Moving On

Gentle readers: I have decided to move to a new blog on WordPress. It will still have my thoughts/homilies on the Sunday lessons, but perhaps not as frequently, as I will not be preaching every week. Who knows? I might even post something lighter, or shorter, or more colorful. One can always hope.

I thank you for your faithfulness in coming here. Should you want to follow me as I move on, feel free to check out (and maybe even bookmark!) the new site: www.treefields.wordpress.com. Blessings to you!

Leaving Church

[Note: This is the text of my last sermon at my current parish.]

A retired priest and I were talking this past week about what it’s like to leave a parish. As a former Methodist minister, he has a lot of experience with that. In the Methodist system it is expected that the pastor will leave after three years or so, and congregations are used to it. That is not and never has been part of the Episcopal Church. Most Episcopal parishes hope that their clergy will be around for a while, especially if they like them. So neither you nor I expected that I would leave this chucrh after three years. I won’t pretend that this isn’t hard. Even those who have been through this many times before say that it isn’t easy.

Today’s lectionary readings aren’t much help. As hard as leaving is, I really don’t think it’s like taking up a cross to follow Jesus. I have no doubt that you will get through this, especially with the capable leadership of your wardens and vestry. Jesus will still be in your midst when you gather on Sunday morning. There will still be a priest to bring Jesus to you in bread and wine. What comes next is another part of your journey, a journey you will continue to take with Jesus and one another.

Mark’s Gospel is all about a journey. One of his most frequent expressions is “on the way.” It was on the way that Jesus asked his disciples about himself. “Who do people say that I am?” They gave him a variety of answers. “But who do you say that I am?” he then asked. Peter spoke for them all. “You are the Messiah,” he said. Peter got it. Well, sort of. As soon as Jesus started telling them what it meant to be the Messiah, it all sounded wrong. Everybody got scared. So Peter took Jesus aside and told him he was wrong. Jesus threw it right back. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said.

Now if I were Peter – and it’s a good thing to imagine oneself in these Bible passages – if I were Peter, I would have been pretty pleased with myself for getting the Messiah part right. So I’d be really put out when Jesus called me Satan. Some commentators say that Jesus wasn’t really talking about Peter as Satan but rather fighting the temptation to avoid the cross. Do you really think that’s what went through Peter’s head? “Oh, well, I realize that he’s not really calling me Satan, it’s just a figure of speech and he doesn’t really mean it.” No. Peter would be hurt and silenced.

Peter thought he got it, but he didn’t. He thought he had figured out which way this road was going to go, where the journey would end, but Jesus had something else in mind. And when Jesus laid out the map, Peter got so scared that he tried to change the route. Jesus wouldn’t have any of it, and told him so.

If someone had told me three years ago that I would be dean of a cathedral, I would have laughed and silently wondered what they had been drinking. The fact is, we don’t really know what lies ahead on this journey. The disciples had Jesus around to tell them, and even they didn’t get it. All they knew was that there was something very different about this man who talked like God, and they couldn’t help but follow him, wherever he led them. That is just as true for our journey of faith as theirs. If we follow Jesus, we know that we are on the right path.

Peter’s experience tells us something else as well. We need to embrace the pain and grief of separation. We need to embrace it not because it feels good, but because it’s real. Jesus taught us that God is fundamentally relational, the Three in One, and that we are created to be relational as well. If we didn’t love one another, this wouldn’t be as hard. If we didn’t love one another, we wouldn’t be the persons that God calls us to be. So it’s okay to feel the sadness that comes with love.

I didn’t ask my priest friend whether he prefers the Methodist or the Episcopal system. (I already knew the answer.) Both have their advantages and disadvantages. When the priest isn’t working out, the Methodist approach sounds better. When the pastor is a good one, the parish would like him or her to stick around for a while. The reality is that a congregation learns from every clergyperson, whether good or ill. The most important thing for any priest or parish is to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus rather than the road ahead, trusting that Jesus will show the way. That is the only way we will know that we are on the right path. My prayer for all of you is that you continue to find Jesus in your midst, and to follow him wherever he leads you. And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you forever.

[Pentecost 16: Mark 8:27-38.]

Throwing Food to the Dogs

I’m in the process of packing up my office, getting ready for the next part of my priestly journey. Among the books I found when I moved in was a real treasure: Lectures on Preaching by Phillips Brooks. Nowadays if Brooks is remembered at all, he’s known as the author of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” In his time, though, he was considered one of the greatest preachers of the century. In 1877, when he was only 42, he was invited to give the Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale University. The book contains those lectures, which are as fresh today as then.

In his chapter on “The Congregation,” Brooks speaks of “some people who as mere strangers have wandered in and taken their seats among the people who are always there…They are to the congregation what the few people who came into contact with Jesus who were not Jews – such as the Syrophenician woman, and the Centurion, and the Greeks, who asked to see him – were to Christ’s disciples. They kept men’s [sic] conception of His ministry from closing in tightly on the Jewish people. This is the danger of the country parish, where you know everybody who comes into the church. You forget the mission to the world.”

The Syrophoenician woman shows up in Sunday’s Gospel reading from Mark. (In Matthew she is Canaanite, an easier reading for the deacon.) She is rebuffed by Jesus when she asks for help for her daughter. He tells her that it is not fair to throw the food of the children (of Israel) to the dogs (the Gentiles). She responds by saying that even the dogs eat the children’s crumbs. “For that saying,” Jesus relents and heals her daughter.

One might think that Jesus himself needed just what Phillips Brooks described: someone to keep his ministry from closing in tightly on the Jewish people. Perhaps Jesus needed to figure out what he was doing as he went along, learning the Messiah business by living it. From that point of view, the Syrophoenician woman taught Jesus that he was supposed to pay attention to Gentiles, as well as Jews.

I find that explanation unsatisfying. For one thing, I think Jesus knew what he was doing all along. For another, he deliberately traveled into Gentile country and spent time there before going back to Galilee. But why did he treat the woman so rudely if he already knew that he was going to heal her daughter? Was he just testing her? Was that fair?

Jesus’ disciples must have been pretty edgy when they stepped out of familiar territory. The food wasn’t kosher, nothing was ritually clean, and everyone looked and sounded strange. Imagine a group of white Iowans walking through a black neighborhood in Chicago, and you can understand how out of place the disciples felt. So when a local woman asked for help, Jesus must have voiced exactly what the disciples were thinking. Leave us alone. Stick with your own kind. Remarkably, the woman not only persisted, but turned Jesus’ words back at him. Now she’ll really get it, the disciples must have thought. Instead, Jesus offered words of comfort, of healing. Can you imagine what effect that must have had on them? Previously he had told them that there were no foods that were unclean – and now there are no people who are unclean. Just in case they missed the point, Jesus healed a Gentile man who couldn’t hear or speak. It was enough to make one look for another church!

The New Testament repeatedly tells us how the first Christians had to reinterpret everything they had learned from the Jewish Bible in the light of the Word of God, Jesus Christ. God really meant it when he said to heal the sick and give food to the poor. God really meant it when he said that all humans are made in God’s image. God really meant it when he said that he desires all people to be reconciled to himself and to one another. But even Jesus couldn’t say all of that at once, because he knew it wouldn’t be understood. He had to lead his disciples to the truth at a pace that they could follow. Sometimes that meant taking a route that at first seemed to be going in a different direction.

We still often act as though God didn’t really mean it. But not this Sunday. This Sunday we will be feeding anyone and everyone who comes to the park across the street. No questions asked. No checking IDs or income. No comments about feeding the children first and then the dogs. No one will be told, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill” until they have been given a plate of food.

Will anyone fed this week show up in church next week? Maybe. If they do, may they be like the Syrophoenician woman. May they open up the church to the world, and the world to the church, so that all may experience the love of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

[Pentecost 15: James 2:1-10, 14-17; Mark 7:24-37.]

Doers of the Word

Recently I heard a story that illustrates why clergy and church musicians are often the source of conflict in a parish. I have to say right away that our music director and I get along very well, in large part because of his professionalism and my own background in music. So this story is not about us, nor anyone else you know.

The priest in this story saw himself as the CEO, in control of everything in that church. His people skills were not the best. He created conflict but could not handle it. On one particular Sunday there was a guest organist, a distinguished music professor filling in for the regular person. Between the two services the priest and the organist had a cordial conversation for several minutes. Shortly afterwards the organist met with the choir to rehearse the next service. Before they began, a choir member said, “Father So-and-so said that you’re playing the hymns too fast. He wants you to slow down.” The organist was furious. Why hadn’t the priest said that to his face? Why have someone else say it? Once again, the priest had created needless conflict by his actions.

What we do reveals who we are inside. That’s the message we hear from both Jesus and James. Faith is not enough. What we do is as important as what we believe.

Martin Luther hated the letter of James. Luther was reacting to the Roman Catholic theology of his day, which said that we can earn our own salvation, even buy our way into it. Luther called this “works righteousness,” a term still used disparagingly by Lutherans. But that’s not what the letter is saying at all. First of all, James says quite rightly that all the good we do comes from God. We can rejoice when we do good, but we can’t take credit for it. The credit goes to God. Secondly, he says that it isn’t enough to just hear God’s word. Hearing has to be turned into action. He uses a lovely metaphor of looking in a mirror. As soon as one walks away from the mirror, the image is forgotten. That’s like someone who comes to church on Sunday to confess sins, then spends the rest of the week committing another whole list of sins to confess the next Sunday.

Jesus is more pointed in his condemnation. The religious leaders of his day had created a whole list of rules that they thought would lead to salvation. So they questioned why Jesus’ followers did not obey them. Jesus didn’t spare his words. He called them hypocrites, and proceeded to overturn all of their carefully regulated rituals for eating. “Don’t worry about what you eat or how you eat it,” he told the crowd. “Worry about what comes out of your mouth, not what goes into it. What comes out of your mouth reveals who you really are.” Just in case they missed the point, he gave a long list of evil thoughts that come from the heart.

I’m always reluctant to talk politics from the pulpit, although in a presidential election year it’s hard not to. Don’t worry; I’m not going to promote either party. But I think today’s lessons are really political in nature, especially when so much religious language has become part of our political scene. Do those who speak in the name of religion bridle their tongues? Do they truly care for the orphans and widows, or do they do whatever will please the wealthy donors of whatever stripe? Do they protect those who are most vulnerable, or cater to those who are most valuable to themselves? We hear a lot of what those seeking political office believe. How do their actions reveal who they really are inside?

You’ll be happy to know that the priest in the opening story is no longer at that parish. He has taken his conflict-creating skills elsewhere. As far as I know, he still talks one way and acts another. That’s not the way of Jesus. Jesus says that what we do is just as important as what we believe, because it shows what is going on in our hearts. That’s why I’m glad our church is having its third annual community picnic next week. They are a loving group of people. They forgive those that get on their nerves. And they like to cook and eat. Next week they will take that love of Christ to the park across the street and feed anyone and everyone who comes. They won’t care if people have washed their hands, or even their bodies. They won’t mind if they come back for seconds. Democrats might even feed Republicans, and vice versa. That this will happen means that they have heard Jesus and invited him into their hearts. They are doers, not just hearers. James himself would be proud!

[Pentecost 14: James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23.]

Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?

Somehow we have gotten the idea that the life of faith should be easy. I suppose that’s the result of living in a consumer culture. Some churches go right along with that idea. They use surveys and focus groups to determine just what combination of enticements will lure people into a building they don’t even call a church. Even I sometimes think that if only we had an espresso machine and really good food, people would prefer church to Starbucks.

We succumb to that outlook because there’s some truth in it. We know that people are consumers of religious services, and if they don’t like what our church provides they’ll go to another. We also live in a culture of entertainment where we expect to be passive participants. The “songs” should be musically simple and make us feel good. The “message” should make life easier.

For the most part, churches have many more people on the membership roll than attend each week. It’s easier to become a member than it is to get off the roster. But I have always been intrigued by churches that do just the opposite. They welcome anyone and everyone, but those who want to become members have more expected of them. They must commit time and money and be open to serious spiritual growth. As a result, there are fewer actual members than people attending. Such churches almost seem like New Testament communities.

This Sunday we finally hear the end of the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. Each week Jesus has been speaking more and more bluntly, until at last his listeners can’t take it anymore. They don’t want hear about eating his flesh and drinking his blood any more than we would if we didn’t know the “code” to translate his words into communion bread and wine. Jesus was just plain offensive. It almost seemed like he didn’t care because he already knew who was going to walk away. He even asked the Twelve, “You don’t want to leave too, do you?” Simon Peter spoke for all of them. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Say whatever you want, Lord. Be as offensive as you wish. We don’t have any other choice but to stay here with you, because we know that eternal life comes from no one else. It’s true that Peter and the others would run away from the Cross, but that’s because they were afraid of death, not offended by what Jesus said.

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Those are haunting words. I think about those words every time someone tells me that church starts too early on a day made for sleeping in. Or when an out-of-town sports event claims priority. Or when the lure of fresh coffee and the Sunday newspaper make it hard to get out of the house. I understand all of those temptations, because I once succumbed to them. None of them is a proper response to Peter’s question.

We can’t escape our culture. Even if we rebel against it, we are part of it. But we can challenge the assumption that church and life itself should be all about feeling good. Faith is difficult. Life is challenging. There’s no getting around that. Whatever happens, however, we have that knowledge, that rock, expressed by Peter:  we have come to believe and know that Jesus Christ is the Holy One of God. With that knowledge, we can face anything – even a church without an espresso machine.

[Pentecost 13: John 6:56-69.]

I Will Raise Them Up

Imagine that you were one of the first white settlers to travel to Iowa from the East in the early nineteenth century. You would have left friends and family and civilization behind in Philadelphia or New York City and headed west on horseback or covered wagon. It would take days just to get to the Appalachian Mountains, and then you’d have to struggle up and over them. The entire time you’d be traveling through forest. Occasionally a few clouds might be visible overhead. Most of the time, though, all you would see is the trail disappearing a few hundred feet in front of you. Then one day, weeks later, the land would start to open up, and suddenly you’d find yourself in the blinding sun. A sea of grass would stretch into the distance farther than you’ve ever seen before. You’d come to a river wider than any you’d ever seen and wonder how you were going to cross it.

Today if you drive across the same route, you get a little flavor of that journey, although it would be a lot faster. Much of the forest has become farmland, and instead of trails you’d be motoring on four-lane highways. But that last stretch on Route 34 from Monmouth is still a two-lane highway through some very flat and largely uninhabited land (except for Biggsville!). If you didn’t know where you were, you might think you’re nowhere. And then suddenly, Burlington appears in front of you. The wide river is still there, but this time there’s a bright new bridge to take you easily across.

When we travel now, we’re used to knowing where we’re going, and even what to expect when we get there. Travel has become so routine that interruptions or changes are experienced as a lot of hassle. Our expectations are not being met.

I think that complacent familiarity of travel is true of our spiritual journey as well. We think we know where we’re going and what is expected of us. But sometimes God has a different idea. We expect level ground when there’s a mountain ahead. We get used to plodding along, and then the trees part and we get a blinding vision of what lies ahead.

Sunday’s Gospel reading is that kind of journey. Jesus has been repeatedly saying that he is the bread of life, come down from heaven. Today he puts some teeth in that. Literally. When his listeners start arguing among themselves how he can give them his flesh to eat, Jesus makes it all concrete. He starts using a word that literally means chew or gnaw, not just eat. It’s a signal that this is not just all a metaphor, something “spiritual.” He’s talking about real food. He’s talking about the Eucharist, the one we celebrate every week that brings the Body and Blood of Jesus into us. Suddenly everyone is in a place they didn’t expect to be.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He has already said that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will live forever. Today he adds that he will raise them up on the last day. He will raise them up. This is not just an earthly journey. It has another, more profound dimension. The blinding light of God bursts in from above. In Jesus Christ, eternity has broken into the present moment.

God’s breaking into our lives happens every time we celebrate the Eucharist. The writer Annie Dillard famously compared churches to “children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT…We should all be wearing crash helmets,” she said. “Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.” There is more power here than we know about. Jesus shows us a vision of the future, and we still have our eyes on the ground, looking for stones in the path.

I’m glad we no longer have to travel by horse and buggy. Like most people, I’m in a hurry to get there, wherever it is. I find I have to use cruise control so I don’t speed. I get so caught up in where I’m going that I overlook the journey itself. It’s only in the present moments of that journey, however, that eternity breaks in, that God comes to us. And when it does, it blinds us with its brilliance. We can see farther than we’ve ever seen before. It’s only a glimpse, but it’s there for us to see. And it comes to us week by week in the Eucharist. may we always be filled with that power so that we have the strength to continue on the journey, transformed by the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

[Pentecost 12: John 6:51-58.]

Bread of Life

[Note: This is the text of the sermon for Sunday, August 12.]

This is the first time I have stood before you since I sent a letter saying that I have been called to be the Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Davenport. I told the vestry and staff in person, and the response I generally got was, “How wonderful for you! Oh, wait…that means you’ll be leaving. How sad for us!” I have to admit that my response is pretty much the same: excitement at the adventure which will soon begin, regret that it means leaving all of you. I have said before, and no doubt I will say again, that without my three years at Christ Church I could not even consider becoming the dean of a cathedral. I have learned a lot on our short journey together, and together we have made this a better place. I have always maintained that this was your parish before I came, and will be yours when I leave. I just didn’t expect to leave so soon!

Many of you have been coming to this church for a long time. At our staff meeting this week, Deacon George mentioned that he has worked with six different rectors. (I’m not sure whether he was bragging or complaining!) That kind of long-term commitment is one of the strengths of Christ Church. Another is the fact that it is an Episcopal church, one in which the liturgy carries a lot of the weight of worship. Who leads the service does matter; I know that many of you are attuned to the content and especially the length of the sermon, for instance. But even if the sermon is not to your liking, Jesus is still here. Jesus comes to us in the people around us. Most importantly, Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist that we celebrate every week.

At the moment we are smack in the middle of hearing the entire sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, which is all about Eucharist. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus says. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Taken at face value, that sounds ridiculous. It surely did to some who knew Jesus when he was a boy, crawling around in the sawdust of Joseph’s carpentry shop. Typically, John refers to these scoffers as “the Jews,” his term for the religious leaders who rejected Jesus. Given that Jesus and his disciples were also Jews, it is clearly not intended as the ethnic term we use today.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” Jesus said. What does that mean? What does it mean when the priest asks God to sanctify bread and wine so they become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ? Anglicans wisely refuse to give a definite answer to that question. “Christ is really present in the bread and wine,” we say, without spelling out the details. We treat the elements reverently but we don’t worship them. We know Jesus is somehow present, and that’s enough explanation.

Trained as a scientist, I like definite answers and logical explanations. On the other hand, I know when I encounter mystery, something that is beyond science’s way of knowing. Jesus is both. There is the human element of his time on earth, something we can relate to through our own humanity. There is also the divine element drawing us toward the eternal. We eat bread and drink wine, but we also have something more, something greater, something that binds us to God and to one another.

That something, that Jesus, transcends you and me. It also connects us. When we come to the Eucharist, we are connected to all those who have come before us at Christ Church, and all those who will follow us. Even when I am no longer present, I will be with you here in the Eucharist, just as you will be with me at every Eucharist at Trinity Cathedral. It is the blessing that God has given us through Jesus Christ. Remember that blessing, that gift, in the midst of this time of transition that we are all about to enter.

[Pentecost 11: John 6:35, 41-51.]