Sermon at Christ Episcopal Church, Warwick NY, February 28 2016

We are now solidly in the season of Lent.  For many people, Lent is a time to do without, to show our allegiance to God by suffering.  We look forward to Easter as the time when the restraints can be thrown off: we can watch TV again, or eat sweets, or stop praying so much.  Lent in this scenario is like training for an event rather than starting a new life.  God becomes the judge of the event.

But the deeper meaning of Lent is both more promising and more challenging than this.  Lent is the end of winter, when our resources are at their lowest.  The earth is quiet, at least on the surface.  In the days before international food delivery, Lent was the time when stocks ran low and people ate simply, and ate less, from necessity.  Lent was a time to remember that our lives are fragile and limited, and to give thanks for what we have.

Lent can still be that time. Lent is the season to repent and return, not in place of other times or as an occasional event, but as a way of starting over down the path of life.

Today’s readings remind us of this central Lenten theme.  We hear of God’s love for us in the Exodus story, and the psalmist returns God’s love with eager devotion.  But the Epistle and the Gospel call us forcefully to rethink our path and choose life.

Jesus has just been warning his followers about the need to act rightly and not delay.  They respond by asking him about some Galileans who were killed by Pilate.  Now, this may seem like a strange thing to bring up, but for Luke’s original audience it’s very pertinent.  Those first Christians often endured persecution from the Romans, and they were trying to understand how a loving God could let that happen.  Their answer was to accuse the victims of sin.  

This is a temptation for all of us.  My life would be so much simpler if I could be sure that bad things only happen to bad people.  If I could believe that, I wouldn’t have to cry for those who suffer.  I wouldn’t have to worry that I might be next.  If I could be sure that bad things happen only to bad people, and if I could be sure that I’m not bad, I could feel safe.

Jesus takes that away from me.  Jesus reminds his listeners that we all die, and not in circumstances of our choosing.  Some of us will die suddenly, as victims of violence or accident.  Some of us will die from medical causes just as suddenly.  Some of us will have a long slow death.  And none of this has anything to do with whether we sinned or not.  Rich and poor, all races and creeds, all ages, are vulnerable.

Life is fragile, and unpredictable.  That’s why we have to turn to God now, this instant.  This is the only time we have.

“Oh God, you are my God, eagerly I seek you.”

But it’s not physical death that concerns Jesus.  That is not the standard of the quality of our life.  Jesus wants to know about our soul, our spirit.  And so often we are unclear about the condition of our soul.  As Paul says, “if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.”

It’s easy to be confused about how we’re doing spiritually.  We can get confused by our opinions of what is good and bad, what is comfortable and what is painful.  

Here’s where the fig tree comes in.  Now, it’s normal that a new tree does not bear fruit for its first three years.  It needs to take root and develop internally before the fruit appears.  An inexperienced owner might watch this tree with frustration.  He wants fruit!  He didn’t plant this tree to watch it grown, he wants fruit!  So he’s tempted to get rid of it.

That’s what it’s like to engage in a spiritual practice during Lent and then give it up.  So many habits take time to develop, to bear fruit.  In the meantime, they are just hard disciplines.  We don’t see the point.  So we let go, just before the fruit blossoms.

The gardener understands this process.  He knows how trees grow, and he knows what they need.  He feeds the tree, hoping for fruit.

What does he feed the tree?  Manure.  

Now, if I were the tree, I might not understand.  I imagine the poor tree shaken out of its quiet by this smelly mess that it now stands in.  The tree might be saying, “This stinks!  Why did this happen to me?”  If it could, it would surely step out of the manure and wash itself off.  And in so doing, it would deny itself the nourishment it needs.

It’s easy to believe that the comfortable things are the things I need.  It’s easy to see painful times as punishment, or persecution, or just plain wrong.  This is the flip side of the owner’s point of view.  The owner wants the fruit right now.  The tree wants to bask in the sun.  Neither of them is good at the disciplines that will really bear fruit.

So often it’s the manure times that bring growth.  It’s the times when things are hard, when everything hits the fan, when I’ve stepped in it; it’s those times when I grow.  But I don’t grow by magic.  I only grow if I face those hard times with the disciplines and practices I learn by seeking God.

In Jesus’ upside-down world, it’s easy to get confused.  We might think that when times are good it’s because we’re good, because we’re gifted or hard-working or loyal.  But it may be that God knows we need help to get through, that we aren’t as strong as some others.  We might think that hard times are punishment or testing, but God may be showering smelly love on us.  It’s confusing.

It’s not our job to understand.  That’s the gardener’s job.  It’s our job to grow and bear fruit.

What is that fruit?  In the letter to the Galatians, Paul gives us a list:

The fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23).  He contrasts this with the “works” of the flesh.  This is an important distinction.  There is no fruit of the flesh, of the self-centered life.  There are works: malice, envy, deceit, and the like.  They don’t bear fruit, though they bring consequences: usually more of the same.

But the fruit of the Spirit is a gift.  It’s a gift that we prepare to receive, even as we can’t force it.  We can put down our roots and gather our strength, but the fruit emerges on its own.  It often surprises us as much as anyone.   When did I stop yelling at other drivers?  When did I become gentle, or kind, or patient?  It happened, if it happened, when I wasn’t looking at myself.

This is the season to turn, to rely on God, to seek God with all our heart.  It begins with the reminder that we are dust, and as we go toward Easter we learn again how fragile life is.  We remember Jesus walking into that human frailty without flinching, giving himself to become nourishment for all of us.  And in the end, we learn again that every dead end is an avenue leading to God.

May you find yourself blessed this season, as you turn and repent.  May you find God’s open arms awaiting you, and see God’s delight in your fruit.  May you rejoice as you nourish others in turn.

Sermon at the Monastery, Second Sunday in Lent, February 21, 2016

Luke 13:31-35

What do you desire?

This is the traditional question asked of those who seek to enter monasteries.  We asked it of our candidates for covenant companionship last summer, as they took their first steps.  We asked it of ourselves when we began the Companions of Mary the Apostle.  We still ask it.

Knowing your desire is essential to our spiritual life.  If we don’t know our desire, we can’t pursue it.  We will be left to the desires and plans of others.  We will wander from the path, and we might very well endanger others as they follow us.  Our desire defines our life, whether we are conscious of it or not.

In today’s Gospel we hear of three desires.  The same Greek word, thelo, is used three times.  Herod, that fox, desires to prey on Jesus.  He wants to kill him because he is threatening the oppressive “peace” of Galilee.  The people of Jerusalem do not desire Jesus’ message; they reject him as they rejected others before him.  They desire not to hear his message.  

And Jesus?  Jesus desires to gather Jerusalem under his wings.  Jesus is the mother hen.

We don’t spend much time on this image for God, or for Jesus, but it is an image that runs through the Scriptures and invites us to know God in a new way.  This new way is particularly apt for Lent, that season of repentance and renewal.

Jesus the mother hen.

“How often I have desired to gather you under my wings.”

When a fox threatens a flock of chickens, the roosters go to work alerting the flock and attacking the intruder.  Many roosters will die defending the hens.  The hens do not fight directly; instead, they gather the chicks under their wings.  They offer themselves first, hoping to save the chicks.

It’s not only predators that incite this protective instinct.  Any danger to the chicks calls for this response.  

Recently I learned a moving true story.  A group of young college students were helping measure range damage after a wildfire raged across the prairie outside their university town. As they walked over the expanse of blackened earth, they noticed a cluster of small smoldering mounds. One of the volunteers was particularly interested in the unidentifiable heaps and asked one of the more experienced range managers what they were.

The manager replied that he had seen this phenomenon a few times and suggested that the young man turn over one of the piles. He did. To his great surprise several sage grouse chicks ran out from under the upturned mound. He was fascinated. How incredible, he thought, that these little chicks had known to find and run underneath this mysterious shelter.

The young man asked what the mound was and how the chicks knew to take refuge there. To his amazement, he was told that the smoldering heap was the remains of their mother. When there is danger the mother hen instinctively calls out to her young ones and stretches out her wings for them to run under and find protection in her embrace. 

That’s Jesus.  

That’s how much God loves us.

Jesus longs to shelter us from the foxes, the fires, the storms.

But Jerusalem was not willing.  Imagine the scene: the fox is coming, the fire approaching, and the mother hen is trying to gather her young.  But each time she gets one, another one goes running back out.  The little ones don’t understand the danger, and too often they are caught out in the open.  

That’s the Jerusalem Jesus is addressing.  He is not condemning them, not threatening them.  He is grieving.  He longs to bring them to safety, to salvation, but they can't see the danger.  They think they know what’s what, and they do not desire his protection.

I don’t think they’re alone.  So many times I’ve thought I know best.  I didn't know about the foxes in the world, or the fires.  I thought I could handle it.  And I got burned, and i got preyed on.  And for many years I thought I had to be a predator too.  It’s a dog eat dog world, right?  Don't be chicken!  So instead I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off - busy, frantic, aimless.  And dead without knowing it.

One day I stumbled - literally stumbled - under Jesus’ wings.  Some instinct, like those grouse chicks’ instinct, brought me to that church.  I have no idea why I could hear it that day.  I knew the desire to be sheltered, and I knew where to find that shelter.  I crawled under the wings.

Have you ever crawled under the wings of Jesus?  It sounds like a weird folk hymn, I know, but it’s real.  Jesus desires to shelter us, to gather us.  Jesus wants to protect us from the foxes, and is willing to die to do it.  

There’s a lot of room under those wings.  There’s room for whole communities bound in love.  In fact, the more people gather, the bigger the wings get.  Under those wings there’s room to grow, room to find out who we are and who we belong to.  There’s room for others to grow as well.

As we grow, Jesus teaches us how to fly.  When eagles are first learning to fly, the mother flies under them so when they fall they land safely on her back.  Over time they gather strength and they can fly on their own.  Over time they become the source of strength for others.  We too are encouraged to grow, and to share our growing gifts with others.  

But in order to grow, to really have the freedom to try our wings, we must first be safe.

Our world is increasingly dangerous.  We are bombarded every day with new terror, new warnings.  We are encouraged to put our trust in some pretty foxy candidates, who tell us they will keep us safe.  Sometimes they tell us that our safety depends on going to war or building walls, on being foxes ourselves before we’re outfoxed.  But this is just ob-fox-scation.  It’s a lie.  It’s the fox luring us out where we can be picked off one by one, exposed and alone.

The lie always consumes the fox as well as the chicks.  No fox lives forever.  Predators are prey for someone else.  They fool themselves that they are in charge, until a lion or an eagle comes up behind them.  

Jesus promises a better way.  It doesn’t guarantee that we will never die or be in danger; he himself will die on his way to new life.  This better way is the way of love, a source that never dries up or dies out.  The foxes of the world try to counter it by appealing to our fear or our confused desires, but fear will never keep us safe or make us strong.  Only love can do that.

Jesus compares God to a loving father welcoming back the lost children.  Today we see Jesus, the loving mother who calls to us to come into the shelter of love.  Today, if you would live, hearken to his voice.

Wednesday in the first Week of Lent

Jonah 3:1-10; Luke 11:29-32

“No sign will be given except the sign of Jonah.”  What sign was that?  The sign was Jonah walking through Nineveh and predicting destruction.  Jonah didn’t say, “Repent or else!”  He simply said, “Forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown.”  The people of Nineveh repented (well, the king repented, and ordered everyone else to repent - how does that work?), and God changed her mind.  So it seems to me that the “sign of Jonah” is just a simple warning: “Forty days more and the earth’s climate will be disturbed beyond its capacity to repair itself.”  “Forty days more and the increasing inequality in our country, in our world, will spiral into continuing violence and terror.”  “Forty days more and the economies of the world will collapse under the weight of inequality.”  

We can listen to the predictions, and we can repent and hope that the Holy Spirit can yet renew us.  Or we can kill the messengers.

This passage was written after Jerusalem had in fact been destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.  Luke wants us to hear the warning, and the consequences of our failure to repent.  Now, you may not believe that God made the Romans destroy Jerusalem; you may not see violence or climate change as God’s revenge, as some televangelists do.  But I hope you hear Jesus calling in the streets.  However we got here, we are the only ones who can take action now.  

What is the repentance to which you are called?  The people and animals of Nineveh dressed in sackcloth and ashes.  I don’t think that’s the answer, though simplicity can go a long way.  But there are plenty of other ways to turn and live.  Using less, sharing more, demanding decent working conditions and a living wage for all everywhere, voting for universal health care, working to build connections that reduce violence; that’s just a beginning of a list.  And they sound big, and abstract.  But they show up as small and concrete changes.  Calling people who are lonely.  Giving more to the food pantry.  Re-using the bags for fruits and vegetables.  Not ordering from the online dealers who exploit and abuse their workers (and doing the research on those I do business with).

And praying more, and better.  All the signs in the world won’t help if I won’t listen.  Please, God, help me hear your message and turn.  Help us all to turn and be saved.  Please.

First Sunday in Lent

Luke 4:1-13

I love this story, not least because it messes with my ideas about God.  Jesus was “led by the Holy Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”  Usually we focus on the temptations Jesus faced - for food, for power, for glory - and how he resisted.  But what lands for me is that the devil is doing the work of the Holy Spirit here.  The temptation is not an unfortunate surprise or a problem, but is apparently part of the plan.

This morning I was reminded in a sermon that “the plan” for Jesus, as for all of us, includes testing.  It’s not enough for us to go out knowing that we are God’s beloved - as important as that is.  We need to know our limits and our susceptibilities as well.  We need to know how to resist them.  Then we can serve the world and God.  So “the devil” here is essential to preparing us for adult life and service.

Does that mean that every temptation is really a test from God?  Many people go there.  When loved ones die or disaster falls, they ask why God is doing this to them.  Whether they’re asking what they did to deserve this, or asking what God’s purpose is, they are often imputing too much intention to God.  God does not micromanage every detail or endorse every moment in our lives.  There is human sin and human love, there is natural disaster, there is chance.  

But at other times and in other ways it’s really helpful to ask where God is in a situation.  The answer, we assume so often, must be in a “good” way - a way that we like.  God is in the comfort, the “in spite of” or “with us through” hard times.  

But what if God is sometimes in the hard time itself?  What if God is not punishing us or exactly planning results for us, but is in the opportunity to grow our faith?  What if God is redeeming the situation even through the “negative” parts?

Maybe the trouble is in being so certain what is good and what is bad, what is “the devil” and what is God.  God is bigger than my ideas of good and bad, which usually follow closely with my comfort or discomfort.  The Lenten journey reminds me that good and bad are bigger than my comfort or lack thereof, bigger than my understanding.  Jesus being tempted; Jesus being crucified; is this the work of the devil, or the Holy Spirit - or the dance between them?

Is there a place in your life that you are sure is just bad, just “the devil’s work”?  The inner work I’m doing this Lent hurts like the devil, but I know it’s of God.  God has promised that if I walk through this valley I will see more life, more love.  God has promised you too.  

Whatever your temptations this season, this year, this life, God is there for you.  You may end the season still living with injustice and oppression, still hungry, still sick or lonely, as many people will.  God doesn’t will that.  God wills your peace and serenity and resilience through it, and God wills an end to it.  Stand strong - or lie, or sit, as you are able.  But know that the Holy Spirit is with you, even in the scariest times.  And blessings on you, this day and always.

Thursday February 11

OK, after saying I won’t write every day, what can you do when the readings are so rich?

Jesus says, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.  What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?” (Matthew 9:24-25).  

What indeed.  This is precisely where I’ve been standing.  Jesus calls me, calls us, to the real life of our selves, but my ego, my personality, can only hear the threat to its supremacy.  From its perspective, it looks like death.  But from the perspective of the self, the whole person, this is the path of life.  As one of you wrote back, this is a matter of being afraid but doing it anyway.  We can’t not be afraid, but we can choose not to let the fear determine our course.

I’ve been working a lot on what blocks me from that deeper life, that deeper awareness.  So I’m on the road.  I don’t get to control the outcome, how transformation occurs, but I can at least try to learn something new, to “deny my self” in favor of my Self.

What does your ego whisper to you as you begin the Lenten journey?  What does it tell you you can’t do without?  Don’t listen; it’s lying.  Ask instead what behavior you are being invited to let go of, and what to adopt.  And then watch and see who you become.

The Journey Begins

See, now is the acceptable time!  See, now is the time of salvation!

Blessed Ash Wednesday to you all.  I am not committing to write a daily blog this Lent, but I will write occasionally.  My work this Lent is to go deeper, to confront the fears and demons that keep me living on the surface of my life.  One of those demons is the desire to look good, to be productive, to spread the word about the Companions.  Now, there’s a holy desire there too, the real desire to share the treasure I find in walking with Jesus and living his way as best I can, but I can get derailed even in the good path.  I can start building an image rather than sharing from the heart.  

Can anyone relate to that?

So this Lent I’m doing less in order to be more.  I’m not leading any retreats.  I’ll write when I have something to say.  I’ll try to make it mean something and not be on a schedule.  And I’ll be praying, and crying a lot.

Oh yes, my Lent has begun.  During our long retreat in January I felt this call to go deeper, and now I know it is a journey into all my fears and deepest desires.  I’ve been crying a lot lately, certain I’m not up to the next stage and that I’ll be doomed to sit by the side of the road while others journey on.  My fear says I’ll be the one cheering you on while I sit safely at home.

But I have been here before.  And when I get scared, I have companions to remind me that this fear is a lie.  

I’m going to Jerusalem this Lent.  I think it’s going to cost me a lot: my self-image, my certainty about what is what and who is who.  But I know it will bring me more than I can ask or imagine.  I know Jesus is with me, and before me.  I know the company of women and men who walked with him are walking with me.  I know Mary Magdalene is here.  

I know it.  I know it just enough to choose it today.

Whatever your journey this Lent, know that you are not alone.  The company of those living and dead are with you.  I’ll be with you, in prayer if not in daily words.  Please be with me, and pray for me, for us.  God bless you all.