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Author Archive: Beth Foote : Return to Main
April 13, 2008
1741Beth Foote - April 13, 2008
John 10: 1-10, Psalm 23, Acts 2: 24-47
Last week we gathered here at Trinity and heard from my good friend Katie Evenbeck, Director of St. Dorothy’s Rest retreat center in Sonoma County. Katie wove the story of the 12 Mile Hike to the Ocean, with the Road to Emmaus story as a metaphor for carrying on, and being transformed by the experience of the journey. This morning we “go pastoral” again, returning to the countryside with our readings from the Gospel of John, and the 23rd Psalm.
Over the course of the week, I learned that today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is traditionally known as Good Shepherd Sunday. However, today, we do not actually hear Jesus say “I am the Good Shepherd” because the Lectionary, or plan of readings appointed for each Sunday, cuts the Good Shepherd reading into separate pieces. But we do hear the 23rd Psalm, which I am so glad about and hear those beautiful words, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
Today we read the first part of the passage from John, which includes an elaborate metaphor. Jesus talks about shepherds, gatekeepers, thieves and bandits. It’s hard to know who is who. Reading it this time I noticed that John says the disciples did not understand what he was talking about, so Jesus, the consummate teacher, shifts gears and tries to get his point across again with a simpler metaphor, saying “I am the gate.”
It sounds simpler, but is it?
My son Colby and I just returned from a quick trip to Eugene, Oregon to check out the University of Oregon one last time before committing. (He decided to go there and accepted their offer…Go Ducks!) I was thinking about this sermon during our trip and I was amazed by how many gates we passed through: Security gates, boarding gates. Car rental return gates. It got me thinking, what is a gate? A gate is an opening, an official point of controlled access which guards something of value behind it. By passing through the gate we access whatever is within, and often must pay some sort of price to pass through.
Gates were a big deal in the ancient world. Cities were surrounded by walls, and gates in walled cities like Jericho and Jerusalem controlled access to the cities, and earlier in the Gospel John we hear about the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. Maybe Jesus knew this gate? Jesus’ knowledge of gates also might have something to do with his talking about “thieves and bandits.” In those days, only thieves and bandits got into a walled city without going through the gate. By pointing to a commonly understood situation, Jesus is able to get across a point to his listeners, that the Gate in his metaphor is important.
Walls and gates continued to be key throughout the medieval and modern times. Siege warfare, moats. The Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin. And of course, gates are still all around us. Besides the airport, I can think of many everyday examples: gated communities, tollbooths, border crossings. Usernames and passwords on websites. And we can’t forget Bill Gates as well. You will have to make your own connections there.
Gates are often symbolic or decorative as well as functional. Think of the Golden Gate Bridge, the ornate gate at the entrance to Chinatown. Or the Arch de Triomphe. English church traditionally have a Lychgate that marks the entrance to the sacred ground of the churchyard. And until recently, St. Dorothy’s had a Lych Gate, too.
Getting to St. Dorothy’s is part of the fun of the place. You turn off the Bohemian Highway in Camp Meeker up a one lane path that winds up the hill. There are several heartstopping points along the way where you are so close to the edge you can only pray, curse, and look straight ahead, and God help you if someone is coming the opposite way. Finally, you drive up a rise and with a flurry of gravel under the tires, you’ve arrived. That is where you used to see a rustic structure that spanned the entrance to the camp, the St. Dorothy’s Lych Gate. Two summers ago they had to tear it down because it was rotting away. This summer they’re rebuilding it in grand, Arts and Crafts style.
My oldest daughter was very upset when the Lych Gate was demolished. I think she was upset because it was an important landmark in her young life. Andrea first came to St. Dorothy’s as a camper when she was 10. The Lychgate symbolized for her a her passage into a new world of being away from home and having cool adventures away from Mom and Dad.
So, we can think of gates as landmarks for transition points in our lives. As we all know, there are times in our lives when it feels like a gate swings open before us, or shuts behind us. I’m sure you can think of your own gateway experiences when your life is forever changed. Perhaps it was going away to college, getting married, starting a new job, having children, retiring. There are others, too, that we don’t talk about as much: diagnosis of a serious illness, an accident or injury, divorce, estrangement, death of a loved one, losing a job, depression. These are all experiences we pass through that are difficult, and we must carry on through the transition and beyond it.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures/he leadeth me beside the still waters.”
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says many other “I am” statements like today’s “I am the Gate.” “I am the light of the World.” “I am the Way, the Truth and the Light.” There are also many passages where Jesus says “the Father and I are one”, “the Father has sent me,” which is the closest we get to an explanation of the Trinity in the Gospels. In John, Jesus is tightly bound with God the Father so that in looking at Jesus, we are encouraged to see God.
In Trinitarian theology the three persons of the Holy Trinity are all in conversation with each other; it is a dynamic, circular, social, loving relationship that models how we can interact with each other as people of faith in community. Orthodox Christians picture the relationship of the Trinity as a dance.
Perhaps as “the Gate,” Jesus is our access point to this way of living in the Trinity as community. By knowing Jesus, we enter into the Gate, like the sheep, in our passage today, and enter into the life of faith, the ever changing web of life in community, the dance. Our reading from Acts today describes this shared life well.
He restoreth my soul/ he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his Name’s sake.
As we enter this Gate that is Christ, we trust in the Good Shepherd even “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for thou are with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”
Today we’re at the threshold of one of those gateway transitions in the life of our parish, as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death with Father Mike and his family. This is a difficult time for all of us. There is much uncertainty, sadness, helplessness, and uncomfortable feelings of “Why, God?” and “what ifs?” Our souls are tender. We have all had experiences with loss in our own lives that reemerge in times like this. I’ve been reminded once again of the loss my family experienced twelve years ago when my brother died at 35 of alcohol abuse.
Yet out of that tragic experience, something new emerged. It was during that time of walking the path of shock and grief, through the valley of the shadow of death, that I learned to pray and ask for God’s help. How could this be happening to my family? Out of desperation, I learned to offer it all up to God. And God took it and held it for me while I walked through that valley. It was during the trip up to Arcata where Mark died under sad circumstances, that I found the Good Shepherd walking with my parents and me. And it was some time after that experience, maybe five years later, that I began to feel the first stirrings of a call to ordained ministry. Out of great pain, God brought forth something new and life-giving in my life.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies/thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
We do not know what seed God has planted in the heart of our parish during this difficult time at Trinity. Father Mike’s ministry has been a seed of change and growth. He is part of our story at Trinity and he is in the dance of the Trinity, the web of relationships that is Trinity parish.
Father Mike is on a journey to the resurrection, and is still traveling in the shadowlands. The Shepherd is with him, as the Shepherd is with us as we live through this experience as a parish. The Shepherd’s rod and staff, the disciplines of prayer and worship comfort us today as He guides us onward.
We are in the shadowlands with Father Mike and his family, yet we see the green pastures, the still waters beyond the Gate. Together, let us break bread and drink from the cup that runneth over and remember:
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” Amen.
February 17, 2008
1667Beth Foote - Feb 17, 2008
Romans 4: 1-5, 13-17; John 3: 1-17; Psalm 121
Luther was forever changed by this epiphany that grace is a free gift from God, and many historians say that the Reformation really began with Luther’s “Tower Experience.”
The other juicy, beautiful text we have today is the story of Nicodemus from the Gospel of John, which includes the classic verse John 3:16.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and member of the powerful Sanhedrin council who condemned Jesus. Scholars believe that Nicodemus can be traced to Nicodemus ben Gurion a wealthy Jew who lived in Jerusalem in the first century C.E.
Nicodemus visits Jesus secretly at night, and the darkness is a significant piece of the story. African American slaves felt a kinship with the Nicodemus story because in the ante-bellum South slaves could only worship at night. Perhaps Nicodemus was sneaking out at night so no one would know he was talking to Jesus. Perhaps you could say that Nicodemus was enslaved in a way by the powerful system he was a part of; at that time, the Sanhedrin had become a puppet of the Roman occupation. What did Nicodemus see in Jesus that caused him to seek him out secretly, under cover of darkness?
I confess, I feel a kinship with Nicodemus. He is one of us, one of the well-heeled city dwellers, one of the respected ones, who is comfortable in their home at night, who has enough to eat, who has the weight of religious tradition behind them. And then he meets Jesus. The challenger, the truth-bearer.
In their conversation, Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Of course, Nicodemus takes this literally and gets stuck on the metaphor of birth. He says, “How can this be?” Like Mary at the Annunciation, he wonders at the miraculous. “How can this be?”
This passage is the original context of the term “born again.” To be a “born again” Christian has become an American cultural phenomenon. In “born again” Christianity, one knows exactly when you were born again, or accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior. And it’s only after that moment of personal conversion that one is baptized.
How do we do we see conversion in the Episcopal Church? I’d like to point out that in our baptism service we ask, “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord? (BCP 302-303) That’s pretty darn direct. It sounds like the process of being “born again,” to me. But in our tradition, we often say those words as parents for our infant children, and our parents might have said them for us. We ourselves may not have a decisive “conversion moment.”
I suggest that if you’re looking for something special to do in Lent, meditating on that one question in the service for Baptism could be your discipline. Like many vows we take in life--marriage comes to mind--the questions answered at baptism take years to live into and understand. That is one of the reasons why we usually have baptisms during a Sunday morning service: to pledge our support as a community, and to have the opportunity to repeat our baptismal vows. and say those words over and over again.
In the Episcopal Church I would say the process of conversion is usually a slower process of “inwardly digesting” Scripture, participating in the Sacraments, and learning from each other as we serve as members of a faith community. One way is not necessarily better than the other, but I think it’s important to understand that conversion not just about “being saved” myself as in “I’ve got mine” vs. “you don’t.” Rather, it means a lifelong process of accepting God’s grace and responding to Christ through service.
Lent is a good time to do this kind of work, to examine where we are on our faith journey, or using another vocabulary, in the conversion process. Like Nicodemus, we often approach Jesus when we are in the dark or searching for deeper meaning. Jesus meets us in the dark. He listens but he also challenges. He speaks, but we often hear the message and respond with “How can this be?”
Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” One commentary I read this week said that the water Jesus refers to here is not baptism as we assume; as a Jew, Nicodemus had no knowledge of baptism. When Jesus talks about being “born again,” Nicodemus naturally thought of the watery fluid released during the birthing process. As women know, birthing takes time, and is mysterious. For me, that mystery included a deep sense of the physical and spiritual being intertwined. Like Water and the Spirit are intertwined. I think it’s important here that Jesus underscores the reality of physical birth and spiritual birth; they are inseparable in our lifelong process of spiritual formation. Jesus challenges Nicodemus and us to widen our vision, go beyond the literal.
Working hard is part of our culture. We tend to believe that if we work harder, we will succeed. The early bird gets the worm. My daughter the college student uses that term, “pull an all nighter.” Just be more focused. Use best practices. That’s part of the American work ethic, the Silicon Valley work ethic. We unconsciously also apply that ethos to our relationship with God
But Jesus says, “Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above. The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”
I love it when we hear the humorous edge to Jesus’ voice. In addition to being mysterious, the birth process is capricious. If we go with nature, babies are born on their own timetables. It’s the same way with our spiritual formation. There IS capriciousness to life in the Spirit. Some people DO have conversion experiences. Some people don’t. God doesn’t schedule conference calls. Holy epiphanies come while we’re in the shower, or on the freeway, or cooking dinner, or exercising. God’s time is Kairos, outside of our everyday 24/7 structures. God’s spirit blows where it will.
Ultimately, the initiative comes from God. Martin Luther’s revelation about the passage from Romans was correct, we are justified by faith, and grace is a gift. But I believe that we have to keep our ears and eyes open to hear it, understand it, and feel that deep acceptance of God’s love. As we hear in the classic verse this morning, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life,” God reaches out to us through the Incarnation of Jesus, the mystery of the Cross, and Resurrection. Grace is always a free gift. And like Nicodemus and Martin Luther, we may need to be in a searching mode to be ready to notice the gift, accept it, and sense God’s deep freely given love for us.
And I must add, that once having accepted God’s grace, Christ asks us to act in His name in compassion and justice, to take the risks for our faith that Nicodemus took. For the encounter with Jesus was the first installment in the Nicodemus story. Later in John’s Gospel we see Nicodemus stand up for Jesus at the trial, and later, after the Crucifixion, risk an enormous amount by joining with Joseph of Arimathea in anointing Jesus’ body. In the Eastern Church Nicodemus is known as “the myrrh-bearer” because he brought 100 pounds of myrrh to the tomb. Handling dead bodies was something that would have made him very unclean under the temple purity system. Martin Luther accepted God’s grace and then went on to nail the 95 Theses on the Wittenberg cathedral door.
Grace is free and it changes us forever.
May we continue to grow in our response to that grace, with acts of compassion and justice. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
February 06, 2008
1665Beth Foote - Ash Wednesday 2008
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…
On Saturday afternoon, I saw her ashes beautifully displayed on the table in front of the altar, by the Pascal candle, and I was moved. Once again, I experienced the finality of death. Ashes. Irene is not here. Just ashes with her name on them.
It was a jolt. Irene was 92, her life had been full and complete, and yet the jolt of reality was still there. Irene, as we knew her, was gone. But it was a good jolt. To mourn someone and realize and how much we loved her. It wasn’t a bad jolt, but a “reality check” in the best sense of the word; she was truly one of the community of saints.
And I think Ash Wednesday can be that kind of positive jolt, a good reality check. In a way, it’s a mini-preview of our own burial, that we ourselves get to attend. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It makes us think of our beginnings and our endings. Ash Wednesday invites us to think about our mortality.
Beatrice Buttreau writes in her book, Easter Mysteries:
“We human beings are made of dust---star dust—as is everything else in this universe. The cells of our bodies…are composed of molecules made of atoms whose complex nuclei were fused together in the fiery hearts of exploding stars…we are a traffic of molecules, constantly coming and going, building up and forms coming part…Living is the name for this traffic, this constant motion, this coming and going, this building and destroying, this birthing and dying. The human body is always being built up from the dust and is always reverting to dust. The situation is not so simple as being born once and dying once. Coming to be and passing away are going on all the time…”
I think it is important to hold these two ideas together: ashes to ashes, mortal start and mortal finish, along with this dynamic, amazing, ever changing process that is called living. As Christians, God calls us to channel the process of living so that we become more like Christ. To do this, we occasionally need to do some spring cleaning, clear some space, roll up the rugs so that we have more room to dance with God.
This is what I think Lent is all about, a time to look at ourselves at this specific point in time and ask, “where are we in terms of our relationship with God?” Given that we are constantly changing, what direction is that change moving in? What fine tuning do we need to do so that we can better hear the voice of God who calls us and beckons us?
That is the point of the traditional Lenten disciplines, to draw us closer to God in the midst of our busy lives. “Giving up” something like a certain food, or fasting on certain days, has been seen as a way to become closer to God. And let’s admit it, we all have daily habits that are all about satisfying the self. Our culture encourages us to satisfy our every personal craving. Perhaps Lent is a time to examine those daily habits and see if they’re helping you in your relationship with God. But as Jesus says in our gospel reading, do not use disciplines like fasting as a way to boast or call attention to ourselves as pious people. Jesus wants us to use such changes as a way to become closer to Him. When we change our usual patterns, we gain clarity. I’ve always been a night owl, and I’m know for being barely civil in the morning, yet over the last year or so I’ve learned to appreciate getting up early on Sunday mornings to drive to Trinity. I see the sunrise over Hayward…I know it doesn’t sound very glamorous, but there is no traffic; it feels like anything is possible. Making a small change in our habits is one way of saying, “I’m open to new things, God.”
As human beings, we often wish to freeze life the way we think it ought to be. I know I do. I resist letting go and letting God into my life. But how exciting it is when I do take the risk of saying, “thy will be done.” What would happen if we let the Holy Spirit into our lives a bit more this Lent? What if we said, “Your will be done, God” more often?
Here are a couple of little suggestions for Lenten practices. They’re basic, everyday kind of things. Throughout the day pay attention to your thoughts. When life starts to get you down or you experience frustration or anxiety, notice it. Then lift whatever it is to God. Just a simple, “You take it, God,” will do.
Take time daily for prayer. Be quiet, and talk to Jesus like a friend. Then listen and pay attention throughout the day. There will be dialogue in unexpected ways.
Challenge yourself to read one of the Gospels from start to finish in a couple of sittings. Each one is only about 50 pages. It’s an amazing experience. You are a different person each time you encounter the Gospel. You will gain a new perspective this Holy Week and Easter when you’ve read the whole sweep of the Gospel message. And that’s what Lent is all about, moving us to a new perspective by the time the Holy Mystery of Easter comes on March 23.
So much of life, even the spiritual life, involves simply showing up. God is everywhere, but there’s a reason we have a church, to draw us together as a community around Christ. As Christians, we are living beings always in conversation with other living beings with a shared purpose. Perhaps a Lenten discipline means being here every Sunday in Lent. Make a commitment to come to a Lenten program. Explore spiritual practices for everyday people with Father Mike. Come on Wednesday nights for the Beatitudes. Come learn about the Millennium Development Goals and how God calls us to share our treasure and minister to the poor. We are so fortunate to have our own, beautiful labyrinth; come walk it on a guided walk or on your own.
At baptism, the priest makes the sign of the cross on your forehead with the blessed oil and says, “you are marked as Christ’s own forever.” Today we anoint with the ashes of the palms, and say, “to ashes you will return.”
The smudge of ashes etches over that original anointing with oil and makes it visible once again for us. It is a promise and a challenge of love. In our gospel today, Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumer and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” This Lent take that dusty raw material of your life and offer it up to God. Together, we as individuals and as a parish can grow in a Godly direction.
May you have a Holy Lent and be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
January 13, 2008
1609Beth Foote - January 13, 2008
The Rev. Beth Foote January 13, 2008
Isaiah 42: 1-9 Matthew 3:13-17
Baptisms are always happy occasions, with gathered friends and relatives, and godparents. Today is the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, one of the traditional days on the church calendar for baptisms, and all over the world people are being baptized this morning. We have two candidates for Holy Baptism, Tyler and Francesca. I’d like to welcome the Corbett and Timar families and all their friends to Trinity. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us.
I also love it when we baptize older children and adults. If you are thinking about becoming baptized, please talk to one of the clergy. If you’re feeling self-conscious about it because we mostly see infants being baptized, remember that Jesus himself was a grown man of thirty when he entered the River Jordan to be baptized.
Of course that is the story we just heard from the gospel of Matthew. And this story is so important that it’s found in all four gospels. In the Jewish tradition at that time ritual cleansing was a common thing, although mostly in the context of special stone baths called mikvahs. Jesus’ baptism was totally different, an alternative kind thing. Jesus’ baptism was out in the wilderness, in the free-flowing Jordan river. It was conducted by the John the Baptist, wild man prophet who lived on the margins out in the desert, wore camels hair clothing and a leather belt, and who ate locusts and wild honey. Probably not a seminary graduate.
In today’s sanitary era of daily showers, baby wipes, antiseptic hand cleaners, vacuum cleaners, and swiffers, being clean is something that we take for granted, it’s a constant state of being for us.
Yet in the ancient world, cleanliness was unusual enough to be the mark of something important. By cleansing, we rinse away dirt or other impurities. And after the cleansing process, the person or thing, is transformed in some way, fresh and ready for a new chapter. Something like this happened with Jesus baptism. This ritual cleansing was a marker of transformation After his baptism, he began his ministry. Something like this will happen for our baptismal candidates. Baptism is a marker of transformation.
This story also shows us Christ’s approach to ministry. Consider that he wades into the water and asks to be baptized. He insists on being one of the baptized, not the baptizer. As Isaiah writes in our reading today, God says, “Here is my servant…” Throughout his life, Jesus ministers to others as the servant. He asks the lepers and the blind, “What can I do for you?” And at the end of his life, he took a bowl of water, and washed his disciples feet like a servant. It is a surprising thing…Isaiah also says, “the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.” In his servanthood, he becomes the New Covenant between the people and God that Isaiah talks about, and calls us to take on his servant ministry today.
Matthew writes that when Jesus emerged up out of the water, Jesus saw the Holy Spirit come down like a dove and heard God’s voice say, “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Here we have echoes from Isaiah, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him.” God blesses Jesus with words of love, and if we connect the dots, we can see the Trinity: God, the Father speaks, God the Holy Spirit comes down like a dove, and God the Son is baptized and his ministry begins. The holy becomes visible.
We participate in this holiness made visible at every baptism. The Book of Common Prayer says,” In Baptism, “God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.”
This means that through ordinary things: a water bath, a prayer, words of love, a touch, the holy becomes real among us here today. Like Jesus’ baptism, these baptisms today are markers, once in a lifetime milestones of transformation, making Tyler and Francesca full members of the Church and “marked as Christ’s own forever.”
And remember, in our tradition, they are both now eligible to gum down a Communion wafer as soon as their parents decide they’re ready to safely do so.
Several weeks ago we celebrated our annual 4:00 Christmas Eve pageant here at Trinity. The children acted out the Nativity Story, and this year we had a real three month old baby for our baby Jesus. At 3:45 or so, it was pandemonium in here, with angels and shepherds arriving with their families, and the band was setting up. Right then, Emily, the mother of our young 4:00 Jesus asked me if I wanted to hold her baby son. She handed him to me and I held him—so light—Ahhh! A beautiful moment of peace for me. It reminded me that with a baby that age, just holding is important work. I could feel the tension, the frenzied buildup to Christmas fall away. This was what Christmas was about, God coming into the world as a tiny baby.
Babies teach us about servant ministry, about love, what it means to “be love” to a tiny person and to “be loved” in return. Holding our baby Jesus reminded me that we all began as babies, even Jesus. It reminded me that this is what the real baby Jesus felt like on Christmas Eve.
Holding our baby Jesus on Christmas Eve, I was reminded how vulnerable the real baby Jesus was, and how much trust God had in Mary and Joseph to be the holy parents. Holding our baby Jesus on Christmas Eve reminded me of how much Jesus trusts us to be holy parents to our own children, to children we nurture in our church community, and in the wider world.
In a few minutes, in the course of the Baptism ceremony, the whole Trinity community will stand and we will renew our own Baptismal Covenant. In that rich and challenging litany God calls all of us, not just the parents and godparents of Tyler and Francesca, to support them as they grow, and to follow Christ and take on the ministries each of us is called to exercise.
When we are baptized we begin a lifelong process of growing into our faith and following Christ. Baptism is a onetime thing, but it is the beginning of an all the time process of ministering in Christ’s name. Baptism is our common ground as Christians.
Christ calls all of us to take up this holy work. It sometimes feels heavy when use these large words like “covenant,” “ministry” and “forever.”
But Christ promises us that his burden is light, like the featherweight of a baby, because He is with us every step of the way, and He is an everflowing source of strength, like the running river of the Jordan, the font of every blessing.
And after we greet the newly baptized, and share the sign of Peace, we will continue with that other ancient Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, which feeds us spiritually, and supports us in everything we do. Remember that God, the source of life everlasting said to Jesus, “You are my beloved. With you I am well-pleased,” and as we continue on our baptismal journeys, remember that he says the same to you. Amen.
November 11, 2007
1533Beth Foote - November 11, 2007
Job 19: 23-27a, Luke 20: 27-38
Who were the Sadducces? This is their one appearance in the gospels. They were a Jewish sect who did not believe in the resurrection. We know a lot about the Pharisees, and we know that the Essenes were another more mystical sect.
How would this thing called the resurrection, the afterlife work? Clearly, in this story, they are laying out a sort of trick question for Jesus. Kind of an unsolvable story problem. They’re saying, How can you believe such an off the wall thing? How would the social order continue? But the Saducces were a “show-me” kind of group, a lot like us much of the time, really.
In some ways I see the Sadducces’ point; they are honest about how little we know about life after death. Where are you on the resurrection? Of course, the resurrection is one of the central beliefs of Christianity. Let’ look a little closer at our own Episcopal tradition.
One of the readings appointed for today comes from the book of Job. Job is famous for suffering; he has everything taken away, and as he suffers, Job laments, wrestles and questions God and his own faith.
We did not hear it today, but I’ll read it for you…
Job says, “O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!”
The rest of the reading also appears in the BCP on page 491, the first page of the Service for Burial, and I’ll quote from that:
“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth… After my awaking, he will raise me up; and in my body I shall see God. I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him who is my friend and not a stranger”
Believe it or not, even though I’m on the road to being a priest within the year, I’ve only attended two Episcopal burial services with a coffin. Witnessing the priest meet the body at the door to the church and say these words as the procession enters the church is a deeply moving experience. Both times the tears of mourning were mixed with tears of love and joy at those comforting words. “I know my Redeemer lives…in my body I shall see God…who is my friend and not a stranger.”
Our tradition honors the wrestling and questioning about the nature of life and death. Indeed, we may believe in the resurrection, yet it may not seem possible in the midst of our grief for a loved one. And our tradition is deeply rooted in the Ancient Creeds, and the traditions of the early church. The Apostles Creed says, “I believe in the resurrection of the Body and the life of the world to come.” Just last week we celebrated All Saints Day and remembered those who have died and entered the communion of Saints, the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, alive in heaven.
In the midst of suffering and in the valley of the shadow of death, we say these words together and let God carry us in faith. The rubrics in the Prayer Book say “the liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all its meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised.”
Jesus responds to the Sadducces by affirming the resurrection as something that transcends the social norms of the time, and really, of most of social norms of the world today. It is a radical vision that makes no distinction between men and women; all are liberated to be children of God, “children of the resurrection.”
Recently, a neighbor of mine lent me an audio version of C.S. Lewis’ “Great Divorce” to listen to on my commute. It’s a fantasy tale about the afterlife. The protagonist is a ghost who takes a bus ride with other ghosts up from a grey town Lewis describes as a washed-out, joyless “hell” to a strange, beautiful country that turns out to be “heaven.” Lewis has the reader overhear various conversations between ghosts and heavenly beings who patiently try and expand the vision of the ghosts. But almost all of them are stuck on the issues of their earthly life, on protecting themselves from spiritual growth. Many of the passengers on the bus give up and go back to the grey town. At the end of the story, the narrator wonders why the heavenly beings can’t get on the bus and go back down to the grey town and help out those poor ghosts who seem so stuck in their ways?
His guide laughs and says that the heavenly people would literally not fit back into the grey town. He reveals that the bus the narrator rode had actually come up through a tiny crack in the ground; the people who now lived in the heavenly country had grown so big that there was no way they could become that small to return…so their heavenly souls were now gigantic, they were so filled with joy and light.
Lewis does a marvelous job of challenging us to see the largeness, the unexpected awe of God’s vision of the effect of the resurrection. Perhaps the ghosts are something like the Sadduccees, or ourselves much of the time. They want heaven to fit into their “box” of the way things are on earth. Social systems would remain the same. Women and men would have their roles. Jesus says, “no, it’s bigger than that.” God is capable of much more than we can fathom. But we can’t see it if we continue to make the rules for ourselves or, like the ghosts in Lewis’ tale, protect ourselves from spiritual growth and God’s grace.
So, the resurrection means we are transformed after death. And I think knowledge of the resurrection also transforms us, expands us as people of faith in this life. Several years ago, Nora Gallagher wrote a fabulous memoir called, “Practicing Resurrection.” What a great idea, to “Practice Resurrection” the way we practice prayer or meditation. Do you practice resurrection in your own life? How does the belief in the resurrection affect the way you live your life? What difference does it make?
For me, when I’m aware of the resurrection, and practice living that way, there always appears to be a breath of fresh air, a whisper in my ear that there is more going on than meets the eye. My belief in the Resurrection adds an openendedness to my life.
“Practicing resurrection” makes me aware of God’s grace that comes from outside myself. Just when I think that I have things all figured out, and that I know all the parameters to the “system” of my life, the Holy Spirit swoops in and stirs up the waters, rearranges the pieces on the gameboard so that I have new horizons, and I see the abundance of God’s grace. And I grow and stretch in grace and awareness of God’s limitless potential. The resurrection brings hope into all aspects of my life, even places where it might look hopeless.
How can we access this hope? How about what we do every week here at the Eucharist. The Eucharist is a weekly reminder of this hope; they embody the hope of the resurrection. This is made clear to me each week as we share the Eucharist here at Christ’s table. It’s always something of a revelation. (and I have to say that I’m loving being a deacon, and distributing the bread.) When we receive the blessed bread and the wine, I often think that that grace, that hope from God becomes molecularly part of who we are. It really is awesome. We carry it out within us to coffee hour, and home with us into the world from week to week. The resurrection becomes part of us. As we gather again this morning, consider how God’s abundant love of the resurrection flows through your life. What an awesome gift we have. Come receive the resurrection, become a “child of the resurrection.” Live your life out of that abundance. And consider how you can share this abundance with others. Amen.
September 30, 2007
1478Beth Foote - Sept 30 2007
During that time, he faced loneliness, and sickness. When he returned to Assisi, he sensed God calling to him, and had several visions. Once when he was alone in a little country chapel that was falling down from disrepair, Christ spoke to him from a crucifix and said, “Francis, rebuild my church.” At first Francis thought Christ wanted him to physically rebuild the little church, and he reset the stones, and restored the little chapel. Then, he heard a sermon on the story in Matthew 10, where Jesus says to the disciples to go out and teach but do not bring anything with you. After that, he decided to listen to what Jesus said, and really “do” it. He denounced his father’s wealth and pledged to live a life of poverty.
At first, the people of Assisi thought of him as something of a freak. So did his family. What was wrong with this guy who had everything, and then gave it up? But then, people began to see that he lived what he believed; he walked the walk. He lived as closely to the way Jesus lived as he could. He treated others the way he would like to be treated. And as he lived into that simple way of life, Francis began to really “see” the poor and the unfortunate. All around him were many sick people who were disfigured by disease and rejected because they were unattractive. They were forced to live outside the city walls. So Francis went to live with them. He cared for them. He “saw” them as people like himself, beloved of God, no different than himself, a radically simple yet profound idea. It was a difficult way of life, and at the same time he achieved a spiritual freedom and joy that was contagious. When people radiate that kind of simple joy and peace, it is very attractive. Almost immediately, people followed Francis, and he really did rebuild the church in the larger sense, by inspiring people to more fully live the Gospel. His little band of followers quickly became the Franciscan Order, which lives on today.
I’m sure Francis knew today’s gospel reading about the rich man and Lazarus. There are basically three acts to the story. In the first act, we’re introduced to the rich man with his purple linen robes who lives behind a gate and Lazarus, the poor, sick man, who sits just outside the gate. He lives in such a state of poverty and disease that the dogs passing by lick his sores.
In the second act, we see the two men again, in the afterlife. Now, they have switched places. Lazarus is “carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.” In ancient Judaism, this was a very honored place to be. The rich man is in a “hot spot,” being tormented by flames.
In the third act, the rich man can see Lazarus over there in his “luxury box seat,” but he can’t bring himself to talk directly to Lazarus the poor beggar. Instead, he addresses Abraham and says, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.”
Notice how he only “sees” Lazarus as a poor man of the servant class who can “do” something for him. Lazarus is forever below him, a potential servant, an underling, not as good as he is. In life, the rich man never thought to give Lazarus a cup of water, or help him in life, and still expects Lazarus to wait on him in the afterlife.
So, Abraham, the patriarch, speaks for Lazarus, the lowly beggar, and tells the rich man, that he’s no longer in charge and he better get used to it. I sense a little amusement in Abraham’s voice.
He also points out the “great chasm that has been fixed.”
But wasn’t there always a great divide of social hierarchy and privilege? After a lifetime of putting himself first, the rich man has made his own uncomfortable, painfully lonely niche.
The rich man then realizes that he’s stuck. He begs Abraham to send someone to tell his 5 brothers how they can escape his fate.
Will the 5 brothers get the message? It’s an open question, for us, too. Are we going to listen to Jesus? Are we going to heed the warning? And just how are we supposed to do that?
This week I went to the annual clergy conference at the Bishop’s Ranch. The theme was the environment and the Millenium Development goals. We had the privilege to meet our Presidiing Bishop Katherine Jefforts Schori on Friday, and what a wise person she is. Over the two days, I found many links to both St. Francis and our Gospel for today.
We all know that humanity is degrading the Earth. One speaker said that if everyone on the planet consumed at the same rate that the Bay Area does, it would take the equivalent of 4 Earths to make that possible. Add to the equation the extreme poverty in much of the world that the Millenium Development Goals seek to address. Here are the two extremes: extreme over-consumption and extreme poverty, kind of like the rich man and Lazarus, flip-sides of the same coin. Our Presiding Bishop said that there might be a reason the word “consumption” used to be a slang term for tuberculosis, a disease that sucks the life out of people. Could our level of material consumption be doing the same thing to us and our Earth? Is it a disease?
Yes, I think it is a disease, but I don’t think it’s anything that new. The rich man suffered from it when he didn’t see Lazarus, and the people in St. Francis’ time suffered from it when they threw the sick people outside the town walls. It’s selfishness and it’s fear mixed together. What is new in our time is the presenting symptom of massive over-consumption shutting out and affecting the whole Earth and the rest of its people.
If that’s the disease, what’s the antidote? At the end of our gospel reading, Jesus suggests that we repent, or turn toward God. And we have a loving and forgiving God who is always waiting for us to turn that way. As faithful people of God, we can do this. One day at a time. Turning toward God changes our perspective, and it can change the world’s. It causes us to look up, and see beyond ourselves. At that point we can begin to see Lazarus at our gate. We can begin to see how interrelated we are, and as living members of the environment, how everything we do effects the environment and everyone who lives within it.
We might begin to change our habits of living so that we reflect God’s face rather than our own. We might be able to “see” other people who aren’t “like” us. We might begin to “see” them more the way Francis and Jesus did, as people beloved of God, and living members of God’s creation.
In the last few weeks we’ve had an invasion of hummingbirds in our backyard. I have a tall, perennial plant about my height called a monkeypaw plant, that they seem to like. The other day I was watering the garden, and a hummingbird came up to one of the monkeypaw blossoms at my eye level. I looked at the hummingbird and the hummingbird looked at me. For a brief moment, we saw each other eye to eye, as living beings created by God.
That is what Francis did, and what Jesus wants us to do with our animal friends, and with our fellow human beings. Today at the Peace, let’s all say to one another, “Peace be with you, beloved being of God.”
One of my earliest memories is watching my grandfather put out his hand and coax a hummingbird to come light on his hand. It’s so faint, but so beautiful. I think I was about 3 or so. That beautiful memory now reminds me a bit of St. Francis’ way with animals. He saw animals as fellow creatures of God, more than something to be hunted for food, fattened up on the farm to eat or to provide transportation. He “saw” them as beautiful, fellow beings created by God and loved by God.
Amen.
August 05, 2007
1384Beth Foote - Aug 5, 2007
Beth Foote, August 5, 2007 Colossians 3:1-11, Luke 12:13-21
I don’t know about your home, but ours often seems like a “possession farm.” Things come home with us and then seem to multiply. Backpacks, athletic shoes, CD’s, notebooks, cords for electronic devices, and tennis rackets, are the most prominent things in our entry hall these days. Before that it was soccer cleats and swim goggles. And before that it was Fisher-Price plastic toys, Playmobile figures, Barbies, and legos which always seemed to be under foot. If you’ve ever gotten up in the middle of the night and stepped on a lego piece, you know how painful that can be.
But I can’t blame it all on the kids. I am a famous collector of magazines, books, and other items that feather my nest wherever I go. My son calls the interior of my car “the lost and found.”
I often wonder…why do we have so much stuff?
I think a lot of people are asking the same thing these days. With our awareness of Global Warming, we’ve become more conscious of our wasteful consumption habits. The bumper sticker, “Whoever dies with the most toys wins,” doesn’t seem quite so funny anymore. But then, why do we have so much STUFF?
Acquisition has become the cultural norm. We also live in a society so focused on our individual’s “needs” that shopping has become a sport, and we approach the world from a “What’s in it for me? perspective. We think, “I need THIS for my child, or to fulfill my desires” or “That thing will make me feel complete, and will add to my security.” We need to have more and more money to keep this up and to make us feel secure. Perhaps that is the crux of it really. Things, and the accumulation of wealth make us feel more secure.
This seems to be part of human nature. Jesus often talks about how wealth can get in the way of our relationship to God, and our reading from Luke today contains one of those passages, the parable that’s known as “the Folly of the Rich Man.” I’d like to look a little more closely at it this morning.
Notice that the rich man starts out already rich even before his land yields abundantly.
But he wants more. Notice how Jesus, the master storyteller, brings us right into the thought process of the rich man; we’re in his head as he thinks through what to do with his bumper crop. Notice also, that he is having a monologue. No one else is included in the decision-making. He’s the center of it all.
What does he not do? He doesn’t consider other people. He doesn’t consider that perhaps he could store some of the harvest in the existing barns and share with the poor. He doesn’t think of what good he could do for other people or his community with this windfall. Instead, he sees one path: to build a bigger storage system---bigger barns---to store it all securely for himself so that he can sit back and keep it all to himself and feel more secure. This sounds familiar. People my age are bombarded with advertising about saving for retirement. …the message is, there can never be enough in the bank.
Certainly, we need to do our best to provide for ourselves. However, just like the rich man in our parable, the societal dream is to be able to sit back and “relax, eat, drink, be merry.” It sounds good, but is it? Should it all be about my security? What about those less fortunate in our community? The Epicopal Church has championed the Millenium Development Goals to challenge us to share our wealth with the extremely poor of the world. And I think we’re on the right track there.
At what point do wealth and the quest for security equal “greed”? Greed is a pretty strong word, but Jesus uses it here. He says, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.” As Christians living in our extremely affluent American culture in one of the most affluent areas of the country, I think we need to ask ourselves: are we like the rich man in the parable?
Well, what happens next to the rich man? He meets up with God and faces his own mortality. It reminds me of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dicken’s Christmas Carol. God calls the rich man a fool because he’s spent his lifetime accumulating the wrong kind of wealth, and building bigger and bigger storage units for it. It’s a sobering moment.
We’ve had our own sobering moments here at Trinity lately as we begin to travel the road toward healing with Father Mike, his family, and with our beloved office manager, Alecia MacDowell. We’ve also been confronted with our own sense of mortality and vulnerability, and how we love much Father Mike, his family, and Alecia.
And maybe that has some connection with today’s readings. Out of confronting this unexpected suffering, I think we as a parish have already experienced a sense of becoming richer toward God. On Wednesday we gathered together in prayer at a healing service in the chapel, and many people came forward for anointing. We’ll have this service every Wednesday at noon and there will be labyrinth walks also. God is at work here, teaching us to pray, to practice our faith and learn to live leaning on God rather than ourselves. We are beginning the process of growing together in faith.
How else are we going to do this? We are moving forward with our new Sunday morning services and programs for the fall. We ask for your support and participation as we walk in faith together. This week I had lunch with Kris Goodrich, who founded Child and Family Institute which shares our campus, and we are going to start a Faithfull Families group especially for young families at Trinity. CFI has another program that helps Moms discern their “heart voice” in the midst of the loud voice of the culture that is so focused on consuming. Small groups who gather to pray and discern God’s movement in their lives. This is something we could do at Trinity as well, and not just for Moms.
St. Ignatius called whatever brings us closer to God “consolation,” and whatever takes us away from God, “desolation.” As we move together into the fall, I hope that we can open our hearts to the “heart voice” more, and share our faith journeys, including our sobering moments, with each other. We have lined up several speakers this fall who have written about their faith journey or explored it through art. I hope that together we can continue to move toward consolation and away from desolation.
Our faith journey with Mike and Alecia these past weeks has brought home to me that living is a risky business and that living with security as our highest goal is not how Jesus calls us to live. He calls us to risk for the sake of love.
Our reading from the letter to the Colossians gives us a hint of how to do this:
“If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.” In other words, we are no longer the center of it all…”Christ is all in all!”
Instead of building bigger barns, bigger storage units for our earthly wealth, Jesus asks us to build BIGGER HEARTS and trust that we are secure in God’s love.
Jesus asks us to build bigger hearts that can accept his love, be thankful, and then give it away. Perhaps we could look at it as a paradigm shift, changing from storage units and into distribution centers. From desolation to consolation. From collecting to sharing.
As we grow together as a community of faith, let us to risk becoming richer in God’s love and risk letting God’s love flow through us. Amen.
May 27, 2007
1316Beth Foote - May 27, 2007
Pentecost, May 27, 2007 - Acts 2:1-21
How about those special effects? I think that Steven Spielberg or George Lucas should film the Book of Acts. It reads like an adventure novel. In today’s reading there’s rushing wind, tongues of fire…and then… how about those disciples? How do these “hicks”, these uneducated guys from the backwater of Galilee bypass Berlitz lessons and instantly speak all these different languages? Wind…Fire…the power of language.
If you’ve ever been sailing on San Francisco Bay, you understand the power of wind. Several years ago, I was out on the Bay sailing near the Golden Gate on my friend’s sailboat and we decided to put up the spinnaker. A spinnaker is that huge, usually colorful bubble of a sail that puffs out in front of a sailboat. We unpacked this huge spinnaker out of the seabag and struggled to put it into position. Those sails are big! It luffed and puffed, and made a great racket as the wind played with all that material… and then we came about, turning the boat, and pointing it downwind, so the wind would fill the sail…and suddenly… it felt like the wind picked up that 40 foot sailboat. We flew along under the Golden Gate, past Alcatraz. What a ride! It was a joyful, hang-on, here we go, kind of moment. A Pentecost kind of moment.
Then there are those mysterious tongues of fire. Yet God’s fire is all through the Scriptures. There’s the Burning Bush. A pillar of fire by night led the Israelites across the desert. God descends upon Mt. Sinai in a cloud of fire and indeed, the disciples were gathered in that room to celebrate Pentecost, the Jewish festival that celebrates Moses receiving the 10 Commandments.
And, God’s fiery spirit continued to reach out to us. God’s Spirit spoke through the fiery speech of the prophets, and then the quiet fire of the Holy Spirit came to one particular woman, Mary, and God entered our human world as Jesus, the Christ.
Now, have you ever thought about how we know about Jesus today? There were no newspapers, and, of course, no internet. Communication meant….literally, word of mouth. And it was all up to the disciples.
They witnessed how Jesus’ ministry of love and hope, his death and resurrection lit up a dark corner of the Roman Empire like a fireworks display. Yet it often seems like the disciples would just as soon go back to fishing. It was too overwhelming to do on their own.
So.. how did they do it? God gave them the Gift of the Holy Spirit.
Tongues of fire rested over their heads…but it was only as I prepared for this sermon that I realized that they must have literally had tongues of fire to communicate the gospel so well…
We see it in the amazing “Berlitz moment” we hear about in our reading today…suddenly these ordinary guys from Galilee, of all places, had the ability to communicate the message of Jesus to their multi-cultural ancient world… they were able to communicate in all the languages, all the idioms of their time.
How do we reconcile this with our own experience of the Church? Are we doing that? Do we have tongues of fire? Are we communicating the gospel in the language and idioms that people today understand? Do we have that ability?
Several weeks ago I read in the Chronicle that scientists were researching how we could harness the power of the jet stream. The jet stream typically blows from west to east 6 to 9 miles over the northern hemisphere at speeds up to 310 mph. Professor Ken Caldiera, down the road at Stanford says,
"My calculations show that if we could just tap into 1 percent of the energy in high-altitude winds, it would be enough to power all civilization. So the idea that we're not tapping into it -- or at least investigating it -- seems crazy to me. All the energy we need is flying by, 5 miles over our heads."
What if…the Holy Spirit, like the jet stream, is flowing by, over our heads and it’s just out of reach. How could we access it?
First of all, we have to be humble. We cannot “harness” the Spirit to do what we want. Instead, the Spirit, kindles and energizes us to do God’s work. From my perspective as a strong-willed, 21st Century person… maybe the amazing thing about Pentecost is the disciples’ willingness to be led by the Holy Spirit.
But let’s not forget that the disciples lived with Jesus day by day, throughout his time of ministry. They traveled together. They ate together. They listened and prayed together. They were formed in faith by this experience, ready for the Spirit’s coming. They spent time with the Master. They spent time with the Master.
We need to spend time with the Master, too, if we are to receive the Spirit. We need to prepare for the Spirit, make a home for the Spirit to enter in. We need to pray and listen, take time to read and hear God’s Word. We need spiritual practice and listening hearts. We need to admit our vulnerability, and sit with it…which is sometimes uncomfortable.
It’s so hard for us to let go of our own agendas. We want to be in charge, not changed. Life for us is pretty good…we are comfortable… this is the temptation…to seek our own comfort rather than asking to be led by the Spirit.
If we give in to our temptation, if we do what WE want, not preparing for the Spirit, we’re not going to get very far. Our own power is limited. If we rely on ourselves, we may look shiny from the outside like we have it all together, but our efforts will ultimately, be rather cold… because the Spirit isn’t there. The fuel, the fire and the energy of God isn’t there.
Last night in Alameda was freezing…instead of eating outside with our next door neighbors we had the last indoor fire of the year. And since I was preaching about the tongues of fire this morning, I watched the fire with new interest…
This is obvious, but true: Fire is hot! It’s alive! It radiates warmth. Heat. Energy.
Those tongues of fire over the disciples heads must have been hot! What a great image for being “fired up!” I thought of John Wesley, the 18th Century Anglican priest, how found his heart “strangely warmed” and led a revival that became the Methodist Church.
We need the Spirit’s fire, that HEAT, to be authentically Christian, and fueled for ministry. As a church, we need the Spirit’s warmth to shine out beyond Ravenswood, beyond Pine and Laurel. With the power of the Spirit, we could become a church known by our warmth, by our love, by our faith.
The power of the Holy Spirit is a gift. However, we CAN ask for it through prayer. We ARE in control of whether we pray or not; we ARE in control of saying yes or no to being led by the Spirit to do God’s work. And in my experience, we most often ask the Spirit’s help when we’re in a place of vulnerability.
The Spirit is here, stirring among us. Last Sunday, I sensed it swirling around the room at the Dream Sessions.
Personally, I feel the Spirit challenging me to radiate God’s warmth and communicate Christ’s message to children in the language of today. And I pray for the Spirit’s help and your help in this work.
The motto of St. Dorothy’s Rest (retreat center and camp in Sonoma County) is, “The Winds of God are blowing, so keep your sails unfurled.” I keep thinking of what the researcher at Stanford said, "So the idea that we're not tapping into it -- or at least investigating it -- seems crazy to me. All the energy we need is flying by, 5 miles over our heads."
As we move forward together as a church, let’s come about… into the wind of the Holy Spirit. Believe it or not, it’s much closer than 5 miles over our heads. It’s right here. Let’s unpack our spinnaker and hoist it high. Let’s make a space for the Holy Spirit to fill us with God’s power. Amen.
March 25, 2007
1234Beth Foote - March 25, 2007
Beth Foote, Director of Family Ministries
Lent 5, Year C: John 12: 1-8 March 25, 2007
I think the movies are one of the rare places in our society where we’re allowed to experience the power of symbolism. For example, in “The Queen,” after Princess Diana’s death, Queen Elizabeth is visited on the moors by a magnificent and elusive stag. The Queen gasps and says, “You are beautiful!” and shoos it away. Several scenes later, the stag is shot, and the Queen visits her neighbors’ estate to see the stag…in a sense to pay her respects. The stag is too beautiful a creature to survive.
In our passage today from the Gospel of John, Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, expresses her deep love for Jesus by anointing his feet with a “costly” perfume. Mary, the faithful and thoughtful listener understands that Jesus will die soon. What a scene. John would make a good screenwriter.
We get to know Jesus in the gospels through stories, and through his interaction with an “ensemble cast” of characters in the stories. Like us, he is embedded in a community. In this episode, we have Jesus with Martha, Mary, Lazarus…and, of course, Judas. But let’s leave Judas offstage for a few minutes.
This is the third “ensemble scene” we have of the friendship between Jesus, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. In the first dinner scene, in Luke, Martha, the busy sister, complains to Jesus that her sister Mary, is not pulling her weight in the kitchen because she sits at Jesus’ feet and listens. Jesus tells her that Mary is choosing the better part.
In the second “ensemble” scene, Jesus calls his friend, Lazarus, from the tomb after Martha has confronted him and asked him, “where have you been all this time?”
Here, in the third “ensemble” scene, it’s a week before Passover, about where we are today in terms of Palm Sunday, which comes right after this passage in John. Once again there’s a dinner party. Martha serves, and Mary takes her place at Jesus’ feet. Jesus knows he is going to die. Perhaps you could say that is the “elephant in the room.” Some of his followers understood and some didn’t. The tension is building. In the midst of the party, Mary leaves her seat, takes a “pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
To continue with the movie analogy, I’d like to stop “the film” for discussion here and go a bit deeper…
First, I think it’s important to note that this is not Mary Magdalene. There are many famous paintings that confuse the two. This is Mary, sister of Martha, friend of Jesus.
Second, Washing the feet of guests was an expected act of hospitality in the ancient world. It was most often done by slaves or servants. Mary is doing a servant’s work, just as Jesus takes the part of a servant when he washes the feet of the disciples in the following chapter, at the Last Supper.
But this is no ordinary footwashing. Mary takes a “costly” perfume, and applies it to Jesus feet, using her hair. Even from 2,000 years distance, we feel ourselves pull back a little. It seems too personal. She expresses her respect and love for him through touch. Through the primal sensory experience of fragrance. This is an extraordinarily intimate thing to do.
Especially in the context of Jesus’ Jewish culture. As in almost all of human history, this was a man’s world. Women were separate from men, and believed to be often unclean. Notice how John identifies the house as belonging to Lazarus. Women’s hair was a symbol of their sexuality, and had to be kept covered. Here, Mary’s hair tumbles down and she uses it to touch Jesus, a man. This is an extraordinarily intimate thing to do.
Mary’s anointing of Jesus feet has a sacramental feel to it. In fact, Jesus acknowledges that Mary is doing this for him as anointing for his burial. The last rites.
This is an act of worship. Like the scent of incense that lingers in the air after a high church service, John says that Mary’s gift of Nard filled the room so that everyone was included in the experience.
In seminary, we study the sacraments, their history, their meaning. My Liturgics professor at CDSP was in favor of “extravagant symbols” like total immersion baptism at the Easter Vigil. Anointing meant pouring, not dabbing, scented oil over the candidate’s head and smearing the sign of the cross on their forehead. Once, as I was sitting in the front row, I became his demonstration model Fortunately, he did the demonstration without the oil. He would like Mary’s style. This is an extravagant symbol.
What is the purpose of this kind of thing? Is it necessary? Why do it?
Every Saturday I look forward to reading Peggy Noonan’s “Declarations” column in the “Pursuits” section of the Wall Street Journal. In January she wrote a column called, “An Ode to Ceremony,” that talked about how Gerald Ford’s Presidential funeral at the National Cathedral unexpectedly touched thousands of people on a level deeper than they were used to. The ceremony, music and beauty brought them to tears. Why was it so moving? Why do we need ceremony? She writes: “We do it to make the picture broader for a moment, and free ourselves of our cynicism. And we do it finally to enact what so many feel and rarely say, not only because it’s corny but because if you mean it, it’s beyond words.”
Corny. That’s an interesting choice of words. Perhaps this is a good time to bring Judas back on stage. In a sense, Judas sees Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet as Corny. He asks “Why?” Judas is not equipped to understand love beyond words or its expression. Sure, John also says he’s a thief, but mostly I think he is CYNICAL….
Judas focuses on the fact that the Nard is “costly.” John makes a point to note that Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with “costly” nard---which adds weight to its symbolism. To her, only something costly would fully express her love for Jesus. We can also look at it as honoring the costly price Jesus will pay.
How does Jesus react? He says to Judas, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Jesus once again says, in essence, that Mary has chosen the better part, rather than the busyness of Martha or the cynicism of Judas. Jesus accepts Mary’s “over the top,” gesture as an expression of love that is, as Peggy Noonan says, beyond words.
Love that is beyond words. The sacramental. Ceremony. Of course, we Episcopalians are good at this sort of thing. We’re famous for a “good show” and people from the outside world drop in to sample it during Holy Week and Easter, especially.
But every Sunday we celebrate the Holy Eucharist together to “commune” to “be with” Christ and each other in a ceremony of feeding from “one bread and one cup.” We do it very well.
What we don’t do so well is communicate why we do it. It’s difficult to talk about a love beyond words…because it is “beyond words.” Maybe we’re afraid that we look corny to the rather cynical world we live in that is used to experiencing symbolism only in the movies, distrusts it in everyday life and relegates ceremony to weddings, funerals and graduations.
Our reading from Isaiah today says, “I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” My prayer for you is that you may perceive the new things God is doing in your life, and in our life together as a community. This movement of God reaching out to us is, like the best movies, a love story. When we worship together and share the sacraments, we are brought to a new place, beyond our cynicism. We are brought to Christ’s feet. And often to tears… Help us to perceive God in our midst, and honor Him, like Mary does in our passage today, by giving the best of ourselves.
Together, here at Trinity, we are an ensemble cast with Christ acting out God’s love beyond words. New things, good things, are happening among us. Lord, help us to share this sacramental love beyond words with others, out in the larger world. Amen.
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