Sunday, July 22, The Feast of Mary Magdalene and the Announcement of the Rector's Departure

Kristin White

Beloved of God: some of you may not yet have seen the email that went out on Thursday night to the congregation from the wardens and me. In it, I shared that after six years as your rector, I have accepted a call from Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows to serve on her staff as the Canon to the Ordinary for Congregational Development and Leadership, in the Diocese of Indianapolis.

I will be glad to talk more with you about what that involves, but the most concrete thing for right now is that it means my time as your rector will be drawing to a close. I will be here with you for the rest of the summer, and into the first two weeks of September. On Friday, September 14, word is that we’re going to have a big party. September 16 will be my last Sunday at St. Augustine’s. The next day will mark our move to Indiana.

You are a remarkable church: strong and loving, practical and wise…because you are comprised of remarkable people: strong and loving, practical and wise…filled with joy and good humor, and knit together by the good work of the Holy Spirit. And you will continue, of course you will continue, to be exactly who you, after I have gone.

I want you to know that this is no small heartbreak for me, and for my family, to leave St. Augustine’s. You are the church that I love. And if I can presume to paraphrase e.e. cummings: I will carry you with me/I will carry you in my heart.

So let’s carry each other, these next weeks that we have, in celebration and thanksgiving for the journey we have shared. I am so grateful for this time as your priest.

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The Church has been working out its salvation with regard to women in the story of Mary Magdalene from the time she walked this earth, throughout centuries and millennia, until now.

Most commonly, Mary Magdalene is memorialized in writing and music and art as a prostitute, a cautionary tale, only redeemed because she is penitent. That’s how Mary Magdalene gets managed, too often, in the history of our culture and in the memory of our church. Her virtue in that narrative is that she is sorry, and Jesus is generous.

Mary Magdalene’s introduction in Luke’s gospel takes place just after an unnamed woman interrupts Jesus’ dinner with a Pharisee. That woman is a sinner, the text tells us, and for more than a thousand years, the church has interpreted this woman’s sin as sexual. (As an aside, I will tell you that the Greek word for “sinner” in that passage is the same Greek word in the same gospel that Peter uses when he cries out to Jesus in the fifth chapter: “Have mercy on me, for I am a sinner.”[1] However, I have yet to see any scholar ever interpret Peter’s sin, in his use of the same word, as a sexual one.) Anyway. Because this story of the sinful woman with the alabaster jar who comes and washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair and anoints him with oil from the alabaster jar – because that all happens just before Mary Magdalene is introduced in this gospel…and because Mary Magdalene happens to be a woman…Mary Magdalene is interpreted, first by Pope Gregory the Great in a sermon series in the sixth century and thereafter by many, many others, as being that same peculiarly sinful woman.

Mary Magdalene’s image has been reinvented, throughout the centuries, “from prostitute…to mystic, to celibate nun, to passive (helper), to feminist icon, to the matriarch of divinity’s secret dynasty.”[2] Anybody remember The DaVinci Code? The church and our culture have been working out our salvation as regards women for a good long while now.

“How the past is remembered, how…desire is domesticated, how men and women negotiate their separate impulses; how power inevitably seeks sanctification, how tradition becomes authoritative, how revolutions are co-opted; how fallibility is reckoned with, and how…devotion can be made to serve violent domination – all these cultural questions helped shape the story of the woman (from Magdala) who befriended Jesus of Nazareth.”[3]

What we know about her from scripture is this: Mary Magdalene is named – something that happens rarely for women in the Bible; and her words are recorded, as well, which is even more unusual. We know she comes from Magdala, a small fishing town on the Sea of Galilee in the same region as Nazareth. She carries stature, Mary Magdalene; because not only is she named, but she is named first wherever she is remembered among others in scripture – a sign of honor and respect for her.

We know that Jesus healed her when he cast out seven demons, and that she followed him after that, together with other women: Joanna and Susanna, and others whom Jesus had also healed of evil spirits and infirmities. We know that these women had sufficient resources and independence that made it possible for them to leave what they were doing to follow him. And more than that, we know that they had enough money, in their own control, that they could help fund his ministry…and they did.

We know that when the other disciples got scared and fled from Golgotha during Jesus’ crucifixion, Mary Magdalene stayed.

And finally, in today’s gospel passage, we know that three days after his death, Mary walked in the dark to his grave. And after the confusion and the running and the empty tomb, we know that – again – Mary Magdalene stayed. The stone had been rolled away. Jesus’ body was not where they had laid it.

“They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where…” she told the angels, as she wept, not knowing that those angels were angels. “If you have carried him away, just tell me where,” she begged the gardener, who, it turns out, was not the gardener after all. And then he said her name…and she knew. And he sent her to tell the others…and she did.

In that moment, we know something very important – maybe most important – about Mary Magdalene: she is the first evangelist. She is the first one to share the good news of Jesus’ resurrection.

She had experienced what it was to be possessed by demons, and she also possessed the strength that it took to be healed of them. She took the risk, one way or another, as the disciples had, to leave whatever her life was before that healing, in order to follow the one who had healed her. She had both the resources and the practical generosity to offer in paying what was needed for Jesus’ ministry. She stepped into a space of unimaginable pain at Jesus’ crucifixion, and then she stayed there with him through it all. And even in the confusion and further pain at that empty tomb, when the others left, she stayed. She stayed, and would bear witness to good news greater than anyone could ask or imagine.

What does it tell us, that our history has taken: a woman strong enough to withstand possession and be healed, a woman who risked danger and judgment by following a teacher who threatened the religious order, a woman who practiced generosity from her own means, who stood in the midst of pain and stayed there, a woman first to carry the good news that Christ was alive – what does it say, that our history has most often reduced her to that most common trope which would give the powers that be the powers they need to in order to control a powerful woman?

And where is the good news of her story?

Well, I believe it is first in the fact that we know it. We know her name and her words and her actions. And so we can also know that we are her heirs.

In 1980, the rector at the time – the Rev. Joe Mazza, father of our own Joy Witt – together with the wardens and the vestry of St. Augustine’s, petitioned Bishop James Montgomery to set aside his concerns about women’s ordination (four years after women’s ordination had become regularized by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church) and make Janice Gordon a priest. Men and women worked together to convince the bishop that women could serve as preachers and evangelists in the legacy of Mary Magdalene. Later that year, through no small effort of the leaders of this parish, the Rev. Janice Gordon would go on to be ordained at St. James Cathedral with three other women. She would serve here at St. Augustine’s, the first woman called to a clergy staff in the Diocese of Chicago.

That legacy continues, even now, as this parish sustains the ministry of our deacon, the Rev. Sue Nebel, and as you called me to be the first woman installed at St. A’s as rector.

And that is not all – because this church is filled with women who are the heirs of Mary Magdalene, and with men who know our names, and listen to our words. You are strong enough to bear what you should not have to, and you are willing to do what it takes to be made whole. You take risks, and are generous. You know what it is to stand steadfast in spaces of pain, and stay there. And like Mary Magdalene, God has entrusted you with good news that this world needs desperately for you to share.

So go, you bearers of the gifts handed down from generation to generation, all the way to us. Do not be reduced by a cautionary tale, because that version of redemption has always been too small to be true of God’s promise for us. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, as evangelists and allies, carrying the testimony of the God who knows us and names us, who loves us and calls us very good.

Blessed Feast of Mary Magdalene, dear people of this church I love. Go forth as witnesses to the good news that is her legacy, and ours.

[1] Luke 5:8

[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-mary-magdalene-119565482/

[3] ibid

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018, THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF PENTECOST, PROPER 8B

Pastor Frank Senn, Evanston, IL

Text: Mark 5:21-43

We gathered at the lake shore this morning to greet Jesus just as the crowd did in today’s Gospel. Jesus had just returned from the other side of the lake -- the Gentile side -- and a crowd immediately gathered around him. Jesus spends a lot of time on the Sea of Galilee in Mark’s Gospel, traveling back and forth between the Jewish and the Gentile sides of the sea. He performs healings and exorcisms on the Jewish side and then goes across the lake and performs healings and exorcisms on the Gentile side. Without making any pronouncements the evangelist shows the inclusivity of the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God.

I wonder if the crowd had gathered around Jesus when he landed because news of the exorcism he had performed on the other side of the lake had reached people on the Jewish side ahead of Jesus. He had cast out demons from a man who had lived among the tombs and couldn’t be restrained even with chains. The demons, who named themselves “Legion,” recognized Jesus as the Son of the Most High God and asked him, “Where can we go?” Demons need bodies to inhabit. So Jesus directed them into the pigs -- unclean animals from the Jewish perspective -- which then ran off a cliff into the sea and drowned. There went the local economy. But Jesus had performed a huge cleansing of Gentile impurities with the destruction of the demons and the pigs. That’s something to bear in mind as we get into the situation in today’s Gospel.

As the crowd gathers around Jesus on the lakeshore, a man named Jairus, a ruler or elder of the local synagogue, prevails on Jesus to come quickly to his house because his daughter is dying. Jesus and Jairus and the whole crowd head toward Jairus’ house.

But a woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, spending all her money on doctors who haven’t been able to cure her, saw her chance and took it. She wasn’t supposed to be there and if she got found out she was in trouble. Culture and custom said she wasn’t supposed to be there. Social courtesy said she wasn’t supposed to be there. Torah law said she wasn’t supposed to be there. But with the crowd pressing on Jesus, she reached out and touched the hem of his cloak. She was immediately healed; she felt it in her body.

She thought she could get away with it. But stop the procession! Jesus felt power go out of him. “Who touched me?” he demanded.

The woman had reason to be afraid. She was in flagrant disobedience of the law in Leviticus 15 that said: “If a woman has a flow of blood for several days outside her monthly period, or if her flow continues beyond her regular period, she remains unclean as long as the flow continues, and for seven days after it stops. Anyone who touches her is unclean until evening. Anyone who touches anything she has touched will be unclean until evening.”

Do you see the problem? The woman’s been bleeding for twelve years. She has been ritually unclean for twelve years. For twelve years anyone she touches has also been rendered ritually unclean until evening. If she touches someone, they are prohibited from having social contact with anyone for the rest of the day.

Give her credit that she recognized the seriousness of the damage she had caused and owned up to it. She has not only interrupted an emergency medical mission with a non-emergency situation. She has rendered Jesus unclean and unfit to touch anyone, at least for the rest of the day. And the person he was summoned to touch was the dying daughter of an elder of the synagogue who was charged with the responsibility to uphold the law.

What was Jesus to do? He did what he has been doing throughout the Gospel of Mark, like allowing his disciples to pick corn or healing people on the Sabbath Day. He ignored the law. He commended the woman for her faith and moved on to Jairus’ house.

One wonders what Jairus thought about all this, because he too was in a predicament. He should be upholding the tradition of the purity laws. If he allows Jesus to touch and heal his daughter, he too would have disregarded the law.

But stop the procession again! People come from Jairus’ house and say that it wasn’t necessary for Jesus to go any farther. The girl has died. Jesus didn’t get there soon enough. As lamentable as the girl’s death is, it solves the problem of ritual impurity that the woman with the hemorrhage had created.

But Jesus refuses to be stopped. He took his three leading disciples, Peter, James, and John, and with the girl’s parents went into the girl’s room, shutting everyone else out. He claims that the girl is not dead, only sleeping. He takes her by the hand and tells her to “get up.” “Immediately” (a favorite word in Mark’s Gospel) she got up and started walking around. “Give her something to eat,” said Jesus.

Now looking at this gospel reading as a whole, we see the symbolism piling up. It was a favorite literary ploy of Mark the Evangelist to interrupt one story with another story. The interrupting story served to heighten the effect of the main story. So we are invited to consider this reading as one story, not two, as we try to get at its significance.

Another thing typical of Mark’s Gospel is its secretiveness. The woman with the hemorrhage is hidden in the crowd. Only the three leading disciples are allowed to go with Jesus to Jairus’ house. Those in the girl’s room are enjoined to tell no one what had happened. The commentators call this the “messianic secret” in Mark. Events in Jesus’ life were only to be proclaimed after his resurrection because before that they could be misinterpreted -- and were!

To those who hear this gospel in faith (and it was undoubtedly read aloud in early Christian assemblies), the willingness of Jesus to accept in himself the woman’s uncleanness, and the hiddenness of Jesus in the room with the dead girl, are foreshadowings of the crucifixion -- Jesus’ bearing in his body the impurity of the world -- and his descent to the dead. And the healing of the woman and the walking around of the dead girl are foreshadowings of the new life of the resurrection. The meal to be given to the girl is a foreshadowing of the Eucharist of the church. If you want to push it, the twelve years the woman had suffered bleeding and the girl’s twelve years of age suggest the twelve tribes of Israel -- the fullness of the people of God.

As with all the stories in the Bible, and especially in the Gospels, this is all about us -- the Christian community that gathers every Lord’s Day to hear the Gospel stories and to commemorate and celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ in the Eucharist. And Jesus is here present, hidden under forms of bread and wine, to be touched by those who seek him and to touch those who receive him.

I know in this parish “everybody everybody everybody” is welcome to the meal, the Eucharistic feast of bread and wine. But Jesus forces no one. When the bread is broken at this table you can reach out your hand and touch him. Perhaps you do so because your issues have not been addressed by other gurus or healers, like the woman who was failed by the doctors. So with some measure of faith you reach out to touch Jesus in the bread. Then, like the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak, you can slip back into the crowd, strengthened to get through the week but without staying to find out what Jesus might be asking of you and what he might be offering you. And if you do that -- if you slip back into the crowd -- you won’t be punished or exposed. But Jesus will still be asking, “Who touched me?”, and longing to give you all he wants you to have, longing to give you the gift of himself.

But if you will stay present in the crowd around Jesus, then he will offer himself to you and make you whole as he comes into your life -- into your very body and blood with his body and blood -- to draw you body and soul into his risen life, immersing you in his death and resurrection in the waters of rebirth, and raising you up to new and eternal life. Amen.

Sunday, June 24, 2018, The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost & Pride Sunday

This year is a particularly special Pride Sunday at St. A’s, for two reasons: first—we have made a public statement about our explicit welcome of LGBTQIA people on our new sign, and on our website—which is big news!!  And second—we have new artwork to display that highlights God’s loving response and care for all of us.

Pride festivities began as a way to celebrate the Gay Liberation movement—it’s a day to celebrate the historic and modern contributions of LGBTQ folks; to recognize the progress our society has made with regard to the full inclusion of all LGBTQ persons—as well as it is a day to pray for fuller inclusion—in our neighborhoods, in or institutions and especially in our churches and religious institutions.

Pride is also a way to remember all those who have died at the hands of hate, homophobia, and transphobia, and the many who died in the early epidemic of AIDS in the 1980s and 90s. Pride invites us to look back at our journey and remember some heavy hitters who did incredible work for our progress. People like: Barbara Gittings, who rallied the American Psychological Association to declassify homosexuality as a mental health disorder.[1] Audre Lorde, whose poetic mastery brought us face to face with the realities of surviving this life as an onlooker rather than as one who is accepted on every level.  Lorde said, “Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition…those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older -- know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.”[2] And Bayard Rustin: Rustin marched in Washington in 1963 and was one of the first men of color to be open about his sexuality in an age when men were arrested just for suspect of being gay.[3]

Even our beloved state of Illinois was no slouch in the struggle to recognize LGBTQ persons. In 1924, the Society for Human Rights was founded in Chicago as the country’s earliest gay rights organization;[4] and in 1962, Illinois became the first state in the country to decriminalize gay relationships.[5] In our Episcopal Church, the General Convention of 1976, affirmed LGBT people as having equal standing as straight people;[6] in 2003, Gene Robinson was the first openly gay person to be consecrated a Bishop; in 2009, the church affirmed ordination for all people regardless of gender or sexuality; in 2012, liturgies were made for same-sex unions; and in 2015, gay marriage became canonical in our church. So many people and so many achievements and milestones have helped our church and society become more welcoming and accepting of LGBTQIA persons and normalize their presence. However, there remains much work to do so long as hate crimes and transphobia and homophobia remain.

Years ago, I worked for an agency that served homeless and run away young people ages 18-21. We had a drop-in medical clinic, a center where they could work on job skills, do laundry, eat good food and take part in a live-in program that got them into jobs, or school, and housing of their own. After getting to know these young people, we learned some heartbreaking things about them. 45% of our homeless young people identified as LGBTQ; and over half found themselves homeless because of coming out to their families. We also learned that a number of them were victims of violent crimes or were complicit in minor crimes, by simply trying to survive. One of the ways that we were able to build relationship with the young people was through an evening meal program. Caring volunteers made themselves available to come in and cook breads and cookies and invite the young people in for hospitality. After some level of trust had been earned, together everyone took part in making an evening meal that brought at least twenty to the table, and people took turns serving one another. Over time, walls began to fall. Guests might slip and call a volunteer mom or dad, and but for a moment the sea storm that was their life was still and for however long they stayed, they could be part of a family again—a family that said, “you are welcome here!”

The oppressed and marginalized experience a lot in this life. This week, our government has torn families apart in the name of self-preservation. We’ve heard recordings of children crying out of guttural fear that they are not okay—that all they know has been taken away from them. We have criminalized people who are unable to stay in their homeland, and further harmed them by breaking up the very structures that they are trying to secure and bring about a better life.

Our gospel lesson today captures the disciples in a bit of chaos, and a Jesus so relaxed—he is asleep in the storm. Awakened only by the disciple’s angst, Jesus calms the winds, completely shocking the disciples. I imagine an equally shocked Jesus looked at them wondering—why would they not think I could calm the storm? I imagine all those children and parents this week who are traumatized, in shock, and scared. I imagine them to be timid, leery of systems and governments, and scared that their families will never be the same. And like the disciples, who knew all the well that Jesus is, as our Psalm says, “a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble,” it is easy to forget when life’s storms seem to overwhelm us. This week, people of faith and their religious institutions have made public statements denouncing the treatment of families at the borders. Our own Bishop, with us last Sunday, also released a statement this week. In his address, entitled, All of the Body is Hurting, Bishop Lee says,

…As Christians, we must not stand idly by as these families are torn apart. The story of God’s people fleeing persecution and seeking a promise of peace and plenty is also our story, and the families we see on our border are our sisters and brothers. ‘You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien,’ God tells the children if Israel in Exodus 22:21, ‘for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” Many of us are descended from immigrants by blood, but all of us are descended from immigrants by faith, And so even—especially—if we feel helpless, God calls us to act. [7]

The weight that these refugees are carrying is heavy. They are escaping the kind of violence and economic poverty, that like the winds of the seas rocking the boat, scares them, and are unable to take any more. The pressures are so much, that they are willing to risk their lives to get their family to a new place, a better place, where they can experience peace. The disciples were not doubting Jesus, and they were not wavering on their faith in him—they were scared. They were looking for God to do something—anything—to quell the winds and waters. They had the hope of faith, just as so many wanting to cross our borders with their families in tow.

When the seas around us become rough—we rely more heavily on our faith. It doesn’t mean that our faith is a safety net—it means that our faith deepens our connection to God so that we can both walk through the trials we must—and be a presence of love and care for others when they endure their trials. This is perhaps some of the most meaningful work we will do together as people of faith. We get one another through—we support one another—and we hold on to faith that through it all, God is with us.

The storms of this life can have so much power over us. They can make us critical or reactive people, particularly if we endure storms alone and never have the chance to bring light to them and process what we experienced. The storms of this life can wound us and they can also present us with opportunities for healing. And when the storm breaks, and the waters calm, and clouds begin to open, the sun stares in and changes the scape. And as light pierces the precipitation, we are left with a rainbow.

In his painting, Darkness Shall Not Overcome, Bill Doughty preaches this very gospel. In the wake of the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, Bill was so inspired to paint something that captured the idea that God holds all of us; and the rainbow is the historic symbol for this. Of the piece, Bill says, “…not just LGBT people, but ALL of us together will assure that the promises of the rainbow will prevail.” Even in the wake of tremendous tragedy; even in the wake of our storms; even in the wake of all discrimination, the rainbow serves as a symbol of God’s presence, of God’s love, and of God’s welcome. Appropriately, the plaque which will accompany this piece will read, simply: Dedicated to the day when everyone will live in the Rainbow.

This week, we are called to live further into the promises of the rainbow. We live further into our convictions that families should not be separated; that children should not be given over to trauma; and that our country can do better in caring for refugees who are looking for a better life; and today, we celebrate those we know and love who identify as LGBTQ and honor the struggle it has been to even be seen in this world. However, today is also a day to remember our baptism. Through our Baptism, we have promised to persevere in resisting evil, to proclaim good news, to seek and serve Christ in one another, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to strive for justice and peace among all people. This my beloveds, is a PRIDE celebration, and our very true colors.

May we all be a people of the rainbow who remember God’s love and know God’s mercies. Amen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Gittings#American_Psychiatric_Association

[2] Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” 1984.   Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Ed. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. 110 114. 2007. Print.

[3] https://www.biography.com/people/bayard-rustin-9467932

[4] http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/series/chicago-innovations/chi-first-gay-rights-group-us-1924-innovations-bsi-series-story.html

[5] https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2010/12/02/the-gay-rights-movement-in-illinois-a-history/

[6] https://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/acts/acts_resolution.pl?resolution=1976-A069

[7] https://www.episcopalchicago.org/our-stories/2018/06/17/bishop-lee-all-body-hurting

SUNDAY, JUNE 17, 2018, THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST AND PASTORAL VISIT OF JEFFREY LEE, BISHOP OF CHICAGO

The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey D. Lee, Bishop of Chicago

Proper 6B - June 17, 2018

Weed Seeds

Who doesn't love the parable of the mustard seed?  It's almost become a cliche, one of those images from the bible that has infiltrated our consciousness so deeply that we don't even wonder where it came from.  There's this parable this morning about that tiny little seed producing very big results, and Jesus' related saying to his first friends that if they only had faith the size of a mustard seed, well then, they could move mountains.  And we get the point, right?  Good things come in unsuspectingly small packages, God doesn't need obviously important looking things to make something great and good out of them, that sort of thing.  Just remember the reading from the Hebrew scriptures this morning.  All those big, strong sons of Jesse pass by the prophet, all obviously looking like possible king material.  And yet the one God was really interested in making king was the youngest kid, David, out there on the hillside throwing rocks at his father's wayward sheep.  That's the one, says Samuel.  And the rest is history.

We like this kind of stuff.  At least I do.  It is of great comfort in those times when we feel insignificant or not quite up to a task.  When life seems hard and faith is far away, it's good to remember that God doesn't need much that's great and glorious to get us through and work his purpose.  David didn't look like much of a king.  The littlest bit of faith can move mountains.  The smallest seed, says Jesus, can produce astonishing results.  Just consider that little bitty mustard seed.

Well, yes.  All that is or can be comforting and assuring.  Nothing wrong with interpreting Jesus's stories that way ... Except I'm not quite sure that those common and comforting ways of listening to the mustard seed parable are right.  I'm not convinced that's what parables are for and I'm not at all sure that cozy and reassuring is what Jesus meant to be in telling them.  Parables are stories designed to upend our normal assumptions, their purpose is to get us to view the world differently and to shape our actions in new ways.  Think of that other beloved story of the Good Samaritan -- the star, the Samaritan, is the one person in all the world a good, church-going Jew would not have expected to be cast as the hero.  Jesus tells that story to explode his hearers' narrow definitions of who my neighbor is.

So back to mustard seeds.  In ancient Middle Eastern culture, while there were some medicinal and culinary uses for mustard, it was definitely not something a careful gardener would ever have intentionally planted in a cultivated bed.  Mustard bushes grow wild, quickly covering hillsides or taking over abandoned parcels of land.  It is a wildly invasive species and would easily overrun and ruin a carefully laid out garden. 

So pick your favorite weed – crabgrass, dandelion, buckthorn – that’s pretty much what Jesus is comparing the kingdom of God to. Oh, and that part about the birds finding a place to build their nests?  Maybe Jesus meant it to be a comforting image – shelter from the storm and so forth. But in the parable he tells just before this one, he describes birds in less than favorable ways – they eat all the good seeds off the path.  You don't really want too many birds around your strawberries do you?  I wonder if Jesus is suggesting that once mustard shrubs take root, all kinds of things happen including the sudden presence of “undesirables.”

Looked at this way, Jesus’ parable is challenging, even ominous. As one biblical scholar puts it:

The point ... is not just that the mustard plant starts as a proverbially small seed and grows into a shrub of three or four feet, or even higher, it is that it tends to take over where it is not wanted, that it tends to get out of control, and that it tends to attract birds within cultivated areas where they are not particularly desired. And that, said Jesus, was what the Kingdom was like: not like the mighty cedar of Lebanon and not quite like a common weed, [more] like a pungent shrub with dangerous takeover properties. Something you would want in only small and carefully controlled doses-if you could control it. (Crossan, The Historical Jesus).

In other words the kingdom of God Jesus proclaims isn’t something we can control. It’s not something we’d even want, at least if we’re even a little satisfied with the way things are. No, the kingdom of God comes to over turn, to take over, to transform the kingdoms of this world. Which is why, of course, Jesus’ preaching and teaching stir things up, both then and now. Maybe that’s why we prefer again and again to domesticate the scriptures and even distort them - sometimes with blasphemous results - like the way a certain reading from the Letter to the Romans is being used to justify the outrages taking place on our border with Mexico. I can hardly imagine any practice sanctioned by the government of this country more clearly opposed to the Gospel of Jesus than what’s going on now.

I've often thought that we don't exactly practice the best principles of truth in advertising when we baptize people.  Typically enough we welcome parents and godparents to the font as they bring their small and beloved baby for holy baptism.  We ought to spend a lot more time warning them about the way of life they're about to commit this child to living.  We sign the newly baptized with a cross after all, not a smiley face.  The promises and vows of holy baptism we're all about to renew in a few minutes commit us to something wild and uncontrollable, to a way of life empowered by the Holy Spirit who blows just when and where she will, we promise to live in ways that will invite the Kingdom of God to become just that much more real in this world.  Listen to those promises:  Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons?  Will you respect the dignity of every human being?  Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ?  These are not the values most of this world lives by.  They're not much of a game plan for getting ahead and staying there.  They aren't guaranteed to ensure my personal security and safety.  They will not bless the status quo of who's in and who's out, who is acceptable and who is not, who wins and who loses.  It's not the world of Wall Street and Presidential policies that we're after - it's the reign of God.  And if we are to believe Jesus this morning, then we must be prepared for that Kingdom to be on God's terms and not our own.  It will not be neat, it will not be tidy, it will not be tightly controlled. The most unlikely people might well show up, and who knows who we'll find beside us at the dinner table? The short answer is one you know well here: Everybody. Everybody. Everybody.

So dear friends here at St. A’s, let's throw some seeds around, no matter how small they may seem.  There's no telling what God will do with them. 

Friday, May 25, Celebration of the Book of Common Prayer

I AM PRAYER
REMEMBERING THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 1549-2018

Oremus. Exultate, iusti in domino rectos decet laudatio... NO!

I am Prayer. By archbishop’s hand and king’s decree, English now my tongue shall be:

Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous;
it is good for the just to sing praises...

I am Prayer. In 1549 Ano Domini, Thomas Cranmer first prayed me. Our Lord Jesus said, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship Him.” I was composed for that cause. I have old Sarum’s Latin Rule, some Reformation theology and even Eastern Orthodoxy for my roots. Martyr Tyndale and Mr. Coverdale did provide the Great Bible from which my English came: “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallow-ed be thy name...”

I am Prayer. That Tudor king who broke with Rome had a son who sought a Prayer that would be in common for all his subjects. So Bishop Cranmer’s Prayer, not “common” by any means, became the Prayer I am, to be prayed in-common by those of the English tongue.

ALmighty God, whose kingdom is euerlastig, and power infinite, haue mercie upon the whole congregacion, and so rule the heart of thy chosen seruauunt Edward the sixt, our kyng and gouernour: that he (knowyng whose minister he is) maie about al thinges, seke thy honour and glory, & that we his subiectes (duely consydering whose auctoritie he hath) maye faithfully serue, honour, and humbly obeye him in thee, and for thee, according to thy blessed word and ordinaunce....
––In truth, a prayer for anyone who may govern, of whose authority one reigns, “knowing whose minister he is...”

I am Prayer. Poor Mary and her kin tried to destroy me and bring back Rome’s prayers again. But neither she nor Puritans grim could take away the Prayer that Cranmer began to Pray. The Virgin Queen’s “Settlement” did make me to be mostly what I remain (with some revisions, alas) for her Church of England and her present and former commonwealth to this day. I am spoken of in this fashion in “Concerning the Service of the Church.”

THERE was never any thing by wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted: As, among other things, it may plainly appear by the Common Prayers in the Church, commonly called Divine Service. The first original and ground whereof if a man would search out by the ancient Fathers, he shall find, ... they so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over every year; intending thereby, that the Clergy, and especially such as were Ministers in the congregation, should... be stirred up to godliness themselves and be more able to exhort others by wholesome Doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the Truth; and further, that the people... might continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true religion.

I am Prayer. Kings and Queens have proclaimed that all should follow me. As with Solomon, they too are wise to pray:

Let these words of mine, with which I pleaded before the LORD, be near...so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God; there is no other. Therefore devote yourselves completely to the LORD our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day. (1 Kings 8)

I am Prayer. At Shakespeare’s Stratford I am found in Elizabethan form I am on display; to note the bond of Prayer and Bard. No quote is found and yet Daniel Swift takes note of phrases here and there: “As modern readers, we may miss these echoes, but the crowds who gathered at the Globe to first hear these common phrases, as well known as any other words. The Book of Common Prayer is one of the hidden ingredients of Shakespere’s plays. It is a skeleton beneath the skin of the best-known works of our or my time.” (My emphasis)

I am Prayer. I have traveled far and wide. Just three decades from my creation I travel with Father Fletcher as Francis Drake roamed the world’s seas. So Mr. Fletcher prayed me in California first in 1579. He prayed for those in peril on the seas:

O Eternal Lord God, who alone spreadest out the heavens and rulest the raging of the sea; who hast compassed the waters with bounds until day and night come to an end: Be pleased to receive into thy Almighty and most gracious protection the persons of us thy servants, and the Fleet in which we serve. Preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of the enemy; that we may be safeguard unto our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen ELIZABETH, and her Dominions, and a security for such as pass upon the seas upon their lawful occasions; that the inhabitants of Island may in peace and quietness serve thee our God; and that we may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land, with the fruits of our labours, and with a thankful remembrance of thy mercies to praise and glorify thy holy Name; through jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I am Prayer. Under that same Majesty came I to the Eastern climes of that same American continent. Within century’s time even a German follower of Martin Luther sought me out as he sought to plant new churches in this land. Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenburg proclaimed my language could be a common bond for Christians from Germany and Scandinavia who brought Luther’s Reformation to these shores. He did borrow my Baptismal and Burial rites. First inquiring, “Wilt thou continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers?” And in time declaring thus: “We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection.” Many centuries before our Call To Common Mission, I might have been prayed by those who now share Word and Sacraments.

I am Prayer. Alas that reunion was not to be. A Revolution swept the land and I was forced to flee, as before in Cromwell’s time, carried by those who favored royalty. My public prayer was seldom heard until such time as persons loyal to my form made Mr. Samuel Seabury, bishop for this new land, and sent him to Scotland to restore me for the American form of democracy. So, the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer of 1789 sounds a bit like the Declaration of Independence:

But when in the course of Divine Providence, these American States became independent with respect to civil government, their ecclesiastical independence was necessarily included; and the different religious denominations of christians in these States were left at full and equal liberty to model and organize their respectful churches, and forms of worship, and discipline, in such manner as they might judge most convenient for their future posterity; consistently with the constitution and laws of their country.

I am Prayer. And in that revised Episcopal form I came of late to John, in 1968, a seminarian visiting an Episcopal church, my Morning Prayer he came to love:

O Lord, open thou our lips.
And our mouth shall show forth thy praise.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: O come, let us adore him.

And first hearing Chrysostom’s Collect prayed:

Almighty God, who hast given us the grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication unto thee, and hast promised through thy well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name thou wilt be in the midst of them: fulfill now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.

I am Prayer. In this new land of the free they said I needed new words to be prayed and sung. And so in in the year of the nation’s Bicentennial, in General Convention they proposed and I became Rite One for those who favored me as I was, and Rite Two for those who preferred more the language of today. ––Including, at times, a note of compromise:

In any of the Proper Liturgies for Special days, and in other services contained in this Book celebrated in the context of a Rite One service, the contemporary idiom may be conformed to traditional language.

I am Prayer. ’Twas a decade later that then Pastor John rediscovered me, in ’76's provisional form, at St. Martin’s of Monroeville in that same commonwealth where Muhlenberg first prayed me. By agreements provisional I was prayed with Episcopalians and Lutherans at Pittsburgh’s cathedral. And then by way of change of call in Kalamazoo’s cubed cathedral hall. Alas, there soon that tentative bond sundered for a time because some of Luther’s band did not want anything to do with those called “Bishops.” Neither Alden Hathaway nor George Lee had seemed such awful folk, but the bond was lost and he moved back Lincoln’s Land in southern county Cook.

I am Prayer. “Called to Common Mission” restored the bond between Episcopalian and Lutheran; but not until the eleventh year of this new millennium did John pray me again in this august company. He with roots in old Augustinian Luther’s tribe was drawn by Friday’s invitation to the church of St. Augustine in his new home. And even more he prayed me and even came sometimes to lead that Friday company in and with me, the Prayer that Cranmer made in 1549. Then, grace of Bishop Jeffrey Lee, John who found me long ago is now licensed as priest to pray all the more; loving best my Communion Prayer:

Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in His name. After which the people say:

“Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the Bread.”

I am Prayer. I place my blessings on weddings even to tis very day. And so they prayed me at Windsor last week over Harry and Meghan:

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, for you have created joy and gladness, pleasure and delight, love and fellowship. Pour out the abundance of your blessing upon HARRY and MEGHAN in their life together... ––and–-

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, bless, preserve and keep you; the Lord mercifully grant you the riches of His grace, that you may please in both in body and soul, and, living together in faith and love, may receive the blessings of eternal life.

I am Prayer.
I am liturgy.

I am rites and Sacraments. I am Psalter.

I am Articles of faith. I am history––

The Book of Common Prayer I am called. “Common” I am not. For all in common I would be. Oh, they think again to study and to alter me, to more inclusive make, and yet I live on in use –And now today the Anglican Community word-wide remembers me and sets a day apart, commemorated “on the first convenient day following Pentecost” A day to recall my history and let one pastor/priest say thanks be to God for me.

Almighty and everliving God, whose servant Thomas Cranmer, with others, restored the language of the people in the prayers of your church: make us always thankful for this legacy, and help us so to pray in the Spirit and with understanding, that we may worthily magnify your holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who abides with you and the Holy spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

John Lang +
Retired ELCA pastor
Licensed priest, Diocese of Chicago
In thanksgiving to God for seventy-three years of life and in thanksgiving to the people of St. Augustine’s Episcopal church who make me welcome.

Sunday, May 20, 2018, The Feast of Pentecost and the Baptism of Barbara Brandt

Kristin White

The Feast of Pentecost | May 20, 2018

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.[1]

—

Those words are not part of today’s readings, they are taken from the Song of Solomon. The last time we heard that passage read in worship here at St. Augustine’s was at your wedding, Barbara and Jason. And, it happens, that same passage was read again across the ocean yesterday at the wedding of Prince Harry and, now-Princess Meghan.

Love is strong as death. Passion, fierce as the grave.

—

Jesus’ words in today’s gospel are the continuation of his long goodbye to the disciples in John’s farewell discourse. “I have to go,” he tells them. “I have to go, so that the Advocate can come. And when the Spirit of Truth comes, she will guide you into all truth.”

“I have to go,” he tells them, and he tells them again. And they don’t understand. And no, in the words of today’s gospel passage, they cannot bear it.

But love is strong as death, and passion as fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire.

And the fire is coming.

Since Easter Day, the first lesson read in church every Sunday has come, not from the Old Testament, as is our custom throughout the rest of the year, but from the Acts of the Apostles. That is the fifth book of the New Testament, directly after the first four, which are the gospels, the stories of Jesus’ life: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor is a powerful preacher and an Episcopal priest, who likes to refer to the Acts of the Apostles as the Gospel of the Holy Spirit[2] – because this is the book where the Spirit shows up, lighting the church on fire for the good of the world. This is the book that tells her story.

Everything has happened as Jesus said it would, when he said, “Father, the hour has come.” The hour had come when he was nailed to the cross. The hour had come when he gave up his spirit. The hour had come, three days later, when he saw Mary at the tomb, when she heard him say her name. The hour had come, as he ascended.

And now, that hour has passed. Those disciples are gathered together in one place, in their grief, I imagine, that he is gone…in their fear at what might happen to them, now…in their confusion of all that they have seen in these past days, in these past three years, with the teacher who has called them friend.

What is this Advocate who is supposed to show up, now that Jesus is gone? Who is this Comforter, anyway, and where is she?

—

But love is strong as death, and passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.

—

And that is how God comes to them, this time. Not as a baby to hold, but as fire to be kindled, as light to be shared.

The wind fills the house where they are gathered, and tongues of fire rest on the disciples. They speak languages they do not know, and the people who do know those languages hear and understand them. They do things they cannot do, those disciples filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. At least, they do things they think they cannot do.

And when others would sneer about it, would dismiss them, Peter – the one who denied Jesus at the cross and then had the chance to reconcile, after the resurrection – Peter reminds them of the prophet Joel’s promise: “In the last days, God declares, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young shall see visions, and your old shall dream dreams.”

Yesterday, as he preached the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, our Presiding Bishop talked about the power of love, which is the power of God – the source and light of life.

If ever we need that power, it’s now…it’s here. Friday morning, another school shooting – this time in Texas, this time ten people killed. And now, Never Again has become Once Again. And as the words of the Thomas Tallis motet echoed through that beautiful chapel yesterday morning: “If ye love me/keep my commandment/and I will pray the Father/and he will give you another comforter/that he may abide with you for ever/even the Spirit of Truth…” as I heard those words, which our own choir sang here just days ago, all I could think about is the question of what comfort those ten families in Santa Fe, Texas, are supposed to find today? Where is the advocate for them, for their friends? How will we blaze a path for the Spirit of Truth in this moment, for the people of that community, or this one, or the next? For our children? For our country?

Presiding Bishop Curry preached on fire yesterday – literally and figuratively. He said that our ability to harness the power of fire has made possible so much of what we do, has galvanized us to become who we are. He quoted the priest and scientist and mystic, Pierre Teillard de Chardin, who said that if we can ever find a way to channel “the energies of love, then for a second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.”[3]

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

Barbara, you have stepped into the life of this church to make a life of your own, right here in our midst, among God and these people, as you have married your beloved Jason, as the two of you prepare together for the birth of your twins. Now you come to the waters of baptism, as Jesus did, as the disciples did.

May this sacrament you receive here today, which we will renew right along with you – that outward and visible sign of God’s inward and spiritual grace – may it galvanize you, with power, as you step into the life you are creating. Because I know that you know this already: you will need it. Because, as one of my favorite writers shares: “This life is so beautiful. And this life is so hard.”[4]May you find, like those disciples all gathered together in one place, that you are able to do things you thought you could not do. May you know that you have the power of fire, the power of love, the power of God, and all of us with you, through it all.

And so, as the Easter fire burns a little while longer in that tall candle at the font, and as the children pour water in preparation, and as Andrew baptizes you, at his first baptism, and anoints you with oil that — I promise you — smells like heaven, know that the power of our love surrounds you, and will continue to, that the power of our God enfolds you, and will continue to.

Know today, again and always, that love is strong and fierce, that it is unquenchable. Know that it is ours to kindle, ours to share, ours to carry out into a world that so desperately needs its light.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

Let us go, now, to the font of our salvation.

[1] Song of Solomon 8:6-7

[2] “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit” Home By Another Way. Lanham, MD: Cowley Publications, 1999. 143.

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/19/europe/michael-curry-royal-wedding-sermon-full-text-intl/index.html

[4] https://www.npr.org/2018/02/12/585066841/a-stage-4-cancer-patient-shares-the-pain-and-clarity-of-living-scan-to-scan

Sunday, May 6, 2018, The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Kristin White

The Sixth Sunday of Easter | May 6, 2018

John 15:9-17

Dear Sugar:

I’m afraid to be alone, and I can’t find anyone that measures up. And my friends are all settling down with their boyfriends and starting to talk marriage. Please help!

Sincerely, Scared & Confused[1]

Dear Scared & Confused:

You aren’t torn. You’re only just afraid. And fear of being alone is not a good reason to settle. Trust yourself. And know that trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true.

Yours, Sugar

—

Dear Sugar:

I’m writing this from the little couch/bed at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children’s Hospital in Atlanta. My husband and I just found out that our six-month-old daughter has a tumor. She is having brain surgery tomorrow. If there were a God, why would he let my little girl have to go through life-threatening surgery?

Signed, Abbie

Dear Abbie:

What if you allowed God to exist in the simple words of compassion that others offer you? What if faith is the way it feels to lay your hand on your daughter’s sacred body? What if the worst thing happened, and you rose anyway? Could you see the miracle in that?

Yours, Sugar

—

Dear Sugar:

What the heck? What the heck? What the heck?
I’m asking this question as it applies to everything, every day.

Best, WTH

Dear WTH:

Ask better questions, sweet pea. This is your life. Answer it.

Yours, Sugar

—

Dear Sugar:

I’m 29 and dating a man that I adore. I have family and friends and hobbies and interests and love. So much love. And I’m desperately afraid that I’m going to have cancer, as both of my parents have, as so many members of my family have. I’m terrified that sooner or later, I’ll be diagnosed.

Signed, Scared of the Future

Dear Scared of the Future:

You’re here. So be here, dear one. You’re okay with us for now.

Yours, Sugar

—

Tiny Beautiful Things is a book which is a compilation of advice on love and life from Dear Sugar. Originally an anonymous advice column, and now a podcast, the writer at the time the book was published is Cheryl Strayed – also the author of the book Wild. Now Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond, the original Sugar, share the podcast.

It’s a salty book, peppered through with language and circumstances that can make a person alternately blush or cringe or laugh out loud or weep. It’s real. It’s excruciatingly honest.

In his introduction to the book, Strayed’s colleague and friend Steve Almond writes:

“I happen to believe that America is dying of loneliness, that we, as a people, have bought in to the false dream of convenience, and turned away from a deep engagement with our internal lives.

“We’re hurtling through time and space and information faster and faster…but at the same time we’re falling away from our families and neighbors and ourselves.

“(Sugar) understands that attention is the first and final act of love, and that the ultimate dwindling resource in the human arrangement is not cheap oil or potable water or even common sense, but mercy.

“(I believe we need Sugar. We need her) because we are all, in the private kingdom of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend…someone…who recognizes that life is short and that all we have to offer, in the end, is love.”[2]

—

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” Jesus says to his disciples in today’s gospel lesson. “I do not call you servants any longer, but I have called you friends.”

Jesus is leaving, and he knows it. In the gospel of John, Jesus knows everything that will come to pass. He is the one who was in the beginning, the one through whom all things came into being, without whom was not anything made that was made. In the chapters beyond this one in John’s gospel, Jesus will not be surprised by Judas’ betrayal; he anticipates it. Later on the same Maundy Thursday that is the time of this gospel passage, Jesus will step forward in the Garden of Gethsemane, toward the soldiers and the officers, the scribes and the Pharisees. He will tell them to leave his friends alone, that not one of them might be lost. As he is crucified, he will give his own mother into the care of the disciple he loves: “Behold your son,” he will say, “…behold your mother…”.

But that is all still to come. Today’s gospel lesson is Jesus’ preparation of the disciples for the times that are ahead of them.

Scholars refer to this section of the Gospel of John as Jesus’ farewell discourse. It spans a good long length. Of the 21 chapters that comprise John’s telling of Jesus’ life and ministry, fully four of them are him saying goodbye to the disciples who have given their lives to follow him.

We are right in the middle of this discourse – his extended advice to them on how to live and who to love. We are right smack in the middle of this series of tiny beautiful things…which it turns out aren’t so very tiny after all.

At its heart, here is the advice Jesus has for the students who have become his followers who have become his disciples who have become his friends…whom he will soon have to leave: “As God has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. Keep my commandments so that my joy may be in you, so that your joy may be complete.”

It will be just a few short chapters from now that they will come for him, Judas with a kiss, and the soldiers with torches and swords. Just a little while longer, this very night, and his friend Peter will lose sight of this call to abide in friendship and trust and love…and instead, he will say three times: “I do not know the man. I do not know the man. I do not know the man.”

“Abide in my love,” Jesus tells them. “Keep my commandment, that your joy may be complete,” he promises.

In the end, it’s what we have, isn’t it? Our salty stories, peppered through with circumstances that make us blush or cringe or laugh out loud or weep. Our hopes, our failures, our denials, our dreams, and the ever-present promise of reconciliation: “Peter, do you love me?” Jesus will ask his friend, when he appears there on the shores of the Galilee, after that awful night and the three days and now this mysterious presence. When Peter responds yes, Jesus will say:  “Feed my lambs.” And again: “Peter, do you love me? Tend my sheep.” And still once more: “Peter do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

In the end, it’s what we have: at our core, the longing for a true friend. At our center, that deep desire for the promise of a love that will hold.

—

Today we will enfold and lay hands on and bless young people from this parish who will be leaving us in the months ahead. We’re preparing for the time that we will send you out into a big world of hope and possibility. You are a reminder to us, Ella, and Lucy, and Franklin, that this time we share with you is precious, that it will always feel like it is not enough. I have all these bits of advice which you haven’t necessarily asked for, all crammed together to give you, these tiny beautiful things to share: Trust yourself – go live out what you already know to be true. Ask the best and most real questions you have, the ones that scare you; and listen well for the answers. Know that you are okay with us…you always have been, you always will be, and this will always be your home. Look for miracles – because they’re right there, ready and waiting for you to see.

And I guess that inside and underneath it all is a desire for mercy. The hope of good friends. The knowledge that life is short, and that what we have to offer, in the end, is love.

“You did not choose me, but I chose you,” Jesus says to the friends he loves, the friends he will have to leave.

“I appointed you. So go. And bear good fruit, fruit that will last. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

[1] This and the paraphrased excerpts that follow are taken from: Cheryl Strayed. Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. New York: Random House, 2012.

[2] Steve Almond, ibid. 5-9.

Sunday, April 22, 2018, The Fourth Sunday of Easter and Welcome Sunday

Kristin White

The Fourth Sunday of Easter | April 22, 2018

John 10:11-18

There’s a certain beauty to be found, I believe, in those things we know by heart…those things that are so familiar that they come to us seemingly unbidden, and in coming to us, they return us to ourselves.

The smell of a baby’s head.

The cadence of your feet striking pavement as you hit your stride.

The words of a song you have sung for so long that you can’t remember learning it.

The crack of a baseball bat hit well on opening day.

The feel of your beloved’s hand as it holds your own.

The recipe that someone who loved you took the time to teach you.

What are the pieces of your familiar? What happens, for you, when you return to those pieces of yourself? And when do you find yourself yearning for them?

One of the blessings and privileges of this life as a priest is the opportunity I often have to spend time with people…at the beginnings of their lives, and at the ends of their lives. At both junctures, in those special and excruciating moments, people tend to be surrounded by the things they know by heart, or will, one day…beloved members of their families; photos; blankets or shawls that cover them in love and prayer and memories; shoes that their feet have worn a hole into in that one peculiar spot, or socks to keep little toes warm.

People at the ends of their lives often seem beyond the point of recognition or speech; but sometimes a piece of their familiar will find words that are still in their mouths: like with the Lord’s Prayer. Or today’s psalm.

Do you know the old version? Pray it with me, if you do:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

he leadeth me beside the still waters

He restoreth my soul;

he leadeth me in paths of righteousnss for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil.

For thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

thou anointest my head with oil;

my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

There’s something in the knowing of that – a consolation that people find they have the vocabulary for, because they know it by heart. Even at the ends of their lives, they can find the words of a promise that they shall not want…the image of walking in the shadow of death and knowing that they are not alone in it – the movement from “he” to “thou” as the psalmist faces God directly. You are with me, we pray in that 23rd psalm. You comfort me. You prepare a table for me. You anoint me. Goodness and mercy shall follow, and I will dwell at home.

—

Every year on the fourth Sunday of Easter season, our gospel and psalm and prayers and music are marked by images of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. We pray this most familiar psalm. We hear Jesus talking about knowing his own, about his own knowing him.

My guess, you have heard your share of sermons about what it means for Jesus to be the Good Shepherd. You have heard about the dangers of those hired hands that run away at the first scare. You have heard, no doubt, about the sketchier qualities of sheep…and, my hope, you’ve heard some defense of sheep as well.

I know this, because I have preached all of those things, and I have heard them, too.

It’s difficult to get a real sense of this passage, and easy to get all wrapped up in the talk of sheep and shepherds and who represents which, because we just get this little slice of the story. And, well, the imagery certainly lends itself. But as cute and fluffy as sheep can be, and as great a villain as we have in the hired hand who doesn’t protect them, this lesson Jesus teaches is not finally just about sheep. But we have to step back, in order to find the context for it.

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A chapter before today’s lesson takes place in the gospel of John, Jesus encounters a man who was born blind. That condition in that place at that time separates the man from the community. It prevents him from doing work, requires that he must sit in public and beg for anything he gets in life. As Jesus and the disciples pass by this man, one of the disciples asks Jesus what the man has done wrong, or what mistake his parents must have made, for him to deserve this separation – as though it’s his fault. Jesus responds: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”

The work of God at that moment, then, is for Jesus to make mud out of dirt and spit and rub it on the man’s eyes, and then tell him to go wash in a nearby pool of water. There, his sight is given to him, for the first time in his life. So now the man can take part as a participant in the community. It is possible for him to be returned to a familiar that has never been available to him before now.

But not so fast. Because the Pharisees are on the scene, and they’ve got some questions and concerns. The Pharisees, remember, are the enforcers of Jewish order and rules. They find their power in the fact that they know how things are supposed to work, and they keep track and try to make it so.

So first, the Pharisees debate whether the man who now sees really ever was the man born blind who used to have to beg. Next, they ask the man himself about the healing, especially taking issue with the fact that it happened on the Sabbath, which, by law and custom, would be sinful. Then, they check references by bringing in the man’s terrified parents for questioning. And finally, they bring back the man whose sight has been given to him…along with some healthy wits…the man who finally gets fed up with this repeat interrogation and says to those Pharisees: “I told you this already, and you didn’t listen. Why do you need for me to tell you again? Do you want to be his disciples too?!”

It is only after all of this that Jesus tells the story of the Good Shepherd, the one who enters the sheepfold with trust, the one whose sheep know his voice by heart, who comes that they might have life abundant. Only then – still in earshot of the Pharisees – does Jesus say the words of today’s gospel lesson: “I know my own and my own know me…and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Only then does he tell those who listen: “I have other sheep, not of this fold; I must bring them also. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” Dare I add: for everybody, everybody, everybody.

In speaking those familiar words, Jesus seeks to reconcile and restore – to restore the people to themselves, to reconcile them to one another in their community, and to join them together to their God. I wonder if there might be something for us, in that lesson underneath and inside of the story of the Good Shepherd today.

Today is also Welcome Sunday here at St. Augustine’s, a day we set aside to introduce and bless and give thanks for new members of this church. You all have come to us for reasons as different as each one of you, all seeking a new familiar, here. I pray that you will find and share pieces of yourselves, in the life of faith you begin and continue and embody here. I pray that as you join in worship and fellowship, in learning and service, this community will become one that you know by heart – a place where, again and again, you find that the words of God’s promise are in your own mouths, as again and again, you are restored to yourselves.

And so welcome, you who choose newly to be part of this congregation today. And welcome, you who have chosen this church and chosen this church and chosen this church again, through years and decades, you who already know St. A’s by heart, and now make room for others to join us.

We belong to each other. And together, we belong to the One who gives us the familiar pieces of ourselves, that, together, by heart, will help us to find our way home.