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!