Sermon at St. George's, Maplewood, December 15 2013

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

This poem of Emily Dickinson is immortal, though mostly we hear just the first line.  It speaks nicely to the strangeness of hope, to the strange blend of fragility and resilience that hope carries.
In the Church, we name Advent as the season of hope.  But this hope is as elusive as Dickinson’s thing with feathers.  For what, exactly, do we hope?  Is hope really a thing with an object at all?
Hope is not the same as wishing, for all that we use it that way.  We say, “I’m hoping for a bike for Christmas,” when we mean we want it, we wish for it, we even expect it.  But hope is not any of those.
We don't hope "for" things.  We hope "that" - the object of hope is an occurrence, a state of affairs, a way of being.  We hope that hunger and thirst might come to an end.  We hope that injustice and oppression might come to an end.  The object of hope is a whole world, not just an object within a world.
Hope is not based on evidence.  In the first letter of Peter we hear that we should always be ready to give a reason for the hope that lives within us, but that reason is not scientific proof.  We hope in spite of what we see, but hope transforms the landscape so that we begin to see differently.  We see signs of life where we had only seen death and destruction.

We see an example of this wild hope in our reading from Isaiah.
The first half of the book of Isaiah is mostly a prophecy of doom.  Judah will be destroyed.  But interspersed with the doom are glimmers of light, such as today’s reading.  This reading would make sense if we were later in the book, when the exiles are returning home.  But here it’s out of place, out of time.
But hope is always like that.  If it were in place, in the right time, it wouldn’t be hope.  It would be the way things are.  We need hope when the way things are isn’t enough.  Hope lets us see the world that could be, can be, in the midst of the world that is.
And hope is what gives us the strength to make that world real.  Hope is a spring that renews us in the midst of desert waste.  Hope is what gets us up and on our feet again.
It is the hope that things might be better that transforms slaves into freedom fighters and eventually into free people.  As we mourn Nelson Mandela, we continue to learn from him the power of hope.
The brutality of apartheid in South Africa was as deep as the Roman occupation of Palestine had been in Jesus’ time.  The people were treated as less than human, not only to be exploited but to be denied basic human dignity.  There was plenty of reason to be angry, and plenty of anger.  Nelson Mandela entered the resistance movement and, like John the Baptist, spoke strongly and clearly against the rulers.  And, like John, he found himself in prison, isolated, forced to perform meaningless brutal labor.  He had no reason to hope, but he did.  He knew the story of what God had done, what God could do, and the divine spark in him claimed that another miracle could happen in South Africa.  Somehow, during those endless years, the seed of wisdom and love grew in him.  He befriended his guards, treating them as humans even when they did not reciprocate.  He became a voice, not for giving in, but for finding a new way.
When he was released, many whites feared that they would be hounded out of the country they had been raised in.  Many blacks hoped that Mandela would indeed lead them to throw out the oppressors.  But here Mandela surprised both black and white.
He entered prison like John the Baptist, but he came out like Jesus.  He came out just as committed to freedom, but he came out joyful and loving.  He came out committed to healing for his nation.
And so many wondered.  Was he perhaps not the one they had waited for after all?  Where was the warrior who would avenge the years of oppression?  Are you the one who is to come, or must we wait for another?
Now, we are not living in South Africa.  We are, however, living in a society increasingly divided between extreme rich and poor, a country with income inequality greater than all other developed countries.  We are becoming a country of two separate societies, held together by a myth that anyone can make it if they try.
What has separated us from other countries with extreme inequality is precisely the hope that it is possible to move up.  When hope wears thin, however, violence and repression become increasingly attractive.  Some of us remember the riots of the 1960s.  Parts of Newark have never recovered from that loss of hope.
In those situations, it’s not enough to just wish away the blues.  it’s not enough to tell people to try harder.  You have to give them hope, and that hope has to be real.  Nelson Mandela, like Martin Luther King Jr., gave people hope.  Around them, the reign of God could break into a room and shine among them.
I imagine being around Jesus was like that.  Lots of healing, lots of forgiveness, lots of naming and claiming without blaming.  Lots of people coming to feel they could be free, not only of the Roman occupation but of the hatred and fear in their souls.
But John was confused.  Jesus was not acting like his picture of a messiah, and so he almost missed it.
The other day I was looking for a book on my shelves.  We moved recently, and when I didn't find it I became afraid it had been given away.  I was certain I knew what it looked like, and I couldn't find it.  I looked three times.
On the fourth try I finally found it.  It was right where it belonged, but the cover looked different than I had remembered it.  I couldn't see it because it  wasn't what I was expecting.
where might Jesus be acting within you and among you?  Is there a chance you are missing him right in front of you?
You don't have to wait for Christmas and a baby.  Jesus is here, now, at work.  Just look, and share what you see.

Advent again

It was almost a year ago that I moved up here and the Companions took the next step into existence.  We keep taking the next step, and it seems just methodical and orderly, until someone says, "I can't believe how far you've come so fast!"  And then I see it's true.  It's one thing to name steps toward "birth" - our own commitments, forming covenants, forming a corporation to receive donations, starting a network of companions.  It's another to actually see so much happen.

God is in those events, I know, energizing and guiding us.  But plans and steps can easily become a matter of our own will, unguided by God. So today, early in Advent, I give thanks for those moments when we have paused, prayed, and waited.  Without that, we will just be another project - and likely one that flames out.

In the past year, we've had several people express interest in a close relationship, though not residential, or not yet.  That's exciting - we want people to be curious and hungry.  But now we're in a new place.  People are starting to ask in that serious way, the way that comes with tears and tremors and nervous laughter.  We're in the territory of the holy.  And that is not a place we can plan.  We can take steps - we must - but we cannot know what God intends for those seekers, or for us.  We have to paused, pray, and wait.

In a lovely meditation, Paula Gooder explores Sarai's decision to have Hagar bear a child by Abraham.  She couldn't wait for God's promise to manifest, so she engineered a "solution" that ended with heartache and rivalry and distrust.  It's a wonderful reminder of what can happen when we turn from following the path of trust.  In this tender, ever-new, ever-emerging place, plans must be held like butterflies.  If we are patient, the butterfly will show us who she is.  If we rush, she will fly away or die in our tight fist.

I give thanks for an amazing year, for God's spirit and strength - and I pray to pause, pray, and wait in the coming year.

Blessed Advent to everyone!

Our Covenant

I'm excited that today we posted our covenant on this page.  We will have covenant groups soon, to help companions live the lives we are called to live.  We have said at each stage that we will listen for God rather than choose rules or shapes of community, and something is beginning to emerge.

Thanks to our fabulous Dream Team for walking with us and speaking their desires, and for committing to next steps.  We may not be big as residential numbers go, but we are making a difference in the world together.  Thanks to all of you who are following us and cheering us on.  I hope that now we will start to feed you in turn, and that together we will light up the world.

Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine!

Finally, back

     I can't believe I haven't written for a month and a half - but then again, of course I can.  If you get our newsletter you know what's been going on, so I won't rehearse that.  Instead, I want to reflect on how good it is to be home, in our new home, and how much further I have to go toward leading a balanced life.
     We all have seasons of quiet, and seasons of expansion in our lives.  This past year has been a huge process of expansion for me, for us.  Just last January we moved in together and began our life as Companions of Mary the Apostle.  Just last January, I have to keep reminding myself.  We trusted that ministry opportunities would come, that people would find us and respond to our message of hope.  But we had no idea what we were in for.
     We have grown faster and further than we had any idea, or any plan for.  You who read this are part of that network.  I am grateful, but it's easy to get overwhelmed.  It's easy to rush to respond to any request, any offer to serve.  It's very validating.
     But since July, since our clothing, we've been saying we need to step back and focus more on our own formation as monastic women.  We need to prioritize our reading and reflection and prayer and worship (including music practice).  But then week follows week and one or the other of us is out of town, or leading a retreat.  Or we're moving, and everything but the worship and meal schedule falls apart.  Because we're so small, if one of us is gone, life for the other is dramatically different.
     Can you relate to any of this?  We say something is a priority, but then "life happens."  Really, we let it happen.  We decide that unpacking is more important than doing Bible study together.  We decide that we need the retreat to be good - we need to look good before the retreatants - more than we need to practice our chants.
     On Monday I returned from leading my latest retreat.  I spent three days unpacking and arranging, cleaning, reading Sandra Schneiders' new book, and doing centering prayer.  By yesterday I began to feel like myself again - not driven, not praying to God just to hang on, but centered and renewed in God.  This morning, we said again that our formation has to come first this year.  We will meet for three days this month to plan that, and we will commit to it.
     So please pray for us.  Pray that we might be the women we say we are, the women we believe God calls us to be - women of prayer, who have a word to bring because we listen deeply to God.  Pray that we learn, not balance, but centeredness in all we do.  Pray that I can let my ego get out of the way.  And let us know what prayers you need.
     Thank you for your prayers and support.  It means so much to me when I see that we are being read in some far-away place, and when I hear from people close to home.  Be blessed today!

Forgive us our debts - Sermon at the Church of Christ the King, Stone Ridge NY, 9/22/2013

I’m glad to be here with you.  Thank you for welcoming me.  But I suspect a plot.  Trying to make sense of this parable may explain why Alison took vacation this week.  The parable of the unjust steward, or the dishonest manager, has long been one of the scandalous stories told by Jesus.  Generations of people have scratched their heads to understand how the master could commend the manager for giving away what belonged to the master.  If Jesus is trying to teach us about faithful stewardship, he has a weird way of going about it.

In fact, though, this parable goes to the heart of Jesus’ teaching about God and about how we should live our lives.

Jesus has been talking to the Pharisees about God’s preference for the lost, those called “sinners” by the respectable crowd.  He tells them about the lost coin, and the lost sheep.  He tells them the story of the prodigal son, and of the son who cannot forgive his brother.  And then he tells this parable.

It’s no accident.  This is a story about forgiveness.

The manager is a sinner.  No doubt about it.  And he’s been caught.  Now he is called before the master.  And he knows he has no defense.  He cannot justify what he’s done.  All he can do is cushion the blow when it comes.

How can he do that?  He knows other people who are indebted to the master.  He calls them in and forgives them their debts.  Not all of them, maybe - that’s not up to him alone - but he lessens their burden.  And lo and behold, he is forgiven as he forgives others.

But why would the master approve this behavior?  Isn’t the manager taking what isn’t his?  In our world, of course, that’s how property works.  I may make friends by sharing stolen goods, but I wouldn’t expect the rightful owner to approve.

But the owner - that is, God - sees that the manager is learning an important lesson.  He’s learning that relationships matter more than money.  By forgiving others, he is building relationships that will sustain him when the money runs out.

It’s telling here that Luke uses the same word to describe the debts in this story as he does in the Lord’s Prayer.  That’s why some churches say “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”  Relationships sustain us, and relationships require forgiveness.

In our society, this is a lesson we have forgotten.  Over the past century we have become more and more reliant on our own resources, and less and less connected to one another.  Extended family networks have become strained as generations live far apart from one another, and neighbors are often just people whose cars we see in the street.  We do not expect help, and we do not expect to help.  We expect to pay our way.

But the truth is that none of us can earn our way into the places that matter.  We are all indebted to the Source of Being.  We all fall short at times.  We fail one another, even as we try to serve.  We all need a little help with our bill.  And the way we get it is by cutting the bills of others.

Elsewhere, Jesus tells the disciples that whatever they bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever they loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  This is not the prerogative only of the clergy, though we have an important role to play in speaking for the church.  Any of us, any member of the church, has this power.  And all of us, as Jesus tells Peter just afterward, have the obligation to forgive.  Over and over.

  Let me read you another version of this parable, as told by Eugene Peterson.  After describing the manager’s action, Jesus says:

“Now here’s a surprise.  The master praised the crooked manager.  And why?  Because he knew how to look after himself.  Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens.  They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits.  I want you to be smart in this same way - but for what is right - using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.”

Really living means going beyond good behavior.  And it means going beyond socially sanctioned ways of living without regard for one another.  It means letting go of our love of money and control.   Really living means recognizing our need for one another, and admitting the ways we let one another down.  It means forgiving debts of all kinds.

Now, we don't usually do this until we're in a corner.  Forgiving always feels like loss at first.  But as we do it, we find that we gain so much - reconnecting, ease in our hearts, trust.  Holding on to a grudge or a debt in fact keeps us impoverished.  We may have the IOU, we may be entitled to satisfaction, but we aren't going to get it until we let go.  We can serve money, and fear, and our rights.  Or we can serve God, who longs for reconciliation and relationship.

The problem with the "children of light," the good students, the achievers, the righteous ones, is that the richest parts of our lives are lived outside the box.  Like the older brother of the prodigal, the children of light can be blinded by their own rules and sense of justice.  I don't mean that justice is unimportant.  I mean the sense of justice, especially of my own rightness, will not carry me into the presence of God.

The dishonest manager has learned that wealth cannot protect him. Mercy, forgiveness, creativity, connection - these are the lifeblood of our relations with God and with one another.

In God's world, everything is upside down.  We gain by losing.  We receive by giving away. Hoarding, what looks prudent from the standpoint of the society, turns out to be foolishness in God's world.

We cannot pay our debts.  But we can ease them by forgiving one another, making others' debts lighter.  Let's start today.

Lost and Found: Sermon at the Monastery, 9/15/2013

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now I’m found,

was blind, but now I see.

A while ago I read a book about being wrong.  The starting point was the author’s recognition that we can never take in being wrong.  We just can’t.  We can see how we used to be wrong, even one second ago; but we cannot, in this second, coherently say or think, “I am wrong.”  Every statement is an affirmation.  “I am wrong” means “I know this much; I’m wrong.”  So even saying “I am wrong” amounts to saying “I’m right about my wrongness.  I know my wrongness.”  I can’t really know that I’m wrong until after I’ve left that wrong place for another place I take to be true.

If this is true, it makes the work of being lost and found much more confusing than the hymn suggests.

You might think some lostness is obvious.  People who are killing themselves with alcohol or drugs surely know they’re lost?  Not necessarily.  Part of addiction is denial, which is another name for lostness.  Until that moment when our vision changes, we cannot see ourselves as seriously lost.  

It’s especially hard to see our lostness when our way is rewarded by the world around us.  When we’re making lots of money, when we go to the best schools and can send our children there in turn, when we succeed in our goals, when our houses are big and well furnished - how could we be lost? 

Ah, but we who come to the monastery know better.  We come because we know, somehow, that those values are not the measure of the world.  We can see the lostness behind the achievement and the material wealth.  

Likewise, those who enter ordained life are able to see the limits of those choices, to see the lost souls in our congregations.  

Aren’t we lucky to be so smart?

We go to church regularly, and serve on its committees, and share in outreach - surely we aren’t lost?  And if we’re ordained, and shepherding souls, and praying regularly - aren’t we lucky to be found?  And we monastics, who have left everything to follow Christ - aren't we blessed?

There are so many ways to be lost.

I remember two conversations that send me back to reality, to God.

I remember Brother Scott saying, “If the Church is a hospital for sinners, then the monasteries are the ICU.”

I remember my former spiritual director saying that God called him to the priesthood because standing in the front of the class was the only way to be sure he’d get the message.

Those two conversations remind me that I am not here because I’m right.  I’m here because I’m not all there.

When I felt the call to the priesthood, part of my despair was my awareness that I must not be as healed and whole as I liked to think. 

I was already a nun, and I knew a lot of priests.  They were gifted and caring, and mostly lost.  I knew that my sisters, likewise, were not wiser or holier than those who came to us for help.  We were mostly there because we were lost.

So being here today, whether for life or for the weekend, does not make us less lost.

We may be righteous, we may be living good lives and loving God, and still be lost.

That’s who Jesus is talking to, after all.  He’s talking to the religious leaders, those doing their best to follow God’s way.  Their lostness shows up in their certainty about themselves, and their judgment of others.

We should notice here that Jesus is not talking about whether we’re sinful.  Sinning is one way to be lost.  But the problem for some of us is that  we are lost in our righteousness.  We can’t see the limits of our practices and our understandings.   

The righteous form of lostness is not, I think, intrinsically worse than other forms of lostness.  It is, however, more dangerous.  

The first danger is that others will be harmed by my judgments, that I might cut them off from human community.  

The other danger is to myself.  I cut myself off, from others and from God, and put an idol in God’s place.  I am so deluded that I offer myself as a guide to others, and lead them astray in turn.

It’s partly because we can’t know our lostness that we need community.  Sometimes I am so certain I’m right I just can’t find my way out.  Someone needs to come and get me.  I give thanks every day for Elizabeth, my sister in Christ.  I say something that seems obvious or given to me, and she’ll say, “Really?  That’s not how it seems to me.”  And because I trust and respect her, I find myself looking for where I might have left the path.  I look around and see if I can see God from where I am.  If I can’t, or if the God I’ve got in my sights doesn’t look quite right, I need to turn back and retrace my steps.  I need to start over.  

Fortunately, God does not have to wait for us to figure out that we’re lost.  The woman searches for the coin and rejoices, even though the coin is not thinking anything.  The shepherd rejoices to find the sheep, even if the sheep is thinking, “Put me down!”  God is so hungry for us that she reaches past our blindness and touches us.  Those moments when we realize our lostness do not precede the grace of God; they are gifts of God.  God searches for us and rejoices when we turn back.

And yet, even here, God does not insist.  

We are not sheep, or coins, to be grabbed.  We are created with free will, and God honors that.  God will call, and whisper, and even stick out a foot to trip us up, but God will not insist on our turning back.  So how much more does God rejoice when we, of our free will, return the love that is offered us?

Being lost and found is not a one-time event.  It is a constant dynamic in our relationship with God.  And just when we’re certain we’ve got it, we can be pretty sure we’re lost again.  It’s time to turn back.

So I want to propose another verse for Amazing Grace:

Amazing grace, come search me out,

come save your wandering sheep!

I’m lost, I’m found, I’m lost again,

please don’t give up on me.

Music that makes community

Elizabeth and I went to a wonderful workshop last week.  It's called Music That Makes Community.  It's offered about four times a year by the All Saints Company.  Their goal is to foster group singing with paperless music as a way to build community.  I had their songbook, Music By Heart, already, but it's hard to start with just - paper.  The workshop gave us an intensive introduction to leading group singing, to writing our own songs (!), to using music more freely in worship.  So basically we sang for two days.  Awesome.


We composed songs this way: people chose Bible verses and put them on the wall.  We picked one and made up a tune for it.  Easy!  My verse was, "I will make their waters clear, and their streams to flow like oil" (Ezek. 32:14).  Just one line.  I wanted it to sound like water running, and so I made a tune.  I felt silly, with just one simple line.  Other people went first, with beautiful harmonies and parts.  I didn't want to share.  But I did.  The next thing I knew, they were singing it as a round.  I had composed a round, and I didn't even know it!  And it was beautiful.

I learned in a deep, new way that communities are smarter, more gifted, than the individuals in them.  They are more gifted than the most gifted individuals alone.  If I can trust the community, miracles will happen.

Now we're home, and I'm thinking about how and where to use what I've learned.  I'm heading off next week to a meeting of the Executive Council Committee on the Status of Women (say that three times fast!), and we will do some there.  Then I come home to lead a retreat for women, and we'll do some there.  And I'm really nervous.  Singing in our churches is so drenched with performance, with organs, with paper, I'm afraid that others won't let themselves fall into the joy and ease of singing just to sing.

But I'm doing it.  Nothing could be worse than not trying.  Then we're guaranteed not to change.

So sing your own song today.  Today, as part of your time with the Bible, pick a verse and make up a tune for it.  Sing it in the shower, in the car, in - church!

I'm trying to learn how to record my song.  When I do, I'll post it here.  I'd love to hear yours, if you make them.  Until then, sing to God a new song!

Standing at my own empty tomb

Today is special for me.  On August 8, 1985, I took my last drink.  I was 28 years old.  Today, I've been sober half of my life.  I can only begin to describe the gratitude and wonder I feel.

When I stopped, I wasn't fully convinced I was an alcoholic.  I did know a few things, though.  I knew that I was from an alcoholic family.  I had watched my father struggle to go to work, be part of the family, hold up his end of life while alcohol ate at him.

I knew I was miserable.  I had dropped out of graduate school and was working at the local Kmart.  That left me plenty of room to drink, but it wasn't much of a life.  I had a partner, who had just stopped drinking.  I had no idea how to make and keep friends, how to feel a part of things.

What made me show up that day was the realization that if I didn't change my life I would end up like my father.  I would not be lucky enough to die young.  I was facing another 50 years of isolation and misery.  Whether I worked at Kmart or the university, I would be alone and desperate.  And I wanted to be happy.

I didn't believe in God.  All I knew was that people in the rooms I went to were happy and loving, and I was not.  I wanted what they had.  So I did what they said to do.  I got on my knees, and prayed to whatever it was.  Gradually I was able to see where I had been carried, where I had been saved from myself.  And one day, in my room, I felt God's energy of love and peace flow through me.  I knew that was God, and it knew me.

That was a long time ago.  But from that beginning, I have found a life so rich, so powerful, so joyful that no words suffice.  Eucharistic prayers come closest.  Icons of the Transfiguration, of Jesus filled with light, come close.

Every day I give "glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine."  And every day I offer myself to that God, to work with me and through me and on me.

And now I know, no matter how good it is, it will get better if I keep going.

It gets better.  Really.

Thanks be to God for all of you who carried me at every stage - to Bob, Skip, Kaile, Pam, Fran, Anne, Suki, the Daytop kids, and all of you who carry the message every day.  You saved, you save, my life.

Sermon, Feast of Mary the Apostle, 2013

     If you didn’t know before today that the Companions of Mary the Apostle are a new kind of women’s community, you can see it today.  At the same time, this Eucharist is a testimony to how much we need and depend on our brothers and sisters who have gone before us.  Elizabeth and I are to be clothed today, yet you have given us this place of honor.  We are experienced and ordained members of the Church, yet for all our experience and knowledge, we are only standing here now because you invited and welcomed us.  Thank you.

Having said that, let me say that I’ve changed my mind.  I don’t want to preach today.  It’s simply too big.  But I said I would.  So let me tell you what makes Mary so precious, so big in my mind.  Let me tell you why I want to be a companion of Mary the Apostle.

The first reason Mary matters to me is because I am a woman.  The treatment given her reflects the treatment given to women by the Church.  In reclaiming her, I claim women’s authority.

The early Church Fathers - I emphasize that title - conflated her with other women so that she became known as a prostitute.  Legends of her endless penance in the desert vie with almost pornographic depictions of her in Renaissance and later art.  Somehow she could never really be redeemed, really be forgiven, really convert.  The treatment given to her made clear that women’s bodies are not part of the new creation.

The other set of legends about her actually coalesce with these others.  It’s become fashionable to suggest that Mary and Jesus were secretly married and had children.  This is somehow supposed to be feminist, or liberating.  But it continues the theme that women’s discipleship must confront their bodies in a way that men’s does not.  In fact, it’s not far from saying she slept with the boss to get her promotion!

The reality of the love between Mary and Jesus, the love between Jesus and any disciple, is so much greater than any shape we can give it.  The generative love that creates new disciples is its own beauty.  It does not need to be sexualized just because the disciple is female.

Now, you may think that in a church with a female Presiding Bishop and many female leaders we don’t need to emphasize gender anymore.  This is suspiciously like the Supreme Court’s argument that with a Black President we no longer need the Voting Rights Act.  In fact, the deeper struggle is just emerging.  This is the struggle over the gender of God.  As long as God is named and treated as masculine, women will struggle to find and keep their places.  As long as women’s place in the story of the Church is distorted or hidden, each generation of women will have to discover it anew.

So the first reason that Mary matters to me is because her fate and mine are intertwined as women.  But she is not just the first woman apostle.  She is the first apostle of the resurrection.  She is the sign of healing and discipleship and new creation.  

In Mary we see the full transformation of human nature.  We see the path of recovery, of healing, of new creation in Christ.  She’s not the only disciple in whom we see that transformation, but she is the one who stands twice at the doors of resurrection.  She stands at the empty tomb, but before that she stands at the site of her own renewal, her own chance at new life.

When Mary Magdalene was healed, she began a journey that took her where she could never imagine going.  She saw signs and wonders, and she heard her rabbi talk about the reign of God.  She saw the glory shining in him.  Through him she gained a new family, a new community.  Through him she saw herself transformed from former nut case to apostle.

Mary was a twice-born soul.  She was healed, and she loved her rabbi.  She watched him die, and she saw him risen.  She told others, who didn’t believe her.  She was urged on by the love of Christ.  She was transfigured as surely as Jesus had been, part of the new creation.  She knew the deeper joy that comes with the second chance.

I think most of us who end up in rooms like this chapel have a moment when we reach the end of our limited resources, a moment when we realize that God really can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.   Over time, if we keep praying and living the life, we find that God does infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.  In that, we are soul-mates with Mary Magdalene.  

In fact, we might call Mary a thrice-born soul.  She began her life, and at some point she fell prey to demons.  Then she was healed, and her second life began.  And then that life was endangered, as she saw her Savior die on a cross.  That Good Friday must have been a death for her as well as for Jesus.  The one who had saved her had not been saved from death.

And then she goes to the tomb.  She sees an absence that she cannot understand.  Then she experiences joy beyond reason.  Her third life begins here.  She learns that even the grave cannot stop the love of Christ.  From now on, she lives not with him, but for him and in him.  As an apostle, she shares the ministry of reconciliation that is the gift of the Church.

Today Elizabeth and I step further into another life.  The last six months have been months of unimaginable joy and discovery.  The next period I trust will be deeper, and different, but just as powerful and transformative as any that have gone before.  

I know that we can face any challenge, because the God who saved me once, the God who carried me on each step, is still here.  And I know, somehow, that we bring a message to you in turn.  With Mary may we all be able to say, “I have seen the Lord.” 

Mary and Martha sermon, July 2013

What a joy it is to be back with you at Redeemer today.  And how wonderful to be here with the story of Mary and Martha, two powerful women who were close to Jesus.  We meet them again in the Gospel of John, where Martha declares Jesus to be the Messiah.  There we meet the same pair: Martha tells Jesus what’s on her mind, and rants at him for not saving her brother Lazarus, while Mary comes running and is seemingly more deferential to him.  I love Martha’s familiarity with Jesus, her willingness to tell him what’s up.  She reminds me of Teresa of Avila, who loved God and founded dozens of convents.  She could still tell God during hard times, “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them!”

Yes, I love Martha.  I also love Mary.  I love her desire to know and listen like the men, her willingness to defy convention and sit with Jesus instead of serving in the kitchen.

What I don’t love is the way these two wonderful women get pitted against one another in the Church.  We hear that this story is about the contemplative life versus the active one.  Monks and nuns love that version.  Or we hear that it’s about knowing how much is enough.  That fits with our culture’s obsession with more, and speaks nicely to it.  But there’s much more going on here.

Mary and Martha are stand-ins for a fight between groups of men in the early Church.  As the Church grew, people started to organize for physical needs as well as spiritual ones.  As the dispute grew, the twelve apostles said, “It’s not right for us to neglect our study to wait on tables.  But someone has to.  So let’s appoint some people to do this work.”  The result was the first deacons.  The word, deacon, comes from the Greek word for service.  It is the word for what Martha is doing.

But Luke couldn’t tell us a story about Jesus coming to a home where a man served.  The man of the house would be expected to be with Jesus.  The women would be in the kitchen.  So in Luke’s telling, the deacon’s role falls to a woman.

Martha is doing important work.  She’s doing work that later people are ordained for, caring for the physical needs of the community.  

So the problem is not that Martha is thinking about dinner.  Someone has to!  The problem is not that her dinner is too elaborate, as some people say - though this comes closer to the core.

The problem is how and why Martha is doing her work.  

The question is how and why we do our work.

Hospitality is the number one priority in pre-modern cultures, and still in poorer areas.  Hospitality may be the difference between safety and death, or between comfort and hunger.  Without the promise of hospitality, people could never leave their homes for more than a day.  

And welcoming others is, in those cultures, both an obligation and an honor.  Even if it means changing all our plans and killing calves and laying out a feast, it’s expected.  

In this case, Jesus is traveling with a group.   It would have been quite an enterprise to feed all those people, and quite an honor.  Imagine - the Teacher is staying with us!

But I imagine that it’s easy to let that go to your head.  It’s easy to think that you have to measure up, to be the best host ever, to show off.  The neighbors will want to know the menu - you have to keep up appearances.

If that is in our head, then our hospitality is really not about our guests at all.  It’s about us.  If my welcome of you is so focused on impressing you that I never listen to you, I’m not welcoming you at all.  You’re my target, not my guest.

And it’s clear that this happens for Martha.  Jesus becomes first a target, and then a tool.

Part of hospitality is easing people’s burdens.  This means giving them water to wash and to drink, and food to eat, but it also means giving them a place to relax and lay down their problems.

But Martha has broken the code.  She has violated hospitality by drawing Jesus into her dispute with her sister.  She’s got her plans for the meal, and Mary has let her down.  So she tries to get Jesus to intervene.  

In contemporary psychology, this is known as triangling.  “Tell my wife to give me the car!”  “Would you ask Jimmy if he likes me?”  “Let me tell you what’s wrong with my boss, or my partner, or my lover, or my parents, or my children.”  And Jesus does what priests and other counselors are advised to do - he refuses to get in between them.

I wonder what’s up between Martha and Mary.  What’s going on that Martha can’t talk to Mary directly?  What’s going on that Mary would leave her sister alone in the kitchen and go listen to Jesus talk about love and compassion and service?

I suspect it has to do with Martha’s inability to see who has come into her house.  

The one who eats with outcasts and sinners has come.  The one who has no place to lay his head has come.  Surely he does not need to be impressed.  He needs to be enjoyed.

I don’t know about you, but I can get into that Martha place.  As I write this sermon, I have to choose: do I want to leave you aware of my brilliant insight, or do I want you to see God among us?

Well, both, really.

But Jesus shows me how to choose.

Grace and peace have entered the house.

A simple meal, some talk, some listening, are all that’s needed.  

Everything else is ego.  

Jesus is here.

Listen.

A School of Love

Elizabeth and I have continuing shared reading as part of our formation.  We're currently reading Michael Casey's book, Strangers to the City, on the Rule of St. Bendict.  It spurs great reflection and conversation, even when we disagree with particulars.

In his discussion of chastity, Casey refers to St. Aelred's description of monastic life as a "school of love." This is really powerful and to the point for me.  We are about conversion of our lives and hearts, from fear in all its forms to love, openness, and compassion.  That shows up not only in chastity, but also in being willing to live with less, to listen to another's guidance and direction, to serve others.  This school of love answers my deepest needs for belonging and purpose.

Yesterday the school of love appeared again.  Our dream team met to consider how to be companions.  We compiled responses to questions we had asked locally, and the main thread that came out was the desire for a community that supports us in ongoing "conversion of life" - living by the values we want to live by, pursuing the disciplines that are part of that, rejoicing with us and comforting us as we journey.  We want to be a school of love.

We made amazing strides in our discussion.  Details will appear over the next few months.  We are clear that we are building community, not an organization, not a hierarchy.  We are going to be companions together, supporting one another in our various life situations, teaching one another even as we learn about love together.

So as usual after these meetings, I couldn't sleep.  I'm exhausted.  I'm a bit terrified.  We just gave birth, and the baby has a life of its own.  We're not in control.  Everything we hoped for is happening.  So, I guess like a new mother, I'm terrified.  And exultant.  I can't wait to watch it grow up, but I also want to catch my breath, get pictures for the scrapbook, and just enjoy it.  But even as I say that, it's starting to cry and want food and crawl . . .

I wonder if this is how Jesus felt after he started calling people, proclaiming the kingdom?  Suddenly people are interrupting his meals, his homilies, his prayer time.  It's what he came for, but I expect he was daunted too.  Whether he was or not, I sure am!

Keep praying!  Keep giving thanks!  Stay in school!

Thinking about networks

When we started talking about the Companions, we soon found ourselves exploring what it would mean for people to be Companions without being in shared residence.  The traditional model of "religious orders" is that everyone is living together, at least with some other members if not with everyone.  "Christian communities" have been more dispersed, but we're not sure we know enough to talk about them.  We wanted to have the option of residence, without privileging those who live together.  The reality, we've found these months, is that some of us need to live together and devote full time to getting us going - but many more people want companionship but cannot move here and drop their lives.

So from the beginning we've been thinking about networks as well as "centers."  But it was just an intuition.  Now it's starting to come to life.

Last month we had the first meetings of the Board of Directors and the Companions of Companions, two extensions of the network.  Recently we've had rich conversations with several women about how to discern their relationship with us, or how to be more closely involved without residence.  And, out of the group, wisdom is emerging.  People are bringing their experience to this conversation, and showing us more possibilities and paradigms.  I'm not going to discuss details - it's still early - but I'm so energized by the conversations, by what people open up.

To me, this is how the Spirit works.  If I can sit still and not force a solution, not say "this is how religious life is supposed to be" or "these are the rules," but instead can ask questions and listen for need and passion, then eventually Spirit delivers new insight.

For all of you out there who are thinking you're stuck, at a dead end or without a good answer to your dilemmas - just wait!  I mean it.  Just wait.  Stay open.  Tell God you trust her to show you the way, and mean it.  And listen.

Thank you to everyone who is listening with us and for us.  It means more than I can say.

Death and life

Yesterday I went to the closing service for one of my former congregations, Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Cresskill, NJ.  I had the privilege of being their pastor for just over two years, while they were living and worshipping with St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where I was priest-in-charge.  They had allied with St. Luke's because they couldn't keep their buildings and pay their bills.  Somehow we all hoped it would work out, but in the end there were too few people for the huge amount of work facing them.  When I left six months ago I knew they needed to close and move on, but I couldn't make that decision for them.  They have had an agonizing six months, and they closed really well.  The final service was back at their original church, a church I had never served in.  It was wonderful to see them come to closure with grace.  They were able to give several generous legacy gifts, and I hear that the day they made those decisions was a day of joy.  They knew that they were making sure their assets would serve the Gospel - not in the same place, but in many places.

As I sat with them, I thought about how much I learned during my time with them.  I learned, first, about the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.  I learned by reading, but more by many conversations with parishioners, Bible study groups with clergy, and simply by their life together.  I am so grateful I got stretched in a way unique for priests in our isolated denominations.  I was proud to be the pastor of this wild and crazy blend.

I learned about parish life.  St. Luke's was my first parish after ordination.  I got not only the usual dynamics and issues in a parish, but the unique challenge of blending two cultures on the ground.  I did not do the blending - they were doing that - but I got to be part of the mix.

And I learned about standing at the empty tomb.  I learned to stand at the door and not judge whether I would see death or life.  I learned not to be afraid of parish death, to trust in the Holy Spirit.  I learned that sometimes life looks like death.  I learned to hold my own plans and hopes lightly, to accept life cycles.

Yesterday as I saw people I haven't seen for six months, I realized how much I love these people.  I don't know why that should surprise me, but it did.  I'm so happy in this life we're building here, but it was wonderful to see everyone.  I'm not going to name you - if I leave someone out, you'll be hurt.  But you know, because I got to see you yesterday.  I saw you dying and rising, with tears and with joy.

Thank you, all of you.  Thank you for putting up with a new priest, a new pastor.  Thank you for all your hard work, your prayers, your good will.  You continue in my prayers and thanksgivings every day.  God bless you all!

Companions of the Companions - more wow.

On Sunday, we had our first "Companions of the Companions" dreamtime meeting.  We are looking for ways for women and men to affiliate with us, ways that aren't just the same old menu of associates and oblates, but still offer real relationship and commitment.  Our friends told us that "associate" is a business term, not a spiritual one, so we are building both a structure and a language for community.

Ten women joined us for dreaming.  We shared our passions and hopes for what a relationship would bring.  In the end, six women signed up to be a "dream team" to ask what is needed, and to design a "menu" that is flexible but meaningful.  We committed to having a menu by September 22, when we will gather again and invite people to enter more deeply into community.

It was a great meeting!

What made it great was not how many people showed up, or who in particular showed up.  Many people who planned to attend couldn't make it, and others we didn't anticipate did.  It was not great because of "what we got done," for no product was produced beyond a commitment to next steps.

The meeting was great because people came with their passions and concerns, and they shared them with one another, and they were heard, and they translated them into concrete next steps.  It was great because community was formed and deepened, purpose was clarified, and people left fired up.

Elizabeth and I put a lot of time into planning our regular gatherings, and into planning meetings like these.  We have wonderful, talented friends who coach us.  We want to honor those who sacrifice their time to come to such an event, so work to make it meaningful and on time.  So for me, personally, one of the highlights was when one woman who has been to a number of our events told me how much she sees and appreciates what we do.  She said she could relax, knowing that everything will happen, all will be heard, we won't be rushed, but we will be focused and on schedule.  And she loved seeing us work together.

This is the best part for me.  I love working with Elizabeth.  I love having a partner in ministry who is gifted, and who keeps working to improve and refine her gifts.  I love going into a meeting knowing that she has my back, and I have hers.  That's what I want for all of us.

Companions don't just like one another.  Companions work with, challenge, and inspire one another.  I give thanks for a companion like that, and for all the new companions coming into my life who inspire and challenge me.

Put September 22 on your calendar.  Think about what affiliation you desire, or need.  Let us know.  Write!
companionsma@gmail.com.

See you on the road!

More about our children, and the power of a gathering of women

Yesterday we had our biweekly gathering of women at St. Mary's House.  We decided to focus on the question posed by Lily, the 8-year-old girl I wrote about.  We prayed, we shared about our own upbringing and current images for God.  We heard stories of reassurance and strength, but also stories of powerlessness and distance.
Then we wrote or drew for a while, then shared again.  We decided to write and illustrate what we said, and send it to Lily so she knows someone is listening.
Here's what we wrote:

God is surprise and wonder
God is breath
God is light
God is a mother and a father
God is in the eyes of my dog
God is Casper the friendly ghost
God is in my middle and I am in God's middle
God is all of creation
God is a circle of women
God is true love
God is who you have an experience of, not an idea
God is presence
God is a mother hen with her chicks
God is in a loyal friend
God is strength
God is sheltering wings
God is joyful energy
God is a dancing woman with so much joy the energy sparks from her feet!

And we want to know: Who does Lily think God is?  What does she, do you, think God is?

Now, I asked all of you last week what you thought.  Only a few people wrote back - thank you!  You wrote about the need for a mothering God as well as a father God, or for images that go beyond the parental.  You wrote about your own struggles and progress in your churches.

Others were silent.  I wonder: is this just really hard?  Of course.  If it were easy, it would be done.

Our friend Paul gave us a great segue:

"Thank you for asking that question. You're invited to our first weekend workshop at CMA:

"Imaging the Divine: Gender, Theology and Alienation"

or...

"Re-imagining God: What Do Love, Compassion, Truth and Wisdom 'Look' Like?"

or...

"Mother God: He Couldn't Have Done It All By Himself!"

Or...

 "G*d: The Wisdom of Not Naming"

or

"Yahweh: I Am Who Am, Not Who You Say I Am"

I say segue, because October 8-11 we will offer a three-day retreat on the Divine Feminine and images of God.  So if these titles appeal to you, stay tuned!  

Thanks to you who wrote, and you who came, and you who prayed.  Please continue to pray for all the children, that they may find a God who loves them and empowers them to love in turn.  

What do you tell your children?

If you get our newsletter, you've seen that a friend brought us a real problem.  A little girl in her congregation wants to know why God is a "He," and what it means for her.  I'm struggling to find words to answer.  I know what I don't think or feel - God is not a "He," God is beyond gender - but that's hard for an 8-year-old to take in, I think.  And what does it mean for us that God is beyond gender, if we are made in God's image?

I'm starting to read Grace Jantzen's Becoming Divine, because a friend recommended it and it looks interesting.  Jantzen was a philosopher of religion who examined the ways that religion, and the study of religion, were gendered in Western culture.  She links the masculinization of religion to the focus on death, rather than natality or birth, but that is not the most radical aspect of her work.  She argues that the "fundamental task of the philosophy of religion" is not formulating correct statements about God, but is "becoming divine" - discovering and activating all our potential, all that we are given, "to refuse to allow parts of ourselves to shrivel and die that have the potential for growth and fulfillment."

I don't know yet where this will take me, but I know it's important.  I can critique existing paradigms and methods, but God isn't in the critique.  The future isn't in the critique.  The future, the God who does something new, is in our creative imaginations.  God is in our desire to become divine, to know God not as Other but as our Ground and Source.

How do I say that to an 8-year-old?  I don't know.  It takes a village.  If you know of resources, or can imagine, or have a story to tell, please let me know!  Write me at companionsma@gmail.com.  And pray for all the children of the world, that they may be given a chance to know themselves beloved children of God.

Taking back my broad brush

Dear everyone,

Yesterday I wrote about how "no one" in the U.S. wants to give to people without tax deductions anymore.  This morning Elizabeth reminded me that in fact several people have done exactly that.  In fact, this past week we received two generous anonymous donations from people, donations that will help us to move toward non-profit status.  Others have given several hundred dollars over the last few months.

My deepest apologies to all of you who have given with no thought of deductions.  I was making a point, thinking of the many conversations I have had with people who were unwilling to donate yet, but in my haste I used a broad brush that ignored the generosity we have already benefited from.

So now you know - I can get just a bit one-sided.  Another joy of community - being caught, being balanced, being accountable.  Thank you, Elizabeth!

Love to you all,
Shane

Wow.

Where do I start?

It's 6 a.m.  I've been up for over two hours, awakened by my overflowing brain and heart.

Yesterday we had our first meeting of the board of directors on our way to incorporating.  For those outside the U.S., let me explain: when taxpayers here donate to non-profit corporations, they can deduct the money from their taxes.  This has become so normal that no one wants to give unless they can take it off their taxes.  So friends who are willing to give to us have been waiting for us to get this done.  The whole process takes over a year, but we started down the road yesterday.

But that's not the gift our board is giving.  We have a legal responsibility, but the real gift is their vision and commitment and community together.  We asked seven gifted people, and all said yes.  Yesterday we met for the first time, and started to share our passions and dreams.  We have an amazing future, being created right now.

This week brought so many other gifts.  We had two large (for us, huge) financial gifts.  One is dependent on the legal stuff, but it's coming.  And beyond the money is what it says, about people's hopes and dreams and plans for the world.  We had a great gathering of women in our living room.

Now, this week, our first "chapter" - the official gathering of the community, our plans and reflections of where we are and where we plan to go.  Then, on June 16, the first meeting for those who want to affiliate - whether as residential companions, or as oblates, or as prayer companions, or - we will see what you want and need!

Thank you, God, for this amazing life.  Thank you for friends, for coaches, for community.  Thank you for quiet rainy mornings.  Thank you for you.

Blessed are you among women . . .

It seems like a long time since I wrote.  Last week were in silent retreat for three days, and the last day was very hard for me.  I was in a funk for several days after that.  Then I got busy - a women's gathering in New Jersey on Saturday, a wedding (New Jersey again) on Sunday.  But the real problem was the funk.  I just didn't have anything I wanted to share.  My mind and spirit were clogged with ancient pain I thought was gone.  But I'm back now.

Now I'm thinking about the Visitation, upcoming on May 31.  It comes every year, but this year it feels very special.  This year, the story of two women making a journey, greeting the divine spark in one another, celebrating what God can do, is very real to me.  Elizabeth - my companion in this adventure, not the mother of John the Baptist - is gifted and gifting.  My heart has been rising all day in anticipation of this great feast.

As we have been getting ready for a women's gathering that we will hold that day, we've been talking about the need for a matrilineal salvation story.  The Visitation is listed in the Book of Common Prayer as a moment in the life of Jesus.  It's that, but it's also a moment in the lives of Mary and Elizabeth.  As we've talked, we've realized that Elizabeth, the first to point to Jesus, doesn't have her own feast day in the calendar.  Men who never spoke a word in the Biblical record have their own days, but this prophetic voice is subsumed under the life of Jesus.  How would the church calendar be different if women counted?

The Visitation is the occasion for the Magnificat, the great hymn of overturning.  It's Mary's proclamation of God's continuing power.  So how would the church be different if we really heard it and participated in its vision?

This week, look for women who lead and women who celebrate other women's leadership.  Thank them, mentor them, stand with them.  Tell them they're a blessing, and remind them they are blessed.  Work to ensure that they are.

Remembering the Visitation means that no woman need to give birth alone, in shame, or in fear.  It means that we will surround her with love and peace.  It means that every woman's child will be welcomed as the face of God among us, and every mother as the Christ-bearer.  It means that men will care for women, even in the face of pressure to reject them.  Then we will have cause to celebrate!

Cat Breatkthrough!

If you've been with us a while, you know about our cat situation.  Our two cats couldn't seem to work things out, so we kept them separated for over three months.  Then we just couldn't stand it and decided to try again.  And now, this very minute, they are both lying in the sun.  They are four feet apart.  They are separated by an open door, and I suspect that without the door they wouldn't be doing this, but a few days ago they wouldn't have done it at all.  It seems that the sun is more powerful than their fear.

Oh - was that a metaphor?  Of course.

Yesterday was Pentecost.  I celebrated by serving at two different - very different - churches in New Jersey.  Three services, two churches.  The first is a lovely suburban, white church, with a children's choir and a big complex and orderly services.  The second is at the top of the state, with a congregation mostly of Lenape Native Americans, with very few resources.  Their service was more disorganized because I forgot to bring the bulletins from the first church, and the organist was a volunteer who had the wrong numbers for a hymn.  We were a mess.

But the Spirit was powerful there.  It was present in both places, but in its different guises.  In the first church it was orderly and gentle.  In the second it was fluid, blowing the chaos into peace.

In the meantime, my Sister Elizabeth had foot surgery on Friday, so she is stuck in a chair for a while.  Pentecost for me was full of driving and moving.  For her it was too quiet, separated from the larger community of worship.  But the Spirit came anyway.  And today it is bringing peace to our cats, and to the world.

May it bring peace to you, and to those you live and serve with, every day of your life.

Bluestone Farm

We just returned from a visit to Bluestone Farm, the emerging enterprise of the Community of the Holy Spirit.  We visited to see and learn how an established Anglican community is going about reinventing itself.  New seeds are exciting, but it's also inspiring and instructive to see settled gardens plow themselves up to bring forth new fruit.  They have four Sisters there, milking cows and gardening and preserving what they grow.  They also have several companions in residence, three young people and a couple, moving on right now but there for years, who share in daily life and decisions.

We are thinking a lot about the different ways people affiliate to a community.  Traditional religious orders have had members, in vows, people moving toward vows (novices, postulants), and then other "rings" of membership - oblates, close in, with a rule and maybe a vote, maybe a habit, maybe living at the monastery but maybe not; associates, living "secular" lives but praying for the community, giving to it, and following a simpler rule; and maybe some other layers.

I get the need for that.  We don't all want to belong in the same way.

When we began, we said we'd all be Companions, though some would be residential and some would not.  Then we learned that some people don't want that level of commitment.  Some people want looser affiliation, but they still want to belong.  

Now I'm thinking we were on to something before.  We've heard from the Erie Sisters about temporary 

Sisters, who live with them for up to 3 years.  We heard from CHS about people living alongside, some temporarily and others who knows?  So we're thinking about how to be a companion again.

Elizabeth and I are companions in residence.  Our relation is not defined by residence, but living together is important for our formation - it teaches us things that we can never learn alone.  But there might be other ways to be a companion.  Companions in prayer.  Companions on the road.  Temporary companions.  Fellow travelers (whatever that means).  I don't know.

What do you dream of?  What sort of companionship are you hungry for?  Let us know.  

What's your racket?

Just a few days after preaching the second sermon at Redeemer (my last post), I went to my semi-annual meeting of the Mastery Foundation's School for Leadership.  During our time together we talked a bit about the concept of "racket."  A racket is a complex with the following elements: a fixed way of being, a recurring complaint, a behavior or situation that is unwanted but persists.  Every racket feels awful, yet it carries payoffs that keep us going: we get to dominate others (or avoid being dominated), we can justify ourselves (either by being right or by making others wrong), and we can look good even while we're losing at whatever most matters to us.  But the costs are great: we lose energy, relationship, joy, and self-expression.

I started to suspect I had a racket going when I was asked what I want to work on in myself in the coming months.  I mentioned my persistent difficulties in building and maintaining connection.  But when it came time to actually do something different, I realized that I am more connected than I think.  I may not be connected to everyone I'd like to be, and I certainly am not connected to some people I think I "should" be to be a "good" person, but I'm surrounded by friends and companions.  So I learned about my racket.

I tell you this because I'm excited, on the verge of a breakthrough about this, but also because it seems to go so well with last week's Gospel.  I'm that guy by the pool, whining about why I can't get it.  But when Jesus asks, "Do you want to be healed?" I'm not sure.  I kind of like my racket.  I'm not sure why, exactly, but I'm going to find out.  I'm getting in that pool!

Do you have a racket going somewhere, a little self-talk that justifies limitations even when they hurt?  Ask Jesus to help.  Really, I think it's that simple.  Just say, "Help me.  I'm stuck in this stagnant place, and I want out!"  If we keep praying, we get conscious, and we get to choose.  And sometimes, we get healed even before we're ready to choose.  So don't ask unless you're really willing to be thrown in the pool, or at least willing to be thrown in anyway.

I could write all day about the last three days, but I've got work to do and people to talk to!
Have a blessed Ascensiontide.

Sermon May 5, Redeemer Morristown

I told you last week that I belong to a school for leadership.  It focuses on helping people to manifest their dreams and passions.  It doesn’t teach techniques or qualities; their position is that leadership is not a characteristic of certain people, but can appear in groups and among people.  We know leadership is present when something new emerges, something that wouldn’t have happened in the current context, something that answers the needs and concerns of the people involved.
We spend a lot of time on our own internal barriers to leadership.  We look at the payoffs we get from not committing ourselves or from not changing.  We look there, because the inertia of the daily world and our own fears are the biggest obstacles to meaningful transformation.  Then we work on what we can do differently.
I’m thinking about the school because these readings call us to our responsibility for the futures we live.  They present very different responses to an invitation to wholeness.  We don’t know how either story ends, but the pictures they paint make clear the stakes and the choices we face every day.

Do you want to be healed?

Throughout the Gospels we read about people who came to Jesus for healing.  In most of them, the person asks for themselves or for another, and Jesus answers.  One time, shockingly, a woman comes and asks, and Jesus says no until she wins her argument with him and shows him a new way.  Another time, a woman doesn’t ask, just touches him, and that is enough.  Jesus is reported to be able to heal from a distance.

Now, things are a little different in the Gospel of John.  John wants to teach us that the healings are signs of something bigger.  The point for him is not that Jesus is a healer, but that Jesus is the Messiah, the chosen one of God.  Healing is just a sign.  So sometimes he tells stories where the individual does not ask for healing, where Jesus initiates healing to make a point.  A blind man is healed, in order to come to proclaim Jesus as Messiah.
But this Gospel story is different even from that.  Jesus has just healed an official’s son, when the official asked him to.  Now the action shifts to Jerusalem, to a pool by one of the gates in the city wall.  This pool evidently has healing properties, but only at certain times.  The early manuscripts disagree about how this happened, but it clearly isn’t automatic.  In fact, this poor guy has been sitting there for 38 years and never gets healed!
I don’t know about you, but I would have gone to another pool by now.

Jesus cuts right to the chase.  He asks him to commit to his own healing.
“Do you want to be healed?”

And, you know, it’s not clear that he does.

He doesn’t say yes.
He makes excuses.  I’m alone, I’m slow, I never get there.
OK, he can’t seem to walk, but where are his friends?  Can’t his relatives take him somewhere else?  Why is he so helpless?

In 38 years, he hasn’t made a friend.  He hasn’t made enough community for others to help him, or defer to him.  In 38 years lying around the pool, he hasn’t gained the attention of others enough for them to say, “We’d better get him into the water.”

I don’t know.  Maybe there was a time when he tried, and failed.  Maybe he committed before, but when it got hard he gave up.  Now he’s just lying by the pool, not really expecting anything to be better, afraid to give voice to his desire.

Do you want to be healed?

How much desire do we kill because the world has taught us it’s hopeless?
One way the consumer economy works is by teaching us to trade in our deep desires for connection and creativity for products and amusements.
But it also works by telling us that our deep desires are impossible to fulfill.
We can lie around the pool, but we can’t expect real transformation.  It’s no one’s fault.  Certainly it’s not my fault.

If this man were to name his desire to be healed, he would become vulnerable.  He would become responsible - response-able.  His disempowered innocence would end.

There are plenty of days when I want to live like that.  I want to tell you why I can’t change, why I can’t help, why you can’t count on me.  If I name my desire, I become responsible for whether it comes to pass or not.

In the story, Jesus cuts right through this guy’s resignation.  He heals him.  Just like that, the guy can walk.  But he doesn’t heal his heart.  When the man is confronted for carrying his mat on the sabbath, he makes excuses again.  “The guy who healed me told me to do this.”  Later he turns Jesus into the authorities.  His body is healed, but he’s still not responsible for his life.

Fortunately, we have choices.  Encountering God is not a one-time event.  God keeps showing up.

After Jesus’ death, after the disciples have become bearers of the Holy Spirit, Paul meets a woman by another body of water.  He’s come to Greece, to Philippi, and he goes to the river outside the gate in hopes of finding Jews to pray with.  He meets Lydia and other women.  Lydia gets it.  She asks for the water of transformation, for baptism, and then she asks Paul and his party to stay at her house.  That house becomes a center for the new community in Philippi.

I don’t know why the guy in Jerusalem couldn’t grab his desire and claim it.  I don’t know why Lydia could.  But I’d rather live like Lydia.

The water of healing awaits us.  God awaits us.  And sometimes God intervenes directly in our lives.  But even then, it’s up to us to decide whether to acknowledge it, whether to participate and claim our lives.

In the School for Leadership, we don’t talk about what we want to do.  We talk about what we plan to do.  Desire is good, but planning takes us even further into commitment, into vulnerability, into our own power.

Planning doesn’t push God out.  Part of planning is opening myself to God’s action, and going with the momentum.  We can plan to keep our eyes open to what God is offering.

Do you plan to be healed?

Is there a place in you that sits by the poolside, waiting for the world to come to you?
Is there a place so wounded that you don’t want to risk wanting anymore?

Listen to Mary Oliver:

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.

Scattering Seeds

I couldn't sleep last night, so I went to the blog and for the first time found the page where you can see where people are reading from.  I'm so excited to see that some of you are in Russia and Italy and Mexico and Germany and . . . !  It gives a new, visceral feeling to the mystical body of Christ.

I hope you read something that sparks hope and renewal in you.  I hope, I pray, that you will pass that on to others.  And please pray for me, for us, as we stand at the door and peer in.  Bless you wherever you are!

Sermon at Redeemer Morristown, April 28

It was great to be back at Redeemer last Sunday. Readings were Acts 11, John 13:31-35, and a quote from Peter Block on belonging.


As always, I have to begin by saying how glad I am to be back with you. Many of you don’t know me yet, but I know you, because I know this community. I know this to be a place of commitment and compassion.

The Gospel and the reading from Acts were not chosen for you, believe it or not. They were appointed in the lectionary. But what gifts they bring us! And they speak to my concerns these days, to the work I’m doing. And they speak, I hope, to you.

For the past year and a half, I’ve been part of a school for leadership sponsored by a group called the Mastery Foundation. They are not connected to any particular faith tradition, but they have been shaped by many active ministers of many faiths. They are passionate about fostering workability and resilience in communities. They offer courses on community building, peace and reconciliation, and ministry development. They work in Israel, in Ireland, and in the U.S. They are giving me the resources to start a new women’s community, to step out and do something that makes a difference in people’s lives. I’m able to be here today because I left my parish position to take a leap of faith. I’m looking to build community. This brings me continually back to thinking about what community is and how to do it.

Between the story in Acts and the Gospel, we hear some important things about community. The story in Acts describes how the early group of Jesus’ disciples spread beyond the bounds of Judaism. Peter recounts a vision in which he learns not to disdain the Gentiles and their ways. As Luke tells the story, it’s pretty easy and clear. Peter tells the Judean community what happened, and they say, “Oh, OK, that’s great. Even those scummy Gentiles get a second chance at life.”
It’s not likely that things were that smooth. Luke’s version leaves out a long process of argument and downright name-calling that didn’t end for centuries. But the story remains pointed and important. It reminds us that we will continually be called to reach beyond what makes sense to us. The Gospel keeps growing, calling to wider circles of people, and when it does it’s likely that “those people” will appear to us as a problem rather than the answer to our prayers.

But say we expand the circle. Say we even realize, one day, that others have opened the circle to us. At some point in our lives, we all find ourselves in the position of the Gentiles who were waiting to be included. Women and people of color know this position. Queer folk know this position. The revolutionary, insulting moment of awareness for privileged people is exactly that moment when we find that we are outside some circle, needing others’ permission to enter. When men first encountered women’s spaces where they were not invited, it was a shock. When heterosexuals realize that there’s a whole world they didn’t know about and weren’t invited into, it can be a shock. We all have some place where we find ourselves outside waiting.

When we’re in together, it can be exhilarating. Finally - a place where I’m welcome! A place where I fit, with all my rough edges and quirky parts! A place where I’m loved and accepted as I am!

But that’s just the beginning of belonging. We long for it. We long for that place of recognition. But belonging is a community capacity, as Block says. We cannot experience it without the other parts of belonging. When we truly belong to something or someone, they belong to us. That means we are responsible for the building up and maintaining of that community. Belonging without ownership and accountability is just warm feeling. It isn’t yet community, and it isn’t yet what Jesus promises. There’s so much more waiting for us.

In John’s account, Jesus tells the disciples to love one another. What we miss in today’s reading is that he tells them this just after Judas has left them on the night of the Last Supper. Judas has left to betray Jesus, after Jesus has washed his feet and eaten with him. And Jesus knows Judas is doing this.
Why does this matter to us?

Luke’s happy story about welcome really hides just how challenging this Gospel work can be. The hard part isn’t just opening the door to those we think of as outside. It isn’t just walking in when we’ve been told we don’t belong.
The hard work begins when we’re in, and we look around and say, “What am I doing with these losers?”
What am I doing with that traitor?
What am I doing with that sinner?
What am I doing with that not-so-educated, or too educated, person?
What am I doing here with Republicans, or Democrats?
What am I doing here with people who don’t share my theology?

Those are exactly the questions we need to ask.

What are we doing here?

What am I doing with the person who walks in for the first time?
What am I doing with the people who disagree about the direction of the church, or the country, or the world?
What am I doing with the people who aren’t here, who need what I have?
What am I doing with the resources entrusted to me by previous generations?

What are we doing here?

Social justice work and community service and cutting-edge worship are inseparable from the internal work of community building. We need always to reach out beyond our current borders, and we need also to strengthen and repair the internal fabric of community.

In my new community, with only two members, we spend a huge amount of time working on internal relations. We’re not doing it because we have nothing else to do, or because we have a lot of conflict. We’re doing it because we are keenly aware that our effectiveness in the world is linked to our internal communication and commitment. We do it so we can be ready to receive the next members with open arms.

Each day we deepen our commitment to one another and to the ministry we see awaiting us. We leave open room for disagreement, because disagreement is one form of commitment. But we return to the work of belonging, for the sake of the world.

In a world in which it’s easier and easier for people to become isolated, the work of belonging is more important than ever. And it is work. It is holy work, the work of stewardship and reconciliation and outreach. It brings great gifts, and also great demands. But the demands turn out to be gifts as well, when we are called to use all of our capacities in the service of the world.

By this everyone will know that we are disciples, if we have love for one another.