This was my sermon for Epiphany I. It was a blessing to preach at St. Mark's Montesano for the first time!!
What do we know about Jesus as a young man? The gospels tell us almost nothing about the early life of the man Jesus. After the story of his birth, we have very little information on his childhood, his adolescence, his early adulthood. As far as we know, he lived a very ordinary life in the very ordinary town of Nazareth. Apparently, no one seemed to think he was anyone special.
Until he shows up in our passage this morning. This ordinary man from an ordinary town steps into the waters of the Jordan to be baptized by a ragged prophet and receives a call.
Jesus was a small town man. Montesano doesn’t show up on a lot of maps. When I tell someone I am from Montesano, I often get this look with a question mark. Where is that? When I say “I live in Montesano” to people who have lived in western Washington—maybe in Seattle or even Olympia—all their lives, many of them have no idea where our town is. Nazareth was a bit like that. First, it was in Galilee, kind of a backwater place with little strategic importance and worse, it was the home of the hicks. The Galileans were a culturally mixed people, the working class fisherman, the blue collar workers. Later in the gospels, when a future disciple hears Jesus is from Nazareth, he says; “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
But here he is, a working man from a family of carpenters, fresh from a backwater town, stepping into the Jordan and hearing God’s voice. What an amazing experience that must have been!
Why wasn’t Jesus born to a wealthy family? He could have at least been born in Jerusalem, the center of religious and cultural power. Better yet, how about a wealthy Roman family who could have given him all the privileges of an upper class life? But when God reveals himself in the flesh, he comes to a poor, working family, living far from the centers of power.
By doing that, Jesus identifies with us, with the little people. He stands on the side of the poor and the backwater towns and the people that are not even noticed by the rest of the world. He stands on the side of the homeless, the nobody, the immigrant. By the side of small town people.
And the baptisms don’t stop with Jesus. In our passage in Acts, more little people are baptized. They are Samaritans, a renegade sect of Jews who intermarried with the wrong people. They were part of the group that good religious people did not associate with. And the baptisms continue to this day. We are part of Jesus’ motley band of followers, part of the fellowship of the baptized, part of the nobodies welcomed by God. Let’s not forget—this is Epiphany, the time where we celebrate the coming of the three wise men to see the Christ child. Let’s not forget that these men were likely of a different race and religion than the Holy Family and they were welcomed and celebrated just the same.
Several of us are part of a discernment class, meeting every week to try to better understand what it means to be part of this fellowship of the baptized and what it means for each of us individually.
We all have a call. It comes with the fellowship.
Let’s go back to the passage for a moment. Jesus steps into the water and he receives baptism at the hand of his cousin. Then he hears a voice—God’s voice coming out of heaven; “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus heard what we are all looking for, what we are specifically looking for in our discernment class—to hear God’s voice of love and acceptance.
When I went to England last summer on pilgrimage, I was looking to hear that voice too. I had decisions to make in my life and I had this sense of call and I wanted to listen for God’s voice. At one point, in this enormous cathedral, standing in an empty, gloomy chapel, I stopped by the open lectionary at a table where passers-by were encouraged to write their prayer requests. I sat for awhile and I opened the book to the bookmarked page. And there were the words of our first reading this morning; “I have called you by name, you are mine.” I cannot tell you what that meant to me, there and in that place.
Because baptism and entering in that fellowship are not comfortable things. It is scary. What do we do with our call? Why would God want us? We can’t do anything. We’re no good at this or that.
But these are the words given to all of us this morning;
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”
Because the God of love calls the little people. God accepts us even when we do not accept ourselves. And makes us a part of a great destiny.
When this young carpenter from a backwater town steps into the Jordan, the world changes and we are part of that change. He knew where this mission would lead him. The voice from heaven was for him, but it was also for the poor and the outcast. The people no one noticed were to be told that God loved and accepted them.
The fellowship of the baptized is destined to complete Jesus’ mission to offer welcome to all. Not only must we become aware of the fact that God accepts us, we must extend that acceptance in the world. We live in a world full of strife and violence and despair. A world where people are excluded because they are not part of the right group. A world where people without resources live on the streets in the rain. A world where we kill each other over religion and wealth. A world where little kids have to wonder if they will get dinner tonight.
It’s to this world that we are called to extend the acceptance and love of God.
That is message of our baptism. That is the message of Epiphany. Amen.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Monday, November 2, 2009
Sermon
Ghosts of Saints Past
Father Pete invited me here to talk about my own journey into the Episcopal church. I am currently at St. Mark’s in Montesano and am entering discernment for ordination. I grew up in various churches and it has been a long journey for me to get where I am today. One of my reasons for becoming an Episcopalian is so that I can stand here as a woman—not something that would have been allowed in the churches I grew up in.
But there are other, deeper reasons. Today is All Saint’s Day. It’s a day that we talk about death and remember loved ones we have lost. This morning, my church had an altar set up with votive candles to memorialize those we have lost. I left my mementoes there with the rest and prayed “In communion with all the saints, I remember….”
What do we mean “communion of the saints”? Some of us have probably stood, like Jesus in the gospel reading, at the grave of someone we love. We have grieved there, just as Jesus wept. It always reminds me of the scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when he finally finds his parents’ graves in the dark graveyard of Godric’s Hallows. Harry and Hermione are wandering in the dark, going from gravestone to gravestone, Hermione nervous all the way. Harry is plagued by doubts about his mission and really just ready to give up. He has lost so many people that he loved and is just tired of it all. He seems so lost and alone in that scene, wondering how to go forward. Finally, Hermione calls him; “Its here.” And he sees it—the gravestones with their names; James and Lily Potter, buried within sight of where they died. He is startled to find a line inscribed on their grave; “The last enemy to be conquered is death.” He wonders if this is some mockery, some plot by Death Eaters. As usual, Hermione has an answer. She explains that it is not part of some wild quest for immortality, the quest of Voldemort, but it speaks of a hope that death is not the end. “It means…you know… living beyond death.”
That is what the passage in Revelation is talking about. Here’s John, the aged apostle, probably a prisoner on a remote island in the Mediterranean. Tired, he’s seen his share of suffering; his share of death; his share of grief. Yet, here he is, having a vision of a new city, a new world, a new world that is beginning right now. Later in the passage he describes the splendor and magnificence of this new world, but what he is really caught up in is the fact that death has been conquered here. There is a new order of things. There is hope that death is not the end.
There are many ways that death is conquered. One way brings us to this day. We remember all those who have gone before us—all those who have died and affirm our communion with them. We state our belief that all of the centuries of dead are not gone forever; that they are still with us now. One of the hymns we sing goes like this;
We on earth have union
With God the Three in One
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
In other words, those whom we have lost are part of this mystical city John was so enraptured with and so are we. Even though death seems so final, we are invited on days like this to see ourselves as part of a bigger picture—one that includes those who have died and those who are living. It invites us to imagine and experience heaven. We celebrate our faith with those who have gone before us.
This summer, I visited England’s Ely Cathedral. The building itself is nearly a thousand years old and a church has been on that site since the seventh century. When you walk into a place like that, there is a strange feeling that you are keeping company with people long dead. After all, the pews I sat in had been sat in my people for hundreds of generations and thousands of people for thousands of years had come to the Cathedral on pilgrimage.
So, in the company of all these “ghosts of pilgrims past,” I wandered around the chapels and walkways. It was this enormous place. I actually stayed there all day—especially through the thunderstorm. And in one of the center chapels was a shrine to Etheldreda, the foundress of the original church in the 670s. As I sat in the chapel and read her story, I felt this connection to her. She was a young woman intent on ministry in a time when it was not always easy for a woman to be involved in the church. Forced into a political marriage by her father, King Anna, she waited many years to do what she felt God had called her to do. Finally, she ran away from her husband and started a double monastery. In the early years of the Celtic church, double monasteries housing both men and women were common. I felt this immediate kindred spirit with the woman who lived nearly 1400 years ago and who was probably buried in some lost grave underneath the cathedral. I too had always felt called by God. I also had many obstacles to overcome. Somehow, I felt, even across so many centuries, that we understood each other. I swear I saw her wink when I got up to leave.
This is part of overcoming death. Harry may have stood at the graves of his parents and felt the finality of death, but later in the book, when he walks out to what he believes to be his own death, it is his parents and those he loves who keep him company on the way. They are not really gone—they are still with him, in memory. His godfather, Sirius, tells him; “We are a part of you…”
When I finally started attending the little Episcopal parish in the town I was living in, I was at the end of my rope. I was desperate to find God. Most of all, I was desperate for community, desperate to find a place where I was loved and accepted for who I was. And that is what I have found, but I found something more than what I was looking for— I found not only community with people in the present. I have found a community of saints that spans generations. I found a church that reverences and remembers and holds communion with the saints of the past as well… people past and present who will guide us into the future. I especially feel that on days like this, when we focus on those who have gone before us. We don’t treat them like they are gone forever, but realize that they are a part of us.
A picture of Etheldreda now sits on a table in my room, and though our lives are separated by 1400 years, our stories connect, because the God that led her to found that monastery is the same God that is leading me. She, and the thousands of others who have gone before, are a part of me, keeping me company as I go forward in life. Amen
Father Pete invited me here to talk about my own journey into the Episcopal church. I am currently at St. Mark’s in Montesano and am entering discernment for ordination. I grew up in various churches and it has been a long journey for me to get where I am today. One of my reasons for becoming an Episcopalian is so that I can stand here as a woman—not something that would have been allowed in the churches I grew up in.
But there are other, deeper reasons. Today is All Saint’s Day. It’s a day that we talk about death and remember loved ones we have lost. This morning, my church had an altar set up with votive candles to memorialize those we have lost. I left my mementoes there with the rest and prayed “In communion with all the saints, I remember….”
What do we mean “communion of the saints”? Some of us have probably stood, like Jesus in the gospel reading, at the grave of someone we love. We have grieved there, just as Jesus wept. It always reminds me of the scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when he finally finds his parents’ graves in the dark graveyard of Godric’s Hallows. Harry and Hermione are wandering in the dark, going from gravestone to gravestone, Hermione nervous all the way. Harry is plagued by doubts about his mission and really just ready to give up. He has lost so many people that he loved and is just tired of it all. He seems so lost and alone in that scene, wondering how to go forward. Finally, Hermione calls him; “Its here.” And he sees it—the gravestones with their names; James and Lily Potter, buried within sight of where they died. He is startled to find a line inscribed on their grave; “The last enemy to be conquered is death.” He wonders if this is some mockery, some plot by Death Eaters. As usual, Hermione has an answer. She explains that it is not part of some wild quest for immortality, the quest of Voldemort, but it speaks of a hope that death is not the end. “It means…you know… living beyond death.”
That is what the passage in Revelation is talking about. Here’s John, the aged apostle, probably a prisoner on a remote island in the Mediterranean. Tired, he’s seen his share of suffering; his share of death; his share of grief. Yet, here he is, having a vision of a new city, a new world, a new world that is beginning right now. Later in the passage he describes the splendor and magnificence of this new world, but what he is really caught up in is the fact that death has been conquered here. There is a new order of things. There is hope that death is not the end.
There are many ways that death is conquered. One way brings us to this day. We remember all those who have gone before us—all those who have died and affirm our communion with them. We state our belief that all of the centuries of dead are not gone forever; that they are still with us now. One of the hymns we sing goes like this;
We on earth have union
With God the Three in One
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
In other words, those whom we have lost are part of this mystical city John was so enraptured with and so are we. Even though death seems so final, we are invited on days like this to see ourselves as part of a bigger picture—one that includes those who have died and those who are living. It invites us to imagine and experience heaven. We celebrate our faith with those who have gone before us.
This summer, I visited England’s Ely Cathedral. The building itself is nearly a thousand years old and a church has been on that site since the seventh century. When you walk into a place like that, there is a strange feeling that you are keeping company with people long dead. After all, the pews I sat in had been sat in my people for hundreds of generations and thousands of people for thousands of years had come to the Cathedral on pilgrimage.
So, in the company of all these “ghosts of pilgrims past,” I wandered around the chapels and walkways. It was this enormous place. I actually stayed there all day—especially through the thunderstorm. And in one of the center chapels was a shrine to Etheldreda, the foundress of the original church in the 670s. As I sat in the chapel and read her story, I felt this connection to her. She was a young woman intent on ministry in a time when it was not always easy for a woman to be involved in the church. Forced into a political marriage by her father, King Anna, she waited many years to do what she felt God had called her to do. Finally, she ran away from her husband and started a double monastery. In the early years of the Celtic church, double monasteries housing both men and women were common. I felt this immediate kindred spirit with the woman who lived nearly 1400 years ago and who was probably buried in some lost grave underneath the cathedral. I too had always felt called by God. I also had many obstacles to overcome. Somehow, I felt, even across so many centuries, that we understood each other. I swear I saw her wink when I got up to leave.
This is part of overcoming death. Harry may have stood at the graves of his parents and felt the finality of death, but later in the book, when he walks out to what he believes to be his own death, it is his parents and those he loves who keep him company on the way. They are not really gone—they are still with him, in memory. His godfather, Sirius, tells him; “We are a part of you…”
When I finally started attending the little Episcopal parish in the town I was living in, I was at the end of my rope. I was desperate to find God. Most of all, I was desperate for community, desperate to find a place where I was loved and accepted for who I was. And that is what I have found, but I found something more than what I was looking for— I found not only community with people in the present. I have found a community of saints that spans generations. I found a church that reverences and remembers and holds communion with the saints of the past as well… people past and present who will guide us into the future. I especially feel that on days like this, when we focus on those who have gone before us. We don’t treat them like they are gone forever, but realize that they are a part of us.
A picture of Etheldreda now sits on a table in my room, and though our lives are separated by 1400 years, our stories connect, because the God that led her to found that monastery is the same God that is leading me. She, and the thousands of others who have gone before, are a part of me, keeping me company as I go forward in life. Amen
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Come Away
Autumn has come
A stillness and sleep
Settles over the groung
The trees drop their leaves
The wind grows sharp and cold.
I hear a voice on the wind
Calling over the horizon
"Come away with me!"
A restlessness to follow
Grows within my heart
Until, one day, I spread my winds
And hurtle myself toward the horizon
With beating wings and pumping heart
The harsh air in my face
And the sharpness of cold
I fly toward the future
Leaving home-- returning home
Seeking my destiny.
Sarah Monroe
A stillness and sleep
Settles over the groung
The trees drop their leaves
The wind grows sharp and cold.
I hear a voice on the wind
Calling over the horizon
"Come away with me!"
A restlessness to follow
Grows within my heart
Until, one day, I spread my winds
And hurtle myself toward the horizon
With beating wings and pumping heart
The harsh air in my face
And the sharpness of cold
I fly toward the future
Leaving home-- returning home
Seeking my destiny.
Sarah Monroe
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The Journey
This poem captures how I feel in so many ways.
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,
though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little, as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do,
determined to save the only life you could save.
Mary Oliver
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,
though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little, as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do,
determined to save the only life you could save.
Mary Oliver
Saturday, September 26, 2009
We Only Know our Own Story
"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own."
This quote by Aslan in one of the Narnia classics has come to symbolize, for me, how I have begun to look at the world. I have made several life decisions lately that have driven people around me to various states of disapproval. I have recieved loads of advice and my share of scoldings. Yet, in the quiet of my own heart, I know that this is where God is leading me, as we create my life story together.
I have learned to be less concerned with what others think, yes. I have seen how scripture can be used to manipulate others and how doctrinal certainty can blind people to the humanity of the other. And I have learned to look at the lives of others with sympathy, recognizing that only they know their story and it is not my place to criticize it.
I only know my own story. And I am happy with that simple theology.
This quote by Aslan in one of the Narnia classics has come to symbolize, for me, how I have begun to look at the world. I have made several life decisions lately that have driven people around me to various states of disapproval. I have recieved loads of advice and my share of scoldings. Yet, in the quiet of my own heart, I know that this is where God is leading me, as we create my life story together.
I have learned to be less concerned with what others think, yes. I have seen how scripture can be used to manipulate others and how doctrinal certainty can blind people to the humanity of the other. And I have learned to look at the lives of others with sympathy, recognizing that only they know their story and it is not my place to criticize it.
I only know my own story. And I am happy with that simple theology.
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Canterbury Trail
I've been asked by several people what is drawing me to Anglicanism. Recently, I picked up a book called Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, which largely mirrors my own experience. Robert Webber (author of numerous books on post-modern Christianity) talks about his own pilgrimage from a Baptist to an Anglican. I too was raised in Baptist or non-denominational churches (most of them fundamentalist). I was taught who was in and who was out and all about the rules I had to follow. From there, after I married a Presbyterian, I migrated to Reformed churches, where I found an intellectualism that appealed to me, while still leaving me feeling lost. Recently, I've found myself in the unlikely place of attending an Episcopal church. I was raised to believe that this church was "apostate" and outside the realm of Christian orthodoxy. What I found was quite different than what I ever expected.
I found, first, a place of worship. I've always been drawn to and longed for a sense of the transendent-- the presense that overwhelms me in my private prayers and outdoor ramblings, when I know that God is there. For the first time, I found that within a church building. Here I could worship a Triune God will all my senses-- with candles and incense and icons and prayers and readings. Instead of devoid of Scripture, I heard more of the Bible read in the Episcopal church than I ever had in an evangelical one. Most importantly, I found the sacraments. I had always felt that communion was just an appendage in most churches, and I was always so worried that I might not be worthy that I rarely had time to simply meet Christ. Here, the Eucharist took center stage as the priest intoned; "The body of Christ, the bread of life" and "The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation." I met Jesus at the altar in the bread and the wine.
With this, I found a sacramental view of life. I could pray for the preservation of the environment in church. I was encouraged to see the face of Christ in my fellow human beings. "Worldly" elements of fire, water, palm branches, candles, etc; all pointed to a heavenly reality, sanctifying all of life.
I also found a "safe place," a place of hospitality and welcome. I never felt that I could ask questions in evangelical churches, especially if they questioned favorite doctrines. I reached a point in my life that I could suppress the questions no longer. Interestingly, I expected a formal hierachacal church, and found just the opposite. Yes, the Anglican tradition loves its structure, but there is none of the imposition of ideas and authority that I found in conservative Presbyterianism. It has been a place where I could struggle and still be welcome, doubt and still be embraced. It was also a place where I could celebrate my womanhood and be encouraged to find my full potential in the body of Christ, without rules regarding my gender.
Finally, I found a place both ancient and global. Anglicanism is a tradition that stands squarely in the historical Christian faith. Its history does not begin at the Reformation, rather it is both Catholic and Protestant, embracing the wisdom of the ancient church. It is also a global communion, varying widely in ideology, in race, in place of origin, in doctrine, but united by a common faith in a common Savior.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Productive Silence
I have only a few more days before school is out. While I love my studies, the break will be exceptionally nice. Its been awhile since I've had one. One thing I've learned this quarter, though, is the value of solitude and silence. Even if I only have a few minutes, taking the time to notice my flowers blooming or the hummingbird outside my window and marvel is rest for the soul. Or perhaps a silent prayer or a chapter from a Henri Nouwen book. Or a time of praying through the trinity icon sitting on my desk. Each of these things allows me to feel the presence of God in the midst of a busy day. I think, perhaps, we value accomplishment too much in our culture and only feel productive if we are "doing something." I think these quiet moments are equally valuable.
I think they are just as much preparation for my future as my frantic writing and endless studying. Or the tests and the grad school research and the language study. It gives me the opportunity to listen-- to find God and to find myself.
At this point in my life, I have many decisions to make. I will finish my undergrad studies in a year, during which time I will be pursuing studies in theology and social justice. I need to apply to grad school, where I plan to study theology. And then there is the question of where I will go from there. Full time ministry? Professorship? Sometimes the enormity of my decisions weighs on me. It is now, more than ever, that I feel the need to listen to the silence. In England, I will be taking a retreat to Lindisfarne, the Holy Island in Northern England where St. Aidan established an early Christian monastary. There, I hope to enjoy the solitude of a pilgrimage, seeking God's leading for my life. Perhaps the holy island is a thin place, where heaven meets earth. Or perhaps all places are just that.