Category: News

The Closure of the Episcopal Home

For over 93 years. the mission of The Episcopal Home has been to provide the elderly in Central Pennsylvania a safe, loving community, and a supported living environment where they can receive the care they need.

Through its long history, The Episcopal Home has been able to maintain the personal dignity of every resident and provide quality care for all those who have chosen to make their home with us. The support of the diocese through the years – both financial support and untold hours of service – has helped us to care for the residents’ physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Thank you for joining us so faithfully in this mission of compassion and care.

It is with saddened hearts that we inform you that The Episcopal Home is no longer financially sustainable as a care facility and will be closing effective September 30, 2020. While this is an immensely sad time for us all, the Board came to this decision after lengthy, prayerful and prudent discernment. In the past five years, the Board has explored new offorts in fundraising, marketing, and financial management with results that have been good, but not robust enough to allow for sustainability. The trends today in eldercare and healthcare in our Commonwealth do not favor independent personal care homes and the difficulties that we have been experiencing in maintaining our vitality are not uncommon. In the past, the diocese has been very generous in supporting the Home and we are grateful. The margin of loss is not one that even a strident mission effort in our diocese could sustain; an endowment with a principle of ten million dollars would be necessary to ensure a sustainable draw to meet the annual deficit of recent years.

We ask not only for your prayers during this period of transition, but for assistance where able. We are committed to ensuring excellent care for the residents as we work to assist their families and responsible parties to resettle them in alternative facilities and housing, work to alleviate distress, and provide spiritual guidance during this time. Any who are able to volunteer their time and services to ensure the residents are safe and cared for are greatly appreciated. If you would like to learn more about how you can help, please contact the Administrator of the Home, Ms. Mary Grace Shearer. In the Way of Love, The Rt. Reverend Audrey C. Scanlan, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania.

Vergers Voice #40

A TOUR OF ST. ANDREW’S

I am sure many of you have given tours of your home to friends and family members when they visit for the first time. It’s exciting to tell people what changes you have made and things you have done to make your home just the way you wanted it. Well, that’s the way I feel when I talk about St. Andrew’s.

Over the years I have conducted many walking tours, given talks and written a lot about our church but it has been a few years and many of you are new. It might be time to take that walk again. Over the next few weeks on the Sundays that I am the verger I would like to take you through different areas of St. Andrew’s. I want to tell you how and why the rooms were built the way they are, what changes have been made and interesting things that have happened in the past 110 years.

Let’s start as your walking to the front door. A hundred years ago you would have been standing on a dirt street, with a small grassy area to the front of you and sand stone steps leading to the red doors. The wall, sitting area, and iron railing were only added about ten years ago. I must tell you that those things did cause me to get into a bit of trouble. At the time we were doing a large landscaping project. These were changes on the original landscaping plans and required a permit which I forgot to get, since work had already started I got called before the historical review board. As I entered the room trying to figure out how I’m going to explain this. I looked around to see a priest, two deacons, three lawyers and the whole vestry behind me, we got our permit. The stone steps we use now are a fairly new addition, after over a hundred years the original sandstone steps had become very worn and uneven, they are now the foundation for the new paver stones.

The front doors are the original ones built in John Phillips factory, which was located just about a block from here. The red color, we use burning bush red, is a traditional color for many church doors. It marks the holy ground that lies just beyond those doors. It is really like a billboard telling people that beyond those doors there is a peaceful and holy place, a place of refuge.

As we go through the doors we are now in the narthex, which means an entrance hall or gathering space. It’s a little small but it does seem bigger since a few things have been taken out. This area is just the beginning, on the original plans, this front section of the church was called a battlement tower, but since the bell was installed it’s called the bell tower. Our bell tower is about forty feet high from the ground to the highest stone. Two rooms are above the narthex, that’s where the funny little steps go. The first is just an open area and then you go up a ladder to the bell room.

The second floor of the bell tower has always brought up some ideas of what it was used for. Some say it used to be the rector’s office but it was never used for this purpose. Although I have told three rectors that is where their office was but they never believed me. Others have said it was a room for a sexton that took care of the church furnace but this wasn’t the case either. Then I was asked if the vergers slept there. I responded that unlike Quasimodo we do not sleep in the bell tower but it would be nice to have a place to take a nap when I’m here all day.

The third floor is the bell room. It is interesting that even though this room is about twenty-four feet above the first floor it is about four inches larger in length and width. This is because as the tower got higher smaller stones were used. You would think that a church would have plans for a bell when it was being built but that wasn’t the case at St. Andrew’s. Our bell wasn’t installed until October 12,1975. Father Ron Lynch, the vicar at the time, saw a need for a bell and asked a long-time member, Edith Jones, to consider purchasing one. A 29-inch, 500 lb. Brass bell was ordered from the McShane Bell Foundry of Baltimore Maryland. It arrived in May and sat in the front yard about six months until the men of the church figured out how to get it up three stories. After cutting holes big enough for the bell to fit though and installing timbers for the bell to sit on, a block and tackle was used to pull the bell up to the top floor. Our bell is rather unique because it has two clappers. A regular clapper that the bell hits when it is swung, that is what you hear every Sunday and a tolling hammer that hits once with every pull of the rope. It is used for funerals, on Good Friday and other special events. Now when you come in to the narthex and look up you will know why the wood panel is there.

The next time we will talk about the Nave.

Back to the Verger’s Voice!

Approaching the Gospels Together

On the first Sunday of the month we gather to explore the gospels together, using a Contemplative Dialogue approach which encourages everyone’s participation and which understands that wisdom is found in the hearts of everyone gathered. Today was no exception. We compared the texts of Mark, Matthew, and Luke and many unsettling topics settled into our hearts. Sometimes the path toward knowledge and truth lead us into difficult places first. We traveled a bit into what unclean spirits mean to us today, how do we name evil, how does evil divide us, what happened to the evil spirits when they were cast aside, and perhaps most importantly, why did the forces of evil recognize Jesus as the Son of God but the goodness within people didn’t. What’s that about? Good questions, right? No easy answers, that’s for sure. But good soulful conversation. Please join us next month for our next exploration.

Shall we call her Mary?

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

The Rev. Barbara Hutchinson

Proper 27 Year A

November 12, 2017

Shall we call her Mary? That woman in the photograph I used in my weekly e-newsletter, that I said I wanted to preach on today – did you notice her? How did you read her facial expression as she was watching the other bridesmaids fill their lamps with oil, while turning their backs toward her? Sometimes when I settled my eyes on her, I saw shame or regret in her furtive looks toward the others. Sometimes, I noticed envy. Other times I saw a hint of disgust. For she will be left behind. She will not have enough oil in her lamp to join in the procession to the wedding feast. And no one will share with her.

I think we should call her Mary, maybe because she has the same blue-colored robe that Mary, the mother of Jesus is often depicted in. But I like to call her Mary because there are so many Marys in our gospel stories and a Mary always seem to be present at the most important moments of Jesus’ life, and this story seems to have that same level of importance. If a Mary is always around at these important or liminal times, maybe that means we too can be around at Jesus’ important or liminal moments too, not being transported back in time, but being present to the moments Jesus shows up in our lives, here and now. Oh, the many Marys — Mother Mary, who birthed God into this world, Mary, Martha’s sister, who sat at Jesus’ feet, soaking up his teachings, Mary who lavishly poured the contents of her alabaster jar upon the feet of Jesus, offering him comfort and adoration, while foreshadowing the anointing of his body soon to be crucified, and Mary, the Magdalene, who was the first one to see the resurrected Jesus, the first apostle, who ran to tell others the good news of the risen Christ. The name Mary may have been used so frequently in the gospels because it was a common name of the time, or maybe because its frequent use allows us to see it as a generic name, and therefore one we can take upon ourselves, allowing us to see ourselves in each of those situations. Our story today seems to be one of those important moments in Jesus’ life, when he’s working hard to reveal a truth to his disciples that he really wants to leave with them.

The setting of this parable is incredibly important to understanding the message. For if we don’t know that this story is told to Jesus’ disciples alone, on the Mount of Olives, in the tension of Holy Week, when Jesus traces his steps back and forth across the Kedron Valley, setting the rhythm of threatening the status quo in Jerusalem and retreating at night into the safety and warmth of his friends’ home, and if we don’t understand that Jesus knows he will die soon, that in fact he’s orchestrating his death, we won’t comprehend the urgency of the situation, of Jesus’ giving an answer to his disciples who are struggling with the idea of his death, let alone not grasping in any shape or form what this second coming is all about, when it will be here, and what the signs will be when it comes, we can easily think this parable is about rewarding the smug, the self-focused, the selfish, the uncaring, the ones who intentionally divide communities between those who have and those who have not, for these bridesmaids who brought extra oil, but looked out for only themselves, seem to be the ones rewarded. They’re the ones who go to the wedding feast. They’re the ones on the inside of the closed door.

If we take this parable out of context, it would appear that Jesus is rewriting the beatitudes, the imperatives for faithful living which he started his ministry with, on that hill, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. The rewrite may look something like this:

Instead of blessed are those who are poor in spirit, Jesus would say, “blessed are the overly confident”, instead of blessed are those who mourn, Jesus appears to be saying, “blessed are those who cause the tears to run down the cheeks of those scorned by others”, instead of blessed are those who are meek, Jesus would be saying, “blessed are those who are haughty”, instead of blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, “blessed are those who are comfortable with their privilege”, instead of blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus would be saying, “blessed are those who rip families apart”. Nothing about this parable seems right – and it isn’t.

Matthew, who uniquely tells this particular parable, is addressing the issue of what a false reality of the Kingdom of Heaven looks like. The gospel writer knows the people in the community, several generations after the death of Jesus, are wondering when this is all going to happen, and they’re hungry to latch onto any reality of the Kingdom, even if it is false. They’re tired of hoping without seeing any sustained movement toward the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, because they’re exhausted from combating the forces that tell them power and might rule, and they’re afraid none of the story of Jesus is true. The stories told to them of the miracles of Jesus or the love that seemed to pour from him all the time, gathering people from the fringe and drawing them near seem distant and merely a faded memory. They are weary. They are afraid. They are losing hope, and Matthew’s Jesus needs to make it clear to his disciples what the false prophets would raise up as the Kingdom of Heaven, and he wants to make the example so distinct from what he had been talking about that the disciples would readily know it wasn’t this. It was not, nor never would be, a closed door for those who didn’t come on time, or those who weren’t prepared, or those who didn’t know yet they were invited to come on in.

There are times when I listen to the news, and all I hear about are mass shootings each week, the last one in a church of all places, and I can’t help but wonder if that could happen here at St. Andrew’s someday, and I don’t know what to do with that fear. Or I hear about devastating hurricanes and raging forest fires and I wonder what has happened to our earth, if we’ve done irreparable damage. Or I hear the news plastered with stories of the immoral behavior of our elected officials, or there’s a push toward war when all other options have not yet been explored, or division among families due to their political points of view, and I’m afraid, and I’m not sure what to do with that fear. I am tempted to lose hope and I begin to wonder if anything I am doing really has any impact in bringing in the Kingdom of Heaven. Maybe you feel that way too.  I sometimes get weary of waiting, of endlessly waiting for some sustained movement toward the Kingdom of Heaven and I get frustrated with all the obstacles that seem always strewn in its path. I wonder “Why can’t we all just get along?” A simple yet profound question. Why is this so hard? And I can understand why some church-goers feel foolish for believing it will ever happen, that the Kingdom will ever be near enough to touch, to taste, to revel in, and they drift away from church, from community, from hope.

We began our recent Diocesan convention by asking participants to name their hearts’ desires or share the deepest dilemma they are dealing with – One response was: “What does ‘make all things new’ mean? How long will it take?” It’s the same question the hearers of Matthew’s gospel were wrestling with. It was stunning to me the number of people responding to that opening question at the convention spoke about fear, concern over divisions due to differences of race, economic status, or opinions, a sense of hopelessness, and concern about survival from a natural disaster as what is most on their hearts – probably 1/3 of the people gathered that evening. If we contrast with these generalized fears, some real-life fears many of us or our neighbors have – how will they afford health care, what happens if I lose my job, will I have the strength to endure the darkness of the night, or the dark place of my soul which I meet each day – we understand how sometimes it can be easier to grasp onto a false reality than to wait for and to live into the true one of Jesus.

So, the question raised by our parable is: “how do we live in hope of the light Christ brings, when the rest of the world seems so dark?”

Part of that answer is found in our parable when we look at the characters and find there is no bride mentioned. There is no bride at the wedding feast. The custom was for the bridegroom to go to the bride’s home on their wedding day, settle with the bride’s father on the dowry, and then she and the bridegroom would process with the bridesmaids to the wedding feast, where the celebration would begin. Although the door to the wedding banquet was closed and the tables were laden with a feast, there was no union between the bridegroom and the bride, for she was not there. There was no celebration, there was no joy.  The uncaring, smug, self-centered bridesmaids, who were unwilling to share their oil with those in need, afraid that if they did, they wouldn’t have enough for themselves, found themselves in a place that felt empty, and stilted, and without joy.

If we use the common allegory of Jesus as the bridegroom and the church as the bride, our story tells us that the bride, or the church, did not show up, because we know the church does not exist where there is not love; the church does not exist where there is not sharing of resources; the church does not exist where there is division. Oh, there might be church buildings filled with people who do not love, but the living and moving and breathing Body of Christ does not show up where there is not generosity, where there is not trust, where there is not love.

There was another party going on in town that night. One where the rejected, the tired, the weary, the lonely, the ones who mourn, the poor in spirit, the meek, the peacemakers were gathered, where the healing love of Jesus flowed through and around them, where they anointed each other, maybe not with expensive oil, but with tears of joy, for Jesus was with them.

The church shows up, our church shows up when we readily offer ourselves and our resources to each other, when we ask the question, “What do you need?” or “How can I support you in the cold dark night, where fear and trembling settle in upon your soul and weigh you down like a heavy down comforter, almost making it difficult to breath?” The church shows up, our church shows up, when we acknowledge our vulnerability before God and each other, or when we acknowledge that we can’t be prepared for everything, and instead chose to trust that it is Jesus who opens the door, invites us in, and prepares the feast.

The false prophets may say to us, “You just need to work harder!” or “Claim what you’ve earned as your own!” or “Figure out for yourself what you can give away, don’t let God lead you, for you will end up with not enough!”

Mary, our woman in blue, scorned, rejected, dismissed, whose eyes, perhaps filled with contempt, or flooded with tears, but also turned to see the truth of Jesus. We can too. We can figure out how to wade through the dark times we often find ourselves in. We can trust Jesus is present with us as we make tiny steps toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom, and trust that they count. We can find strength knowing that there are people here who will be with us and love us and share with us and care about us. We can come to the feast, the banquet, the table laden with more than we could ever ask for or imagine, the altar. In the darkest of times, light will shine, and the Kingdom of Heaven will be born anew in our hearts, when our eyes are turned to see the truth of Jesus. Amen.

 

 

 

Keep those rivers flowing (Sermon for River Sunday)

Michael Nailor

St. Andrew’s Shippensburg

October 29, 2017

River Sunday

Matthew 28:1-10

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he[a] lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead,[b] and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Keep Those Rivers Flowing

Grace, peace and forgiveness to us all from Jesus Christ, our Lord! Amen!

Thanks to Mother Barbara for inviting me to be a part of the preaching for this Seasons of Creation Worship series. My name is Michael Nailor and I am a member of St. Matthew’s in Sunbury.  I am a Candidate for Holy Orders in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania.  This is the step before ordination into the ministry and life of a Vocational Deacon in our church.  Our diocese maintains the Stevenson School for Ministry that enables people like me to discover our gifts for ministry and to listen to what God is calling us to do.  I know that St. Andrew’s is a supporter of the school and diocese-wide efforts in continuing education – and for that I thank you all.

Since this is “River Sunday” I’d like to end my introduction with details of my recent adventures on the Nile, the Ganges or the Amazon.  Instead, I’m afraid, it’s the Yellow Breeches, the Conodoguinet, and the Susquehanna.  I am not a great river adventurer, but this week has been instructive to me as I thought back over my relationships with rivers in my life.  I realized that I have never lived farther than about 5 miles from a river in all my life with most of it spent less than 10 blocks from a river. I’ve spent more time on them than in them – from the jazz cruises on The Hiawatha, a paddlewheel riverboat in Williamsport, to an ill-fated attempt to cross the I-95 bridge at Havre De Grace on foot.

The sheer volume of our river is almost unimaginable.  Each day it delivers 25 billion gallons of water into the Chesapeake.  However, as we are all aware, the Susquehanna is severely degraded by nitrogen and phosphorus pollution and other contaminants. Excess animal manure, agricultural runoff, improperly treated sewage discharges, and urban and suburban storm water create local water quality problems and pollute the Bay. Additionally, abandoned mine drainage, failing septic systems, vehicle exhaust, and coal fired power plant emissions, and, in some parts of the River, toxins like PCBs and mercury have severely contaminated the River’s once pristine waters. We are called this River Sunday to find ways to decrease agricultural runoff through nutrient management programs.  We are called this River Sunday to upgrade current sewage treatment facilities.  We are called this River Sunday to adopt effective storm water controls.  We can agree, I hope, that a healthy Susquehanna River results in a greater quality of life for the millions who call the watershed their home.

In addition to learning about specific problems with our river, I also learned a bit about the role that rivers play in Holy Scripture.  From the four rivers of the Garden of Eden in Genesis to the river that flows through the City of God in Revelation – I’d suggest that we are never that far from a river in the stories of the Bible as well.  My favorite river description comes from Ezekiel 47:

“Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there, water was flowing from below the threshold of the temple towards the east… Then he led me back along the bank of the river… I saw a great many trees on the one side and on the other.  He said to me, ‘This water flows toward the eastern region… and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh.  Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there.  It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes.’”  This freshening, life-giving image of the river flowing east from the temple is attractive to me.

As we think about rivers together this morning perhaps we can draw some connections between them and our relationship with our Creator-God.  The life-giving power of rivers that Ezekiel sketches takes me back to the source and the abundance of rivers themselves.  Where exactly does all that water come from?  The actual amount may ebb and flow but as God has promised us in the reading from Genesis this morning, through a covenant, symbolized by the rainbow, that until the end of time natural cycles will continue: seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, daytime and nighttime.  Just as waters bubble to the surface in springs above Cooperstown, NY to furnish a never-ending supply the Susquehanna – the grace of our God is always bubbling away for us.  The volume of streams and creeks throughout the watershed add to that initial stream to form a truly great river.

This summer as I worked as a chaplain intern in Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia I was overwhelmed by incredible abundance of God’s love that is available for everyone – to be a healing power and a comfort in times of loss.  Yet I was also saddened that so many people cut themselves off from that love – or worse yet are unaware of God’s love.  I have a hard time imagining anyone going through the lowest points in their lives without access to the love of God.  Often in the hospital I would be frustrated by the fact that there is such an abundance available for people but through guilt or shame, folks had closed themselves off from the flow of God’s love.  It’s a little like paving over the spring of the river with a parking lot.  You know how that will end.   Flowing water – given long enough – is persistent and will clear out all blockages in its way.  As we might feel called to clear a section of streambed of debris to improve our physical environment, can we do the same for our fellow human beings? Can we help to clear away some of the garbage that gets in the way of other people who need the gift of life that God’s love – fully understood, fully realized – can give?

Just as the river in Ezekiel flows from the Temple and the river in Revelation flows from the throne of God – our Gospel today points us to one of the greatest symbols of God’s love flowing into the world – the empty tomb.  Imagine a spiritual river flowing out of the empty tomb filling the whole world.  And the first folks to put their toes in that river are Mary Magdalene and the other Mary.  Thank God for the faithfulness of these women.  They went, as Matthew says, to see the tomb, to investigate. Where were the men?  Fled to Galilee.  And what did the angel tell these two faithful Apostles to do?  They were to go tell the others that Jesus was raised and “indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee.  There you will see him.” Jesus is going ahead of them into the world – not going away from the world.  Like a mighty river rising from a very small source, Jesus’s presence and his love is still spreading from that source – the empty tomb – to fill our entire world. That is the picture that Matthew in his last chapter wants to leave us with.  There is no ascension story at the end of Matthew’s gospel.  The book ends with our great commissioning to “make disciples of all nations.”  Get busy working in the world to make others aware of the love of God!  And the final sentence of the Gospel is a final reminder as the love of God flows out to include all people: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Just like the promise in Genesis that cycles would follow on cycles, just as the promise of the river that it would always flow, Jesus is promising to be with us – not remote in some far-off throne room in heaven – but to be as near to us as that river.  Surrounding us in God’s love, bringing life to everything that Jesus touches.

We humans are drawn to rivers.  Over 50% of the world’s population lives closer than 2 miles to a river, and only 10% of the population lives further than 6 miles away from one.  We have an obligation, a covenant with future generations to keep them clean, refreshing and attractive.  As God keeps the covenant with us to keep our rivers flowing, may we recognize added urgency to keep our physical and spiritual rivers flowing in our lives for others both today and in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning about how to be right with God.

Our focus this year is on how to be in right relationship with God by being in right relationship with our earth, God’s creation and primary revelation. Our young people are leading us in this effort, of course! Yesterday, we held a Youth Mini-Mission Event which helped us understand how crops and livestock can be grown in a way that works with the earth.

We visited Oyler’s Organic Farm, where they harvest apples, raise cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys, and have a wonderful farm stand which sells only certified organic products, that either they produce or other business do. The woman, who was a 7th generation Oyler, told us about their commitment to growing produce organically, both in terms of the future direction of farming, but also because she remembered her father coming in after applying the pesticides with dilated pupils and pesticide poisoning and deciding that’s not a good future for his children and grandchildren.

Apples at this wonderful organic market – Oyler’s

We tasted amazingly delicious cider after seeing the processing room and examining the equipment which cleaned all the apples produced in their orchards. One thing that really stood out to me was the mindset behind organic farming — building up the strengths (nutrient rich soil supplements), bringing in and supporting the natural pollinators (bees), and training the apple trees in such a way that helps them naturally resist infection. It sounds a lot like a spiritual rule of life — support those practices which build up our strength in God, bring in resources that help our spiritual lives come to fruition, and adopting disciplines that keep us supported and growing in the right direction. There was a lot of wisdom in what she shared with us.

Preparing the garlic for cleaning

After experiencing what it would be like to be a migrant worker who would paid to prepare the crops for sale, such as cleaning the garlic cloves, we left there happy and refreshed in the idea that people are purposefully choosing to make a difference in how they move from “users” to “caretakers” of our land.

We then went to Boyer’s Orchards, where we had the opportunity to glean for apples, in cooperation with the Gleaning Project of South Central PA. We had a great time picking and sorting Crispin apples. We picked over 1000 pounds of apples, all of which will be distributed to food banks in our area. It was a perfect day of having fun, while making a difference in our world, to those who are hungry, and to the earth which we are called to care for.

Our next Youth Mini-Mission Event is 11/5, when we will go into the Michaux State Forest to learn about how to manage forests well and to clean up a trail. All are welcome to join us!

 

Seasons of Creation #3 Wilderness: How do we think about, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle”?

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

The Rev. Barbara Hutchinson

Seasons of Creation #3: Wilderness

October 22, 2017

“God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” A common saying. Perhaps you’ve heard it many times in your life, or have even spoken it yourself. It’s a saying I’ve always pushed back against from a place deep within my gut, not necessarily understanding why, until I studied theology, and then I knew why. My image of God doesn’t include someone sitting upon a throne in heaven, dolling out bad things to people at opportune times, with the purpose of disrupting or destroying their lives, always attentive to the balance of good and evil in their lives at any particular moment, so people can be just on the edge of the good— or worse yet, bringing on the bad thing in life to selected people at the worst possible moments of their lives, just when they are starting to turn things around, or when they are spiraling downward.

My image of God is a flow of love, a source of desire for goodness for each part of the created world, a pull deep within each one of us for wholeness, and an inherent life-force reaching toward a rich and abundant life designed for everyone, lived within the healing embrace of Christ.

So how would I, how do you, reconcile this image of a God who looks at us through eyes of love, with the God conjured up in this popular saying that seems to imply God is actively involved in bringing bad things into our lives?

I’m not sure why we say, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” Do you? Maybe it’s because when our lives are hard, and we feel out of control, our deepest yearnings are for someone or something to be in control, and even this if implies that God hands out the hardness of our lives, we’re willing to attribute that to God, rather than to simply acknowledge that our lives are out of our control.

Or perhaps it is to give ourselves a spiritual pep-talk, to bolster our strength to get through whatever difficulty we are enduring. If God thinks we can do it, then, by God, we can!

Or maybe, because it’s the only way we can figure out how we can bring God into our deepest, darkest times. Maybe we so desperately want God to be a part of our lives during times which test us, that any type of participation we can attribute to God is good.

Now, maybe that’s the key – maybe behind that almost flippant statement that “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle” is the deep desire that God be a part of the pain of our life.

Now, THAT’S something I can actually believe to be true! Who wouldn’t desperately want God to be a part of our lives’ struggles? The only people who wouldn’t are those who think God is incompetent, untrustworthy, or uncaring. But for those of us who can stretch our way into believing that God is to be trusted, then for us, the struggles we encounter can become transformational. For if God is within them, there is a chance for change. We can find that we can be changed for the better, we can come out the situation stronger, with a clearer sense of who we really are, what really matters to us, and what we are to do in this world, and we can imagine God’s involvement in the situation making a difference. The chance to change. That’s the invitation that is in the statement, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” If God is a part of it, of either drawing us into experiences that shatter us at our core, that break open the façade that we are in control of everything, or make us look at life from a new perspective, or if God merely “sits with us” in the pain, then there’s a chance for change, toward clarity of who we are and what we are to do in the world.

This is exactly what happened to Jesus as the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness for a time of testing and temptation, as we heard in our gospel today. We understand Jesus not as something separate from us. Because of the incarnation, we can enter into what Jesus did, truly following him, not just honoring who he was. Our text today tells us that the Spirit draws us into times of testing, not because God desires Jesus to have hardship in his life, or us to have hardship in ours, but so that we can come out of the time of testing and temptation stronger, as Jesus did, in our sense of identity and purpose in the world.

There are no surprises in our gospel story today. We expect that Jesus will be able to resist the devil, who is often described as one who attacks, misleads, deceives, diverts, discredits or slanders. Jesus is God incarnate, so of course, we know, or at least want to believe, God’s power of goodness will be stronger than any temptation offered by the force of evil.

But what I think we often fail to see is the transformative power of the wilderness, the time when we feel stripped to the core, as Jesus was, for 40 days and 40 nights, for Jesus was changed through the experience, and therefore we can be also. Jesus comes out with a clearer sense of his identity and purpose, and he’s famished, not just physically, but spiritually, he is ravenous to begin his ministry. That’s the piece we are invited into. Every time we want to say, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle”, we are invited to look into the possibilities of this situation, for us to know what we care most about. If we don’t go into that place of self-reflection or exploration of how God desires us to be when we get to the other side, then, I believe, we’ve missed the point, and we’re stuck in a relationship with a God who purposefully doles out bad things in our lives, rather than a God who sits with us in them and draws us into new life. We must ask ourselves the poignant question, “What are we famished for?”

I often speak of a cycle of deconstruction and reconstruction in our spiritual lives, the pulling apart of what is known or predictable or under our control, (the deconstruction part,) and the subsequent re-assembling of the pieces into something new – the reconstruction part. I believe God is the force behind both and that the two processes happen simultaneously. Which is to say, God doesn’t wait until things fall apart in our lives to begin to pay attention to us and then to imagine how to put them back together, in a new more life-giving way, but rather, the pulling apart and the reassembling happen at the same time. Our text today and our focus this Sunday on this wilderness time in our spiritual lives introduce to us a whole other step – that moment when we realize we want more, that we yearn for something that feels more complete; when our hearts are filled with a hope for a fullness we have only yet seen a glimpse of; when we imagine a better way of life, born from the ashes of what was. Christian living is a straining forward for what is yet to come, not what was.

These moments of yearning, of passion, of hope, are liminal times, when we can identify an anticipation of being changed into something new, when we know we will hardly recognize ourselves when we look back after this moment in time, that somehow the angst will be gone, the worry will disappear as the mist rises from the valley in the early morning, when something new will define who we are. Certain moments in my own life have this liminal quality, when I could anticipate a brand-new beginning — my wedding day, the days of my children’s births, when I became a mother, and which changed my life forever, when I had a greater clarity of my identity and purpose, or my ordination as a priest, when I suddenly realized what God had in mind for me all along. These are liminal times, when there has been a yearning for something new to embrace, when I have felt more aligned to God, when I have been aware that something even more spectacular than I could ever imagine awaited me. You have those moments too. They are awaiting you, because the God I believe in doles out pregnant opportunities to each one of us, all the time.

Jesus, in his time in the wilderness, learned a few important facts about himself and the God he was manifesting on our earth: God would satisfy his needs for what he was hungry for, God would keep him safe, and God’s view of domination and prestige was the reverse of the world’s – one of humility and servanthood.

Jesus, through his temptations, shows us that it is when our lives are difficult that we chose who we will be. Like Jesus, there will be times when we are hungry, when we are tempted to doubt God’s faithfulness, times when we are tempted to reach for power or align ourselves with those who do, so we can feel safe, rather than live and make decisions as Jesus did, as God’ servant.

And yet, there are important times when we will be famished like Jesus, when we will ask ourselves the questions Jesus did: “Who am I to be?” “What will matter most to me?” “What does God have in mind for me?” “Where am I starving to make a difference in the world?” These are such important questions for us to ask ourselves, for it is within these answers that the Kingdom of God will emerge.

Many of us know from real experience that it is through times of trial and tribulation, or even temptation, that there is an opportunity for us to become our best selves. Now my experience, when people are in a place of distress or testing, their first response is not always their best response. So sometimes, finding our real selves requires patience, of ourselves, or of others, to allow God to do God’s work. But God will do God’s work. I deeply believe this.

And walking through and out of wilderness does come down to trust that God is God, and we are not. We can trust God to do God’s part, which is always and forever loving us into wholeness. Then we need to ask ourselves if we are doing our part, are we being trustworthy to God, are we joining our imagination with God’s as to what we can do with our lives, and then are we boldly living that way. Our faithfulness means we can see into another’s person’s heart and find truth; that we can become a presence of healing balm in that raw and hurtful situation we see unfold before us; that we can release the power of love, the shalom or wholeness each of us yearn for with those we encounter.

So, in times of trial, we can see an invitation to perceive what God is already creating anew – that’s the reconstruction part – but we can also see an invitation to identify our own yearnings, and that’s the transformative part, when we do that reflective part in our soul, to see if our yearning is aligned with God’s, because that’s our ticket out of wilderness, aligning our purpose with God’s purpose for us, for then we can move onto River Sunday, when all becomes recreated and new.

I will still bristle every time I hear someone take comfort in the statement, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle”, because it still conjures us in my mind an image of an old man in heaven, doling out good or bad things in our lives, like one may deal a deck of cards, some getting the wild cards that protect them from the natural occurrences of the game of life, while others deliberately getting the ones which make you lose your turn or start all over – but when I hear that phrase, for I am sure I will because it’s part of our popular, yet un-analyzed theology, I’ll say to that person, “Yes, that’s right – God has drawn you into, and is here with you, in this bad time, so how are you using this time to be clearer about who you are, stronger about what you are to do in the world, and deeper in your trust in God’s providence, as Jesus did, when he was drawn into the wilderness by the Spirit?

That’s right. And the point that is that it should leave you hungry – starving to trust God more, to know yourself more, to yearn to become more of what God has in mind for your life, and be clearer in what you are to be doing in this world. “How is that working for you?” I’d ask. For being Christian is not a passive stance of taking life as it comes, but one of finding the chance for change hidden in each adversity, discovering what we are famished for, discovering what wholeness we want to work toward that will make the world a better place, and for holding before us the glimpse of the fullness God is offering us that can become our beacon of hope. Amen.

Where have you found God in the forests? Or the “forest” times of your life?

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

The Rev. Barbara Hutchinson

Seasons of Creation Year A: Forest

October 8, 2017

There are moments in our lives, sometimes fleeting or seemingly nearly beyond our grasp, when we catch a glimpse of something beyond the ordinary, when everything lines up and everything seems right. We may describe these moments as “being in the flow”, or of a sense of wholeness or peace that overcomes us, or experiencing a surge of newness, or a spark of creativity, or a place of deep and holy nourishment, or stumbling into a thin place. These come to us by grace, for we can never orchestrate them, but only enter into them when they are revealed to us. While in these states, we are experiencing what this Forest Season of Creation is all about – that living place where nourishment abounds, where both birth and death happen, where the life-force is strong, where there is a sense of being held as part of a greater whole.

Last week at our spiritual retreat at Holy Cross Monastery, I invited us to identify these moments of “forest creation” in our lives, for you see, each Season of Creation, in my understanding, aligns with a Season of Spirituality. This season of creation, the forest, echoes the Garden of Eden, that descriptive metaphor which speaks of a time when all of creation, including humankind, was in balance and in right relationship with the will of God. I took my journal, found a quiet spot, surrounded by the trees, and began my own spiritual reflection. It was not difficult for me to identify many “forest” moments of my life. In fact, that part flowed so easily that my mind naturally began to gather those moments into spiritual categories, such as moments of healing, giving or receiving hospitality, my soul being captured through the beauty of music, shared love, or handing you the bread, the Body of Christ, and knowing deep within, that I was handing the Body of Christ to the Body of Christ, an incredibly transcendent moment.

But then something interesting happened. I began to associate the word atonement, which we understand as having something to do with Jesus’ death on the cross and our salvation, with a feeling of alignment and wholeness, at-one-ment, at-one-with-God-ment, as Richard Rohr, a contemporary theologian, would explain. And I realized that some of my most painful moments were also at-one-with-God-moments. That gave me a lot to think about as I recalled a close friend of mine, who held her daughter as she died, feeling that completeness of being close to Danielle and to God, in a profound and life-giving way. In the worst possible moment of her life, there was something being offered to her by God that didn’t make everything okay, but somehow made everything holy. This is how creation and the cross fit together today. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, all that we might understand as separate or broken or lost or tragic, is that, but not only that. For Jesus’ resurrection means that everything that ends has a new beginning built into it. Because Jesus experienced the full joy and pain of humankind, God sanctified both, and our salvation is our journey. This is God’s invitation to a place of “forest” creation, that alive place that holds both birth and death, joy and pain, and where there is a mutuality of shared love, hospitality, and a surge toward newness. It is this paradox of Christian faith that allows us to place within our liturgy the Prayers of People we will read at the 10 a.m. service, which are full of lightness and happiness and celebration of the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, with the Act of Remembrance after the violent act of the shooting in Las Vegas.

Our “forest” or creation experiences often do happen in the forests. One of my earliest childhood memories of sense the presence of God (although I didn’t talk about it that way then) was sitting in the tree in my backyard, for hours on end. I was a child who often sought solitude. The tree’s trunk had split, so there was a convenient, natural seat formed where the two trunks split from the main one, which seemed to be God’s invitation to sit awhile, be still and be aware of the presence of God. Maybe your “forest” experiences happen when you take walks in the woods, or as you drive Rt. 15 along the Susquehanna River and you see the brilliant yellow, gold, and red leaves shimmering against the river, and your breath is taken away. I think our forests can be a place for us to be inspired by God, to be invited by God deeper into God’s presence, to be healed by God as the wind through the branches seems to lift the heaviness in our hearts, all of which reconnects us to the metaphoric original state of wholeness, the Garden of Eden.

We can understand the relationship between our actual forests or our forest experiences elsewhere to our redemption through Jesus’ death and resurrection, because through them we are always invited back into the ongoing creative force of God, but our texts today draw us into a much broader context, where we can begin to see the relationship between our redemption and that of God’s created world.

In our text from Genesis we hear the account of creation which is chronologically after the one in which God created the world in seven days, but this one was written first. This was the original way the ancient Israelites reflected upon the world and imagined its beginning, told in a way that held their deepest values about the created world and our relationship with it. There are a few things that stand out in this passage: Humankind was made from the dust of the earth, out of which God created every other living thing. We are made from the same substance as the plants and the trees, and the animals who inhabit them. Humankind was not set above the rest of the created order, nor was humankind created in isolation from the rest of the created order, nor was earth a mere stage for human drama. Humankind was set in intimate relationship with its environment. The first “job” or vocation given to humankind was to care for God’s creation, even before humankind was instructed to “love God and love our neighbor”. Each time we work at restoring or caring for the earth, we are doing what God asks of us. Each time we pick up debris from the stream, each time we harvest the forests in sustainable ways, each time we raise organic crops, each time we attend to the amount of fertilizer we place upon our lawns, each time we plant native plants in our gardens, each time we find ways to bring back plant or animal diversity in our local area, we are doing what God asks of us, has asked of humankind from the beginning of time.

There are a lot of sad facts about our forests. There have been more forests cleared from 1850 to the present, nearly 170 years, than in all of previous history. Due to population growth and deforestation, the amount of forest cover available to each person has declined globally by 50% since 1960. One quarter of all the total animals will be lost in the next 40 years. I thought about this last year when they built that huge P&G Warehouse – where did all the animals who were living in those fields go? There are some very sad and scary facts about our changing earth, and they are important to us if we understand that God gave us the job to care for it.

And we can take inspiration from and hear an invitation to participate in the restoration of all of the created world, humankind and all else, all formed from the same matter, the dust of the earth, from our gospel today. It’s the familiar story of Nicodemus, a rabbi, who feels a draw toward Jesus, without understanding why. He senses truth within Jesus and begs to understand, and Jesus seems to speak in riddles. What does “born again” mean? In John’s gospel, this term does not refer to a “spiritual or individual” rebirth, but rather to a new way of living in the world here and now. This isn’t eternal life that Jesus is referring to, as we might interpret it, meaning immortality in heaven, but rather as experiencing God’s presence here and now—and then living into it. This is describing our atonement moments – our ‘at-one-with-God-moments’ which draw us back into the original creativity of God, our original vocation or job given to us by God of caring for the Earth, that life-force of God which continues to unfold in our lives and in the lives of all created beings. The job God gave us was to care for creation, so that means we need to work to be open to these at-one-ment moments, to move into the creative life-force of God, so that we can be active agents to support God’s plan of salvation, for us and for all creation.

There’s one story I’d like to tell you, that I believe puts this all together for us – the fact that we’re made of the same matter as the rest of our created world, the fact that our first job is to care for our world (the plants, the animals, the forests, and the sea), the fact that because of the cross, Jesus sanctified us and all creation to be active participants of God’s salvation plan for the world, which doesn’t just include us, and the fact that our redemption means that new life can always come from what we believe to be endings.

Last month, Bill and I travelled to the Adirondacks, where I had the honor marrying two amazing people, Daniel and Kristin, whom I knew from a different part of my life. That invitation alone was pure joy, joining in a celebration where God is making something brand new, something whole and complete, out of what is already wonderful. A week or so before the wedding, Daniel reached out to me and asked if I would do “double duty”. His cousin, aged 54, had died that past year, sadly carrying on the legacy of premature heart problems. Daniel asked if I would be there when they buried his ashes and say a prayer. Of course I would. That’s a true and deep honor to meet people in their moments of deepest need. I arrived at the set time in the morning, travelling down a dirt road to reach the final destination, a family cabin on the lake, which had witnessed love born again and again, lives changed and shared, hopes grown, life experienced in its fullness. I wore my clergy collar, a pair of black jeans, and a warm sweater as cool air drifted off the lake. I met the mother of the son who died, as she held in her hands a seedling of a tree. My heart melted. We hugged, we shared, we know we could get through this together. We walked to the front of the cabin, looking at the water, encompassed by the living world around us – the trees of all shapes and sizes. The mother was carrying what appeared to me to be a seedling to plant on top of the ashes we would bury. This was not true. The container was one which held the ashes of her deceased son, settled in the bottom, so the seedling’s roots could be settled around them and planted together. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Lots to think about. The whole family gathered to choose the right spot for the burial and the planting of this tree. They settled on a spot, which they had cleared so there would be enough light for the seedling to grow. When one of the men took the strong shovel, and pierced the earth, what appeared was a fibrous network of roots, strong and true, roots that were supporting the large giant trees nearby. All of the soil was rich compost, of an earthy color, not like the dark brown seemingly manufactured compost we buy at Lowes. It was full of life’s energy, yearning to create new life, full of priceless nourishment. The mother planted the seedling, tapped the soil around it so it would stay in place. Someone else had fashioned a cross out of splintered  wood found nearby, and placed it purposefully and with reverence near the seedling. We held hands, said the Lord’s Prayer, and felt renewed. I will never look at Ash Wednesday the same way again. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust has a new meaning to me, now having a visual to attach to what the redemption of us as people and the redemption of the created world looks like. God did not create us in isolation from the earth; God did not create the earth to be the stage for our drama. God created us to care for the earth and all its inhabitants. May we always grow in our understanding of how to do that, to live into those at-one-with-God moments, so that we may return to the ongoing life-force of creation within each one of us, which connects us to our Creator. Amen.

 

 

 

When it’s time to move beyond “Jesus loves me”. Sermon Proper 21 Year A

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

The Rev. Barbara Hutchinson

Proper 21 Year A

October 1, 2017

For all of my childhood and a good part of my adulthood, I thought being a Christian was pretty easy.

Our family went to church when it suited our schedule, so that was easy. Occasionally we baked a few brownies to be sold at a bake sale to earn money for a good cause, once again, easy and fun, with the added benefit of feeling good afterward for making a difference. It was easy to bring my little white UNICEF box along with my trick or treat bucket which I gladly handed it in at Sunday School, after delighting in shaking the box to hear all the coins I had collected. For confirmation preparation, we had to take notes on a few sermons and memorize the basic Christian statements, like the Apostles’ Creed, the 10 Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer, but no one asked us what they meant to us, or what questions we might have, such as what happens to people when they die and how does that fit into what we’ve just memorized, so we evaded any complex thinking or wondering how to fit God into life or our life into God. I didn’t even know that was what we were supposed to do. I grew up in a time when it was the norm not to discuss politics or religion, so I can honestly say, sadly, I have no idea what my parents believed or didn’t believe about God, or what struggles they had, or hadn’t, with our church’s doctrines or how God fit into our family life. We prayed the same prayer before our dinner meal each night and that was about the extent of our prayer life. Although there would have been ample opportunity to connect the dots between our scripture and the social justice issues of the day, such as the Women’s Liberation or the Civil Rights movement, or participation in the Vietnam War, I never heard a word about these topics from the pulpit. I remember as a teenager being passionate against capital punishment, but the church never taught me how to think about it using our three-legged stool of scripture, tradition, and reason to evaluate a position, so all my thoughts or arguments about this and other current issues were in a vacuum from the teachings of Jesus, so it was pretty easy to compartmentalize my life: going to church on Sunday, and the rest.

I also grew up with the familiar song, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so” running through my mind and being imprinted on my heart, and so I thought being a Christian was really all about me, or more precisely, about Jesus loving me. When I was old enough to realize that there were some people that others thought Jesus didn’t love, due to race or ethnicity or social status, I wasn’t practiced in seeing the disconnect between what I said I believed and how others were treated in the world, so I never felt that call of action from Jesus to change the world. I just cared that Jesus loved me. That seemed to be the grand sum of my Christian formation. It’s not a bad place to start my Christian faith. But it’s not a great place to stay.

Then something happened. I woke up. I felt the tug of the Holy Spirit on my heart and recognized it as such. I became more involved at church. I had the great epiphany that Kristin, the woman with whom I taught Sunday School and with whom we had great fun at church, could actually become my friend “outside of church”. One of the priests introduced spiritual practices, such as contemplative prayer, spiritual direction, and retreats at Holy Cross Monastery, and something shifted inside. I began to know God, not just learn about God or about the church’s teaching about God, but I began a relationship, a give and take with that God. I sat with others as this priest taught us how to look at social justice issues, such as what constitutes a “just war” from a Christian point of view – not to tell us the answers or tell us how to vote, but how to think faithfully, how to take the teachings of Jesus and fit them around the issues, so I could wrestle with what God was calling me to do or care about. I so remember thinking, “Oh, now that I know God, and actually had fallen in love with God, my life would be easier.” Maybe it was a flashback to the Sunday School song running through my mind: Jesus loves me, and if I now love Jesus too, and if I now fit Jesus into my life (or my life into Jesus), then Jesus will love me even more, and if Jesus loves me even more, he’ll want me to be happy and have an easy life.

But the opposite happened. My life got more complex and complicated. Easy answers weren’t enough anymore. I couldn’t skip church, like I conveniently did before, for I missed seeing my friends, I missed being in worship, I missed absorbing the truth heard from the pulpit. My priorities shifted. I wanted to give more of my money away. My heart broke when I saw the long line of people lined up to receive a free breakfast each morning and I wondered what else we could be doing. If I hurt someone’s feeling, I couldn’t just brush it under the rug and forget about it, I felt compelled to apologize. This was not easy. This was more complicated and more difficult. I found it harder to go to the Country Club and listen to people fussing about getting their nails done or how difficult it was to find a “good cleaning woman”. Life had changed. It was hard and exhausting—and it was filled with the movement of the Holy Spirit, and I felt compelled to listen to her voice.

What happened to me was that I had learned how to repent. The more modern interpretation of this word is contrition for sin, but the original meaning of this word, and that to which I am referring, is to embark upon a way that goes beyond the mind that you have. The Greek word for this is metanoia and means a continual process of stretching your mind to look at your life and your world from a new perspective, not just a perspective of Christ, but one in which Christ is continually calling you to stretch and grow in your relationships with others and with God, and continually inviting you to look for and evaluate new expressions of the truth of God, rather that attesting to a static set of doctrines of creedal statements. This means constant change and this is hard and exhausting work. It is not a surprise that many Christians avoid getting to this place in their spiritual journey. It’s much easier to stay in the Sunday School faith where a few memorized statements are sufficient to guide your life and you rest in the knowledge that Jesus loves you, rather than in the truth that Jesus challenges you.

Jesus challenged the chief priests in our gospel today with this exact issue: stretching their minds beyond their known set of beliefs to see the newly revealed truth of God standing before them. Our story today is set within what we call Holy Week. Jesus arrived two days before, on the back of a donkey, with people shouting his praise. Jesus went directly to the Temple and turned over the money-changing tables, then cursed a fig tree on his way out, symbolizing the destruction of the Temple. He rides back into Jerusalem this morning, with the crowd on his side, and strides directly to the chief priests and scribes, who ask him with what authority he shakes things up in the temple. His response is a deliberate attempt to discredit the chief priests, not only because they were in collaboration with the Roman officials, but because they were blind to the new thing God was doing. Their response of “we don’t know” was awkward at best. Jesus raises up the tax collectors and said they will go into the Kingdom of God first because they were able to change their mind. Before Jesus, they didn’t believe God was for them; through Jesus, they knew God was for them, in a new and life-changing way. Their perspective changed because of their encounter with Jesus. The chief priests, who were to be the ones teaching and knowing about God, were blind to the new revelation, because Jesus didn’t fit into the box they had created around God, and chose not to see a new way. They didn’t repent, didn’t stretch their minds to the truth before them which had taken a new form. It made Jesus so angry that they refused to look beyond their own structure of orthodoxy or right belief to accommodate a new vision of God.

The basic premise Jesus is offering to us in this gospel is that the eternal truth of God continues to be revealed in ways which may seem surprising or confusing or difficult to make sense of, but that’s the challenging work we’re called into. It is so much easy to hold onto the single and simple belief that Jesus loves me and stop there, or throw in a few good works to feel good about, rather than to wrestle with the Spirit, the gift Jesus left with us, to continue Jesus’ work of transformation of the world, until all are brought into God’s realm of love.

While it is true that the love of God does not change, the face of God does. As you think of a prism, with light radiating from different facets as the sunlight moves or the ever so gentle breeze causes the prism to sway, so does the light of Christ, illuminating different truths from time to time. Our work is discerning the truth continuing to be revealed from the false ideas which may also come our way. I believe what Jesus is saying is that gospels should be instructive to us and the criteria for what is false cannot merely be whether or not it fits into our previously held beliefs. That’s what tripped the chief priests up and Jesus doesn’t want that to happen to his followers.

Sometimes it seems very easy to discern new truths revealed and we can easily stretch our minds around something new or different. These are situations in which we are invited into deeper love, compassion, honesty, and care for our neighbor. These are pretty easy to spot. Those invitations are always of God. Other times, in some of the messy social justice issues we face today as a nation, we can really struggle to know what is true and of God, when the answers or even the questions aren’t so clear-cut.

One suggestion I have for a way to look at difficult decisions and places of discernment would be to recognize that each time we are offered a choice, each time we are invited to see something in a new light or from a new perspective, each time we are willing to entertain an opposing point of view, each time we are able to imagine something brand new as being of God, we can ask ourselves if that something new is turning some deep and inner part of ourselves into something that is in harmony with God and God’s purposes in the world, or is it contrary to them. Each one of us at each moment is progressing one way or the other. Our work as Christians is always to move into a place that moves us and our world toward the purposes of God: love, mercy, peace, and reconciliation.

The final line in our gospel speaks of the tax collectors going first into the Kingdom of God, which means the chief priests can follow. They can follow the ones who changed their beliefs, by being open to change; they can follow the ones who felt the mercy of God upon their hearts through Jesus’ acceptance of them, by accepting others; they can follow the ones who looked for the new thing God was doing, by opening their spiritual eyes to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

There are times when I get exhausted from the constant pull of the Holy Spirit to shape and remake my heart and soul, so that I can be more aligned with the will of God. I imagine you do too. There are times when I wish I could escape for just a moment back into my Sunday school faith and believe it is as simple as believing Jesus loves me. I imagine you do too. There are times when I want my life to be simpler, when I wish I could compartmentalize my life into church on Sunday and the rest. I imagine you do too. But I know that’s not my life as a Christian. Rather it is to be deeply fed by times of silence before God and spiritual retreats, by receiving the prayers of our healing ministers, by finding a group of spiritual friends with whom I can wrestle with the issues of today set within our three-legged stool of scripture, tradition, and reason, so I can continue the hard work of discernment of God’s new revelation among us and faithful living in response to the movement of the Spirit.

We never do this work alone. We always do it with God and with others. That’s where God’s grace shows up. Thanks be to God! Amen.

 

 

 

 

Youth Mini-Mission Event: Watershed Clean-up

A number of us gathered this past Saturday, as the warm air surrounded us and the bright sun shone down upon our shoulders, warming us to the chilliness of Middle Spring Creek, which we found ourselves wading in as we participating in a stream clean-up as one of our Youth Mini-Mission Events.

We began by learning about what a watershed is and why it matters. The map shown to us by our excellent guide visually showed our connections with each other, from those living in New York State, all the way down into Maryland. The blue intricate lines all over the map set the framework for our work as mission: loving our neighbors as ourselves means caring for the water and ground in our area well, so it doesn’t damage those further down in the watershed, and with cleaning up the stream, means actually enhancing the water quality for those in Maryland.

Our work, which was also fun and involved laughter and play, meant we were to wade in the creek and pick up trash.

Some of us were recording the amount of trash collected. Others took water samples for testing.

Some delighted in identifying the insects, fish and ducks which we came across during our walk.

All of us had fun.

All of us came away believing we had done good work.

All of us came together to “love our neighbor as ourselves” in a real and concrete way. All of us helped restore our earth to the way it should be.

This was good and faithful work, my friends!

 

To view more photos from our fun day together, please go to our website and look at the latest photo gallery: http://www.standrewsshippensburg.org/youth-mini-mission-event-watershed-project/
 
Our next mini-mission event is scheduled for October 21st when we will go gleaning and visit a farm which produces food while not damaging the environment. For more information, please see Mother Barbara or Tim or Irene Hawkins. 

Give us this day our daily bread.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

The Rev. Barbara Hutchinson

Proper 20 Year A: September 24, 2017

Give us this day our daily bread. These are familiar words we pray together every Sunday, right before the bread is broken in the Eucharistic prayer. Have you ever wondered why we pray these words at that particular moment? Right before Jesus’ body is broken so each and every one of us can receive and take within us the holy presence of Christ? Why does it matter to us that this particular prayer is on our hearts when the sunlight from the altar window shines upon the bread, which seems to glow with holiness as I break it apart, so we can each be fed with this sacred meal?

Give us this day our daily bread. We don’t say, “Give me this day MY daily bread” –  this prayer sets us within a community. The prayer is spoken by all of us, for all of us.  It draws us into a place of understanding that we are all equal – equal in God’s love, equal in our share of God’s abundance, equal in the blessing we take out into God’s world, God’s vineyard. One doesn’t get more if one has had an exceptionally faithful week of prayer, scripture study, and good deeds. Nor does one get less if one is kneeling at the rail for the first time in 20 years and had somehow forgotten about God all that time. It is this fact that makes the invitation to the Eucharist so appropriate and poignant, “So come, you who have much faith and you who have little, you who have been here often, and you who have not been for a long time or ever before, you who have tried to follow and all of us who have failed.”

Give us this day our daily bread. This prayer articulates the reality that in God’s eyes, through God’s grace, and with each other, we are equal to one another. This is the image God has of and for us: equality. What I receive and what each of you receives is the same, and it’s enough, for it contains a completeness that only God can give.  Our yearnings to receive this nourishment may differ, but wherever we are, God meets us and gives us enough for that day.

The manna sent down by God to the Israelites in the wilderness was also God’s way of reminding these people that God will provide what they need, not more, not less, each day. Each person ate their fill, regardless of their position, leader or servant, regardless of the amount of work they did, whether they worked all day long or had little to do, regardless of their ability, whether they were able-bodied workers or disabled. They each received all that they needed. God was using the bread to fashion a people who were leaving a system of domination, wealth, and power to build a new way of life where all received what they needed. God used the daily bread offered to the wilderness wanderers to teach them each day. God is present to them each day, God will give them what they need, each day, God regards them as equal in their need and desires to provide for them. We can imagine that, regardless of how others perceived their worth, God wanted to teach them that since God would care for each one, that all are worth the same, all are beloved children of God, and therefore should be beloved to us.

Give us this day our daily bread. Jesus extends the use of bread to form people into a new way of being where all are cared for, when he stood on the hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee, took bread, blessed it, and broke it apart, for all of the 5000 men, women, and children gathered to eat. He didn’t serve just some, for example those who had been listening to him all day long, but he served all who came as the afternoon sun was setting – he served those who were paying attention the whole time and those who were not. Jesus used bread to show the truth that all people are valued, all people are equal in the sight of God.

It’s the “equal” part that we push up against in today’s parable of the laborers in the vineyard. It just doesn’t seem fair. We feel as though a mistake has been made. Surely, each worker should not be equal in the pay owed them, for they didn’t all work the same amount. We can feel the outrage of the workers chosen early in the morning and believe it is justified. We might momentarily imagine the joy that the last-hired felt when they realized that they too would have what they needed to feed their families that evening, and feel good about that, but then the cynical part of us often surfaces, and we play out the parable just a bit more, and imagine the other group of laborers, who, though by the time they arrived at the vineyard the work day was over, they too got paid for a full day’s work, and then we’d imagine a different song in the hearts of the last-hired workers whose joy and gratitude may quickly turn to outcries of “It’s not fair!”

Give us this day our daily bread is prayer that everyone is equal in their deservedness and worthiness, regardless of their ability, capacity, or number of hours worked for the kingdom and that everyone will be given what they need. God wishes fullness for each one of them, and for each of us. God is fashioning a new people, us, who understand this deep truth of God’s love and generosity. If this parable triggered a negative response in you, this may be an invitation to see what needs to be loosened up within your soul that allows you to value fairness more than equality for all people and God’s desire for all people to have what they need.

Give us this day our daily bread is God’s way of fashioning us as a people who have love and compassion in our hearts, especially for those who have been told by society that they are not equal, they are not of the same value as those who are younger, stronger, able-bodied, smarter, richer, of the preferred gender or sexual orientation, or any other distinction which has placed them on the wrong side. Think about the people who stood at in the market place and had been passed over, time and time again throughout the day. We probably all remember times when we weren’t chosen for something, whether it was in elementary school and we were chosen last for the volleyball team, or whether it was in our adulthood and we weren’t chosen for a job, even though we were more than qualified for it. It is likely that the experience of those hired at the eleventh hour was desperation, discouragement, or having a hard time holding on to hope. For not being chosen is terribly difficult for our souls, our sense of self-worth, our sense of well-being. When we have the energy, passion, and desire for leading productive lives and no one lets us do that, when we don’t feel equally cared for, we can begin to question God’s love for us. But our parable reminds us that, always and forever, we are equal in God’s love to everyone else, and God will give us all that we need this day.

This parable is not actually about judgment or justice. It is about goodness. Payment is made not on what is deserved, nor even on what is needed, but on what the One who is good gives. This is what the kingdom of God looks like: bringing forth the goodness of God, the One who gives only good, the One who provides for all, the One who loves all. The Kingdom of Heaven is God’s overwhelming generosity, God’s compassion for those who are beyond hope, discouraged, last in line, or at the bottom of all the advantages and opportunities. It may not be fair in human standards, but it is good and it is of God. The now present Kingdom of God Jesus inaugurated is about the equitable distribution of our resources to all the people of God.

Our prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread” is what shines the light in our hearts, and which allows us to receive the abundant grace of God through the body and blood of Christ that gives us all that we need, that sends us out into the vineyard of God’s kingdom, here and now, to do God’s work.

This prayer is what led our young people and adults to pick up trash in the Middle Spring Creek yesterday, so that, by our work, our streams will be cleaner, our watershed healthier, and this will allow someone further down the stream to live more abundantly, whether it’s the oystermen in the Chesapeake Bay who can work fruitfully all day to bring home the daily bread for their families, or by freeing the stream of debris, we can care for the natural habitats of local fish and animals, who can now thrive and our ecosystem can be more alive.

You may be aware that our Eucharistic service has two main parts: The Ministry of the Word, when we hear and break open the Word of God, and the Ministry of the Table, when we break open the saving love of Jesus, in the expectation that we will be changed and made new. And the reason for the yearning of that transformation is so we can be sent out into the world, with these words, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” When we come forward to receive the Eucharist, we are being chosen by God, we are being brought into the vineyard, we are being sustained as the Israelites were in the wilderness, with something that isn’t fancy or luxurious, but merely basis sustenance, and it is also all that we need. And then our work is to go and find all the laborers not chosen, the laborers who no one will employ, the laborers who feel themselves unworthy, the laborers whose hopes are dashed, whose minds are flooded with worries about how to feed their families that evening, and to say “come, let me bring to you what is good”, and to offer them the same joy given to the laborers who arrived late in the day, in knowing that they too will have all they need, when they come into the vineyard. What we have received is a gift, and that gift is intended equally for all. Amen.

 

 

Putting on our own Christ-garment

September 10, 2017
14th Sunday after Pentecost Exodus 12:1-14 / Romans 13:8-14 / Matt. 18:15-20
The Rev. Carenda Baker preached at St. Andrew’s, Shippensburg

Last week I was on my way home from Chambersburg and I stopped at the Sunoco station on Walnut Bottom Road, just where the entrance/exit ramps to Rt. 81, exit 29 are located. When I went inside to pay for gas, the friendly cashier greeted me, and then said, “Are you a chef?” I had no clue where that question came from, but I laughed and said, “No, in no one’s wildest imagination would I ever be a chef!” Then she said, “Are you a baker?” Still clueless about her line of questioning, I said “No, but my last name is Baker”. Then I said, “I am an Episcopal priest”. I was wearing a black clergy shirt. As I sometimes do on the way home, I had slipped out of “uniform” by removing the detachable white collar. Without the collar, it was just a black shirt, so I finally understood why she was asking about my occupation. After apologizing to me, the cashier launched us into an incredible theological conversation. “Since you’re a pastor, let me ask you a question”, she said. “What do you think about Muslims who believe Jesus is the Son of God?” Talk about a curve ball! I told her I knew that some Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet of God. Tentatively I asked, “Is it important to you that Jesus is the Son of God?”, to which she replied emphatically and with a hint of impatience, “Yes, he is God’s Son.” She continued, “I am a Muslim and I believe Jesus is God’s Son. A lot of people tell me this can’t be. That I can’t be a Muslim and believe Jesus is God’s Son”. I responded, “I believe it is the same God we worship but in different ways. I don’t see a problem with your believing Jesus is the Son of God”. She thanked me profusely and said that I was the only Christian besides her sister she had ever met who thought we worshiped the same God, adding “and my sister is really into her Jesus as Lord and Savior”. She went on to say that her father was Muslim and her mother was Christian. Her father had told his children that he didn’t care what faith they practiced, as long as they practiced one. Just before I left, she said – gesturing toward her co-worker – “Pray for us.” I asked her name, and told her I certainly would pray for them. The exchange left me scratching my head – and smiling.

Do you know the cliche, “Clothes make the man / clothes make the woman?” When we put on a uniform of any kind, it makes a statement. Whether it’s a cap and gown, a sports, band, or military service uniform, nurses’ scrubs, a doctor’s “white coat” or a priest’s collar, how we dress says something about who we are and what we value in life.

Each of today’s Scripture readings offers us a wake-up call to become “fashion conscious”. The good news today is found in the thread that runs through the biblical story of God and humanity, and what it looks like when a God of love acts. “God is love” are words we’ve heard and read in Scripture. But this can be awfully confusing because the culture we live in believes we can love just about anything: ice cream, the Phillies or Pirates, the flowers in our garden, a certain piece of music, making money. Most often when the word “love” is used outside a community of faith, it’s referring to sentimental or romantic feelings. But love in its Christian understanding is an “action word”. It is not the same as simply liking someone or something, or having pleasant feelings. Love for Christians is made visible through actions.

We pick up the Exodus story today where the Israelites have been enslaved in Egypt for many years, and God has called Moses to lead them out of slavery. Moses tells the people something big is about to happen. At first, the passage sounds like it’s all about rules they must follow in a carefully choreographed religious ritual – sacrifice of a lamb, blood on the doorposts and lintel, eating a meal together with specific foods. And those directions are there, but the directions are all for the sake of being prepared to act. God is about to act powerfully on their behalf and they have a part to play in what will happen. They need only the essentials, because they are about to become extremely active people riding the freedom train out of Egypt. Time cannot be wasted. They dare not be weighed down with multiple layers of clothing, or have a bunch of bling jangling at their wrists and swaying round their necks. We’re talking simplicity here, minimalism. Fully dressed and ready for action. Sandals fastened and a staff in hand to help them move swiftly over a lot of rugged terrain in a short amount of time. The God of love and justice is going to liberate them. They need to be dressed for liberation.

Thousands of years later, Paul writes to the Christians in Rome, reminding them that they follow one who was willing to be completely undressed, if you will, figuratively and literally. Jesus let himself become totally vulnerable as a human being to show that the God of love acts to reveal – reveal everything that is sick, sinful, evil, divisive, and self- serving in the world – in order to save and heal the world. The Christians in Rome know the story of Jesus’ life – about his preaching, teaching and healing. They know, too, about his death and resurrection. They have chosen to follow Jesus’ as the Way, so they have “put on” Christ in their baptism.

Paul reminds the Christians in Rome what he had taught them, and what their baptism meant. Their old way of life has been stripped away, and they are newly clothed in the Spirit of Christ. God’s people do not wear spiritual “hand me downs”. Always there is a fresh and promising expression of Christ’s life in the person who is baptized.

This radical and life transforming cleansing bath, this sacrament of baptism has gone through many changes in the 2,000 year history of Christianity. In the early medieval age, between the years 300 and 400 C.E. baptism involved a two to three- year period of instruction called the catechumenate. During this period candidates to be baptized participated only in the first part of worship, the service of the Word. They were dismissed from the assembly before Holy Eucharist. Following that intense two to three year period of instruction, and after thorough examination – including an exorcism pronounced over them to insure that Satan truly had been put to flight – when the day finally came for the candidates to be baptized, usually on the night of the Easter Vigil , the men and women were separated into two different areas, because they entered the baptismal waters completely naked to be immersed. Plunged under the water – just as vulnerable and naked as the day they were born – they symbolically went with Christ to the grave in his death, and came up out of the water, raised to new life with him in his resurrection. As they emerged from the water after being baptized, each newly baptized Christian was dressed in a clean white garment, symbolic of the love, light, and life of Christ they had just put on. They now belonged to a community, Christ’s living body, the Church, and were welcomed to their first experience of receiving Holy Eucharist.

We need reminding sometimes, too, just like the Christians in Rome did. The apostle Paul tells them to “put on Christ “. What that means for us is that we readily admit we cannot conjure up Christ-likeness all by ourselves. “Putting on Christ” requires humility and vulnerability. It is not a do-it-yourself self-improvement project. It means seeking to live more and more with an undefended heart that is open to the Holy Spirit’s influence. Putting on Christ is a process and a way of life. It requires intentionality and being formed through the disciplines of prayer, Scripture reading, worship and participation in the Sacraments, and commitment to sharing ourselves and our gifts in the life of the faith community. “Putting on Christ” is what enables us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to act towards others the way we want to be treated.

In another of the epistles, the letter to the Colossians, the writer describes even more clearly what being clothed in Christ looks like. Listen to Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Colossians 3:12-14 in his book The Message:

“So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.”

The God who is love has clothed us in a gracious and spacious garment of reconciliation, restoration and right relationship. It is a garment woven with the fabric of God‘s own love. It needs no sequins, no flashy “bling”, no matching accessories to make it stand out and be noticed.

The God of love and hope acts, drawing us into the future where all things will be reconciled and made whole. And this work of reconciliation is what Jesus describes in the gospel reading from Matthew. Jesus assumes that where there are people, there will be conflict and disagreement, even among the faithful. He offers practical and wise direction about how we can, in love, care for relationships with our brothers and sisters in the faith community, how we can practice loving our neighbor as our self. The way to deal with conflict is not through separation, exclusion, punishment, or “ex- communication”. It is not about three strikes and you’re out. It is not about forgiving only a prescribed number of times, and then dusting off our hands and saying, “Oh well, we tried”. The love in action Jesus describes here means doing the hard work of tending relationships by speaking the truth in love when we disagree, while keeping our open hand extended toward the other.

We all know there are times when we just don’t like some people very much. It’s true in our families, it’s true in the culture around us, and it’s true in the life of congregations. Love does not mean we will always have feelings of pleasantness, ease, and comfort in our interactions with each other. Continuing to love in times of disagreement and conflict is neither easy nor comfortable, but it’s necessary. The fact that Jesus says when two or three are gathered in his name, he is there among them means that God is present witnessing the interactions, the efforts, the negotiations we offer to care for the community. God cares and wants to help us. Building, restoring, and maintaining relationships of truth, love, and forgiveness are that important.

The God who is Love acts – to liberate and save, forgive and heal, acts to empower us to join God in creating that future where everything finally will be reconciled and made whole. So let’s take a look at the condition of our own Christ garment. Where is it frayed, wearing thin, or maybe even starting to tear? Perhaps you are in need of liberation from something that’s dragging you down, holding you back from mirroring Christ’s love. Maybe you have difficulty accepting the fact that God believes you are worth saving. Or maybe there is a situation, a sin, a habit with which we repeatedly wrestle. Perhaps we need assurance of forgiveness and the courage and faith with God’s help, to begin again. Maybe there are tender wounded places in us that need healing, which we keep well hidden. Most of us will have at least one situation where we need the Spirit’s help to put love into action, to let Christ’s light shine through us.

We have been clothed with the Spirit of Christ, dressed like royalty in new and abundant life. The risen Christ is God’s designer label. Christ is God’s handmade wardrobe for us. Our Christ-likeness is practical, absolutely appropriate year-round wear, ready for any weather. This clothing will never go out of fashion. If anything, this garment of Christ-likeness will become even more valuable and precious the longer we wear it and grow into it.

So what do you think? Do clothes make the woman or man? Let’s take our holy fashion sense out into the world this week and see! It just might be that Christ’s light will shine so brightly in us that others will recognize Gods’ love in our actions, and they, along with us – will give glory to God in heaven. Amen.