Christmas Eve 2011

The Nativity of Our Lord

Welcome to everyone, I’m so glad that you came to share such an exciting and magical night with us here. I try, when I prepare a message for Christmas Eve, to capture some of the wonder of the Holiday, the wonder we feel now, whoever and wherever we are, the wonder our parents felt when we were very small at home with them, the wonder we felt ourselves as tiny children dazzled by the lights and gifts, the hustle and the bustle and the wonder of it all. All this because I think if we can capture a little bit of that as we focus on the bible story for tonight, the story of Christ’s birth, then I think we understand it just a little better. Maybe if we capture our own sense of wonder we’ll understand theirs and maybe if we understand theirs we’ll understand what God was doing...

So tonight I want to tell you about a little girl’s first Christmas, last year. Well it wasn’t really her first Christmas. But it was the first one she really understood, and participated in. She was three at the time.

She has two older brothers and lives with her mom and dad in a normal Castleton sized house, so the living room is...close quarters with a Christmas tree in it, especially on Christmas morning once Santa has come and there are presents all around from aunts and uncles, grandma and grandpa on both sides, mom and dad, all the kids and of course the jolly man himself.

So in this context the group of adults watched as the kids came down the stairs (after being told they absolutely HAD to stay in bed until 7). They were all excited but for the littlest one, the girl Santa had left something very showy. On the coffee table, the whole coffee table, set up, unwrapped, a big, perfect, shiny, pink, plastic, complete with a garage and a car, a mom, dad and baby doll, a kitchen table and a washer and dryer!...DOLL HOUSE!!!!

It was like a magnet. Immediately she saw it and she knew, it was just for her, her very own, not for her brothers but she could use it too. Not clothes that let’s be honest are more a gift for the parents anyway, not something she even knew to ask for. Not something she ever could have gotten or put together for herself but completely hers.

She sat on the other side of the coffee table, away from the tree, at her doll house. She stared at it, she touched it, gently. She told people about it and dragged them over so they could see it too. She took parts of it to show to people who wouldn’t come to her. It was magic and she couldn’t even understand by what good fortune this great gift had come to her.

As the morning went on we tried to get her to open her other gifts, Santa had brought a few other things too. We tried to get her to watch while other people opened theirs. She really couldn’t though. The one gift was too perfect too complete for her to need anything else. So she stayed with it and admired it and gave it all of herself.

That is the magic of a little child on Christmas morning, that wonder and complete awe and joy in something that is at least a little bit, of a mystery.

Maybe that is how the people felt on the first Christmas day. Nothing mattered to them anymore but what was going on right then and right there, they were completely caught up in it and they knew it was just for them. Not something they were invited to look at but not touch, not something that was mostly for the important people, the rulers and the kings, but just for them and it was a little bit of mystery.

Maybe children enter into that wonder so well because for a brief time everything is about them, from the people who love them the most, those who protect and care for them, they are getting absolute, undivided attention and affection. Maybe that is what was going on on the first Christmas, for the shepherds and the wisemen, the innkeepers and the travelers, Mary and Joseph and all the people of God.

They were getting the undivided love and affection and attention of their god. Despite what they had done in the past, what they would do in the future, who they were, where they came from, even how they understood what was happening, a great gift was given to them. Just for them.

But our gospel lesson tells us more than that. Our gospel lesson tells of a god who loved the people in the story so much, a god who watched and wondered at creation for so long that he couldn’t help but enter into it so he did, completely. He looked at all the world with such love and wonder that he had to tell people, he sent angels to share the good news. He brought the shepherds to see it when they didn’t know what to think.

He even had the wisemen take it with them for a time into Egypt so others could know the wonder and it could be safe.

Maybe the true miracle, the true wonder the true meaning of Christmas that pulls us back here every year, that drives us to give wonder and joy to others is that God did that for us.

Even with all the other stuff going on, all the other possible presents around the Christmas tree so to speak, and all the bad stuff too, debts and worries, hurts and regrets God looks at us with that little child wonder and joy, like we are the gift instead of the ones receiving the gift.

God, God who knows all and does all, who creates and sustains, who made a covenant with his people to care for them always, came, himself, to live among us small and vulnerable. So that all the world might know that they were his very own even as he is our very own, God and King, Child and Brother, Prince and savior. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Pentecost 22; Render Unto Ceasar

In our epistle today there is this great line, on of my all time favorites because it makes me giggle a little. The whole beginning of the letter is Paul explaining what a good job the people are doing but then in verse 7 he tells them that it doesn’t really bear mentioning...after he just mentioned it.

I think that is important though because it reminds us that though humility is good but it is also good to tell one another where we see Christ at work in them.

And I’m just getting to know you all because I’m still kind of new here but I have seen a few really great things here, things that you all do and the way that you are. Things that make me sure that while there might not be a full time pastor here right now God is still here and Christ is at work but I know that you have too. So I want to ask you for a couple of brief stories of where you’ve seen God here or in the ministiries of this place?--take offerings from the congregation:

The options are endless,
World Hunger
Clown Ministry
Serendipity
St. Paul’s Center
Parish Nurse Program

Let me tell you another: Remember in the first days after Irene it was hard to know who needed help and how everyone was. There was a lot of worry about elderly people and people with unstable living situations and many churches were checking up on those folks in one way or another. But at a council meeting right after Duane and Sam and I sat there, as your leaders and listened as it became clear that St.Timothy’s enacted a phone tree and St. Timothy’s called everyone on their roles. Some people it seems were a little confused about why they were being called but I am completely convinced that if those people didn’t know before where to go in times of trouble they have a better idea now. How can you not see God in a church that reaches out before it is called upon and not even knowing if it is needed.

The church reaches out too in the things it supports, the places it sends it’s pastor and leaders.

The other day I carried out one of the ministries of this church I did a nursing home service at Rosewood gardens. I don’t sing well but I led songs for these elderly women, all 14 of them. Some could barely talk and weren’t keeping their eyes open at all but when we started to sing How Great Thou Art there were 14 voices other than my own, all off key and off tempo but so sincere, so completely moved, singing from their hearts and their memories. Singing remembering funerals and baptisms, festival worship services and small gatherings. Their eyes filled with tears and it was the most beautiful sound I’ve heard in a long time. I know God was there. I couldn’t see him but I could see his image in each of those faces. In a ministry of this church.

The gospel lesson for today has this great line from Jesus, whose image is graven here about the coin and then Christ says give to the emperor what is his and to God what is God’s. The bible tells us that we aren’t to make images of God but it also tells us where to find one anytime we want to see God. The bible says we are made in God’s image. In the images of God we are made male and female. In the image of God we are made young and old. In the image of God we are made able and in need. In the image of God we are made to serve and be served. In the image of God we are made to see God here in this place and we do. We can’t help but see God when we look around. And this is great good news. Thanks be to God. Amen

Anniversary of September 11th

I had a student a few years back, some of you might even remember her, she came here to help with Vacation Bible School that summer, Courtney Weller. Anyway she was my student for the summer at the parish, placed there to experience pastoral ministry as she discerned whether she might be called to serve in the same way. Before she started we met to talk about what she hoped to learn from our time together and what she was apprehensive about. She told me that the thing that she was most nervous about was the work that a pastor does around funerals. After talking a little about that we decided then that is a funeral happened to come our way during her time we’d make sure she was involved so she could know how she did and what not.

Well that summer we ended up having a funeral nearly every week that she was in the parish. It was fascinating. Two were for people who had passed away many months before and the family lived in other states so they stopped up for a burial during summer vacation. A couple were from the outside community, several from the parish. Courtney learned a lot and it was uncanny how those eight services grouped themselves into the 10 weeks she was with me. There were none before or after for a great period of time.

It told her when it was all said and done that sometimes the Holy Spirit forces your hand and helps you to do what needs to be done or learn what needs to be learned whether it seems to make sense or not.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit forces your hand.

That is all to say that though this is the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks I really intended not to spend much time at all talking about them in my sermon today. I thought we’d mention them in the prayers and that would be enough. Then I read the lessons for today and they are all about forgiveness and hardship. But still I thought I’d avoid much mention.

But then the more I read over the lessons and thought and prayed the more connections these lessons made with that tragedy and well sometimes the Holy Spirit forces your hand.

So here we are on Spetember 11th, ten years after a shocking and tragic attack and in our gospel lesson Jesus is telling his disciples that they are to forgive a wrong that is done against them seventy-seven times. And in our Old Testament lesson we hear about a man, Joseph, against whom terrible wrongs have been committed doling out great mercy to those who wronged him.

Joseph even explains that though evil was meant for him by his brothers, God was able to use him and that negative experience for good.

I think that there a many examples of the positives that have come since the September 11th attacks. Stories of forgiveness, reconciliation and hope. I bet you could find several in any newspaper in America today. I bet you eve have come yourselves about that event or another one in your life where good as come from something that at the outset looked only bad.

And what’s great about those stories is that they teach us about God. They teach us who God is.

In Joseph's story it worked like this, he was his father’s favorite, the youngest son and his brothers were jealous, so Jealous that they tried to get rid of him.

First they tried to Kill him.

Then they threw him in a pit

then they sold him

Then they tried to fool him

Then they made up a guilt trip for him about his father.

And Jospeh forgave and forgave and he used the rational that God had done good with what the brothers intended for evil.

All throughout our lives we find ourselves in pits and palaces like Joseph, sometimes it seems like all good, good has gotten us there, good will come from it, sometimes it seems like the opposite and the real lesson from today about sept 11th. About your own tragedies, about your present life situation, whether it seems like a pit or a palace or both is that God knows, better than we ever could, how to draw good out of the bad, how to overcome evil with good, how to sow new life where there is death and destruction.

But what we learn about God in this story is more about where God is in the midst of the whole journey from pit to palace and back again. For Joseph it went like this:

First they tried to Kill him.-And God was there

Then they threw him in a pit-And God was there

then they sold him-And God was there

Then they tried to fool him-And God was there

Then they made up a guilt trip for him about his father.-And God was there

As Christians we forgive and we move through hard experiences because we are called and commanded to do so but the strength that gets us there is looking back and knowing that God was there so that every time we look forward today, tomorrow and on the last day we know that God will be there. This is good news. Thanks be to God. Amen!

Pentecost 9 A

The lessons for today all make a point of including everyone. Isaiah talks about even the outcasts of Israel, even those that the people themselves had rejected. Paul, who rarely says things in a positive way, says that all are imprisoned to disobedience so that all may be saved. Even our psalm includes everyone.

And then we get this perplexing lesson from Matthew that involves Jesus ignoring someone in need. What’s going on? This isn’t like Jesus. Maybe there was something else going on. Even He has just been teaching that God is for everyone.

He does so by explaining that following cleansing rituals doesn't necessarily make a person in the right with God, nor does not following the rituals keep people from God. The commandments and promises are for all. He is telling the church authorities this because they are keeping certain people out of the temple.

It is as if Jesus were here saying that no one is excluded from the promise and therefore no one is excluded from God’s love. So if there is anyone that you think God might love but they aren’t good enough to be here in this place, Jesus says no, God’s loves them. They are not excluded. And if there is anyone that you think that God might love but they need to change something about who they are in order to really be Christian. No God loves them, they are not excluded. And if there is anyone who you think God might have loved but then they did this unlovable, unforgivable thing. So maybe they removed themselves from God’s love, No! God loves them! No One! is excluded. That is what Jesus is saying in temple speak to the pharisees.

But not only are the pharisees confused, the disciples don't get it either. Their only thought is to be worried because Jesus has made the religious authorities mad. So they ask him about that and he asks right back, don't you understand? The answer is obviously no. they don't get yet that the kingdom is for everyone.

Then Jesus encounters an outsider, one of those ones that he was just saying are not excluded from the promised because they have ritually unclean hands. And...he excludes her. Imagine being one of his disciples.

He always heals those in need and now he isn't. Wouldn't you be surprised. Confused? Indignant even? Plus he was just saying something about everyone getting the promises of God...

So because of this he kinda freaks them out. They urged him, the text says, and while it doesn't say what they urged him to do but it appears that they might have urged him to heal her daughter so that she might leave. Because he responds saying that he wasn't sent to the likes of her. That she isn’t allowed into the temple so she isn’t worthy of his healing.

Oh! Do you see what Jesus is doing here? He has told them not to exclude anyone and they are good at listing the reasons that someone should be excluded. Now all of a sudden they are seeing what exclusion does. Their argument that not being allowed into the temple isn’t the same as being kept away from God’s love has fallen away. They see what is does to keep someone out. It denies that person the healing, attention and love that comes as a natural part of being on the inside.

But thank goodness for her, she is persistent. But more than that, she is right, the gospel. the good news, the word of God is on her lips and she gets to speak the punchline of this story. Usually Jesus does that but in this case, this unworthy newcomer does it.

She says that even the dogs, even the unworthy, the useless get feed with the scraps of good things. Jesus hears this and agrees. He tells her that her faith has made her daughter well.

It isn't her work, her persistence, her cleanliness, her worthiness, her obedience to ritual that made her well. Only that she had faith that god could do it and it was done.

This is actually the promise of baptism. Today we get to baptize ____________ and _____________ and we all know that we are just the agents of the baptism. Baptism comes from God and it is for everyone, anyone who asks. Ever. Period. No Matter what. AND baptism is a sign of God’s unconditional love right now and forever.

That is why we so often baptize infants and little kids, because they can’t do anything to earn it, they usually can’t even ask for it. It is entirely free to them but it starts in childhood when all is clean and good but it lasts forever, no matter what. So no matter what mis-steps these kids take, no matter what trouble they get in, no matter what brokenness they encounter in the world around them, they are never going to excluded from the promise of God.

Never will they be farther away from God’s love than they are today, right now with this whole assembly and their family and the minister standing by speaking load and clear promises to them.

Christ will always be that close to them, closer even. Just as God’s promise and love are always that close to us no matter what forever, now and in the last days. In Good days and bad days. When we are shiny and clean or muddy and broken. Christ is for us and God reaches out to us in love and will keep doing so forever! Thanks be to God.

Amen

All Saints Day 2011

*Names are changed to respect privacy

Today is All saints day. The day in the church year when we traditionally remember all who have died that were close to us especially in the past year. Often I tell stories about the deceased. And though we lost fewer church members this year than sometimes, there were still some very hard losses in and connected to our midst. Husbands and wives, children and grand-children, siblings and good friends still feel very keenly the loss of their loved ones. And in our lesson for today Jesus talks about those people, about the loved ones, when he says blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. and so we’re going to talk a little bit about those people today. Sometimes we tell stories on this day of those who have died but in this case the stories will be of those who mourn.

We’ve had three funerals connected to our communities lately and I want to tell you a story of those who mourned at each.

Most recently here we had a great celebration of the life of *(Emma)*, you can still see the flowers from it all around. The service was lovely, she wrote it herself and then there was a very large luncheon afterwards, people gathered together and shared stories, visited, really celebrated who she was to each of them. Funerals are a blessing in that way because they seems to mend old wounds sometimes. when we gather together around something so big as God’s promise of forever, things like our mortality seem awfully small. That is one was that blessed are those who mourn is lived out, both as a promise and as a command that we bless one another.

So After the meal the people closest to Emma traveled to the cemetery, including her 94 yr old sister whom she lived with, both caring for one another in the ailing later years. *(Jean)* couldn’t walk to the grave so the family made a half circle with an opening in it just where the car that Jean was in was parked about 25 feet away. I talked very loudly and in that way the saints young and old sent off their dear sister. It was a warm feeling bringing her into the circle like that and people acted like including her in God’s final promise of love was about the greatest gift that they could give her. Maybe because they knew it was a gift that was given to them as well.

Next a couple weeks ago, someone from the Castleton community died and I was called to do her funeral at Ray’s. Her family was very sweet and loving and she had a whole bunch of Grandsons. They came in hodgepodge suits like teenage boys do, with dirty tennis shoes on their feet and that look on their faces. But when we gathered around the grave after the service they made a little honor guard around they few chairs that they funeral home had set out. Verily lifting their father and mother, elderly aunts and the like into them and playing a game of musical chairs to make sure that despite the mud and he cold and the snow their little family unit now without their matriarch was held together and safe. Like a band of shepherds for the mourning sheep. I think that scene was one of the greatest gifts that they could have given me that day. Maybe because it was such a sure sign that that is a gift that the good shepherd gives each of us starting at our baptisms and culminating on the last day.

Farthest back, about a month or two ago there was a funeral for a man connected to the East Schodack community. He loved classic rock music, his wife and his bike. So did the mourners. They gathered around the casket helmets under their arms, Harley gear on, big longs beards (not that there is anything wrong with that Ed*...) and tears in their eyes. He was youngish and had served in the military. They left trinkets in the coffin and shook my hand after the service like hearing that God loved their friends was the greatest gift they’d gotten in a long, long time.--Maybe because they knew it meant God loved them too.

The reason I tell these stories is because when we gather together to remember those who have died, we know them, we know their great qualities and their flaws. we remember the times they didn’t get it right. we remember the times we fought with them. we remember their struggles and pains. The times they fell short and the times they overcame. we remember them as real people, fully saints, fully sinners. And we hear most clearly in the promise of our gospel lesson that each one of them is blessed for who they were, for the work that they did for God’s world in their lifetimes. And most comfortingly and assured by God’s love promised to them when they were still saints and sinners with a long way to go. And if this is true for them. we know that it is true for us as well and that is the great, good news that All the Saints bring to us today. Amen.

Long Day

Wednesday was a long day. A lot of things went wrong. At one point I opened my eyes while laying on the trail with a helmet as a pillow to see Mark and Jeff Kane both peering over me with a little more than vague concern. Mark still with Hello Kitty band-aids in his hands, Jeff with a sealed bottle of orange Vitamin Water near my face but sideways to me. I looked from one set of curious, slightly alarmed eyes to the other twice before we all three started laughing, hard.

I had fallen moments before. Not really fallen so much as flown. Over the handlebars. Onto the asphalt trail (hey at least it was paved most of that day). I didn't stick the landing. Instead I slid knees, palms, elbows to the pavement. OUCH!

I stood up and checked myself over as blood started to run down my leg and tried to convince Mark, who was riding at the back of the group with me, that I could handle it myself. About 15 seconds later I was sitting on the pavement while he patched me up. Then I was leaning against the pavement while he patched me up. Then I was laying on the pavement and Jeff Kane had made it back to help patch me up. Then I'm not sure what happened. Then I opened my eyes to the boys with the Vitamin Water. I didn't lose consciousness but I did lose a few seconds.

But there was still a lot of daylight left and a long way to go so, back up on the bike. It needed the chain put back on and we adjusted the brakes. And then we were off!...That was the second mile of the day. Only 40+ miles, a major thunder storm, a flat, another crash and ridiculous wind for the last 20 miles of the day, to go.

It was a crazy trip but we were being crazy because we know Holy work when we see it. After all, isn’t a huge part of being a Christian caring for your community, holding up those who need support, tending the vulnerable and injured and moving forward stronger with the support of community all in the name of Jesus’ call to go out and make disciples of all the nations?Being outdoors matters to youth, being involved in vibrant ministry as a young adult matters, training vital leaders matters. And being supported by your church matters, Wednesday proved that-personally for me. Let's feed the roots of leadership in Upstate New York!

Mile Number 86 (roughly)!

A wonderful ride today, second day of over forty miles. Soon we're upping the riding to closer to sixty than fifty miles a day---at least a I think so. Like I keep telling everyone, I'm just along for the ride. Someone else is doing all the planning, leading guiding etc.

I did navigate on the first day of Hudson-Mohawk trial riding. Today I left the ride along the Erie Canal to those from slightly farther north and west. Tonight I'm sleeping in the music room of a wonderful old farmhouse (with some very impressive updates) with my roomie Becca! Wish us good sleep, I'm pretty tired from the heat and the trail but so grateful for a healthy body, beautiful creation, church hospitality and the amazing people of God that we've met so far along the way. (Not to mention spectacular fellow riders and support staff!)

Here are some links to follow us on:

http://www.facebook.com/upstatenysynod

http://popmissiontrips.blogspot.com/

Easter 3 A Luke 24:13-35 May 8, 2011

(Thanks to Margaret for the story!)

A friend of mine tells this story about when she was a little girl, she was really bright, super promising, so much so in fact that they started her out early in school she was one of those kids just on the cusp, past the cutoff of a grade. They decided she was ready to go early though and she did really well at first, in fact she did pretty well for the first couple years but as time went on she really started having a hard time. She was keeping up, but barely. She did great with listening comprehension and problem solving she was appropriately social, all of those kinds of things that they put on report cards. She seemed very bright still, but she was doing quite poorly at reading and writing and subsequently she didn’t test very well, math wasn’t going great either. They tried giving her extra study time, her parent’s watched over her homework and came up with punishments and incentives but she just couldn’t do it. She was really frustrated and so were her parents and teachers.

Then someone new came on the scene, listened to the whole story and asked a simple question, has she had her eyes checked?

No...she hadn’t...

They took her to the doctor, they got her glasses and all of a sudden for the first time in her life she realized she couldn’t see. She really couldn’t see well at all! She couldn’t keep letters on the page and separated from one another without glasses. She couldn’t see plus or minus signs. She couldn’t sort all of that out fast enough to finish a test on time. And that had all happened so early on in her life that she didn’t even know what she was missing. She didn’t know she couldn’t see until she could for the first time.

Once she could see she did much better. Unfortunately they figured it out pretty close to the end of a school year. The school didn’t want to make the call about whether she moved forward but recommended that she not, and left the final decision to her and her parents. They knew that she would have a very hard time catching up if she moved ahead.

So the decision was made that she would stay behind while all of her friends moved on. That she wouldn’t lose any time that way really, beings she started early, and that would afford her much better opportunities in the long run. Even though she understood this choice, it broke her heart. She remembers sitting on her mother’s lap crying, just crying for hours. Lamenting her loss, getting it all out. That was what it took for her to be ready to stand back up, hold her head up, go back to school and start over.

Looking back on this story, being able to succeed in school was important and being able to see clearly was important but the real lasting effect of this whole experience, was that a little girl who felt like she had failed and who felt like the world had failed her and people whom she loved had failed her, experienced what it was to be comforted, protected and reassured in the midst of that.

She came to understand and trust that no matter what, her mother would always reach out to her with care, comfort and compassion and create a safe place so that she could stand up, move forward and not only live, but flourish.

In the gospel lesson for the day the disciples can’t see Jesus, in fact they are so blind to Jesus that they don’t even know that there is anything to see. Despite his having told them before that the events of Easter would happen, that he would rise again that he would overcome death, when they start hearing rumors that that happened, the two disciples that he meets on the road can’t believe that it is true.

In fact when they tell the story of the women going to the tomb, the story that we read on Easter and take our Easter story from, they tell it like a lament. Like it is bad news. They can’t see it at all. It seems that they are so turned around that they are even leaving, heading away from where the rest of the community is gathered.

But the traveler with them knows better, so he interprets all the things about Jesus in Scripture to them, helps them to see the story clearly again. But even once they see the story they’re still unsure of the point. It isn’t until the eating of a meal, the breaking of the bread, a reliving of some of Jesus’ most nurturing and compassionate acts, acts of feeding, toward them that they see him. The scripture says then their eyes were opened, they understood why the traveler had seemed so important, why just listening to him had made their hearts flutter and burn. And this changed everything.

Apparently they never even got to Emmaus. They turned and went back to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news and when they got there not only did they share the news they had but the Jerusalem people had had an experience that was just as revealing. So the Emmaus disciples got to hear Good News back!

Now obviously seeing Jesus was very important in this passage, it was what led to the belief of the disciples and the sharing of the story. But we would be missing a major point if we stayed just with the clearing of their eyesight and didn’t mention the promise that they received.

When the were at their lowest, bearing the guilt for Jesus’ death and the loss of his body, feeling like they had believed in vain like they had started something wonderful but got lost and at the end set themselves behind in faith and life.

Feeling like they had failed and the world had failed them and God had even failed them, at that moment Jesus appeared and walked with them.

It wasn’t obvious right away that it was him but he stayed with them long enough to remind them of the truth, of God’s love, of their mission. He stayed with them and made their hearts feel strong again, he gave them a sign in the breaking of the bread that they would always be able to find him in community and in communion. And then he stood them up and moved them forward, on their way, back out onto the road with open eyes.

The promise of Easter is that Christ is Risen once and forever and will always be made known in our lives, will always walk with us, will always be in the reading of scripture, and will always be in the breaking of the bread and in our community here.

Like a loving parent God will always care patiently for us, stand us back up on our feet and lead back out on the way. This is great good news. Thanks be to God. Amen

Resurrection of our Lord; April 24, 2011

We had a big Easter egg hunt with the Sunday school yesterday. I’d forgotten how exciting Easter egg hunts are! If you haven’t watched a little child hunt for eggs in a while you really should be reminded of the thrill, the suspense, the emotion and the victory involved. They come out of the gate running! Because they know that there is something very good waiting for them.

And then when they find an egg, watch out. They see it, they zero in and they go for it, grab it with both hands and hold it for a second, admiring it, that egg is their very own, just for them! Victory!

And maybe you can even go back far enough to remember that feeling yourself from your childlike point of view. When I do, I remember that my family used to go camping in the desert over Easter. We’d get there Friday or Saturday. And even in the springtime there, maybe especially in the springtime, the desert was dead and dark and dry. Prickly cactus and the skeletons of sage brush turning into tumbleweed vast and deserted.

The night before Easter we would cook out as a family, huddled together in what seemed like the most vast empty space anywhere. Just us, just quiet, very reflective in the darkness. And then at bedtime we children laid down a little afraid because the noises were new, because this wasn’t our home because the wind blew hard and coyotes hollowed at night. But finally we would drift off to sleep. And then, in the morning. The world had transformed. While we were sleeping the desert had burst into bloom!

As our sleepy eyes opened all of a sudden the world held something incredible, eggs, beautiful colored ones, to this day I’ve never seen eggs as perfectly colored. And they were just for us, all the way out in our desert. We’d take off running through the desert searching. I remember the first one I found, one year. I spotted it in the sage and went running down the dusty desert path, stumbled down to my knees, picked it up and held it close, it was the most beautiful thing I’d seen...and it was mine! There was great wonder and joy in that experience for me.

Something kind of similar happened to the women in our gospel lesson today. The lesson is all about the women who go to tomb on the third day. They went on the third day because that was the first day that they could. Up to that point they had been caught up in the very specific ritual of a specific religious celebration, passover. A festival still celebrated that is just finishing now for our brothers and sisters of the Jewish faith. We mostly notice passover because grocery stores carry special things for passover celebrations and we hear little things in the news about it.

But we should notice it because, the whole Easter story begins with Passover. Passover recalls a time when the people of God were in need of unimaginable deliverance. And so they were told by God what to do. They were told to stand up with their loved ones, to eat a meal of celebration but to hurry because something new was happening. They did, they ate fast and got what they needed together and then they went to bed. They went to bed in fear and trembling because they were in a strange land and they were slaves constantly kept from the life they needed to live and they never knew what dangers and sadness life would hold.

But it was the passover of their Lord that night and while they were sleeping something magical and mysterious happened. In just the same way as Easter baskets appear prepared with good things, eggs end up hidden in lawns or presents end up under the tree at Christmas time, something new and completely unexpected was prepared for the children of Israel when they awoke. Complete freedom, complete deliverance. And so they got up and they ran. They ran swiftly into the new land that they were promised, seeking new life like it was something that might disappear if they didn’t grab onto it immediately.

These past nights as shadows fell we sat near Mary and Peter, those closest to Jesus who had lost him forever. Just like a funeral vigil for a dear loved one of our own, we were reminded to eat, to do the things we needed to do and we were reminded to sleep, we finally drifted off to sleep, with a sense of heaviness, of sadness and dread. But it was the passover with our Lord Jesus Christ from darkness into light, from bondage to freedom, from life to death. And so when Mary and the other women awoke this morning, in the same way that sparkling eggs appear gleaming all through a dry dusty garden something magical had happened, not magical but Holy.

New life had appeared in the dry dust of the tomb. And this meant complete freedom for them and all those they loved, freedom from the oppression of the occupying military force, freedom from the oppression of the pains of life and the fear of death. It meant that thing which they most treasured and had lost, had been returned, never to be lost again.

And so they ran. They ran swiftly, looking all around in excitement but sure of their goal, when all of a sudden they spotted something even more amazing. Jesus was right there in the road, standing in front of them.

And when they first saw Him, they ran up to him and dove down on the ground and held onto him knowing that he was the greatest gift they would ever receive and determined to never let go. And for a moment time froze and they just basked together in the goodness of God.

But Jesus didn’t leave them laying on the ground worshiping because the whole point of the resurrection was that they, and we serve a living, moving, walking proclaiming and personal God. And so he reached down gently. And lifted the women up to their feet. And told them that the news they now had personally, the news that they had only begun to understand at the edge of the dark tomb, that new life had appeared in the dry dust of that tomb. That this meant complete freedom for them, freedom from the oppression, freedom from pain of brokenness and the fear of death was really theirs, and that thing which they most treasured, a God who stayed with them always, had been returned, never to be lost again.

And that news was too good for them to bury their faces in the sand of the road and keep to themselves. They had to go and share it. And so they did and that is why we do, that is why we’re here. That is who Jesus is.

And everyone gets to wake up to that today, whether they know it and feel it or not. People in Japan surrounded by fear and destruction, our people in Afghanistan and the local people of Afghanistan, surrounded by darkness and uncertainty, our loved ones in nursing homes and hospitals, people mired in depression and illness, people who are lonely and afraid. Babies being born this morning, children first experiencing the mystery and wonder of this day. Everyone gets a gift this morning and it is more than candy and color, more than springtime and warmth.

It is new life, worth running up a dusty dirt road for, grabbing with both hands and holding onto forever. But the even better news about this day is that just like Jesus reached down and gently brought those women to their feet and stayed with them in the brightness of the moment until they were ready to run and spread the news, this gift of new life, grabs hold of us with both hands, like we are the greatest gift there is and holds onto us forever so that we will never be lost. This is great good news. Thanks be to God. Amen

Maundy Thursday April 21, 2011

Last year or the year before, we changed Maundy Thursday from footwashing, a literal cleansing, to a healing service, one that is about a more spiritual kind of cleansing. I want to tell you why:

When I was a child, there was an environmental crisis that was drilled into our little minds, the ozone layer had holes in it and they were growing! Depending on who and where you were at the time you probably heard this news in different ways.

But for us, little kids in school, this was terrifying and we were given all kinds of things that we could do, and encourage our parents and grandparents, in order to do to address it. So we did them!

As a society we addressed those problems. We Reduced, we Reused and we Recycled. We stopped using dangerous aerosols, we even made legislation to make sure companies did a better job manufacturing in safe ways and creating better, safer, healthier for the world, products. This work is far from done but those holes in the ozone that we were watching so closely? They began to shirk! They are actually healing.

Our very world, God’s very creation can be healed.

And it can be healed through the efforts of the people of God. Very often that is how God’s good and healing work is done. By our hands.

But there was some disturbing news from the science world this spring, just like a patient whose cancer came back, there is a new and troubling hole in the ozone and the healing work needs to be done all over again. We need healing again, our very world needs healing again.

It seems like that is the way with healing though, we heal and then something breaks again, we find new life and then we experience death. Over and over again.

And when we say life and death in the church we don’t always mean the one, once and for all thing. We talk about new life as renewal, little new lives like the beginning of a new chapter of life, the accomplishment of a goal, the start of a relationship, the conquering of an obstacle, a birth, even just that general feeling of success and happiness like everything is going alright.

And likewise when we say death we often mean the smaller things-or the big ones-but not necessarily the literal kind. The experience of loss or failure, the feeling that things just aren’t going right, a battle with an illness, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a part of yourself, failure, pain, depression, lostness.

Death like that happens over and over again. And we need healing over and over again,it is just as natural as our other needs, food, water, safety and companionship. Though we eat, we get hungry again, though we sleep, we get tired again, though we wash we get dirty again, though sometimes we feel filled with life, we experience death again.

I think that is why those needs are highlighted in our lessons for tonight and the reason that the signs that God gives us are so human and repetitive. They are things we need over and over again. Our promises from God are all related to everyday living and human need.

So that we are reminded that just as we never cease to need food and water, protection and cleansing, we never cease to need a God who provides those things.

In the same way that sometimes I might not be very hungry, but there are other times when it seems like I am fed and fed and it is never enough, Jesus shared the passover meal in our gospel with his disciples, promising to always be present in it, to feed them whenever they were hungry.

And in the same way that sometimes I feel shiny and clean but there are other times when I scrub and scrub, my heart and soul and mind, and I still feel, slow and sticky and mired and stuck in the mud, Jesus gave water for baptism as a sign of cleansing and then washed his disciples’ feet in our gospel tonight in remembrance of the type of cleansing that can wash off even the worst feeling, the worst experience, the worst pain, once and for all.

And just as sometimes I feel like I am perfectly fine, better than fine but other times I feel like I’ll never see the light of day again because of whatever it is that is keeping me bound, God gave us so many signs of healing and deliverance that we can’t help but see ourselves in one of them:

from the Israelites being freed from slavery, and safe from all plagues in our old testament lesson
to Jesus’ healing of a man born blind,
His healing of a woman bleeding for 12 years,
His healing of a child dead too soon and of her parents’ pain,
His raising a friend buried in a tomb
His call to the little children to come
His promise to the widow of care and companionship
to His comfort to the publicans and centurions in their vocational doubts

And finally to His own resurrection and new life even after terrible death.

You know from signs in your own life, that deaths, literal and figurative, lurk around each corner, that we all sit and pray in Gethsemane with Jesus,
that darkness does fall and the alters of out lives are stripped bare

and so you know, you need, new life, over and over again. And God provides it in our own bodies and minds, in our families and homes, in the midst of our own tombs, even in the world around us.

So tonight come to the alter with whatever you carry, and receive prayers for whatever death in you is seeking new life and come to the table and be fed with the bread of life,

and then watch the darkness fall and the alter be stripped bare knowing that every time this happens in this place and in your own life, every time there is pain, fear and death, they happen in sure and certain hope that Easter, ---Easter which carries with it cleansing, healing and new life are always, just around the corner. Thanks be to God! Amen!

Transfiguration A, Matthew 17:1-9

There are a few very tall peaks around hear. One is Mt. Greylock near North Adams, MA. Maybe some of you have been there, I’ve been up it a few times. One thing about high peaks is that the weather changes quickly and extremely on them. Last time I was up Mt. Greylock it was a summer day but it was incredibly stormy.

There were storm clouds all around so thick that you couldn’t see around the next turn, the next bend in the road. It was lovely there like a forest is lovely but that was all that was visible. I really couldn’t even see how high I was up or how high I had to go, only what was right in front of me. I just kept heading upwards, feeling my way through the fog.

Once I got to what I knew was the top, you could kind of tell, there is a picnic area there, I hiked around for a long time, back into the foggy woods, circling the mountain. Stopped for a snack along the way and then headed back up. I could tell in the woods that the storm was lifting. The rain had stopped, the mist was still in the trees but I could see blue sky and there was so much more light.

In fact by the time I got to the top, the clouds were entirely gone. It was crystal clear. Maybe more clear because the storm had been there. It was like the air had been washed clean. And I could see everything. I could see the road I’d come up on, in fact I could see almost back to here. I could see where some friends lived off to the east and some to the southwest.

I could see the streets that I had walked on in town. Then when I walked around I could even see the road I was going to take home, a different one than I had come in on. And ugh, it was going to be a long drive after the long day I’d already had...There really is nothing like the view from the top of a mountain. People in ancient times used to think that mountains were where God was and when you have that vista, that vantage it makes sense. You can literally watch over life from a place like that.

I wanted to stay there, keep my perspective, hold onto that feeling of being above, outside of, real life for a while.

In our lessons today, old and new testament, God leads people up mountainsides. First Moses, is called by God up the mountain and God surrounds him in a thick cloud so that they could talk to one another. Then much later, in our gospel lesson Jesus takes his disciples with him up a mountain.

When Jesus hiked up the mountain with his disciples they were coming from a pretty long hard road. It started with Jesus’ baptism and then forty days of difficult temptation in the wilderness. But that was only the beginning. As soon as that was done, life started. It was one thing after another they didn’t get to sit down and get comfortable they didn’t get to take a breather from the responsibilities. Every time they accomplished one thing they had to move on to another. They really didn’t even get a chance to see what all they’d done, where they’d come from and how far they’d made it. Until they got to the top of that mountain.

Once they got up there they got a chance to see the lay of the land. They saw the river Jordan where Jesus had been baptized, the edge of the wilderness where John had taught and Jesus had wandered lost and alone. Peter, James and John saw the seashore where they had left their nets, with excitement, to follow the new, exciting young teacher, Jesus.

They saw the place where they had gathered a few meager loaves and fish and by some miracle fed 5000 people. They saw the sea that they had set out on, happy to rest in the boat. But then just when things seemed easy for a moment a storm had come up and they were only saved by Jesus’ calming love, power and presence.

They saw the countless places where they had healed other people. They saw the all of the places where they had been questioned and accused by Pharisees and public leaders. They saw the place where Jesus had been violently run out of his home town with them on his heels. They looked out and they saw it all.

They took a deep breath and they were so pleased and satisfied. So accomplished! And so tired! The mountain was good. The vantage was amazing. Peter started to think to himself. I’d really like to stay here.

Then Moses and Elijah showed up and were talking with Jesus. And Jesus was transfigured. He was shining with all of the glory of God. It was blinding and terrifying but also peaceful and comforting. Wondrous, indescribable.

But then like I did on my mountain top, they looked where they were going. They looked toward Jerusalem. It should have looked lovely with the sparkling temple, with its golden domes. The places guarded by the shiny little Roman soldiers in their armor. But Peter, and the other disciple and Jesus saw more, the pointy spears of the soldiers, the courts of the palace and temple, their eyes followed a line of people up a hill to where some rabble rouser was being crucified because too many people were getting excited about what he had to say.

And it was too much. All of a sudden it was clear where they were going in a way that things can only be clear on mountain tops. It didn’t seem like God was in the path that they would take at all. And it was going to be a long path. And they were afraid.

It was too much. This view was too much. It all felt worse than it had before. So Peter said. Let’s stay here, it is good here. God is here. We’ll build places to sleep. Let’s stay.

But while he was still talking. God interrupted him. And God interrupted him by bringing in the storm clouds. And just like me as I traveled up the mountain suddenly Peter could only see what was right in front of him and nothing else. He saw Jesus and he heard the words of God. This is my beloved son. Listen to him.

God wrapped them in a safe, bright cloud. And they knew God. And they understood that they had to go where they were going, that they had to go back down the mountain, into Ash Wednesday, into forty days of wandering, into Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. They had to finish the journey because at the end of the journey there was the promise of another mountain. A better one, a final one. One where Jesus would overcome once and for all. And where God would be present not just for a minute in a cloud but completely.

And when they get there the clouds finally clear again. Because they don’t need shelter anymore. Because Jesus has died and Risen and there is no more danger. Nothing that God can’t overcome. And they get to look back at where they came from and know that God got them where they were going, not just for their sakes but for the sake of all mankind. For our sake God gets us to that other mountain on Good Friday and again on Easter.

And that is good news. Thanks be to God. Amen

Matthew 6:24-34; Epiphany 8 A 2011

Jesus says in our text today to work on trusting that God provides for our needs by considering the grass of the field and the beauty of the lilies. I invite you, just take a look outside and consider the lovely grass, the bright flowers. Here, I’ll open the door for you so you can see. Wait a minute!!! Brr, oh! close that to keep that wind and snow out!...When was the last time any of us saw bright green, young, healthy grass? The last time that you saw little flowers blooming in the fields. Or for that matter a little bird flitting happily around that didn’t look harried and a bit like it was darting out to grab a bite and then get right back under whatever shelter it came from?

No, winter is not a time when this text makes the most sense, especially this winter. Talking all about things that we see in the springtime, lilies of the field, little grass flowers. Birds of the air. But maybe it is the perfect time of year to think about it because it does seem so far off. It has been dark and cold forever. We were hoping that the snow was about done and then we got something close to another foot over the past couple days.

If school had been in it would have closed on Friday, if plants had begun to grow I have to think they’re regretting it. Winter feels like it will last forever, but God says, don’t worry about tomorrow, about what you eat or drink or wear, does not God clothe the flowers of the field more perfectly and beautifully than we could ever do? And how much more will he care for us. Even though everything is dead right now, frozen and seems to be completely unmoving, soon we will find that it isn’t true, we’ll get to watch transformation all around us. Soon the ice will melt, life will stir, leaves will grow, blades of grass will sprout, hillsides will be covered with color, sound and life.

I grew up on a dry hillside where the winters were very, very cold. They seemed like they would never end but each March like clockwork, right around the first, right around now even, through dead pokey pine needles and slick ice covered rocks amid patches of snow the hillside would turn from dead brown to purple. Lady slippers and grass widows, tiny wildflowers everywhere. New abundant life where just a day before everything was completely without life. But it was the same flowers every spring, every time things got their most bleak those grass flowers showed up.

This is true mostly because life was always there just under the surface, waiting to bloom, to blossom, to spread. Those tiny delicate plants were there.

In fact even now, here, where it seems so lifeless, things are starting to grow, life is stirring, life was always there.

What was dead will live again. Jesus was so sure of this, so sure of Easter that in our text today he tells us, don’t worry about tomorrow. And really what better time than right now when things still seem a bit too dark, too cold, a bit too lifeless, is there for us to hope in how true it is that tomorrow there will be beautiful flourishing life.

But sometimes that doesn’t seem true, sometimes it is hard for that life to shine through and so tomorrow gets harder and harder. What Jesus was getting at when he said these words wasn’t so much that we should act without care about what tomorrow will bring as that we can’t let tomorrow get in the way of today.

We can’t let worries about money keep us from following our dreams and our passions. We can’t let fear of failure keep us from trying something new. We can’t let exhaustion from looking at everything on the horizon keep us from addressing the things right in front of us. We can’t let worry get in the way of being true to ourselves and our neighbors and God.

There are couple of Lutheran churches down in New York city in the Bronx, St. Peter’s and Incarnation Lutheran Church that have been around for a long time. They started out healthy and strong, filled with life, packed to the gills every Sunday with worshippers from Europe who were new to the United States, who brought little with them but kept their religion, scrapped together what they had and built houses of worship. They spent many years nurturing young souls, and sending the old off to rest in a gentle peace. But the neighborhood changed, the original church builders died, so did their children and grandchildren, their great grandchildren moved away, leaving vacant lots behind.

The neighborhood fell into disrepair, beautiful houses were abandoned or demolished and the churches weren’t immune. But they held on. The people around them got poorer and poorer and instead of providing for the church they needed the church to provide for them.

So the churches did, day after day. They clung to life through those years, eeking out a tiny existence with very little, while the world seemed to fall down around them. They were constantly scrapping, constantly losing grip on what little they had, constantly feeling like the work to be done in the world around them was too much to do and that the work of keeping up their own little church was an impossibility as all of the manpower that they had was needed, for neighborhood watches, caring for the homebound, for providing services for women and children in the neighborhood. And picking up the slack in the church because they ran out of money, first to hire a secretary, then to employ a music director then to employ a full-time pastor.

Life had a constant feeling of heaviness, darkness, hopelessness. And worry about tomorrow seemed impossible to avoid. But they kept striving to seek the kingdom of God right where they were, a place that needed it most.

And then something happened, once a year in the midst of the darkest, coldest season of the year new life started to blossom, right there in the concrete of the Bronx. A group of young people from some other churches decided to seek first the kingdom of God, they started to give up their school break, to share some hard earned money and time, to walk through the cold, the wet the ice, the rain the snow, to work in cold dirty buildings to bring a little new life to those languishing churches.

This past week I went with a group of 5 other adults and and 26 youth, six from right here, to those churches in the Bronx that have lived in years in disrepair in a part of New York city that has a reputation for being the worst place to be, the least safe, the least desirable. We painted and cleaned, and in a matter of a two days turned a lot of darkness into light. A group of kids from Colombia and Renssalaer Counties made today better for these places so that tomorrow will keep being a possibility.

And I think the most important part of what we all learned in doing this was that by starting each day, each season as a community that seeks the kingdom of God first and leaves tomorrow’s worries for tomorrow, churches, people and lives can flourish eve in the midst of what looks like dead, dry, wintry ground.

Throughout the first day most of us had a turn to climb onto the roof of one of the buildings that we were working on. It was an old four story row house and so had a great vantage. And as we looked out we saw something amazing. There was actually light spreading from the church. Day by day, season by season they had worked with the neighbors and in the neighborhood and you could see a difference. The row houses nearest to the church with the help of our group year after year and others from the church and other churches, had been restored, given their pride back, their stoops were unbroken, they had been painted. Community gardens had popped up, basketball courts were clean and safe. And this change was slowly creeping down the nearby streets, through the next block. Today by today seeker of the kingdom, by seeker of the kingdom new life is spreading all over the winterworn parts of this world. God does that. This is good news. Thanks be to God. Amen.