perceptions and fears are true. Hochschild came to a similar conclusion after years of talking with Tea Party supporters in southern Louisiana. To label all those who voted for Trump as ignorant or racist is a lie. We need to face the truth about our divisions.

But discovering the truth is becoming more difficult each day. Fareed Zakaria had a sobering segment about fake videos.  Actors using artificial intelligence are now able to create fake videos that are so real it is almost impossible to notice the manipulations. According to him, “We are rapidly approaching the point where a public figure could be made to say anything…It will soon become so easy to make a fake video that there may always be some doubt on all videos…  Therefore, the credibility of the media source matters.” In his comments last week, Senator Angus King echoed this potential and asked, how will we know if what we see and hear is truly what was said?

So, who do we believe?  Where do we turn?  There are so many claims and counter claims about truth and lies that one scarcely knows where to turn.  

Pilate’s question to Jesus “What is Truth?” is especially pertinent now.  We will never know Pilate’s motivation behind the question. Perhaps he really wanted to know. Or, he may have asked it out of frustration— “Look these religious leaders say you claim to be a king, what do you say?  Who should I believe?” Or it may have been purely cynical.  “With all these counter claims flying about, how can we ever get to the truth?  Maybe there is no truth.  So, tell me, Jesus, what is truth?”

My own reactions to what is going on today are similar.  Sometimes I wonder who to believe.  Sometimes I wonder if we will ever know what’s true. 

But before we give in to our cynicism or throw up our hands in despair, I invite you to look at Jesus. —not because he is the only source of truth and certainly not because he addressed all the issues with which we are struggling today—but because I believe that his life and his words offer us a picture of what it means to speak and do the truth. As he said to Pilate— “I was born to testify to the truth.” His life was dedicated to the truth. He even claimed to be the truth—“I am the way the truth and the light.”—that is, watch me if you want to know what’s true.  So, even though my understanding of Jesus is unorthodox, I am compelled to look at his life and words to see what he embodied—what he testified to.   What was truth for Jesus?

Is it true that war is the answer, that “shock and awe” or “fire and fury” will bring peace?  When Jesus was being taken into custody, one of his disciples tried to defend him by taking out his sword and cutting off the ear of one of the men who had come to arrest him—certainly an understandable response.  But Jesus rebuked him and said, “those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

Obviously, dealing with enemies is complex and there may be times when militaristic action is called for, but that is not the leaning of the Gospel.  As historic Just War theory says, war should be the very last resort.  Truth for Jesus was to turn the other cheek, to reject the sword.

Too many of the words that have led us to war have been lies—the gulf of Tonkin attack; Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction; the axis of evil; the equation of Islam with terrorism.   Too many of the words that have kept us at war have been lies, twisted truths, or euphemisms: during the Vietnam War, we were constantly told that we were winning, only to be driven out in defeat. Torture has been called enhanced interrogation. The killing of innocent women, children and other non-combatants has been euphemistically labeled collateral damage, etc., etc., etc. So whenever I hear words that try to make the case for war, I am suspicious that we are being fed lies that serve the interests of those in power rather than the truth. Victory at all costs is a lie.  The truth is that peace should be our first and most lasting response to any enemy. 

Or what about calling a spade a spade? Dare we call someone out for lying or do we simply say that they misspoke?  Jesus’ words denouncing those who harmed the weak, the marginal and the oppressed were specific and unrelenting.  When he entered the Temple, he found moneychangers taking advantage of the poor by selling doves at exorbitant prices to those who couldn’t afford to bring their own animal sacrifice.  So, he drove them out and denounced them as having made God’s temple a den of thieves He did not equalize the blame for what was going on in the temple by saying that the poor should be smarter or better prepared.  He did not say that the problem was caused by “all sides.”  Nor did he wait for several days to be specific about who was to blame for the desecration of the temple. For him, truth involved confronting the evildoers there and then and calling them out for what they were doing.  

And what is truth when it comes to the sick? Is healthcare a privilege to be enjoyed by those who can afford it or is it a right of every human being? Jesus constantly went out of his way to care for those who were sick.  His life and ministry were characterized by his concern for the infirmed.  In his day, to have an infirmity meant that one was cast to the margins of society—unwanted and even suspect.  To be sick was considered to be a sign that one was to blame for their condition. We are facing the same question today with respect to opioid and heroin addiction. For years, drug addicts have been criminalized.  Now, many understand drug addiction to be a disease rather than a crime.  It’s too bad that this realization is late in coming—now that drugs are so much a white problem.  Very few considered blacks who were crackheads to be anything but criminals. 

Jesus understood the truth about sickness and disease. “Who sinned?”  the disciples asked him when they came upon a man who was blind, “this man or his father?” They thought there must be a connection. The truth, Jesus said, was neither. In his day, people who were sick were forgotten and ignored.  But Jesus did not forget or ignore the sick.  For him everyone deserved healing care, no matter their status or their history.  He reached out to the untouchables.

I ask you, how can Governor LePage’s veto of voter approved expansion of Medicaid –a veto supported by the House—the veto of an expansion that would provide coverage for 70,000 Mainers, how can it measure up to the care exhibited by Jesus? Our federal and state government are playing politics with the health of needy people. How can that be considered caring for the sick?

Efficiency and savings are worthy considerations.  But for Jesus, the truth was to be found in the risk of compassion. He healed on the Sabbath, for which he was criticized.  He touched the sick who were untouchable, for which he was criticized.  There will always be problems with caring for the sick, always some things that can be criticized and need to be fixed. That is what being compassionate entails. Compassion runs those risks.  It was compassion that compelled Jesus to reach out to the sick. The Affordable Care Act has problems that must be addressed but is based on compassion, a compassion that has added insurance coverage for many millions of formerly uninsured people.  The truth is that compassion, while costly, is the way of the Gospel and it is the way to build a strong America for everyone.

And what is the truth when it comes to those who are different from us? Are they to be cast aside, ignored or excluded?  Jesus did not draw a line between himself and others.  When those invited to a banquet did not come, Jesus asked his disciples to go out to the highways and byways and invite whosoever will to come dine.  He was accused of being indiscriminate in who he hung out with.  He ate with publicans and sinners, welcomed women into his inner circle and embraced both tax collectors and those in prison. He did not build walls or ban people because of their affiliation or religion.  He spent time with the Samaritan woman who was considered by the religious leaders to be a heretic.  To lump all Muslims as terrorists, all Mexican immigrants as murderers and rapists, all blacks as wanting a free ride, all who voted differently as ignorant or racist is a lie. Building walls does not comport with the truth that Jesus stood for. 

The truth is that what unites us is our common humanity. Everyone is created in the image of God. Saying that our differences are a cause for division is a lie. Whatever our differences, the truth is that we are essentially the same and the fundamental response to our differences should be to learn from them, to celebrate and embrace them whenever possible, and to challenge them strongly but respectfully when necessary.

Lest you’re wondering if I think that Jesus had all the answers, I don’t.  We can’t fall back on the facile solution that asks, “What would Jesus do?” because we don’t know how he would respond to some of the contemporary issues facing our world.  We can’t know what he would do.  But we can know what he did.  And in discovering what was truthful for him in his time, we can find some clues, some guidance for our journey.  He did not draw lines and create walls.  He spoke truth to power when injustice was being done.  He opted for peace rather than the sword.  He reached out in compassion to the sick and the needy.  These things were truth for him. 

The question, of course is, even with the guidance that the life of Jesus provides, how do we know what is true and what is false today?  Where do we turn to find the truth?

I love the story of Balaam and his ass. Three times the ass tries to warn Balaam of the danger ahead, finally falling down and refusing to go forward. Three times Balaam beats the ass and threatens it, even wishing its death.  Finally, the ass speaks. Why are you beating me?   I’ve served you faithfully for these many years and have I ever done this before?  Look at the danger in the road.  With that, Balaam’s eyes were opened and he saw the danger ahead and was filled with remorse for his behavior, and with gratitude for the ass.  In this case, you have to ask, who was the ass?

This story unveils a truth that runs throughout scripture.  If you want to know the truth, do not look to those in power, to those in high places, to the gatekeepers.  Look to the margins. Look to those who march to the beat of a different drummer.  Look to those who are being affected by the way things are structured. 

If you want to know the truth about childbirth, ask a mother.  The physician can provide all the medical and technical data, but it is the mother who can share what childbirth is.  If you want to know the truth about war don’t ask the generals, ask the grunts who are killing and seeing their comrades killed; ask the civilians whose families and homes have been destroyed. If you want to know what it is like to feel bypassed and insecure, don’t go to the privileged, go to Millinocket and Aroostook County, go to the trailer parks that dot our landscape and Prebble St. in Portland or the Midcoast Hospitality House, or the jails and prison.  If you want to know the truth about migrants, don’t go to the government Immigration agents, go to those living in fear of deportation or the breaking up of their families.  

Of course, ferreting out the truth is not that easy.  We are all capable of being conned.  So, it is tempting to simply lament our current state of affairs, the lies, the betrayals, and then go about our own little lives; to stay in our comfortable cocoons of privilege.  But we dare not, for to do so guarantees the end of truth and the triumph of the lie.  I leave you with two words.  The first from Simon Schama “Indifference about the distinction between truth and lies is the precondition of fascism. When truth perishes so does freedom.” The second from Jesus.  “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” 

July 1, 2018 / The Rev. C. Waite Maclin

A Sermon

St. George Episcopal Church Tenants Harbor, Maine

Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

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There is a wonderful, probably aprocryphal story of the family visiting the Maine coast from New York City for a summer. Their teenager was bored to tears. One day the boy went up to a fisherman preparing to go out on his boat. Asking him, “What do you people do for excitement around here?” The fisherman replied, “Don’t know, never been excited!”

Well, here is an account of folks who were most excited, From the Gospel of Mark: (our 2nd lesson) When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he entered, he said to them: “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him.

 This morning, I would like us to reflect on the “commotion” in our midst as a people, as a nation, as a world. There is a divisiveness, there is an anger, much is pitting friends and family against one another. So much is keeping us awake at night:. As W.B, Yeats wrote in his poem “The Second Coming” Turning and turning in the widening gyre. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart: the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

You can supply the stuff that keeps you awake and I am happy to tell you of mine at any time. But if there a core to this sermon it is to be patient, Paraphrasing what Jesus said to that family in crisis, “We are not dead, but sleeping”.

Jesus, as it so often happened, had a crowd pressing in on him and a prominent man, leader of the synagogue implores the teacher to come to his house as his daughter was dying. I am sure many came to him for help, but he knew on some intuitive level that this was a situation that needed attention, not only for the distraught family, but as a rich opportunity to teach something important.   

We all know that anguish in a house where there is grave illness and death.

Jesus presence wasn’t enough to still the commotion so he sent all outside but the immediate family, he goes to the child, takes her by the hand and says: Little Girl, get up. She does, all were amazed – and well might they be.

What did Jesus see, what did he know that all others could not know because of their fear and helplessness – the child was only sleeping.

-2-

This is all so human, this is all so true, this is what we all know. Stress, large or small clouds our thinking, our rationale our ability to see clearly what is immediately in front of us. Upon reflection, we might be able to understand the truth that was right in our midst, but in the moment we can be beside ourselves.

What I love about Jesus is what he did for those with whom he walked and talked and struggled, entering their frail humanity with them. AND what I love about Jesus is that he is present in our midst, entering into our own frail humanity.

As he once said to his friends: For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.

I love this quotation: “Jesus is the future bubbling up in the present!” Jesus shows us the clarity and truth of what is in our midst, where our own stress and commotion blinds us in seeing. He is our “Spell Check” as we go about with both consternation and joy in the writing of our own stories.

I once heard of a man who was hard at work in his vegetable garden. It came to him, How can you be planting a garden when the world is falling apart around you? He answered himself, Well, for this moment I cannot stop the chaos so I had best do what I can do which is to continue making this the most beautiful garden possible.

This says to me something quite remarkable. I do what I can do in the moment I have and in doing so I am calmed to see more clearly what is possible for me to do about whatever is tearing apart the fabric of our lives: A political system gone awry, a retrenchment in our sense of community and caring for others, homelessness and helplessness among many, many in our midst, withdrawal into the current buzz word being used, tribes, and an incredible violation of human rights in this country and beyond.

So what is Jesus telling us? that in fact we are only sleeping. That there are answers, that there are things you and I can do to respond effectively to those things that keep us awake. I just came across these words the author, Alex Haley lived by: Find the good and praise it! There is something so simple and yet so profound in this.

What is your good to praise?  Let’s be silent for a moment and reflect within ourselves: (PAUSE)  These are mine: Civility, Humor, Gratitude, Calm, Gardening, Community, A social consciousness, Diversity in all things, community, gender, race and religion, Love, Hope, Decency, Many loving friends, Holding On, Patience, My family, A Loving God, YOU, and finally gratitude for the rich life I have had and am having. I saw a license plate Wednesday that said “B-Gentle” I could not help but smile.

-3-

David Brooks wrote a fine column a few weeks ago in the New York Times, Personalism: The Philosophy We Need. “Despite what the achievement culture teaches . . . human dignity does not depend on what you do . . . Infinite worth is inherent in being human . . . Doing community service isn’t about saving the poor; it’s a meeting of absolute equals as both seek to change and grow.”

Could it be that what Jesus brought into this world was a “meeting of absolute equals” so that he and all those he met and lived with could seek to change and grow”?

Anis Nan wrote: Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage!

So I ask us, do we have the courage to be patient, do we have the courage to act where we can close to home and far away, do we have the courage to engage those with whom we disagree, do we have the courage to vote our conscience and our passions, do we have the courage to see every human being as no more nor no less a person than our own selves? Remembering, Archibald Macleish, “We have all the answers, it is the questions we do not know!”

Finally I want to close with the words from Mark with which we began:

When they came to the house of the leader on the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he entered, he said to them: “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him.

And they laughed at him.

When we see through the fog of troubles, when we bring calmness in the midst of confusion, when we challenge others to become motivated, when we say figuratively “We are only sleeping” and we will awake one day. Others might laugh and I hope we can laugh at ourselves as well. But we know that the peace that Jesus brings, the peace that passes understanding will see us through and we will become whole.

AMEN.

August 20, 2017 / The Venerable Mimsy Jones

SERMON ST. GEORGE CHAPEL

PROPER 15A

GENESIS 45: 1-15; MATTHEW 15: 21-28

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Paul Tillich, the great 20th century theologian, once wrote, "If I were asked to sum up the Christian message in two words, I would say it is the message of a New Creation."

Having fled from his native Germany to the United States after Hitler’s ascension to power, Tillich knew oppression and political turmoil first hand. But he did not lose heart. Instead, he passionately preached about the transformation of the Old into a hope-filled New Creation.

"Don’t think that we want to make you religious members of a very high religion, and of a very great denomination within it, namely our own", he said. "This would be of no avail. We want only to communicate to you an experience we have had – that here and there in the world and now and then in ourselves is a New Creation, usually hidden, but sometimes manifest and certainly manifest in Jesus who is called the Christ."

"Here and there in the world, and now and then in ourselves is a New Creation…" Think of that! Is it possible that now and then in today’s polarized, politicized, pressure-cooker world, there is a New Creation just waiting to spring forth? Or that now and then we ourselves can bring that about?

Yes. With two characters from today’s Bible stories as our guides, I propose that that is exactly what we can do.

In the story Alice read from Genesis, Joseph chooses life over death for the brothers who years before dumped him into a deep pit and left him for

dead. In the gospel, an unnamed loud-mouthed woman confronts and converts none other than the Son of God.

The Joseph saga spans eleven lusty chapters in Genesis and is filled with jealousy, sibling rivalry, sex, politics and palace intrigue. At the outset, Joseph is a spoiled brat, his father Jacob’s pet and cordially despised by his eleven brothers. Strutting around in his amazing technicolor dream coat, Joseph courts the disaster than soon befalls him.

Behind Jacob’s back, the brothers dump Joseph into a deep cistern along a trade route between Syria and Egypt, reporting to their father that his favorite son is dead.

Joseph is far from dead. Pulled from the pit by some traveling salesmen, he has flourished and prospered in Egypt, becoming Pharaoh’s right hand man. Until recently I would have compared his position to our president’s chief of staff. But under the present circumstances, suffice it to say that Joseph has great power.

In today’s story, the brothers have traveled to Egypt in search of grain during a famine in Palestine. They have no idea that the powerful official they are dealing with in Pharaoh’s court is Joseph. But Joseph recognizes them immediately, and is deeply moved. With a flick of his wrist, he could avenge their treachery and be done with them as they meant to be done with him. He does something different.

Calling his brothers to him, he says, "I am your bother Joseph, but do not be distressed or angry with yourselves…For God sent me before you to preserve life…It was not you who sent me here, but God. Now hurry and tell my father, that all of you, your children and your grandchildren, your flocks and herds, all that you have shall be near me; I will provide for you here; you will not come to poverty."

‘Here and there in the world, and now and then in ourselves, there is a New Creation.’ The former spoiled brat Joseph, of all people, becomes a model for reunion, and the catalyst for a New Creation.

If ever there was another character in the Bible, or in modern literature for that matter, who brought a New Creation into the world, it is the loud mouthed Canaanite woman we meet in today’s gospel according to Matthew.

This is one Bible story preachers would just as soon skip if it weren’t in our lectionary, because, at least in the beginning, Jesus comes across as a real jerk. Confronted with the Canaanite woman, one wry commentator quips, ‘Jesus is caught with his compassion down.’

The context of this incident is crucial. Day after day, time after time, mile after mile, Jesus has healed people, physically and emotionally. Crowds pursue him down dusty roads, across green fields, into the Sea of Galilee…whatever it takes to be near him.

My close friend, a priest named Buddy Stallings, describes Jesus’ healing this way: "Wherever Jesus went, people experienced healing. I have never known how that worked and still don’t. But I know that as time passed and people remembered Jesus’ life among them, stories got bigger and bigger about how amazingly healing it was just to be in his presence. I believe them.

"I don’t know how spots stopped being leprous or how bling people started seeing or the lame walking, but I think something about Jesus caused people who encountered him to live like they had never lived before. Miracles aside, it changed them for the better every time."

Buddy says that so well. Being in Jesus’ presence was amazingly healing. But it came at a terrible price for the healer – for Jesus. Our church proclaims a profound paradox: Jesus Christ was fully human and fully divine. Today we have the quintessential example of his full humanity.

At the gospel’s outset, Jesus is exhausted, badly in need of time off.

Bone-tired, longing for peace and quiet, he and his disciples escape, heading north to Tyre and Sidon, modern-day Lebanon, for some rest and relaxation by the sea…the way Frank and I head for Maine every summer.

But while Maine is a second home for us, the area of Tyre and Sidon, Inhabited by Canaanites and separated by ethnicity, heritage and religion, from the Jews, is foreign territory for Jews. Surely, Jesus must have thought, no one will make demands on me up here. Wrong!

No sooner has he crossed the border than Jesus runs into the last person on earth he wants to see: a shouting, distraught Canaanite woman who barges past the disciples, gets right into his face, crying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon."

Jesus walks on, staring straight ahead. The woman is not seeking help for herself, but for her beloved daughter, and will not be deterred, not by the disciples’ sharp rebukes, or Jesus’ aloofness. When she continues to plead, he pulls out the religion card: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," he says, meaning ‘I have no time for your kind.’

Deaf to his insults, she violates every boundary of gender, ethnicity, religion and culture that she has grown up with, throwing herself at his feet in a sign of deep reverence, and crying, "Lord, help me."

What is it about the word ‘no’ that this woman doesn’t understand? Jesus has had more than enough of her, and he explodes: ’It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,’ which is to say, ‘I came to the people of Israel, not to dogs like you.’

His words must have cut her to the quick: in that ancient culture dogs were considered vicious scavengers, and to be referred to as a female dog has a modern equivalent which I choose not to use in the pulpit.

Stinging from the rebuke, she remains unflappable, and lifting her chin, she looks him full in the face,. "Yes, Lord." she says, "yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table."

Something in Jesus snaps; his anger vanishes, he becomes fully and lovingly present to the woman kneeling before him, "Woman," he says, "great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish."’

‘And,’ the author of Matthew’s gospel concludes, ‘Her daughter was healed instantly.’ I wonder: is it going too far to add that the Son of God was healed as well? That through her dogged persistence, Jesus himself is converted, understands his mission in a new, expanded light.

Here and there in the world, and now and then , even in ourselves there is a New Creation.

This spring Frank and I arrived at the Memphis airport for a flight to Phoenix,only to find the airport teeming with people, most of whom had missed their flights the night before due to weather. Tempers were flaring, stress was high.

Approaching the check-in counter, we met others on our flight, including an attractive young blond woman named Anne who was almost in tears; her flight the night before had been cancelled. We stood stock still for twenty minutes while the oblivious ticket agent talked to an angry couple who ended up leaving the airport altogether.

As Anne eagerly approached the counter, the agent said indifferently, but loud enough for all of us to hear: ‘Too late. No more boarding.’ Anne begged, to no avail. The agent was adamant, firm. "It’s too late to check bags so it’s too late to board the plane. Period."

I do not know what came over me, but suddenly I exploded, shouting,

"B. S.!" at the top of my voice. I did NOT use the initials; I said the two words loud, and clear. There was stunned silence around us. Anne said in amazement: ‘look at her; so nicely dressed, and talking like that.’ Frank

added, "She’s a minister! —But she’s an Episcopal minister, and they will say anything."

The ticket agent looked at me. "All right," she said, "I’m calling the manager."

The manager materialized, quickly assessed the situation, and said in no uncertain terms, "Nonsense. They are all going to board, with their bags, right now." Before sprinting away with our new friends, I turned to the agent, saying, ’I don’t know what came over me. I hope you can forgive me.’

The agent, looking as if she was trying to suppress a grin, paused and said, ‘Forgiven.’ I turned and hurried away.

That airport incident is trivial in light of the terror and chaos and deep division in our world today, but Tillich is right, Now and then in the world, and here and there, in you, even in me, there is a New Creation just waiting to spring forth. Never with violence, but with outstretched hands, open minds, and willing spirits, let us live out Tillich’s promise that Here and There in the world, and Now and Then in ourselves there is indeed a New Creation. AMEN.

August 13, 2017 / The Right Reverend Stephen Lane

Pentecost 10 8.13.17

1 Kings 19:9-18; Psalm 85: 8-13; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33

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Our readings this morning illuminate the mystery of faith in God, and the characters involved are two paragons of faith: Elijah on the run and Peter on the water. Both of them struggle with faith, seeking something other than what God offers. Their struggles are, I suspect, struggles we all share.

I sometimes think that the biggest obstacle to faith is the word “faith” itself, a word which in English means trust, but with strong overtones of confidence and belief. We use “faith” and “belief” as synonyms, talking about “faith” and “THE faith,” meaning a system of belief, in the same breath. But scripture, it seems to me does, not use the words in quite the same way. Scripture almost never means a system of belief and does not always connote confidence. What scripture talks about is a relationship with God that fosters trust.

Elijah is on the run. His demonstrations of God’s power have killed the prophets of the Ba’al, the fertility gods, and have made him a persona non grata. Ahab and Jezebel, the king and queen of Israel, seek his life, and he is afraid. He’s hiding in a cave.

God’s first words to Elijah frame the issue. “What are you doing here?” The simple answer is that Elijah is running for his life. But the context is that he has just defeated God’s enemies with the power of God. Why is he afraid? Why does he not trust God?

God invites him out of the cave to stand on the mountain top, and then God again reveals God’s power. First there is a mighty wind, then an earthquake, and then sheets of fire. And God is in none of these. Why? Because these are acts​ of God, not God. God is not wind, not earthquake, not fire.

Then, in sheer silence, Elijah rediscovers God’s presence with him. And in that renewed trust, God sends him right back to Israel, right back into the firestorm.

The dynamics of Peter’s story are much the same. There is a storm on the Galilean lake. The disciples are terrified, fearing death. Then Jesus comes to them walking on the water. At first they think Jesus is a ghost, but he speaks to them. Peter, representing all of the disciples, impulsively asks to walk on the water, and Jesus says, “Come ahead.” Of course, immediately on stepping on the water, Peter again fears the storm, and he starts to sink. Jesus catches his hand and brings him to the boat, and chides him, with I think great affection, “Why didn’t you trust me?”

I think it is common for us to associate “faith” with “security” and to associate “security” with “power.” We want the confidence that comes from feeling safe from the forces that could harm us. We want to be protected, to be secured. We like those displays of power that cause our enemies, real or imagined, to step back. Faith becomes for us an investment in some sort of irresistible force, some overwhelming power.

God we know is capable of that. God created the universe. God parted the Red Sea. God, in Christ, overcame the power of death. THE faith attests that God is omnipotent.

Yet God’s power is chiefly revealed in an invitation, an invitation into relationship with God and an invitation to join God on a journey. God invites us to share with God in God’s care for the world.

That was God’s invitation to Elijah, to share the news that only the God of Israel is God. That was God’s invitation to the disciples, to share the good news of God’s love. It is not a guarantee of protection from the world, but a guarantee of companionship in the world. I will be with you always, until the end of the world.

As the Letter to the Romans puts it, “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.” The companionship of God is within us, in our very hearts, inseparable from our lives and from all that happens on our journey.

For me, this truth requires my constant attention. I’m easily distracted by the wind and the waves, by the busy-ness of my daily schedule, and by the needs of the clergy and people I care for. It’s very easy for me to rely on my own strength or to seek signs of power to keep me from sinking. I must remind myself everyday that God is already with me, right here, right now. God is walking this path with me – and I can trust that, I can rely on that. The hand to lift me up is already extended, already reaching for me, no matter how rough the water. I need only remember.

We all like the wonder of miracles. We all want miracles. And miracles do happen. But what God offers is a daily walk, God’s constant companionship, a reliable relationship to help us face life’s little murders. May today’s lessons invite us into a reflection of God’s silent presence within our hearts, God’s offer of a hand, God’s request for trust. And may we reach back…

Amen.

August 6, 2017 / Reverend Bob Hargreaves

TRANSFIGURATION

ST. GEORGE’S

Luke 9:28-36

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Have you noticed how many people want us to

see them as more glorious than they really are?

Caesar and Herod just to name two from Jesus’ own Day.

And in our own day?  How about more politicians

    than I can name in a whole day,

          let alone in one sermon.

I think most of us would name the current occupant

    of the White House, but there are many, many more.

          This syndrome is not limited to one man,

              one party, or one nation.

Then there are business tycoons, TV and movie stars,

    sports stars, etc., etc., etc.

At least in America, our whole culture is about being

    The Best.   Best in everything.

And every so often, the veneer gets peeled away

    and we see the real truth about one of these

          demi-gods, and the illusion vanishes for a

              moment.

Now, along comes Jesus, who never said he was

    anything more than an ordinary guy from Galilee,

          who never wanted a palace,

              never wore silk suits,

                    never got his face engraved on any money.

He told his friends that he could teach them about God

    and about their own belovedness.

For a text he used the fish in their nets,

    the sheep in their fields,

          the seeds the farmers sowed,

              the yeast in a woman’s hands.

And he added, as his own special seasoning

    for the bread of their lives,

          a few blind men,

              some lepers,

                    a foreign woman with a sick child,

                        a Roman centurion in despair for his

                              dying daughter,

                                  several prostitutes,

                                        and a woman who had 5 husbands.

One day he took three friends with him

     and climbed up a high mountain.

          Up there, suddenly he started shining

              like a bright floodlight.

                    He reminded them of the pillar of fire

                        that led the people of God, under Moses,

                              in the wilderness of Sinai.

                                  And they heard the voice of God

                                        calling him God’s own beloved Son.

But notice this:  he never asked them to see his glory.

    Instead, he asked them to see his willingness to suffer,

          to see how he chose to hang out

              with the lowliest of them

                    as his demonstration of where God

                        chooses to be found.

As for the glory they saw in him on the mountain,

    he wanted them to keep quiet about that.

Unlike Caesar, Herod, and the Donald,

    who just can’t get enough of the glory road,

          who want gold on everything

              and creature comforts all around them,

                    Jesus says “hush” to Peter and the others,

                        and says, “Let’s go back down

                              to the low places of this world.

Most of us want to rise in the world,

    not lower ourselves.

          It’s the American story—rags to riches,

              not riches to rags.

                    We want to be celebrated,

                        and we admire those who get that wish.

So, what about Peter?

    He wanted to preserve the glory moment

          and stay in it forever.  He said so.

              But what about after it was over?

                    Nothing lasts forever in this world.

So many disciples—then and now—dream of

    glory-to-come.   But not Jesus.

And we believe that Jesus is God’s Word in the flesh,

    come to show us what the real truth is.

So maybe the glory of God is not about the next election,

    not about the size of the crowds,

          not about basking in praise and adulation.

               Not about building huge churches

                    and filling them with disciples of the preacher,

                         instead of disciples of Jesus.

The glory that radiated out from Jesus

    may simply be truth and light,

          and about complete devotion

              to the same people that Moses and Elijah

                    cared about.

Moses, who grew up as a prince, and in the end

    gave his life to a rag-tag bunch of people

          who had nothing of value, not even hope.

Elijah, who confronted King Ahab and his Jezebel,

     then hid in the brush at the side of a brook,

          and then turned for help to a starving widow

                              and her son,

              and then saved them as they saved him,

                    a crumb at a time.

In the tradition of Moses and Elijah,

    Jesus brought his rag-tag group of followers

          to an upper room,

              fed them not much more than crumbs

                    and the ceremonial cup of Elijah,

                        and then went out to pray before he died.

And so it is, still and forever.

    The glory of God does not look at all like the glory

          of this world.

              And all the prayer  breakfasts and all the applause

                    and all the fame and all the power,

                        cannot turn fools’ gold

                              into the glory of God.

And the real glory of God was always in Jesus,

    but those three disciples were given sight to see it,

          their blinders were removed just for a  moment.

              But that was enough.

                   And they were changed forever.

The glory of God is right in front of you and me all the time,

     Even right here, right now.

          And if God removes the blindness from our eyes,

               just for a moment, we also may see it,

                   and that will be enough,

                        and we will be changed forever, too.

                              May it be so!

                                        Amen.

July 30, 2017 Reverend Susan Flanders

Sermon for St. George’s

July 30, 2017

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Several of us are walking along the beach, a beautiful clear early summer day. Our conversation is inconsequential, but then on of us volunteers that he has recently visited an old college friend, a long time Republican. He has found it eye-opening to listen to this friend’s views about the president and why he and 50% of Americans support him. Our group grows tense as one of us hotly contends with the 50% figure, and the argument is on – back and forth about what percentage actually voted, whether 50% is accurate or a lie. And the person who began the conversation loses it – shouting and yelling and refusing to speak any further with us about "people who may view the world very differently than you do," claiming we have no real interest in what they think and only want to condemn them.

I walk faster, move ahead down the beach, dismayed to hear people I know and love actually screaming at each other – echoing the fractured conversations occurring so widely now – in our media, around dinner tables, at meetings and rallies. Or not – conversations not had, avoided, stuffed away to avoid conflict, to try to preserve harmony.

And I realize my friend on the beach was right – we often don’t want to really hear about a world view that clashes with ours; we are more comfortable assuming that the character flaws of an individual disqualify him or her from serious consideration, and that hence his supporters don’t need to be taken seriously either.

I don’t know about you, but ever since the election, and probably months before it, I have had an uneasy sense of how to BE in this chaotic chapter of our nation’s history. I read way too many op ed columns – mostly by folks I agree with. I walk my dog with a friend most days, and we spend at least half of our time ranting (fortunately the other half on food and restaurants). I fume as I read the morning paper; I provide a running, sneering commentary to the evening news hour, and Bill is quite tired of it.

And, I’m a minister – I’m supposed to be constructive, spiritually grounded, open, compassionate and forgiving – forgiving above all. I’m supposed to love my enemy and encourage others to do the same. And, at our best, that’s how all of us can be, and sometimes we are. But this season is not bringing out the best in us, not in most of our leaders, and not in the political swamp that is Washington, not in me.

And so I have been glad to be pushed, challenged to speak this morning, on the dilemmas we face in terms of what responsible leadership and citizenship look like. I think today’s appointed readings can help us here.

First, we have the poignant passage in which the newly crowned and very young King Solomon encounters God in a dream. Solomon acknowledges his inexperience, likening himself to a little child, barely knowing how to go out or go in. He also shows his awe in the face of governing a great people, and he asks for an understanding mind, able to discern between good and evil. Humility, respect for his task, understanding and a moral compass – this is Solomon as he embarks on his kingship. In the dream, God is pleased – especially because, unlike so many, Solomon has not asked for long life or riches or revenge on his enemies, and has sought to know 2

what is right. And so God grants him the wisdom he seeks and throws in long life and riches as well – even though Solomon did not ask for them.

So it’s just a dream, and it was thousands of years ago – but isn’t it still what we long for in our leaders? Doesn’t it remind us of how things might be, or ought to be? Don’t we feel that somehow leaders who can know their limits and strive for wisdom and the courage to do the right thing will be blessed – if not by some supernatural being like the one Solomon worshiped, then at least blessed with approval and support from those they govern and with a measure of success in their policies? Don’t we have the right to hope for this; don’t we have the responsibility to work for it?

But the working is so hard. I know very few people who hold profoundly different political views than I do, and although I say I’d love to be in conversation with these people, I’m not sure I’d be very good at it – I’m not sure I’d do any better than the blow-up on the beach. Can St. Paul’s message in Romans help here? Perhaps. I love it that he says "we do not know how to pray as we ought" – that would be me, and then "the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Sighs too deep for words – this is, for Paul, how God works within us in troubled times.

And then Paul sails off into his wild, radical passage of assurance and hope, beginning with the dismayed question "What then are we to say about these things?" For him, nothing, nothing in all creation, now or later or in any way, is able to separate us from the love of God, and for him that love is shown in Jesus Christ.

I’d love to just let the beauty of the passage stand and simply accept Paul’s conviction, but some elaboration might help. One way Christians understand Jesus is as a human being embodying the love and presence of God. As such, Jesus shows us what it is to be fully human – that it is in each of us to embody in our own various and unique ways, God’s love and presence. When are able to do this, we are indeed not separated from God’s love – we’re part of it, we’re being God’s love in the world.

That’s our challenge, nothing less – to be God’s love in the world, and to discern, to be wise as to what love demands from each of us. Is it activism, is it informed criticism, is it giving money, is it shutting up and listening to others who hold different views, is it waiting patiently. Love certainly doesn’t just mean being polite, being nice – I think God’s love is both muscular and tender, compassionate and tough. And so are we, but our choices are hard, and good choices are necessary.

Here we have some help from the gospel passage, from Jesus’ own teachings. Matthew’s gospel gives us here a whole series of small things that become big things, hidden things whose value emerges, careful sorting of what is worthy and what is not. Jesus is gritty here, down to earth – he talks of seeds and yeast, buried treasure, nets full of good fish and trash fish. Reading this, to me, the question becomes then – what have we got? What do you have, what do I have with which we can start. What resources can we use – old ones or new, to grow ourselves and our body politic into the kind of country we long to be, the one our founders envisioned? 3

Blustering on the grand scale (as I confess I’m wont to do) doesn’t help. But volunteering in a free shower, laundry and lunch program does. It keeps me grounded to interact with the people our social safety net helps or ignores; it gives me a sense of making a teeny difference, even though I contribute only 3 hours a week. What about writing? Letters to politicians at all levels offering honest critiques, support or ideas. One small message in the sea – but not inflammatory, not hateful. What about talking with our children and grandchildren, not to tell them what we think, but to find out what they think and get a glimmer of what the world they will increasingly shape will be like.

I was struck by David Leonhardt’s op ed column in the New York Times on July 18. Like me, he has watched with dismay as political discussions just spiral into nastiness, and he offers what he calls "a quieter step, one that’s worth taking no matter your views". He suggests doing something he calls radical – that we change our minds, at least partially on one of the hotly contested issues our nation is so torn about. Leonhardt says "pick an issue you find complicated and grapple with it." Whether it’s immigration policy or health care, tax reform, many others – we might read up on both sides of it and perhaps come to some different conclusions. His point is that even small steps we can take to question our own beliefs and at least consider other positions can lead over time to a spirit of compromise, Leonhardt reminds me of a wonderful quote from the great commentator Eric Sevareid who said, years ago that is is important to "retain the courage of ones doubts as well as of one’s convictions in an age of dangerously passionate certainties." These suggestions are small steps, small ways of winnowing out what is worthy, what is trash. They are consistent with Jesus’s parables about great things from small beginnings, finding hidden treasures, new things out of old.

There is so much to worry about, and it is so easy to be overwhelmed. Coming here, to this rocky coast for a time, coming here to this small wooden chapel in the trees, these too are ways we can unearth treasures hidden away in our souls, these are ways we can empty our nets of what is rotten and of no use, ways we can gather up and hold closely the truths, values and wisdom of our years.

"What then are we to say about these things?" Our answers will be different, but may a spirit of love and discernment guide us as we make our way through this thicketed passage. Amen.

Psalm 73-to be read with Reverend Ralph Moore’s July 23, 2017 sermon

Psalm 73

(from the Iona Abbey Worship Book)

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All God is good to the upright,

to those who are pure in heart

A My feet were close to slipping.

I almost lost my balance.

I had started to envy the arrogant

when I saw how the haughty flourish.

B They seem to avoid suffering

their bodies are healthy and sleek;

trouble appears to bypass them,

their lives are free of affliction.

A They talk of menace and malice,

breathing down people's necks.

They slander the kingdom of heaven

with tongues never silent on earth

B Many are taken in by them,

believing they do nothing wrong.

They say, "Does God really care?

Perhaps the Most High doesn't know."

A Have I kept myself pure for nothing,

Washing my hands in innocence?

For every new morning brings trouble,

and day after day I am punished.

B Had I thought to do as they do

I would have betrayed my people.

So I tried to make sense of this mess,

but found it too difficult for me.

A Once I entered God's sanctuary

then I began to understand.

In a moment they will be destroyed

on the slippery slope to ruin.

B My God, I am always with you;

you take me by the right hand.

Your wisdom continues to guide me

and you will receive me in glory.

A Because you fold me into your realm,

there is nothing I need upon earth.

Though flesh and blood may fail,

The Eternal is my strength forever.

All God is good to the upright,

to those who are pure in heart.

July 23, 2017 / Reverend Ralph Moore

St. George Chapel,

7-23-17

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A bit of an unusual way of doing things, I concentrate on a psalm this morning.

First and foremost, psalms are poems, and, as happens to much poetry, they rarely are

honored for their deepest expression of living experiences. Psalms weren't composed by

professionals. They began as fragments of people's feelings, struggles, anxieties, griefs,

hopes, joys. Most of them existed orally long before they were picked up for chanting.

In Greek, "psalm" means "set to a stringed instrument." It came to be applied to texts

read and chanted in liturgy. But Greek and Latin labels hide the fact that a desert people

evolved and adapted over generations living these emotions. We don't know just how

some of these poems ended up in the early temple liturgy–nor how they eventually were

written down beginning as early as 3000 years ago. Some were beautifully composed,

and others were rough hewn in almost undecipherable Hebrew. The collection of 150

writings we call Psalms might not have come together and put onto scrolls until as late

as four centuries before Jesus' day. We have no originals, only copies of copies–such as

in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other archeological findings. But the point for us to bear in

mind is that first and foremost these were–and still are–poems that arose directly from

intense reactions of travail, triumph, anguish, and yearning, in the lives of real people,

rich and poor, urban and rural.

Here's something that helps me remember this. A few years ago I was at a concert

of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The work performed was a newly-composed oratorio for

large choir and full orchestra. The Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg was present. He

used as his text the Latin phrases carved into the walls of the ruins of Pompeii, the

Roman city destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. It has been almost

totally excavated. There in plain sight all around are poetic scratchings of every kind.

We may be familiar with Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana," based on 11th century Latin

poems about life and love. Lindberg's oratorio is shaped that way, and simply entitled

"Graffiti." There are over thirty texts about common emotional experiences. "Profit is

happiness." "Good luck to whoever is in love." "Happiness dwells here." "Nothing can

last forever." "By despising the smallest wrong, it becomes the greatest." "A bronze pot

has gone missing from the shop. If anyone brings it back they will get 65 sesterces."

"Good people, welcome; thieves, be gone." "You are dead, you are nothing." There are

obsenities and violent outbursts and prayers to and praises of gods and emperors and

gladiators. A touching meditation appears: "I'm amazed, wall, that you haven't fallen

into ruins. You hold up so many writers' burdens." For me it's helpful–and authentic–to

read psalms as though they began that way–graffiti on the walls of people's hearts.

Psalm 73 is an outpouring of deep feeling by a person who has spiritual values but

writhes in pain because because the culture is dominated by privilege, wealth, and

coercion. Let's put it on as though it could come from each of us; let's read it

together…..Ps. 73 from the Iona Abbey Worship Book.

I can't help but reflect on the work of Quaker educator Parker Palmer. In his very

fine book, Healing the Heart of Democracy, he describes the reality of "living in the

tragic gap." On one hand, we hold dear strong values of honesty, decency, justice–the

ideals we strive to support in our thoughts and deed. On the other hand, we experience

the actual raw realities we experience in the society we live in, the worlds of conflict,

inhumanity, and injustice. Our task as people of conscience is to do what he calls, "soul

work," the daily exercise of applying our wisdom, our core values, our faith, to living in

terms of beloved community not drawn to either extreme–neither reverting totally to

past images of our ideals, nor falling into angry and unproductive ideologies about

perfect solutions. Maturity, in his view, is living with this tension, not denying it or

trying to avoid it, but rather receiving the inner strength of spirit that sustains us in

patience, courage, insight, and true compassion–dialogue rather than destructive

combat–all of which are the insights of this biblical tradition. Psalm 73 is a good

example.The beloved community (sometimes called church, other times called network,

or gathering, or movement) arises through the "soul work" of individuals.

In an obituary of Simone Veil, a Jewish French survivor of the Holocaust who

died at age 89, it is reported that she was 14 when she and her entire family were

arrested and dispersed to the camps and that she alone lived. She spent the rest of her life

in reconciliation activities–French-German, Christian-Jew, women-men of power–as a

magistrate, minister of health, leader of the European Parliament, mother of three sons.

"War is so unspeakable terrible," she would say. "The only possible option is to make

peace." That sounds like a psalm. That required "soul work."

Luke puts a psalm into the mouth of Mary as she ponders the child growing in her

who will pitch into doing "great things," scattering "the proud in their conceit," casting

down the mighty from their thrones," lifting "up the lowly," filling "the hungry with

good things," sending "the rich…away empty." What a radical "soul work" goes on in

this woman. "The whole creation," writes Paul, "has been groaning in labor pains….we

ourselves, who" have experienced a taste of new birth in ourselves, "groan inwardly

while we /expect/ adoption….in our bodies….we hope for what we don't yet see, we

expect it with patience." (A play on the same word: wait, expect, hope.) We've been

given the insight and we put it to work as best we can: "soul work." The tragic gap,

where, as Jesus explains, good grain and weeds grow together entangled, no simple

solution except to grow and let the toxic plants wither and be tossed out. Tragic gap,

soul work. Isaiah hears the Almighty saying, "Is there any other option than the creation

as we now live it? If there is, tell me about; I'm all ears." It's put well by the Persian

poet Rumi: " Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wiser,

so I am changing myself." Life forces for the good are in us as creatures. We're always

being prompted to live them in the beloved community of love, peace, justice.

And this is my take on Psalm 73.