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February 25, 2007
1229Anne Jensen - Feb 25, 2007
Lent 1C Luke 4:1-13 Last Sunday at Trinity Menlo Park
Well, my friends, we have come to a time of saying goodbye, and at the same time, a new beginning for you as you move into the next era of life at Trinity. If there is a theme for today, and I strongly believe there is, it is this. Choose God, as Jesus chose God in the Gospel.
The first Sunday of Lent is an odd day for leave taking. We move from the images of light in Epiphany into a more reflective time, a solemn time, a time of honest assessment, a time of preparation. But it’s not necessarily a sad time. The best Lent I ever had was the one where I came to know the loving presence of Jesus in a personal way, and to know that Jesus embodies all the authority of God. Lent was positively joyous. It was like falling in love with all the accompanying energy.
I suspect that this Lent will be different from other years—more joyous as you welcome a new rector. Yes, there is still the emphasis on recognizing where in our lives we have not kept faith, but at the same time, there is the persistent message of God’s overwhelming love. You have been through a year of self-study and reconciliation. You have sought out and courted a new rector, and he has said “Yes, I will come.” You don’t really know each other, and yet we believe this process is filled with the Holy Spirit. We have put our trust in God.
"After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted." Jesus had been filled, brimful to overflowing, with the Spirit at his baptism. But the Spirit is not finished with him by any means. This same Spirit leads him into the wilderness. Actually, the Greek word translated in the text as "lead" might better be translated as "hurled, threw, impelled, directed." It's not a blithe spiritual expedition here. It is the very Spirit of God throwing Jesus into the physical wilderness and, even more so, hurling him into the wilderness of his own soul, his own call, his own identity.
The point is this. Jesus chooses God. And as Jesus chooses God, he also chooses his own call, his own mission, his own pathway of service and compassion.
Truth is, Jesus could have been terribly distracted by the things offered to him. He could have been distracted because he was hungry after fasting for 40 days. And who would not want dignity, respect, empowerment, safety and security (which are really what the other temptations offer)? But, no, he doesn't get stuck, distracted, paralyzed by these tantalizing offers. Rather, he rests in the Spirit of God that led and threw him into this place and experience to begin with. And, still, brimful to overflowing with that Spirit, he chooses God; and he chooses to move ahead in his call and mission.
He returns to his hometown but with clarity about his mission and purpose. Jesus attends the synagogue there, opens the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and reads these words, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. He has sent me to announce good news to the poor, to proclaim release for the captives and recovery of sight for the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the Lord's favor." Then Jesus rolls up the scroll and says to the assembled worshippers, "Today, today, in your very hearing this text has come true."
There it is: Jesus comes out of the wilderness, out of his temptations, filled and armed with the Spirit. He proceeds to embrace his mission and be embraced by it. And that mission is clear in its purpose and focus: good news proclaimed, restoration and release, reconciliation and renewal. Jesus embraces and is embraced by his mission. He breathes it. He lives it through preaching, teaching, healing and welcoming the outcast and poor. He shows it finally in his willingness to offer himself on the cross as an action of love poured out for all.
In his experience in the wilderness, Jesus does not become distracted by the things that the tempter tries to offer him. No, he keeps his eyes on the prize. He rests in the Spirit of God and refuses the power, security, and satiation that could keep him temporarily satisfied while deterring him from his real purpose in life. Jesus chooses God. Jesus chooses his mission and call.
The same choice confronts individual people of faith and the whole Christian Church itself. Will we choose God? Will we embrace our call and be embraced by it? Will we hear and listen to God's Spirit at work in us?
God's Spirit is at work in our lives, sustaining, guiding, directing, inspiring and strengthening us. Will we choose God? Will we choose our own call and mission to live in the love of God? Will we choose or own call and mission to live in the love of God? We are called, we have a mission, a purpose because God loves us, is present with us, and guides us in our lives. Will we choose God?
This is the story in which Jesus reveals who he is, not by seizing power, but by turning it down. God’s Beloved will not practice magic. He will not ask for special protection or seek political power. As much as it may surprise everyone, maybe even including him, he will remain human, accepting all the usual risks.
Through Jesus, God has fully identified with the human condition.
“What temptations face us?” Remember that Jesus was famished, so the devil tempted him with food. Just a word about “the devil”: we may conjure up images of red figures with pointed ears, but the devil is a literary device used to personify the power of evil. We don’t need to look very far to see that powers of evil exist. For the sake of narrative, Luke personifies evil to create a conversation that reveals the tension between human desire and trusting in God to provide what we need.
So what temptations might you as a congregation face? Two temptations come to mind. The first is buying into the idea that once the new rector, Fr. Mike, is here, everything that you, individually or collectively, want to happen here will start happening. The relationship between the rector and the congregation is more like a partnership. Programs will develop as you and he develop the vision God has given you. It will require that more of you give more of your time to the work of the church. It’s a matter of making the development of this faith community a priority in your life and the life of your family. You are a gifted group of people…you can do amazing things! In my annual report, which maybe a few people read, I wrote that if you want to make a difference in the world, start by making a difference at Trinity. It’s like the environmental slogan, “Think globally, act locally.” You have wonderful lay leadership and how we need more of you to support them.
The second danger/temptation is related to it. That is the idea of making Trinity Parish a successful enterprise, that is, a project of your own making. This gets tricky, because of course you want to grow. Let me use an analogy that my preaching professor used. If I spend a lot of time and effort trying to write an excellent sermon because I want everyone to think I’m a fine preacher and because I want to get noticed by important people, then I am working on my own agenda and I’m trying to meet my own ego needs. By contrast, if I work hard on a sermon because I find the gospel compelling, and I believe that it can change people’s lives, and I want them to know the power of God’s love and mercy, then I am working out of faith.
As Trinity Parish works to extend Christian hospitality and to live the gospel, you must be grounded in your own spiritual growth. By all means, use the gifts and talents you bring from your business and professional lives, but most importantly be people of faith, first and foremost. Help Trinity become a school for disciples, a center for formation of faithful families, a center for spiritual nurture for the newly arrived and the life-long Christian. Because when we meet Jesus and know that he loves us individually and together and that he is our savior, we become people of joy, with incredible energy to do the work of the gospel. Help people live out their ministries of love and compassion, wherever they are—in their families, their volunteer activities, in the community and at work.
Recent research shows that healthy congregations are able to make three affirmations about their life:
* Our congregation is spiritually vital and alive.
* Our congregation helps members deepen their relationships with God.
* We have a clear sense of mission and purpose.
[Congregations that show forth God’s saving love, that connect people with God’s love, and that are communities of transformation are vital and alive. Congregations that possess clarity about their mission have chosen their mission and are mission-focused thrive and grow. They are not distracted or tempted to look elsewhere. They know their identity and purpose, and they live into it.
God’s Holy Spirit is with us. God’s own Spirit leads, directs, guides, strengthens and renews us as individual believers and as communities of faith. Sometimes God’s Spirit hurls us into the places where we did not expect to go, but always, always, that same Spirit is with us.
So, here we are, back to joy, even though it is the beginning of Lent. Lent is indeed a journey to Joy!
And now it is time to say how much joy this ministry has brought me. As I have said to many of you, “It has been a good run,” but that doesn’t quite get to the depth I feel. I am grateful that I found a place here. I wasn’t sure about this interim position when I first heard about it, but once I met the people from the search committee, the vestry and the staff, I was hooked. You gave me new life after a cross-country move. In my head I knew that God could use me wherever I was, but you made it real. My daughter-in-law said I was a new person after I started here. You have enriched my life, and I will always treasure my time with you.
I could not do this work alone. I am profoundly grateful to my colleagues in ministry: Fred, Bill, Frannie, Michael, Beth, Alex and Alecia. This really was a team, and I will miss them. I already missed Bill and he came back. Thank you to the altar guild, the choir, and the commissions. Thank you, Doug. And thank you to each on of you as you have shared a part of your life with me. It has been a great privilege.
Many of you have said kind words about my ministry here, and I appreciate them, but I want you to know that I was just a part of what happened here. You were open to the Holy Spirit, and you allowed that Spirit to do the healing that was needed. God is not finished with you—in fact, God is just getting started!
I will miss celebrating the Holy Eucharist with you. Last Sunday at the altar I was overcome with how precious this time is. I wanted to grab Fred’s hand and Carl’s hand…it doesn’t get any better than this. We have been together in meeting God in the bread and wine. I really do believe in the Communion of Saints—that there will be a time when we will once again all be gathered at God’s holy table, and this belief helps me move from one congregation to another.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And may you have a holy and joyful Lent.
February 11, 2007
1227Anne Jensen - Epiphany 6 - 2007
Epiphany 6C Jeremiah 17, Psalm 1, Luke 6 (Beatitudes) 2007
First of all, it is really hard to talk about the beatitudes.
We tend to read these passages as instructions for the kinds of choices we are supposed to make it we are going to keep working on our personal righteousness, on our spiritual growth, or even our collective righteousness. I invite you to see them as DESCRIPTIVE rather than PRESCRIPTIVE. These passages describe the state in which people who have had a living experience with the Holy One actually live. They live in confidence, trusting in God, accepting the reality of “what is”, and finding that God is in it. It’s about finding who we really are in God.
The problem, Richard Rohr says, “is that contemporary Westerners have a very fragile sense of their identity, much less an identity that can rest in union and relationship with God. Objectively, of course, we are already in union with God,” he says, but we have a hard time believing it. We tend to find our identity in what we are not---I’m not like those people, whoever those people are. Or we find our identities in groups, who share a common experience, possession or even in a person. “She will make me happy, or he will take away my loneliness or this group will make me feel like I belong. These become substitutes for doing the hard work of growing up. It is much easier to belong to a group than it is to know that you belong to God.”
People who live lives centered in God don’t feel the need to build themselves up or be as defensive as they might have been earlier in life. We talk about getting centered or re-centered after having gone off on some tangent or lost our way. They experience a kind of freedom to be their own person in Christ. They are always free to obey, but they are also free to disobey the expectation of church and state. Think of St. Paul, Joan of Arc or Archbishop Tutu.
By contrast, probably the most obvious indication of non-centered people is that they are very difficult to live with. Every one of their ego-boundaries must be defended, negotiated, or worshiped: their reputation, their needs, their nation, their security, their religion, even their ball team. They convince themselves that these boundaries are all they have to worry about because they are the sum-total of their identity. You can tell if you have placed a lot of your eggs in these flimsy baskets if you are hurt or offended frequently. You can hardly hurt saints because they are living at the center.
One of the ways I express this truth is that once you know that God knows your name, that is, that you’ve had some experience of God that is just for you, a sense of your true place in God’s creation, it really doesn’t matter so much what other people think and say about you. You have found your true identity in your relationship with God. As Christians we often find this relationship to God through an experience of Jesus.
So how do we get to this place, this way of being? Well, the first thing to say is that you cannot think yourself to it. Rather it grasps you, and it grasps you in the midst of your life, your ordinary life. Richard says that there are two ways we get to this point: persistent prayer and suffering. The more efficient way is suffering. The reality is that you can’t get to be an adult without some experience of suffering, so we all the raw material.
Probably most of us here have some moment when we experienced the greatness of God and or own smallness, or maybe it was an experience of forgiveness, or maybe it’s the pleasure of experiencing as fully as we can, our place in creation, and it’s a sense of being most fully who we are. Or god may call your name. It’s not based on any sense of merit. It is a gift. All we need is one such experience. What transpires is the formation of a person who is authentically the person God calls us to be. After that you are much less interested in defending the ego, and you see and live with a sense of connectedness to all human beings, to all creation.
How do you keep this connection going? We need two things: we need to develop practices that sustain this connection, and we need community. I don’t know how many times someone has begins a conversation with me by saying, “I know this sounds crazy, but one day…” and the person starts telling me about a profound experience of God’s presence. The church community is where we can share these experiences and no one is going to think we’re crazy. In fact, it’s in the faith community where such conversation can be shared and affirmed. And we are enriched in our own faith by hearing the stories of others.
We do some of that around here, and we could do more if we are willing to make ourselves vulnerable, and when we do perceive the vulnerability of others, we receive them gently. I have seen this here; I’ve seen the vestry do just this kind of sharing. I have also heard from the new rector search committee members that they have learned to share on this level.
You as a congregation actually have lived this out. Much as I appreciate the kind words many of you have offered about my ministry here, the spiritual growth and improved health of Trinity is the work of the Holy Spirit. It could happen because you were honest about the disruption and hurt that characterized the spirit of the congregation. You didn’t pretend that things were just great; you were honest about your pain. You didn’t pretend that things were just great; you were honest about your pain. You left room for God to move within you and to heal the wounds. You have been who you authentically are. You have changed from being anxious to eagerly looking forward. You have been blessed, you are blessed and you shall be blessed as you continue to find your center in Christ.
Living in a blessed state is not a rationalization for laziness or complacency. Nor is it resignation; we’ve all known people who have given up and coasted into retirement. No, this is a question of we live our lives: do we trust and delight in God like a tree planted by a stream of water, or do we trust in our own efforts? Can we be at peace where we are or are we always looking ahead to the next place? This is also not to say that our congregation is not called to grow and share the gospel with the surrounding world, but there is a difference between growing and sharing out of Christ-like grace and peace, and growing out of frantic compulsiveness. Jeremiah 17, Psalm 1 and Jesus in Luke 6 all agree that there are two ways: blessing or woe, well-watered trust or shriveled fear.
What Jesus in inviting us to experience is the rich honesty of vulnerability, the deep soil of our own human need. And what Jesus promises is the nourishment of mercy and healing that God gives to us when we are rooted in the holy.
Our scripture goes on to give us a second message. Not only are we called to recognize our own need and dependence upon god. We are called to recognize the need and vulnerability of others—and then to offer them through our lives, the rich soil of compassion and justice.
Here I want to inject a word about the woes: woe to those who are rich, who are full, who laugh and who are praised. The reason Jesus speaks of woe is that people are usually attached to their wealth, sense of satisfaction and enjoy praise—it builds their ego. However, if you are centered in Christ, then you are free to let these attributes go—they don’t define you—they don’t create your identity –your identity is not rooted in God. Then your wealth, your food and your reputation become resources to be used to care for others.
The Kingdom of God has already begun; this is God’s agenda. The reality described by the Beatitudes will happen, and is happening even now.
Blessedness is a joy that comes from being open to God, being fully alive and in harmony with god’s ways—both in good times and in bad.
Happy are those who delight in the Lord
They are like trees planted by streams of water,
Which yield their fruit in its season…
February 04, 2007
1191Anne Jensen - February 04, 2007
Epiphany 5C Luke 5:1-11
Jesus is standing on the edge of the lake of Gennesaret—this is another name for the body of water known as the Sea of Galilee and the Sea of Tiberius. The crowd was pushing in to hear him better and he probably feared being driven into the water, so he looks for a way to build in a little distance.
Aha! He sees a couple of fishing boats—the fishermen are off washing their nets. Jesus gets in Simon’s boat, apparently Simon agrees to this. They go out a little distance and Jesus teaches from there. Everything seems normal up to that point. But when Jesus is through teaching he turns to Simon and says, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
Now Simon is tired, and he’s had a lousy night—he hasn’t caught a thing, not one fish! Now think of a commercial fisherman around here and you probably think Simon would tell this teacher off and tell him to quit wasting his time. However, Simon Peter is respectful, if doubtful, and does what Jesus says. Simon caught so many fish he had to get his partners to come out and help him. They filled both boats so full they started to sink. Here’s the crucial point: Simon doesn’t stay focused on the catch of fish. Everyone else is focused on the fish. Simon Peter falls at Jesus’ knees saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” This is a huge change for Peter. Jesus has said nothing to elicit this kind of response from Peter.
This is the Epiphany moment: an epiphany is an “aha” moment of new understanding, a revelation. It’s like a light bulb goes off—new light offers new understanding. Peter calls Jesus Lord; now anyone who was a master over another could be Lord, a title of respect, but Simon Peter is speaking in another dimension altogether. In this incredible moment he realizes the spiritual truth of his own smallness in the presence of the Holy. It is the truth clutching at his heart—he can barely stand it. Only one who has experienced intimacy with God could convey what Jesus offers Simon Peter. “Do not be afraid,” words of compassion and understanding. Jesus is opening a whole new world to Simon. It’s still up to Simon whether to enter this new world.
The magnificence of God’s generosity towards us human beings is incredible! —Jesus is offering new life to Peter, and Jesus offers new life to us. Jesus could have said to Simon, “You’re absolutely right; you are a sinner, and the only appropriate place for you is to stay right where you are, on your knees, suffering in the awareness of your sinful life, but he does nothing of the kind.
Do you remember the movie Chocolat ? When I saw it, I thought it was a profoundly religious film. If you haven’t seen it, you might want to rent it. One of my parishioners, scoffingly referred to it as redemption by Godiva, and actually he wasn’t far off. Chocolat is a fable. Some external force has brought Vianne and her daughter to a French village in 1959. Life there is very conventional, one would even say rigid. Vianne opens a chocolate shop at the beginning of Lent. The town’s most prominent and powerful citizen promises her that she will be out of business by Easter, such is the insult to the sensibilities of the town that they should all be tempted by chocolate when everyone knows you can’t eat chocolate during Lent.
Chocolate is the metaphor for God’s love, and Vianne gives it away liberally. We have close-ups of cocoa beans being crushed, chocolate being chopped and then melted and stirred into a luscious mixture that makes your mouth water and your heart race! And there’s so much of it! There are truffles, ten different kinds of candy, cookies, cakes, tartes, bonbons, shells, kisses, and, of course, hot chocolate with whipped cream.
Now what does this have to do with being called to be a catcher of people? Vianne has a shadowy past, yet she is a catcher of people. She, like Jesus, invites people. She is more generous than anyone the village people have ever known. She welcomes the timid, the outcasts, the very old and the very young. She does not judge. She gives them chocolate and opens them to a world of hope and possibilities. She herself is one who catches people. She tries to find just the right chocolate for each individual, just the right kind to make each person’s life better, fuller, richer. Chocolate is the symbol of gracious love.
Vianne’s generosity is in stark contrast to self-righteousness found in some of the church members, who are acting a lot like Pharisees. They too are offered chocolate, but refuse.
Going back to today’s gospel, when Jesus asks Peter to row out to deep water and lower the nets, he is inviting Peter to experience the abundance that is available to those who accept the invitation to follow him. Jesus is not worried about Peter’s sense of unworthiness. He says, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” “Do not be afraid…” Never mind your inadequacy; I will give you what you need to do the job I have for you.” We hear echoes from our story of Isaiah, who says, “Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips…” And then the seraph purifies his lips that they may speak God’s word.
What is God calling us to? Is God calling us to extend Christ’s love and generosity in a way that invites the outsider in, much as Vianne invites the timid and the hurting people of the village into her chocolate shop? There IS a call. Life never stays the same. Is God calling us to rethink and reshape our energies right where we are? God is always greater and more creative than we can imagine, and God calls us to flow and change and grow as partners in the work of creation and reconciliation. There is a call! We can be catchers of people in the same sense that Vianne is in the fable. We can offer God’s love and welcome in a way that meets others where they are. Here is a call!
There is rich imagery in the story of Peter’s call. The sea, in scripture, is a symbol of God’s deep and vast mystery—an ocean of grace where abundance abounds. And Peter? He is the symbol of all of us –all the disciples through the ages who are struggling to respond to Jesus.
–Peter “catches” God’s superabundant grace
--Peter is “caught” by the power and promise of God
--Peter is sent out “to catch people” -- to embrace us and save us within the vast and safe net of God’s care.
The actual Greek word means “catch alive continuously.” These fishermen were not using a hook and line, but rather the nets were thrown wide and they scooped up every kind of fish in the sea. God throws the nets wide. To be “caught alive” is to be rescued, not captured –it is to be strengthened, not weakened – it is to be drawn into the abundant grace of God’s kingdom. All of this calling and all of this catching begins with God’s initiative – God catching us and claiming us and calling us. But it ends with our response – our response of trust and risk and hope. It ends with our surrender to the holy, our willingness to change, our courage to say, “Here am I, Lord…send me.” Amen
January 14, 2007
1150Anne Jensen - Jan 14, 2007
Epiphany 2C Is. 62:1-5, 1Cor. 12:1-11, John 2:1-11
In today’s gospel we have a story about a wedding, at least on the surface it appears to be about a wedding where they ran out of wine. However, as in several other stories in John’s gospel, we have a story that is layered. As we peel back the layers new meaning is uncovered, and we have a revelation about who Jesus truly is. We read this story during the season of Epiphany because Epiphany is a season of light and revelation, of showing forth the divine nature of the man Jesus.
So there is this small town outside of Nazareth where there is a wedding. Jesus, his mother and a few of his disciples are there for the festivities. The wine runs out, a situation Mary points out to Jesus. His reply sounds very odd to us: “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me. My hour has not yet come.” Why would he address his mother that way, and what does this mean? Scholars generally agree that he is not being disrespectful to his mother, but rather he is creating distance from his mother. As we talked about this passage as part of our Bible study in the vestry retreat yesterday, we imagined that there was a little drama going on that had the dynamic of a time of transition. Jesus has been baptized and has been tempted in the desert. He has gathered a few of the disciples. Maybe his mother has a notion of Jesus being on the brink of an enterprise that needs to begin. She offers him a situation in which to act, but he resists saying, “My hour has not yet come.” His mother turns to the servants and talking past him, says, “Do whatever he says.”
So if you were in this position, you might just turn to your friends and change the subject, but there’s an opening here, and essentially Jesus steps into it. Although he says his hour has not yet come, it begins in the very next words he speaks.
Here we need to gather some background information. The six large stone jars are for water for purification….120-180 gallons, an extravagant amount of water in a land where water is scarce. Jesus says, “Fill the jars with water.” The water jars stand for the Law and its attendant rituals. Jesus tells the servants to draw off some of the water and take it to the steward, who apparently didn’t know they were out of wine. He tastes the liquid and calls the bridegroom saying , “Everyone serves the best wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests become drunk, but you have kept the good wine until now.” These words are full of meaning, way beyond the concerns of those at the wedding celebration. We don’t see Jesus performing an act; we hear him give directions for others to act, and yet in between these words something monumental happens: the water becomes top of line wine. Yesterday with a little quick calculation Peter Bostock figured out that this was almost a 1000 bottles of wine. (Your vestry is always thinking and working on your behalf.) This is a sign of God’s abundant grace, the abundance that we heard about in the lesson from Isaiah and in the psalm, and even more, the good wine that comes at last is Jesus. The people have received the Law and the prophets, and now, at last they have the incarnate Word of God in Jesus. Beyond this immediate symbolism, at the Last Supper Jesus will use wine as the symbol of his life poured out for the sake of the world.
It’s a moment to take a deep breath and stand in awe of what this story reveals. Our modern minds want to know, “Did this really happen? Was one substance turned into another?” This wasn’t a concern in the ancient world; this story is told to reveal a spiritual truth. The evangelist says this was the first of his signs…a sign is something that points to a direction or reveals something, in this case his glory. And his disciples believed in him. The disciples were able to experience Jesus, and they believed in him. Later Christians, including both the community for whom John was writing, and all of us, could only read about him. In Chapter 20 the evangelist tells us the gospel is written so that we might believe in him.
As we that we peel back the layers and glimpse a touch of his glory, my response is “Wow! I’ve just experienced a touch of the holy…I am in awe of such a God.”
When I think about it, I can identify a sense of astonishment at God’s great generosity, love and power, and it leaves me speechless.
Another response is that God is doing a new thing, a radically new thing. At Trinity, we are in a time of transition here, and God is doing a new thing. We need to be open to that new thing…and it may be very different from what we thought it might be or hoped it might be.
This past week a group of us from Trinity went to an all-day presentation by Brother Don Bisson, who is both a Jungian psychologist and a spiritual director. His topic was “The Wildness of God.” One of his talks was about the God who disturbs. I think this story is a great example of the God who disturbs. Jesus is stirring the waters, changing water into wine, showing that there is a force in our midst that we can’t domesticate, and what’s more, there will be more of these occasions. This was the first sign.
We often talk about the consolation of God, and yes, God does comfort, but that’s not all God does, witness today’s gospel. My question for you is how do you experience the God who disturbs, the Jesus who exhibits powers beyond human understanding? Where in your life do experience this Divine Power? Don used a metaphor that I found very helpful. He talked about the waves in our lives; sometimes they are gentle. Other times they are huge and they crash down around us and we wonder where God is, and we wonder why the waves keep coming. His teaching is that God is in the waves, and our job is to ride the waves, trusting in God, even if we don’t know where we are going to end up.
Where is God disturbing you, creating restlessness? Where is God disturbing us as a congregation? Can we trust that God is in the transition, in this time of waiting and expectation and in the messiness of things that fall between the cracks? Will you trust that God provides an abundance of grace, just as God provided all that wine?
I hope your answer is yes. Sometimes it is not easy to say yes to the crashing waves; it takes faith and it takes courage. And sometimes we don’t have those qualities at hand personally, but others in the body of Christ, the church, do. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, each one of us has gifts to contribute to our common life, gifts that we need to share as we encounter the wildness of God, who has broken into our human existence in the person of Jesus. He revealed his true nature when he turned the water into wine. We encounter this disturbing power again and again when we find new life that emerges out of the crashing waves of doubt or illness or injury.
The wine of abundant grace is here. As we come to communion this morning and you take the cup, let this precious gift remind you both of God’s disturbing power and of God’s abundant grace.
December 31, 2006
1144Anne Jensen - Dec 31, 2006
Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18
However, since we are not Quakers, but Episcopalians, I’ll share some of my thoughts. This gospel, the prologue of John’s gospel, is poetry: scholars believe that it is an early hymn, a song of praise. Like art, poetry is to be experienced as well as thought about. This passage is so familiar and so beautiful that we could well bask in it and love it for its beauty alone. Yet the richness of thought amplifies its beauty. As I prepared for this morning, I found myself pouring over different translations, examining their similarities and differences, absorbing the gift of the Word and words.
This gospel is a reminder of God's initiating the relationship with us -- God's movement toward us -- of God's choosing to be with us. This is God coming into our world and into the midst of our lives -- each of us -- whoever and wherever we may be.
This introduction to the Gospel of John takes us back to the very root of our existence, the foundation of our universe. Listen to the parallels we find in Genesis.
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
John’s gospel begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being…
In Genesis we hear, “And God said, (that is God spoke a word) ‘Let there be light; and there was light.’ The gospel says, “What has come into being in the Word is life, and the life was the light of all people…”
From Genesis, “And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness…”
This gospel says, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” This Jesus that John is about to reveal in his gospel is the incarnation of the Cosmic Christ…the one present with God from the very beginning and who is the expression of God.
John is presenting the origins of the man those first Christians had come to worship, putting forth his birth story. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”
Why is this story so different from the other birth stories? As early as 60 years after the church was formed, there were 100,000 Greek Christians in the church for every Jewish born Christian. The first Christians were Jews, but the real growth in the early church was among Greeks. Paul understood himself to be called as an apostle to the gentiles, to the Greeks, and started many churches in Asia Minor and Greece. The story of John’s gospel is told to a church of Christians in Ephesus who had heard no stories of an expected Messiah or the lineage of David. This crowd had never heard the words of the prophet Isaiah.
Through missionaries they had heard the words Jesus spoke, witnessed the healing he brought, experienced the sacrifice in this death and the victory in his resurrection, but how would they come to understand his birth, his coming into the world?
By definition God cannot be fully grasped, but we have had glimpses of God. As our gospel says, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” Here we have a new revelation of who Christ was and is – a new explanation that would finally bring the story of Jesus’ origins to life for this community of believers and for other Greek communities, and ultimately for us as well. The great divide in the early church was between Greek and Jew. They came from different cultural and religious backgrounds. Yet for both Jews and Greeks the Word is important, and it became the bridge to a shared understanding of God’s revelation.
For the Jews words had an independent existence; they had power. They did things. God’s words created the world out of a void. God’s said “let there be lights in the vault of the heavens…let the earth bring forth living creatures…let us make human beings in our own image… God spoke creation into being through words. God spoke to Moses through the burning bush and on the mountaintop, and to Elijah in the still small voice. God spoke through the prophets.
For Greeks the Word, or Logos, was the principle that held everything in existence; without the order imposed by words, chaos would reign. The Word led to understanding; understanding led to right action. Right actions, in turn, led to virtue and piety, all of which were highly valued in the Greek culture. The Word made everything possible. Without the Word nothing would exist. and once there was existence the Word becomes the organizing and ordering principle.
John tells us “the Word was always with God; indeed, the Word was God.” What came into being in this Word was the life of the Son of God, and this life was the light of all people. It was the same light that dawned as the world took form. That light illuminates the darkness, bringing sight and insight and understanding. It is the Light that exposes evil for what it is, and opens the darkness in which evil hides. He is the light that illuminates the pathway ahead and guides stumbling feet. These were images which the Greeks could grasp and which still have meaning for us today.
Finally this story reveals a shattering truth to the Greeks. It was a scandal to the Greeks that God would demean Godself to become human, because for them the body was a prison, an encasement of the spirit. In this gospel we hear: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” The Word, Jesus, was born of a woman in a real flesh and blood human birth. He lived or dwelt among us. The word “lived” comes from a root that means “pitched his tent with us.” I like this idea because it is so graphic, so earthy, living with us at such a basic level. The purpose is so that we know God. As one translation has it, “He who is nearest the Father’s heart has made him known.” God has made it possible for us to know God, and perhaps almost as important psychologically, God has made it possible for us to know that God understands our human lives, our joys and delights as well as our pain and suffering. God is with us always.
This is good news for us, just as it was for that community in Ephesus. John says, “…to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. My friends, we have only to believe in him, in this Word made flesh, to be adopted as children of God.
One writer puts it this way, “Since the beginning, God has paced the corridors of heaven, burning with the hope that we would see the world as God sees it. God made gardens…we did not get it. God sent floods…we did not get it. God sent prophets…we did not get it. God sent laws…we did not get it. Finally, finally, God sent flesh, God’s own flesh. Surely God thought that now, now we would get it.
John's Gospel account that we heard today is the story of how God became human so that we might rebuild a connection we once had but no longer acknowledge. So the Incarnation, this God becoming human, invites us on a new path so that we may become the very children of God and thus know how to be truly human, as God intended in creation.
In Advent we prayed, “Come Lord Jesus, be our light in the darkness.” Well, Christmas is here! Jesus, the Christ, the Word made flesh, is with us. He has pitched his tent with us. He is the light that illuminates and gives life to all; He is the light that exposes evil for what it is. He is the source of our salvation and our hope.
December 24, 2006
1143Anne Jensen - Dec 24, 2006
Christmas Eve 2006
We are here, at last, gathered to worship God and to celebrate the Incarnation….God becoming human. I invite you to leave your anxieties at the door and to enter in the story of our salvation…how God chose to be with us and for us. I invite you to enter the mystery of the young woman Mary bearing a son….the one we call Immanuel, God with us. We call him Jesus, which means savior, and we call him the Christ, the messiah, the anointed one of God. I invite you to let the joy of this good news soak into you and soften your hearts, and I invite you to sing with joy, no matter whether you think you can sing or not! It doesn’t matter to God what you sound like, but it does matter to God that you open your heart to the joy God has in store for us.
I found a prayer that was written at Christmas almost 40 years ago and I want to share it with you:
Give us, O God, the vision which can see Your love in the world in spite of human failure.
Give us the faith to trust Your goodness in spite of our ignorance and weakness.
Give us the knowledge that we may continue to pray with understanding hearts.
And show us what each one of us can do to set forward the coming of the day of universal peace. -- Frank Borman, Apollo 8 space mission, 1968
This prayer was written 38 years ago…from a new perspective, outer space. It was written by Frank Borman when he was on the Apollo space mission, which spanned the Christmas season that year. It was the first Christmas after Doug and I were married. It was the year of the Hong Kong flu, which was rampant. The war in Viet Nam plagued us. Doug had just finished Navy Officer Candidates School, and we were on our way to Athens, Georgia. We spent Christmas with old family friends in Pennsylvania. There was a lot of snow on the ground and it was bitterly cold. Doug had to wear his full dress uniform to church because is was the warmest clothing he had. I remember coming home from the midnight service, where we had prayed for the astronauts, and listening to the latest report. The heavens, cold and clear, seemed so vast and so empty. I prayed those men would be able to find their way home. It was an anxious time-- both in space and on the earth. Being in space offered the perspective of how much greater creation is than just our planet and our concerns, and yet I believe Borman’s prayer came out of love for this blue planet and trust that God could change us and the world. The prayer was for a vision in which we can see God’s love in the world, despite our human failure.
There’s a great story about a preacher who bumped into one of his parishioners. She was coming out of the store with her hands full of packages. It was a good solid bump and she dropped all her packages. As the minister hastened to help her, he heard her say, “I hate Christmas. It turns everything upside down.” Well, you know what she meant: the daily routine is disrupted, the budget is stretched too thin, there are more people in the house than she’s used to….all the processes she has in place to provide stability and security are out the window. But she’s got it right! The birth of Christ changed the world….turned everything upside down. Remember the words of Mary and the reversal of the “the way things are.” “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly./ He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” The Incarnation means change. It means God coming into our time and into our space and into our lives and into our comfort zone and shaking things up and making them be recreated in a new way and challenging us to confront change and to be active in doing something, working with God in the world around us.
Jim Mueller tells of one of his most memorable Christmases. He writes, “I was sitting in my church on Christmas Eve and in walks a man, a person I didn’t know well, but who later became a close friend. He sat down next to me. Throughout the service I felt a little weird. I sang out during the songs I loved – Joy to the World, Silent Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem. I felt weird because I could feel him watching me, what I did, how I did it. He was watching me “do” church. I realized something that night. He was relearning Christmas. He was trying to figure out what Christmas means when you have faith in Jesus Christ. The baby in the manger is more than a holiday decoration. Jesus was more real for him. Jesus became more real for me. That night I felt the presence of God come over that place. That night was the first time I ever heard my friend sing. Not all of the songs, not all of the words but a few that he knew, and very quietly. And he was singing about God coming into our world to change it forever. He was worshipping his savior.” Maybe some of you are relearning Christmas tonight. It is never too late to become like a child and take in this mystery of God’s love for each one of us.
In the months that followed Jim and his friend found themselves in deeper and deeper conversations, lives shared, tears shed. Jim saw this man change and grow.
Change has been a theme here at Trinity for the last eighteen months. We have not been alone, left to our own devices. Not at all. We have learned to “do” church in a new way. We have learned a new song. We have experienced God’s love and grace time and again. God-with-us, our Emmanuel is changing us, and we are singing a new song of joy, and a song of expectation. One of the most beautiful changes I’ve seen is how people who used to mistrust each other have come to a new appreciation and understanding. That, my friends, is reconciliation. Christ is in the world reconciling us to God and to each other. When we let Jesus into our hearts, and by that I mean the love of God made known to us by Jesus, his birth, his teaching and ministry, and his death, we begin to change. And when we change, or as St. Paul says, when we put on Christ, we are a new people. We are a people filled with hope, filled with energy, and fueled by a new kind of power. We are a people who have a vision of a restored world characterized by shalom, God’s peace as envisioned in creation.
The very heart of tonight’s gospel is the good news of the breaking in of a new time: “Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” This day heaven and earth are brought together, joined by the presence of an infant who is both very vulnerable…of humble stock and born in a stable, and who fulfills that wonderful prophecy: “And he shall be called wonderful counselor, almighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
This is good news for you…and for all of us. Since God is breaking the news to the people on the lowest rung of society, the shepherds, we know that things are being tipped upside down. The shepherds were blessed with the radiance of heaven and a chorus of “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to t hose on whom his favor rests.” The symbolism is that his favor rests on all who hear and believe. Do you think the shepherds danced to this music, filled with joy and buoyed by the good news? I think they may just have waltzed and skipped and hopped all the way back to their flocks.
We still long for the peace that the angels proclaimed. Sometimes we get a little closer to it than at other times. We live in “in-between” times. The Kingdom of God has begun with this birth, but has yet to be fulfilled. We long for peace for all people, because each person is God’s well-loved child.
` Astronaut Frank Borman’s prayer is also a prayer for peace, not just by wishful thinking, but by asking God what each one of us can do to bring that day closer. It echoes St. Francis’ prayer, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…”
There are so many areas of life where we can be instruments of change that may lead to peace. Do not be afraid of change. God is doing a new thing here. Very close at hand, this church in welcoming the stranger, has changed the lives of people who have found a home here. Christ in our hearts plays out by making us the kind of community where there is change…where Christ is known not only to us, but to the world. The signs are here: we are feeding the poor and hungry. Although the clothes closet has moved, we continue to support its work at the Opportunity Center. Through GAIA we are changing the lives of people affected by AIDS in Africa. This sense of mission of bringing God’s peace closer to fulfillment is more than the absence of violence, although such an absence would go a long way to creating peace in other dimensions, it also has an element of justice, where both sides in any conflict come out in a viable position.
The story that took place in Bethlehem so many years ago continues to inspire us. The stillness of that night long ago seems to have captured the possibility of a restored creation. We can put all our hopes and fears out to be taken up by the one who was born this night. For God has brought heaven and earth together in this child. God has given us this great gift. How do we respond? We hear the angels’ message and sing together, “O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!”
Now Christmas is here again for each and every one of us. The gifts of that first Christmas are as true today as they were on the first Christmas more than 2,000 years ago. Out of God’s constant and abiding love, God waits to give them to you through God’s best gift of all, the gift of God’s own Son, come to earth as a tiny babe born in a manger in Bethlehem. May God fill your heart with his love this Christmas, and may that love overcome your fears and set you free to accept the gifts God came to bring to each of you, gifts of light and hope and peace.
This is the night when heaven and earth are joined in a glorious way, with human beings at the center of the joint. This is the night when “the hopes and fears of all the years” are resolved by a stable and a star. This is the night when we can truly sleep in heavenly peace, because we know that God has entered our world to reclaim it forever. AMEN.
December 20, 2006
1097Anne Jensen - Dec 17, 2006
Advent 3C Zephaniah 3:14-20, Is. 12:2-6, Philippians 44-7, Luke 3:7-18
And then we get to the gospel and to the powerful words of John the Baptist, and the tone changes completely! “You brood of vipers!” You sons (and daughters) of snakes! “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” The implied answer is “I did…I, John.” John was in the line and tradition of the prophets, who have not been heard from in nearly 400 years. John is the prophet who lived to see his messiah, and even he wasn’t sure. Later when he was in prison, he sent messengers to Jesus asking if Jesus was the messiah, or if they were to wait for another.” (Luke 7:18)
Earlier in this chapter of the gospel, Luke writes that John was traveling all over the region around the Jordan River, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In the passage for today, John’s angry at the people who have come out to be baptized; he accuses them of being baptized with no intention of starting a new, ethical life. If they think that by being baptized they will evade God’s judgment at the end of the era, they are wrong: they must also turn to godliness.
John is presenting the people with a choice: either respond to God’s offer of repentance and salvation by beginning a new way of living or face condemnation at the end of time. He implores the crowd, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Faced with such a choice, they ask, “What should we do?”
There are only four words in that sentence, and they are all important. First let’s look at “do.” Our English translations miss a vital connection with this word in our texts. The Greek word translated "do" is the same word translated "bear" in! Like the good tree naturally "bearing" good fruit, so the "doing" by the crowds, tax collectors, soldiers, and others, grows out of having repented -- having a changed mind and heart and life (and "roots").
“Should”: We’ve all been told we should do one thing or another, and there’s a heavy load of obligation when it comes from an authority figure. This sentence might also be translated, “What would you have us do?” There’s an element of volition here.
The “we” can be understood as collective individuals, which is probably how we hear these words. We do an internal translation to “What should I do?” John is clear that an individual can make choices about sharing whatever one has: food and clothing for example. Most people had only two coats, which actually was the garment worn next to the skin, one for everyday and one for the Sabbath.
But then groups of people…even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked the same question. What’s notable is that in each example, John gives suggestions for ethical behavior that is in the realm of their lives…not to go out and change someone else’s system…change how you are executing your own life. If you are a tax collector, collect no more than the amount prescribed for you. If you are a soldier, forget the extortion, and be satisfied with your wages. Both the tax collectors and the soldiers were part of a system. One person making a change would probably just mean that that one person wouldn’t make a living that way anymore. But what if they heard John’s words collectively and acted collectively? Then they could make a difference.
What if we as a faith community took these words BOTH as individuals and as the collective WE? John was calling for ethical behavior that arises naturally out of gratitude for the gift of forgiveness and renewal. What does that look like in your life? Do you take God’s forgiveness for granted and go on about your life without making changes? What excuses do you make? I’m too old, too set in my ways to change? I’m too young to always be thinking about others—this is my time to live! Maybe your excuse is “I don’t have the time / the energy / the disposition to figure out another, more caring way to live.” “I just have to keep going.” You know, I think we’re talking about stewardship here…stewardship in the larger sense of making choices about how to use our resources…not just material resources, which is important, of course, but also our imaginations, our energy, our time, our spiritual strength. We’ve talked about stewardship being a year-round consideration, so my invitation to you is to use Advent, this time of preparation, to consider how you respond to God’s invitation to change direction, make a course correction, and in doing so, make a change that benefits not only you, but others, as well….others in your family, in your school, in your workplace, in the community, in the country and in the world.
Now about that WE….we have more trouble grasping possibilities here. Collectively we could extend forgiveness to each other for the times we have not trusted the motives of those with whom we disagree. We could ask forgiveness for the times we have not communicated clearly or fully. What should we do? We can be honest and open in our communications. I think we have improved in that area in the last year. Transparency has been an important word in the vestry. We’ve turned a corner, but we’re barely around the bend, and I’m afraid it wouldn’t take much to change direction again. Living into a new way of life takes time and practice, and it is almost always a way that difficult at times.
Theologically, the converted heart produces the new works. Doing good does not make one repentant; but true repentance produces the proper, good fruit. Sharing one's food and clothing, and living within one's means doesn't make one a Christian; but being a Christian should result in such deeds. However, practically and therapeutically, sometimes the order is reversed. Sometimes we advise: "Act your self to a new way of thinking." A similar saying is attributed to Jesse Jackson: "It is easier to walk your way into a new way of thinking -- than to think your way into a new way of walking."
Do we need to feel threatened or fearful of the winnowing fork or the fire? This passage assumes that we are either wheat or chaff. We are called to align ourselves with God’s justice. The reality is that the winnowing process is not done; we are still both wheat and chaff. Fred Craddock, an Episcopal priest who is both a highly esteemed preacher and writer (Luke, Interpretation Commentaries), offers this wonderful summary: "When repentance and forgiveness are available, judgment is good news (v. 18). The primary aim is to save the wheat, not to burn the chaff." [p. 49]
The one who is to come, the One who is more powerful than John has the power and the desire to refine us, to give us the power for the changes we cannot make on our own. John offers hope and new life for the tax collectors, the soldiers, and all sinners. We all can be gathered by Jesus into his kingdom.
November 13, 2006
1079Anne Jensen November 5, 2006
Anne Jensen All Saints’ Day - 2006
“I sing a song of the saints of God…”
Here it is-- All Saints' Day, and we, who are very much alive, are invited to recall the faithful departed. The hymn we just sang holds up the virtues of those saints, “patient and brave and true.”
In New Testament usage, saints are those who aspire to the holiness of the Holy God whom they serve. Because the Holy Spirit dwells within them, they too are made holy. A saint, therefore, is one who reflects the sanctity of the God he or she serves: to be a saint in this sense is a sign not of perfection, but of faithfulness.
I agree with Peter Gomes, who wrote, “Of all the Christian holidays, I find this one, in all of its senses, to be the most reassuring. I like the idea of the great and heroic ones who have gone on before: their names remind us that great lives were called to do great things for God. I like thinking of the saints beyond, not simply resting, but waiting for us to join them: they assure us of a future. And I like thinking of saints as ordinary people like ourselves, seeking to be faithful and holy here and now.”
So what’s in this holiness? We find the heart of holy living in the summary of the law: Jesus said, “Love God with all your heart, with all your souls, and with all your mind, and love your neighbors as yourselves,” and the two are not to be separated. Thus we cannot simply sit in humble adoration of the divine at the expense of the human. Nor can we be filled, indeed even obsessed with feel-good good works and at the same time neglect the duty and reverence owed to God.
Katherine Jefferts Schori, who was installed as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church yesterday caught this truth in her homily. She called the Church to her vision of "shalom." She said, “Shalom doesn't just mean that sort of peace that comes when we're no longer at war,"
“Shalom is created,” she said, “when all people are at home with each other and with God. When Augustine says "our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee, O Lord" he means that our natural home is in God.” In another approach to what home is, she refers to Robert Frost’s poem “Death of the Hired Man” in which he wrote, "home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in." Building on this, the Bishop said, “We all ache for a community that will take us in, with all our warts and quirks and petty meanness – and still celebrate when they see us coming!"
She continues, "That vision of home going and homecoming that underlies our deepest spiritual yearnings is also the job assignment each one of us gets in baptism – go home, and while you're at it, help to make a home for everyone else on earth," she continued.
"The home we ultimately seek is found in relationship with creator, with redeemer, with spirit." Home is where the faithful departed find shalom and where they await us. And not only that, they surround us and cheer us on even now.
This morning we are baptizing Virginia Sybil Such, Karen and Asa’s daughter, and we welcome her to this communion of saints. She will be sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever. When I met with Karen last week, she told me about her experience last year on All Saints’ Day., and she graciously gave me permission to share it with you. It is a real-life example of experiencing the Communion of Saints. Karen had wanted another child and didn’t think she could have another one. At that time last year she was singing in the choir and had just learned that the baby she carried was going to be just fine—no chromosomal problems at all. In the midst of the hymns and homily, in which Frannie gave us the image of the church balcony with all the saints gathered, looking down on us, smiling at us and loving us, Karen had a profound sense of her deceased mother’s presence. Filled with joy and gratitude she was overcome with tears, and she couldn’t stop the weeping. Our deacon, ever in tune with human need, provided her with Kleenex. The early church mothers and fathers wrote of the gift of tears and that it expresses a deep spiritual state. It is with great joy and thanksgiving that we baptize Virginia Sybil, who is named after her grandmother, a year later on this All Saints Day.
As we renew our baptismal vows, let us hold onto the image of the everyday saints, who in baptism are made holy by the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. We do not go on this journey alone; we together, are the body of Christ, and our faith is not just individual. Faith is demonstrated by how we together as the church work to re-establishing God’s shalom.
Remember the words we sang just a few minutes ago:
“They lived not only in ages past,/ There are hundreds of thousands still;
The world is bright with the joyous saints/ Who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, /In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
For the saints of God began just like me, /And I mean to be one too.”
In our prayers we ask for assistance in the daily hard work of holiness, the daily grind of sainthood. It is reassuring to know that those saints who went before us were aided by the very God whom they loved and served, and that this great cloud of witnesses is rooting for us now.
October 29, 2006
1078Anne Jensen October 29, 2006
Anne Jensen - Proper 25 B Mark 10:46-52
These same words could have come from blind Bartimaeus, and for him they would have had literal as well as metaphorical meaning. Blindness comes in so many ways—physical, psychological, emotional, political, social and spiritual to name a few. Sometimes blindness results from the way we are put together, and sometimes it is willful. We defend ourselves by choosing not to see. And that’s what Isaiah is railing about in our first lesson…the iniquities of the social system and the lack of justice …and the unwillingness or the inability of the righteous to step forward.
“The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm brought him victory.” God took on the cause of justice and righteousness, Godself. God intervened.
Move ahead six hundred years and God has sent Jesus into a world where conditions had not changed much. Bartimaeus was a blind beggar who hung out at the gate of Jericho. Beggars, then as now, were at the lowest level of society. This story is more than just a story of restored physical sight. It is also a story of Jesus’ compassion, trust and faith that leads to conversion and new life.
In today’s gospel Jesus and his disciples are leaving Jericho. When Bartimaeus heard that it was Jesus who was passing by, he shouted out, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” Obviously he had heard of Jesus and his gift of healing. He made connection: “Son of David” is a messianic title…it implied that Jesus was not just an itinerant teacher, but was a man of God’s own choosing.
The people around Bartimaeus told him to be quiet, but that didn’t stop him. He called again, and Jesus heard him.
Jesus’ response reveals the compassionate nature of God. Jesus stops and says, “Call him over here.” Which probably surprised all those around him, but they said. “This is your lucky day. He’s calling for you. Get up!” He sprang up and came to Jesus. Jesus asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” He did not assume the man’s needs. He asked. And the man replied, “My teacher, let me see again.”
“Jesus said, ‘Go, your faith has made you well.’” We have heard these words before. The Greek word used here for well means both healed and saved., and in this case it carries both meanings. Jesus tells him to go, but instead of leaving, Bartimaeus follows Jesus. Seeing and following often go together in the gospels. Seeing “who Jesus is” is the goal of faith, and it leads to discipleship. Only the unblind can see where to follow. Since that the very next verse in Mark narrates the entry into Jerusalem, the way Bartimaeus followed was the way to the cross.
When have your eyes been opened to a new truth, a new way of seeing? Did it lead to fear or a deeper faith? Our greatest challenges can become avenues for growing in faith and opening to God’s grace. God’s grace and healing power will lead to restored vision and new life.
Recently we at Trinity Parish have had our eyes opened regarding our financial situation. I know that some of you fear for the future of this beloved church. My proposal to you is that this is an opportunity to grow in faith by embarking on a new understanding of stewardship. In the past there have been special appeals because the budget gap looked grim, and people have come forward to meet the need. That’s good, but that kind of request is more akin to fund-raising than it is to stewardship. I want to invite you to enter into a new way of looking at life and God’s many gifts, a conversion to a life of stewardship.
Stewardship is a spiritual practice that recognizes that all that we have ultimately comes from God, and that in the very beginning, God gave stewardship of this world to God’s people, to care for the earth, the animals, the waters and each other as God would. Out of love for God and for all of creation, and in response to God’s love made known to us through Jesus Christ, we respond by trying to see with the eyes of God the reality of life around us. We do not live for our own sakes alone, but for God’s sake and for the sake of the world.
That’s pretty abstract, but it has real application. As Christians we have committed to following the teaching of Jesus, and Jesus commanded his followers to proclaim forgiveness and reconciliation, to welcome the outsider, and to praise God. The church is body that carries out these instructions: it aims to make disciples who follow Christ. Even in the year that I have been here, I know that this faith community has changed peoples’ lives by offering acceptance. It demonstrates a level of caring that is beyond what the world at large deems adequate. It offers material help by taking on driving people who no longer drive themselves, giving furniture to those in need and food as people need it. The church and its members give spiritual support through prayer and personal support. On our campus and beyond we have served the people that Jesus reached out to...the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the ill. These are ministries I know you are committed to.
With a new commitment to stewardship as a way of life, we can continue these ministries and even grow. The Bible talks about first fruits being offered back to God. What would that look like in terms of time? If we figure in general 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of work, that leaves 8 hours a day for everything else. If we multiply that by 7 days a week and we get 56. The Biblical standard is the tithe, giving 10%. That would be about 5.5 hours a week of discretionary time. In reality most of us don’t start there, either in terms of time or money.
We need start by seeing with new eyes. In faith we start by giving a percentage off the top. I’m talking about time, talent and money. When we surveyed all the ministries last spring, every group said they needed more bodies to share in the work.
This past week Doug and I talked about our own journey in financial stewardship. The first step was the shift from “I earned this money” to recognizing that the gifts we have for life and for earning really came from God. The next step was to give off the top. At first it seemed like a lot, especially when we had children in school and I was in seminary, but there was enough. About this time I asked a priest whether one should figure the percentage before or after taxes, and his response was, “It doesn’t matter.” I found that remarkably freeing.
Another discovery about building a stewardship plan is that it feels good to be generous, to know that you, along with many others, are making a difference in peoples’ lives…people we will never know, but who have deep needs. The reason we do this is spiritual…it comes from understanding that all people are God’s beloved children. God wants us to get that message out! This mission takes time, energy and money, but through it we know that we are participating in something much larger than ourselves. We are part of God’s effort to mend creation.
Yet another step in stewardship is the realization that it is a daily thing and involves daily choices about how we use water, whether we turn out the lights, what we are going to buy, and how we are going to spend our time. Stewardship is the journey toward living consciously in the presence of God.
In order for Trinity Parish to stay strong and to grow we need your participation in worship. Stewardship of time includes making a commitment to attend church. The strength of our worship depends on all our voices lifted up. And we need your participation in giving and in doing the work of the church, for the sake of the church and for the sake of the larger community.
Bartimaeus regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way. May we too see with new eyes and embark on a journey to renewed faith through stewardship.
I close with an image of the five ships of Christian life. Our Christian life might be seen as a fleet of ships. One ship is worship. In worship we praise God and give thanks. Another is fellowship. When we find fellowship with Jesus, our lives are changed. We become a member of God’s kingdom.
Another ship is discipleship. As we learn more about the Christian faith, we learn to follow the Savior. Studying our Bible and praying become a part of our lives.
Then there is friendship. We join other Christians in serving Christ. Friendships develop among God’s people. As we attend church regularly, we meet other people who share our faith. We share a special bond and they become our friends.
But for many, there is one ship that doesn’t set sail…it is the good ship stewardship. All the other ships bring happiness and joy into our lives, but the stewardship never gets out of the harbor. This week as you set out on the sea of life with your fleet of ships, let one of them be the ship of stewardship. Your life will be blessed by it. All the other ships will be able to bring back more enjoyment and contentment when all four sail together.
Please turn to the Joy insert in the bulletin and join me in saying the stewardship prayer.
October 15, 2006
1012Anne Jensen - Oct 15, 2006
Proper 23 B Mark 10:17 10/15/2006
Today’s gospel, to quote one blogger, is a “doozy.” We hear it with mixed feelings: it’s familiar, yet it makes us profoundly uncomfortable. We identify with that young man, as the seeker. We fear that if we were given the same teaching, we too would grieve and turn away.
Ever since Jesus met the rich young ruler, we have been looking for a way to embrace this passage as Truth, without actually having to believe it or live it.
We have rationalized it—
Jesus was just reminding us to keep our priorities straight! After all, people with money support the Church and pay the bills, and have done so since its beginning.
We have theologized it—
The Hebrew people like many ancient people, thought wealth was a sign of God’s blessing and a mark of righteousness and worth. Jesus was teaching them new ways of looking at the world.
We have decoded it—
Scholars speculate that the eye of the needle refers to an ancient gate; A gate so small— so narrow—that a camel could enter ONLY if its load was removed. It turns out this was a medieval interpretation, and sometimes it includes the image that the camel had to get down on its knees to get through. Not a bad image. So, Jesus is telling us to give some of our possessions away. Enough, at least so we can fit through the gate…
We have ignored it.
And a few have embraced it: St. Anthony of the Desert, Francis of Assisi, Maximilian Kolbe, Dorothy Day and Mother Theresa are examples.
I think our greatest fear is that without our wealth, without our possessions, we will have no life, no existence, no way of our knowing who we are, or others knowing who we are. Our security is threatened.
The rich young man has found that his wealth does not buy him what he longs for. Does he approach Jesus as someone whose life seems empty and who is seeking a fix, as if Jesus were a first century Dr. Phil?
Maybe this gives us a clue. What if we looked at this story in a new way? Usually we imagine that the rich man does need to learn to let go, to share or to feel less attached to his wealth. For a moment-- Imagine that the rich man needs healing. Something is making and keeping this good man sick. He is ill, and he cannot heal/save himself any more than the blind man Bartimaeus could. A physician would seek to identify the toxin in his environment and remove it. Jesus does just that: “Go, sell, give, come, follow…” Jesus has compassion and even love for this young man who kneels at his feet, and recognizes the illness that besets him: it’s a kind of addiction. The most effective treatment for addictions has been a spiritual approach developed by Alcoholics Anonymous and modified by other groups.
Step one is to admit that we are powerless over our addiction, whatever that addiction is—that our lives have become unmanageable.
Step two is coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to health.
Step three is to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God. Step three leads us back to the story.
Remember when the young man approaches Jesus, he says, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus answers, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Jesus is pointing to God as the One who can meet the young man’s desire. What he wants can’t be bought.…not by wealth, and not by observing the commandments to not hurt others that this young man has followed since he was a child. The first three commandments tell us to love God above all else. Had he taken these to heart?
Jesus not only tells the young man to sell his possessions, he tells him “Give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.” He is pointing to a way of life that is more than just avoiding bad behavior so that he can be perceived as good. Jesus is pointing the way to a life where riches are shared with the poor. Life is found in sharing life with others, including even the poorest and the marginalized. The young man is shocked and turns away, grieved.
I think Jesus must have been grieving too. He says to the disciples, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.” There’s a tenderness there, despite the image of the camel, that matches the compassion and love he felt for the young man.
Now it’s the disciples’ turn to be shocked! “Then who can be saved?”
“For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” God is at the center.
Jesus’ words are not just an abstract reflection. They speak to the real spiritual difficulty—the fear of losing self-centeredness, or to say it another way, fear that we do not have control over our lives. Jesus knows what this young man cannot grasp, that by letting go of his anxious self-absorption and his hold on things, he will find a new security, and a new relationship to the very things he has released from his grip.
Jesus knows from his own relationship with God that a new generosity, a new abundance of spirit, far from eliminating one’s world actually gives it back in profoundly new and free ways.
Freedom from addiction is what the addict yearns for. Recovery begins with naming the addiction, admitting that we are caught by powers that we cannot handle by ourselves, and putting ourselves in the hands of God, who loves us and desires our wholeness, not just as individuals, which is certainly true, but also as a community of human beings.
What does that mean for us here at Trinity? This community is a place of immense privilege and yet it has pockets of poverty, but even this poverty pales in the face of life in third world countries. My hope is that Trinity can be a place where we can admit that collectively we are uneasy about our relationship with money and uneasy about talking about money.
In the last couple of weeks, you have received information about Trinity’s financial situation, and we will talk more about it in the coming month. But wouldn’t it be a sign of God’s healing grace if we could put our trust in God and risk honest and respectful conversation about the gifts God has given us and how best to carry out the mission of the church? Christian community ought to be where we are safe, where we need not be defensive about who we are or where we are in our journey. There is no need for being puffed up, because respect is offered to everyone.
The church ought to be a school for conversion, so that instead of turning away in fear, sadness or grief, we can together follow Jesus into a life of servanthood.
You know, Garrison Keilor always opens his monologue with “It’s been a quiet week here in Lake Woebegone.” Lake Woebegone is that imaginary place where people have real lives—where daily events raise the large questions of life. And it turns out no to have been quiet at all. It has been filled with seemingly small incidents that raise the larger questions of life, with all the attending human emotions. It hasn’t been a quiet week here at Trinity. Some people are upset, several people have had surgery. Some have a condition not yet diagnosed; people are facing life transitions. The railing on Montgomery House is gone, so I share with you the lines from Julian of Norwich, words which I find strength and comfort. “All will be well. All manner of things will be well.” I really believe that, for you, for me and for this church, because as we follow Jesus, we will find God is at the center.
September 26, 2006
1003Anne Jensen - Sept. 24, 2006
Proper 20 B Mark 9:30-37
What does it mean to welcome another in Jesus’ name?
As a campus minister with InterVarsity at Stanford, in the fall of 1997 Dan Clendenin piloted a "faculty fellowship" specifically for professors. About a dozen faculty began a breakfast meeting every Friday morning from 7–8am in the faculty club. In the next three years two more groups formed. They began with little idea whether the fellowship would work, much less flourish, but across the next six years perhaps a hundred professors, research fellows, lecturers, physicists, and visiting faculty joined the groups at one time or another.
He writes: “When we started most people did not know each other, so every Friday a different professor shared his or her Christian story. The very first Friday morning Doug disarmed everyone with a candid account of his disintegrating marriage. The following week Tony related his frustrations with raising teenagers. Another recounted his financial failures. In the succeeding months it became clear that these remarkably gifted people who had reached the pinnacle of professional success were more interested in sharing their lives rather than mere ideas. The group took on a distinctly pastoral rather than academic ethos. How do you balance personal and professional responsibilities? How do spouses negotiate dual careers with heavy demands? What advice might an older professor give to a younger scholar facing the tenure process? Does God care about my neuroscience research? I still remember the morning that Chuck spoke for many of those exceptionally gifted and gracious professors when he noted with his trademark sardonic wit that "behind every great man there often lies a trail of human wreckage."
Given a safe space that offered Christian encouragement, the Stanford professors experienced the message of Jesus that Mark articulates in his Gospel this week, namely, that the prizes of human greatness that we so honor, envy and pursue—rank, wealth, recognition, power, title, privilege, and prestige—can exact a very high personal price. Worldly greatness has a limited capacity to nourish authentic human fulfillment, it does not protect us from human vulnerabilities, and it often prevents us from experiencing God's kingdom. To make this point, by his words and actions Jesus radically reversed our normal ideas about greatness and taught that insignificant children epitomize the ethos of his kingdom.
Let’s look at today’s gospel, one which evokes a variety of emotions. Three times in Mark’s gospel Jesus foretells his death. The first time Peter tries to talk Jesus out of it, and is rebuked. Today we hear Jesus’ second telling. The heartbreaking element in this passage is that the disciples simply don't get it. "They did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him." There is an acute poignancy in this passage. Jesus has been with the crowds and has responded to their great needs by offering healing and release to the tormented people who came to him. This is a crucial time for Jesus. He is telling his disciples something tragic and inevitable about himself, and they don't understand. He wants to be alone with those he has chosen, to prepare them for the sorrow and shock of his arrest and death; maybe he also longs to receive the human understanding that is so necessary to every person, the assurance that at least these, his best friends, care for what he is showing them about God's kingdom, so that they can carry on his work after his death. But they do not understand. It is easy for us post-resurrection people to scoff at them and wonder, "How could they have been so blind?"
Nevertheless they continue on. When they got to the house in Capernaum, Jesus’ headquarters for that time in his ministry, he asked them what they had been arguing about. They were silent because they were arguing about who was the greatest. No one knows for sure whether they were talking about succession planning or what would be their rank in the kingdom of God, but most likely they were silent out of embarrassment, much like children who are caught in misbehavior. He gathered them and instructed them. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
Then Jesus acts out a parable. He picks up a child…a child who has no status at all. A child in that culture was like property. He picks up a child and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
To welcome a child is to extend the simplest of acts to an individual that society normally dismisses as perhaps cute but ultimately insignificant, someone who entirely lacks any accomplishments, greatness, status, or pretensions. By extension, Jesus invites us to welcome every person in the same manner, without regard for external measures of their worldly importance, status, success or failure. Don Clendenin writes, “Lately I have tried the following experiment. Whenever I am repulsed by a homeless bum who loiters near our home, or nurse a grudge against a friend who spurned me, or envy someone more successful than I am, I try to picture that person as a little baby or child. I then find it far easier to welcome or receive them only as a precious human being, rather than someone who can help or harm me, as someone I might ignore, fear or flatter.” The simple act of welcoming another person in that way, Jesus says, is to welcome him or her, and in turn to welcome God, who sent him.
Similarly, to become or imitate children, as Jesus commands in Matthew’s gospel, is to understand our own selves as children, unassuming and vulnerable, not as people whose significance rests in titles, honors, successes or failures, as if those might gain or deny us favor with God and man, but in the knowledge that we are human beings loved by God.
It is not simply the nature of the child that is important, but the acceptance of the child as a person of significance that counts with God. Servants and children were at the bottom of the social ladder. Jesus once again turns the values of the world inside out. What counts with God is not that which counts with the culture. It is this dynamic that weaves together our readings for today.
How do we take all this into our lives? To welcome the little child is to extend God’s hospitality to the insignificant and the invisible. This congregation has followed this instruction in some ways and not in others. Trinity Parish has been generous in its response to GAIA’s work in Malawi, far away in Africa, a place invisible to us except for the stories a group of people told us.
How do we welcome the people who come to our campus? Are they invisible or insignificant? Now you may think I am referring to James or some of the people who come to the clothes closet or the Sunday lunch, and I am, but I am also referring to other visitors, who look as if they might belong, but we just don’t know them. We had a number of visitors two weeks ago, among them Beth Foote’s husband and teenage children. They arrived before the service and were wandering around in the courtyard. NO ONE spoke to them, and even after the service only a few “hello-s” were exchanged. This is a family that a church would want to have. If we are going to grow, we must be more welcoming, more hospitable. What keeps us from being that kind of congregation?
I go back to the story I told at the beginning, about the Stanford faculty. They look good on the outside and yet all kinds of fears, hurts and doubts lurked within these highly successful people. The reality is that we are like those Stanford faculty, whether we are members of this congregation or just visitors. We are in need of God’s hospitality.
As a part of our year-round stewardship effort we feature a “Sower of Joy” each month. Our “Sower of Joy” this month is Edie Bridges, and among her ministries is speaking to anyone she doesn’t recognize. She says she may embarrass herself by asking “Have I met you before?”, but I doubt if anyone minds being asked. It’s a good line. Another approach if you recognize as face, but not a name, is “Hi, I’m Jane Smith, and I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.” Now if you wore your name tags, you could bypass that line, and go on to “Good morning, John. How’s it going?” That’s a good beginning, but only a beginning. We need to hear people’s stories, their interests, think of how to connect with them and how to help them connect to the community.
A priest friend of mine talks about three levels of conversation. The first level is “Hello, how are you?” “I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” The second level is the kinds of conversation where you share something that is important to you or concerns you. “I’m really looking forward to going to the city this afternoon. There’s an art exhibit/….play….opera I’ve really been looking forward to.” It reveals something about us; we’re sharing part of our lives. The third level is like the conversation the faculty are having at their meetings, and that’s the kind of conversation we should be able to have in Christian community, but we can’t get there until we’ve gone through steps one and two.
We’ve talked about developing the practice of spending the first five minutes of coffee hour talking to someone you don’t know. Let’s do it, and let’s begin today! Coffee hour is part of the sacrament of belonging. Don’t sneak off so that you can avoid conversation. Stay a while and build up the body of Christ that is Trinity Parish.
At the exchange of the peace I want you to look around you for someone you don’t know or know only by face. Welcome that that person. Most of us look pretty good most of the time. You don’t know all that is going on in that person’s life, but your welcoming that person in the name of Christ may make a huge difference, and at the very least, it will be a sign of God’s presence with us.
Let us close with prayer:
Almighty and everliving God, hear our prayers for this parish family. Grant us all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within your holy Church, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Reference:
Dan Clendenin, Little Children and God's Kingdom: The Holy Grail of Human Greatness
September 24, 2006
1002Anne Jensen - Sept. 17 2006
Proper 19 B Is. 50:4-9, Psalm 116:1-8, Letter of James 2:1-5, 8-10, 14-18, Mark 8:27-38
Last week’s story, Jesus’ Day Off, is a hard act to follow, which is pretty much the same situation the disciples faced after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus IS a hard act to follow.
I don't know exactly how many times in the four Gospel accounts of the New Testament Jesus asks other people to follow him. But it's well more than 20. The whole question of "Who is willing to follow Jesus Christ?" is pretty much the defining question of Christianity.
Some Christians may ask it personally of you in the form of, “Are you a Christian?” (which means essentially, "Have you claimed Jesus personally enough to really be a follower?") Other people may pose the question about following Jesus in these terms, "You mean you believe all of this stuff about forgiveness, and loving enemies, and this resurrection from the dead?" However it's worded, the whole matter of following Jesus is central to living the Christian faith.
The question becomes, "What does it actually mean to follow Jesus, especially in modern times, or in middle- or upper-middle class North America?" If you're going to take the words of Jesus seriously - those ones about "losing your life for his sake" and "denying yourself" - well, what's your life going to look like? Should you vacation in Cancun? Or would Yosemite be better? Which destination would express your faith more fully? Does camping versus staying in a hotel make a difference? Should you pursue a job promotion, or be content with where you are? What would the new job mean in terms of time and emotional availability for your family? What about expensive tickets to a sporting event or the theater or opera? If you buy a pair of those, is that gross self-indulgence? Or if your house is full of all sorts of material possessions, what will happen to your soul the next time you pass over a person in need? These are difficult questions, and questions we need to live with every day.
What does it mean to follow Jesus in your life, and in these times? We can worry over the stock market and argue over who holds the TV's remote control. We can get all upset over what other people are doing or not doing, even if we don't care a bit about the inner or outer states of their lives. Yet we struggle to keep focus during even the briefest of prayers. So what does it mean to follow Jesus?
This is the very question James was addressing in his letter. James has some advice that is not bad for us to hear as we begin a new program year together: Last week we heard the part of the letter that reads, "be doers of the word and not merely hearers . . . " The Christian faith is not merely acceptance of doctrine or an inclination toward Jesus, but implies activity in the world (praxis). James continues, “Pure and undefiled religion is this: to care for the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
The text for this week covers important ground. Rarely is Scripture clearer in its affirmation of inclusivity in the church, in this case with what we would today call social class. Two visitors arrive to worship, one with gold rings and fine clothes and another a poor person in dirty clothes. James condemns those who would make distinctions and indicates where he thinks God's loyalties lie: "Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom" that is promised to those who love God? That is heavy stuff, and it gets heavier: "But you have dishonored the poor… "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," he says, and that love is to be impartial and active. He continues: What good is it, my brothers and sisters if you say you have faith but do not have works. Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says, "Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?" So faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
Martin Luther thought this was an awful letter and should be dropped from the Bible because he believed it encouraged a works righteousness…a kind of trying to earn your way to salvation. Other writers find it a balance to Paul’s epistles. Paul was writing against ritual practices such as circumcision and purity practices as a way to salvation.
This letter has traditionally been ascribed to James the brother of Jesus, but scholars believe this is unlikely and that this was written later in the name of James to a Jewish Christian Church. James’ message is to people who already believe, who already have experienced grace, who have already heard the stories of how Jesus lived, and how he reached out to the poor. The works James commends to the readers are acts of compassion. Love of neighbor and of the poor is not works righteousness but a “means of grace.” Just like prayer, reading the Bible, and Holy Communion are channels of God’s grace rather than acts of works righteousness, love of neighbor can be a channel of God’s grace as well. We do not need to earn God’s approval, but we do need to become open to God’s grace.
I want to share with you a story I heard from a woman about five years ago. She joined “the movement,” a group of causes meant to improve the world, in the late sixties, early seventies. She worked hard, but she was unhappy. I suspect she burned out. Love had very little part in her scheme of things. She took some time off, but she had no place to go. She was poor in spirit and she was poor in the material sense. Somehow she encountered some people from the Jesus Movement. In Minneapolis the Jesus People took over an old theater and used the marquee to proclaim Jesus and it appeared to have a lot of young people full of enthusiasm. But this woman’s story was in Connecticut. They took her in and said, “You can come stay with us.” They had a place out of town, an old house with some land around it, and she did her share of the chores.
This woman had grown up in the church, but she felt it was about conforming and duty. The thing that amazed her was how happy these people were. They lived and worked together, but they also sat around and sang songs. They hugged a lot. They told her about Jesus’ love for people—even Jesus’ love for her. She just didn’t get it. She did her chores and would go down by the duck pond to think about things. One day she was down there and she could hear the kids singing up at the house and suddenly she was overwhelmed by the presence of Jesus. Tears started to fill her eyes. After a while she returned to the house. As soon as she entered, the young people looked at her and knew that she’d had an experience of God’s grace. They were almost as joyous as she was! This poor young woman they had adopted for a while was also a channel of God’s grace for them.
Shortly after that the woman returned to her community and her church. She had passion for the poor; with the help of several congregations she developed a center to support inner city families and worked there for years. After that she bought a house in Bridgeport, a kind of shelter for the spiritually lost and gave them nurture and hope. She found her vocation…religious language for doing what Jesus is calling us to do as his followers.
I like how Frederick Buechner defines vocation in a way that makes sense for the Jesus of Mark’s gospel. It makes sense to me and I hope it will for you: Vocation is “the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” (Wishful Thinking)
There is indeed deep need in our world. At clergy conference this last week Bishop Marc Andrus asked us and encouraged us to think of ourselves as followers of Christ, not just as individuals, but as a people who reach out to the world’s needs. He is particularly engaged with the Millennium Development Goals, and we’ll hear more about this later. Christ is present in the world as we together are the body of Christ. This is not to denigrate personal faith or responsibility, but it is to name and reclaim the communal aspect of our faith. The truth is that we need each other—we need support of many kinds…support in discerning direction in our lives, support in our faith, support in our learning, support in our celebrations, support in our making choices for the world instead of our personal convenience.
We will be able to accomplish much more in this world if we join with others to continue the ministry of Jesus. Faith and works go together. We will be doers of the word, and in our doing we will find joy.
August 20, 2006
1000Anne Jensen - Aug 20, 2006
Proper 15B Pentecost 11
Proverbs 9:1-6, Psalm 34:9-14, Ephesians 5:15-20, John 6:53-59
“Taste and see that the Lord is good!”
Never has it been easier to imagine a feast than in the month of August in California. Farmers’ markets spring up all over the place, filled with beautiful vegetables and luscious fruits: hundreds of kinds of tomatoes, squashes, potatoes, plums, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, red and yellow raspberries, red and yellow cherries, blackberries and blueberries. Lettuce, all kinds of big leafy greens. Red beets, yellow beets. Still some apricots. Lemons, local wild salmon, fresh herbs from the garden. Melons, I forgot melons! Surely all this is a taste of heaven…a sign of God’s provision and love for us. Surely we would not turn down an invitation to feast knowing what is at hand.
In the reading from Proverbs Holy Wisdom, a personification of God, has laid the foundations of the earth—the seven pillars—and she has prepared a feast to which she invites all people. She has meat and drink. There are no prerequisites, no conditions to meet-- only an invitation, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity and live, and walk in the way of in insight.” It is an invitation to fullness of life, not just materially, but spiritually as well.
Jesus and the people who came to hear him certainly would have known of this tradition, along with the story of the Exodus, when God sent manna from heaven to the people wandering in the wilderness.
Our gospel this morning comes from Chapter 6 of John’s gospel, Jesus’ discourse on bread, which begins with “I am the bread of life.” It follows the feeding of the 5000. Later that night he stills the stormy waters and returns the disciples to land. The crowds notice that Jesus is gone and they go look for him. When they find him they have many questions: Among them-- When and how did you come here? What must we do? What can you do for us to show us that you speak for God? Will you give us the bread that grants eternal life, and give it to us always? As in many parts of this gospel, there is a mystical quality to the words Jesus speaks. The words are profound.
They are also very graphic—startlingly so. Taking them literally has been a stumbling block for people from the moment they were spoken. This metaphor of flesh and blood works on several levels at once. Jesus’ deeds, his words, and his whole life, including his physical self, his very being—all of that is given as bread for the world to lead them to God. He is bread. Eating his flesh means incorporating him, accepting his teaching, but more than that, it means allowing him to abide in us, and making him part of our lives.
To eat of the bread of Jesus is to experience a personal encounter with the transcendent. Jesus is the new manna, the bread of life that satisfies both our physical hunger and our deeper communion desires. St. Augustine makes the point that the bread of which Jesus speaks “requires the hunger of the inner [person.]” He says the believer who eats in the heart is not one who merely “presses with his teeth.” I believe it’s August who says, “Become what you eat.”
Communion with Christ is at the heart of our faith. It is a mysterious participation in the ongoing life of Christ. Christ is bread, the staple of life, and unless we partake of him and his resurrection life, faith cannot live. There is something about taking another’s physical life into ours that changes our own, as marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and adoption exemplify. When we eat this bread of life, our lives are conjoined with Christ’s. We are to be the bread for the world, living in such a way that we nourish the lives of others. We are called to live simply in a culture that praises consumption so that we can share that bread with the world.
But what if we feel like we’re only eating a tasteless wafer? Someone once confided to priest friend that she saw other people coming back from communion looking so holy that she felt she must be missing something. He assured her that most of them weren’t feeling anything more than she was. I guess she felt better after that.
Yet even when we are not on a spiritual high, there is a compelling Spirit that draws us to the altar rail to receive God’s gift of love, kneeling next to another human being whose need and love is just a great as ours, with hands lifted up to receive that precious bread…little hands, sometimes grubby with paint from an art project, old hands, hands rough with ground-in motor oil from years of labor, mom’s hands holding baby…and all of them beautiful, all of them asking for this life-giving bread.
How might we deepen our experience of communion? I’ve heard people say, “Preachers always say we should deepen our spiritual lives, but they never tell us how.” I can share a few things with you. One is singing the hymns—Paul points to the effect of raising our voices in song—it is to be filled with the spirit. Many times I have felt sort of flat in a service, and then in the words of the hymn, combined with singing, even if I can’t hit all the notes, and being part of a larger group, the Holy Spirit flows in. My heart changes from wood to something much more flexible and available, more willing to trust, to love and to receive love. Sometimes I sing a hymn or chant a psalm all by myself.
Another way to deepen our spiritual lives is to develop a spiritual practice. Many thriving churches have found renewal after they started being intentional about their spiritual practice, employing a kind of discipline that deepened their faith. There are many practices, and through experimentation you can find one that is helpful for you. Many people use daily devotionals such as Forward’s Day by Day. We’re trying another one that is similar. You read the short scripture passage at the top of the page, meditate on it; then read the reflection. Think about how it fits with something in your life, and close by making your own prayer about it.
Yet another way is through the practice of lectio divina. This is an ancient practice, a devotional reading of the Bible or some religious writing. You can use this same process anytime you read the Bible or other religious writing. We did this in Bible study, using today’s gospel, and it was very powerful, so I want to share it with you as a preparation for feast that God is preparing for us this morning. I’m going to read through the gospel again. Listen carefully and let the words wash over you. After a moment of silence, I’ll ask you, “What catches your attention?” You choose a word or phrase or sentence. We’ll read it a second time, and I’ll ask, “Where or how does this connect with my life?” and then, “What is God calling me to do, be or change?” You only need a few words because God knows your heart, and if you are moved to simply be in communion with the living Christ, nothing could be better.
53… Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
1. What catches your imagination?
2. Where or how does this connect with my life?
3. What is God calling me to do, be or change?
Taste and see that the Lord is good. He shall dwell in us and we in him.
August 06, 2006
953Anne Jensen - Transfiguration Sunday-- FACING GOD
Today is a special day! It’s not just the 9th Sunday after Pentecost. It’s the Feast of the Transfiguration, and it is always on August 6. This year it falls on a Sunday, so we are celebrating it. If a feast day of our Lord falls on a Sunday, it takes precedence over the usual readings.
The Transfiguration is important for many reasons; among them is that this event is one that is literally burned into the brains of Peter, James and John by the power of its brightness. After this there can be no doubt in their hearts about who this Jesus is, and it may well be the vision that keeps them going on their own journey carrying their cross as Jesus says the disciples must. It also is a story that demonstrates what it means to be human in the presence of God.
The context of this story is important. Jesus has sent out the disciples to tell them the good news. He taught the people and then fed thousands with five loaves and two fish. He has stilled the wind and the waters. He has healed people. Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter blurts out, “The Messiah.” Jesus tells them not to tell anyone and then predicts his death. He goes on to say that those who wish to follow must pick up their crosses daily.
Through the startling tale of the Transfiguration, the familiarity of the very human Jesus is transformed into the awesome power of the divine Lord. And the disciples—there on the mountaintop, and probably here in this church—don’t know what to make of it.
Now before we go any further, I have a confession to make. I find this story very difficult to preach on. Why?... because it is a story of mythic proportions. Madeleine L’Engle writes, “The story of the Transfiguration is…strong stuff, not to be understood in the language of provable fact. Jesus, like Elijah, stands ‘upon the mount before the Lord.’ He took with him Peter and James and John, and extraordinary, incomprehensible things happened. Jesus’ clothes became shining, and Elijah himself appeared to Jesus in the brilliance… Moses came, too, and they talked together, the three of them, breaking ordinary chronology into a million fragments. And then a cloud overshadowed them, as it overshadowed Moses on the mount, and the voice of God shouted out from the cloud.”
Strong stuff. Mythic stuff. That stuff which makes life worth living… lies on the other side of provable fact. How can we be Christians without understanding this? The incarnation itself bursts out of the bounds of reason. That the power which created all of the galaxies, all of the stars in all of their courses, should willingly limit that power in order to be one of us, and all for love of us, cannot be understood in terms of laboratory proof, but only of love. And it is that love which calls us to move beyond the limited world of fact and into the glorious world of love itself…Of Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah, both of whom had themselves stood on the mount and been illuminated by Gods’ glory. When Moses went down from the mountain his face was so brilliant that people could not bear to look on him, and he had to cover his face in order not to blind them. The brilliance of God is indeed blinding, and we need myth, story to help us bear the light.”
My brain, trained in world that values reason and the scientific method, trips and stumbles on this story. Which is why, of course, this story is so important. What actually happened on the mountain and what was the experience of the three disciples? The event and the experience are inseparable. Jesus is transfigured before them—that is, his form or appearance was dramatically changed. This metamorphosis is the harbinger of his glorified state. But there is not an event without its reception in faith, no revelation without an open heart to receive it. Their faith wasn’t perfect, but it was enough. This story reveals to us to a God who cannot be explained, a God who can only be experienced.
Whenever, I teach confirmation class, we always get into a discussion about whether the Bible is “true.” Then we get into a discussion about what is “truth.” It is clear to me that when we are talking about Holy Scripture, “truth” is not the same thing as “fact.” Indeed, for me, scripture is a mixture of history and myth—not myth in the sense of make believe, but myth in the sense of symbolic story—story that leads us beyond the world of rational knowing, into the world of spiritual knowing. As such the myths of scripture form a window which invites us to see the holy—a world we do not create or control, a world which, instead, creates and shapes us. If we now look at the Transfiguration story as—as holy symbol—maybe we will be transformed in some new way.
When the story begins, it has been eight days since Jesus announced that he must suffer and die—a totally confusing and unsettling reality for the disciples. Though Jesus has said the words, even for him they are still sinking in. And so, as a way of sorting it all out, Jesus decides that his daily discipline of prayer needs to be more intentional and more focused. So, Jesus invites three of the disciples to go with him to the mountaintop—up away from the daily distractions—up away to the mountain top—always a place in the history of human yearning where God can be found. Jesus wipes out his calendar for an entire day, sends a memo that he’s out of the office, dismisses the pressure and people who need him, and then takes off to the mountain top. My friends, maybe this is the first way that this story can recreate us. Maybe we too need to go to the mountaintop. Do we—do you and I take the time to get away, to intentionally find God? I know I need that time. I am looking forward to being on retreat this week.
On the mountaintop Jesus prays with intense need and energy—but the disciples are in the edge of sleeping. Then, all of a sudden, something happens. Jesus begins to glow—a light bathes his body and his face and his clothing. Out of the mystery of nothingness, Moses and Elijah appear—the archetypal figures of Israel’s story—Moses who represents the Law and Elijah who represents the Prophecy. These two historical giants appear, talking with Jesus affirming that Jesus is also God’s person.
Jesus must suffer and die for the holy work of God to be complete. All of this mysterious activity finally rouses the sleepy disciples. Indeed we must wonder if God didn’t and doesn’t do such spectacular things just to make us wake up. And what do the disciples do? What do we do when something mysterious happens? We immediately try to make sense of the experience, to categorize it, to nail it down—to make it fit—to make it permanent, tangible, and rational.
Peter suggests that they build three booths—to ritualize and capture the moment. But God will have none of it. Immediately a cloud overshadows the whole mountaintop. The cloud represents the uncontrollable mystery of God—and out of the cloud, God speaks. “You blockheads—you are missing the point. Jesus, the one who has loved you and nurtured you and who has told you that he must suffer and die is different. He is more than human. He is my son. He is my Beloved, my Chosen. Jesus is me,” God says, “Listen to him. Love him. Cling to him. Follow him.”
For a little while Jesus turned away from his work of ministry and the world, seeking God on the mountaintop—and he was not disappointed. The holy breaks into the human—and the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.
When we see with eyes of faith, the ordinary can be the source of transforming experience. We can meet Jesus in a million different places and as a result be changed; because such encounters shape and change us. The truth of the Transfiguration becomes clear: Jesus speaks with the depth, the power, the love and the authority of God.
Here’s an example of what I mean. Susan Andrews, a Presbyterian minister, writes of her summer of Clinical Pastoral Education. “We spent several hours each day relating to patients on the floor. One of the wards I covered was a surgical/medical ward—where the patients were not only mentally ill, but also were recovering from major surgery or life threatening illnesses. Add to this the fact that most of these patients were poor, black, and victims of addictive behavior—and I found myself in a wilderness that terrified me.
One day, after I used my ring of keys to unlock the door to this ward, there was a new patient—a man in isolation—all alone in a room—hanging between life and death—both legs amputated, but with gangrene still creeping through his body. You could smell the stench of his decay even before you entered the room, and he moaned and sweated in a miserable delirium. For an hour I wandered up and down the hall resisting going in to see him—nauseated by his disease and at a total loss as to what to do. What could I—a naive, twenty-five year old white woman—possibly do or say to ease this man’s suffering? For that matter what could God do? And where was God, anyway, in the midst of all this misery. Finally, I walked into the room, took his hand, and found myself repeating the words of the Lord’s Prayer. And that’s when it happened. That’s when the holy broke into the human—when God took over and grace flowed through me. This man stopped moaning, his eyes stopped rolling, his body stopped shaking. He turned to look at me and then started repeating the words of the Lord’s Prayer with me. And for a moment, time stood still. There was, in that room a peace that passes all understanding. A few minutes later, after I left the room, that man’s suffering ended. He died, finding his own peace at last.”
She continues, “I can’t explain that moment to you any more than I can explain the transfiguration, any more than I can explain to you why Moses’ face shone every time he talked to God. But it was for me and for that nameless, miserable man, a holy moment, a transforming moment, and I have rarely doubted the existence of God or the power of prayer since."
To be transfigured and transformed by the power of God is not something we can understand or explain or make happen. Instead it is something that happens to us—if we open up and pay attention—if we condition ourselves to climb the mountain—if we take the irrational step of offering ourselves as a channel of God’s grace.
July 07, 2006
943Anne Jensen - July 2, 2006
Proper 8B Deut. 15:7-11, Ps. 112, 2 Cor. 8:1-9,13-15, Mark 5:22-24,35b-43
A wealth of generosity: This is a phrase Paul uses to describe the action of the Macedonians who took up a collection for the church in Jerusalem. He first shames and then uses flattery to get the Corinthians to do the same. In the process he teaches about God’s generosity through Jesus. Who for our sakes became poor. He shares this wisdom with them: “I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you…” It’s a matter of balance.
Today’s first and second readings and the psalm are perfect for a stewardship sermon. I’m going to treat stewardship lightly this morning. I encourage you to read the lessons and take them to heart. You can take the insert home and read it again during the week. Stewardship is a way of life; it goes on all year. Here at Trinity we are using the expressions, “Stewardship is everything you do with all that you have.”
It’s all about balance. “The one who had much did not have too much and the one who had little did not have too little.” This leaves us to discern what in our lives is too much, and what is too little in the lives of others.
The words of Moses in Deuteronomy and Paul to the Corinthians refer to material need, but generosity of spirit is inherent in such giving. It implies and requires an openness to the needs and ways of others.
We have a great need of such generosity within our church at all levels. Right here at Trinity I ask you to be generous with one another. If there are actions taken or statements made that seem out of order, instead of making assumptions, becoming angry or suspicious, please ask openly and without defensiveness, what the purpose or intent was. Let us treat each other as the sisters and brothers in Christ that we are.
Beyond our own congregation we are called to similar openness to the rest of the church—no easy matter in some cases.
Last week, in the wake of the General Convention, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, published a reflection called “The Challenge and Hope of Being Anglican Today.” The press has made much of a proposal he suggested—a two-tiered communion with a covenant—those who sign on are voting members; those who cannot agree to the covenant are affiliated and are in conversation and presumably in mission with the communion.
But that’s not all he said. He was emphatic about giving support to the defense of homosexual people: violence, bigotry and legal disadvantage are wrong. He also calls members to appreciate the role played in the life of the church by homosexual people.
Many people and parts of the press believe the issue is homosexuality, but it’s really about process. The issue the archbishop lays out is the question about how we make decisions corporately with other Christians looking together for the mind of Christ.
The archbishop makes a couple of points:
1. It doesn’t help to act as if the question has been resolved when in fact it hasn’t. A pointed statement to the American and Canadian churches.
2. The called-for “listening to the experience of homosexual people” hasn’t gone very far. A statement pointed to the church in parts of Asia, Africa and South America.
3. There are other fault lines, such as ordaining women.
You may have thought that the communion was going along just fine until 2003 when Gene Robinson was elected bishop of New Hampshire, but the truth is that there have been disagreements for a number of years.
One thing we must remember is that the Anglican Communion is a voluntary group, an association of local churches, not a single organization with a controlling bureaucracy like the Roman Catholic Church, so everything depends on what have been generally unspoken conventions of mutual respect. Many in the church felt these were ignored in 2003 and we have been living with the fall-out of that ever since.
The communion could just dissolve and the local churches go their own way, but the same problems exist within the local, meaning national, churches. We know that from our own country. Also the churches are bound to each other informally through networks and exchanges. For example, we have a partnership with GAIA, which is not a one-to-one church exchange, yet churches are involved.
However, at my last church, we had a partnership with a school in Uganda. The parish gave a lot of money to the school, and they were able to build a library and add a couple of classrooms. People also collected notebooks, paper, pencils, crayons and all kinds of school supplies. We were getting ready to do another project just as the archbishop of Uganda, one of the more outspoken critics of the American church, pronounced that they would not take any money from any diocese that supported Gene Robinson. Connecticut did support his election, so we asked our liaison to ask the bishop who oversaw the school if they still wanted to continue the partnership. The bishop essentially said, “Never mind what the archbishop said, we want to continue our partnership.” They needed us and that church needed to be connected to the needs of African children.
What Archbishop Rowan Williams is doing is setting the framework for a process of discernment that allows for theological discussion, something that is reasoned and open to the Holy Spirit in contrast to hardened politicized debate. We are invited into a process, one that calls for generosity of spirit and mind.
This is an uncertain time for the church and uncertainly breeds fear. Time and again in scripture we hear the words, “Do not be afraid.” In Today’s gospel Jesus says, “Fear not, only believe.” The child thought to be dead is restored to life and health. Jesus gives two commandments: “Don’t tell.” and “Give her some food.” Commentators say the food is a sign of the completion of her restoration and was probably obeyed. The other probably wasn’t. Why did he say it? The best response I can give is that this story is symbolic action—it reveals that Jesus embodies God’s power over life and death, but that the fullness of what this means wouldn’t be known until later. The healing is a sign of grace. His own death and resurrection will be the grace through which all our sins are forgiven—such is God’s generosity. We ray for such healing and restoration of our church.
As we are the recipients of this grace, we can be ministers of grace. It may mean making room for undeserved mercies for ourselves and for others in the midst of working out how we are going to live together as God’s people, being in mission for the sake of the world. It is God’s generosity that must dwell in our hearts.
May 28, 2006
896Anne Jensen - May 28th, 2006
Anne Jensen - Trinity Parish
Easter 7B John 17:15-26
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts...
This is the only time I have ever begun a sermon with a quote from William Shakespeare. A friend of mine is the rector of St. Paul’s in Fairfield, CT. He was a college professor of Elizabethan English before he was ordained, and he frequently uses Shakespeare. In fact, certain of his parishioners suspect that he uses Shakespeare MORE than he uses Holy Scripture. That’s not really true, and Ben is a fine priest, well-versed in the Bible.
As Christians we are part of a great narrative. That narrative is a tapestry with many threads: the Old and New Testaments are the warp and woof of this magnificent tapestry woven by our Creator. Into that we weave the traditions of the church…both the historical church and modern church. Each of us has a thread of a unique color and texture. We have a place in the design of this tapestry. We have a role to play in the world.
One aspect of the world is that there are seasons…we divide time in correspondence with that great narrative; we sanctify time to give it meaning, just as we sanctify this space to make it holy. We come and we go from this space, and our common life is woven into holy narrative.
So here we are at the end of the Easter season. Thursday was Ascension Day, the day that marks the end of Jesus’ appearances on earth. Jesus knew before his death that the disciples would have to carry on without his earthly presence.
In today’s gospel we have the privilege of hearing Jesus’ private conversation with God about this time…when he will no longer be with his disciples.
He prays to the One he knows as Father for their protection, “so that they may be one, as we are one.” He continues with a remarkable understanding of who he is and who his followers will be. Jesus knows he is going to the Father and he passionately wants those who remain behind to hold together, secure in the word of God and protected by God. He says, “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”
Both word and world are loaded words in John’s gospel. Remember this is the gospel that begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” From the point of the Resurrection onward, we cannot miss that the disciples were steeped not only in the teachings of Jesus, word with a lower case w, but in the experience of being with Jesus, who is revealed as the Word with a capital W. This has made them different from those who have not shared in this experience…difference leads to be being odd in the eyes of the world, and therefore being at risk. The world, from the beginning of this gospel has been at odds with Jesus and his mission. The way the world works is antithetical to the vision of the Kingdom of God, or to use John’s language, eternal life. Jesus, who loves them and knows their hearts, tells God, “They do not belong to the world…” No, these are the people whom God gave to Jesus, and now, Jesus is asking for their protection and sanctification, because Jesus has sent them into the world just as God sent him.
Let us look at just two parts of this gospel for now. This first is the part about not belonging to the world. The traditional way Christians have said this is that we are “in the world but not of it.”
Would most of you say you don’t belong to the world? Most of us would describe ourselves to a stranger in many ways that would indicate belonging: our family ties, our citizenship in a nation, our residence in a town, our membership in various organizations to which we say “we belong.”
What Jesus is getting at here is the question of ownership. Do the world and its values own you? Are you enslaved to the values and structure, the principalities and powers of this world, or are you free to go against them if you think they are going against God? Think about that in terms of your relationship to your family, your peers, your work, the country or any other civic or recreational organization to which you “belong.” Where is the ultimate allegiance of your heart, and how do you show that allegiance in the way you live your life?
Does anybody hate you because you are a Christian? Do you feel threatened regularly by the world, not just in general, but because you are a Christian? If you do not, then do you suppose it is because the whole world, or even just American society, now agrees with all that Jesus said, and lives by it? Or is it because many Christians have come to belong so much to the world that nothing about our beliefs, lifestyles, economic choices, or anything else is in any way against the prevailing values of our society? Are we truly today “in the world but not of it?” Each of us has to answer that for ourselves. I saw a bumper sticker in the parking lot that says, “If you are not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”
The second thing that Jesus says is that even if we truly do not belong to the world, we are not to be removed from it. Jesus sends us into that world to which we do not belong in order to transform it.
This is so critical for us to understand as modern-day disciples. Jesus does not call us all to retire to single-cell monasteries in the desert to forget the world around us. Jesus calls us to live and speak and witness to our beliefs in the middle of the world. Our life of faith is not to be lived separately from the rest of our lives.
I think American Christians have a particularly difficult time with this because we wrap it up somehow with the Constitutional separation of Church and State. I think that concept has migrated into peoples’ heads and become a rule that the life of faith happens only in church on Sunday, and that is should be kept out of the rest of our lives. From a young age we are taught not to talk about religion or politics. How boring that would be if we really followed it!
Really, we are called to be bi-vocational: we are called to be people in the world for God’s sake and to be God’s people for the sake of the world.
Jesus said, “I have sent them into the world.” He sends us into the world to be witnesses to him. This means that as Christians we are called to make choices in our lives reflecting our faith even when we may be in conflict with the state or any other organization. The hope expressed by Jesus in later verses in chapter 17 is that the world might come to know God’s love through the work of the disciples and so be transformed into the world God planned from the beginning.
The world is like Shakespeare’s stage. It is a place of action, where God’s narrative is worked out. Jesus was praying for us as much as he was for those first disciples…praying for our protection, for our joy, for our completeness in him, for our being witnesses to him. His mission was to the poor, whatever form that poverty takes: illness, infirmity, loneliness, being without money for groceries or rent, bereavement or anything else that causes us pain or anxiety. I am especially mindful this Memorial Day weekend how many more people will be remembering family members and friends who have given their lives in service to their country. My heart aches for them, as I know God’s heart does. Another place God’s people are hurting is Indonesia. They have again suffered horribly from natural disaster with more than 3000 dead and more than 200,000 homesless. Jesus would send us to them.
We are incorporated into the tapestry of God’s great narrative: First through our own life situation, when we discover our own poverty and need for Jesus’ healing presence, and second, through our ministries to each other and the world in his name. The richness of the tapestry is the richness of God’s self. Our threads are but a small part of the whole, yet they give the narrative color and form. Each of us makes a difference.
I recently came across a story about a little village in Italy, one that suffered terribly during World War II. The pride and joy of this village had been a statue of Christ, which stood in the church garden. During the fighting, the statue had been shattered by grenades. After the battle, the priest rallied the people to look for the remains of the statue. Eventually most of the figure was pieced together: head, body, arms, and legs. But no matter how hard they searched, the people couldn’t find the hands. They went to the priest in despair; they had failed to restore the beloved statue. What could they do? “Brothers and sisters,” replied the priest, “you are Christ’s hands.”
May 21, 2006
895Anne Jensen - May 21, 2006
Rev. Anne Jensen - Trinity Parish
Easter 6B John 15:9-17, 1 John 4:7-12
One of the ways we sanctify time is to connect with the seasons of the year through prayer. The next 3 days, the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Day, which is Thursday are rogation days. Rogation comes from the Latin rogare to ask. In this case it refers to the intercessions for the harvest, originally for preservation of the crop from mildew. Thursday is Ascension Day, 40 days after Easter. Jesus ascends is to heaven, marking the end of the post-Resurrection appearances and the exaltation of Christ to heavenly life. The significance of this is that his human nature is taken into heaven. The Episcopalians and the Lutherans are jointly sponsoring an Ascension Day Evensong at Stanford Chapel at 7 PM on Thursday.
There is an old prayer that includes the words, “Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning: grant us to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them."
The words we heard from John’s gospel and the first letter of John are words that should be emblazoned on our very souls, so essential are they to Christian faith and life. "Love one another as I have loved you." Truly they are words to live by.
Now, I’ll complain about the people who put the lectionary together: What were they thinking to give us so much rich material all at once, and then leave out the main metaphor of the vine?
Back to the gospel: We need a little background to help us grasp what Jesus is saying. Just before our reading for today Jesus say to the disciples: “I am the true vine, and my father is the vine grower. He continues, “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing…My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. Our reading for today begins here: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
The image of the vine makes it much easier for us to understand what Jesus was saying to his disciples and by extension to the Christian Community of John’s time, around 90 AD and to us, even today. There is a flow from Jesus to us, just as life flows through the vine to the fruit; without that source of life the fruits will wither along with the branches. Today’s reading is an exposition on what it is to be the branches of the vine. Abiding in Jesus and his love leads to the fulfillment of Christ’s joy, which in turn becomes our joy and leads us to obeying the commandments and the continuation of Jesus’ work. All this points to the conclusion: Love one another. The reading from John’s epistle is an elaboration on the importance of loving one another.
Many words shimmer in this passage, words reaching out to grasp our hearts and minds, words that call us to prayer: “Abide in my love.” “I have called you friends.” “…that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” “Love one another as I have loved you.” “I chose you.” “Go and bear fruit.”
I am struck by the intimacy and passion of these words. If another human being said these words to us, how would we react? Would we be embarrassed…or disbelieving…or overwhelmed that so much love was coming our way?
At the very heart of this passage is God’s love. We can love; we are able to love because God loved us first. And when the people of Israel couldn’t understand this, God sent Jesus to make it apparent… “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This self-giving love is at the heart of our faith; it is the foundation of the Resurrection and our redemption. It is cause for awe and the source of our celebration.
Jesus made the disciples into a society of friends. This is what Jesus invites us into. This commandment took on reality for me when I was preparing to leave Minnesota to go to seminary. I had a circle of friends I cared for deeply, intimate and loving friends. I had to leave, and leave-taking is hard for me; I expect it is for most people. I was driving home one day, thinking about how I going to say good-by. Suddenly I thought, “I can’t be here to love you; love one another for me.” I was startled when I realized my thoughts echoed Jesus’ words. I knew in a whole new way what Jesus was saying. Perhaps those words had unconsciously taken root in my soul.
Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Love comes through the trunk and into the branches; we are loved into a condition in which we become stems to reach other branches; more leaves, then blossoms and ultimately fruit.
There’s a connection between bearing fruit and loving our brothers and sisters. The fruit we bear will be signs of our love for others. This is not a lady bountiful approach to charity so much as it is recognizing our connectedness to the other branches on the vine. We need each other.
Yesterday I was listening to the interviews of the candidates for presiding bishop. One of the candidates is the Bishop of Louisiana. He told of his being only a mile from the highway on which people, including his family, were being bussed out of New Orleans. He could hear the traffic and the helicopters overhead. He was powerless and bereft. He called a friend to come pray with him and he got through the night. A few days later he heard the words from a government official, “Those people down there have to realize…” One of the black pastors turned to him and said, “You ever been one of “Those people” before? He shook his head and said, “No.” The pastor said, “Welcome to the club.” The bishop continued, “Then the calls started coming in from the brothers and sisters in faith, saying, “What do you need?” He experienced conversion. He said his had not been a prophetic ministry; he has repented of that. He sees with new eyes what it is to love as Christ loves us; it is to be in the world for the sake of the least of our sisters and brothers.
It is God’s good pleasure that we abide in love so that we can produce fruit and Jesus says that in doing so our joy will be complete.
So why do we live selfish and distracted lives? Richard Foster points out what we all know from our own lives. “We dash here and there desperately trying to fulfill the many obligations that press in upon us. We jerk back and forth between business commitments and family responsibilities. When we are busy responding to the needs of a child or spouse, we feel guilty about neglecting the demands of work. When we respond to the pressures of work, we feel we are failing our family.”
We become like bruised or broken branches. We are not fully connected to the source of life. God must be at the center of our lives. If we replace God at the center, substituting things like success, family, money or any thing else, we cut ourselves off from life itself.
Being connected to the source is abiding, a continuous condition rather than the filling station mode of getting a quick fill up and moving out until we’re running on fumes again. Abiding provides for a mutual indwelling. This mutual indwelling is found in scripture—it is both a source for nourishment and a resting place. Abiding is living constantly in the presence of God. Such living is constant prayer. Trust in his love and keep the commandments to love and enjoy his presence. Every Sunday we celebrate the Eucharist. In communion we give ourselves to the Lord and Jesus gives himself for us in the bread and the wine. This is the very essence of abiding…mutual indwelling, that he may dwell in us and we in him.
Nurtured and fed, we are appointed to go and bear fruit. Go out and love your neighbor, beginning with your family, our church family, our places of work and ultimately the world. Love is not always easy. It takes time. It takes commitment and energy, and often producing fruit requires money. We are called to be among people as a witness to God’s love for all people, reaching out to those who would be astounded that Jesus would know their name or care: the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised, the outsiders, the lonely and the desperate.
Love one another as Christ loves us.
May 07, 2006
884Anne Jensen - May 7, 2006
Trinity Parish 2006 - Easter 4 B
Ps. 23 and John 10:11-18
"The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want…" How beloved these words are! There are 150 psalms, but the one that almost everyone knows, or at least recognizes, is the 23rd psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd.” We read it to our children, and we read it to ourselves and find comfort in it. Many people memorize it. It is the most frequently requested psalm for funeral services. The image of the Lord as shepherd is ingrained in us from our earliest years. The images of God’s providence: food, water, a secure path, protection, abundance are all very inviting. The child within us, the child we were when we first heard this psalm, still yearns for such security.
But Biblical shepherds were not always so wonderful. In the Old Testament the writers used the metaphor of shepherd for the kings of Israel. For example Ezekiel condemns Israel’s leaders by calling them unworthy shepherds for neglecting to do their duty to the flock. They have been more interested in themselves than in their flock, which has scattered to find its own food. I recommend that you read chapter 34 of the book of Ezekiel to really understand what John’s gospel is referring to. It’s powerful reading!
When Jesus says “I am the Good Shepherd,” he is doing two things. First he is contrasting his leadership to that of the Jewish leaders who have neglected their ministry. Secondly he is claiming this attribute of God, this shepherd quality found in the 23rd psalm, for himself. Throughout this gospel Jesus continues to reveal who he is through the I AM sayings. “I am the Good Shepherd” is the fourth of these sayings.
But Jesus isn’t talking about green pasture and still waters. The first thing he says is “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” By contrast the hired hand, who does not own the sheep, runs away when he sees the wolf coming, leaving the sheep to be scattered.
Then Jesus continues in this new definition of what it takes to be the Good Shepherd. It’s the quality of intimate relationship. He says, “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” In the Bible “knowing” isn’t intellectual knowing, like knowing the multiplication tables. Knowing is the relationship between a husband and a wife; knowing is experiencing other other; knowing is to be connected in a special relationship. There’s a relationship claim here that defines the good shepherd, the one who will lay down his life for the sake of the flock. But he’s saying even more than that.
He has set up and equation here. “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” The relationship between the shepherd and the flock mirrors the relationship between God the Father and the Son. Since Jesus knows the flock and the Father knows Jesus, Jesus is the way to the Father. Jesus, as he has said only 6 verses earlier, is the gate. He says “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will find pasture… And then comes one of my favorite verses in the Bible, just before the beginning of today’s gospel: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Here the Gospel of John meets Psalm 23. The Good Shepherd will provide for our well being and security.
Well, we have heard a lot about shepherds and sheep, but such a livelihood is far removed from our lives. I expect most of us have romanticized shepherds and sheep. Let me share with you a little of my background. My father was a sheep rancher in Washington State. There was very little that was idyllic about it. It was a large operation, and other than the lead sheep none of them had names. The hired hands were an odd bunch, often recruited from the bars on Front Street. Their lives were lonely. If they were lucky they had a dog for companionship and help. Life could be dangerous, especially in the summers when the sheep went up to the mountains, where mountain lions, bears and coyotes thought they’d just found their dinner. One dog was particularly prized because she was good at treeing bears. The sheep were smelly and often restless; they tended to stray. The life of the shepherd was hard.
Obviously Jesus was referring to people, who were his flock, it’s worth asking, “How are we like the sheep?” On the surface we look pretty good: we’re clean and well fed; we take pretty good care of ourselves, and we don’t wander very far off the path. Do we really need a shepherd? And if so, what kind of shepherd?
Well, my answer is “Yes. We do need a shepherd.” But not just any shepherd. We need the Good Shepherd. Here’s why. First of all, for the most part we look better than we actually feel. That is to say, we look more independent and confident than we know to be true because to do so is the cultural norm here. It’s protective coloring. Underneath we may feel as unkempt and scattered as those sheep. Also we have so much information, so many opportunities, so much activity coming at us that we need a perspective, a viewpoint to sort it all out and to try to find meaning in our lives. Jesus, the good shepherd provides that.
Without the presence and guidance of the Good Shepherd we are just as muddled as those scattered sheep. Our internal selves become fragmented and scattered. We need this good shepherd because he is the one who has laid down his life for us and then has taken it up again in the Resurrection. He draws us to himself. He knows us by name.
As we are looking for a new rector, a position most other churches call pastor, which means shepherd, it is important to remember that all earthly shepherds for God’s flocks are derived from the work of the Good Shepherd and share in the work of feeding, guiding and protecting. In Ezekiel 34 God declares, “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down…I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak…” This is the work of Jesus and this is the work of all of us who profess our faith in him.
Yes, we need Jesus as the shepherd of our lives, body and soul, spirit and mind. We need Jesus as the shepherd who laid down his life for us because through that life, death and resurrection he has established for the pathway to the Kingdom of God, even now. That is the realm in which we wish to live. Those are the rules and the guideline which will help us get a perspective on all that confronts us. The prospect of eternal life is what gives us hope and courage in the valley of the shadow of death.
I can’t imagine how difficult life on our own, life without such a shepherd, would be. Once during a spiritually dry time in my life a number of years ago, my spiritual director asked if I really believed. Maybe I should just try living without belief in God. It was awful. I tried it for a week, and it was awful. Nothing terrible happened, but I was desolate.
In this complicated life I think we need to be shepherds for each other: companions and guides on the way, guides to others of the flock when faced with dangers. Our heritage is rich with people who have been shepherds: Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman and many, many bishops, including Bishop Swing, who has faithfully served as bishop for 27 years.
You know the bishop’s staff is really a shepherd’s crook; it’s a symbol of his or her role as shepherd. As I finish, I want to say just a few words about our election of Mark Andrus to be our new bishop, which took place at Grace Cathedral yesterday. The day was set in the context of prayer and of the Eucharist. We had the liturgy of the Word before we started voting, and between each ballot there was a hymn, a prayer and a meditation. Once we had an election, there was a great cheer! Through the marvels of technology, he was able to make his acceptance by telephone, in a voice that was as clear as if he had been at the cathedral. He was thoughtful of the other candidates, he was humbled by the experience, and he is passionate for the gospel. I believe the spirit was present and active as we called a new bishop to be a shepherd for this diocese.
I believe the spirit is present and active with our search committee as they proceed with their work to find a new rector who will be the shepherd of this congregation. Earthly shepherds need to find their model in the Good Shepherd.
We too can be shepherds...as long as we can be like the psalmist who proclaims, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…. And with the psalmist conclude, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
April 16, 2006
826Anne Jensen - Easter Morning, 2006
Easter Year B 2006 Acts 10:34-43 Mark 16:1-8
Welcome! Part of the good news this morning is that you are here! People come to church on Easter for many reasons. Perhaps you are here with friends; perhaps you are new in town and haven’t found a church yet; perhaps this is a difficult time in your life and you yearn for some word of comfort. Perhaps you came to hear glorious music and have your spirits lifted. And maybe you came because you come every Sunday! Whatever brought you here, I’m glad to see you. We welcome you with joyful music and the best story ever told. Christ is alive! The church is filled with the fragrance of spring flowers, signs of new life which the gospel proclaims. We come with hope and expectation that we will meet the risen Christ and be filled with joy. We’re all dressed up and we have some place to go! The place is here…and Jesus Christ is here. How do we meet him?
We meet him in the words of Peter in today’s lesson from Acts. You remember Peter...he denied knowing Jesus three times that awful night after Jesus was arrested. What changed him from a frightened liar to a great preacher? Two things: the Resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter was witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. As fascinated as he was by Jesus, he didn’t get what God was doing until after the resurrection. Jesus didn’t come just to a small group of people in the Eastern Mediterranean as a moral teacher, although he surely was that. Jesus. Jesus came for all people. “God shows no partiality…” Peter’s message about Jesus is for everyone. Jesus was anointed by God; he healed the sick and relieved the oppressed. He was crucified, “but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and rank with him after he rose from the dead.” From his own experience he has confidence to say, “...everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
In fact Peter himself is evidence. He’s an example of Jesus’ transformative power. Peter has been forgiven for his outbursts and even more for his denial of Jesus. He personally knows the power of being forgiven….and the gift of the Holy Spirit. That, my friends, is an unbeatable combination! And it is a combination open to everyone of us. How that happens exactly is as big a mystery as the resurrection itself is.
What happened? Maybe w should call today’s story the Case of the Empty Tomb or Rendezvous in Galilee. Then we would know we were dealing with a mystery. The problem with a mystery is that we want to solve the puzzle, and this mystery remains just that. Mark’s gospel narrative invites us into the mystery. The setting has its own kind of romance…the women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, came to the tomb just after sunrise, carrying spices. They are practical women, and they are caring women. They want to give Jesus, even in death, what they can…a proper burial. They are worried about how to enter the tomb. “Who will roll away the stone?”
The stone is already rolled back! The women enter cautiously. A young man dressed in a white robe is sitting on the right side, and they are alarmed. The young man says what all messengers from God say, “Do not be afraid.” “Do not be alarmed.” Of course they are alarmed! “…you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He as been raised; he is not here. Look. There is the place they laid him.” There is the heart of the mystery: the empty tomb. “He has been raised.” Go, tell the disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is God’s action! Violence, sin and death do not have the last word. God has acted even when human beings have done their worst.
The women saw the empty tomb. Surely one of the great ironies in Mark’s gospel is that after all the times Jesus tells those who have experienced his healing power, “Tell no one,” the angel says to the women, “Go tell!” They are so frightened that they run from the tomb, too frightened and too amazed to speak. They are dumbfounded. How long before they find their voices and tell the disciples? I don’t know, but we know they did tell others.
Peter testifies to the resurrection because he sees the risen Lord; the resurrection changes everything—or from another perspective, makes everything clear. It solves a lot of other mysterious prophecies, but the resurrection is God’s mystery.
Peter the preacher is a man fully alive. He is an Easter person. The apostles became Easter people, people who even if they didn’t see the empty tomb experienced the presence of the living Christ. And that made them feel alive. Irenaeus, one of the early church fathers, wrote, “The glory of God is the human persona fully alive.”
How would the people around us know that we are Easter people? What is the sign of our being a witness to the resurrection? It is this characteristic of being fully alive—of being people alive in our faith in a way that gives us energy for enjoying and appreciating the gifts of creation—of being people alive in our faith so that we live with awareness of the conditions of others and live lives of compassion. There was a son that floated around the church in the late sixties and early seventies that had a refrain “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Love in this case is not cheap sentiment, but love that compels us to action for the sake of others. Easter People are alive in their faith because they have been forgiven and made whole; they are alive in their faith because they have seen the mystery of the resurrection and know that with God anything is possible. Easter people have hope, and it all comes back to the resurrection. God can do what we cannot.
The best example of an Easter person I can think of is Bishop Desmond Tutu. He’s 75 years old now and has had a bout with cancer, but he’s still full of life. He’s alive in his prayer. He does Morning and Evening Prayer no matter where he is! He is fervent in his prayer. He can be tough too. At the time when the apartheid laws were at their worst and he was under death threats, he said he did not worry whether he would be killed, because if he were, God would raise up someone else to finish the work. He spoke on behalf of people who had no voice, calling for equality and inclusion at his own peril.
He’s alive in his work of reconciliation, which he still does. After the laws of South Africa were changed, he headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which undoubtedly kept South Africa from civil war. During the hearings he would break down and weep at the stories people told. He is a man of great compassion.
And he is a man of great joy. He is filled with joy…he laughs, his smile is a mile wide, and he dances. He embraces a vision of inclusiveness that has room for everyone. All these characteristics are signs of what it means to live as a witness to the power of the resurrection.
We can’t all be Desmond Tutu, but we can recognize within ourselves and in others the aliveness that reveals the love of God and celebrate it. Howard Thurman, a powerful spiritual writer of the mid twentieth century, wrote, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” We can live as Easter people, witnesses to the resurrection. It is a joyful and loving way to live, and it has a ripple effect. God’s love is contagious!
Christ is alive and brings light to our lives. The tomb cannot contain him, no can we. Finally the Living Christ is also the Good Shepherd. The staff he carries is not to punish the flock, but to bring them back to him. Come to the Resurrection Celebration! Come, eat and drink new life!
May the joy and power of the resurrection live in you and through you.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
And your line is: “The Lord is risen, indeed!”
April 02, 2006
798Anne Jensen - Lent 5
Lent 5 Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ps. 51:11-16, Hebrews 5:1-10, John 12:20-33
Trinity Parish - April 2, 2006
“The days are surely coming,” says the Lord, “When I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts…No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord.;… “ I will forgive their iniquity , and remember their sin no more.”
The people of Israel had not been faithful to their God. Jeremiah makes the comparison to marriage. The Lord was the husband and Israel the unfaithful wife. It is Israel who has broken the covenant, not God. God promises a new covenant, not one carved in stone or written on parchment, but one that is written on the heart, a covenant that abides within each person.
This is huge! God is creating the circumstance to start over! What God envisions is a covenant in which the people truly wish to love and obey God from within, not because the law says so. Love of God cannot be legislated. It must come freely from within. Love and obey…we think of love as a matter of the heart, an inclination that grows into desire, and so it is, ..... but we balk at obey. What? We give control over to someone else? That’s hard—it goes against all that our culture says; it goes against our ego needs. But wait a minute; think of your spouse or your best friend, someone you love dearly. Then imagine 0that your beloved friend expresses a desire or gives you some good advice or even chastises you for your own good or the good of your relationship or some other relationship. You listen and you hear what he or she says.
My own allergy to the word obey improved immensely when I learned that the word obedience comes from the Latin word that means to hear. When we hear the words of the beloved, our response is to act accordingly out of love, or at least negotiate to a place of mutual understanding. Out of love, you work to stay in relationship. Hearing and doing. What we do reflects our love.
Doug and I have an ongoing conversation about what is in the marriage contract or covenant. For example, when I make a request about some chore that he doesn’t want to do, I might point out that it is in the marriage contract. But it also works in reverse. For example, if I have the 5 PM Eucharist and need to go set up, even if he has been sleeping or reading, he gets up and comes with me. I have often said, “Oh you don’t have to come.” And his response is, “Yes, I do. It’s in the contract.” Our actions reflect whom and what we love. Out of love, God is working to stay in relationship with us.
Obedience to God is love of God in action. Out of love, we listen and we act according to God’s desires as much as we are able. The law provides ways to help show that love. God knows we can’t do it all. That’s why God reaches out to us through forgiveness. Jesus taught us to forgive one another as God forgives us. This is central to the new covenant that is written on our hearts. The new covenant is based on grace and forgiveness. Grace is God’s answer to human sin.
As we explored forgiveness last week we acknowledged that usually it is not easy to forgive. When forgiveness is easy, we just do it, and move on. We get stuck on the forgiveness that is hard, when we have been deeply hurt or when we bear the guilt for what we have done or failed to do. Lent is a time to reflect on our own need of forgiveness and our need to forgive others.
This morning we heard the choir sing a portion of Psalm 51, a beautiful prayer of confession. Can we with the psalmist pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me?” In verse three the psalmist says, “For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.” Most of us consider ourselves pretty good people, not overly sinful, and that’s probably true. Yet we all experience sin. Karl Barth quipped, “Of all the doctrines of the Christian faith, sin is the easiest to prove.” The evidence is all around! No matter who we are, we all get soiled and have to take a bath. I find that it is so much easier and such a relief to acknowledge my sin, my ego, my failures, and my foibles, and to receive God’s forgiveness, than it is to remain in the fiction that I am always good.
The psalmist knows that God has the power to reverse his situation—to change him. Not only can God wash away the sin and guilt, God can restore the relationship. He writes, “Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.”
Joy is the fruit of asking God’s forgiveness. The fruit of forgiving ourselves and others is a restored relationship with God, our neighbors, and ourselves. I believe any time we are estranged from one part of that combination, we are estranged from the other two, as well. For example, if we are separated from God, our relationship with our neighbors will be strained and we will not be our true selves.
God has done for us in Jesus what was promised in Jeremiah. Through Jesus we find forgiveness of our failures. Jesus told us the story of the Prodigal Son so that we would understand the magnitude of God’s gracious forgiveness, which makes a new relationship possible. The father in that story did not exact a confession; it was the son who wished to confess. His moment of truth came when he was in the field with the pigs and realized they were better cared for than he was. He returned home willing to be a servant to his father. Are we like that son who realizes that the father offers a better kind of life? Are we willing to return as a servant? Are we ready to be greeted with joy?
Jesus, as we heard in the lesson from Hebrews, is our great high priest. One of the roles of the priest was to identify with the people before God. Jesus as our priest is our mediator and advocate. Through him we find the power to receive in our hearts the new covenant. Through him we have a way back to God. With our new covenant, and a renewed spirit we will have hearts that are growing every day, hungering to know, love and serve God.
As part of our service this morning, we have a rite of reconciliation. Forgiveness is an ongoing part of Christian life. One of my favorite parts of the prayer book is the question in the baptismal service, “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?” Note the word “whenever” not “if”. I find it reassuring that there’s no expectation on the part of the church that we will live sinless lives, and that forgiveness is always a pathway that is open to us.
There are papers and pencils in the pews. This is your invitation to write down what you want God to forgive. What sin do you want washed away? What fear or resentment do you want to unload? Where do you seek reconciliation in your life? Don’t try to write the full story; just use a word or phase. You and God will know the fullness of your heart and mind. If you cannot offer full forgiveness right now, offer what you can. Make a first step or a next step. Let die that part of your ego that keeps you from being your best, most loving self.
After a period of silence for writing, the ushers will collect the papers (folded over) and bring them forward. They will go into a bag, and then on Easter Eve they will be burned in the new fire of Easter. No one will read them.
This morning hear the words of absolution as if they were spoken only for you. Imagine Jesus laying a hand on your head and saying, “you are forgiven; your faith has made you whole.”
March 26, 2006
797Anne Jensen - Lent 4B Ephesians 2:4-10, John 6:4-15
Lent 4B Ephesians 2:4-10, John 6:4-15
Trinity Parish - March 26, 2006
God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.
If you grew up in the Lutheran or Reformed tradition, these words probably took hold of you at a very young age. I’ll have to confess I don’t remember hearing them in any way that made an impact on me until I was in my thirties. We were in the basement of the church for the adult forum. The wife of one of the clergy, a theologian in her own right, was teaching a series on Paul, and she was not going to let us out of that room until we understood the truth and the importance of this sentence. Grace is a gift of God; we do not earn it. Period. Grace originates in God’s love for us.
Presbyterian minister Jim Davis suggests that as you consider this passage from Ephesians, you think of a symphony with four different movements. Think about the verses we just read together from Ephesians chapter 2 as if they were a symphony—a masterwork scored with artistry by the skilled composer the apostle Paul. The theme is grace, but it does not stand alone. We start out in a minor key. In the first three verses of that chapter Paul reminds the people that they were spiritually dead; they were caught up in the surrounding culture and lived according to their own desires and pleasures, and were “by nature children of wrath. He says, “All of us were like this.”
Then changing the key for the second movement, Paul says, “But God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loves us even when we were dead through our trespasses…made us alive together in Christ.” In truth when we are separated from God, we are shells of human beings; the center is missing and we walk around like zombies. That’s what it means when he says, “even when we were dead from our trespasses.” Through the grace which Jesus Christ made known to them and to us, we have new life, not because we are good or because we deserve it, but because God loves us. God decided not to abandon us to being stuck in our own stubborn ways; God will not abandon us, even when we want to die.
In her autobiography, The Whisper Test, Mary Ann Bird writes about her childhood. Born with a cleft palate, she had a difficult childhood. She was always afraid of how other children looked at her. “I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me,” she remembers.
But her life changed when she was given a hearing test by her second grade teacher, Mrs. Leonard. This test consisted of standing by the door, covering one ear and listening for what the teacher—seated at her desk—would whisper. The child would repeat what he or she hear, phrases such as “the sky is blue.”
Mary Ann Bird writes, “I waited there that day for those words that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life. Mrs. Leonard said in her whisper, “I wish you were my little girl.”
God, my friends, is whispering that same message this morning. God is whispering to all of us whose lives have been deformed by the power of sin. “I wish you were my daughter, …my son.” Will you let God’s grace touch you, and turn you, and change your life?
One dimension of God’s grace is forgiveness, and it is here that I want to focus this morning. God forgives our trespasses out of love, out of grace. Forgiveness is God’s starting place, and accepting it is a life-changing experience.
So why does God choose to deal with us by means of forgiveness? William Countryman, who teaches at CDSP, says in his excellent book Forgiven and Forgiving there are two reasons: One is that God’s forgiveness undercuts the worst temptation of good people: self-righteousness. It saves us from getting stuck on ourselves in ways that can ultimately stifle our own souls and perhaps hurt others.
He says there is another important reason that God chooses to deal with us by forgiving us rather than by rewarding our virtues. Forgiveness gives us the breathing room we need to live and grow. If God’s goodness to us is based on forgiveness, that leaves room to make some mistakes in life—room actually to be human. Mistakes are inevitable; they are part of the way human beings grow and mature. We wander off the path and find ourselves on dead-ends, wandering in the forest. Then when we find a new sense of direction, we discover that our off-road misadventure has become part of us in unexpected ways. It has given us new insight, new courage, new humility and new life. Forgiveness gives us space.
We tend to assume that the basic thing in life is commandments and rules: be good, do the right thing; love one another. And the world would be better if we did that. However, there’s something more basic that undergirds even these commandments, and that is God’s love. This love that began by creating us now spills over and reclaims us. The only useful response to this love is to let it assume its rightful place at the center of our world.
Why is this important? Because if we really believe this and live into it, we will discover new life. Right now this congregation is discerning what God is calling it to do and be. The Town Hall Meetings two weeks ago were part of this process. I was struck by some of the comments, particularly the comments that said that the congregation didn’t know its purpose and that the next rector needed to be a reconciler.
First of all I want to say that the work of reconciliation is at the heart of the church’s mission. This is the work we should be doing now to prepare for the ministry of the new rector. Secondly reconciliation involves seeing everyone as loved and as forgiven by God. Forgiveness doesn’t wipe out the past. What it does is put the past into a new context, a new perspective. It asks, “How can this past wrong now become part of the ongoing history of redemption?”
There has been conflict here; friendships have been broken; mistrust has floated around, feelings have been hurt deeply. I know this because from the first week I was here, people have come to share their stories.
What steps do we need to take? Knowing that God has already forgiven us, we need to forgive ourselves and each other. I think we have made a good beginning at the Telling Our Story evenings—because what we did was to name honestly the issues of the last six years. Naming the feelings and the issues is the first step to reconciliation.
Forgiving is easier said than done. We all know that. This isn’t a matter of saying, “Oh, forget it; it doesn’t matter.” That is denial. No, we are called to join with God in envisioning a future characterized by love and communion with one another. This is true at all levels in our lives—in our families, our church, our communities and our world.
How do we go about this? William Countryman suggests four steps: first, prayer regarding the one who wronged us. You can use the psalms to uncover your true feelings if you have been in the habit of stuffing those feelings; you can pray for those who hurt you and ask God to turn their hearts.
The second suggestion is to reflect on the universality of God’s forgiveness. We can hold back from receiving it, but God doesn’t hold back. We can pray for God’s help in learning this same amazing and powerful generosity. Even if it seems impossible, we can live “as if” we already have that gift.
The third suggestion is to reflect on God’s forgiveness of you. Such forgiveness and acceptance of God’s love is life-changing. And don’t get stuck on not forgiving yourself. Are your standards higher than God’s? What kind of arrogance is that? I personally have been stuck here; let it go.
The fourth suggestion is to pray for God to lead you into the future. Countryman says “The end of the story that began with the harm done to you is still unknown.” God may know, but we can’t see it. Only confidence in God can give us the hope and the courage we need to move forward. Because God desires for us what is good, we trust that even our hard experiences can lead to something of value. (pp. 54-56)
I invite you to reflect on where in your life you need to make amends and seek forgiveness. A good apology takes ownership of the fault and doesn’t make excuses. It opens the window for the future. Reconciliation doesn’t come all at once; it is a process and it is God’s gift working in you.
Next week as part of our services we will have a rite of reconciliation. Think about what in your life you would like to let go…forgiving yourself or someone else, asking forgiveness, letting go of a resentment that keeps you from being fully human and fully open to seeing the world with God’s eyes of love and forgiveness. Take some time to write about it if that will be helpful. It often is for me. Then on Sunday we will have paper and pencils in the pews. I will ask you to write down what you want to leave here and give to God. No one will read what you write, and the papers will be burned in the new fire of the Easter Vigil, when we celebrate new life.
Paul wrote that God made us alive together with Christ. Together is an important word. Forgiveness and the spirit of generosity it generates, affect others; it changes the dynamics and tone of our life together.
Remember that symphony I mentioned at the beginning? The third movement of the symphony restates the centrality of grace, and we can slip in the word forgiveness…you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. Grace hs no boundaries; in the future we will keep on discovering the riches of grace.
And finally the fourth movement: it is significant because it answers the question of purpose, and it is expansive. We are created for the good works God has prepared for us to be our way of life. We will walk that way in faith.
The heart of forgiveness is this: it is God’s free gift to us and to everyone else. Open your hearts to accept it. Live into this truth: Forgiveness looks to the future.
February 19, 2006
739Anne Jensen - “What does our future look like?”
Anne Jensen - Feb 19, 2006
Epiphany 7B Is.43:18-25, 2Cor. 1:18-22, Mark 2:1-12
God is faithful…that’s the theme for the day, and it rings through all our readings. It is a golden thread that weaves through scripture, but it must be teased out and brought to life.
Because it is the most difficult reading of the day, I’m starting with the letter to the Corinthians. Have you ever had a friend, relative or consultant say, “I’m coming; I’m going to stop and see you on my way back home,” and then that person doesn’t come. You might have been annoyed, or maybe relieved.
Well, the Corinthians were a little annoyed with Paul. He had promised to stop by on his way back from Macedonia and then changed his mind. We learn elsewhere in this letter that he had visited them on his way to Macedonia and that there had been a confrontation; his reason for not stopping was to avoid another painful incident. We don’t know what the incident was.
The people of Corinth were a fractious group, so it is not surprising that they were angry at Paul and accused him of duplicitous behavior with perhaps the underlying emotional fear of “You don’t care about us.” The implied question is whether Paul can be trusted, and if his message can be trusted. Paul’s response is vigorous: “As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been “Yes and No.” First and foremost Jesus Christ and his message of new life is rock solid. It is true; God is faithful and Jesus is the proof. Through Jesus we are able to say Amen—our YES to God.
It is God’s action that has brought forth this relationship between Paul and the people of the church in Corinth. To underline the commitment God has made to them Paul uses a business metaphor. It goes like this…and it is as true today as it was then: Through Jesus, God has entered into a deal with us; God has set a seal on us that identifies us as God’s possession, and God has given us the Spirit as earnest money, as a first installment of what is to come. God said “Yes!” to the people of Corinth and God says “Yes to us.”
And we being human, wonder, “What does our future look like?”
Almost 600 years earlier God also made promises to the people of Israel when they were in captivity. Through the prophet Isaiah, God sent this word: “Do not remember former things….I am about to do a new thing…I am He who blots out your transgression for my own sake…” The people of Israel understood this promise to mean that they would be freed from captivity and allowed to return to their homeland and build a new life. God said “Yes!” to the captive people.
And they wondered, “What does our future look like.”
God was faithful and they did return to the land God gave them.
Christians have understood this passage from Isaiah as foretelling God’s saving act in Jesus, the Christ. Today’s gospel acts out this promise and reveals God’s faithfulness. Jesus is the new thing. Jesus forgives the sins of the man who was paralyzed, much to the amazement of the scribes. They asked, “How can this be…who but God can forgive sins...it doesn’t fit into our picture.” Ah…God said, “I am about to do a new thing….I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” The man’s sins are forgiven and he is restored to health and to a new life. God said “Yes!” to the man and his friends.
They each wondered, “What does my future look like?”
God said, “I am about to do a new thing…I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake.” God is ready to do a new thing here at Trinity Church. God is ready to forgive the past; God is saying “Yes” to this congregation! God is faithful.
And we wonder, “What does our future look like?”
What do we need to do to be ready for this new thing…for this next phase of our life in Christ?
We need a positive healthy environment, characterized by trust: first of all trust in the “Yes” that God is for us and then trust in each other. Trust that God’s love for us is stronger than our need to hold onto old bad habits; trust that God is providing the leadership we need to move ahead. Trust that the vestry is inspired by God to act in the best interests of this congregation; trust that the search committee is grounded in God and working diligently with the gifts God gave them.
What else do we need to do?
We need to come together to affirm what is good and true and beautiful in our life together. Joy and humor should be in full evidence. We need to come together to share our dreams and as well as our concerns. Apathy and passivity are obstacles to God’s movement. This getting-ready business is a task we must all share. When we have a vision, we have hope; where we have a vision, we will have goals. We already have a partnership with God through our relationship with Jesus Christ. Through prayer, study and creativity, we can discern what new thing God is calling us to and what kind of leadership we need.
Getting ready means having a broad-based consensus on “who we are, where we are going and what kind of leadership we need.” We are going to begin this process with the “Telling our Story” event on March 5th and with the Town Hall Meetings on March 12. We need YOU to be part of this, because the church isn’t just the buildings or the programs or a small group of people on the vestry and search committee. The church is all of us who come together to praise God, to say the great AMEN, and to share in the bread and the wine of new life.
God said, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Even now God is doing a new thing.
We wonder what our future looks like.
As we wonder, let us remember God’s great “Yes!” to us, as individuals and as a community. God is faithful! Through Jesus Christ, God offers us forgiveness of our sins, release from paralysis, and new life. We have received the Holy Spirit as a first installment. How much more might God have in store for us?
January 29, 2006
767Anne Jensen - Jan 29, 2006
Anne Jensen, Jan 29, 2006
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January 08, 2006
703Anne Jensen - Jan 8, 2006
Epiphany 1B
Mark 1:7-11
"The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord is upon the mighty waters. "
So wrote the author of Psalm 29. I wonder if St. Mark knew that psalm? The psalmist is referring to the creation story in Genesis 1. “In the beginning when the earth was wild and waste, darkness over the face of Ocean, rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters—God said: Let there be light! And there was light.”
Rushing-spirit of God breaking through the darkness… Those words conjure up images of power; images of change. Ruah, that Hebrew word that means both wind and spirit even sounds like a rushing wind. There it was, sweeping across the face of the waters in the very beginning, just as the spirit-wind and voice were upon the waters of the River Jordan at our Lord’s baptism.
In the story of Jesus’ baptism John proclaims that the one who is to come after him will baptize with that same spirit, that same powerful rushing spirit. And then at the moment of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River that rushing wind-spirit of God descends of Jesus. The evangelist says, “He saw the heavens torn apart.” Torn is too tame a word. It is more like “ripped, pulled apart.”
The symbolism is that the space between heaven and earth has been opened up; no longer will there be a great separation, but now God through Jesus has provided for the bridging of the distance between humans and God. And just as the rushing-spirit penetrated the darkness in creation, the rushing wind-spirit has pierced the darkness that comes when humans are separated from God. To make sure that we know who this Jesus is and what is happening, the voice of God says, “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
This scene is as powerful as any theophany in a Cecile B. deMille or Steven Spielberg movie. Imagine the heavens being torn apart by huge heavenly winds; spectacular lighting, and the thundering voice of God, combined with violins and tympani. Then we hear the intimate words of affirmation. “You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
It is of this Spirit, this ruah, that Jesus later says “You do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” This is the Spirit that is both blessing and source of fear. We long for a gentle, comforting movement of the Spirit; but the Spirit is not to be so limited. The Spirit blows where it will. Willingness to give up human control is not one of our primary attributes or desires. Anything that demands our giving up control is something we generally feel we can do without. And yet this is the very Spirit we are baptized with. Baptism is the beginning of our journey in faith, and we do not know where the Spirit will lead us.
Let’s go back to Jesus’ baptism for just a moment. In Mark’s gospel we see John hard at work managing a growing revival meeting down on the banks of the River Jordan. People everywhere as far as one can see confessing their sins and accepting God’s forgiveness.
Over the horizon, beyond anyone’s sight or vision, strides in the adult Jesus having walked all the way from Nazareth. Into the water he goes. As he comes up out of the water, the heavens do not just open, they are torn apart – a word we will not hear again until Jesus is on the cross, breathes his last ruah, and the curtain of the temple is torn in two, from top to bottom. Out of these torn apart heavens the Spirit-Wind, the Ruah of God, descends like a dove upon him. And a voice from heaven declares, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Listen carefully to the voice: You are my…Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Now try to let the imaginative gift of the Spirit, which is yours in Holy Baptism, hear those words spoken to you, to us. For you see, we are Christ’s Body. As we come up from the waters of our baptism, these words are meant for us: You are my son, my daughter, my Beloved; I am well pleased with you.
What would it be like to accept our belovedness? How does that feel? How does it feel to know, to really know deep inside in the most secret places of our being that God is well pleased with us? Can anyone among us remember having heard these words at our baptism?
It is altogether likely that in growing up that we forget. We forget ever hearing these words. We forget who we are and whose we are. Sadder still, we come to believe that this could not possibly be God’s word to me, here, now, today. We let our own self-sufficiency get in the way.
Yet, to believe this is to separate our selves, our very self, from the love of God. And to separate our self from the love of God is what our Baptismal service calls sin. This is perhaps our most fundamental sin: to forget that we are God’s Beloved. We let fear and anxiety take over. Such forgetting is the beginning of so much that troubles us. Such forgetting makes it nearly impossible to follow and obey Christ as our Lord and Savior. We think we have to be good all the time on our own resources.
A friend, reflecting on this gospel, says it always reminds him of an experience from his first year of high school. His parents went off to the parent conference while he stayed at home and worked on his assignments. He was a good student, but not the best; he was an okay athlete, but not great. When his parents got home, his father came up to his room and said, “Son, I’m very proud of you.” The father never said why, or what the teachers had said about him. Yet those words of affirmation changed him and made him want to study harder to become a better student. They made him feel more connected to his father , and they made him stretch himself as he grew up.
Perhaps hearing and accepting God’s love will make us want to be more loving, more compassionate, more committed to peace and justice.
It takes a conscious effort to remember who we are and whose we are. It takes daily reminders to accept our Belovedness. It takes daily remembering to internalize this Good News of our Baptism into a living force of God’s Spirit-- alive within us and beyond us.
Friday night and Saturday the vestry was away at Mercy Center for a retreat, and most of our time was given over to reconnecting with our spiritual roots, remembering who we are as members of the body of Christ, before we got down to the organizational work. This interim period is a time for the whole congregation to reconnect with our spiritual roots; to discern who we are and who God is calling us to be. We need trust that we are loved by God and called to continue the ministry Jesus began and let this rushing wind-spirit stir us up…… How do we do this?
For starters, read Psalm 139 once a day for at least 30 days. Your acceptance of this News will deepen with each reading. The secondly we can take to heart this short passage from Henri Nouwen’s little book, Life of the Beloved
“At your center is a voice that says: I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will satisfy all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. … Wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us.”
This morning we are baptizing Wyatt. As we commit ourselves to supporting her life in Christ, let us also remember to support each other, reminding each other of being God’s well-loved child and encouraging each other in our ministries.
God’s Spirit-Wind hovers above us night and day, calling us, forming us, making us God’s own. Listen for the voice of the Lord: “You are my Beloved. With you I am well pleased.
December 24, 2005
694Anne Jensen - Dec 24th
Christmas Eve 2005
We have finally arrived at the loveliest night of the year. We all love stories, and there has never been a more beautiful nor a more hopeful story than the one told by St. Luke in the passage we have just heard. How many times have you heard this story? Have you memorized it? I find myself anticipating the words, just as I anticipate a favorite piece of music. And when I hear it I am thrilled to the center of my being. Does it work this way for you?
This year perhaps more than any other time in the last 30 years, we long to put our trust in God whose titles include “wonderful counselor, mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.” The invitation for this night is simple: come and worship.
We adults approach this night with trepidation. Children don’t have to worry. They still feel the thrill of it. Grown ups, however, do worry.
--Am I going to be disappointed if I don’t feel the wonder I felt when I was a child?
--Is this Christmas Eve going to pass me by if I don’t feel it? Please God, let me feel something again, don’t let this night leave me indifferent; or worse, don’t let it leave me worrying about dinner tomorrow, about whether family members will get along with one another, or about the anxiety of gift-giving.
LEAVE ALL THAT WORRY AND ANXIETY AT THE DOOR…. By now we have done about as much as we can do. It’s time to change gears. It’s time to stop engineering the perfect Christmas. Gather around with those we love and cherish; welcome the stranger and praise God whose glory is beyond comprehension.
Tonight we remember the night when everything changed. Everything is either before or after this night. This is the night when heaven and earth were brought close to each other. This is the night when God became human. This is the night when the archangel spoke to the shepherds, and said, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And then, just to underline the importance of this announcement, the heavens were filled with angels who were praising God and offering a benediction of peace. In a burst of light and energy, everything changed.
And yet, no one knew that at the time. All this happened in the midst of ordinariness; people go back to their home towns, people have babies, shepherds watch their sheep; the government levies taxes. Only the angels knew about the change. We are celebrating a moment when God enters history and nothing is ever the same after that.
What a contrast to what we think of as Christmas—a set of traditions to be preserved: hearing the same story, which is properly read from the King James Version; Christmas decorations that have been passed down through the generations; a vision of family gathered at the hearth, a special dinner—all things that take us back to our childhoods: whether our childhood Christmases were really like this or we only pretended they were. We want to hold on to the Christmas we know and hope for.
Yet an irony of our faith is that on the very feast of the nativity of Christ Jesus, when we so much want nothing to ever change, we are, in fact, celebrating the great moment of change in human history. In Jesus God becomes human…God Incarnate, God in the flesh.
Bishop Steve Charleston says, “Incarnation means change. It means God coming into our time and into our space and into our lives and into our comfort zone and shaking things up.” God is creating and recreating in us a new way of being and challenging us to take seriously the changes that surround us and to be co-creators with God in the world around us.
Here at Trinity we are in the midst of change. Change is always a challenge because we don’t know what the future is going to look like. The message of the angel is that we are not to be afraid. God is with us.
What change is God working in you?
Because of the incarnation all of life becomes an arena of God's extraordinary saving activity, even here in Menlo Park. Recognizing this, suggests Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, is the secret to living the entire year with a sense of God's presence. This is the change that comes with the Nativity. God is not just “out there;” God is in the middle of our lives. The Archbishop puts it this way: "Here we are daily, not necessarily attractive and saintly people, along with other not very attractive and saintly people, managing the plain prose of our everyday service, deciding daily to recognize the prose of ourselves and each other as material for something unimaginably greater—the Kingdom of God, the glory of the saints, reconciliation and wonder." (Where God Happens, 2005).
We are the raw material for the Kingdom of God, for becoming saints, for being agents of reconciliation and for being people of wonder, whose eyes have a special lens for seeing the presence of God in everyday moments, everyday lives, and everyday situations.
Really!
In Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, God dwells in us and we in him. Through him we can be changed and we can be agents of change and reconciliation.
St. Paul captures this so well in his second letter to the Corinthians. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”
In this broken and hurting world we have been commissioned to find pathways for reconciliation. Hear the angel say, “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid to hold a vision of peace and work for it, among each other, within our families, within our congregation, within our communities, and within our world. On this night, when we are blessed by the mystery of God coming among us as an infant, a baby to love and admire, can we allow our egos to slip away so that our true selves can be renewed and shaped by this most wonderful love?
If we can do this, our lives will be changed. Our changed lives make it possible for other lives to change when we love the infant Jesus, and when we care for all children—when we care that they have safe drinking water and enough food; when we care that they have an education instead of having a gun thrust in their hands and forced to join some ragtag army; and when we care that they can have medical attention.
Again it’s ironic that this holiday that we always want to be the same is the same celebration that creates change. It is a celebration year after year after year that no year is ever the same and that our lives are never the same and that every year we are older and hopefully wiser but still engaged with our God. The God of history is always making things happen. Change is not something that we as Christians should fear. Change is the nature of life. It is the nature of the church.
We must not fear the new but be active agents of bringing the new as God brings the new into the world every day, every week, every month, every year, and, yes, every Christmas. When we bring ourselves to the Christ child in the manger and offer Him all our hopes and fears we make room in our hearts for change…a change of heart that leads to reconciliation, a change that gives voice to justice, a change that enlarges our mercy and compassion. We are changed and we effect change—just as the flapping of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil can affect the weather in California.
So how shall we celebrate this festival of change? First I would say let us approach the manger with wonder and love. Do you know the power of a baby to change a hardened heart? Of course you do; it is not just sentimentality. We are hard-wired to love babies and to respond to their vulnerability. At an even deeper level we are made to seek God. St. Augustine wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” With an open and loving heart let us turn to each other and to the world to seek reconciliation and peace.
Tomorrow we shall rest in the traditions of Christmas, in the warmth of our families and friends, wrapping them around us like swaddling clothes. Let it be familiar and warm and loving. But the next day, we shall step out into the world changed and renewed. We shall be ambassadors for Christ, using the gifts God gave us to give glory to God.
We shall step out in our own incarnation and once again pick up our gifts and go to work with God to face change and make change for the glory of God's name.
This evening let us rest in the peace that is holy and in a time where time itself seems to stand still and the winds and tides of change are held back with the sounds of angelic voices drifting through a starry, cold night.
Let us pray:
Almighty God of change, God of what is new and what is coming to be, we want to be your partners in the world around us. But on this Christmas Eve we want to rest with you in that timeless moment of your nativity-- in the mystery of your incarnation. Let your Spirit so comfort us this night, so wrap us up in the swaddling clothes of your truth and compassion and mercy that we rest gently in your arms as a baby lying in a manger and know that there is time enough tomorrow for us to join you in changing the world. Amen.
December 11, 2005
672Anne Jensen - Dec. 11, 2005
Advent 3 B 1Thes.5:12-28
“When is the Lord coming? Why haven’t we heard something?”
I can just imagine the members of the young church at Thessalonica asking St. Paul these questions. The disciples themselves asked Jesus when he would appear again. Jesus’ answer included a description of a time of overwhelming violence, yet he continues with this warning, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father.”
No one knows; Jesus didn’t know and Paul didn’t know.
Paul wrote this letter in 50 AD about 20 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Scholars generally believe that this is the earliest of the letters in the New Testament. Thessalonica was a free city in Greece with a significant Jewish population living among the people who worshiped many different gods. The congregation was made up of both Jews and gentiles and included women. Paul preached in the synagogues three times and then under pressure left for Athens. The Christian community faced persecution from both the city officials and the Jews. Once Paul was in Athens, and again when he was in Corinth, he wrote for Timothy and Silas to come visit him. We believe that this letter is in response to the report that Timothy gave to Paul in Corinth. Paul obviously has great affection for this young church.
Very early in its history the church had to deal with the delay of the paroursia, the Greek word for the “arrival” or “coming” of the Son of Man. When is this coming of the Lord? How long must we wait?
We are still asking the same questions, especially when things are not going well. I can tell when I am under stress because when I get to that part of the Eucharistic Prayer that goes “And at the last day bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom,” I pray with special fervor. We have a longing for the Kingdom and for the restoration of shalom, God’s peace.
The problem St. Paul addresses in his letter to the church in Thessalonica is the same problem we face. How are we to live in the “in-between times?” While the Thessalonians were struggling under persecution, we are struggling in an environment that is often hostile to faith, especially if it is critical of the materialism and self-centered individualism of the culture at large.
This morning we heard his exhortation to the community, giving them the basics for how to live in community. He is giving instructions and encouragement to the church SO THAT THEY WILL BE READY FOR THE COMING OF THE LORD.
Paul encourages the people to love and care for one another and for all people, and he prays that God will strengthen their hearts. The good people of the church in Thessalonica have embraced the gospel and are filled with the Holy Spirit, so he is not criticizing them; he’s encouraging them and giving them advice.
BE AT PEACE AMONG YOURSELVES. Living and working with others is hard; we are willful people. Peace here means more than absence of violence, both physical and emotional; it means establishing right relationships with each other, and that often means first getting in right relationship with God and ourselves, so that we can see ourselves honestly. Christ’s purpose on earth is reconciliation: with God, with our neighbors and within ourselves.
I witnessed a poignant moment of reconciliation between two women; I don’t remember the cause of the breach, if I ever knew. Their friendship was strained, and they didn’t know what to say to each other, so they avoided one another for about a month. One Sunday morning at the end of the service, during the last hymn Nancy went up to her friend, not knowing what to say, and just gently touched her arm. She said, “Kate.” Kate turned toward her, saw who it was, and with a great wave of relief, said, “Nancy!” and threw her arms around her.
Usually when there is brokenness between people, there is hurt on both sides, and that brokenness affects the whole community because we do not live in isolation. We have a need for reconciliation here at Trinity.. The events of the last several years have caused strains in the fabric of our lives. The listening meetings are a part of the process of coming together. You as individuals know better than I do where there are strains. Advent is a good time to begin our reconciliation because we are particularly aware of Christ’s coming again in glory? Are we ready?
Paul is very direct. He counsels patience. He also says, “See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always pursue the good for one another.” That’s a fairly straight-forward lesson in ethics. It’s the next part that hangs over us, or at least hangs over me. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” How am I going to do that? That’s quite a prescription! But what if Paul is really describing how it is to “live in Christ,” his language for the new and transformed life one experiences through the grace of God?
REJOICE ALWAYS. This requires stepping back and imagining life without knowing God through Jesus, estranged and burdened with guilt. My spiritual director more than 20 years ago asked me to imagine just such a condition when I was having trouble connecting to Jesus, so I tried to. The sense of loss was awful. Sometimes we don’t know what we have until we don’t have it anymore, or we imagine we don’t have it. By comparison, everyday annoyances are just that, and I have to remind myself of that. The gift of new life in Christ and the movement of the Holy Spirit are so great, that we are drawn to joy, at least in the larger scheme of things.
PRAY ALWAYS. No, this doesn’t mean constantly muttering memorized prayers when we are trying to live our lives. The Outline of Faith, which you can find in the back of the prayer book, says “Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.”
In prayer God really wants a relationship with our true selves, the selves we are in our hearts. One minister writes, “On our own we really don’t have much wholeness to present to God on a daily basis. Instead we are invited to lay the pieces of our life on the altar, assured that God will accept us. But that daily offering must include our entire selves. Our incompleteness. Our scattered-ness. Our impetuous-ness. Our humanity. Our failures.” In this kind of prayer we get stirred up; we open ourselves to receive God’s word for us, which can be a word to change, along with God’s love, grace and mercy, which strengthen us and renew us to prayer-full actions.
Another way to imagine this piece of instruction is to think of “praying always” as living in a way in which you are always in relationship to God; that your words and your deeds are grounded in that relationship, whether or not you are conscious of it, because it is your customary way of being.
There are many books written on prayer and how to pray, and there are many ways to pray. Jesus always went away to pray before the major moments of his ministry. If you do not have a practice of prayer, then now is a good time to begin, even with just a short prayer in the morning or evening. Many people pray in the shower, others while they are walking the dog. Maybe it has been years since you have said bed-time prayers, but now is a good time to restart them. Just listening for God is a kind of prayer. Advent is a time to pray…we await the coming of Christ in power and glory. Are we ready?
GIVE THANKS IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. This is closely related to rejoice always. It’s a stretch to pray, “I thank you for all the difficult people and situations in my life,” but in reality, we grow through the hard times. Our character and our spirit expand as we face our true selves in the midst of trouble and turn to God. In true humility we can see that we need God and each other. We can and do receive help, and give thanks. And we can become more the people God wants us to be. Even when life is bleak, we can give thanks for the birth of Jesus, for God becoming human and dwelling among us, and for making a new kind of life possible for us, not just as individuals, but for us as a community, and for the world. We look for his coming again in great glory. Are we ready?
And Paul says: DO NOT QUENCH THE SPIRIT. Stay open; listen, think; stay away from what is evil. Let the Spirit live and move within you, personally and collectively. Be ready!
St. Paul closes his letter with a benediction that is as is as comforting and supportive today as it was the day he wrote it. Eugene Peterson in The Message says it this way, “May the God [of Peace] who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our savior Jesus Christ.”
There is one who is to come. Our waiting is not passive. It IS something. It is mixed up with preparing, with being stirred up and opened up. Our waiting is highly significant, because people tend to be shaped by whatever it is they are waiting for.
November 29, 2005
653Anne Jensen - Nov. 27
No transcript available for this sermon.
The audio file is here. Recorded at the 10:00 am Choral Eucharist service.
This is the first week of Advent.
Readings are...
Isaiah 64:1-9
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Mark 13:24-37
November 13, 2005
642Anne Jensen - Nov. 13
This is a day of Thanksgiving. Don’t panic! The national holiday of that name is still 11 days away. It is a day of Thanksgiving in the same way that every Sunday is a day of Thanksgiving…Eucharist means “Thanksgiving.” It is the great Thanksgiving for all that God has given us, especially the Gift of God’s son, Jesus. Through him we receive redemption, grace, and the hope of glory.
It is also a day of Thanksgiving as we bring forward our pledge cards, pledges made in gratitude for all that God has given us and for this community of faith. Trinity Parish is a very special place, more importantly it is a community in which God’s love is known and shared, a truth that has been expressed in our listening meetings this past week. We are doing something a little different this year. We are asking you to come forward to make your offering. If you need a pledge card, the ushers have extras. We also have time and talent cards. Everyone can offer something. No gift is too small. Could you offer to pray for the mission of this congregation everyday? Could you make a few phone calls? Could you help host a special event?
Once all the cards are collected, we will bring them to the altar for a prayer of dedication and thanksgiving…and we will leave them on the altar as a sign of offering of our lives, along with the bread and the wine, elements from everyday life, and with our weekly offering.
Some people might feel like the money doesn’t belong on the altar, but I believe it does, because it IS a symbol of our lives and our work. Jesus didn’t shy away from speaking about money, as today’s gospel demonstrates.
Before we delve into the gospel I want to explain why our inserts look different today. The readings appointed for the day were all about judgment, and I believe we need to take God’s judgment seriously. I believe God’s judgment is intended to get our attention and to motivate us to get back into relationship with God, but that’s a sermon for another day. However for the 1st and 2nd lessons and the psalm, I chose to use the readings appointed for Thanksgiving, readings which speak to us as we draw this season of our stewardship effort to its conclusion. These passages remind us of all that God has given us and how we are to live as Christians.
And now to this very familiar parable of the talents: First, a little background—this parable is set in the middle of several which point to what will happen when the kingdom comes. We cannot avoid the element of judgment of this parable. Throughout scripture we hear God’s instructions on how to live; sometime there will be an accounting. This parable points to a time when Christ will come again.
Also, let’s remember the definition of a parable: “At its simplest, the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”(C. H. Dodd, Parable of the Kingdom, p. 5) This story, like other parable of this season, leaves us unsettled.
In modern English the word “talent” has come to mean a mental endowment, skill, aptitude or physical ability that a person might have. Our understanding of the word is based on this parable. This English usage, which first began in the 15th century, has become important in the interpretation of the parable in modern times. We talk about discovering and using our talents for the glory of God.
However, a talent in this story is not what we think of as a talent now. A talent was the largest denomination of money in the Greco-Roman world, equal to about 20 years’ worth of wages for a day-laborer. Five talents would be about a 100 years’ worth of wages. It’s winning-the-lottery type money. This amount would stagger any recipient and send him into utterly uncharted territory.
I suspect that we identify with the first two slaves—the ones who used the enormous amount of money to make more money. That’s very American and entrepreneurial. It reflects our culture. And of course, we take pleasure in the approval of the master. At some level we all seek approval.
But consider for a moment two other options, one that speaks to the church and the other that speaks to our personal spiritual lives.
Jesus used this huge amount of money, an outrageous hyperbole, to symbolize the gospel. What value would Jesus attach to the gospel? It is the pearl of great price, it is like the Torah of old, “more precious than gold;” you sell all you have and don’t notice the door slamming behind you as you sprint after this Jesus. The gospel that Jesus proclaimed and that we share is that in Jesus we experience the love and forgiveness of God. Through Jesus we are redeemed from a life of sin, from the burden of guilt, and from fear of death. That’s the Good News we’re talking about.
First option: What if the servants are not individual believers, but represent the church, a corporate body to whom the gospel has been entrusted? And what if the rewards are not neat progress reports after 90 days, but the joy of the messianic banquet? Some communities, like the first two slaves, embrace the gospel and take risks for it. The gospel spreads; lives are changed, and there is a lot of joy on earth and hope in eternal life.
This would be true for the first two examples, but what about the slave who buried the money for safe-keeping and received a verbal thrashing from the master. This is the church that keeps the status quo and takes no risks. It is a fearful church. It takes a stance that does not please the master and which produces nothing—no joy, no hope, no changed lives. The gift from the master just stays buried. The gospel that is not used and is not shared, dies. It disappears, as does the community. All will be taken away.
The question to take away is, “How are we like the slaves in this story?” Established churches tend to be like the slave who buried the talent for fear of losing it. Do we have the faintest idea of how to embrace such huge and overwhelming gifts as forgiveness, grace, and new life? If we admitted to being overwhelmed, would God smile on us, and say, “Let me show you the way.”?
The second option is very much like the first, only it has to do with our personal spiritual lives. Again, we like to think we would be like the first two servants and receive approbation for receiving the gospel and living it, being not only believers, but doers of the word.
Step back for a moment. Using the metaphor of the talent, the huge gift from the owner, imagine it in the form of a Bible, and the first servant was entrusted with a beautiful Bible, with copious footnotes, scholarly articles and devotional writings, and beautiful illustrations. That person read and believed, and experienced the grace that followed. Her personal relationship to God deepened. She reached out to many others, and through her they knew God’s love. The owner, when he returned, was pleased.
Another servant also entrusted with a Bible, this one with a good serviceable binding, a good introduction to scripture, some footnotes and some attractive illustrations. This servant began to read and was moved to read more carefully and reflectively. And his personal relationship with God grew. He shared his growing faith with others in his small group at church, and they all benefited. When the owner returned, he was pleased to see faith taking root in this servant.
The third servant was also entrusted with a Bible. This Bible was written in simple sentences. It had a good glossary and some maps to help the reader. The print was large and easy to read. This person was afraid to use this book because she didn’t want anything to happen to it, so she put it on a shelf for safe keeping, and went on about her life, just as she had before. When the owner came to see how she had used it, she said she had kept it safe. The owner was not pleased and took it back to give to someone who would read it.
Over the last four weeks we have talked about stewardship of our money, of our skills, and of our time. Today I ask you to consider how we are going to be stewards of the gospel. It is a good question to consider for the interim period.
This past week we had two of the three listening sessions. It has been a great experience to hear the love and affection that people have for this community. It was good that people felt safe enough to say what is on their minds. It was wonderful to see people really listening to each other. It was exciting to hear people wanting to take risks for the sake of the gospel. (Parenthetically, there will be a third listening opportunity this coming Wednesday, and if you haven’t yet attended a listening group, I hope you will try to come to this one.)
Spiritual growth, both on the congregational level and the personal level requires that we put aside our personal security in the status quo and open ourselves to the gospel and the movement of the Holy Spirit. As Christians we are thankful people; we are thankful for the goodness of creation and for the gift of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The gospel entrusted to us has taken root here. It is here and alive among us. How shall we be stewards of this enormous gift?
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