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September 16, 2007

Patti Powell - Sept. 16 2007

Menlo Park September 16, 2007 Luke 15:1-10

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Fr. Mike asked me to preach months ago. You know what that’s like. Someone asks you to do something weeks & weeks in the future—and in the 105 degree heat of June in Idaho with the fire season already in full swing and the skies smoky —my brain told me—“September will never come. It will never be fall. I’ll just say yes.”
And then it was August and the skies were still ashen and it was still horribly hot—but September seemed a bit closer. So I started to quibble with a priest---never wise. I said, “Uh, Mike—the lessons better be easy - and if it’s St. Paul telling wives to be subservient to their husbands—you’re on your own this September 16th. And as Fr. Mike is wont to say -- and we do keep believing him, “Oh, it’ll be easy.” So I read today’s gospel. And relaxed a bit.

"Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, doesn’t leave the ninety-nine and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he comes home, he calls together his friends, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Let’s open a fine cabernet & celebrate' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

"Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not turn on the tasteful tract lighting & gets out the hose for the central vac, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she finds it? When she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, `Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
Most of us are lost at one time or another—in great need of repentance. Sometimes we know it. Sometimes we don’t. What does it mean when something is lost? Usually when something’s lost the question is: “Where’s the…” and the question ends with “cat”…. or “clicker for the TV” or “my keys”. Those moments of “lostness” happen every day and we approach them somewhat logically. Lost things simply are not where they ought to be or where we think we left them. So in huge mall parking lots people push the alarm buttons on their key rings to find their cars.

But sometimes the lostness has nothing to do with cars or keys or cats. Sometimes at night—during those 4 AM wide-awake with the seething brain times, we realize was true lostness is. In his parable today Jesus is saying people as well as sheep and coins can be lost and our lostness is much more subtle and at times profoundly despairing. At those times we find ourselves not really caring particularly about God, or, perhaps searching desperately for God and not finding him. At those times, we are lost.

There are other times of lostness in life. When I get lazy. Forget to pray. Miss church. Blame the bishop because he’s ticked me off about something and I get arrogant. Stop consciously thinking about God. When we’re lost like that—those times of blurry focus—when there’s no clear sense of the right direction, we feel lost. Or, when we selfishly forge ahead or do what we are bound and determined to do regardless of what God may be saying or regardless of how it might hurt other people, we are lost. Or, maybe we’ve failed and we just want to curl up and die. That’s lostness.

We do sometimes shop in odd places to cure our aching souls— We’ve all stood at the a counter of Macy’s and asked the sales clerk, “What would you suggest to fill the dark, empty spaces in my soul?” Searching for this cure we overeat, over drink, over spend, over work, over anything.

Sometimes in our lostness we run away from God as hard and as far and as fast as we can. But the psalmist reminds us that we can’t really run from God. When Fr. Mike was first called to Trinity your website posted his spiritual biography. Who couldn’t identify with his story of the Hound of Heaven chasing him throughout his life? No matter how hard and far we run from God—he keeps after us—wooing us, enticing us, courting us. Asking us to come home. Coaxing us back from our lostness.

The whole of Chapter 15 in Luke is about the lost being found. The prodigal son & his cranky, hard-working brother. The sheep: the coins. And the joy at people and things being found. Being redeemed. There is a passion and joy here for wholeness and inclusion that the Pharisees and scribes listening to Jesus that day simply don’t get. They're too busy worrying about who’s supposed to be left out and excluded. They don't seem to get that when something or someone lost comes home, or is found, joy is the result. Wholeness and inclusion produce joy for anyone with a heart open to embrace it.

The same is true for our lives, isn't it? When people we love are away or missing, we don't feel whole. There’s this ache. We're incomplete. I love the opening & closing credits of the movie “Love Actually.” The real life scenes filmed at Heathrow Airport in London and people finding each other. Old friends and new lovers and little children and their moms & dads and these jigsaw puzzle images of hugging arms and huge smiles. You can see the love in their eyes and their arms & their hearts. It is God’s grace and His passion for wholeness that you see.
Wholeness and inclusion. They produce joy. In a society today that is seemingly intent on division and exclusion, and focusing on our differences, this is an important message. And this joy cannot be complete without God’s love.

“I heard a man say that without God’s amazing grace, the whole world would be nothing but one big Kennedy airport on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.” Not the scenes of homecoming from “Love Actually” -- but cavernous rooms filled with huge crabby lines formed by sweating, angry, tired, sheep-like people whose flights have been cancelled.

But, what if in Luke this Sunday morning we’re not the sheep? What if we’re not the silent silver coin stuck under the cushion of the couch. What if we’re the searching woman—the seeking shepherd? What if part of what we are to do with our lives is to help Jesus find the lost? And help the lost find our Lord.

Oh no. Not that dreaded word “evangelism.” Please don’t make me bring someone to church. Episcopalians don’t like “sharing” or “fellowshipping” or “witnessing”. We don’t like or trust anything that smacks of spiritual nudity. There’s no spiritual nudity in the Book of Common Prayer. We are like St. Peter who when asked by a good Episcopalian if he could enter heaven said, after he looked in his book of great sins, “uh, no—you may not enter heaven.” And the former senior warden said, “Why” and St. Peter replied, “At the last vestry dinner you ate your salad with the fish fork.” Episcopalians understand decorum.

So maybe we’re not arm-waving evangelicals -- but we are here. We sit in our pews most every Sunday and we listen to God’s words and to wise men and women who help us understand what God wants us to do during these brief days of our brief lives. And we attend the prayer services and we walk the labyrinth and we ponder deep mysteries of faith. And we write checks and bring covered dishes. Isn’t this enough?

A few years ago the letters WWJD seemed to appear everywhere. “What Would Jesus Do?” confronted us from billboards and plastic bracelets. I could never figure that one out. It wasn’t really helpful. Jesus was without sin. I am a mass of sins. How can one begin to emulate Him? How was wearing a bracelet going help? Then Fr. Mike told me to read everything by Cardinal Basil Hume-a great holy man who was Archbishop of Westminster. And this gentle humble white-haired English Catholic named Basil sorted it out for me. He wrote: We must be Theo-centric, Christo-centric, rather than a little group concerned with its own small world, it own small problems.” Cardinal Hume was telling us what we already know. Christ is our center. We say that every Sunday. Each time we approach the communion rail with ours hands out seeking Him we acknowledge his centrality in our lives. This isn’t a bracelet with “What Would Jesus Do?” This is our own quiet voice asking once, twice, a half a million times a day, “What would Christ want me to do?” To help. Help this situation, this person, this church, this town, this state, my family, my friend, this person who drives me nuts, this enemy.” What would Jesus have me to do?

Where do we start? Maybe it’s ok to start with the easy stuff. First, it’s as if someone tells us, “Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t.” Christ tells us to love. Love the lost. Love our enemy. Love our neighbor. And ask Jesus for help doing this. And expect his help. We’ve experienced this. We know what it feels likes. When we say to a friend or a stranger or our God, when we quietly or angrily or sadly say, “help me” and “please.” That is precisely when Jesus is with us. I’ve had friends and people I hardly knew become Jesus for me. And maybe, at times of grace, we have been Christ for others. For our kids when we chose to love & forgive instead of yell, for the sad woman in the Albertsons check out line who needed a few cents more and you dug around in the bottom of your purse for the change. The homeless man you served dinner to. Tiny acts. Tiny familiar acts become beautiful when they are performed with love; that is when Jesus comes to us when Jesus helps us share his love with others. When we realize we had a holy hand in finding the missing coin, the errant sheep.

Jean Paul Sartre wrote a play called “No Exit”. The three characters find themselves in hell and one says a line I’ve never forgotten because through all my years of sadness and joy and work and hope I’ve learned how wrong the line is. The woman says, “Hell is other people.” Through the people I’ve loved and known and my years, I am sure that just the opposite is true. Heaven is other people. Those times when we reach out to help those we know and those we don’t know—those times when we’re at our best, when we do the simple, the familiar, the small, the helpful, and we do those things with great love for each other. It is at those times when we are with and serving our loving Jesus.

What would Christ want me to do just to help a bit: Fr. Hays wrote a prayful answer:

The redemption of the world,
The removal of injustice

And the spread of unity among all people

is beyond my limited abilities.

Lord, help me to examine

How I have failed to redeem that small part of the world

That did touch my life today.

Help me be part of you, part of part of your work, part of your love, the love that keeps the universe going.

Father Mike left the Church of the Holy Nativity and came here to Trinity Church Menlo Park. In his place we have a wonderful interim priest Pastor Alice, a wise and sensible and loving person who ministers to us continually. From her I bring this ending –this benediction:

Life is short…
And we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us.

So be swift to love,

Make haste to be kind.

And as we go, may the blessing the peace, the love and the joy of the Holy One who is in the midst of us be in our hearts this day and forevermore. Amen

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