Easter Message 2013

St. John of Damascus, called the golden tongued doctor of the church, an Arabian, a Christian, a priest, and mystic monk, reflected in the eighth century on the Easter feast:

Thou hallowed chosen day! That first
And best and greatest shinest!
Lady and Queen and feast of feasts,
Of things divine, divinest!
On thee our praises Christ adore,
For ever and for evermore.

Come, Let us taste the vine’s new fruit
For heavenly joy preparing:
In this propitious day, with Christ
His resurrection sharing:
Whom as true God our hymns adore
For ever and for evermore.

The Holy life of Jesus, the Holy Meal with friends, the Holy Cross alone, and the Holy Tomb have birthed for us (our friends, our families, the church, for all of creation) a new life of freedom and resurrection. Whereas the cross was the end of bondage to sin and death, and the invitation to live a new transformed life; the empty tomb is our new beginning, our recreation. In the empty tomb we find the nativity of Christian faith and the renewal of Creation through communion with God and reconciliation with one another.

We inherit from our faith ancestors an experience of a new and more powerful presence of Jesus Christ. Centered in Jerusalem and in ever expanding circles like the ripples in a pond, the resurrected Jesus appears in different ways to those who love him. He appears to them as traveler along the road and in the midst of locked lives tucked away in upper rooms. Jesus was present powerfully and emphatically. This resurrection and the experience of Christ led the first Christians to pronounce a new covenant story that includes an ever embracing family of God.

Today, we are beckoned to join the resurrected Christ in a newly planted Garden of Eden. We claim resurrection as stewards in God’s creation. We are the family of god, and God is with us as we seek to recreate, renew and restore God’s creation. We do not claim the work of the cross, the empty tomb and the garden for ourselves alone but for the whole of creation. We are at work in God’s garden, we are the workers in the field, the sower of seeds, and God’s human hands at work in the world.

Formed in the Episcopal Church and later a Roman Catholic, pacifist, suffragette and the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Dorothy Day understood the work of the resurrected community of Christ.

We must practice the presence of God. [She wrote.] He said that when two or three are gathered together, there He is in the midst of them. He is with us in our kitchens, at our tables, on our breadlines, with our visitors, on our farms…”

[She said:] What we would like to do is change the world – make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. Add to a certain extent, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the worker, of the poor, of the destitute – the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words – we can to a certain extent change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world.

In the season of Easter we share in and offer to the world resurrection. Our eyes are focused. Our vision is clearer. Our hymns, our prayers, and our worship adore Christ and encourage us out into a world desperate to hear the voice of a loving living freeing God.

This Easter, most hallowed of days, queen of feasts, all creation resounds in shouts of praise and thanksgiving feeling and knowing that from east and west and north and south, the great family of God is being gathered in so that it may be sent out. You and I are changed in the emptying of Christ’s tomb, and as we gather in the sunlight of a new Easter garden we see that the world is changed…forever and forevermore...

Ash Wednesday Meditation

I was little.  Maybe I was 6.  I sat with my mother in the pew at Church of the Good Shepherd. 

My mother held my hand and we went in and found our pew, in the middle, the left hand side, the Gospel side.  My mother knelt…I fidgeted and I slid up and down the pew.

She prayed…I fidgeted and whispered her name over and over again.

She was quiet…I fidgeted and tried to get her attention, I pulled on her dress.

She told me to kneel with her and to pray to God before church began.  I said, “I don’t know what to say to God.” I’m sure I said this with a very loud voice.  She whispered to me that I was to go see my father.

I sulked. I sulked out of my pew. I sulked all the way back to the back of the church to the church doors…past the crucifer…past the torch bearers…I sulked past the lay readers…I sulked up to my father (the priest) standing at the back of the procession.

I looked up with my best sad face, I marshaled the tears, and I blubbered. Mom says to pray to God. I don’t know what I am supposed to say. What do you say to God? Does God even listen? Will God listen to me? Mom says pray. I don’t know how.

My father leaned down to me and said, “Go tell God good morning and hello. Introduce yourself.  That is all you need to do.  Go tell God hello; like you might to an old friend.”

There comes a time in everyone’s life when we pray for the first time.  It doesn’t matter how one grew up. It doesn’t matter the tradition of one’s family.  Somewhere, in some quiet place, in some way, at an important time, everyone utters a prayer to God.

In a moment, then the moment is gone, a word of prayer bridges the gap between heaven and earth; between the creator and the created.

Some of us get mighty good at praying.

Some of us get very good prayer voices.

Some of us are good at making prayer gestures.

But in this season of Lent we are reminded of the importance of simple prayer and a simple conversation with our maker.  We are reminded of our need to go see a good friend…an old friend.  We are reminded to make ourselves known.  We are given an opportunity to again in a small quiet place, in a quiet voice, to say “hello” again to God.

Jesus, in our lesson from Matthew offers a bit of guidance. It is as if he is saying, “Hey…don’t get in people’s faces about your prayer life.”

Allow your prayer life to remind you of the importance of giving…but don’t be all high and mighty about it.

Don’t use that God voice when you pray.  It irritates God and everybody else. 

Being public with your faith is not all it’s cracked up to be. It is a lot better to pray privately and sincerely.  It is better for your life to model the very best of God’s love…then when people ask you about it you can tell them.  Sometimes the obvious is not as good as the subtle.

Remember when you pray that God knows what you need so you don't have to always be telling God out loud with a long list of how you would like life to be...

Please don't look dismal and sad.  Look happy and enjoy your relationship with God.

Remember that what matters is the love of God, the love of neighbor - these are the treasures worth having.  So pray and live for love.

If we opened the bible up and looked at this passage what we would see is that Jesus is teaching his followers to pray, and he offers to them what today we call the Lord’s Prayer.

It is as if Jesus is saying, “This is a good way of doing it. Pray like this.”

Jesus says, say “Our Father”.  Begin this way because we are to seek as intimate a relationship with God as I have.

Pray “Who art in heaven”.  When you do you’ll be reminded of your created nature as a gift from heaven. Life is given to us from God. We also recognize in this short phrase that we are not God.

Say to God “Hallowed be thy name”. In response to the grace of being welcomed into God’s community, bowing humbly and acknowledging our created nature, we recognize the holiness of God. We proclaim that God’s name is hallowed and that we are not holy.

Remember and ask for God’s kingdom to come; “Thy kingdom come”.  The words of Jesus remind us that, like the disciples’ own desires to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus, this is not our kingdom. The reign of God is not what you and I have in mind. We ask God: by your power bring your kingdom into this world. Help us to beat our swords into ploughshares that we might feed the world.

Say, “Thy will be done”. We bend our wills to God’s, following the living example of Jesus Christ. We ask for grace to constantly set aside our desires and take on the love of God’s reign. Let our hands and hearts build not powers and principalities but the rule of love.

“On earth as it is in heaven”.  Ask God to give us eyes to see this kingdom vision, and then ask for courage and power to make heaven a reality in this world. May our homes, our churches, and our communities be a sanctuary for the hurting world to find shelter, to find some small experience of heaven.

Then pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”.  In prayer we come to understand that we are consumers. We need, desire, and just want many things. In Christ, we are reminded that all we need is our daily bread.  And as we surrender our desires, help us to provide daily bread for those who have none today.

Ask God to “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Sanity and restoration are possible only because God forgives us. Because of that sacrificial forgiveness--made real in the life and death of Jesus--we can see and then share mercy and forgiveness. Help me personally offer sacrificial forgiveness to all those I feel have wronged me. I want to know and see my own fault in those broken relationships. May I be a sacrament of your grace and forgiveness to others.

“Lead us not into temptation”: As Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and replaced God with their own understanding of reality, we need help turning away from our own earthly and political desires and turning toward the wisdom of God in Christ Jesus. So we remind ourselves how we are so tempted to go the easy way, to believe our desires are God’s desires. We have the audacity to assume we can know God’s mind. Show us your way and help us to trust it.

Please God, “deliver us from evil”.  Only God can deliver us from evil. There is darkness in the world around us. We know this darkness feeds on our deepest desire: to be God ourselves. That deceptive voice affirms everything we do and justifies our actions, even when they compromise other people’s dignity. It whispers and tells us we possess God’s truth and no one else does. Deliver us from the evil that inhabits this world, the weakness of our hearts, and the darkness of our lives, that we might walk in light.

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen”  I want to remember that I am powerless. Help me give my life up to an higher power and devote my life and love to God and my neighbor.   Help us to see your glory and beauty in the world, this day and every day.

So, in Lent…perhaps as your Lenten discipline, say good morning to God again for the first time; like you might say hello to an old friend.  

Pray simply, maybe just use the Lord’s Prayer every day.  Pray simply.  And let your prayer bridge the gap between heaven and earth.

We Have Testamints To Make and a Sacred Heart Auto Club to Join

Consuming the World

The world in which we live has changed and is changing at a remarkable rate. Our culture--what we might call the Western Way--has spread touching and impacting every culture and society. Many people are no longer isolated and "indigenous societies" are in deplorable circumstances. If not in "terminal phases" of acculturation; many have in fact died out and are lost to future generations.3 Indigenous peoples and the known third world countries exist in detrimental poverty compared to their American and Western counterparts. Transnational corporations hold or employ many of their natural or human resources. The entire world has been undergoing rapid, dramatic culture change over the last century. We have a global economy knit together and forever (using the metaphor of Thomas L. Friedman) "flattened." Regional economic independence and self-determination no longer exist. 

In the year 2000, 51 of the 100 biggest economies in the world were corporations. More than 20 million Americans now work for major transnational corporations, often in other countries.5 The rate of globalization has been accelerating over the last decade. Contributing factors in making the world a smaller place have been the spread of Internet and e-mail access as well as massive levels of international travel. Meanwhile most people in underdeveloped nations do not travel and only 1% of people in the Middle East and Africa have internet. I once wrote in my diary these words from Murray Sheard, whose essay is now lost to me but whose words are perhaps profoundly important to us today, "Religion has declined whenever consumerism gets hold of a nation. Religion is also seen as a barrier to consumption. It's something people are committed to above their own appetites."

American Pop Culture 

Americans have appetites. We hunger to eat, drink and own. As many of you know Americans consume 25% of the global resources and are 5% of the population. If everyone on the planet consumed as we do, we would need four other planets for the waste.6 We twitter and tweet. We Facebook and MySpace. We EBay and Craig's list. We blog and epublish. We Ifun, ITune, IPod and IPhone. We Wii and XBox. One million, thirty-nine thousand and thirty one people subscribe to the New York Times, while TV Guide has 9,072,609 subscribers and battles it out with Better Homes and Gardens who has 7,602,575 subscribers.7

Some of our cultural core values according to George Barna in his book Boiling Point are: 

convenience, options for expression, time maximization, belonging, comfort, experiences, happiness, independence, flexibility, authenticity, education options, entertainment, diversity, customization, participation, gender equality, technology, instant gratification, meaning, skepticism, image, control, relevance, impact/influence, personal empowerment, relationships, self-image, simplicity, compassion, teamwork, integrity, youth care, family cohesion, humor tolerance, volunteerism, reciprocity, generosity, networking, spiritual depth, risk taking, change, wealth, physical health, and achievement.

I can take my whole music collection, the first season of the television show the "Big Bang Theory," a selection of my favorite movies, and the latest news from my top podcasts from NPR to Wall Street Journal everywhere I go on my telephone, which I can use to update my social networks, figure out my global position, level a picture or call a friend.

As Jack in "Fight Club" wondered in 1996:

"The Klipske personal office unit, the Hovertrekke home exer-bike. Or the Johannshamnh sofa with the Strinne green stripe pattern...Even the Rislampa wire lamps of environmentally-friendly unbleached paper. I would flip through catalogs and wonder 'what kind of dining set defines me as a person?' I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard working people of...wherever. We used to read pornography. Now it was the Horchow Collection. 

 Video clip: Who do you say that I am? 

Jesus Talk: Having Testamints in your Pocket or Rediscovering the Art of Discipleship

 

Dan Kimball, author and pastor at Vintage Faith church in Santa Cruz, California, wrote:

Jesus is everywhere. I recently walked into a gas station to pay for some gas and saw some Jesus bobble-heads for sale on a shelf. I was kind of surprised to see Jesus in the gas station, but there he was, three or four of him standing in a row. As I waited to pay for the fifteen gallons I had pumped into my rusty 1966 Ford Mustang, the Jesus bobble-heads silently stared at me, all politely smiling and nodding in unison.

Not too long afterward, I visited a major clothing chain store. Near the entry was a display for the Jesus Action Figure. Probably a dozen or more Jesuses hung in nice plastic packaging that declared, “With pose-able arms and gliding action!” While I stood there looking at them, a woman in her early twenties grabbed one from the rack. She enthusiastically said to her companion, “I love these!” and off she ran to the cash register with Jesus under her arm.”

I love Jesus and I love all things Jesus. But it really is amazing how many people love Jesus but don’t love the church. If we are going to reclaim the art of discipleship we are going to have to reclaim it in the midst of our world and our culture in America. We are going to have to reclaim discipleship from a dying Protestant Christianity as it exists today. We are going to have to reclaim discipleship from the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church. We are going to have reclaim discipleship even though there are theological and practical stumbling blocks.

I am a missionary and I want to work within a missionary church alive within a growing missionary field, in relationship with disciples who wish to follow the way of Jesus. I believe that Christianity, particularly Anglicanism through the lens of the Episcopal Church, has something fundamentally unique to offer those who are seeking to follow Jesus. I believe and am committed to an Episcopal Church and an Episcopal Diocese in Texas that is actively making the world a better place tomorrow than it is today. I believe that our church and our people, you and I, are called to be partners with Jesus Christ restoring the world around us.

I have invited several friends to visit with us about their views and their experience and so we will hear stories from the mission front about God, Jesus, Christians and communities. We will look to the past through the lens of our Gospel (Mark, Luke, and John specifically). And, we will think about methods and models for our future. Tonight I want us to begin to reclaim the art of discipleship, by: understanding the world and culture in which we are living; understanding the challenge organized religion faces in this culture; and, understanding the stumbling blocks that lie before us as Episcopalians. Many of us here have been having these conversations about emerging topics of interest. We have been listening and engaging in a conversation of “generous orthodoxy,” “off road disciplines” and the “renewing of our heart.” But it is time to bring it home to the Episcopal Church.

(intro to “The Art and Method of Discipleship,”The Blandy Lectures, SSW, 2009)

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