Last night was a night to remember. I attended the award presentation and dinner for the UN Awards because I had been at the right place at the right time and was asked to accept the award on behalf of the Bishop of California, Marc Handley Andrus, along with the Rev. Ted Thompson. Ted came to the dinner with his lovely wife (really) Mary and my lovely husband Matt Cantor came with me. We all took the stage and accepted the award together. The evening included a clown-like dancing water goddess, covered in flowing spangly blue robes and wearing an enormous wave-like hat. The theme of the evening was "Water for Life" and she made sure we remembered that. At the second half, she came out covered with plastic water bottles and intoned over and over again, "Is this what you want? Is this what you want? Turn off the spigot of your tap and turn on the spigot of your heart!" The food was great, and we were among very honorable company as recipients of this award- we came right after Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates. I did the acceptance speech and here it is:
Acceptance Comments for the East Bay Chapter of the United Nations Citizen Award
Given to the Diocese of California
I am truly honored to accept this award on behalf of the Episcopal Diocese of California, Bishop Marc Handley Andrus and all the remarkable churches, youth groups and individuals who have done such wondrous work for the Millennium Development Goals. And thank you to the Water Goddess for making this such a Berkeley moment for me. There have been so many astonishing things happening in the diocese to support the MDGs that I am sorry I have time to lift up only a few, but here goes…
Bishop Marc, very early in his tenure as our Bishop created a diocesan committee on the MDGs. This has been beautifully chaired by the very versatile Rev. Shari Young. The impact of the work of this committee has radiated out like ripples of water not only through the Diocese of California, but all over the world. Churches have shifted their programming to reflect their commitment to the MDGs, they have gone solar, their outreach programs have blossomed and many churches have sent out missions to alleviate hunger and fight disease all over the world. Our own East Bay St. John’s church in Montclair under the leadership of the Rev. Scott Denman is a good example of this, having completed a youth mission trip to Puerto Rico this past year and continuing important mission work in Uganda and Tanzania.
Bishop Marc also created a committee to identify three dioceses to be in partnership with ours. This would be a partnership that would have mutual fulfillment of the MDGs as a major priority. One was to be in Latin America, one in Asia and one in Africa. I am proud to say that our own East Bay Rev. Ted Thompson was the one who ably chaired that committee and they recently identified the first of those three partner dioceses - the Diocese of Curitiba in Southern Brazil. It turns out that Curitiba is one of the greenest cities in the world, so we will learn as much from them as they will from us. I would also like to raise up the Church Divinity School of the Pacific for their innovative greening of the campus program, led by Jan O'Brien with the sage help of Dr. Marion Grau. And Kevin Jones of Holy Innocents, San Francisco, has created a database that is a veritable wikipedia of accountability of the progress made by our diocese with the MDGs. Our work has been mapped out so that we can see the consequences of the impact of every church in this diocese throughout the world.
There has been truly wonderful representation by the youth in the diocese. The youth group of the Rev. Ted Thompson’s own Christ Church in Alameda, led by Laura Toepfer, drafted a resolution for the California Diocese to urge all clergy and all churches to change AT LEAST one incandescent bulb for a compact florescent. This resolution passed almost unanimously just last Saturday, and I went home and replaced one of my light bulbs that very afternoon! Two East Bay youth groups have sent teams to New Orleans to repair the awful damage there and help the people who continue to suffer. St. Alban's Church in Albany sent 22 people, led by the indomitable Bobbi Ryan and Interim Rector, the Rev. Linda Campbell, and actually ran a camp for the children from the lower 9th ward. All Souls Parish in Berkeley sent a group of 18 hardy souls to clear debris and weeds from a huge field, pass out supplies to the needy and insulate the new houses that are being built. Many other youth groups have done many other marvelous things, in and out of the East Bay, from creating works of art to illustrate each MDG, ( the Youth Arts Academy) to making ceramic light switch plates, telling us to turn off our lights! These were sold, and the proceeds used for a solar panel fund for the youth group’s church- Our Saviour, Mill Valley.
But I have to say that the leadership for all this good work has been from Bishop Marc Handley Andrus. Since this is Berkeley, I would like to take a moment to try to impart to you the cosmic nature of Bishop Marc’s leadership. Perhaps the best way to do this is to describe the presentation that Bishop Marc has made whenever possible- at events, conferences and during a sermon. I refer to “The Cosmic Walk.” This is a tour through natural history, starting at the very beginning- the phenomenon of the Big Bang- or, as the Bishop calls it, "the great primordial flaring forth." A long rope is spiraled out on the ground, with the inside coil representing the beginning, delineating such landmarks as 12.5 billion years ago when stars and galaxies are born, 4 billion years ago when the oceans are formed, 2 billion years ago when oxygen-loving cells emerge, 600 million years ago when ecosystems emerge, right down to the emergence of human beings, and eventually, culminating with the creation of the MDGs. The Bishop saunters along the spiral, noting each landmark and honoring it by lighting a candle at each spot. The moment that stays with me the most is 540 million years ago when eyes emerge- the instant when the first amphibian raised its protruding eyes out of the water and, for the first time, that thing which was made from the earth was able to see. For the first time, earth sees itself.
I was taught to see the earth in an entirely new way when I took a course on the MDGs from Bishop Marc’s remarkable wife, Dr. Sheila Andrus. There were many transformative things I learned from that course, but here are two that have really stayed with me:
First, the brilliant feminist and ecological hero, Dr. Marion Grau came to talk, and she made an interesting confession. She said that she discovered that the work she had been doing was, in large part, fueled by anger that other people were not doing enough, or by guilt, that she was not doing enough. She came to realize that guilt and anger are not renewable energy sources, and like an incandescent light bulb, she was burning out. So to renew herself, she went to a great joyous Earth-day like festival in her native Germany, and she had a revelation: That she no longer needed to fuel her work with anger or with guilt, but with joy. Joy that she, in this short life, could do SOMETHING to reach these goals we are all talking about, and joy that there were so many people all over the world to do that something with!
After her talk, Bishop Marc showed up and immediately added another Millennium Development Goal- I guess when you are Bishop you get to do that. He added MDG #9: Peace and Reconciliation. And I hope that all of us will work for peace as well as the realization of all these goals. I hope we do something every single day, preferably out of joy, that will add in some small way to the realization of these outrageously optimistic, challenging and deeply possible goals. Thank you.
-The Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Giving Peace a Chance
On Saturday Oct 27 a long-planned coalition peace march took place in San Francisco. There
were parallel marches all over the country, and although two other significant ones took place in LA and New York, the San Francisco march was by far the largest, at 10,000 marchers. For the San Francisco march, a coalition of 180 groups, including faith groups, students, labor, women’s groups and many more came together under one banner only: Stop the war in Iraq.
Bishop Marc decided that the Diocese of California should participate in the San Francisco march, and that we would gather at the Cathedral and march the short distance to the Civic Center where the masses were gathered. There was an unusual emphasis on including the faith community by the organizers of the march, and a large and moving interfaith service was held at Grace Cathedral Oct 25, to further that effort.
The Episcopalians met at Grace Cathedral at 10:00 and marched down to the Civic Center on a truly beautiful day for a march, singing all the way. We met an enormous crowd at the rally, which included a huge interfaith group- Buddhists, Quakers, Baptists, and many other denominations.
Our own Bishop Mark was one of about ten who addressed the crowd, and he spoke movingly about the importance of being witnesses to the deaths and injustice in Iraq, as the women by the cross and the beloved disciple had witnessed Jesus’ death. He spoke of the unreliability of the media, and the importance of telling our stories and of giving others a forum for telling theirs. He posed a question to the crowd: How many people know the number of Iraqis killed in the Gulf War? I saw no hands raised. He proposed we use whatever platforms we had to give voice to those not often heard, to learn information so often suppressed, and he mentioned the church as one likely forum.
After he spoke a burley man approached him and said repeatedly, “Are you the head of the church?” After the bishop clarified who he was, the man said wonderingly, “I’ve seen people who go to church here at these marches, but I have never seen the head of a church here!” The man shook the bishop’s hand. The other speakers were lively and loud and inspiring. Standouts were the always-irrepressible Code Pink, who led us in song, and a wonderful Philipino rapper named Kiwi who had everyone dancing.
We all marched together to Market Street where everyone laid down on the street for a short, legal, very affecting three-minute die-in- a demonstration of the loss of life we
hear so little about. Then we marched on to Dolores Park, remaining with the large faith contingent, and singing peace songs led by a spirited Quaker with a megaphone, a great spirit and a (self-described) awful voice. The spirits were high throughout the march. As usual the streets were lined with police and the helicopters flew overhead, reminding us again of the realities of war. Ten thousand people witnessed for peace that day, and the witnesses will keep on marching until the war is at an end. Join us.
Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
Come to the Visioning Day for Big Theological Fun!
The Visioning Day, at Church of Our Saviour, Mill Valley, is also billed as a time of conversation with our Bishop. this is a service and set of workshops designed to include the whole of the Diocese of California in visioning a way forward for the diocese. The workshops between the two liturgies include writing, music, art and theological reflection time and are open to all. Please try to make it- Not only adults, but children and youth as well! The order of service and of the day follows:
Prelude Ashe Ashe, Nigerian Traditional Guitar and Drum
The Gathering Rites:
Acclamation:
Presider: Alleluia, Christ has risen.
People: Christ has risen indeed. Alleluia
A Reading from Martin Luther King Jr. from Facing the Challenge of a New Age
Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation. …the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of [women and] men.”
The Word of God
A Collect for Community
Presider: May God be with you.
People: And also with you.
Presider: Let us pray.
It is through you, gracious God,
That your children find agape love,
the love of God that operates in human hearts.
the love of God that makes no distinction between friend and enemy
the love of God that never shrinks from justice
the overflowing, redeeming, groundless and creative love
which challenges, liberates and sustains us.
Oh God, give us this love always, that we may be at one with you
And walk the earth as brothers and sisters. Amen
The First Lesson 1 Chronicles 2-4, 7-13
David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, "Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are."
But Joab replied, "May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord's subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?"
The king's word, however, overruled Joab; so Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem. But God was displeased with this command, so He punished Israel.
Then David said to God, "I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing." The Lord said to Gad, David's seer, "Go and tell David, 'This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.' "
So Gad went to David and said to him, "This is what the Lord says: 'Take your choice: three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies, with their swords overtaking you, or three days of the sword of the Lord -days of plague in the land, with the angel of the Lord ravaging every part of Israel.' Now then, decide how I should answer the one who sent me."
David said to Gad, "I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men
Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.
People: Thanks be to God
Psalm of the Beloved Community
Written by the Visioning Day Psalm Workshop May 5. 2007
All read together:
Give thanks to God who created the Beloved Community.
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Rappers and redwoods, designers and derelicts, tweakers and truckers;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Commuters and kayakers, poppies and preachers, faults and fishers;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Stoners and stockbrokers, cyclists and sandpipers, students and slammers;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Sea lions and seals, cats and dogs, otters and owls;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Drummers and dragons, Ohloni and Miwok, lovers and lunatics;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Writers and runners, poets and pumpkins, Maoists and marshlands;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
May the Beloved Community be the net that gathers our hopes
dreams and prayers;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
May the Beloved Community be us.
Bless the Lord My Soul Taize
Bless the Lord my soul and bless God’s Holy name
Bless the Lord My Soul, who leads me into life
The Second Lesson The Revelation to John 7:9-12
After this I looked and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb!”
And all the angels stood around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and
thanksgiving and honor and power and might
be to our God forever and ever!”
Amen.
Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people
People: Thanks be to God
Sequence Hymn Come All You People Alexander Gondo
Come all you people, come and praise your Maker!
Come all you people, come and praise your Maker!
Come all you people, come and praise your Maker,
come now and worship the Lord.
Uyaimose, tinamate Mwari!
Uyaimose, tinamate, Mwari!
Uyaimose, tinamate, Mwari,
Uyaimose zvino.
The Holy Gospel Luke 2:1-7
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that all the world should be counted (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Gospeller: The Gospel of Christ.
People: Praise to you, O Christ.
Gospel Acclamation Creek Alleluiah
The Sermon The Right Reverend Marc H. Andrus
Confession New Zealand Prayer Book
Presider: Eternal Spirit, Living God,
We have wounded your Love
People: Oh God heal us.
Presider: We stumble in the darkness
People: Light of the world, transfigure us.
Presider: We forget that we are your home.
People: Spirit of God, dwell in us.
All: Compassionate God,
we confess our weaknesses and our need
for your strengthening touch,
we confess that we do not always care for ourselves
or our world as we should.
we turn to you, source of life,
and ask in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ,
for the gifts of true healing and newness of life,
through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
Presider:
May the God of love visit you in times of trial and weakness
and fill you with living water and newness of life, through Jesus Christ,
in the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
The Peace
Presider: May the peace, the justice and the love of God be always with you.
People: And also with you
Blessing of the Beloved Community
All remain standing to receive a blessing for the work of the Beloved Community:
Presider: On the third time that the risen Christ appeared to the disciples after he was
raised from the dead, he said to Simon Peter,
People: Feed my sheep
Presider: Then he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter said to him,
Yes Lord, you know that I love you. Jesus said to him,
People: Tend my lambs.
Presider: He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, Do you love me? And Peter said
to him, Lord you know everything; you know that I love you. Jesus said to him,
People: Feed my sheep
Presider: How do you respond to this call?
People: We hear God’s call and we come to follow Christ; to feed the hungry, clothe the
naked, to visit the sick and to care for the suffering in this world.
Presider: May the blessing of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer be with you and lift
you up and give you strength and courage for this holy work now and always.
Amen
Announcements
Drum Solo by Michael Cobino
__________________________________________________________________________________
You are invited to join the workshops until the closing Eucharist.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Opening hymn: Gather Us In Marty Haugen
Congregation remains standing for gathering liturgy.
AFTER HYMN HAS ENDED, BISHOP FACES THE CONGREGATION:
(DURING THE BELOW GATHERING LITURGY, THE PEOPLE PROCESS IN WITH THE NET OF PRAYERS.
Presider:
Gather us in Wild Goose Worship Group
the lost and the lonely,
the broken and breaking,
the tired and the aching
who long for nourishment
found at your feast.
People: GATHER US IN.
Presider: The done and the doubting
the wishing and wondering
the puzzled and pondering
who long for the company
found at your feast.
People: GATHER US IN.
Presider: The proud and the pretentious
the sure and the superior,
the never inferior,
who long for the leveling
found at your feast.
People: GATHER US IN.
Presider: The bright and the bustling,
the stirrers, the shakers,
the kind laughter-makers
who long for the deeper joys
found at your feast.
People: GATHER US IN.
Presider: From mansion or campsite
to meet, to eat,
to be offered a seat,
to be joined to the vine
to become like the least
to be found at the feast
People: GATHER US IN!
Presider: God is love and those who dwell in love dwell in God, and God dwells in them.
BISHOP INVITES CHILDREN TO GATHER ROUND ALTAR TO HELP BLESS THE BREAD
(DEACON Sets table)
Offertory Hymn Ubi Caritas Taize
Ubi caritas et amor, Ubi caritas Deus ibi est
BISHOP IS NOW BEHIND ALTAR
The Great Thanksgiving Wild Goose Worship Group
Presider May God be with you
People And also with you
Presider Lift up your hearts
People We lift them up to God
Presider Let us give thanks to God
People It is right to give God thanks and praise.
Presider:: …Therefore we gladly join our voices to the song of the Church
On earth or in heaven:
Sanctus- Plain Chant
Prayers of the People NEW PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE FROM WORKSHOP ARE READ
Presider: And now let us pray together:
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver New Zealand Prayer Book
Source of all that is and all that shall be
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the people of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your reign of peace and freedom
Sustain our hope in haven and on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that speaks of death and not of life, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
Now and forever. Amen.
BREAKING OF THE BREAD
Fraction Anthem:
Acapella Fraction Anthem
The Communion
Presider: All who seek God are welcome at the table.
CHALLICE AND PATTENS GO TO THEIR PLACES
Music at Communion:
Peace Before Us
Post Communion Prayer Wild Goose Worship Group
All: Eternal Spirit, Living God, in whom we live and move and have our being,
all that we are, have been, and shall be is known to you,
to the very secrets of our hearts, and all that rises to trouble us.
Take us out to live as changed people
because we have shared the Living Bread and cannot remain the same.
Living flame, burn into us.
Cleansing wind, blow through us.
Fountain of water, well up within us,
that we may love and praise in deed and truth.
Amen
The Blessing
Live without fear; your Creator has made you Holy,
has always protected you, and loves you like a mother.
Go in peace to follow the good road, and
may the blessing of God, Creator, Liberator and Kindler of the Spirit
Be with you evermore,
Amen.
Post-Communion Hymn Syahamba
BISHOP AND ALTAR PARTY PROCESS OUT AND WAIT FOR THE DISMISSAL
Dismissal
Deacon: Let us go forth in the name of Christ, rejoicing in the power of the Beloved Community.
Alleluia, alleluia!
People: Thanks be to God. Alleluia, alleluia!
Post Lude Guitar and Drum
_______________________________________________________________________________
The first lesson is a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. from his December 3, 1956 Sermon: Facing the Challenge of a New Age. This was presented at the first annual address of the Institute on Non-violence and Social Change less than a month after the Supreme Court ruled the segregation of buses in Montgomery Alabama to be unconstitutional.
Participating Today:
Presiding: Bishop Marc Handley Andrus
Rev. Richard Helmer
Music:
Pete Feltman, guitar and vocals
Michael Cobina, drum
Small Group Facillitators:
Bruce Cozzi
Al Ferrano
Cathy Ferrano
Kathleen Von Fischer
Workshops:
Theological Reflection: Bruce Cozzi
Writing: The Rev. Carol Luther
Art: The Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
Holy Eucharist:Building the Beloved Community
Marin Deanery Visioning Day Oct 6, 2007
Marin Deanery Visioning Day Oct 6, 2007
Prelude Ashe Ashe, Nigerian Traditional Guitar and Drum
The Gathering Rites:
Acclamation:
Presider: Alleluia, Christ has risen.
People: Christ has risen indeed. Alleluia
A Reading from Martin Luther King Jr. from Facing the Challenge of a New Age
Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation. …the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of [women and] men.”
The Word of God
A Collect for Community
Presider: May God be with you.
People: And also with you.
Presider: Let us pray.
It is through you, gracious God,
That your children find agape love,
the love of God that operates in human hearts.
the love of God that makes no distinction between friend and enemy
the love of God that never shrinks from justice
the overflowing, redeeming, groundless and creative love
which challenges, liberates and sustains us.
Oh God, give us this love always, that we may be at one with you
And walk the earth as brothers and sisters. Amen
The First Lesson 1 Chronicles 2-4, 7-13
David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, "Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are."
But Joab replied, "May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord's subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?"
The king's word, however, overruled Joab; so Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem. But God was displeased with this command, so He punished Israel.
Then David said to God, "I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing." The Lord said to Gad, David's seer, "Go and tell David, 'This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.' "
So Gad went to David and said to him, "This is what the Lord says: 'Take your choice: three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies, with their swords overtaking you, or three days of the sword of the Lord -days of plague in the land, with the angel of the Lord ravaging every part of Israel.' Now then, decide how I should answer the one who sent me."
David said to Gad, "I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men
Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.
People: Thanks be to God
Psalm of the Beloved Community
Written by the Visioning Day Psalm Workshop May 5. 2007
All read together:
Give thanks to God who created the Beloved Community.
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Rappers and redwoods, designers and derelicts, tweakers and truckers;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Commuters and kayakers, poppies and preachers, faults and fishers;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Stoners and stockbrokers, cyclists and sandpipers, students and slammers;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Sea lions and seals, cats and dogs, otters and owls;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Drummers and dragons, Ohloni and Miwok, lovers and lunatics;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
Writers and runners, poets and pumpkins, Maoists and marshlands;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
May the Beloved Community be the net that gathers our hopes
dreams and prayers;
Y'all give to God love, thanks and praise.
May the Beloved Community be us.
Bless the Lord My Soul Taize
Bless the Lord my soul and bless God’s Holy name
Bless the Lord My Soul, who leads me into life
The Second Lesson The Revelation to John 7:9-12
After this I looked and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb!”
And all the angels stood around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and
thanksgiving and honor and power and might
be to our God forever and ever!”
Amen.
Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people
People: Thanks be to God
Sequence Hymn Come All You People Alexander Gondo
Come all you people, come and praise your Maker!
Come all you people, come and praise your Maker!
Come all you people, come and praise your Maker,
come now and worship the Lord.
Uyaimose, tinamate Mwari!
Uyaimose, tinamate, Mwari!
Uyaimose, tinamate, Mwari,
Uyaimose zvino.
The Holy Gospel Luke 2:1-7
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that all the world should be counted (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Gospeller: The Gospel of Christ.
People: Praise to you, O Christ.
Gospel Acclamation Creek Alleluiah
The Sermon The Right Reverend Marc H. Andrus
Confession New Zealand Prayer Book
Presider: Eternal Spirit, Living God,
We have wounded your Love
People: Oh God heal us.
Presider: We stumble in the darkness
People: Light of the world, transfigure us.
Presider: We forget that we are your home.
People: Spirit of God, dwell in us.
All: Compassionate God,
we confess our weaknesses and our need
for your strengthening touch,
we confess that we do not always care for ourselves
or our world as we should.
we turn to you, source of life,
and ask in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ,
for the gifts of true healing and newness of life,
through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
Presider:
May the God of love visit you in times of trial and weakness
and fill you with living water and newness of life, through Jesus Christ,
in the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
The Peace
Presider: May the peace, the justice and the love of God be always with you.
People: And also with you
Blessing of the Beloved Community
All remain standing to receive a blessing for the work of the Beloved Community:
Presider: On the third time that the risen Christ appeared to the disciples after he was
raised from the dead, he said to Simon Peter,
People: Feed my sheep
Presider: Then he said to him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter said to him,
Yes Lord, you know that I love you. Jesus said to him,
People: Tend my lambs.
Presider: He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, Do you love me? And Peter said
to him, Lord you know everything; you know that I love you. Jesus said to him,
People: Feed my sheep
Presider: How do you respond to this call?
People: We hear God’s call and we come to follow Christ; to feed the hungry, clothe the
naked, to visit the sick and to care for the suffering in this world.
Presider: May the blessing of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer be with you and lift
you up and give you strength and courage for this holy work now and always.
Amen
Announcements
Drum Solo by Michael Cobino
__________________________________________________________________________________
You are invited to join the workshops until the closing Eucharist.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Closing Eucharist
Opening hymn: Gather Us In Marty Haugen
Congregation remains standing for gathering liturgy.
AFTER HYMN HAS ENDED, BISHOP FACES THE CONGREGATION:
(DURING THE BELOW GATHERING LITURGY, THE PEOPLE PROCESS IN WITH THE NET OF PRAYERS.
Presider:
Gather us in Wild Goose Worship Group
the lost and the lonely,
the broken and breaking,
the tired and the aching
who long for nourishment
found at your feast.
People: GATHER US IN.
Presider: The done and the doubting
the wishing and wondering
the puzzled and pondering
who long for the company
found at your feast.
People: GATHER US IN.
Presider: The proud and the pretentious
the sure and the superior,
the never inferior,
who long for the leveling
found at your feast.
People: GATHER US IN.
Presider: The bright and the bustling,
the stirrers, the shakers,
the kind laughter-makers
who long for the deeper joys
found at your feast.
People: GATHER US IN.
Presider: From mansion or campsite
to meet, to eat,
to be offered a seat,
to be joined to the vine
to become like the least
to be found at the feast
People: GATHER US IN!
Presider: God is love and those who dwell in love dwell in God, and God dwells in them.
BISHOP INVITES CHILDREN TO GATHER ROUND ALTAR TO HELP BLESS THE BREAD
(DEACON Sets table)
Offertory Hymn Ubi Caritas Taize
Ubi caritas et amor, Ubi caritas Deus ibi est
BISHOP IS NOW BEHIND ALTAR
The Great Thanksgiving Wild Goose Worship Group
Presider May God be with you
People And also with you
Presider Lift up your hearts
People We lift them up to God
Presider Let us give thanks to God
People It is right to give God thanks and praise.
Presider:: …Therefore we gladly join our voices to the song of the Church
On earth or in heaven:
Sanctus- Plain Chant
Prayers of the People NEW PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE FROM WORKSHOP ARE READ
Presider: And now let us pray together:
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver New Zealand Prayer Book
Source of all that is and all that shall be
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the people of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your reign of peace and freedom
Sustain our hope in haven and on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that speaks of death and not of life, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
Now and forever. Amen.
BREAKING OF THE BREAD
Fraction Anthem:
Acapella Fraction Anthem
The Communion
Presider: All who seek God are welcome at the table.
CHALLICE AND PATTENS GO TO THEIR PLACES
Music at Communion:
Peace Before Us
Post Communion Prayer Wild Goose Worship Group
All: Eternal Spirit, Living God, in whom we live and move and have our being,
all that we are, have been, and shall be is known to you,
to the very secrets of our hearts, and all that rises to trouble us.
Take us out to live as changed people
because we have shared the Living Bread and cannot remain the same.
Living flame, burn into us.
Cleansing wind, blow through us.
Fountain of water, well up within us,
that we may love and praise in deed and truth.
Amen
The Blessing
Live without fear; your Creator has made you Holy,
has always protected you, and loves you like a mother.
Go in peace to follow the good road, and
may the blessing of God, Creator, Liberator and Kindler of the Spirit
Be with you evermore,
Amen.
Post-Communion Hymn Syahamba
BISHOP AND ALTAR PARTY PROCESS OUT AND WAIT FOR THE DISMISSAL
Dismissal
Deacon: Let us go forth in the name of Christ, rejoicing in the power of the Beloved Community.
Alleluia, alleluia!
People: Thanks be to God. Alleluia, alleluia!
Post Lude Guitar and Drum
_______________________________________________________________________________
The first lesson is a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. from his December 3, 1956 Sermon: Facing the Challenge of a New Age. This was presented at the first annual address of the Institute on Non-violence and Social Change less than a month after the Supreme Court ruled the segregation of buses in Montgomery Alabama to be unconstitutional.
Participating Today:
Presiding: Bishop Marc Handley Andrus
Rev. Richard Helmer
Music:
Pete Feltman, guitar and vocals
Michael Cobina, drum
Small Group Facillitators:
Bruce Cozzi
Al Ferrano
Cathy Ferrano
Kathleen Von Fischer
Workshops:
Theological Reflection: Bruce Cozzi
Writing: The Rev. Carol Luther
Art: The Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
Monday, October 1, 2007
Rich Man Poor Man
Luke 16:19-31
Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
Preached Sept. 30, 2007
Church of Our Saviour, Mill Valley
I had the pleasure of going to the Diocesan clergy conference with 200 other clergy folk from the Diocese of California this past week. There were many notable sages and prophets who gave us their words of wisdom. Our own Presiding Bishop, Kathryn Jefferts Schorri (the first openly female presiding bishop we have ever had!) was brilliant and moving and wise. Our own Bishop Marc Handley Andrus as ever, gave us a far-reaching cosmic view of creation and our responsibility to it.
But of all these prophetic luminaries, the one whose words stayed with me most was the fireball community activist, Marie Harris, a Baptist from Hunter’s Point in San Francisco.
Bishop Marc had e-mailed us several reams of reading material to slog through before the conference, and I managed about half of it. Fortunately, the half I read included the story of Marie Harris and the environmental victory of the community activists in Hunter’s Point/Bay View, the poorest and blackest section of the beautiful city of San Francisco. One reading introduced us to the complexities of "Environmental Justice" – the idea that health burdens and poor air quality and proximity to environmental hazards are disproportionately distributed by race and income. Although governmental agencies have begun to change policies to alleviate this injustice, it didn’t happen from a spontaneous burst of goodwill on the part of those in charge. It was the hard and faithful work of community organizers like Marie Harris combined with mounting evidence of their claims that caused the change.
The first thing Marie Harris pointed out was that the City of San Francisco is 49 miles square, and Bay View/Hunter’s Point is 2.5 miles square. In that 2.5 miles are all four of the power plants that reside in San Francisco. We, like the rich man whose table Lazarus the begger is huddling beneath, tend to be comfortable in our lifestyle, without realizing that the flames of hell are visited upon the residents of Hunters Point, Richmond and West Oakland, to name just our local regions of Hades.
The flames of hell are occurring right in their lifetime in the form of an industrial practice called “flaring.” When refineries want to burn off gas build-ups they let loose from the tops of their great smoke stacks vast plumes of flame, spewing forth pollution and illustrating in dramatically visual terms the reality of the environment these poor and minority people live in. And there are no refineries in affluent neighborhoods.
The flames of Hell come in the form of drastically elevated rates of cancer, asthma, and many other ailments. As Marie Harris put it, “You name it, we’ve got it.” The flames of Hell come in the form of infant mortality rates that no affluent neighborhood would ever tolerate. And the flames of Hell come in the form of a deafening silence on the part of the more prosperous city residents, who always seem to find the priorities of the poor their very last priority.
But like Lazarus, Marie Harris got her time in paradise, although she nearly died trying to get there. On May 15, 2006, Marie, along with many minority community members who had fought the system for 25 years, celebrated a glorious victory. PG&E had finally agreed to shut down one of California’s oldest and dirtiest power plants right there is Hunter’s Point. Another faithful organizer, Tessie Ester, was there celebrating with Marie. Like Lazarus looking at the faces of the angels carrying him to heaven she said, “When I look over at the those stacks and I see nothing coming out, I just can’t help but cry.”
Marie Harris is a modern version of Amos or Isaiah. She told us in no uncertain terms that now that we were aware of what was happening in Bay View Hinter’s point that she was now holding us morally responsible to do something about it- to help her, to join with her. She even made a connection between the high cancer rates in Bay View Hunter’s point, and the high cancer rates in Marin County. Marie said that it was in Hunter’s point that “Little Boy” the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was assembled. And that they stored the nuclear waste in steel drums and dropped them in the San Francisco Bay. The drums, she said, began after many years to drift up on the shores of Marin. So, as she said, we each share our own piece of Hell.
We can’t contain these flames of Hell in one area, even if we may want to.
It may seem, as our Gospel reads today that “A great chasm has been fixed” between the rich and the poor, between Hunter’s Point and Marin County. But no such chasm exists.
Bishop Marc, on the first night of the conference, laid out for us a fascinating presentation he has done many times before called “The Cosmic Walk.” A long rope was spiraled out on the ground, and candles were placed to delineate the great landmarks of creation- starting with the great flaring forth- the big bang, and ending with the advent of human history. Toward the end of this great spiral, we had the emergence of amphibians. As Bishop Marc said, the eye emerged from the sea and for the first time, the earth saw itself.
Today, we, as the earth are seeing ourselves again. What do we see?
We are all born the same- we bring nothing into this world, and we take nothing away, as Paul reminds us in our second reading. And I was struck, when I looked at Marie, with how rich she is. Rich in good works, certainly, but also rich in community, rich in passion, and because of her great charisma and passion, even rich in the blessings and success of her faithful efforts.
If we cannot listen to our modern day prophets, we may never hear the word from heaven that we need to hear. Father Abraham, in our reading of today tells the rich man that his brothers did not listen to Moses, who said, “Do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor” (Deut 15:7)
They did not listen to the prophet Isaiah, who said:
Is this not the fast I choose:
To loose the bonds of injustice
To undo the thongs of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free
To break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor to your house
When you see the naked to cover them
And not hide yourself from your own kin? (Isa 58: 6-7)
It is this last direction that seems to be the redemption of the rich man. In the end he begins to think of someone other than himself- his five brothers, also presumably rich men, oblivious to the needs of the poor, as he was. He realizes that they will meet the same fate that he has, if they are not warned. Abraham’s last words are that if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced if someone is raised from the dead.
But we, as Christians, presumably HAVE been convinced by someone who was raised from the dead. And Jesus echoes the words of Moses and Isaiah in so many passages.
There is no great chasm. Both the rich man and Lazarus suffer from diseases. Lazarus may have running sores, but the rich man has Affluenza. We all live in the same world, we all die.
But we can live in heaven or in hell while we do yet live.
At the end of Luke’s gospel we hear of two whose hearts were “strangely warmed” when they heard the stranger interpreting the scriptures for them. Then they recognized him in the breaking of the bread. If the rich man HAD followed the words of the prophets, if he had taken care of Lazarus and shared a meal with him, perhaps he would have seen the face of God who had long been a stranger to him.
Across the imaginary chasm are the strangers who are so like us. If we reach out to them, if we break bread with them, our lives will be changed, our hearts will be “strangely warmed,”
we may even be cured of our inner plague. We may even be able to bask guilt-free in the promises of our psalm:
You shall not be afraid of any terror by night
Nor of the arrow that flies by day
Of the plaque that stalks in the darkness
Nor of the sickness that lays waste at mid-day
Because God is bound to you in love.
Amen
Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
Preached Sept. 30, 2007
Church of Our Saviour, Mill Valley
I had the pleasure of going to the Diocesan clergy conference with 200 other clergy folk from the Diocese of California this past week. There were many notable sages and prophets who gave us their words of wisdom. Our own Presiding Bishop, Kathryn Jefferts Schorri (the first openly female presiding bishop we have ever had!) was brilliant and moving and wise. Our own Bishop Marc Handley Andrus as ever, gave us a far-reaching cosmic view of creation and our responsibility to it.
But of all these prophetic luminaries, the one whose words stayed with me most was the fireball community activist, Marie Harris, a Baptist from Hunter’s Point in San Francisco.
Bishop Marc had e-mailed us several reams of reading material to slog through before the conference, and I managed about half of it. Fortunately, the half I read included the story of Marie Harris and the environmental victory of the community activists in Hunter’s Point/Bay View, the poorest and blackest section of the beautiful city of San Francisco. One reading introduced us to the complexities of "Environmental Justice" – the idea that health burdens and poor air quality and proximity to environmental hazards are disproportionately distributed by race and income. Although governmental agencies have begun to change policies to alleviate this injustice, it didn’t happen from a spontaneous burst of goodwill on the part of those in charge. It was the hard and faithful work of community organizers like Marie Harris combined with mounting evidence of their claims that caused the change.
The first thing Marie Harris pointed out was that the City of San Francisco is 49 miles square, and Bay View/Hunter’s Point is 2.5 miles square. In that 2.5 miles are all four of the power plants that reside in San Francisco. We, like the rich man whose table Lazarus the begger is huddling beneath, tend to be comfortable in our lifestyle, without realizing that the flames of hell are visited upon the residents of Hunters Point, Richmond and West Oakland, to name just our local regions of Hades.
The flames of hell are occurring right in their lifetime in the form of an industrial practice called “flaring.” When refineries want to burn off gas build-ups they let loose from the tops of their great smoke stacks vast plumes of flame, spewing forth pollution and illustrating in dramatically visual terms the reality of the environment these poor and minority people live in. And there are no refineries in affluent neighborhoods.
The flames of Hell come in the form of drastically elevated rates of cancer, asthma, and many other ailments. As Marie Harris put it, “You name it, we’ve got it.” The flames of Hell come in the form of infant mortality rates that no affluent neighborhood would ever tolerate. And the flames of Hell come in the form of a deafening silence on the part of the more prosperous city residents, who always seem to find the priorities of the poor their very last priority.
But like Lazarus, Marie Harris got her time in paradise, although she nearly died trying to get there. On May 15, 2006, Marie, along with many minority community members who had fought the system for 25 years, celebrated a glorious victory. PG&E had finally agreed to shut down one of California’s oldest and dirtiest power plants right there is Hunter’s Point. Another faithful organizer, Tessie Ester, was there celebrating with Marie. Like Lazarus looking at the faces of the angels carrying him to heaven she said, “When I look over at the those stacks and I see nothing coming out, I just can’t help but cry.”
Marie Harris is a modern version of Amos or Isaiah. She told us in no uncertain terms that now that we were aware of what was happening in Bay View Hinter’s point that she was now holding us morally responsible to do something about it- to help her, to join with her. She even made a connection between the high cancer rates in Bay View Hunter’s point, and the high cancer rates in Marin County. Marie said that it was in Hunter’s point that “Little Boy” the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was assembled. And that they stored the nuclear waste in steel drums and dropped them in the San Francisco Bay. The drums, she said, began after many years to drift up on the shores of Marin. So, as she said, we each share our own piece of Hell.
We can’t contain these flames of Hell in one area, even if we may want to.
It may seem, as our Gospel reads today that “A great chasm has been fixed” between the rich and the poor, between Hunter’s Point and Marin County. But no such chasm exists.
Bishop Marc, on the first night of the conference, laid out for us a fascinating presentation he has done many times before called “The Cosmic Walk.” A long rope was spiraled out on the ground, and candles were placed to delineate the great landmarks of creation- starting with the great flaring forth- the big bang, and ending with the advent of human history. Toward the end of this great spiral, we had the emergence of amphibians. As Bishop Marc said, the eye emerged from the sea and for the first time, the earth saw itself.
Today, we, as the earth are seeing ourselves again. What do we see?
We are all born the same- we bring nothing into this world, and we take nothing away, as Paul reminds us in our second reading. And I was struck, when I looked at Marie, with how rich she is. Rich in good works, certainly, but also rich in community, rich in passion, and because of her great charisma and passion, even rich in the blessings and success of her faithful efforts.
If we cannot listen to our modern day prophets, we may never hear the word from heaven that we need to hear. Father Abraham, in our reading of today tells the rich man that his brothers did not listen to Moses, who said, “Do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor” (Deut 15:7)
They did not listen to the prophet Isaiah, who said:
Is this not the fast I choose:
To loose the bonds of injustice
To undo the thongs of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free
To break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor to your house
When you see the naked to cover them
And not hide yourself from your own kin? (Isa 58: 6-7)
It is this last direction that seems to be the redemption of the rich man. In the end he begins to think of someone other than himself- his five brothers, also presumably rich men, oblivious to the needs of the poor, as he was. He realizes that they will meet the same fate that he has, if they are not warned. Abraham’s last words are that if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced if someone is raised from the dead.
But we, as Christians, presumably HAVE been convinced by someone who was raised from the dead. And Jesus echoes the words of Moses and Isaiah in so many passages.
There is no great chasm. Both the rich man and Lazarus suffer from diseases. Lazarus may have running sores, but the rich man has Affluenza. We all live in the same world, we all die.
But we can live in heaven or in hell while we do yet live.
At the end of Luke’s gospel we hear of two whose hearts were “strangely warmed” when they heard the stranger interpreting the scriptures for them. Then they recognized him in the breaking of the bread. If the rich man HAD followed the words of the prophets, if he had taken care of Lazarus and shared a meal with him, perhaps he would have seen the face of God who had long been a stranger to him.
Across the imaginary chasm are the strangers who are so like us. If we reach out to them, if we break bread with them, our lives will be changed, our hearts will be “strangely warmed,”
we may even be cured of our inner plague. We may even be able to bask guilt-free in the promises of our psalm:
You shall not be afraid of any terror by night
Nor of the arrow that flies by day
Of the plaque that stalks in the darkness
Nor of the sickness that lays waste at mid-day
Because God is bound to you in love.
Amen
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Heavy Laden
A Reflection on
Luke 12:32-40
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
We have heard some beautiful and some hair-raising things in our readings of this morning.
But there is an emerging theme that can only be good news for us slowly evolving Christians. The theme is perfect freedom. Jesus has been called our Passover- our Moses who leads us from slavery to freedom and our paschal lamb, causing death to pass over us that we might have abundant life. Jesus frees us from the death-like grip of our great burdens, not only of possessions and sins, but of our fears, our worries. And worry is simply a lack of faith.
"Do not be afraid, little flock." Jesus tells us in today's reading. But he goes into a lot more detail about those fears of ours in the passages just before. He goes into detail about the nature of perfect freedom: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear." He points out that if God has clothed the lilies of the field in raiment more glorious than king Solomon, how much more will he clothe us- we of little faith.
We may not see those lily-like raiments, that field of ever-growing crops, that over-flowing table. But faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. With such affection, such fondness, Jesus calls us his little flock and tells us not to be afraid- not to worry, to have faith.
In our Old Testament reading, Isaiah thunders out the disgruntled word of the Lord. It seems an amazingly harsh and detailed liturgical critique on the part of God- God hates sacrifices, including burnt offerings of rams, blood of bulls or lambs or goats. The trampling of God's courts (God is talking about religious processions) and all offerings. And incense is to God an abomination, a viewpoint shared by some modern parishioners as well. The sacred and required festivals of the new moon and apparently all other appointed festivals are also hated by God. Most heart-breakingly of all, God even rejects the prayers of the people- the "stretching out of their hands." Because, as he says, your hands are full of blood.
Jesus later said to the law-obsessed Pharisees, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." Isaiah is saying that if we don't wash our selves clean of our violent natures, cease to do evil, learn to do good, and seek justice, the most elaborately beautiful liturgy in the world is nothing but empty pomp. Apparently God wants us to be stripped down, essential, without pomp and circumstance, without pride and grandiosity. Another very similar liturgical critic was Amos who said, in the words of God, "Take away from me the music of your songs, I will not listen to the melody of your harps, but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
In keeping with Jesus' conception of God as a loving father, he echoes these same thoughts in a kinder, gentler way. We are to be free of our justice-defying obsessions, but most of all, from our worries, our fears. But that freedom can never be ours unless we fulfill our obligation to the powerless, to justice. Jesus gently urges us away from those things that will not truly bring us salvation in this life or the next.
But too often, we seem to prefer to live in our comfortable slavery of property, dissention, violence, of being first, of being other than who we really are, which is all God wants of us. The rich young man who sought the Kingdom of Heaven was looked at lovingly by Jesus. Jesus wanted to free this young man, but was unable, for the time being. And so the young man walked away sad, and we are all walking away sad.
I was riding BART the other day and I saw another young man. I'm sure this was not a rich young man, but he was apparently not free of the all too common obsession with money and violence. He was wearing a black store-bought jacket with metallic gold logos all over the place. It's bad enough when the garment makes you a walking advertisement for the brand name, but this was much worse. I was so stunned when I read the logos that I discreetly jotted them down. They read: "Criminal Minded," "Most Wanted," "Get Rich or Die Trying," "Money, Power, Respect," "Blood Money," Road to Riches," Gotta be Thug," and most poignantly, "I was given this world, I didn't make it." This is the gospel taught to young people in our world right now. These are the violent and greedy impulses that are fostered. This is the level of anxiety that is maintained. The wearer of this jacket was not free. The culture we live in seems determined to bind us evermore tightly into our modern form of slavery. It encourages debt, greed, self-obsession, indeed, self-loathing if we don't fit the advertised norm. It encourages violence and narcissism, not justice and freedom. Can we be beacons in the world for our young people to show them that there is something more valuable than money, some way out of the necessity of blood sacrifices? Can we ourselves be willing to let go of our desperate, enslaved clinging to life as we must have it, at all costs?
Jesus wants us to travel light. "Come to me all you who travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He wants us to be able to pass through, as he puts it a little later in Luke, that narrow door. But where are we without our possessions, without our fears and worries, without our regrets and obsessions, without our great and bulky lack of faith? It seems that we are hovering over a void that most of us will not want to enter- a gap we are loath to fall into.
Annie Dillard, in her glorious hymn to the natural world, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," says this:
Ezekiel condemns false prophets as those who have not 'gone up into the gaps.' The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time, like a once-blind man unbound."
In fact, whether we are willing to let go or not, what we are actually hovering over is nothing but the welcoming hands of God. Part and parcel of letting go is giving substance to our faith in God, providing ourselves with purses that will not grow old, even though we, in our great vulnerability, surely will.
In the beginning of Luke's gospel, the angel Gabriel asks the impossible of a young woman. But she proves herself able and willing to enter through that narrow door. "Here I am." She says. "The handmaiden of the Lord." And then the soul of this young woman does indeed expand to 'magnify the Lord."
Jesus wants to set us on fire, want to grow us up to the grand dimensions of the transformed mustard seed. He is the arsonist of transformation, and it is transformation, not security that he brings us. He is not only the fisher of women and men, but also the carpenter of that narrow door that he kindly invites us to enter. He calls to us whether or not we answer. "Stay awake- stay with me," he calls, urging us to keep our lamps lit, to keep our eyes open. He calls to us again and again, "Do not be afraid, little flock." It is your Father's good pleasure to free you- to give you the kingdom.
Amen
Luke 12:32-40
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
We have heard some beautiful and some hair-raising things in our readings of this morning.
But there is an emerging theme that can only be good news for us slowly evolving Christians. The theme is perfect freedom. Jesus has been called our Passover- our Moses who leads us from slavery to freedom and our paschal lamb, causing death to pass over us that we might have abundant life. Jesus frees us from the death-like grip of our great burdens, not only of possessions and sins, but of our fears, our worries. And worry is simply a lack of faith.
"Do not be afraid, little flock." Jesus tells us in today's reading. But he goes into a lot more detail about those fears of ours in the passages just before. He goes into detail about the nature of perfect freedom: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear." He points out that if God has clothed the lilies of the field in raiment more glorious than king Solomon, how much more will he clothe us- we of little faith.
We may not see those lily-like raiments, that field of ever-growing crops, that over-flowing table. But faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. With such affection, such fondness, Jesus calls us his little flock and tells us not to be afraid- not to worry, to have faith.
In our Old Testament reading, Isaiah thunders out the disgruntled word of the Lord. It seems an amazingly harsh and detailed liturgical critique on the part of God- God hates sacrifices, including burnt offerings of rams, blood of bulls or lambs or goats. The trampling of God's courts (God is talking about religious processions) and all offerings. And incense is to God an abomination, a viewpoint shared by some modern parishioners as well. The sacred and required festivals of the new moon and apparently all other appointed festivals are also hated by God. Most heart-breakingly of all, God even rejects the prayers of the people- the "stretching out of their hands." Because, as he says, your hands are full of blood.
Jesus later said to the law-obsessed Pharisees, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." Isaiah is saying that if we don't wash our selves clean of our violent natures, cease to do evil, learn to do good, and seek justice, the most elaborately beautiful liturgy in the world is nothing but empty pomp. Apparently God wants us to be stripped down, essential, without pomp and circumstance, without pride and grandiosity. Another very similar liturgical critic was Amos who said, in the words of God, "Take away from me the music of your songs, I will not listen to the melody of your harps, but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
In keeping with Jesus' conception of God as a loving father, he echoes these same thoughts in a kinder, gentler way. We are to be free of our justice-defying obsessions, but most of all, from our worries, our fears. But that freedom can never be ours unless we fulfill our obligation to the powerless, to justice. Jesus gently urges us away from those things that will not truly bring us salvation in this life or the next.
But too often, we seem to prefer to live in our comfortable slavery of property, dissention, violence, of being first, of being other than who we really are, which is all God wants of us. The rich young man who sought the Kingdom of Heaven was looked at lovingly by Jesus. Jesus wanted to free this young man, but was unable, for the time being. And so the young man walked away sad, and we are all walking away sad.
I was riding BART the other day and I saw another young man. I'm sure this was not a rich young man, but he was apparently not free of the all too common obsession with money and violence. He was wearing a black store-bought jacket with metallic gold logos all over the place. It's bad enough when the garment makes you a walking advertisement for the brand name, but this was much worse. I was so stunned when I read the logos that I discreetly jotted them down. They read: "Criminal Minded," "Most Wanted," "Get Rich or Die Trying," "Money, Power, Respect," "Blood Money," Road to Riches," Gotta be Thug," and most poignantly, "I was given this world, I didn't make it." This is the gospel taught to young people in our world right now. These are the violent and greedy impulses that are fostered. This is the level of anxiety that is maintained. The wearer of this jacket was not free. The culture we live in seems determined to bind us evermore tightly into our modern form of slavery. It encourages debt, greed, self-obsession, indeed, self-loathing if we don't fit the advertised norm. It encourages violence and narcissism, not justice and freedom. Can we be beacons in the world for our young people to show them that there is something more valuable than money, some way out of the necessity of blood sacrifices? Can we ourselves be willing to let go of our desperate, enslaved clinging to life as we must have it, at all costs?
Jesus wants us to travel light. "Come to me all you who travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He wants us to be able to pass through, as he puts it a little later in Luke, that narrow door. But where are we without our possessions, without our fears and worries, without our regrets and obsessions, without our great and bulky lack of faith? It seems that we are hovering over a void that most of us will not want to enter- a gap we are loath to fall into.
Annie Dillard, in her glorious hymn to the natural world, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," says this:
Ezekiel condemns false prophets as those who have not 'gone up into the gaps.' The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time, like a once-blind man unbound."
In fact, whether we are willing to let go or not, what we are actually hovering over is nothing but the welcoming hands of God. Part and parcel of letting go is giving substance to our faith in God, providing ourselves with purses that will not grow old, even though we, in our great vulnerability, surely will.
In the beginning of Luke's gospel, the angel Gabriel asks the impossible of a young woman. But she proves herself able and willing to enter through that narrow door. "Here I am." She says. "The handmaiden of the Lord." And then the soul of this young woman does indeed expand to 'magnify the Lord."
Jesus wants to set us on fire, want to grow us up to the grand dimensions of the transformed mustard seed. He is the arsonist of transformation, and it is transformation, not security that he brings us. He is not only the fisher of women and men, but also the carpenter of that narrow door that he kindly invites us to enter. He calls to us whether or not we answer. "Stay awake- stay with me," he calls, urging us to keep our lamps lit, to keep our eyes open. He calls to us again and again, "Do not be afraid, little flock." It is your Father's good pleasure to free you- to give you the kingdom.
Amen
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Our Fathers- Not in Heaven
Genesis 18:22-33
Luke 11:1-13
In our wonderful reading from Genesis today, Abraham pleads for the fate of Sodom, that undeserving city, like a mischievous little child begging his father for some great favor. In six easy steps, he gets God to agree to have mercy even if there are only 10 good men in the whole city of Sodom. Abraham mirrors our own pleadings for God to answer our prayers, even as we sometimes feel there may be only ten percent at the most that is truly good in us. And yet still we ask, and we receive. God plays the part of the ever-forgiving father, forgiving of Abraham’s insolence in his constant bargaining and forgiving even of the corrupt city of Sodom. Abraham asks, asks and asks again, and he receives.
In Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus, rather than giving the disciples the magic words they seem to seek, teaches them about the nature of the one they are praying to, the nature of a perfect father.
In this prayer the hierarchy of a father is not the point. God is not introduced as “Our Father in heaven,” but simply as “Father.” We are so used to hearing God called “Our Father” that its meaning has been lost. But it was a very unusual way to address God at the time that Jesus did it. “Lord, King, glorious, Almighty, all-powerful,” these are the terms that would have been more familiar. And in fact, the doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, which was added later, fulfills some of what Luke left out- “Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory”- but that was not there in the gospels. So the compassion, the limitless giving and forgiving of a father seems to be the point of the prayer, not God’s great power. God is like a father who would never refuse you what you need- the one you can ultimately rely on with never a doubt. The one who will protect you from trial, and the one who will always forgive you, no matter what.
This makes me reflect on what Jesus’ relationship with his earthly father might have been. At first thought, it might seem that Jesus had such a wonderful concept of God the Father because he had an extraordinary relationship with his own father, Joseph. Perhaps he was never disappointed, never deserted, perhaps his mistakes were always forgiven, perhaps he was always protected. Of course we will never know for sure, but what we do know is that Joseph was a human father, and human fathers are by definition, imperfect. And it may have been that Joseph’s beginnings with Jesus were not the of smoothest sort, as Jesus was, in a sense, a step child. We also know that Jesus never mentioned his father at all in the gospels, although Jesus’ rare references to earthly fathers are interesting.
Early in Jesus’ ministry, a young man approaches Jesus, wanting to follow him and be his disciple. He begs Jesus, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus says, “Follow me and let the dead bury the dead.” (Mt 8:21). And when criticizing the hierarchy of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus says, “Call no one your father on earth, for you have one father- the one in heaven.” He also tells his disciples, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wives and children, brothers and sisters and even life itself cannot be my disciple.”
Although Jesus does not mention his earthly father, Joseph was well known to the people Jesus preached to. They objected to Jesus getting above his raisin’s saying, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" (Jn 6:42)
And in the gospel of John, in another scuffle with the Pharisees, Jesus confronts them with strong language saying, “You are from your father the devil and you choose to do your father’s desires. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies.” From these few examples, it seems possible at least that Jesus’ experience of earthly fathers was not entirely rosy.
The disciples ask Jesus for a special set prayer, one that would identify their faith from others- and they probably wanted one grander than the one Jesus delivered. Jesus gives them a prayer that stands in stark contrast to the one his father Joseph undoubtedly taught him as a boy- the ancient Hebrew Shema, drawn from Deuteronomy and Numbers. It was required that this prayer be chanted morning and night by all pious Jews and was specifically required to be taught to all children.
The simple, spare text of the Lord’s Prayer we read today seems almost comically brief, by contrast. It must have sounded something like this to Jesus’ disciples: “You want me to tell you how to pray? OK- pray like this: Dad, may your reign begin. Give us bread, forgive us, keep us from being tempted to do stupid things.” That’s it. There is not even an Amen.
In great contrast, the Shema, the prayer Jesus had recited since boyhood, goes on for paragraphs, and emphasizes keeping the Lord’s commandments, with very specific threats as to what will happen if you don’t. A very strict disciplinarian father God is depicted.
The blessings of the Lord; grain, wine and oil, and rain on your fields, are highly conditional on following the commandments. If the commandments are not kept, “The anger of the Lord will blaze against you and he will close up the heavens and you shall not have rain… and you shall perish from the good land the Lord has given you.”
This God is not the same loving father that Jesus describes- one who will forgive his child again and again. One who will always provide as a father will provide food to his child.
Psalm 85, a beautiful work probably penned by King David, seems to provide a bridge between the severity of God the father in the Shema and the compassion of the Father in the Lord’s Prayer.
The psalmist, cajoling God like Abraham did, recalls a time when God did forgive his people:
You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin.
You withdrew all your wrath;
Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
Show us your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.
Paul’s letter to the Colossians refers to Christ in the most mystical and holy of terms:
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.
And then Paul shows us how this impacts on us as lowly, needy humans.
He says that since we have died and risen with Christ “we have come to fullness in him.”
Coming to fullness in him is knowing, having perfect faith that when you ask it shall be given to you; that if you seek, you shall find, and that if you knock the door will be opened to you. This is to know God as Jesus does, as a perfect father. We ask like a child, we seek like one who is lost, we knock, like one without shelter, but with all these desperate needs, we know we will be taken care of.
When we do manage to admit our vulnerability and get down on our knees and pray, what door is opened to us? It might not be the door we expect. But Jesus has a genius for opening things. When he opens that door, he opens our eyes to God, he opens our hearts, and he opens our minds, perhaps even to such an extent that when that open door reveals something that is God’s will and not our own we may grow to accept it.
We are all imperfect, needy, vulnerable, often lost, and we all need a father. But we all share the same fate of having human fathers, fathers who inevitably fail us in one way or another, fathers who may not have been ultimately forgiving. But Jesus opens our eyes to the possibility of having a father who will never forsake us- and who will always forgive us. And he opens our hearts to the possibility of forgiving our own erring fathers, as we would want them to forgive us.
Jesus seems to love us all the more for our great neediness and he even points out our small virtues- our tendency to care for and lovingly feed our children. As Jesus says, if even we can do that, how much more will our Father in heaven do. And if on occasion, we cannot even do that, if we can’t even be the father or the mother that we know we should be, we know there is still God’s infinite fatherly forgiveness and the chance to try again.
Amen.
Luke 11:1-13
In our wonderful reading from Genesis today, Abraham pleads for the fate of Sodom, that undeserving city, like a mischievous little child begging his father for some great favor. In six easy steps, he gets God to agree to have mercy even if there are only 10 good men in the whole city of Sodom. Abraham mirrors our own pleadings for God to answer our prayers, even as we sometimes feel there may be only ten percent at the most that is truly good in us. And yet still we ask, and we receive. God plays the part of the ever-forgiving father, forgiving of Abraham’s insolence in his constant bargaining and forgiving even of the corrupt city of Sodom. Abraham asks, asks and asks again, and he receives.
In Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus, rather than giving the disciples the magic words they seem to seek, teaches them about the nature of the one they are praying to, the nature of a perfect father.
In this prayer the hierarchy of a father is not the point. God is not introduced as “Our Father in heaven,” but simply as “Father.” We are so used to hearing God called “Our Father” that its meaning has been lost. But it was a very unusual way to address God at the time that Jesus did it. “Lord, King, glorious, Almighty, all-powerful,” these are the terms that would have been more familiar. And in fact, the doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, which was added later, fulfills some of what Luke left out- “Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory”- but that was not there in the gospels. So the compassion, the limitless giving and forgiving of a father seems to be the point of the prayer, not God’s great power. God is like a father who would never refuse you what you need- the one you can ultimately rely on with never a doubt. The one who will protect you from trial, and the one who will always forgive you, no matter what.
This makes me reflect on what Jesus’ relationship with his earthly father might have been. At first thought, it might seem that Jesus had such a wonderful concept of God the Father because he had an extraordinary relationship with his own father, Joseph. Perhaps he was never disappointed, never deserted, perhaps his mistakes were always forgiven, perhaps he was always protected. Of course we will never know for sure, but what we do know is that Joseph was a human father, and human fathers are by definition, imperfect. And it may have been that Joseph’s beginnings with Jesus were not the of smoothest sort, as Jesus was, in a sense, a step child. We also know that Jesus never mentioned his father at all in the gospels, although Jesus’ rare references to earthly fathers are interesting.
Early in Jesus’ ministry, a young man approaches Jesus, wanting to follow him and be his disciple. He begs Jesus, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus says, “Follow me and let the dead bury the dead.” (Mt 8:21). And when criticizing the hierarchy of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus says, “Call no one your father on earth, for you have one father- the one in heaven.” He also tells his disciples, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wives and children, brothers and sisters and even life itself cannot be my disciple.”
Although Jesus does not mention his earthly father, Joseph was well known to the people Jesus preached to. They objected to Jesus getting above his raisin’s saying, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" (Jn 6:42)
And in the gospel of John, in another scuffle with the Pharisees, Jesus confronts them with strong language saying, “You are from your father the devil and you choose to do your father’s desires. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies.” From these few examples, it seems possible at least that Jesus’ experience of earthly fathers was not entirely rosy.
The disciples ask Jesus for a special set prayer, one that would identify their faith from others- and they probably wanted one grander than the one Jesus delivered. Jesus gives them a prayer that stands in stark contrast to the one his father Joseph undoubtedly taught him as a boy- the ancient Hebrew Shema, drawn from Deuteronomy and Numbers. It was required that this prayer be chanted morning and night by all pious Jews and was specifically required to be taught to all children.
The simple, spare text of the Lord’s Prayer we read today seems almost comically brief, by contrast. It must have sounded something like this to Jesus’ disciples: “You want me to tell you how to pray? OK- pray like this: Dad, may your reign begin. Give us bread, forgive us, keep us from being tempted to do stupid things.” That’s it. There is not even an Amen.
In great contrast, the Shema, the prayer Jesus had recited since boyhood, goes on for paragraphs, and emphasizes keeping the Lord’s commandments, with very specific threats as to what will happen if you don’t. A very strict disciplinarian father God is depicted.
The blessings of the Lord; grain, wine and oil, and rain on your fields, are highly conditional on following the commandments. If the commandments are not kept, “The anger of the Lord will blaze against you and he will close up the heavens and you shall not have rain… and you shall perish from the good land the Lord has given you.”
This God is not the same loving father that Jesus describes- one who will forgive his child again and again. One who will always provide as a father will provide food to his child.
Psalm 85, a beautiful work probably penned by King David, seems to provide a bridge between the severity of God the father in the Shema and the compassion of the Father in the Lord’s Prayer.
The psalmist, cajoling God like Abraham did, recalls a time when God did forgive his people:
You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin.
You withdrew all your wrath;
Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
Show us your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.
Paul’s letter to the Colossians refers to Christ in the most mystical and holy of terms:
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.
And then Paul shows us how this impacts on us as lowly, needy humans.
He says that since we have died and risen with Christ “we have come to fullness in him.”
Coming to fullness in him is knowing, having perfect faith that when you ask it shall be given to you; that if you seek, you shall find, and that if you knock the door will be opened to you. This is to know God as Jesus does, as a perfect father. We ask like a child, we seek like one who is lost, we knock, like one without shelter, but with all these desperate needs, we know we will be taken care of.
When we do manage to admit our vulnerability and get down on our knees and pray, what door is opened to us? It might not be the door we expect. But Jesus has a genius for opening things. When he opens that door, he opens our eyes to God, he opens our hearts, and he opens our minds, perhaps even to such an extent that when that open door reveals something that is God’s will and not our own we may grow to accept it.
We are all imperfect, needy, vulnerable, often lost, and we all need a father. But we all share the same fate of having human fathers, fathers who inevitably fail us in one way or another, fathers who may not have been ultimately forgiving. But Jesus opens our eyes to the possibility of having a father who will never forsake us- and who will always forgive us. And he opens our hearts to the possibility of forgiving our own erring fathers, as we would want them to forgive us.
Jesus seems to love us all the more for our great neediness and he even points out our small virtues- our tendency to care for and lovingly feed our children. As Jesus says, if even we can do that, how much more will our Father in heaven do. And if on occasion, we cannot even do that, if we can’t even be the father or the mother that we know we should be, we know there is still God’s infinite fatherly forgiveness and the chance to try again.
Amen.
An Ocean of Suffering by the Side of the Road
No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind: and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee
I begin today with this quote from our own divine Anglican divine, John Donne because after this past remarkable week, I am hearing it in a new way. I had heard that Sheila Andrus, wife of our own Bishop Marc, was teaching a class at my old seminary CDSP. So I took the plunge and found myself in seminary again, if only for the week. Throughout the course we studied, in exhaustive detail, the Millennium Development Goals that our diocese, as of the last convention, pledged to support. We saw films, heard countless statistics and stories and were graced with the presence of Bishop Marc and my favorite
seminary teacher the Eco-feminist scholar genius, Marion Grau. The great gift from Marion was the idea that you cold work toward these goals not out of guilt that you hadn’t done enough, and not out of anger that other people had not, but out of joyousness that you could do something. And she said to just start from wherever you are- if you are doing nothing, do something. If you are doing something, perhaps you could do a little more.
And the great gift from Bishop Marc was adding a ninth MDG- peace and reconciliation. So here are the Millennium Development Goals- with the newly added #9:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education for children.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Improve maternal health.
6. Combat AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
8. Create a global partnership for development.
9. Promote peace and reconciliation among all people.
The first thing we had to learn, as they put it, was how the world is today. In all the many stories we heard through the week there were startlingly depressing revelations, as well as some very hopeful ones. And although many countries were in dire straights, by far it was Africa that came through as a veritable ocean of suffering. The statistics are horrifying. There are 13 million AIDS orphans in Africa – as many as there are children under 5 years old in the United States.
The story that stayed with me the most was the story of Olivia, a twelve-year-old living in Africa who, after her father and her siblings died of AIDS, was the only one left to care for her mother. After her mother died in her arms, she had no one at all. By some streak of luck, she was discovered by an American governmental agency that had arrived to help. She was immediately recognized for her articulate and heart-rending ability to tell her story- thus her appearance in the film. She was asked to come to Washington to tell her story there, which she did, with great dignity, clarity and heart. She made a very strong impression and her appearance was instrumental in the increase in AIDS funding. Then she returned to Africa. She had been tested and it was discovered that she, too was HIV positive, and she began to sicken. The government worker who first found her was shown on film describing her own desperate efforts to get and pay for the medication that Olivia needed. The cost was $500 a month. The worker finally realized that the only way she could get the medication for Olivia was if she paid for it herself, which she was willing to do. But for Olivia it was too late. She had contracted meningitis and died soon after returning from Washington. She was a bright, beautiful and articulate girl, and she had given so much of herself to help so many people.
But there was also the story of Beatrice, another African Village girl, also bright and beautiful who was luckier. She too came from a desperately poor African family, living in a hut made out of salvaged materials. But Heifer International made their way to that village and they gave that girl a baby goat. Given our own parish’s involvement in buying a small flock of goats last year for Heifer International, this story was particularly heartening for me. The filmmakers stayed with this child for ten years, and so we first see footage of her as she lay sleeping with a silky little baby goat in her arms. Beatrice was an extraordinarily bright child and had long wanted to go to school, but there was no money in the family. Slowly, the family accumulated enough profit from the goat’s milk that they were able to send Beatrice to a local school. She began school at ten with absolutely no ability to read or write. But she dug in furiously and caught up with the other students, sometimes working all night to make up for lost time. She soon won a scholarship to a secondary school, and from there she earned a scholarship to an American college. We see her on the film beaming with pride, even as she describes the unbelievably cold winters in Connecticut. After graduation there was only one thing Beatrice wanted to do. She wanted to go back to Africa. We see an African ceremony in which a family that was previously gifted with a goat gives one of the off- spring to a new family. Beatrice, in celebratory African garb is asked by the interviewer what she wants to do with her life. “I want to start a school,” she said, “to make sure that children can get an education as I did. And I want to start an orphanage too.”
Finally, we heard the victorious story of Dr. Paul Farmer who has been working for two decades taking care of desperately sick AIDS patients in Haiti. Dr. Farmer constantly turned a deaf ear to arguments that giving expensive medications to the very poor was a waste of money, that they would be unable to understand how to take them properly, that for one reason or another, it was not cost-effective. He proved those arguments wrong, and real progress was made through his tireless efforts. As he puts it: “A decade of prevention plus treatment plus addressing social issues equals success, weather we measure success by AIDS mortality, numbers of new infections prevented, or numbers of patients who receive their first real dose of primary health care.” We saw images of Joseph Jeune, a 26 year old who was weak and skeletal, and looked like so many others on their way to death. But because Joseph was able to receive anti-viral therapy, we see him in the next image robust and smiling, holding his healthy infant son. He is now an activist for AIDS relief and in the last image we see him speaking before a health and human rights conference. Wonderful progress was made but there are still far, far too many tragic stories, far too few people to help. Dr. Farmer, like so many courageous workers we learned about this past week embraced a sector of humanity that was far from his own tribe, far from where he had grown up, far from people he might consider his neighbors.
In our gospel reading for today Jesus tries to give us a different sense of what a tribe, what a neighbor might be.
“Who is my neighbor?” This was the second question posed to Jesus by the curious lawyer in our Gospel story. It is a very good question, and one that requires Jesus to tell the famous story. The priest and the Levite leave the poor man bleeding by the side of the road. It may have been less pure heartlessness than a faithful keeping to the purity codes- as an observant Jew; one could not legally touch anyone who was bleeding. But it was a Samaritan, one of the tribes that the Hebrews despised most, who came to the aid of this fallen Jew. Jesus tells the story of one who took the risk of reaching out to help, to bind the wounds of someone of another tribe.
This is how we, as Christians, have been told to recognize our neighbor: The one who is outcast, the one who is rejected, the one who is suffering and being ignored again and again.
Africa lies bleeding by the side of the road, and countries and peoples and nations are passing her by. She is not of our tribe, but she is surely our neighbor.
The last thing Jesus says makes it plain that he has hope for the lawyer whose first question was what is the recipe for eternal life. Eternal life is that quality of life that shows mercy to those in need. Jesus is talking about mercy, and mercy pays no attention to class or tribe or race or religion or region. At last, Jesus refers to the selfless act of the Good Samaritan and he says, “Go and do likewise,” We can all take heart at this last phrase. Perhaps we too might transcend our tribal nature, our allergy to compassion, our primitive self-protection. Our neighbor lies bleeding, and we can help her. Another question arises- one that we might ask ourselves- Will we pass her by?
I begin today with this quote from our own divine Anglican divine, John Donne because after this past remarkable week, I am hearing it in a new way. I had heard that Sheila Andrus, wife of our own Bishop Marc, was teaching a class at my old seminary CDSP. So I took the plunge and found myself in seminary again, if only for the week. Throughout the course we studied, in exhaustive detail, the Millennium Development Goals that our diocese, as of the last convention, pledged to support. We saw films, heard countless statistics and stories and were graced with the presence of Bishop Marc and my favorite
seminary teacher the Eco-feminist scholar genius, Marion Grau. The great gift from Marion was the idea that you cold work toward these goals not out of guilt that you hadn’t done enough, and not out of anger that other people had not, but out of joyousness that you could do something. And she said to just start from wherever you are- if you are doing nothing, do something. If you are doing something, perhaps you could do a little more.
And the great gift from Bishop Marc was adding a ninth MDG- peace and reconciliation. So here are the Millennium Development Goals- with the newly added #9:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education for children.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Improve maternal health.
6. Combat AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
8. Create a global partnership for development.
9. Promote peace and reconciliation among all people.
The first thing we had to learn, as they put it, was how the world is today. In all the many stories we heard through the week there were startlingly depressing revelations, as well as some very hopeful ones. And although many countries were in dire straights, by far it was Africa that came through as a veritable ocean of suffering. The statistics are horrifying. There are 13 million AIDS orphans in Africa – as many as there are children under 5 years old in the United States.
The story that stayed with me the most was the story of Olivia, a twelve-year-old living in Africa who, after her father and her siblings died of AIDS, was the only one left to care for her mother. After her mother died in her arms, she had no one at all. By some streak of luck, she was discovered by an American governmental agency that had arrived to help. She was immediately recognized for her articulate and heart-rending ability to tell her story- thus her appearance in the film. She was asked to come to Washington to tell her story there, which she did, with great dignity, clarity and heart. She made a very strong impression and her appearance was instrumental in the increase in AIDS funding. Then she returned to Africa. She had been tested and it was discovered that she, too was HIV positive, and she began to sicken. The government worker who first found her was shown on film describing her own desperate efforts to get and pay for the medication that Olivia needed. The cost was $500 a month. The worker finally realized that the only way she could get the medication for Olivia was if she paid for it herself, which she was willing to do. But for Olivia it was too late. She had contracted meningitis and died soon after returning from Washington. She was a bright, beautiful and articulate girl, and she had given so much of herself to help so many people.
But there was also the story of Beatrice, another African Village girl, also bright and beautiful who was luckier. She too came from a desperately poor African family, living in a hut made out of salvaged materials. But Heifer International made their way to that village and they gave that girl a baby goat. Given our own parish’s involvement in buying a small flock of goats last year for Heifer International, this story was particularly heartening for me. The filmmakers stayed with this child for ten years, and so we first see footage of her as she lay sleeping with a silky little baby goat in her arms. Beatrice was an extraordinarily bright child and had long wanted to go to school, but there was no money in the family. Slowly, the family accumulated enough profit from the goat’s milk that they were able to send Beatrice to a local school. She began school at ten with absolutely no ability to read or write. But she dug in furiously and caught up with the other students, sometimes working all night to make up for lost time. She soon won a scholarship to a secondary school, and from there she earned a scholarship to an American college. We see her on the film beaming with pride, even as she describes the unbelievably cold winters in Connecticut. After graduation there was only one thing Beatrice wanted to do. She wanted to go back to Africa. We see an African ceremony in which a family that was previously gifted with a goat gives one of the off- spring to a new family. Beatrice, in celebratory African garb is asked by the interviewer what she wants to do with her life. “I want to start a school,” she said, “to make sure that children can get an education as I did. And I want to start an orphanage too.”
Finally, we heard the victorious story of Dr. Paul Farmer who has been working for two decades taking care of desperately sick AIDS patients in Haiti. Dr. Farmer constantly turned a deaf ear to arguments that giving expensive medications to the very poor was a waste of money, that they would be unable to understand how to take them properly, that for one reason or another, it was not cost-effective. He proved those arguments wrong, and real progress was made through his tireless efforts. As he puts it: “A decade of prevention plus treatment plus addressing social issues equals success, weather we measure success by AIDS mortality, numbers of new infections prevented, or numbers of patients who receive their first real dose of primary health care.” We saw images of Joseph Jeune, a 26 year old who was weak and skeletal, and looked like so many others on their way to death. But because Joseph was able to receive anti-viral therapy, we see him in the next image robust and smiling, holding his healthy infant son. He is now an activist for AIDS relief and in the last image we see him speaking before a health and human rights conference. Wonderful progress was made but there are still far, far too many tragic stories, far too few people to help. Dr. Farmer, like so many courageous workers we learned about this past week embraced a sector of humanity that was far from his own tribe, far from where he had grown up, far from people he might consider his neighbors.
In our gospel reading for today Jesus tries to give us a different sense of what a tribe, what a neighbor might be.
“Who is my neighbor?” This was the second question posed to Jesus by the curious lawyer in our Gospel story. It is a very good question, and one that requires Jesus to tell the famous story. The priest and the Levite leave the poor man bleeding by the side of the road. It may have been less pure heartlessness than a faithful keeping to the purity codes- as an observant Jew; one could not legally touch anyone who was bleeding. But it was a Samaritan, one of the tribes that the Hebrews despised most, who came to the aid of this fallen Jew. Jesus tells the story of one who took the risk of reaching out to help, to bind the wounds of someone of another tribe.
This is how we, as Christians, have been told to recognize our neighbor: The one who is outcast, the one who is rejected, the one who is suffering and being ignored again and again.
Africa lies bleeding by the side of the road, and countries and peoples and nations are passing her by. She is not of our tribe, but she is surely our neighbor.
The last thing Jesus says makes it plain that he has hope for the lawyer whose first question was what is the recipe for eternal life. Eternal life is that quality of life that shows mercy to those in need. Jesus is talking about mercy, and mercy pays no attention to class or tribe or race or religion or region. At last, Jesus refers to the selfless act of the Good Samaritan and he says, “Go and do likewise,” We can all take heart at this last phrase. Perhaps we too might transcend our tribal nature, our allergy to compassion, our primitive self-protection. Our neighbor lies bleeding, and we can help her. Another question arises- one that we might ask ourselves- Will we pass her by?
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