October 9, Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 17:11-19

Before his spiritual awakening some years ago, the writer AJ Jacobs described himself as “Jewish…in the same way that the Olive Garden is Italian.”[1]

In other words, he found himself not so very Jewish.

But AJ Jacobs had gotten married, and he and his wife had a child, and he was aware of the fact that for millennia, people have found comfort and courage in the practice of their faith. So, he decided to practice it too.

Like I said, AJ Jacobs is a writer, so he turned this whole experience of the found practice of faith into a book, called The Year of Living Biblically.

For a whole year, AJ Jacobs didn’t shave the corners of his beard. He couldn’t figure out where the corners of his beard actually were, so he didn’t shave at all…a practice that, as he told it, brought him into closer and more frequent contact with airport security. He wore clothes that did not have mixed fibers – no cotton/poly blend tee shirts. He did his best to never lie, even in small ways for the sake of social graces, like when he and his wife ran into an acquaintance of theirs at a restaurant (“We should get together sometime,” the acquaintance said. And instead of nodding and saying something polite, Jacobs forged ahead in rather not super-kind…honesty: “You seem like a nice person,” he said, “but my wife and I already have lots of friends that we never have enough time to see anyway, and we really can’t afford to add more to the mix right now…”)

It wasn’t all social awkwardness, though. Jacobs built a sukka in his apartment, to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. He learned to live the Sabbath – a self-admitted workaholic, he practiced the faithful rest of taking a real day off every week. He practiced lots of things during that year. He practiced and he practiced. 

When Jacobs was interviewed about the book on the TED radio hour, he talked about that notion of practice. He had been changed by his year of living biblically. He talked about his surprise at how much the outer practices of his life affects his inner experience – about how much his behavior affected his thought.

“There’s a phrase,” he said, “that it’s easier to act your way into thinking than it is to think your way into acting.”[2]

When the interviewer remarked about what Jacobs had learned throughout the course of that year, he responded: “One thing that really stuck with me was the idea of gratitude. Because the Bible says you should give thanks for everything in life. And I took that literally.

“So I would press the elevator button, and then give thanks when the elevator came. I’d step into the elevator, and give thanks for the fact that I didn’t plummet to the basement and break my collarbone.

“It was a strange way to live. But it was also quite beautiful. I realized that there are hundreds of things that go right, every day, things that we totally take for granted. And we tend to focus on the three or four that go wrong.

“I’ve tried to keep this practice, this perspective of gratitude, and it has made my life better.”[3] 

The opening prayer that is our collect from the beginning of worship today says this: “Stir up in us a saving faith, that believing, we may be healed, and being healed, we may give you thanks.”

Look at the people who find deep healing in today’s lessons:

In the first reading, from the second book of Kings, the passage tells the story of a great leader. Naaman commands Syria’s army, has power and wealth and strength and the favor of a king. And he also has leprosy, which no one can cure.

A servant girl, a young captive, suggests the help of a prophet in Israel. When Naaman goes to Israel to see the prophet Elisha, with an entourage that displays Naaman’s power and wealth and strength and favor, Elisha doesn’t care about any of that. Elisha doesn’t even come out of his house to say hello. Instead, he sends a messenger out, with a humble task for Naaman to do. That great commander turns in rage at the offense of it. And it takes the challenge of another servant, for Naaman to do the simple thing the prophet has given him to do.

Naaman, this man of power and strength and wealth and favor, finds the humility to follow the word of Elisha, the man of God. He washes in the Jordan, as he’s been told to do, and he is restored. What he does next, is important: Naaman returns to Elisha. The great commander stands before the Jewish prophet, and declares that the God that Elisha serves is indeed God over all the earth. 

In the gospel lesson for today, Jesus is walking in the borderlands, a space not really inside or outside of Jewish territory. Samaria is the place…of Samaritans…folks who keep themselves separate from the rest of the Jewish community, people seen as other and not really trusted. Samaria is the place of the Samaritan village, the one the disciples offer to call God’s judgment down on, after that village refused to welcome Jesus when he set his face toward Jerusalem.

This is not friendly country. It’s where people go when they don’t have anyplace else.

Ten people who have leprosy approach Jesus, but they still keep their distance. They are people of these borderlands, after all, regarded as unclean and unwelcome by the people and the community where they used to belong.

“Have mercy,” they call out.

Jesus doesn’t tell them to go wash in the Jordan, but he does give them a task, as Elisha had given to Naaman. “Go show yourselves to the priests,” he says. He’s moving them out of their borderland existence and back to the communities that used to be theirs.

As the ten go, their skin is restored – they are made clean. As they are made clean, one of them turns back, to give thanks. The one who turns back is a Samaritan.

Again, the words of that prayer: “Stir up in us a saving faith, that believing, we may be healed, and being healed, we may give you thanks.”

A dear friend of mine named Deborah went through a traumatic separation and divorce in her 30s. It’s a story that I knew it part, a story she shared with me more fully when we were together last week; a story she gave me permission to share with you.

She described that period of time like being upside down. She was so demoralized by her circumstances, so exhausted by the hardness of the situation that she was inside of, that she thought that was the only reality. She found herself in a kind of borderlands of her own, at too much of a distance from grace and hope.

Through the difficult right-foot, left-foot process of making the changes she needed to make, she finally began to emerge. And as she emerged, she could see that she was no longer captive to what had been her reality. When that happened, she said to me, “Kristin, my whole life became pure gratitude. I gave thanks for everything. And everything was different, was better.”

What if the now more-Jewish-than-the-Olive-Garden-is-Italian writer, AJ Jacobs, is right? What if there really are hundreds of things that go right, every single day, in ways that are both tiny and huge? What if God is saving us all the time?

And what if our best response to that is found in our actions, is found in what we do? What if our response is found in how and what we choose to practice?

Will we find ourselves restored? Like both of those biblical characters, like the author AJ Jacobs, like my dear friend Deborah, will our salvation be found as we take our place again among the people and the communities that are ours to claim, with the God who names us as beloved, in the place where we belong?

In response, will we practice taking notice? Like Naaman, to recognize that there is a God who is greater than we are, and to find ways to declare it with our words and in our lives?

In response, will we practice giving thanks? Like the Samaritan, to see that the very things we need have happened, and to show our gratitude?

 “Stir up in us a saving faith, that believing, we may be healed, and being healed, we may give you thanks.” May it be so, indeed.

[1] I’m grateful for the interview by Guy Raz of the TED Radio Hour found here, which frames much of this sermon: http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/431363633/amateur-hour

[2] ibid

[3] ibid

October 2, Feast of St. Francis

Matthew 11:25-30

“Francis, go and build my church, which is falling into ruins.”

I didn’t know much about St. Francis, growing up, other than the pet blessing day every year, which meant that we got to take our dog to church. As an adult, I knew about his love for creation; had heard about, but not seen the 1970s movie: Brother Sun, Sister Moon; had seen the garden statues of Francis, with his robe and his tonsured head and a bird on his shoulder or his hand.

And then we went to Assisi last year.

People told me that it was a tourist town. What I found, instead, was a pilgrimage site. Sure, you can find the same sorts of plasticky trinkets that are sold in lots of other places. And yes, there were tour groups with lots of cameras and leaders holding flags: “we’re walking, we’re walking…” And. And we walked the same cobbled streets that pilgrims to the sacred places of that town have walked for nearly a thousand years now. We walked the pathways of Francis’ hermitage at Mount Subasio, and picnicked afterwards higher up the mountain, with wild horses grazing nearby. We walked the places he would have walked, saw things he would have seen.

I hadn’t known what to expect of any of that first trip of ours to Italy after Easter last year, especially the first week of it that we spent in Assisi. We were grateful to be blessed and gifted and sent by all of you, grateful to Liz Caris for her recommendations of places to go (especially for the gelato, my favorite), and so excited to see our daughter Grace after her three months of study abroad.

We didn’t know what to expect. And then we found ourselves at San Damiano.

It’s a little church (“little,” comparatively, in terms of the churches in Italy) at the bottom of a long walk down the hillside from Assisi, through vineyards and along the cypress trees that define property lines. After our walk down the hill, we had waited in the square outside the church, with signs all around telling groups to keep silence (it didn’t happen), not to take pictures (they did). And then we went inside.

The walls of the church are bare stone, and close, with frescoes painted in the arch above the altar. There’s none of the grandeur we would see during the weeks to come as our trip continued, in Siena and Florence and Rome. This church felt intimate, and cloistered, and held. We walked in and the noise that had been outside just dissipated. We were pilgrims. And this was a holy place.

So the story goes, Francis prayed in that same church, before a crucifix that is also an icon, hanging at the arch above the altar.

As he prayed, he experienced God speaking to him: “Francis, go and build my church, for it is falling into ruin.”

It turns out that icon which is also a crucifix, the original from San Damiano Church now hanging in St. Clare’s Church in Assisi looks just like this icon which is also a crucifix, which normally hangs above the fireplace in our Lounge.

So Francis heard the call to build the church, and he looked around and saw the church in which he prayed really was falling into ruins. Stories vary about what happened next. Some have Francis picking up stones right away to physically rebuild the church. Some tell of him offering the proceeds of sales from his father’s silk trade to cover the cost of rebuilding. Maybe both are true.

What is clear is that Francis’ father, a wealthy fabric merchant, was not pleased about the way Francis perceived this call. He reprimanded his son, tried to shift Francis’ focus back to the course he would have chosen for him. The struggle between them persisted until finally, standing before his father and the people of Assisi at a gathering with the Bishop, Francis renounced his inheritance. He left the life his father would have chosen for him. He removed the very clothes he was wearing – stripped naked, and walked away.

Francis would live outside in the creation that became his home around Assisi for the next period of time; the only things he would have were what people gave him as a beggar. Stories are told of his relationship to the natural world: calming wild animals, preaching to birds, hearing prayer in the sound of the wind. I think we do him a disservice by constricting who he was to the caricature that I – at least – had in my mind before that trip. His reality was wilder and bigger and more faithful that all that.

In his writings he would declare that everything God has created has the ability to praise God. The shining of the sun and the cracking of thunder and the blooming of a flower – all of it, praise, all of it, holy.

The church at San Damiano was restored, and still Francis heard the call to build. And this is what makes me love this icon that is a crucifix. It has Jesus crucified at the center; and it also is filled with people.

The thing that might have pushed Francis into his life of faith was a call to build a physical church. But the work of his lifetime, I believe, was to build up the very Body of Christ which is the Church, people coming together as members of that body. His deepest call was to build that. He strove to build a church at peace with itself, each person seeking to be an instrument of that peace; a church striving – not for control over the wild of nature, but finding its harmony with all creation.

“Come to me,” Jesus says in the gospel appointed for this feast today. “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of our time in Italy – any part of it, really – especially our time in Assisi, and at San Damiano.

What I found there was a crucifix that was also an icon. It has Christ at the center and has people all around. What I heard was the story of a call: build the church. Build my church, the Body of Christ in this time and place, knit together member by member of people coming together in praise, and thanksgiving, and petition, and lament, people offering to share the gifts they have been given. Build a church that is at peace with itself and is itself an instrument of peace, a church in harmony with creation. And what I couldn’t stop thinking about, as we walked, and rested, and drank coffee, and lit candles, and ate really good gelato, was you…was the Body of Christ that is this church in this time and place.

It’s good work, this easy yoke, this light burden we have carried together for the past four years now. I knew it before we were across an ocean and on another continent away in the week after Easter last year, and I know it now and still.

So what comes next for us? How will we live into our call in the weeks and months that stretch ahead of us, carrying the easy yoke and light burden that God continues to offer us? How will we strive to be an instrument of peace in a world that cries out for it? How will we find our harmony with all creation, singing praise to our creator?

How will we build the Church?

September 18, Homecoming and Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 16:1-13

Nobody quite knows what to do with today’s gospel. After consulting more bible commentaries than I had time to keep track of this week, the only consensus I found among the scholars who study scripture is that this story Jesus tells his disciples is a strange one. “Jesus’ most confusing parable,” said one commentator.[1] “A difficult text,” wrote another,[2] in characteristic understated fashion. “Jesus’ weirdest…” said a third.[3]

It’s an interesting lesson, I’ll admit, to have at the center of a day when we’re welcoming people back to worship at this one time and in this one space. Many of you have delighted in the beauty of God’s creation at our summer beach service, our Sandy Mass on the Grass at Gillson Park. Many of you have been away, as my family and I were, part of the time, for travel and rest and play. And some of you may be here with us for the first time today, searching for a new church to call your own. Welcome home, everybody, on this Homecoming Sunday. We’re glad you’re here.

In keeping with what’s happening in people’s lives right now, as lots of folks both tall and small have begun and returned to school, and as we prepare to begin our own church school year here at St. A’s, we will bless the gift of learning today. We’ll give thanks for the opportunity to study, and we will give thanks for those who teach. We will bless backpacks, giving thanks for students having what they need in order to learn and grow. And we will ask God’s provision and the community’s generosity for those who don’t.

So recognizing all that, I spent a good deal of time this week, studying for what exactly the good news of this gospel story might be.

As Jesus tells his disciples, a rich man has a manager who is about to lose his job. The manager hasn’t done that job well, and his boss, the rich man, finds out about it. Before the manager leaves, though, his soon-to-be-former employer asks for a reckoning of the accounts. The manager is scared. He knows his options are limited, he knows this is probably his last chance to lay any kind of groundwork for his own future. So he uses what he has, while he can. “This way, maybe people will remember, and help me,” he thinks.

The manager brings in his boss’ clients, and he cuts their debts. One debt he cuts by a fifth; another, by half.

As Jesus tells the story, the manager’s still-for-now boss finds out about what this manager has done. And the wealthy boss – who now has lost a fifth or even a half of what was owed to him – this wealthy employer congratulates the manager for his shrewdness. “Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it’s gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes,” Jesus says. “If then you have not been faithful with dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?” Jesus asks.

Huh?

Honestly, I’m grateful that we’re blessing curiosity today. Because I find Jesus’ words here…curious…indeed.

So I went to school on this passage. I found confessionals from scholars who said the kinds of things that people who study and write about scripture don’t usually tend to say: “This is confusing.” “It doesn’t make sense.” “I don’t know.” I found an argument claiming that the manager is actually a hero for helping to dismantle an unjust system by his dishonest actions. I read arguments that questioned and parsed where exactly the parable ended and Jesus’ instruction began. Some writers claimed that this passage is an imperative to preach about money. Others were equally insistent that it isn’t actually about money at all, but relationships.

In short, after no small amount of exploration, I can tell you that there was zero consensus about what this story means.

And my job, as I see it, as your rector and preacher, is to bring you the good news of the gospel; not to stage my own version of what one delightful preacher called a “desperate attempt to rescue Jesus from his own parable.”[4]

The succession of events seems curious. Last week’s gospel lesson began with the scribes and the Pharisees complaining to each other: “This fellow welcomes sinners, and eats with them.” Jesus responds by telling the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. After that, he also tells the story of the prodigal son – which will be read another Sunday. So there’s the gap of missing the prodigal story, and then today’s parable about the shrewd manager.

There doesn’t seem to be much separation in this process. Jesus is teaching, he hears the scribes and Pharisees complain, and he responds with the stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal.

After that, Luke’s gospel says, Jesus tells the disciples the parable of today’s gospel passage about the dishonest manager and his rich boss. We know from the very next verse after today’s lesson that the Pharisees hear this parable, and they’re mad enough about it that they ridicule Jesus. But the text tells us that he’s not talking to the Pharisees. He’s telling the disciples.

So I wonder what it means, that after hearing grumbling about his inclusiveness of people (tax collectors! sinners!) whom respectable folks would tend to hold at a distance, Jesus turns to his twelve disciples and tells them a weird and confusing story that champions a rather more than shifty kind of a guy as the example the disciples should follow.

I love this season of going back to school. I love the smell of sharp pencils and the opening of new notebooks. From my mid-20s until beginning seminary in my mid-30s, I served as a high school teacher. And the thing I loved to teach best of all was writing.

In my last couple of years in that role, the administration team for my school made the decision to adopt a new writing curriculum. I don’t remember much about the curriculum adoption process, except that it seemed like the teachers who would be implementing it were maybe not as involved in that process as we would have hoped. It’s possible that I might have wrinkled my nose about that. And even worse, to my high-minded ideals about what teaching and writing are supposed to be: this curriculum used a formula…a script, even.

Well. “This administration welcomes curricula, and expects teachers to teach…” like, had I known this weird passage a little better at that point, it’s possible that I might have been the one grumbling it among the scribes in the teachers’ lounge.

But here’s the thing: it worked. My students who were already strong writers mastered the rules quickly and well enough that they could break them, and they became even better writers. And my students who had convinced themselves that they couldn’t write used the formulas, and yes, even the scripting, as a scaffold to help themselves through the writing process. Students who had never turned in any writing assignments in my class began writing sentences and then paragraphs and then essays. And they were good.

And I would have thought I had nothing to learn – and worse, that my students would have nothing to learn – from a writing program that taught by formula.

“This fellow welcomes sinners, and eats with them.” It’s interesting that this complaint provokes a series of parables about finding and restoring what was lost, about celebrating that restoration with joy.

If we look only at presentation and formula, it can be too easy to excuse our own lack of curiosity. Because what are we actually doing when we dismiss the dishonest manager? Are we saying that we have nothing to learn from someone like him? Is that why some of the commentators I found contorted themselves to make the manager into a socially acceptable guy? And if that’s what we try to do, underneath it aren’t we really trying to say that there are some kinds of people who have nothing to teach us about God’s kingdom? Aren’t we really trying to draw a bright line between ourselves as earnest-and-trying-to-be-faithful people, and those “others,” whoever they are?

The confounding good news of this gospel is that Jesus welcomes sinners, and he eats with us. The curious and interesting hope of this weird story is that he is talking to his disciples – the ones who will be the teachers of what he has taught – and he uses a strange and unlikely illustration of someone those earnest-and-trying-to-be-faithful disciples could stand to learn something from. And he does it all to point again and again and again to a kingdom where everybody is welcome.

So blessings, this day, on confusion and strange teachings and holy weirdness. Blessings on questions and curiosity. Blessings on backpacks and bibles and writing pads and calculators. Blessings on formulas and scripts, on shrewdness and discovery. Blessings on you, as you come home to this church. And blessings on the God who welcomes us all to the kingdom.

[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2746

[2] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1783

[3] http://day1.org/5220-jesus_weirdest_parable

[4] http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/proper-20c/?type=the_lectionary_gospel Thanks as well to the author of this text, Scott Hoezee, for the frame that set much of this sermon for me…after such head-banging.