Why I Love This Church

Sermon Pledge Sunday
September 28, 2008

By the end of today’s last service, we will have heard twelve individuals or couples talk about their love of this church. Now it’s my turn.

I was born the 4th of five children; and it just so happens that I was a very beautiful child. I had these long lashes and big blue eyes and apple cheeks and I smiled and cooed a lot; and I grew into a slender boy with freckles and a little button nose and by the time I was in 6th grade just about every girl in the school was sending me love notes and I was on top of the world, the most popular boy in the school.

And then two things happened all at once. First, we moved from the country to the city and I was thrown into a big inner city Junior High School in Minneapolis filled with bullies and thugs; and second, my face exploded with terrible acne.

Now I’m not talking about the average teenaged bloom of zits. As you can see by the scars on my face, I had an extremely serious case; and it lasted well into my late twenties. There were times when the shape of my face was literally distorted by the clusters of enormous pimples. There were days when people would not even look at me.

I went from being a beautiful boy to an ugly boy in about six weeks. In fact, if I had been living in Biblical times, I would have diagnosed as a leper – severe acne was thought to be a form of leprosy; and indeed, at Jefferson Junior High, I was treated as one. Suddenly I was in the same boat with all the other rejects of society – the fat kids, the clumsy kids, the awkward kids, the sensitive kids, the gay kids. I learned what it was like to be one of the despised.

Now, when something like that happens to you, you quickly realize something: that the person you are, inside, is very different from the person that everyone sees. When people pick on you, and avoid you, and avoid even looking at you, you learn very quickly to rely on that inner sense of who you really are, as only you and God can see you.

And this became my little secret – a secret that I had to protect like a fragile egg – that no matter what people said or how people treated me, I was okay.

And I also knew this: that I would have to go through the rest of my life, protecting that secret – and sometimes it was less than a secret – sometimes it was just a hunch, just a vague memory – that I was okay; that I was lovable. There were times when I was so depressed I very seriously thought about killing myself – and the only thing that kept me alive was this secret, this fragile secret, that sometimes even I wasn’t sure could be true.

And then I went to college and I met some Christians. I met people who looked me in the eye, and saw me as I was inside. They talked about love – openly and without embarrassment – and they introduced me to an entire community of people whose mission it was to simply love one another as God loves us – and most especially, to love the outcast; to love the leper.

And I want to tell you something. When all your life you’ve been protecting this little secret that you are worthy of love - and a lot of the time even you don’t quite believe it - and then all of a sudden you meet an entire community of people who know your secret, and love you for who you really are, as a child of God, as a beautiful soul – something very powerful happens at that point. You finally begin to believe that your secret might actually be true.

And then, you see, you’ve finally got something to build on. You can finally begin to believe in yourself. You can finally begin to interact with others as a full human being. It becomes like a golden ladder, sent down to a man trapped in a sewer. When other people, in the name of God, embrace your full humanity, then finally you can believe it; finally, you have dignity; finally, you feel fully human and healed and worthy of love.

That’s what it feels like to have your soul saved.

As I’ve listened to the Witness Talks that people have given these past few weeks, I’ve heard a common theme – and that is Belonging. People speak about how much it means to feel welcomed here; to feel included; to simply be a part of this community.

And what is obvious to me is that this sense of belonging is not exactly the same as the kind of belonging you get from being a member of Rotary. Something else is going on here. And I see it every day. We are not just the body of individuals sharing space and common interests. This is not just a nice feeling that we get during coffee hour, at home with our friends. Somehow, our souls are being saved. Because we are joined in to the Body of Christ.

Christ has no body, now, but ours.

Earlier this week I paid a visit to a woman in a nursing home. She is an intelligent woman, who owned her own business for many years; she’s delightful to talk to, with great stories and sharp opinions – but recently she came down with a mysterious infection and the doctors can’t figure out and so they’ve put her in a nursing home because she’s too sick to go home and they don’t know when, or if, she’ll ever get better.

So now she’s in one of those medical twilight zones that we all have seen so often – when the doctors don’t know what to do with you so they just kind of stop talking to you – and so there she is in the nursing home, and it’s not one of those nice, clean, spacious nursing homes that smell good and have plenty of friendly staff. It’s crowded and not very clean; many of the staff barely speak English and the ones that do are too busy to spend time with her. She is confined to her bed and neither of her two roommates are capable of speech at all. She has no family in the area. So she can literally spend days on end, in discomfort and anxiety and no hope for the future, with no one to talk to.

So I came by. We talked for some time. I listened to her worries about her family. We laughed about the bad food. I taught her a new way to pray. We shared the body of Christ together. I blessed her and told her we'd be sending visitors to look in on her. When I left she was beaming.

She was no longer the leper. She was a blessed child of God. She is a member of the Body of Christ.

This is what we do as the Body of Christ.

You make that happen by paying my salary. We are partners in that ministry. Together we become Christ’s body.

In the paper a few weeks ago was a column by Nicholas Kristoff about a doctor – a woman named Halima Bashir – living in the Sudan working in a hospital when one day 40 girls between the ages of 8 and 13 were brought in, terribly injured by a brutal rampage of gang rape by the Janjeweed. The girls had massive internal injuries, and all she had to treat them was one half of an ibuprofen each. She didn’t even have enough sutures to sew them up.

When a few days later some UN observers came by the hospital asking questions she confirmed what had happened; a few days after that she was arrested and was told "now you will know what it feels like to be raped." And for weeks they tortured her and raped her. Somehow she survived and escaped to Britain. And she started talking to journalists again. When the bbc reporter asked her if she had any regrets for speaking out, she said none whatsoever.

I don't know if Halima Bashir is a Christian. But I know she is Christ’s body in the world. And that when we help people like her to speak the truth, we become Christ’s body. When we send $ to the Diocese, and that money goes to support refugee resettlement and Episcopal Relief and Development, we become Christ’s body in the world.

Last year, the Living Room placed 65 homeless women and children into permanent housing. 65 people -- former lepers -- who now have a chance to build a life for themselves. 65 people who have been told, loud and clear: you matter. You are worth this. We care about you. We see that secret hidden part of you that is worthy of love. And whenever we give money to support these buildings and grounds; whenever we drop off clothes at Heavenly Treasures or volunteer to cook breakfast or bring in toys at Christmas, we become the Body of Christ.

Whenever the choir sings an anthem; whenever our children are welcomed into Sunday School; whenever we build a house in Mexico; whenever we share donuts and coffee with a homeless man; whenever we welcome someone into worship; whenever we stand up for the dignity of every human being, we become the Body of Christ.

For me, this is not some lovely metaphor. We are not metaphorically the Body of Christ. I believe in the Real Presence. I’m a literalist on this matter. It is literally true for me – we are the Body of Christ. In this community, by the actions we take, by the love we share, by the money we give, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of God, flows through us and becomes real in the world. We save lives. We save souls. We are the Body of Christ.

And that’s why I love this church.

Amen.

Busy busy

Recently we had to reduce our staff from two priests to one.

Me.

Which means I've been a little busier than usual... which isn't too healthy.

I've had to cut down on some things - including keeping this blog updated. And writing out my sermons word for word. Stuff like that.

Thanks for your understanding... I'll still be posting to this whenever I can. In the meantime, keep those prayers and emails coming! ML+

God as a Verb... and other orthodox ideas

Note: this is Part Two of a 2-part series on the Creeds as interpreted by our Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Part One is not available as a text file but I can email a recording of it as a sound file if you'd like. Just post a comment to that effect and I'll take care of it. Maybe someday I'll learn how to post those here!]

If you were here last week you heard me promise that today I would continue a discussion of the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ new book, Tokens of Trust. In this book the Archbishop examines the creeds of the faith in order to introduce basic concepts of Christian faith. And what he has done is this: he has dug deeply into the classical theology of the past, without being pedantic or boring or having a lot of footnotes, and shown how these classical arguments for God can profoundly deepen our modern faith.

But we have to begin by addressing this very disturbing reading from the book of Genesis, the famous story known as “the binding of Isaac,” in which God directs Abraham to prove his faith to him by sacrificing his only son, Isaac, on top of Mt. Moriah.

A lot of us read this story and we find ourselves reeling: What kind of God would ask a man to prove his faith by killing his only son?

So it is important to say something about this story, and about how we read the Bible as Episcopalians, which is with reason as well as faith; this is an ancient remnant from the days when human child sacrifice was commonly practiced – and contrary to encouraging that practice, this story was told to help explain why the people of Israel no longer did it.

While many of their neighbors practiced child sacrifice well past the day when this story was set to writing, the people of Israel felt called by God to discontinue that horrifying practice – and they told this story, in part, as a way of explaining why. Their God was a God of mercy; who provided a ram in the thicket, rather than an innocent child.

But this story is a story of mercy, not murder. And it’s also a wonderful example of how reading the Bible is like going on an archeological dig – we find these ancient stories that take us back to the very foundation stones of civilization. Here is a story that takes us right back to the moment when we as a culture decided to turn our backs on child sacrifice – and in the process set an example for other nations and cultures.

So what kind of God is this? A God of mercy.

Which brings us to our book by the Archbishop. What this Bible story teaches us, among other things, is that what we say about God is important. Who God is, what God demands of us, where God is to be found – these ideas about God that we carry around in our heads and that direct our actions in the world profound consequences. If our God is a god of vengeance, then we will literally worship vengeance, and we are likely to bring violence and hatred into the world. If our God is a god of prosperity, we will literally worship comfort and wealth; and as a result the poor will make us uncomfortable and we will dismiss both the poor and the discomfort they cause in us; and we will try to live our lives mixing with our own kind, avoiding those who are different. This is one reason why the Living Room is such a special ministry for us at Incarnation – because it constantly invites us to be in close proximity with people who are very poor. If they make us uncomfortable, there is something of God in that.

But before we go too far down this path, we have to remember that as soon as we start talking about God, as if God were an object like any other object, accessible to our thoughts, we start getting into trouble. I’m reminded of the story of the teacher who asked the young student, "What do you think of God?” After a pause, the student replied, "God’s not a think, he's a feel."

And yet... we can’t help but ask questions about God; God might be more of a “feel” than a “think”, but how can we live in this world without thinking about God?
The famous SF Chronicle columnist Art Hoppe understood this when he was looking at a simple box of Kleenex, and realized, “If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?”

This is not a question answered by the Archbishop.

But the Archbishop does tackle issues nearly as weighty.

His first two chapters deal with this first phrase from the Nicene and Apostles’ Creed:

“I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible...”

And again, let me emphasize that there is far more material in these 2 chapters than I can begin to cover in two sermons. There really is almost a lifetime of sermons in these first 50 pages.

But one thing he does is to insist that we stop thinking of God’s creation as something that happened in some moment in the distant past. Rather, he says, we should think of God’s creation as happening at every moment – that God is creating and sustaining us constantly, right now.

For example, rather than thinking of God as having created light, like a lightbulb that just keeps shining from that first moment, he says God is more like the electric current that gives energy to the lightbulb. And that energy is flowing through us and in us and in everything that is – a super-abundant, ever-flowing energy that keeps everything from slipping into non-being. He says,

"It should be a rather exhilarating thought that the moment of creation is now – that if, by some unthinkable accident, God’s attention slipped, we wouldn’t be here. It means that within every circumstance, every object, every person, God’s action is going on, a sort of white heat at the centre of everything. It means that each one of us is already in a relationship with God before we’ve ever thought about it."

This is ancient, classical theology – Thomas Aquinas in the 13th Century supports this view – but the beauty of it is how compatible it is with modern physics:

"Behind and beneath everything we encounter is this [creative] action [of God]. We may look at something that seems unmoving and unchanging, like the pillars of a cathedral or the peaks of a mountain, but what is within and beyond it is an intense energy and movement. The scientist, of course, will tell us that at the heart of every apparently solid thing is the dance of the subatomic particles. The theologian ought to be delighted that this sort of talk puts movement and energy at the centre, but will want to add that at the heart of the subatomic particles is an action and motion still more basic, beyond measure and observation – the outpouring of life from God."

What does this mean for you and me? First, it means that there is nothing that is not held, supported, created by God. The Archbishop reminds us that in the ancient world, this was not necessarily taken for granted. There were many competing theories out there, many of which insisted that the material world was created by an inferior, second-rate god, or that everything material was inherently divorced from God – that the spiritual life had to do with escaping the prison of the material world in order to ascend to the ethereal realm of the spirit.

But that is not Christian theology, or classically Jewish theology. In our universe, God penetrates to the very heart of existence; God sustains every element of what is. That means that there is nothing in our lives that needs to be held in secret; there is nothing that we need to keep from God out of shame or guilt. God’s creative energy is constantly unfolding, even in the deepest, darkest regions of your life. There is nothing we can do, there is nothing that we can think, that isn’t already subjected to the light of God. We don’t need to live in the shadows. Everything about our lives carries the potential for redemption and reconciliation.

The Archbishop says that when we say that God is the creator of all things, visible and invisible, that means that there is “the possibility of an integrated life, not a life where some bits of us have to be covered up or swept under the carpet....

"There are the things in my life that I’m aware of, there are the things I’m not aware of – and there are the things that I try not to be aware of, that I’m ashamed of or frightened by. But all that I am is the working out of what God has made; some of it has worked out well, some not so well; I have learned to make good use of some of what God has given me and I’ve made a mess of some of the rest or just haven’t come to terms with it. Saying that God has made us in our entirety and is concerned about all of us isn’t, incidentally, the same as saying that anything we choose to do is fine – only that every aspect of who we are needs to be brought into the circle of God’s light, because he can deal with all of it. And that also means that we shouldn’t be surprised if Christians are interested in things like politics or economics, art or sport, and have awkward questions to ask and contributions they want to make. There are no areas that are essentially off-limits if God is truly the Creator of this world."

It is this majestic doctrine of God, this ancient doctrine that has its roots in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, that gives Christians the courage to let God into every aspect of their lives: not only what they are doing at noon, but what they are doing at midnight.

We could go on and on, but I will close with this final point, which is that the Archbishop resurrects the classical notion that what we can know about God is through what God does, not what God is. Who or what God is – that’s an impenetrable mystery. But what God accomplishes, what God does – that is knowable. We can see that with our own eyes – through the life of Jesus Christ. Through Christ, God is drawing the world to himself. God is reconciling us, one to the other, and the world to God, through the action of love.

Buckminster Fuller once said that “Love is metaphysical gravity.”

Love is what draws us together; love is what draws the world to God; love is at the heart of everything that is, seen and unseen.

It’s for this reason that you find me focusing so often on the action of God. As you may have noticed, I much prefer to speak of God in terms of what God does. I say, “In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of Life” -- because that draws our attention to what God is doing – and that is far more knowable, and far easier to talk about in simple, descriptive terms that are true, without putting the being of God in a box. And it is for that reason that I often refer to God as a Verb – as the great mystical traditions and classical theologians would encourage us all to do – not that God is not also a noun, but that it does God far more justice to talk about God in terms of what God is doing.

Which is also why I like to say, about this place – that “God happens here.” To me, that is the most accurate thing we can say about our community. God happens here. If you ever are tempted to start a sentence with the phrase, “God is...,” let the next word be a very: God is being born here. God is living here. God is healing here. God is weeping here. God is laughing here.

What is God accomplishing in you? What is God accomplishing in us? How is God happening?

God is happening here. God is creating us, right here, right now. Praise be to the Living God!

AMEN.

June 8 Sermon Part 1: Prophets vs. Priests

Sermon preached by the Rev. Matthew Lawrence

Church of the Incarnation, Santa Rosa

June 8, 2008

Part 1

Text: Hosea 5: 15-6:6; Psalm 50: 7-15; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving

And make good your vows to the Most High. Ps. 50:15

I’m hoping that many of you recognize these words, which we recited during the Psalm reading this morning. This of course is one of the Offertory Sentences that the priest can use when it is time to turn the congregation’s focus from the passing of the peace to the Eucharist. “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving.”

We find a description of the "sacrifice of thanksgiving" in the book of Leviticus, which was distinguished from a sacrifice of sin, otherwise known as a “guilt offering,” or a “sin offering.” In the old days a casual observer might not have been able to tell the difference between a sacrifice of thanksgiving and a sin offering; from the outside it pretty much looked the same: it involved the sacrifice of an animal on the altar, along with the offering of grain in the form of cakes made with leavened flour and oil.

No, the difference was not so much how the sacrifice was performed, but the intention behind it, and that makes all the difference, doesn’t it? In one case, one is asking God to overlook a failing or a sin. It’s not unlike paying a bribe – you’ve failed in some way, and you ask God to receive the sacrifice in order to win him over and spare you from judgment. But in the other case, you are offering the same animal and grains, not as a bribe, but as a gesture of thanksgiving – for the birth of a child, for a good harvest, for just the simple joy of being alive.

Two very similar rituals – almost indistinguishable – but for the intention.

The author of the Psalm offers us a glimpse into one of the classic tensions we find within the Bible – between the priestly class and the prophetic class. Many of the books of the Bible were written by priests, who had an interest in purity and ritual. Leviticus often times reads like a priest’s handbook – really, it functioned in that way, filled with detailed instructions on how to perform various rituals. At various times in Israel’s history, the priestly class was the dominant class – they not only performed the sacrifices, they controlled the sacred connection between God and the people – and they also were the dominant political power in the kingdom. In alliance with a king, for example, seeking to consolidate his power, they would institute religious reforms that concentrated power in Jerusalem and the temple cult. They issued purity laws that forbade marriages with foreigners, for example; they expelled or killed anyone who worshiped a foreign god; they saw to it that everyone was practicing the same religion and marching to the same drummer. And to them, it was a matter of national security. This, they believed, was critical to winning over God’s favor – and it just happened to coincide with winning political power for themselves. Their influence in the Bible, especially in the Pentateuch, is very strong.

But there is also another voice that we hear from in the Bible – a voice living in tension with the priestly voice. That’s the prophetic voice – it’s a subversive voice; a voice that challenges the priestly class, and in the process challenges the political power structures of the day. We find that voice this morning -- and it almost sounds like Jon Stewart from the Daily Show, it has this delightful teasing quality, which directly goes after the priestly class:

I do not accuse you because of your sacrifices; your offerings are always before me. .. All the beasts of the forest are mine, the herds in their thousands upon the hills; I know every bird in the sky, and the creatures of the fields are in my sight. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the whole world is mine and all that is in it. Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?

In this Psalm, the challenge is playful, even humorous. But it is also, like a lot of political humor, extremely dangerous – because the author is directly challenging the very source of the priest’s power: the idea that we can cover up our sin, and avoid the consequences of our sin, with a bribe to God.

This challenging voice, this voice of direct confrontation against those in power, is found again in the words of the prophet Hosea, also read this morning, who stood outside the gates of power and railed against the people in charge. And again, this challenge is to the idea that we can hide our guilt by bribing God, as if God could be bought with sin offerings: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

It was in that ancient tradition of prophetic and challenging speech that Jesus came -- and in our Gospel this morning directly quoting Hosea -- inspired by the Holy Spirit, to confront once again the people in charge, including the priests who were collaborating with the Roman Empire and imposing strict purity codes and Temple taxes on the people to keep them under control, while they skimmed gold off the top. And if you want to learn more about this, and you have not already read Marcus Borg’s wonderful book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, I highly recommend it.

And so Jesus came and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple – collaborators in a money-changing racket to increase the wealth and power of the priests by means of a purity code. And so Jesus broke the Sabbath laws, and told stories about priests who were so consumed with their ideas of purity that they passed by a dying man on the road rather than risk contamination. And so Jesus sat down with the impure in society – the tax collectors and prostitutes and the sinners – not necessarily because he enjoyed their company, though I believe he probably did --but because by doing so he was once again openly defying the powers that were in charge. By challenging the purity codes of his time, Jesus was going after the very foundation of power and political control, and he was openly calling to task the political corruption that went with it and reminding us all, in Hosea’s words: “Mercy, not sacrifice, is what I require.”

And then finally we have Paul, who begins to interpret Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as the final and ultimate sin offering. As Paul sees it, there is no more need for guilt offerings. Jesus has become the final sacrifice; if there was a bribe that needed payment, it has now been paid in full. We live now redeemed, and free from the law. Because we are free, now, from this extortion system, this bribery system with God. If ever it was true, and the prophetic voices had been questioning it all along, at least now we can all agree that finally, once and for all, the only sacrifice we are called to make is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. We are called to open our hearts to God, fully assured of God’s mercy. This is our calling. As he suggests in our reading from Romans, we are freed from the law and the wrath that it brings; we are freed from an overbearing priestly class daring to impose themselves between God and us; we are freed from the manipulations of power-crazed clergy determined to keep us feeling guilty, so that they can take our bribes and stay in power.

I’m saying all this so that when you hear me, now and again, engaging in prophetic speech, you know where it’s coming from. It is not coming from a knee jerk liberal simply spouting the propaganda of the Democratic Party. It is coming from a priest who is willing to engage the subversive traditions of our Bible; and who asks us all to engage Scripture in its own sense and meaning.

---end of Part 1---

June 8 Sermon Part 2: Gay Marriage

---see Part 1 for Biblical context---

Last Friday some of you might have seen a letter to the editor that appeared in the Press Democrat, written by yours truly. Whenever my name appears in the paper, it’s probably good idea to give it a little context to know where it’s coming from.

A little over three weeks ago, the California Supreme Court found that marriage is a “basic civil right of personal autonomy and liberty” “to which all persons are entitled without regard to their sexual orientation.” About a week later, I received an email from All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, announcing that in the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling, and in the spirit of Jesus, they would be adopting a Marriage Equality Resolution, which, as the title suggests, promises to “treat all persons presenting themselves for the rite of marriage equally.”

As I was pondering this action, I received a letter from our bishop, in which he re-stated his position regarding same-sex blessings, which is that despite the recent Supreme Court ruling, he cannot authorize such marriages until General Convention – which is our national decision-making body – authorizes them.

As some of you may remember, our General Convention, last time it met two years ago, debated this subject rather strenuously, and the outcome was not entirely clear. For lovers of ambiguity, we got a snoot full. While it is true that General Convention did not authorize same-sex unions, it is also clear that it did not expressly forbid them. The truth is that they were split on the issue – but not for reasons that one might think. The debate was not over the merits or demerits of gay marriage, itself – in fact, that was almost immaterial; the debate was over how far we could go down this road before we would be kicked out of the Anglican Communion, and whether or not that was an acceptable price to pay for what a clear majority of the House of Deputies considered to be the just thing to do.

The language that the House of Bishops came up with – language that was rejected by the House of Deputies – was that they would not be authorizing “any public rites of same-sex blessings.” This language passed because it was sufficiently ambiguous – leaving open the option of holding private rites – blessing ceremonies held in homes and in parks -- which have been happening for many years in the Episcopal church in a kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach. And, indeed, in several other dioceses of our church, including Massachusetts and San Francisco, public rites of same-sex blessing have also been held in churches – just not with “authorized” rites.

So, while our bishop claims to be constrained by General Convention, I do not fully understand or agree with his interpretation of those decisions.

Now, all of this leads us to the letter that I wrote to the Press Democrat, in which I basically stated my position, speaking for myself, that while my bishop prevents me from holding such ceremonies in the church, I am not personally opposed to such ceremonies; and in a later interview with a Press Democrat reporter that you might be reading sometime this week, I indicated my interest in meeting with any couples who wished to explore how we can bring God’s blessing upon their relationship. I do so with the standard criteria we apply to all such relationships: that they be monogamous, that their commitment be life-long, that they be deeply consensual, that both parties feel they are entering into a sacred union, and that they are members of our congregation.

So that’s my position; and this is not a position in defiance of our bishop. I have sent a letter to our bishop telling him of my position, which is somewhat different than his, while also saying that I respect his concern for the unity of the church, and for the need for process.

We are in a difficult time: do the interests of church unity outweigh and veto the interests of civil rights? And it is clear that now, this is, as a matter of law, a civil rights issue. At what point do we follow our conscience, and at what point do we submit in obedience to our church and our bishop? I took a vow of obedience, and I believe in the authority of bishops -- that’s why I’m an Episcopalian. I also believe in the order of the church.

One of my favorite magazines, The Christian Century, recently published a pair of articles about the tensions we are experiencing in the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion. One of them, written by Jason Byassee, opened with the following:

Last year the Church of the Resurrection in suburban West Chicago closed its doors and put its building up for sale. The Episcopal congregation had suffered membership losses 14 years earlier when some conservative members left to start their own church, also called the Church of the Resurrection, in nearby Glen Ellyn. The new congregation later aligned itself with the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA), which is connected to the Anglican Church in Rwanda.

The new Church of the Resurrection later experienced its own split, with some members leaving to launch the Church of the Great Shepherd – also affiliated with AMIA – in Wheaton. The Church of the Great Shepherd eventually closed its doors, but not before a 2004 split led to the formation of the Church of the Savior back in West Chicago. During this time the ranks of St. Mark’s, an Episcopal congregation in Glen Ellyn, had been swelling – until the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop in 2003, whereupon many St. Mark’s members left to form All Souls, still another AMIA church, in Wheaton. Meanwhile, another split at the original Church of the Resurrection in West Chicago, which had experienced renewed growth, led to the creation of the Church of the Resurrection Anglican, a church which is overseen by the archbishop of Uganda. So now there are two Resurrection churches in the area, both formed in exodus from the original – now defunct – Church of the Resurrection, and both affiliated with African Anglican bodies, not with the Episcopal Church in the United States.... (Jason Byassee, “Splitting Up,” The Christian Century, Vol. 125, No. 10 (May 20, 2008), p.22.)

The article goes on to speculate as to why these churches have split so many times, and quotes the Episcopal bishop Chicago, William Persell: “If you’re formed in opposition and negativity, you’re bound to keep on splitting – there’s always the need for more purity, and you don’t live with ambiguity very well, so you end up in a church of one.”

This is a beautiful illustration of what happens when a church decides to defy its bishop and throw to the winds the church order that we’ve inherited over centuries. I don’t recommend that for any church, including our own; while I also reserve the right to disagree with our bishop, which he understands.

So that’s where we stand right now; and in a week or two we will hold a forum in which we will discuss these issues in greater length, especially as they relate to our General Convention. As a Deputy to General Convention, it is my job to be talking about these things, and I look forward to pursuing the conversation further – so that we might continue to shed more light, and less heat, on this issue.

All of this comes, I hope, with your prayers, as we pray continually for our church, and for the great and continuing faith to which we are called; a faith that does not make us comfortable; sometimes a faith that challenges us into disagreement. Through it all, I pray that we will continue to know that we are all called, not to agree with one another, but to love one another. As long as we strive to love one another as Christ loves us, we can bear any disagreement with grace and joy. Pray for grace; pray for forgiveness; pray for love.

AMEN.

Sermon preached May 11, 2008

Pentecost 2008

It’s good to see you this morning. Rose and I got back from our vacation in Minnesota last Monday morning. It wasn’t exactly exotic, but it was probably the most restful vacation we’ve ever had. And we’re happy to be home now and to see you.

This morning we celebrate the miracle of Pentecost; the day when a universal language was discovered – the language of the Holy Spirit.

I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been praying for a little bit of that universal language to return. Because everywhere I look, I see people struggling to find the words – the magic words – that will finally bridge the gap between strangers and lead us into true understanding.

I think about the terrible situation in Myanmar, and of all the diplomats and aid workers searching for the right words that will convince the military rulers over there to let them in so they can save some lives. Last night the BBC reported the death toll is likely to exceed 200,000; and I find myself wondering how many of those lives could have been saved if we had just found the right words to communicate across this enormous gap of culture and politics and mistrust.

What would the world be like if we could just instantly understand one another perfectly?

I think of the Iraqis, the Sunnis and the Shiites and the Kurds and now the Americans, all of us locked into relationships of misunderstanding and struggle, with endless differences between and among them and us, and the violence that erupts for lack of understanding – what would the world be like if we were blessed with perfect understanding across these great divides of culture and politics and religion?

If we just had the words, the perfect, right words, that could bring us together...

But you don't need to be in a war zone to have this yearning for the right words. We all feel this yearning, whether it's with our spouses or partners, our children or neighbors... so many times when we feel that if we could just find the right words, our relationships would be so much more significant.

And then there’s you and me, right now – as I was writing this sermon, I was searching for just the right words... and now here we are, looking at one another, examining our faces, straining to connect across our differences, looking for the words – the right words, the magic words – that will help us connect to one another and to God.

What would it be like if we had instant, perfect understanding of one another?

This is why sometimes I ask you to pray for me as I’m preaching – because true understanding only comes when both parties are listening deeply and straining to understand together in the light of God's presence.

Of course, that’s when the magic happens – that’s when the magic words are finally found and true understanding is achieved – not because of the words themselves, but because of the spirit, the intention, the mutual interest and love, that draws two parties together to seek understanding.

The other day Rose and I were having lunch and there were two young people at the table next to us, and you could tell they were in love by the way they were leaning across the table toward one another, so that their foreheads almost met; and their faces were beaming with that eagerness of understanding;

you could see them connecting;

they were like thirsty camels drinking in water at the end of a march across the desert -- you could see this kind of Pentecost joy on their faces, as they were finally connecting with someone; finally that loneliness;

that long aching loneliness was over.

Finally, you could see it in their faces, they were both thinking this: finally, here is someone who understands me; finally, here is someone truly interested in me – just as much as I am interested in her.

It’s a beautiful thing to see, this thrall. Rose and I noticed them, and it was as if we saw ourselves in the mirror; and we turned and looked at one another; there we were, after 25 years of marriage, still finding ourselves in one another’s eyes; still leaning across the table

still talking and listening to one another,

still finding the magic words...

So it’s no wonder that when God appears on the earth, he is referred to as the Word.

Before there ever was the Bible, there was the Word; as John’s Gospel says, “In the beginning was the Word,”

and by word he didn’t mean a book; he meant this sacred, magical point of connection;

this thing that happens between souls, leaning across a table, or across a universe;

this Word with a capital “W” who became a living breathing human being, who does what words do

connects us to one another, and to God, in a way that no one else ever has.

Lately I’ve been aware at how deeply we long for this Word; for this connection. Whenever I visit someone in the hospital, or the nursing home, or a homeless person, or someone in prison, you can feel this longing for connection. There’s this level openness that you don’t see so much in everyday life; you walk into the room and immediately someone is holding your hand; looking you in the eyes; listening closely and saying things they maybe never would say if they weren’t so opened up by their circumstances; so vulnerable, and so open for connection.

Which is why I think Jesus said, in Matthew 25, that if you are looking for him, go visit someone in prison;

go to the homeless shelter and listen;

go to the hospital and hold someone’s hand.

That’s where you’ll find him

the living Word

connecting you to God.

And when you are there, leaning toward your friend in the hospital bed, praying and speaking words of love, you know that you didn’t decide to come there; you were led there – by the Spirit of that connection you were led there. It’s like two magnets, who once they are within a certain range of one another, an invisible force draws them into connection. The Spirit led you to that bedside. The Spirit that is found in connection.

You do that enough times and then you begin to see every relationship in those terms: you let the Spirit draw you into deeper connection with everyone in your life – your spouse or partner, your neighbor, your children. Suddenly life seems too short to push those relationships aside; suddenly the Spirit is drawing you into more truth telling, more intimacy, more revelation of God’s Word for you.

And that’s when we begin to live a Spirit-filled life. We begin to have the conversations that some people only have on their death beds. We decide not to wait for disease to open us up to one another – we choose to live our lives on a more authentic level.

And that’s when the miracles start to happen – because then the Spirit takes over; the Spirit draws people of the Spirit together; the Spirit brings us into new relationships and new connections that are life-giving to us.

And that is how we find ourselves here. We didn’t decide to come together; we were drawn together by the Spirit. And as we continue to open ourselves to this Spirit and this Word, we find the Spirit drawing us together in fresh new ways

a fresher kind of community begins to emerge;

a fresher community of care;

a community of connection;

a community of mutual vulnerability and trust

and a deep love;

a love that has its Source not in ourselves, but in the Spirit that flows among us

that deep well

that living water

As the Spirit leads us,

We all drink from that well

This is the water that Jesus was talking about in today's gospel; and in the story in which he encountered that Samaritan woman – that person so different from him – such a gulf between them, of culture, language, religion, gender, politics – and yet there they were, leaning across the table toward one another, led by the Spirit:

"...Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

And that’s how our church was born, on this day of Pentecost, some nineteen hundred and seventy five years ago, when all of a sudden, just as Jesus predicted, a disparate group of people, representing all the different nations and cultures and languages of the known world, leaned in together, breathed in the Word of God, and became people of the Spirit.

And in that moment, everything that separates us is overcome. The legacy of the Tower of Babel is overcome; finally our universal language isfound again; finally our great long loneliness is lifted.

Pray that we will continue to let the Spirit lead us into ever deeper relationship; pray that we will continue to listen to God’s Word, spoken at the depth of our hearts; pray that we continue to seek to understand, as we are understood.

Amen.

Resurrection: Does It Matter?

Sermon preached Easter Sunday

March 23, 2008

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence

Good morning and Happy Easter! It’s good to see you again.

In fact, it’s wonderful – every Easter and Christmas is like a family reunion; when all the long-lost nephews and aunts and cousins come home. And we are happy to see you. You are family; this is your home; welcome.

I’ve been thinking back to the Easter we had a year ago – I had that horrible flu and should have stayed in bed. I preached fever-inspired sermon about an Amarylis which I later found out was actually a Kala Lilly... Not my best... In fact, I’m impressed that any of you came back this year!

It feels like a lot has happened since a year ago; and not a lot of it has been good. The slump in the housing market; a possible recession; global warming just getting more worrisome... not to mention the things that were bad last year and are still pretty bad: the war, the budget deficits...

So it’s been a tough year. A lot of us have been struggling with our anxiety; our relationships are strained; we worry a lot.

And my job, this morning, is to tell you not to worry; everything is going to be fine, because it’s Easter, and Christ is risen!

And somehow that’s supposed to make it all better?

Do you ever get this horrible feeling, like, does the resurrection really matter? What’s the point after all? Do you ever wonder how could it possibly be so important whether or not Jesus rose from the dead – how is that going to pay the bills? Do you find it just a little annoying that Christians are so concerned with what you believe anyway? Now, more than probably at any time in history, we live in a world in which I’ve got my beliefs, you’ve got yours... and how is it your problem whether I believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead or Mickey Mouse came from Mars?

Does it really matter?

And so when you think about it, it is pretty amazing how much time and energy and money and blood has been spent trying to get the world to believe this story about the resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel of Luke begins with this commitment; Matthew’s gospel ends with it; John’s Gospel repeats it over and over again – this great mission to convince the world that Christ died and was raised... Paul’s letters are nothing if not an extended argument for the resurrection; he even goes so far as to say that if the resurrection didn’t physically happen, his preaching is empty and our faith is vain. (1 Cor. 15)

This morning I find myself meditating on those disciples; on everything they endured to get this story out there; the beating, imprisonment, shame, torture and death that greeted them – just because they just had to tell this story; and then I think about the giant collective shrug of indifference that greets the gospel today; and I have to ask the question:

Does the resurrection still matter or not?

The greatest theologians disagree on what the resurrection actually was;

The conservatives insist it was an actual “poke your finger in it” physical resurrection, others like Dominic Cross say it was a series of visions that seized the disciples; and still others like Marcus Borg split the difference and say it was definitely a real thing but we can’t really imagine what it was.

Just about all of them say we can never know for sure, which is why we call it faith,

and just about everyone agrees, whether it was a myth, fantasy or the biggest miracle of them all, whatever it was, it had the effect of transforming a terrified and depressed set of former disciples into a fire-breathing band of martyrs for a cause of love.

Does that matter?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been meeting quite a few people these days who resemble those pre-resurrection disciples; a lot of folks are people feeling pretty frightened and depressed. In fact, the entire world seems pretty frightened and depressed these days, would you not agree?

One other thing all the scholars agree one: it makes no sense to talk about the resurrection without putting it in the context of the crucifixion. The resurrection is not some happy-clappy feel good story in which one day you’re happy and the next day you’re even happier. There’s a cross involved.

And this is why, if you only come to church on Easter and skip Good Friday, the resurrection is likely to seem more like a pleasant myth than like something that rises out of the bowels of the real world. It’s like walking into a movie just at the last 5 minutes of the happy ending. You might feel happy for the characters but you don’t really know the story.

The story of the resurrection only becomes true when seen through the reality of the cross.

The people who risked everything so that we might know this story were not pie-eyed optimists. They were realists; they had been living, generation after generation, under the harshest conditions we can imagine.

They had seen too much to believe in a world where everyone “just gets along.” They could not imagine a world in which our problems would be solved if we all just went shopping. It never could have occurred to them that they could “have it all.” Their world was one in which pain and sacrifice and struggle and even death were required in order to make progress.

Abraham Lincoln would have recognized this world. He knew what a great price in blood had to be paid in order to rid our country of slavery. The members of our own WWII generation would recognize this world -- ask anyone who lived through that horrible time if they think freedom is free. No, freedom has a price. Justice has a price. The resurrection was not possible without a sacrifice; just as our own democracy has not been possible without sacrifice and terrible loss.

This is a world that my current generation is only beginning to recognize. This is the great psychological adjustment that we are witnessing right now in our culture. For over a generation now, we have been living in this fantasyland in which the concepts of sacrifice and pain have been effectively silenced. Families have grown up believing they can have whatever they want, when they want it; and so we have wracked up so much credit card debt that personal bankruptcy is at record levels.

I read in the paper this morning that the city is trying to come up with some strategy for overcoming its massive debt; just as the state government is doing. Meanwhile our military budget is the highest that it’s been since World War II. That’s adjusted for inflation! Now, I wasn’t alive during WW II, but I seem to remember a lot of newsreels talking about all the sacrifice required – all the war bonds that were sold, all the paper drives and rubber drives and food rationing that made that enormous effort possible. But today, we think we can have that same enormous output, without asking for a single bit of sacrifice – except from the men and women who are pouring their blood into the desert sand.

And then there’s our own church. It used to be that churches talked freely of sacrificial giving. When’s the last time you were asked to give sacrificially? And now, like our governments and our households, we are looking at deficits and scratching our heads.

On all these levels – the personal, the church, the city, the state, the federal, even globally – we are waking up to the reality that nothing comes without a price.

The Rolling Stones might have sold a million copies of “You can’t always get what you want,” but no one really listened.

And so we are entering a time when the concept of sacrifice is once again becoming meaningful. For those of us raised in the Baby Boomer generation and later, this is terrifying – terrifying because the one thing that makes sacrifice seem worthwhile is the idea that you are sacrificing for something. But as a culture; as a people; we have lost all sense of what we’re sacrificing for. If we can’t agree on what we are sacrificing for, there’s nothing to be gained.

Which is why we are so desperate to figure out: What is the point? Where is the hope? Teenagers are committing suicide in record numbers because they can’t figure out the answer to that question.

What are we living for?

Well, as for me, I am living for the risen Jesus.

We call Jesus the Paschal Lamb; the sacrificial lamb. The root of the word sacrifice is “to make sacred.”

Imagine the disciples, huddling in the heart of the city of Jerusalem; they have just seen their Master die on a cross; their lives have just collapsed.

And like many people in the midst of grief, they are trying to remember his last words to them, at that last supper. He knew the end was near; he knew he had been betrayed and the guards were on their way. He knew he would soon be hanging on the cross.

And at that moment he had many options. He could have fled; he could have made an angry, militant speech of resistance; he could have slouched in the corner of the room and wept bitterly. All of these options are being actively proposed.

But on that night of death and betrayal, he knelt down in front of his disciples, taking the form of a slave; and washed their feet.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet? You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me."

When it came down to his final, last act of freedom, this is what he chose. He chose to move into the deepest level of what it means to be human. He chose love.

And he felt so strongly about this that he told Peter that unless Peter was willing to accept this radical gesture of love, Jesus would have nothing to do with him.

Jesus was clear: we cannot be his disciples unless we are willing to accept the scandal of his love. This is a condition for membership. There are a lot of ways in which Christianity is an inclusive religion but this is not one of them. This is the exclusive obligation: If you want to be a part of this group you have to open your heart. You have to subject yourself to love. You have to let Jesus love you. You cannot enter the Kingdom of God that Jesus is talking about unless you allow yourself to be loved.

This isn’t some kind of arbitrary rule Jesus came up with; this is just the way it is: it’s a law like the law of gravity. You cannot get into my house unless you actually step through the door. You cannot spend your life parked in front of my house, and then say to people you are a part of my household. You cannot claim to be in relationship with Jesus if you reject the terms of that relationship, which by the way are not up to you to determine. Jesus sets the terms of the relationship. And these are his terms: that you open your heart to his love. That you allow him, the Prince of Peace; the Messiah; the one through whom all things were made; the 2nd person of the Trinity; to wash your feet.

This is what his sacrifice was for. It’s almost Zen-like in its simplicity. For love, he sacrificed everything.

“I give you a new commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.” This was his final teaching. It was not a suggestion. It was not an invitation. He said, this is my commandment.

This is what I live for; and what, I pray, we are all living for. To strive toward this greatest height of what it means to be human. To love without conditions; to love completely; even to love sacrificially.

And so, this is what we do. This is what we are here to practice. This is why this building exists. This is what the martyrs died trying to tell us.

This is not something we do on our own; it takes an entire community to support this great enterprise of love. This is why the church is called The Body of Christ. This is where the risen Christ lives; this is where he is found. Not in this building; but in the hearts and minds of every person in this room, connected, one to the other, through the mystical bonds of love; a powerful, healing, eternal love that transcends every thing that separates us. A love that conquers death. That love is here – to every person willing to open themselves to it.

May this love be yours. May you be lifted by its power. May you be completely and totally blessed by the risen Christ.

AMEN.