Homily for Advent IV
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
Holy Trinity/La Santisima Trinidad
12/22/09
The story of Mary's visit to Elizabeth is dear to my heart. I played Elizabeth a few years back on a Wakefield Mystery play at my old church and the woman who played Mary was one of my best friends. It wasn't hard to feel the the glory of salvation history rolling along incarnate in these two woman, speaking in canticles and bearing the fruits of the coming Kingdom.
When Gabriel visits Mary six moths before, he says that she will conceive the son of God by the Holy Spirit. And in case she still doesn’t believe him, he points out that her aged cousin Elizabeth, who was known to be barren, was six months pregnant, for nothing will be impossible with God.
And Mary, when she visits her cousin Elizabeth, exquisitely echoes the song of Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Hannah’s joyful song of the raising up of the lowly and the blessing of barren women described her own triumph in the birth of her son. All these Old Testament references underline what Luke presents as the miraculous fulfillment of the ancient prophesy. In the words of Isaiah:
The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined… For a child has been born to us, a son given to us.
The meaning of the incarnation has developed slowly over the years for me. I do not have the blind, accepting, miraculous faith of a child, and so I stumble on. When I first came back to the church, I approached Jesus (although he was loudly calling out my name) with great caution and suspicion. I was eased back into the fold only because I read a book by Marcus Borg and felt assured that I could accept Jesus of Nazareth, the historical Jesus, and I had to go no further. I was truly "Meeting Jesus again for the first Time" which is the title of the book. Borg talked about what the human Jesus — the "Pre-Easter Jesus" must have been like. What extraordinary eyes he must have had, how brilliant his language skills were, how passionately wedded to justice and compassion he was. The book barely deals with what he calls the "Post-Easter Jesus," a term I now find woefully lacking to describe the risen Christ. But at first this was helpful to me. When faced with the incarnation, with the divinity of Jesus, I just didn’t want to go there. But slowly, I began to perceive a curious image seemingly just out of my peripheral vision whenever I thought of the incarnation. I seemed to see brilliant rays of light emanating from something which refused to come into focus front and center, but nonetheless streamed blazingly just beyond the edges of my field of vision. There was a brilliance I couldn’t understand, and could not even fully see, that I began to know was present, nonetheless.
The whole of it still eluded me, but I began to have some sense of the great and overpowering Newness of the incarnation, as expressed so heart-breakingly in the precious newness of the infant Jesus. And I began to understand that the miracle of God’s presence in Jesus Christ has little meaning if we did not relate it to Christ’s presence in us. As I searched for a way to understand the incarnation I also searched for a prayer I could say at waking that would bring this great newness into my life every morning. Upon opening my eyes one anxiety-ridden, guilt-stuffed dawn, I suddenly realized I could simply repeat the words of Paul: "If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. Everything old has passed away — behold, all things are become new." (2 Corinthians)
I finally saw my first flicker of the image of brilliance that had been eluding me, that explosive and irrevocable NEWNESS, blazing right in front of me when I read the words of Father Pierre Tielhard de Chardin:
It is done. Once again the fire has penetrated the earth. Not with the sudden crash of thunderbolt, riving the mountaintops. Does the Master break down doors to enter his own home? Without earthquake or thunderclap the flame has lit up the whole world from within. All things individually and collectively are penetrated and flooded by it, from the inmost core of the tiniest atom to the mighty sweep of the most universal laws of being. (Song to the Earth)
The incarnation- this birth of hope, of light, of newness in us all- causes us and all things — to be lit up from within. It is as cosmic as the words of this poem and as small and intimate as a morning prayer of newness in Christ. Jesus went from being a human body to being the blazing and illuminated Body of Christ- incarnated first in a few frightened survivors after his death and now incarnated in all things. Jesus told us after all, “I will draw all things to myself.”
We need only embody the words of Mary "Let it be to me according to your word," and accept that newness, that utterly forgiving and loving newness, leaving behind the agonies and anxieties of our old life of last night or all the past years. Then we can behold, front and center that great light, the great incarnate truth of limitless love and compassion that will light up our every darkness.
Amen.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Multi-Coated
Advent II. Reflections on
Zeph. 3:14-20, Phil. 4:4-7, Luke 3: 7-18 18:33-37
Holy Trinity/La Santisima Trinidad
12/13/2009
John the Baptist is one of the most fascinating and fearsome creatures of the New Testament. In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, he was said to be dressed in clothes made from camel's hair, he wore a leather belt around his waist, he ate locusts and wild honey and lived in the wilderness. In the Old Testament it was Elijah the great wild prophet who was described as wearing a hairy coat, with a leather belt. In the Book of Malachi, the Lord God is quoted as promising his people that he will send the prophet Elijah before the Day of Judgment comes. So the appearance of a hairy coated, leather-belted prophet would really get people’s attention, and may have been the reason they were flocking to be baptized!
The sermon we hear John preach this morning seems to be the quintessential “Fire and Brimstone sermon.” John first castigates the hordes coming for baptism as a “brood of vipers” implying that they have been warned to slither to baptism to escape judgment, then he warns that “the ax is ready.” He then exhorts the crowd to live a strictly ethical life- whether they are regular citizens, despised tax collectors or soldiers. He disappoints those among the crowd who think that HE might be the Messiah, and lastly he again threatens them the coming of Jesus who will burn them with unquenchable fire. This apparently is the good news he is proclaiming to the people!
Well, or not we see it as good news, it was historically noted that John’s preaching and baptism ministry was extremely popular. Shortly before our passage of today, we read,” from Jerusalem and all Judea and from the Jordan River valley, crowds of people went to John.” Josephus, the first century Jewish historian writes a detailed paragraph about John, which includes the fact that Herod became alarmed by the crowds that congregated around John, “aroused to the hightest degree by his sermons.” Herod felt that this might lead to sedition, so John was put to death. This all the more poignant because, as it is written in the Gospel of Mark, Herod used to like to hear John preach…
But, John was preaching sermons that were not altogether unlike those of Jesus, with some important differences. The sermons of both John and Jesus reflected the prophetic sermons of the many Old Testament prophets. - the prophet Amos, for instance, who castigated people for paying too much attention to their liturgy (especially music), rather than concentrating on social justice-we might all take note. Here is the word of the Lord according to Amos:
I hate, I despise your festivals. Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Or the word of the Lord according to Malachi:
See, the day is coming…when all the arrogant and evil doers will be stubble.- the day that comes will burn them up- leaving neither root nor branch…
When Jesus asked his disciples, “who do people think I am?” The top choices were “John the Baptist come back from the dead and the prophet Elijah. This makes me wonder what Jesus was really like- perhaps a lot wilder than we imagine. But one thing is for sure. Jesus may have preached wild prophetic sermons, but unlike John, he preached about love and forgiveness.
I found myself in need of that love and forgiveness once when I ran afoul of one of John the Baptist’s milder dictates in a very public way.
I was at my old parish with my daughter, who was then four years old, She was listening to a children’s homily on the words of John the Baptist. She suddenly stood up and said, “My mom has a whole BUNCH of coats!” Although I knew I was not alone in the congregation in my multicoated state, I nevertheless felt the call to repentance went that very day to the Goodwill and gave away all of my coats. All, I confess, but the essential six, with which I confess, I could not part with. There was my polar Tec jacket for those cruel Berkeley nights, my short parka in case of rain, my long black raincoat in case it rained and someone died, my down jacket with the hood in case of blizzards, the yellow coat that looked like the one my late mother used to wear, and the red hoody for Christmas caroling.
When Jesus saw that that rich young had gone away sad rather than give away all his possessions, he first said the famous one-liner about the rich man, the eye of a needle and the Kingdom of Heaven, but then he said, with God nothing is impossible.
John was preaching a coming Day of Judgment, But Jesus preached something different. Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom of God, a phrase never heard in the Old Testament. The Kingdom of God was only described in parables, and Jesus variously said that it was here now, among us or within us, or would soon come.
The Kingdom of God is so precious that when one finally finds it, like the pearl without price, they will sell everything they have to own it. The Kingdom of God was what the little children could understand but their puzzled parents could not. There is a great feeling of equality- of justice in the Kingdom of God parables- the woman puts yeast into three batches of flour and all the dough rises up. The tiny mustard seed grows to be a great tree, such that all the birds may find a home there.
Jesus did teach radical social justice but he also taught radical love and radical forgiveness- you were to forgive your brother 7 times seventy times. I had trouble forgiving my brother once.
But with God, all things are possible. With God, even unforgiving, ungiving stones can be raised up as children of Abraham. We might even be so brave that we will, as our second reading suggests, “let our gentleness be known to everyone.” And even if we start out as cold as stones, God can enliven us, inspire us and even warm us infinitely more than even 6 coats. Amen.
Zeph. 3:14-20, Phil. 4:4-7, Luke 3: 7-18 18:33-37
Holy Trinity/La Santisima Trinidad
12/13/2009
John the Baptist is one of the most fascinating and fearsome creatures of the New Testament. In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, he was said to be dressed in clothes made from camel's hair, he wore a leather belt around his waist, he ate locusts and wild honey and lived in the wilderness. In the Old Testament it was Elijah the great wild prophet who was described as wearing a hairy coat, with a leather belt. In the Book of Malachi, the Lord God is quoted as promising his people that he will send the prophet Elijah before the Day of Judgment comes. So the appearance of a hairy coated, leather-belted prophet would really get people’s attention, and may have been the reason they were flocking to be baptized!
The sermon we hear John preach this morning seems to be the quintessential “Fire and Brimstone sermon.” John first castigates the hordes coming for baptism as a “brood of vipers” implying that they have been warned to slither to baptism to escape judgment, then he warns that “the ax is ready.” He then exhorts the crowd to live a strictly ethical life- whether they are regular citizens, despised tax collectors or soldiers. He disappoints those among the crowd who think that HE might be the Messiah, and lastly he again threatens them the coming of Jesus who will burn them with unquenchable fire. This apparently is the good news he is proclaiming to the people!
Well, or not we see it as good news, it was historically noted that John’s preaching and baptism ministry was extremely popular. Shortly before our passage of today, we read,” from Jerusalem and all Judea and from the Jordan River valley, crowds of people went to John.” Josephus, the first century Jewish historian writes a detailed paragraph about John, which includes the fact that Herod became alarmed by the crowds that congregated around John, “aroused to the hightest degree by his sermons.” Herod felt that this might lead to sedition, so John was put to death. This all the more poignant because, as it is written in the Gospel of Mark, Herod used to like to hear John preach…
But, John was preaching sermons that were not altogether unlike those of Jesus, with some important differences. The sermons of both John and Jesus reflected the prophetic sermons of the many Old Testament prophets. - the prophet Amos, for instance, who castigated people for paying too much attention to their liturgy (especially music), rather than concentrating on social justice-we might all take note. Here is the word of the Lord according to Amos:
I hate, I despise your festivals. Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Or the word of the Lord according to Malachi:
See, the day is coming…when all the arrogant and evil doers will be stubble.- the day that comes will burn them up- leaving neither root nor branch…
When Jesus asked his disciples, “who do people think I am?” The top choices were “John the Baptist come back from the dead and the prophet Elijah. This makes me wonder what Jesus was really like- perhaps a lot wilder than we imagine. But one thing is for sure. Jesus may have preached wild prophetic sermons, but unlike John, he preached about love and forgiveness.
I found myself in need of that love and forgiveness once when I ran afoul of one of John the Baptist’s milder dictates in a very public way.
I was at my old parish with my daughter, who was then four years old, She was listening to a children’s homily on the words of John the Baptist. She suddenly stood up and said, “My mom has a whole BUNCH of coats!” Although I knew I was not alone in the congregation in my multicoated state, I nevertheless felt the call to repentance went that very day to the Goodwill and gave away all of my coats. All, I confess, but the essential six, with which I confess, I could not part with. There was my polar Tec jacket for those cruel Berkeley nights, my short parka in case of rain, my long black raincoat in case it rained and someone died, my down jacket with the hood in case of blizzards, the yellow coat that looked like the one my late mother used to wear, and the red hoody for Christmas caroling.
When Jesus saw that that rich young had gone away sad rather than give away all his possessions, he first said the famous one-liner about the rich man, the eye of a needle and the Kingdom of Heaven, but then he said, with God nothing is impossible.
John was preaching a coming Day of Judgment, But Jesus preached something different. Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom of God, a phrase never heard in the Old Testament. The Kingdom of God was only described in parables, and Jesus variously said that it was here now, among us or within us, or would soon come.
The Kingdom of God is so precious that when one finally finds it, like the pearl without price, they will sell everything they have to own it. The Kingdom of God was what the little children could understand but their puzzled parents could not. There is a great feeling of equality- of justice in the Kingdom of God parables- the woman puts yeast into three batches of flour and all the dough rises up. The tiny mustard seed grows to be a great tree, such that all the birds may find a home there.
Jesus did teach radical social justice but he also taught radical love and radical forgiveness- you were to forgive your brother 7 times seventy times. I had trouble forgiving my brother once.
But with God, all things are possible. With God, even unforgiving, ungiving stones can be raised up as children of Abraham. We might even be so brave that we will, as our second reading suggests, “let our gentleness be known to everyone.” And even if we start out as cold as stones, God can enliven us, inspire us and even warm us infinitely more than even 6 coats. Amen.
Sky Signs
Homily for Advent I, Holy Trinity/La Santisima Trinidad
Luke 21:25-36
November 30, 2009
There will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding…
This is a warm and fuzzy reading for the beginning of our Advent season! We may be far more used to cheerful images leading up to the Christmas season. But what is referred to here is a section of the Book of Daniel. In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, when Daniel “had a dream and visions of his head… “ and not of sugarplums.
These were wild and varied visions which Daniel had, including great winds stirring up the oceans, great beasts who rose up from the sea, and finally the coming of the son of man. Daniel’s wild beasts look variously like a creature with a lion’s head and eagle wings, like a winged leopard and like a bear with three tusks in its mouth. In this wild hallucinatory dream, which also inspired parts of the Book of Revelation, these strange beasts transform, devour, and come and go, apparently symbolizing the various powers that overtook Jerusalem.
Finally, the “Ancient of Days” presumably Yahweh, the one Hebrew God, appears and sits on a throne of judgment. After the various beasts are punished, Daniel proclaims:
I saw one like a Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. To him was given dominion, glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.
All over the Old Testament, in Isaiah, Haggai, The Wisdom of Solomon and in the Psalms, horrendous storms and wrenchings of the earth, darkness and the falling of stars are foretold- these are the signs leading up to the Day of the Lord- the end of time as we know it.
But also in our passage today, is the hopeful parable of the fig tree is invoked- the green leaves in summer signifying the promise of sweet fruit. The reference is to the sweet coming of the Reign of God after the recognizable signs. We are implored to be ready. Not to be distracted by unconsciousness and the worries of this transitory life. To stay conscious- to stay awake.
In this Advent season, we might be expect to be hear lessons foretelling the gentle miracle of a newborn baby on Christmas Eve, we may not be used to contemplating the end of the world.
But in Advent, what we contemplate is enormous- the world as we know it is coming to an end. God is entering time through Jesus, and things will never be the same. The early Christians too were talking about the end of the world as they knew it- the end of the Kingdom of the Romans and the beginning of the Kingdom of God. It’s what Jesus talks about again and again- the grand and cosmic event of everything being turned upside down- the first being last and the last being first.
As I read the passage about the signs of the sun, the moon and the stars, I thought of a different set of cosmic signs I had witnessed lately. I recently I went to visit my daughter at college in New York, and among other things we visited the planetarium at the Natural History museum in New York City. We had often taken our daughter to the Chabot observatory in Oakland, and watched the wonderful planetarium show there. She was thrilled one time when we went home and found the Andromeda Galaxy from our roof top using only binoculars. Apparently from that cosmic inspiration, she decided to change her name from Lilly to Andromeda, and now insisted that we call her Andromeda, or at least Andy. This was a cosmic shift for me! “You’ve gone from being a flower to a galaxy,” I said. “Pretty good.” We perused the outside of the planetarium room that starts with the big bang and goes through the history of the known universe, constantly shifting, changing, birthing stars. We saw incredible images of the star nebulae, the unimaginably beautiful birth places of those stars.
When we got back to Berkeley there was a series of very clear nights, and, by luck, the street lamp on our street was burning out, and emitted only a rosy glow like the red light of a dying sun. So we saw the stars with startling clarity. The constellations spelled out their ancient stories, I even think could see the milky way. I know I was seeing only the light emitted from these stars, millions of years ago. Some of them might already have passed out of existence. But in the glow of that dying streetlight, even knowing that these stars may have already died, I saw them as great beacons of hope, great and joyful expressions of the glory of creation. The vast and thrilling and changing universe I was staring at , even with its roiling star births and exploding suns, seemed to speak of an unchanging God, in the great quiet of that silent night. I had a powerful feeling of something unchanging, something constant.
The universe will always shift and change, it is the nature of creation. The sun and moon, the familiar stars we know, the very earth under our feet should be expected to shift. But there is something unchanging, whose birth we are preparing to celebrate. A light soon to come out of the darkness.
And we are called to be that light in the darkness- we are called to be the love of God, the light of Christ, the sign of new life in the fig tree. We are part of the inevitable coming of God, part of the coming Kingdom. This is the way we welcome in the incarnation of the holy in the improbable form of a tiny, fragile and unimaginably vulnerable child. A child whose holy presence causes our accustomed dark earth to blaze into the light of present eternal life.
Amen
Luke 21:25-36
November 30, 2009
There will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding…
This is a warm and fuzzy reading for the beginning of our Advent season! We may be far more used to cheerful images leading up to the Christmas season. But what is referred to here is a section of the Book of Daniel. In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, when Daniel “had a dream and visions of his head… “ and not of sugarplums.
These were wild and varied visions which Daniel had, including great winds stirring up the oceans, great beasts who rose up from the sea, and finally the coming of the son of man. Daniel’s wild beasts look variously like a creature with a lion’s head and eagle wings, like a winged leopard and like a bear with three tusks in its mouth. In this wild hallucinatory dream, which also inspired parts of the Book of Revelation, these strange beasts transform, devour, and come and go, apparently symbolizing the various powers that overtook Jerusalem.
Finally, the “Ancient of Days” presumably Yahweh, the one Hebrew God, appears and sits on a throne of judgment. After the various beasts are punished, Daniel proclaims:
I saw one like a Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. To him was given dominion, glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.
All over the Old Testament, in Isaiah, Haggai, The Wisdom of Solomon and in the Psalms, horrendous storms and wrenchings of the earth, darkness and the falling of stars are foretold- these are the signs leading up to the Day of the Lord- the end of time as we know it.
But also in our passage today, is the hopeful parable of the fig tree is invoked- the green leaves in summer signifying the promise of sweet fruit. The reference is to the sweet coming of the Reign of God after the recognizable signs. We are implored to be ready. Not to be distracted by unconsciousness and the worries of this transitory life. To stay conscious- to stay awake.
In this Advent season, we might be expect to be hear lessons foretelling the gentle miracle of a newborn baby on Christmas Eve, we may not be used to contemplating the end of the world.
But in Advent, what we contemplate is enormous- the world as we know it is coming to an end. God is entering time through Jesus, and things will never be the same. The early Christians too were talking about the end of the world as they knew it- the end of the Kingdom of the Romans and the beginning of the Kingdom of God. It’s what Jesus talks about again and again- the grand and cosmic event of everything being turned upside down- the first being last and the last being first.
As I read the passage about the signs of the sun, the moon and the stars, I thought of a different set of cosmic signs I had witnessed lately. I recently I went to visit my daughter at college in New York, and among other things we visited the planetarium at the Natural History museum in New York City. We had often taken our daughter to the Chabot observatory in Oakland, and watched the wonderful planetarium show there. She was thrilled one time when we went home and found the Andromeda Galaxy from our roof top using only binoculars. Apparently from that cosmic inspiration, she decided to change her name from Lilly to Andromeda, and now insisted that we call her Andromeda, or at least Andy. This was a cosmic shift for me! “You’ve gone from being a flower to a galaxy,” I said. “Pretty good.” We perused the outside of the planetarium room that starts with the big bang and goes through the history of the known universe, constantly shifting, changing, birthing stars. We saw incredible images of the star nebulae, the unimaginably beautiful birth places of those stars.
When we got back to Berkeley there was a series of very clear nights, and, by luck, the street lamp on our street was burning out, and emitted only a rosy glow like the red light of a dying sun. So we saw the stars with startling clarity. The constellations spelled out their ancient stories, I even think could see the milky way. I know I was seeing only the light emitted from these stars, millions of years ago. Some of them might already have passed out of existence. But in the glow of that dying streetlight, even knowing that these stars may have already died, I saw them as great beacons of hope, great and joyful expressions of the glory of creation. The vast and thrilling and changing universe I was staring at , even with its roiling star births and exploding suns, seemed to speak of an unchanging God, in the great quiet of that silent night. I had a powerful feeling of something unchanging, something constant.
The universe will always shift and change, it is the nature of creation. The sun and moon, the familiar stars we know, the very earth under our feet should be expected to shift. But there is something unchanging, whose birth we are preparing to celebrate. A light soon to come out of the darkness.
And we are called to be that light in the darkness- we are called to be the love of God, the light of Christ, the sign of new life in the fig tree. We are part of the inevitable coming of God, part of the coming Kingdom. This is the way we welcome in the incarnation of the holy in the improbable form of a tiny, fragile and unimaginably vulnerable child. A child whose holy presence causes our accustomed dark earth to blaze into the light of present eternal life.
Amen
A Different Kind of King…
Reflections on
2 Sam 23:1-7, Rev.1:4b-8,John 18:33-37
Holy Trinity/La Santisima Trinidad
11/22/2009
For almost a thousand years before the birth of Christ, a messiah was predicted in the Hebrew scriptures- a great warrior King to reign in the style of King David. This warrior king would restore the sovereignty of Israel, and conquer the various crushing forces that plagued Israel through the centuries, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, leading up to the occupying force of the Roman army in Jesus’ time. There was good reason for the yearning for a savior king. Josephus writes of 500 Jews a day being crucified by the Romans after the rebellion of 66 AD, and six thousand were crucified after the rebellion of Spartacus. So the desire for a savior king was at a fever pitch in Jesus’ time. Several of these messianic predictions, sometimes very beautiful ones are often read in Advent: This passage in Isaiah is one:
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse (King David’s father)
And a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him
The spirit of wisdom and understanding
The spirit of council and might
The spirit of Knowledge and fear of the Lord.
And a portion of a reading from Numbers is also often read..
I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob (another anxestor of Jesus’); a scepter will rise out of Israel.
(The rest of the passage is usually omitted:)
He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.
It was indeed a war-like messiah that was longed for.
And the David whose voice we hear in today’s Old Testament reading is surely a war-like king. Shortly before our passage of today, David, in his fervent praise of the Lord says,
He trains my hands for war, so that my arm can bend a bow of bronze… I pursued my enemies and destroyed them… I beat them fine like the dust of the earth…
Nowhere do we see a reflection of the gentle Jesus, who directed us not just to avoid crushing our enemies to dust, but actually to love them.
The word Messiah is derived from Machiach, the Hebrew word for “The Anointed One.” The Greek word for the same thing was Khristos, Anglicanized, of course as Christ. This longed-for redeeming king, was anointed by another king, or by a judge, or a person of great importance. But, as the Advent Godly Play lesson for children points out, “The people were waiting for a king. But the kind of king who came was not the kind of king they expected.
We as Christians, are named after the anointed one whose anointing goes to the very heart of what he was about, and what we are about as Christians. Jesus was anointed, not by a person of power, but by a woman that most of us would probably hesitate to invite to dinner. A “woman of the city” who poured an incredibly precious treasure of perfume on Jesus’ head to anoint him for his work on earth. Jesus’ life and teachings reflect that kind of radical giving.
So what kind of king do we have here? What, if not war-like glory, did he teach us? Jesus’ great subject was certainly not war, nor was it the hording of wealth as a king might do. His great subject was giving, even sacrifice, in all its forms. But radical giving is, to most people, a frightening thought. A more comfortable thought is to aspire to the kingly, to aspire to power.
I spoke last week of the disciples, gawking at the gleaming stone and gold-edged temple, and how we still fall prey to that tendency to worship power, even war-like power, and the real estate it yields. Our faith may be the only thing in our lives that helps us to spring ourselves from the awful reality of this culture of ours that makes a King of status and image.
In our Gospel of today, Pilot tries to get Jesus to admit that he is King of the Jews. Jesus points out that if he were a worldly king, his followers would form an army and rescue him. But Jesus tries to tell him that he is not of this world- this violent culture. He is here to bring the truth. Pilate, way out of his depth here, asks one of the most contemporary and existential questions in the whole of the bible, “What is truth?” he asks Jesus. Jesus does not answer, as he knows his answer would fall on deaf ears.
The irony of accepting Jesus as Lord, as king, is that Jesus was profoundly anti-hierarchical. He didn’t even want anyone to be called “father,” except our father in Heaven. After I was first ordained, the altar guild was showing me what I didn’t have to do anymore- “You don’t have to do that now- you’re Father Este,” they said. It never sat well with me. And yet a word we hear over and over again in the old testament prophesies and in the New is King, lord of all. We are to bow down to our King, every knee shall bow, in spite of the fact that Jesus himself knelt down to wash the feet of the disciples, to give them an example of the true work of a master.
I believe that if we follow the example of our messiah, of our Christ, we can evolve from people whose priorities are those of James and John, who desire kingly power into people who are moving toward understanding the lesson of the kneeling Jesus, the lesson of the anointing woman. This is a miracle we can effect in our own lives. Slowly shifting our priorities away from pre-occupation with kingly and queenly power and over to the humble and daily bringing of the Kingdom of God. Amen.
2 Sam 23:1-7, Rev.1:4b-8,John 18:33-37
Holy Trinity/La Santisima Trinidad
11/22/2009
For almost a thousand years before the birth of Christ, a messiah was predicted in the Hebrew scriptures- a great warrior King to reign in the style of King David. This warrior king would restore the sovereignty of Israel, and conquer the various crushing forces that plagued Israel through the centuries, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, leading up to the occupying force of the Roman army in Jesus’ time. There was good reason for the yearning for a savior king. Josephus writes of 500 Jews a day being crucified by the Romans after the rebellion of 66 AD, and six thousand were crucified after the rebellion of Spartacus. So the desire for a savior king was at a fever pitch in Jesus’ time. Several of these messianic predictions, sometimes very beautiful ones are often read in Advent: This passage in Isaiah is one:
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse (King David’s father)
And a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him
The spirit of wisdom and understanding
The spirit of council and might
The spirit of Knowledge and fear of the Lord.
And a portion of a reading from Numbers is also often read..
I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob (another anxestor of Jesus’); a scepter will rise out of Israel.
(The rest of the passage is usually omitted:)
He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.
It was indeed a war-like messiah that was longed for.
And the David whose voice we hear in today’s Old Testament reading is surely a war-like king. Shortly before our passage of today, David, in his fervent praise of the Lord says,
He trains my hands for war, so that my arm can bend a bow of bronze… I pursued my enemies and destroyed them… I beat them fine like the dust of the earth…
Nowhere do we see a reflection of the gentle Jesus, who directed us not just to avoid crushing our enemies to dust, but actually to love them.
The word Messiah is derived from Machiach, the Hebrew word for “The Anointed One.” The Greek word for the same thing was Khristos, Anglicanized, of course as Christ. This longed-for redeeming king, was anointed by another king, or by a judge, or a person of great importance. But, as the Advent Godly Play lesson for children points out, “The people were waiting for a king. But the kind of king who came was not the kind of king they expected.
We as Christians, are named after the anointed one whose anointing goes to the very heart of what he was about, and what we are about as Christians. Jesus was anointed, not by a person of power, but by a woman that most of us would probably hesitate to invite to dinner. A “woman of the city” who poured an incredibly precious treasure of perfume on Jesus’ head to anoint him for his work on earth. Jesus’ life and teachings reflect that kind of radical giving.
So what kind of king do we have here? What, if not war-like glory, did he teach us? Jesus’ great subject was certainly not war, nor was it the hording of wealth as a king might do. His great subject was giving, even sacrifice, in all its forms. But radical giving is, to most people, a frightening thought. A more comfortable thought is to aspire to the kingly, to aspire to power.
I spoke last week of the disciples, gawking at the gleaming stone and gold-edged temple, and how we still fall prey to that tendency to worship power, even war-like power, and the real estate it yields. Our faith may be the only thing in our lives that helps us to spring ourselves from the awful reality of this culture of ours that makes a King of status and image.
In our Gospel of today, Pilot tries to get Jesus to admit that he is King of the Jews. Jesus points out that if he were a worldly king, his followers would form an army and rescue him. But Jesus tries to tell him that he is not of this world- this violent culture. He is here to bring the truth. Pilate, way out of his depth here, asks one of the most contemporary and existential questions in the whole of the bible, “What is truth?” he asks Jesus. Jesus does not answer, as he knows his answer would fall on deaf ears.
The irony of accepting Jesus as Lord, as king, is that Jesus was profoundly anti-hierarchical. He didn’t even want anyone to be called “father,” except our father in Heaven. After I was first ordained, the altar guild was showing me what I didn’t have to do anymore- “You don’t have to do that now- you’re Father Este,” they said. It never sat well with me. And yet a word we hear over and over again in the old testament prophesies and in the New is King, lord of all. We are to bow down to our King, every knee shall bow, in spite of the fact that Jesus himself knelt down to wash the feet of the disciples, to give them an example of the true work of a master.
I believe that if we follow the example of our messiah, of our Christ, we can evolve from people whose priorities are those of James and John, who desire kingly power into people who are moving toward understanding the lesson of the kneeling Jesus, the lesson of the anointing woman. This is a miracle we can effect in our own lives. Slowly shifting our priorities away from pre-occupation with kingly and queenly power and over to the humble and daily bringing of the Kingdom of God. Amen.
Home Inspection in Antiquity
1 Samuel 1:4-20, Heb 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25, Mark 13:1-8
Holy Trinity/La Santisima Trinidad
11/15/2009
My husband Matt is a house inspector in Berkeley. My first thought was that the beginning of this passage reminds me of nothing so much as his descriptions of the leaning stone chimneys and brick foundations of some grand house in the Berkeley Hills. The temple was, after all, only a building. But that was not how it was seen in the eyes of the disciples and their fellow first century Jews. It was the Beth El- the one house of God. And so this house of God was of necessity an unimaginably grand and gigantic structure. The temple of Herod was so vast and in fact so impressive that the disciples could not help but turn around and gawk up at it as they left its huge courts.
According to the Talmud, the second temple, or the temple of Solomon had thirteen gates, and an Ezrat Nashim (a large Women's Court) to the east and vast main area to the west. The roof and capitals were covered with gold, and the whole structure was gleaming white. The massive stones that survive in the Western wall are proof of the awe-inspiring scope of this temple. This great temple replaced the original first temple, the Temple of Solomon that was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.
Imagine, then the horror of the disciples when Jesus calmly predicted that the glorious temple of God would be destroyed for a second time. Jesus is predicting the Siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD. The Roman army, led by the future Emperor Titus, conquered the city of Jerusalem, and the city and the Temple were utterly destroyed- barely a stone was left upon another.
This devastating change, these great birth pangs, gave birth to rabbinical Judaism. It was no longer possible to worship and make sacrifice in the great temple. There had to be a way to believe that God dwelled, not in only one place, but in the Word- in scripture, which could be taught by these newly elevated men (of course it was only men) of God.
But all this was in the future as the dazzled disciples gawked at the huge edifice of gleaming stone and gold. They could not image God living anywhere else. And even though Jesus had just taught the disciples about the relative worthlessness of wealth, unfavorably comparing the rich people in the temple with the impoverished widow, the disciples were awed by this grand and enormous complex. “Look, teacher, what large stones and what great buildings!” They say.
Soon after this James and John, always clueless, will ask Jesus to place them at his right and left hands when he comes into his glory. He advises them that they will not want to drink the cup that he must drink, but they don’t get it. The disciples still squabble over their status with Jesus, their place in the hierarchy that they imagine exists with him.
We continue our narrated gospel tour with Jesus and the disciples retreating to the Mount of Olives after their comments about the temple, to a place which overlooks Jerusalem so that they can still admire it. The disciples who Jesus first called, Peter, James, John and Andrew, begin to ask Jesus for the signs that will precede the falling of the temple.
First Jesus warns them of false prophets- those who will come in his name, leading them astray. With the vast multiplicity of interpretation of Christianity in our own day, we modern readers might well listen to that warning.
Then Jesus lists the signs: wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines. But there is a positive note- this apocalypse leads to a birth- he describes all these disasters as merely the beginnings of the birth pangs.
We are blessed this morning with another story that speaks of birth pangs- the beautiful story of Hannah, whose first birth pangs were the grief and mourning she experienced before her prayers were answered. A barren woman was an object of great shame in those days. So the story of Hannah is one more that celebrates the lifting up, the victory of the lowly. Hannah, beloved wife of Elkhannah, is so desperate for a son that, after an apparently boozy feast with her husband, loses her mind with grief and weeps bitterly, as she staggers to the local tent-shrine to pray.
This tent-shrine is called a temple, but this was in Shiloh, not Jerusalem and she prayed her fervent prayers in a glorified tent, not a gleaming white and gold temple. She insists to the scandalized priest attendant Eli (as drunk people often do) that she is NOT drunk, but desperate for a son. She makes a vow to consecrate her much hoped for son to God, and Eli tells her that God will grant her wish. She goes back to her husband, they eat and drink even more, and then she conceives a child. The real birth pangs must have been more than bearable for Hannah, because her deepest prayers have been answered.
And in our beautiful psalm today, we hear Hannah’s prayer of thanksgiving, on which the Magnificat of Mary is based. There is a litany describing the falling of the mighty, like the great stones of the temple, and the rising up of the lowly, like the barren woman who finds she is with child.
We live every day every day in a culture, which like the Old Testament times of Hannah and the New Testament times of Jesus, values grandeur, real estate, gold and status over almost everything. And so, of course, we are tempted, like the disciples to forget the constant teachings of Jesus, who would probably favor Hannah’s tent shrine in Shiloh over the vast property that was the second temple of Jerusalem. Who would probably prefers Hannah’s drunken pleas over the pretentiously long prayers of the Jerusalem scribes. Over and over again Jesus reminds the disciples who has an easier time entering the kingdom of heaven, and who does not. We forget that God does not dwell exclusively in the very best addresses,.
It is not small thing to try to follow in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, counter-survivalist, revolutionary way to live. Not to gawk at the gleaming stones and gold this culture holds out to us. To actually have as our priority the familiar things that Jesus spoke of time and again. Letting go of grandeur, lifting up the lowly, opening our hearts, even and especially to the unlikely. And to see that we ourselves are the lowly temples of God, everyday feeling the birth pangs that precede our inevitable, slow, lowly and miraculous transformation.
Amen.
Holy Trinity/La Santisima Trinidad
11/15/2009
My husband Matt is a house inspector in Berkeley. My first thought was that the beginning of this passage reminds me of nothing so much as his descriptions of the leaning stone chimneys and brick foundations of some grand house in the Berkeley Hills. The temple was, after all, only a building. But that was not how it was seen in the eyes of the disciples and their fellow first century Jews. It was the Beth El- the one house of God. And so this house of God was of necessity an unimaginably grand and gigantic structure. The temple of Herod was so vast and in fact so impressive that the disciples could not help but turn around and gawk up at it as they left its huge courts.
According to the Talmud, the second temple, or the temple of Solomon had thirteen gates, and an Ezrat Nashim (a large Women's Court) to the east and vast main area to the west. The roof and capitals were covered with gold, and the whole structure was gleaming white. The massive stones that survive in the Western wall are proof of the awe-inspiring scope of this temple. This great temple replaced the original first temple, the Temple of Solomon that was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.
Imagine, then the horror of the disciples when Jesus calmly predicted that the glorious temple of God would be destroyed for a second time. Jesus is predicting the Siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD. The Roman army, led by the future Emperor Titus, conquered the city of Jerusalem, and the city and the Temple were utterly destroyed- barely a stone was left upon another.
This devastating change, these great birth pangs, gave birth to rabbinical Judaism. It was no longer possible to worship and make sacrifice in the great temple. There had to be a way to believe that God dwelled, not in only one place, but in the Word- in scripture, which could be taught by these newly elevated men (of course it was only men) of God.
But all this was in the future as the dazzled disciples gawked at the huge edifice of gleaming stone and gold. They could not image God living anywhere else. And even though Jesus had just taught the disciples about the relative worthlessness of wealth, unfavorably comparing the rich people in the temple with the impoverished widow, the disciples were awed by this grand and enormous complex. “Look, teacher, what large stones and what great buildings!” They say.
Soon after this James and John, always clueless, will ask Jesus to place them at his right and left hands when he comes into his glory. He advises them that they will not want to drink the cup that he must drink, but they don’t get it. The disciples still squabble over their status with Jesus, their place in the hierarchy that they imagine exists with him.
We continue our narrated gospel tour with Jesus and the disciples retreating to the Mount of Olives after their comments about the temple, to a place which overlooks Jerusalem so that they can still admire it. The disciples who Jesus first called, Peter, James, John and Andrew, begin to ask Jesus for the signs that will precede the falling of the temple.
First Jesus warns them of false prophets- those who will come in his name, leading them astray. With the vast multiplicity of interpretation of Christianity in our own day, we modern readers might well listen to that warning.
Then Jesus lists the signs: wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines. But there is a positive note- this apocalypse leads to a birth- he describes all these disasters as merely the beginnings of the birth pangs.
We are blessed this morning with another story that speaks of birth pangs- the beautiful story of Hannah, whose first birth pangs were the grief and mourning she experienced before her prayers were answered. A barren woman was an object of great shame in those days. So the story of Hannah is one more that celebrates the lifting up, the victory of the lowly. Hannah, beloved wife of Elkhannah, is so desperate for a son that, after an apparently boozy feast with her husband, loses her mind with grief and weeps bitterly, as she staggers to the local tent-shrine to pray.
This tent-shrine is called a temple, but this was in Shiloh, not Jerusalem and she prayed her fervent prayers in a glorified tent, not a gleaming white and gold temple. She insists to the scandalized priest attendant Eli (as drunk people often do) that she is NOT drunk, but desperate for a son. She makes a vow to consecrate her much hoped for son to God, and Eli tells her that God will grant her wish. She goes back to her husband, they eat and drink even more, and then she conceives a child. The real birth pangs must have been more than bearable for Hannah, because her deepest prayers have been answered.
And in our beautiful psalm today, we hear Hannah’s prayer of thanksgiving, on which the Magnificat of Mary is based. There is a litany describing the falling of the mighty, like the great stones of the temple, and the rising up of the lowly, like the barren woman who finds she is with child.
We live every day every day in a culture, which like the Old Testament times of Hannah and the New Testament times of Jesus, values grandeur, real estate, gold and status over almost everything. And so, of course, we are tempted, like the disciples to forget the constant teachings of Jesus, who would probably favor Hannah’s tent shrine in Shiloh over the vast property that was the second temple of Jerusalem. Who would probably prefers Hannah’s drunken pleas over the pretentiously long prayers of the Jerusalem scribes. Over and over again Jesus reminds the disciples who has an easier time entering the kingdom of heaven, and who does not. We forget that God does not dwell exclusively in the very best addresses,.
It is not small thing to try to follow in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, counter-survivalist, revolutionary way to live. Not to gawk at the gleaming stones and gold this culture holds out to us. To actually have as our priority the familiar things that Jesus spoke of time and again. Letting go of grandeur, lifting up the lowly, opening our hearts, even and especially to the unlikely. And to see that we ourselves are the lowly temples of God, everyday feeling the birth pangs that precede our inevitable, slow, lowly and miraculous transformation.
Amen.
Remembrances of Rion Wight
November 14, 2009
All Souls Church, Berkeley
Rio Wight was such a remarkable young man. As has been said in many different ways, Rio was an old soul in a young man’s body. I will always remember the way that Rio would look at you. He had kind and piercing brown eyes that seems to know so much, that communicated so clearly the life of that old soul, the deep and compassionate inner life he had. Quite aside from any suffering he may have had in his life, to look into those eyes was to see a serenity and a maturity and a wisdom that was undeniable. This sense he projected was so strong that it is evident in photographs of him, that calm and steady countenance, and that slight, almost Mona-Lisa-like smile
Rio’s given name was Rion a French name after his grandfather, that Rio changed when he was only six years old. When Rio had been mixed up with a boy named Ryan one too many time, he adjusted the French pronunciation to “Rio.” He could not have known then that he would grow to have a great love of rivers, and the name would fit him so perfectly. I met Rio when he was only nine years old, but I have been told that that his artistic spirit and even his talent and love of architecture was readily apparent from an even earlier age. At pre-school he would spend hours and hours building castles with legos or duplos, or later with those big card board blocks. And he would not build them the typical way. He would build these structures in surprising ways- ways that no other kid would have thought of. He later lovingly drew and painted these castles with fantastically tall towers and spires.
But as important as these expressions of his artistic soul were to him, his great love of nature was just as important, and also started at a very early age. Rio spent his summers for many years with his beloved mentor and former pre-school teacher, Brian, and an assortment of pre to grade school children in Tilden park, wiling away the hours spotting hundreds of species of birds- owls, great herons, red tailed hawks, one time even an arctic tern. They would play with newts in the creeks, and hike along blackberry-fringed paths. And best of all, they would listen to Brian’s endless and wonderful stories. Rio loved these summers and he became Camp Brian’s first paid counselor, helping out with the little kids once he had grown up a bit.
Later Rio grew to love tracking in the forest, trying to find and identify the tracks of his fellow creatures in the woods. Nature seemed to connect him to his own nature like nothing else. And Rio’s nature was rich in so many ways- he had a fine intelligence, all that artistic talent, that kind, compassionate soul. He was a beautiful young man, inside and out, and he had and has wonderful loving parents, a devoted younger brother and many loving friends.
It seems fitting that the last vacation the Wight family took together with Rio was to the exquisite natural wonder of Mount Shasta. At the end of the vacation, Susan asked Rio if she could take a picture of just him. So now we have this treasure- a beautiful picture of Rio, wearing that serene and slightly amused expression so typical of him, with the mountains just behind him, almost ready to go on his last journey.
I remember a day in 1999 when I was taking a hike in the Berkeley hills and I saw a figure literally appearing through the mist- that was Rio’s mother, Susan. We started walking and talking, and she told me about an idea she had that she thought would be really good for her artistic, somewhat introverted son- an after-school arts program for middle schoolers.
This became the Youth Arts Studio, and I never saw Rio happier than when he would sit at the tables- over there in the parish hall, drawing and painting to his heart’s content. The portfolio he developed at Youth Arts Studio helped him to be accepted at Cornell University where he studied architecture- a fulfillment of his early childhood castle-building ambitions. He had taken a leave of absence from Cornell in the past year, but then returned, re- connecting with his good friends there, hoping to resume his studies.
After a memorial service was set up for Rio at the Episcopal chapel at Cornell, Rio’s best friend called Susan to say, you know, Rio wasn’t religious, and none of his friends out here are really religious either- can we have the service in the architecture building? And so it will be- Rio will be remembered not only here, where his spiritual and artistic lives were nurtured, but in the place where he pursued his life’s calling with his fellow artists.
A week or so after Rio was gone, his mother told me that she had had a very specific sense of his presence. Rio had so loved to go off on new adventures on his own, and she said she got a sudden and certain sense of his joy in the adventure of this next part of his journey, a joy of discovering something utterly, thrillingly new.
There is a spiritual concept that I’ve always loved, about a great river- that the great stream of life, before, during and after our earthly existence is like a great river. When it hits a waterfall and the individual drops separate for a few moments- this is what we call life. And then the drops re-join the great flow of that river.
Happy travels, Rio. Wherever you are on the river, we hope that our love and our thoughts reach you. We know that you are now joyful, please know how much we love you, and know that you will always be with us in our hearts.
All Souls Church, Berkeley
Rio Wight was such a remarkable young man. As has been said in many different ways, Rio was an old soul in a young man’s body. I will always remember the way that Rio would look at you. He had kind and piercing brown eyes that seems to know so much, that communicated so clearly the life of that old soul, the deep and compassionate inner life he had. Quite aside from any suffering he may have had in his life, to look into those eyes was to see a serenity and a maturity and a wisdom that was undeniable. This sense he projected was so strong that it is evident in photographs of him, that calm and steady countenance, and that slight, almost Mona-Lisa-like smile
Rio’s given name was Rion a French name after his grandfather, that Rio changed when he was only six years old. When Rio had been mixed up with a boy named Ryan one too many time, he adjusted the French pronunciation to “Rio.” He could not have known then that he would grow to have a great love of rivers, and the name would fit him so perfectly. I met Rio when he was only nine years old, but I have been told that that his artistic spirit and even his talent and love of architecture was readily apparent from an even earlier age. At pre-school he would spend hours and hours building castles with legos or duplos, or later with those big card board blocks. And he would not build them the typical way. He would build these structures in surprising ways- ways that no other kid would have thought of. He later lovingly drew and painted these castles with fantastically tall towers and spires.
But as important as these expressions of his artistic soul were to him, his great love of nature was just as important, and also started at a very early age. Rio spent his summers for many years with his beloved mentor and former pre-school teacher, Brian, and an assortment of pre to grade school children in Tilden park, wiling away the hours spotting hundreds of species of birds- owls, great herons, red tailed hawks, one time even an arctic tern. They would play with newts in the creeks, and hike along blackberry-fringed paths. And best of all, they would listen to Brian’s endless and wonderful stories. Rio loved these summers and he became Camp Brian’s first paid counselor, helping out with the little kids once he had grown up a bit.
Later Rio grew to love tracking in the forest, trying to find and identify the tracks of his fellow creatures in the woods. Nature seemed to connect him to his own nature like nothing else. And Rio’s nature was rich in so many ways- he had a fine intelligence, all that artistic talent, that kind, compassionate soul. He was a beautiful young man, inside and out, and he had and has wonderful loving parents, a devoted younger brother and many loving friends.
It seems fitting that the last vacation the Wight family took together with Rio was to the exquisite natural wonder of Mount Shasta. At the end of the vacation, Susan asked Rio if she could take a picture of just him. So now we have this treasure- a beautiful picture of Rio, wearing that serene and slightly amused expression so typical of him, with the mountains just behind him, almost ready to go on his last journey.
I remember a day in 1999 when I was taking a hike in the Berkeley hills and I saw a figure literally appearing through the mist- that was Rio’s mother, Susan. We started walking and talking, and she told me about an idea she had that she thought would be really good for her artistic, somewhat introverted son- an after-school arts program for middle schoolers.
This became the Youth Arts Studio, and I never saw Rio happier than when he would sit at the tables- over there in the parish hall, drawing and painting to his heart’s content. The portfolio he developed at Youth Arts Studio helped him to be accepted at Cornell University where he studied architecture- a fulfillment of his early childhood castle-building ambitions. He had taken a leave of absence from Cornell in the past year, but then returned, re- connecting with his good friends there, hoping to resume his studies.
After a memorial service was set up for Rio at the Episcopal chapel at Cornell, Rio’s best friend called Susan to say, you know, Rio wasn’t religious, and none of his friends out here are really religious either- can we have the service in the architecture building? And so it will be- Rio will be remembered not only here, where his spiritual and artistic lives were nurtured, but in the place where he pursued his life’s calling with his fellow artists.
A week or so after Rio was gone, his mother told me that she had had a very specific sense of his presence. Rio had so loved to go off on new adventures on his own, and she said she got a sudden and certain sense of his joy in the adventure of this next part of his journey, a joy of discovering something utterly, thrillingly new.
There is a spiritual concept that I’ve always loved, about a great river- that the great stream of life, before, during and after our earthly existence is like a great river. When it hits a waterfall and the individual drops separate for a few moments- this is what we call life. And then the drops re-join the great flow of that river.
Happy travels, Rio. Wherever you are on the river, we hope that our love and our thoughts reach you. We know that you are now joyful, please know how much we love you, and know that you will always be with us in our hearts.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Be Not Afraid! October 11, 2009.
Be Not Afraid!
October 11, 2009 St. James, Fremont
The Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
On this day, one week from in-gathering Sunday, I would like to say a bit about this church and all churches and what we are about. We are about something very specific. We are named after the anointed one- the Christ- that’s why they call us Christians.
We are named after the anointed one whose very anointing goes to the heart of what we are about. Jesus was anointed, not by a person of power, but by a woman that most of us would probably not invite to dinner. A woman who poured an incredibly precious treasure of perfume on Jesus’ head to anoint him for his work on earth. Jesus’ life and teachings reflect that kind of radical giving.
Now in terms of the teachings of Jesus, people think that Jesus said all sorts of things. Some people think he said a lot of things about family. Some people think he said a lot of things about marriage. Some people think he said a lot about who we should or should not associate with. But the subject that Jesus spoke about the more than anything else was money. Rich people and poor people and riches and poverty. And he spoke a lot about giving.
The word “believe” appears in the Bible 273 times, the word “pray” 371 times, the word love appears 714 times. But the word “give” appears 2,172 times.
Now that may be a frightening thought, the idea that the whole of the bible just urges us to give, give, give, because the thought of giving may be frightening. I understand that fear, because the first time it occurred to me that I should tithe, I was positively terrified. But amazingly, once I did it the fear disappeared. So BE NOT AFRAID
So I want to tell you that the phrase “Do not be afraid”, said mostly by angels or Jesus, appears 365 in the bible.!
One time for every day of the year. This makes me think that we are called every single day of the year, every single day of our lives, to be not afraid to do what God is calling us to do. What is God calling us to do? Luckily we have not only an advocate with the Father, but a specific road map in the life and works of Jesus of Nazareth.
Now, as leaders and fellow children of God, you are called to do some calling of your own. And I urge you to hear these words in your heart and in your souls and in your ears before you make those calls:
BE NOT AFRAID! You are doing the work of the Kingdom, the work of God. You are helping those you call to BE NOT AFRAID. You are asking them to prayerfully consider what percentage of their income God is calling them to give. Urge them to joyfully join you next Sunday, whether or not they are ready to pledge. If they hesitate to come because they are not ready to pledge, and they don’t want to sit conspicuously in their seat while others walk up with their pledge card, remind them that they may mark in the box on their pledge card that they are not yet ready to pledge, and they can bring that forward with the rest, because whether or not they pledge, we are all one body. We are the Body of Christ, even if we are feeling a little wounded, as we all so sometimes. Christ was wounded too.
Some people in this church may be ready to tithe. Some may be ready to do more than tithe, and they may find joy in this. But even those who feel called to be radically generous may feel afraid to do so
To those people I say BE NOT AFRAID. Remember the exquisite story of the anointing woman. To those who objected because of the cost, Jesus defended the woman extravagantly, and said that she would always be remembered for what she did on that day.
She got called to do something a little outrageous, totally extravagant, utterly loving.
Maybe we might be called to do something similar. Maybe we might be called to ignore the carping of our minds, like the carping of the disapproving disciples.
Maybe we can spring ourselves from the awful reality of this culture of ours that makes a God of money. Some would say it takes a miracle for us to be released from it’s pull. Luckily we have a miracle. We have the miraculous life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and we have our calling as Christians.
And we have the knowledge, deep within us, if we can admit it, that it is not money that brings us joy. It is love, service, and community that brings us joy.
A word that we hear frequently in the New Testament is repentance. But repentance is a bad translation of the word metanoia, which means transformation. It is transformation, and not comfort that Jesus offers us. We can transform from people whose first concern is comfort and caution to people who’s first priority is the bringing of the Kingdom of God. This is the miracle we can effect in our own lives.
There is one biblical text that I never connected with transformation until I heard my daughter’s interpretation: The rich young man comes and asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus says to keep the commandments and the young man says that he has always kept them. Jesus looks at him with love, probably smiles, maybe even laughs, and says, “One thing more- sell what you own and give the money to the poor. Then come and follow me. The text goes on to say that the young man went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Jesus then turns to his disciples and gets off the one-liner about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.
But then he says, “With God, all things are possible.”
My daughter, who was ten at the time, and identified as Jewish, like her dad, had a good midrash for this story. She thought it was obvious that the young man went away sad, gave his possessions away, became joyful and came back to follow Jesus!
Jesus gives us a forge for our transformation, which is our faith, our membership in the body of Christ. The amount we give does not matter. It is the completeness of the transformation, the great growing up of the mustard seed, the rising of the bread. It is our own personal miracle-
Praying to hear God’s call and then acting on the answer to the question: What is God calling me to do?
BE NOT AFRAID!
Amen.
October 11, 2009 St. James, Fremont
The Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
On this day, one week from in-gathering Sunday, I would like to say a bit about this church and all churches and what we are about. We are about something very specific. We are named after the anointed one- the Christ- that’s why they call us Christians.
We are named after the anointed one whose very anointing goes to the heart of what we are about. Jesus was anointed, not by a person of power, but by a woman that most of us would probably not invite to dinner. A woman who poured an incredibly precious treasure of perfume on Jesus’ head to anoint him for his work on earth. Jesus’ life and teachings reflect that kind of radical giving.
Now in terms of the teachings of Jesus, people think that Jesus said all sorts of things. Some people think he said a lot of things about family. Some people think he said a lot of things about marriage. Some people think he said a lot about who we should or should not associate with. But the subject that Jesus spoke about the more than anything else was money. Rich people and poor people and riches and poverty. And he spoke a lot about giving.
The word “believe” appears in the Bible 273 times, the word “pray” 371 times, the word love appears 714 times. But the word “give” appears 2,172 times.
Now that may be a frightening thought, the idea that the whole of the bible just urges us to give, give, give, because the thought of giving may be frightening. I understand that fear, because the first time it occurred to me that I should tithe, I was positively terrified. But amazingly, once I did it the fear disappeared. So BE NOT AFRAID
So I want to tell you that the phrase “Do not be afraid”, said mostly by angels or Jesus, appears 365 in the bible.!
One time for every day of the year. This makes me think that we are called every single day of the year, every single day of our lives, to be not afraid to do what God is calling us to do. What is God calling us to do? Luckily we have not only an advocate with the Father, but a specific road map in the life and works of Jesus of Nazareth.
Now, as leaders and fellow children of God, you are called to do some calling of your own. And I urge you to hear these words in your heart and in your souls and in your ears before you make those calls:
BE NOT AFRAID! You are doing the work of the Kingdom, the work of God. You are helping those you call to BE NOT AFRAID. You are asking them to prayerfully consider what percentage of their income God is calling them to give. Urge them to joyfully join you next Sunday, whether or not they are ready to pledge. If they hesitate to come because they are not ready to pledge, and they don’t want to sit conspicuously in their seat while others walk up with their pledge card, remind them that they may mark in the box on their pledge card that they are not yet ready to pledge, and they can bring that forward with the rest, because whether or not they pledge, we are all one body. We are the Body of Christ, even if we are feeling a little wounded, as we all so sometimes. Christ was wounded too.
Some people in this church may be ready to tithe. Some may be ready to do more than tithe, and they may find joy in this. But even those who feel called to be radically generous may feel afraid to do so
To those people I say BE NOT AFRAID. Remember the exquisite story of the anointing woman. To those who objected because of the cost, Jesus defended the woman extravagantly, and said that she would always be remembered for what she did on that day.
She got called to do something a little outrageous, totally extravagant, utterly loving.
Maybe we might be called to do something similar. Maybe we might be called to ignore the carping of our minds, like the carping of the disapproving disciples.
Maybe we can spring ourselves from the awful reality of this culture of ours that makes a God of money. Some would say it takes a miracle for us to be released from it’s pull. Luckily we have a miracle. We have the miraculous life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and we have our calling as Christians.
And we have the knowledge, deep within us, if we can admit it, that it is not money that brings us joy. It is love, service, and community that brings us joy.
A word that we hear frequently in the New Testament is repentance. But repentance is a bad translation of the word metanoia, which means transformation. It is transformation, and not comfort that Jesus offers us. We can transform from people whose first concern is comfort and caution to people who’s first priority is the bringing of the Kingdom of God. This is the miracle we can effect in our own lives.
There is one biblical text that I never connected with transformation until I heard my daughter’s interpretation: The rich young man comes and asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus says to keep the commandments and the young man says that he has always kept them. Jesus looks at him with love, probably smiles, maybe even laughs, and says, “One thing more- sell what you own and give the money to the poor. Then come and follow me. The text goes on to say that the young man went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Jesus then turns to his disciples and gets off the one-liner about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.
But then he says, “With God, all things are possible.”
My daughter, who was ten at the time, and identified as Jewish, like her dad, had a good midrash for this story. She thought it was obvious that the young man went away sad, gave his possessions away, became joyful and came back to follow Jesus!
Jesus gives us a forge for our transformation, which is our faith, our membership in the body of Christ. The amount we give does not matter. It is the completeness of the transformation, the great growing up of the mustard seed, the rising of the bread. It is our own personal miracle-
Praying to hear God’s call and then acting on the answer to the question: What is God calling me to do?
BE NOT AFRAID!
Amen.
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