dust to dust

For the people of St. Philip’s

The Day of Pentecost, Year B

May 31, 2009

Maria Hoecker, preacher

John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

 

(It’s a real joy and a pleasure to celebrate with Rebecca Ruth Stroup, Jack Francis Budzinski and their families on the occasion of their baptisms.)

 

Today is also Pentecost .  Today we celebrate the birth of the Christian Church. You just heard this birth narrative in our readings this morning. It’s a strange tale about tongues of flames descending on a crowd and about people speaking together in strange languages that they had never before been able to understand.  As our Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said in a sermon a year ago, Pentecost is “the moment when the friends of Jesus discover that they can communicate with all sorts of people they never thought that they would ever want to be caught speaking to.” 

 

What’s this odd story have to do with the Church? Well, it’s rather simple.  There’s a connection that goes from the first day of Pentecost to this day.  It’s all about relationships. It’s all about our connections.   Staying connected is very important to God. Being in right relationship is so important that God breathed the holy breath of life into the Church to assure that we could all stay connected, not just to each other but, through Christ, to all of Creation throughout time.  And yes, that especially includes our connection with folks we never dreamed that we would ever be caught speaking to.

 

That’s sort of what being baptized into the Church is all about.  That’s what Pentecost is all about.  Take the Anglican Communion for example, this global manifestation of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.  By virtue of our participation in the worship and life of St. Philip’s, we are connected to our neighbors near and far.  Whether we see the connection or not, by grace, it's there.  We are connected....  through this parish, our diocese of Western North Carolina, through Province IV, The Episcopal Church, and out into to the world wide Anglican Communion we are in relationship with folks who don’t think like we do…folks who don't govern themselves like we do...folks who don't talk like we do.....we are connected by prayer to folks we might never choose to speak with if it weren’t for our commitment to our baptismal vows.   We honor that connection every week in our prayers of the people.   We are all connected as One Church, by virtue of our baptism, marked as Christ’s own forever.  We pray with and for all those church folks and through prayer we are linked to all the neighbors of those church folks.  That’s the miracle of The Church.  That’s Pentecost.  That’s what we celebrate today, when the mighty wind of the Holy Spirit blew in and Jesus’ friends discovered that they could communicate with all sorts of folks who didn’t speak their language.  They had Good News to spread throughout the world, it became clear that it was their calling to spread the Good News far and wide….not just over the distance of miles, but through the distance of time as well.

 

For good or for ill, we are all connected. Imagine that we had in this place a very, very long piece of magical red string.  I have it rolled up in a ball and I'm throwing it out to you, and you catch it and throw it to another person here.  Imagine that this string could become as long as we wanted it to be and that it was infinitely flexible and could divide as many times as it needed to.

 

Now what if each of us could take one end of this magical red string and give it to Jack or Rebecca and then those newest members of our Church could chew on it for awhile (they  are babies after all) and then Rebecca and Jack could offer the other end of the string to each person here as they encountered them.  Each of us, in turn, could then extend our strings to those people we encountered, and so on until everyone here was connected by this magical string.  In no time at all this magical red string would be woven throughout this place and beyond this place.

 

Think of how many people are here today who you know, think about where they go.  You can understand why the string needs to be magical.  It's a tie that binds.  If any one of us decided to leave then the shape of our being together changes.  Any change would be felt in some way by every single person here.

 

That’s how it is with relationships:  everything we do has an effect on others, either directly or indirectly.  That’s how it is with our baptism and our participation in the baptisms of others.  It matters how we treat each other.  It matters if even one of us is gone.

 

Ah, but the mystery goes deeper.  In our lives, as Christians in the Church, is not just about our connections to each other or our neighbors near and far, it’s also about the connection between each one of us and God.  Imagine that we each also have a vibrant red string that connects us with God.  That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in, that’s the tie that binds. 

 

When we deliberately gather together as Christians to pray and to worship, we acknowledgment our connection to God and to each other.  We have ties with Christians seen and unseen throughout all of time.   In prayer and worship, the Christian Church calls upon the power of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ to help us to grow into people who are rooted and grounded in God's love.

 

This is the church into which Rebecca and Jack are being welcomed and baptized this morning. Of course, they are not old enough to intellectually work out what being part of a Christian Community means…that’s a lifelong journey…do any of us have it all figured out? ....aren’t we are all discerning the mystery of God's love each and every day?  The bible talks about a God who loves us like children. It often refers to God as our Father but there are also images of God as a mother. It is in these parental images that we can get a hint of God’s love for each one of us...even as our own very human parents fell short of what God's love can be.

 

Wait a minute!  Did I just refer to God as Mother?  Yes I did.  You see, in Hebrew and in Greek, the word we use for “Spirit” has a feminine connotation and purpose:  ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek.  Increasingly, theologians and biblical scholars are returning to the use of feminine pronouns to refer to this third person of the Holy Trinity.  Both words mean not only “spirit”, but also mean “wind” and “breath.”  She's Wisdom, Sophia, the Holy Spirit of God, the wind of God, and the very breath of God that we celebrate today.

 

It is the Holy Spirit that turned a diverse, motley group of fishermen, tax collectors and zealots into a community, a holy fellowship.   These are folks that we would never expect that we would ever want to talk to.   It is that Holy Spirit, that Wind, that Breath, that took those twelve, and others who were with them, and propelled them into the streets, out into the world, equipping them to go from being disciples who follow to being apostles—those who are sent out.

 

Today is Pentecost. It is the day when the Church celebrates her relationship with God and with all of Creation.   Today we as Christians, seen and unseen, celebrate our shared baptisms with Jack, Rebbeca, and with each other.

 

Celebrate this day.  Listen for the wind.  Breathe.   Open the door to your heart and soul.   Feel the breath of God’s love propelling you forward, warming and comforting you, transforming and empowering you as move out from this place and connect with the world.

 

Today of all days, remember these invisible red strings of love which connect us with God, which connect us with each other in Christ, and celebrate the ties we have with all sorts of folks we never dreamed that we would ever want to talk to.  Alleluia! We are One in the Spirit.

 

Amen.

For the people of St. Philip’s
6 Easter, Year B
John 15:9-17
Maria Hoecker, preacher

Happy Rogation Sunday!!!!     ??????   Did you know today is Rogation Sunday?  This is the short season in our church calendar when we make the connection between prayer and the growing season of spring.   At harvest we give thanks for ripened crops and at Rogationtide we pray for the success of what is being planted.

While Rogationtide is now an optional observance in the Anglican Church calendar, historically the faithful observed the Rogation days by fasting three days in preparation to celebrate the Ascension.  Farmers often had their crops blessed by a priest at this time of Rogationtide, which has always occurred during planting season in the Northern Hemisphere.    We celebrate the Ascension this coming Thursday, 40 days after Easter.   Paul describes Christ as in heaven, the earliest Christian reference to Jesus in heaven. It is in the Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11, where Jesus is taken up bodily into heaven forty days after his resurrection, as witnessed by his apostles, with a prophecy to return.

It is from the word root of the word “Rogation” that leads us toward the idea that prayer is for the asking.   The Latin word ‘rogare' means ‘to ask' and Rogation Sunday is called that because in the gospel traditionally set for this day we hear the verse: ‘If you ask anything of the father in my name, he will give it to you.' (Jn 16 23).  It’s from John 16: v 23, the prosperity Gospel reading.  Historically it’s a good verse to read when you want your plantings to grow and be fruitful. 

Since time began, the thing on everyone's mind at this time of the year has been the successful growth of seeds sown, at least it used to be.  Now days we take for granted our food supply.  We get most of our food from wide store aisles, not thin crop rows.  We forget that harvests aren’t a daily occurrence that can be exercised at our convenience with a wire shopping cart.   We forget that sowing, harvesting, and preservation is a risky business, with no guarantee of success.

With Rogation Sunday’s traditional Gospel reading, it was natural to make the connection between praying for the successful planting of crops and Jesus' invitation ‘to ask anything in my name'.  It’s easy to imagine centuries full of superstitious hard-working farmers saying a prayer and then hoping for a fruitful harvest.  To everything~ turn turn turn~ there is a season, and so it goes.  In the autumn, the growing season would turn to harvest and prayers for thanksgiving would be offered in celebration….if the bad weather or insects didn’t come and wipe it all out.  The circle of prayers has turned with the seasons of life on this earth since time began.

Jesus deeply knew the language and experience of those who tended the pastures and the vineyards.   But, prayer is not offered as an alternative to hard work.  Jesus never said that prayer replaces hard work.   There’s an episode of The Simpsons tv show where some shoes are thrown through the plate glass window in Ned Flanders' house.   Ned is sort of a wide-eyed Christian character on The Simpson’s cartoon show.   The Simpson family is always making fun of Ned.  Nothing fazes Ned.  He’s what you might call a happy clappy guy.   Ned is not fazed by the broken window or shattered glass all over the floor but simply turns to his boys and says ‘anyone been praying for shoes?'

The cartoon is exaggerated, of course, but there is an edge to the satire that resonates with me.

There’s a popular idea out there surrounding prayer, but I see it as a temptation.  Its proof text lies with the prosperity Gospel reading.  It’s the idea that if you pray hard enough, if you pray well and often, you will somehow get on the right side of God…a personal ascension of sorts. This belief infers that God may not know that there is a particular need, so if you name it loudly enough with just the right piety and good words, you will be rewarded with whatever it is that you desire.  Of course this must be true, because sometimes prayers are answered.  Surely there’s a reason for that.   If you pray hard enough, your prayer will be rewarded right?  It seems to say it right there in John.  If your prayer isn’t rewarded, well then, you must not have been praying hard enough or with enough fervor, right?

Right?   No.  no.  NO.   Actually, the book of Job disputes that very idea.  Job’s friends offer up that rationale and Job pretty much slams them down.    Prayer is vital to our existence, but it is not about reminding God to be open to our will. God knows we have strong wills.  The purpose of prayer is to open our wills to God.   Our prayers open us up to truth, love, and transformation, all of which comes in abundance with the turn of the seasons. 

Prayer, if it is genuine and sincere, IS an articulation of desire. True prayer is a heartfelt plea for what we most earnestly desire – what any of us understand to be our own will.  Prayer is not our task to align God's will with our will but it is our task to align our will with God's love.  Prayer opens our hearts and our minds to the love of God.

The practice of prayer is difficult and confusing, at least it is for me, and I pray daily.   There are many days when the only prayer that I can attempt is silent prayer because often my own words seem so arrogant and thin to me.   My own feelings of humiliation, humbleness, anger, bewilderment, fatigue, doubt, and distraction invade my prayers on a regular basis.   It helps me to realize that prayer to God is not like a conversation between two people.  Rather it is a triangular awareness: prayer is between us and God - yes, but there is a third part of the triangle, and that is our own reality of the fragility of life on this earth.

We express both our desires and our pain in our prayers.  In many cases when we pray it might seem that we get no response.  We are so uncomfortable with silence in this culture, we've come to expect immediate results in most of what we do these days. God knows our fast-paced life as it slowly unfolds.  If our own prayers do not name our reality then we should question the honesty and depth of our prayers.  It's ok to rant about the shattered glass on the floor and the fact that you weren't asking for shoes.

When people pray from the depths of their true heart, with or without words, they begin to realize that life is not about acquisition.  Prayer is not about inflicting our own unexamined desires on the world or on other people.  For any person who prays, life becomes an opportunity to learn how to desire what God is giving. We learn how to abide in love, as God loves us.  Prayer becomes a daily walk, stepping through what Parker Palmer calls the “tragic gap.” -a gap between the way things are and the way we know they might be. Prayer helps us to bridge the tragic gap of life lived on this side of heaven.

Praying heals the one who prays.  For all of us, a healing transformation is needed because each of us is caught up in this hurting world.  Prayer opens us up to naming the reality of what is, just as our prayers open us up to accept what is to come.

This is a strong message I’m delivering today.  Walking the way with Jesus Christ doesn’t mean that we are freed from pain.  If we are hurting, God has not abandoned us. Through Jesus Christ, God abides with us as we abide with God.  When we abide with God we do not withdrawn from this broken world.   Our openness to God in prayer is intertwined with our openness to fully live into the joys and pains of the world.   You can’t pull it all apart.

Fervent prayers won’t always shield us from harm.  That’s superstition, not prayer.    There are simply times in every person’s life when it’s “our turn.”  It’s our turn to face loss, it’s our turn to reap an abundant harvest, it’s our turn to experience tragedy, it’s our turn to be the favored one, it’s our turn to be scared, it’s our turn to experience profound joy, it’s our turn to mourn.  It’s simply just our turn.

 With or without words, our prayers flow out of us as God’s love flows in.  Our human experience is of this world, but God’s loving grace, through the Holy Spirit , brings the promise of continual renewal.  New life comes to us in abundance through Jesus Christ.  To everything, turn turn turn , there is a season~ from that ageless song we can rise up from our prayers and proclaim, Alleluia! Christ is Risen!  The Lord is Risen Indeed.  Alleluia!

For the people of St. Philip's
The Great Vigil 2009/B
Matthew 28: 1-10
Maria Hoecker, preacher


A few years back, when we were in Sewanee at seminary, there was an earthquake.  Have any of y’all been in an earthquake?  This wasn’t at all like the earthquake which Italy experienced this past week.  Such terrible devastation we’ve seen this week of leveled communities.  No, this earthquake in Sewanee was a very mild shake up,  still, it shook me up.  I think it was about 4:00 o’clock in the morning when it came upon us.  I was sound asleep.   It wasn’t the vibration of the earth that woke me up, it was a strange sound.  Something I’d never heard before…..the sound of the land rolling toward me.  The sound of the trees vibrating, if sound could shimmer, that's what it sounded like.  I ‘d never heard anything like it.  Then the rattling came. The 120 year old house's timbers groaned.  The quaking seemed to last forever, but it probably only lasted for a ten seconds at the most. 

So much runs through your mind when you find yourself on shaky ground.  Is this what I think it is?  Where should I go to get away from it?  Is my world about to collapse?  What’s happening to my neighbors?  I guess it’s all in what you’re used to.  I come from Kansas and have been trained to go down to a cellar when the sounds of sirens fill the air.   Folks on the west coast hear that shimmering sound of vibrating earth and they know to get outside, I guess.  But I didn’t know what to do in the dark of that night.

Then as soon as the shake up came, it went.  Everything was dead still.  What just happened?!  Once I realized that my own roof hadn't collapsed,  I can remember sitting there in the dark imagining that all the glass windows in my two favorite campus chapels were probably shattered.  But mostly I wondered if anyone had been hurt.  I had no idea what news I might learn as dawn broke soon thereafter.  With the day’s first light,  I learned that the glass houses and people of Sewanee were fine, but there had been a massive rockslide off of Monteagle Mountain that blocked the interstate between Chattanooga and Nashville.   Indeed as I sat there in the darkness, I felt as though my sliding world had been rocked.

Tonight our world is about to get rocked again. We've arrived at The Great Vigil.   Tonight's worship is an ancient one. There are records which refer to people celebrating the great Easter Vigil as early as the fourth century.  We walk tonight in their footsteps.

We began this evening in a darkened Church, symbolizing the bleak darkness of the empty tomb. We can only imagine what Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James and the other women might have felt when confronted with such starkness on that first Easter day.  A great quake came and their world was rocked.  The rock in front of the tomb was rolled away.

They did not know how the story was going to turn out. They came expecting to do the very last thing which they could do to honour the body of  their friend, Jesus. Because of the previous day being the Sabbath, they were unable to anoint the body. They had to wait until now, the third day. It would have been a grim task, but it was one which they wanted to do because of the love they had for Jesus.

The women arrive at the tomb and get shook up.  The rock is rolled away and they are frightened.  But in the midst of the dark tomb, they find Light.

Tonight, outside in the cold emptiness, we kindled a new fire and experienced the warmth which can be found in shared company. The women at the tomb, even in their grief and confusion, were sent out to spread the Light.  It was by going out of the tomb, being sent out to spread the news, that they found their friend, Jesus, along the way.

It’s from that first flame that we light this Paschal Easter Candle. This candle which burns bright through Eastertide and at all of our funerals.  This flame represents new life and it is through this Candle that the Light of a Risen Christ first enters the empty tomb of our darkened Church...dipped in the waters of baptism.  In the midst of darkness and emptiness let there be light.

Just as the women found light in the darkness, so do we.

In our readings tonight we retell the story of salvation history, recounting those great stories from the Old Testament in which we remember how God was always reaching out to us to save us. All of these stories have a common theme.... humankind is continually slipping away from God.  So much of the Old Testament tells the same story of God continually reaching out through the message of the prophets.

Ultimately, these stories are made complete in Jesus Christ. God, no longer sent a prophet to simply be a messenger, God leapt across the deep chasm which existed between humankind and God.  Through Jesus Christ, bound as one by the Holy Spirit, God became one of us.

 God took on the cruel cross, an instrument of oppression and torture,  and God transformed the Cross into a means of hope and victory. God:  the same Creator who made light from darkness, a world from nothing, our God overcame death so that we too might live.     

And the earth shook.     A new world is offered to us. Jesus came back to forgive the very disciples who had forsaken him. This new world is about forgiveness, as it turns out, not vengeance.     And the earth shook.

The Risen Christ picked up a piece of bread and ate it and you could see the nailprints in his hands. This new world is about life, as it turns out, not death. And the earth shook.

Tonight we welcome Evelyn Grace Huskins into our midst, a Child of God.  Through living water, we baptized this child into the Light, saying the words that have been said by each of us , all of us, for nearly 2000 years.   And the earth shook.

In the fifties, in China, there was a devastating earthquake. But as a result of the quake, a huge boulder was dislodged from a mountain thus exposing a great cache of wonderful artifacts from a thousand years ago. A new world suddenly became visible.

We see all things new again.  God’s new creation has already begun, those of us who have been shaken up in the middle of the night are being called out of the darkness.  Now is the time to nail onto the cross all the pieces of our shattered world that lay at our feet. Paul is quite clear about this: all that debris is washed away in the deep water of baptism, the rubble is to be cast away on to the cross of Jesus Christ.

We are Easter people.  Hopeful ones.  Washed clean.  With every baptism, our world is given new life, new purpose.  We are called to be people of the light, even though this world still seems dark.  We are people who live in New Time even though Old Time is still rumbling on all around us.   Not only are we becoming new people ourselves, as we keep in step with the Holy Spirit, but the proclamation of the women running out of the tomb also beckons.  We are called to move out into the world and shake things up.  We are grace personified out in the world.  Not by our works alone, but by our faith.    Part of the challenge of Easter, and part of the particular challenge of Baptism, is to pray for wisdom and vision to see where God can and will make all things new.  That, quite simply, is our mission….every baptized Christian, no matter our age , no matter our gifts, everyone of us is called by grace to be bearers of the Light of Christ  .  Thanks be to God.


When the world rocked and the stone was rolled away ,  the women got the first glimpse of a new world, it came in a flash of lightning.  In that flash of brilliant light we too see a world where death doesn’t have the last word, a world where injustice is made right, and suffering is redeemed by a living God. 

God knows.  God knows suffering.  God knows loss.  God knows new life.  God knows that this new life will rock our world.
amen.

T

What I love about this container.

It started with a spark of an idea:
Gather beauty from this place to feed these people.
...feed me.

Slowly, it all came into view:
ceramic
satin
wood
glass
marble
cotton

...all gathered and held
by people.

Time came to contain it: 
relationship
release of gifts
inspired assembly
purpose
practice
prayer

...gathered and held
by people.

An object of and for prayer emerged.
Through prayer it became complete.
Carrying grace forward
for all.

...gathered and held
by people.

Amazing.
We keep watch as it unfolds
beyond any one's imagination.
It happens all around us,
for all.

Grace...gathered and held
by people.

Way cool,
like your canoe....Charis.
Something from nothing.
Carrying grace forward
for all.

That's what I love about that container.

m
...
..
.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation
Mark 6: 5-15
April 3, 2009
St. Philip’s Episcopal Church
Koinonia ecumenical service
Maria Hoecker, preacher

Here at St. Philip’s we have a few small groups which gather weekly for centering prayer.  Centering prayer is a contemplative prayer practice where one sits for twenty mintues in silence and releases all the words and thoughts and deeds that course through us in a day.    We end each sit with one member of the group slowly reciting the Lord’s Prayer, phrase by phrase. It’s a kind of lectio divina, a form of bible study, where we notice the nuance of each word.  It’s good to do now and then with texts we know by heart and tend to rattle off too fast.  It’s a way to give prayer and scripture the attention it deserves.

This week at centering prayer, knowing that I needed to speak a few words today, I paused at “lead us not into temptation,” I found  myself thinking,  “WHAT?”   The words hit me: if you break the prayer into short little sound bites, it sounds like Jesus taught us to ask God to refrain from leading us into temptation. What a weird theological statement,  as though God is some Cosmic Scary Stranger who’s just waiting around the corner, rubbing His hands and offering us candy. “C’mere little girl,” He growls. “I got some caaaaandy for ya!”

Is Jesus actually suggesting that God does lead us into temptation? Is Jesus saying, “God knows that we’re grabby little creatures — God, in fact, gave us those qualities so that we would be hungry for knowledge, for justice and for wisdom — but those same awesome qualities can turn bad on us, so we have to also ask God not to lead us toward that which God created for us?” Surely not, that doesn’t make sense.  It’s good to question assumptions that we make about scripture, questions take us deeper,  so let’s dive a little deeper into this tempting sound bite.

 
In the Anglican Communion we have an Archbishop, of Canterbury (in England,) who is first among equals.   The Anglican Communion is a collection of national churches around the world who say common prayers together, many of the countries were originally British Colonies.  In the United States and its territories, the national Anglican church is the Episcopal Church.    The ABC is not our pope, we don’t have a pope.  The Archbishop of Canterbury is a bishop who has been chosen by other bishops to preside (not govern) over the Anglican Communion.  His name is Rowan Williams.  He is a scholar, a quiet thinking man, a prolific writer.  This is what he says about temptation.

Rowan Williams suggests that first, always, we must approach scripture in the context of Jesus' own day.  Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem always carries a consistent message.

Jesus’ teaching often turns back to this idea that a great time of trial is coming. A time when we shall find out what we're really capable of.  As we often say you don't know what someone's made of until they're under pressure.  Jesus is saying, “We're coming towards a time when you really have to decide how much God matters to you; you really have to put your life on the line. “  Jesus says this over and over again as he predicts his own death.

 Now the words "lead us not into temptation" don't quite capture the essence of all of that because temptation for us usually tends to mean just a sort of impulse to do unworthy or sinful things.  But temptation goes far deeper than that. 

I’m sure all of us have endured trials.  All of us have moved through periods of angst and fear for what lies ahead.  We’ve all found ourselves in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Our hour of darkness takes many forms:  job losses, illness, injury, or death of a loved one.  When confronted with trials, our first response is to worry about what lies ahead.  Our temptation is to worry forward.  How will I get through this?  What if the worst happens?  What if I don’t have what I need to survive this trial?  It’s all conjecture of course, we haven’t lived through it yet, but we certainly can imagine the worst. 

Jesus says to us, don't assume you know the answers. Don’t assume you know what’s going to happen.   Don't assume you know how much you're capable of doing or not doing.  Pray that when the time of trial comes, when things get really difficult, you will have the resources and strength to meet it.  You will be led.

Temptation means so much more in the context of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  It means this huge trial is coming, this huge crisis appears to be looming. Lead us not into the temptations of fear, don't, please God don't push us into the time of crisis before you've made us ready for it.  Don't push us until you've given us what we need to face it, deliver us oh Lord from evil.

I’ve been through a few trials of my own.  There have been years where all I had was the strength to get through that moment, and then another moment would arrive and somehow I’d get through that.  I couldn’t think ahead toward what was to come, all I had the strength for was contained within that moment. To make plans seemed to be an arrogant assumption on my part.  Especially when the news seemed to be getting worse, not better.    Then slowly I began to realize that by grace I had all that I needed for that one moment, and then another moment would arrive, and with the arrival of the next moment, again, I had all that I needed, by grace.  I couldn’t guess what would happen next, but I could trust that what I needed would arrive.   When the time of trial came on in full force, when things became difficult beyond my imagination.  I did have the resources (and strength) to meet it.  They came , angels of grace, who brought all that I needed in my hour of need, gifts beyond my imagination.   I didn’t summon those graces, they come freely via the Holy Spirit, through the hands and hearts of real people.

The Lord’s Prayer is a good prayer to pray, because for each one of us there are times of crisis when we discover what we're made of.  In some seasons those crises are wretched, and we know we’re not up to it.  But we’re given all that we need in each moment as those moments string together into the strand of pearls which is our life in the making. 

It’s a good simple prayer, our Lord’s Prayer.   God, give us what we need to face the crisis when it comes and please God don't bring us toward that crisis too soon.

Lead us into not into Temptation is forever connected to the phrase which follows it.  Deliver us from evil, set us free. Set us free from all those things, the fears, the sins, our own selfish habits which keep us imprisoned, away from You,  and render us unable to face our very own tempering crisis.

So lead us Lord, lead us.   …not into temptation, the path we imagine for ourselves and so frequently choose to go down.  Lead us…… away from all of that.  Not into temptation, …  but deliver us from evil. 

Save us from the time of trial,
And deliver us from evil.
For the Kingdom, the power,
And the glory are yours,
Now and for ever.
Amen.

For the people of St. Philip’s
B Lent 3
Exodus 20:1-17
Maria Hoecker, preacher

This morning we hear a familiar story in Exodus, The Ten Commandments,  or as we say downstairs in the Godly Play classroom, The Ten Best Ways to Live.

 True confessions:  How many of us actually just saw a white headed Charlton Heston handing us the 10 commandments?   Moses/Charlton Heston….same thing, right?     His stern message has made an impression on several generations.  Charlton Heston’s message ….I mean.  This movie, The 10 Commandments, has had a pervasive role in shaping our response to Moses’ 10 Commandments…I want you to hold that thought, because I’m going to talk more about that in a minute.

 We usually associate the Ten Commandments with law rather than love.  Seemingly these are two very different things:  love and law.   Charlton Heston is no softy, you know.  Moses packs some heat.  Sometimes it seems it is he who must be obeyed.   Oh wait, yeah, it is GOD who must be obeyed, not Charlton Heston.    In fact, that rising star, Jesus, says loving God and loving our neighbor is what lies beneath all the laws of Moses.    Jesus says love is required.  God’s Ten Commandments are intended to point us toward love.  

The Ten Commandments can be lumped into two categories. The first four commandments deal with us being in right relationship with God, and the second six commandments deal with us being in right relationship with each other.   Now of course different denominations and chapters in the Bible number the commandments differently.  But generally this is how the commandments are categorized.   The categories can get very complicated.   Thank goodness, it is Jesus who states the obvious in Matthew 22: 34-40. 

But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,  “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.   This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

Despite its simplicity, loving God and our neighbor as ourself is not easy.  It is much easier to create food laws than codify the depths of love.  The Pharisees didn’t like what they heard Jesus say, not one bit.  They devoted their lives to upholding all the laws contained in the Torah as handed down by Moses.  The pharisees were in charge of making sure that the Ten Commandments were displayed on the courthouse lawn,  I mean in the Temple.

As I mentioned a few moments ago, I have a story to tell you.  (from  The Rev. Sarah Ball-Damberg)  A few years ago the Supreme Court confirmed that Texas has the right to display a Hollywood movie promotion on the grounds of its state capitol in Austin.

Of course, that's not how they put it. The Supreme Court ruled that Texas could leave a monument engraved with the Ten Commandments on the state capitol grounds. That's where it's been ever since Cecil B. DeMille had the bright idea of promoting his movie, The Ten Commandments, by joining forces with the Fraternal Order of Eagles to distribute Ten Commandment monoliths all over the country. Charlton Hesston and Yul Brynner, Moses and Ramses in the movie, would show up at unveilings of the monoliths like the one donated to Texas. So there you have it -- the Ten Commandments was a publicity stunt, and the Supreme Court weighed in on whether the publicity stunt could stay on courthouse lawns 50 years later.

Besides publicizing his movie, DeMille said he wanted to cultivate the moral fiber of the nation's youth.  Planting the Ten Commandment monuments in public places around the country was his way of telling a story in which obeying the Ten Commandments is the way to build character and be a good citizen.

Demille's Hollywood story is indeed a good story - although Charlton Heston staggering around as Moses is a bit over the top.   

What difference does it make? From what I read in the article, it says if you ever get to Austin, Texas ---you'll notice the first line on the concrete tablet reads, "I am the Lord your God." The second line is, "You shall have no other gods before me." It’s sort of the Reader’s Digest condensed version.  But something vital is missing…. God doesn't say, "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me." God says, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me."

Something’s missing on the concrete tablets that DeMille placed on courthouse lawns all across the country in a publicity stunt intended to sell a movie .  What’s missing is the story of God's saving act.   God’s saving act is what puts love into the law, not concrete tablets on a courthouse lawn.   In essence, the Ten Commandments have been extracted from the profound story of the exodus and inserted into the story of our culture….a story perhaps made more well-known by a movie than by scripture.

The Exodus of God’s People out of Egypt is epic, but it is not a movie.  The Ten Commandments are in a chapter that follows a chapter in a book in which God sets His people free.  Those people of God are part of the story of God's ongoing call toward our own freedom and salvation.  Those people are our people, not extras on a set.   God's law is God's gracious gift of love – a promised gift of deliverance and freedom for all of us.

God speaks through Moses, not Charlton Heston.  Unlike the actor in a movie, Moses never felt like he had the words, but by grace Moses delivered God’s Law of Love to God’s People.  God spoke through the speechless Moses and gave us all the 10 best ways to live.

There’s a sequel to this story:  the Ten Commandments are no longer enshrined, but are lived by the love of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ.  These loving laws are not just written in stone, they are written in our hearts.   God’s Laws aren’t given to us so that if we obey the laws, God will love us.  It’s the other way around.  God's love is freely given to us so that we may keep God’s Commandments. …these are the ten best ways to live.

As Anglicans we believe in the abiding truth of these loving laws.  Our union in God’s love is through Jesus Christ - our own will and power to obey the commandments does not come from the commandment itself, but through the graceful gift of the Holy Spirit.   We do not wield power through the Law, we only receive the ability to obey the Law through the love of God.   If we attempt to enforce God’s laws without also passing God’s love forward, the commandments are likely to be falsely used to condemn others.  That’s always what happens if the laws become more important than following God’s greatest commandment to love.  It’s simple. Always remember that Jesus makes it simple for us.  Love God.  Love your neighbor as yourself.

There is a story from our tradition.  When St John Evangelist was dying his disciples begged this disciple, whom Jesus loved, for one last piece of advice~one last word by which they could live.  Even they presumed that there was something they were missing, some bit of insider information that they needed.  St. John simply said this: ‘Little children, love one another.  It is the Lord's command, and it is enough.

Amen.

For the people of St. Philip’s
Mark 8:31-38
B Lent 2
March 8, 2009
Maria Hoecker, preacher

Do you remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that the Gospel of Mark is a story that’s meant to be read from start to finish?  Well today’s reading is the halfway point in the story.  We have before us in today’s reading a sort of theological fork in the road.        That great font of wisdom, Yogi Berra, offers this advice….. "If you come to a fork in the road, take it."   Yeah, we’ll take it, but which way do we go?

Chapter 8 is the hinge of Mark's gospel. Not only is this the exact middle of Mark in terms of chapters and verses, it is also the center point at which the ministry of Jesus takes a decisive turn toward the cross.

 Jesus seems to know what direction he’s going, but for the disciples, Mark 8 presents a fork in the road.   Like Yogi Berra, as they look at the fork in the road, they want to take it. They want it both ways. They want to stick with Jesus and be his followers, but at the same time they want to Jesus to lead them down the path they want to take. 

Mark 8 reveals to us something we already know but don't like to admit: it is difficult to be a follower. It's tough because somewhere in the recesses of our hearts we desire to set our own course.   Of course, this does not mean that we are never content to be followers. Most of us, if we feel inspired by a leader, are willing to go where this person directs us.  Unless……  unless…… that leader seems to take the wrong turn at the fork in the road. 
   
That is the fork in the road the disciples encountered in Mark 8. They want to follow Jesus, they really do. Suddenly, however, it looks like Jesus is intent on taking the proverbial "road less traveled," a path that was going the opposite direction of where the disciples wanted to go. ….a road head right over a cliff to certain death.

 Let’s back up a little bit.  In the verses just prior to this morning's passage, Jesus marks a pivotal point in the first half of Mark's gospel with the famous question, "Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am?" Peter gave an answer that was at once right and wrong. It was right in the sense that he correctly identified Jesus as God's Son, the Messiah sent to save the world. But that same answer was wrong in the sense that Peter's definition of the Messiah was incorrect. Peter thought the Christ would be an earthly king with political clout. The disciples wanted to follow Jesus all right, but they were hoping that the path would lead to a throne in a palace somewhere. They wanted cabinet jobs in the West Wing, not a seat in the bloody muck at the foot of a cross on the wrong side of a nail.


  It was confusing to hear Jesus say that he'd be rejected, scorned, and killed. He also said that after three days he would rise again from the dead, but by the time the disciples could hardly hear Jesus anymore. Jesus’ prediction of suffering and death sent the disciples into a tizzy.  Since Peter was a kind of leader among the disciples--and since he had just been the one to name Jesus' identity--he intervened.

 Peter might have said, "Let's have no more of that kind of defeatist talk, Master! You have to believe in yourself, Jesus.  If you ever expect to have other folks believe in you, don’t be so down on yourself.”  Verse 33 tells us that Jesus rebukes Peter harshly. But did you notice one little detail? Before he tells Peter how wrong he is, Jesus first turns around and looks back at the other disciples.

What did Jesus see when he looked at the disciples? Approval in their eyes for what Peter had just said?  Was he tempted to see in this band of disciples the possibility of his going another way? After all, Jesus had attracted a following. He was very popular.  Jesus had just fed a teeming crowd of 4,000 people.

Jesus had become so well-known in such a short period of time that he was now drawing out thousands. When the gospel began, Jesus could not fill up even a modest synagogue, but now . . . well, Jesus looked like a man who was going places. When in verse 27 Jesus asked, "Who do people say that I am?" he needed to ask that question because he was no longer able to keep up with what was being said about him. Jesus was big-time in the big leagues.

 Peter rebuked his Master and pointed toward the path that led to power and acceptance,  away from the cross.  Jesus glanced over at the other disciples perhaps for a moment he was considering Peter's proposal.  Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine after all….but Jesus sees the truth, and tells Satan to get behind . 

Jesus then invites all the crowds to listen in on what he has to say. What Jesus conveys in verses 34-38 is not the kind of thing you say if you're looking to whip up some enthusiasm in people. Quite the opposite: Jesus begins to speak unpopular words about cross-bearing, losing of life, turning away from the world in order to embrace something that is going to involve lots of sacrifice, hard work, and also death.  It’s not what the crowds wanted to hear.   Not what we want to hear in church either, but here it is.  Take it.

 As we stand at the great divide of Jesus’ fork in the road, we encounter the same choice.   Do we take it?

During Lent we are reminded that the whole of the Christian life are encounters with a fork in the road. The world is always luring us down various paths and avenues that promise all sorts of sunny things.    For anyone with enough ambition, access to education, willpower, gumption, guts, luck, and sheer determination ~there are many brass rings in the world to be snagged.  Of course, this relentless pursuit and grabbing often comes at great cost to the soul.    A person cannot say "Yes" to every new opportunity, continually reaching for the next rung , without simultaneously having to say "No" to any number of other things.  Something’s got to give, so family time gets sacrificed, involvement in church gets cut back, or problem areas in a marriage go unattended because we say to ourselves, "I don't have time for everything." True enough. No one has time for everything. Life is all about making choices,  but who gets left behind when we are continually over-scheduled and on the run? 

 Today, in Lent, we ponder the choice Jesus made when a fork in the road presented itself.  In the ears of most people then and now, Peter's suggestion that Jesus steer clear of sacrifice makes sense. ….but Jesus said “no” to the lure of the clamoring crowd.  Jesus said “no” to an alliance with worldly powers.  Jesus chose a different way, pointing toward his own death on the Cross.

We all bear that same cross: Jesus' cross.  We carry it forward.  Pass it forward.  Jesus' cross means dying to self so that we can be freed to live our life looking toward others, toward service, toward living out and proclaiming good news to the weary.

  The gospel message to us this morning is the same as it is every morning. If you come to a cross in the road, take it…..take it up and carry it,  onward.       Amen.

For the people of St. Philip’s

Ash Wednesday

February 25, 2009

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21

Maria Hoecker, preacher 

Today we are gathered at mid-week, at the beginning of Lent, to retrace our Baptismal crosses with ashes. 

Once upon a time there was a five-year-old girl named Eleanor who, after she was baptized and marked as Christ’s own forever with holy oil, she asked the folks around her, "Can you still see the cross on my forehead?"  She could feel it, but could they see it? 

“Can you still see the cross on my forehead?" 

With one simple question, this small girl said everything there was to say about living a Christian life and living the life as a steward of God's gifts.   It is this cross, traced with oil at our baptism, which connects us to God through God's covenant with us. Today, Ash Wednesday, is a perfect day to review the promises we make in that baptismal covenant; promises which shape the way we live our lives as people of the Way, people of the Light, people of Jesus. 

Today we are reminded that we mortal people are nothing but dust.  At the beginning of time, God took dust, breathed into it, and there was life: the first of many people rose out of the ashes.   That first being was made of dust, holy dust.    

Two parishioners were in my office yesterday for a meeting and as they were leaving one asked to hear the story of a wall hanging I have hanging behind my desk.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s a quilted piece, hand-painted, and it looks a bit like deep space.   It tells a beautiful story, as do many of the gifts of art that I have displayed in my office.   As my husband Rick was dying in the hospital a few years ago, a dear friend of ours who is a fiber artist  in Sewanee wanted to start a bit of art therapy with him.  Rick loved to paint.  For years he had been artistic director at a community theater in Atchison KS and he painted more flats than I could ever ever count.  So Rick and Diane agreed that this wall hanging they would create would originate from unbleached muslin and they would see where it would go from there.  Well, Rick never got out of the hospital.  He died before they could ever put brush to canvas.   

The winter after Rick died, Diane began to paint and all she could splotch on the muslin was gigantic cancer cells.  You can see them, the cells are red, green, misshapen, and ragged.  My close friends  in Sewanee reported that the wall hanging was ugly and undone.  Diane sat with it like that for a long time, and she stared at it.  She just sat with it and stared into it.    But gradually over the course of the winter her vision transformed.  She began looking at photographs of deep space as captured by cameras on the Hubble space telescope, and suddenly she found her inspiration.    As spring arrived,  she set to work taking what were blotchy ragged cancer cells and she transformed the ragged renegade cells into a profound representation of deep space.  Soon there were stars and novas and comets and galaxies interwoven through intricate machine quilting.   Upon my next visit to Sewanee, after Easter, she gave me this gift of all gifts.  A gift made from the heart, created by her own hands, with profound vision.   If you haven’t seen this gift, go on into my office and look at it.  I told Diane that I’m convinced that the cure for cancer is in that transformational image of deep space.   The cure is there, we just can’t quite see it yet. 

As our inquiring friend from this parish looked at the wall hanging yesterday, he mentioned that the traces of heavy metals that we have in our bodies originally were formed by super novas out in space.  Essentially we carry a bit of cosmic dust within us because we are an infinitesimal part of the cosmos.   We are dust, and to dust we shall return.  If you think about it, the intimate nearness of God made manifest in the vastness of deep space is made visible in these ashes we receive today. 

These ashes can also be very scary. Many of us here have seen the bodies of our beloved ones reduced to ashes.   My children have seen their dad’s body reduced to bits of bone and ashes.  We sat and looked at it all one hot August afternoon on our porch in Sewanee before we buried those ashes.   We opened up the bag and looked at it.   Of course Rick was no longer there in those ashes, but it takes awhile to wrap your brain around that.  So we sat with it.   We just sat with it and stared into it.   Part of why I couldn’t stand here that first Ash Wednesday following Rick’s death was because I realized that I couldn’t put what felt like his ashes on y’alls foreheads.  Of course these ashes today are ashes of palms, but for many of us, it feels like more than that.   And that’s ok, in fact that’s the gift of these ashes made into the sign of a cross on our foreheads.  

  It’s stunning to encounter the reduction of what was once a living body into a small bag of dust.  “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return”  echos loudly through one’s mind when they are stunned to find that they are holding ashes instead of a hand.  

Ashes are a reminder of all those ways in which we are separated or estranged from the eternal undying Love of God; all those ways we know as sin. In a few minutes we will recount many of the ways we separate ourselves from God and from each other. Especially from "others," those people who are not like us. In being disconnected from others and each other, we disconnect ourselves from God.  God doesn’t withdraw love, we are the ones who withdraw from it.  That’s the very definition of sin; when we separate ourselves from the love of God.   

So these ashes of palms we bear today remind us of our connectedness and our disconnectedness to and from God. These bits of dust remind us just how close or how far away God sometimes seems to be. 

Made as they are from last year’s palms, these ashes also serve to remind us both of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem as well as his crucifixion on a Roman cross. Jesus went from glory to humiliation in just a few days; from light to darkness in just a matter of hours.  Life happens that way sometimes. 

So, in answer to your question, little Eleanor,  we can see the cross of your baptism.  We are people who see the cross of Christ in the faces of others, all of us are marked as Christ’s own forever.  We know that the cross calls us into new life, a resurrected life. …. in Christ and with each other. 

Every gathering around this altar for a Eucharist is another celebration of Easter. We re-live our death into new life in which God sometimes seems so near, and at other times seems so far away.  If you contemplate the vastness of interstellar space, the planets in their courses, this fragile earth our island home , you just can’t help but stand in awe of the mystery of God’s promise in creation. In and through Christ we are assured of eternal life .  It’s our mystery of faith.  

Ash Wednesday is a time to repent; to return to God; to reconnect and reconcile.  We do this so that every day, not just today after we’ve brushed the ashes off, but every day people will be able to see the crosses on our foreheads. These are our crosses which we bear.   We can feel them, even though we can’t always see our own.  We do see each other’s.  We see these baptismal crosses as we are called to proclaim Good News of a risen Christ.  In everything we say and in everything we do, we are called to lift high the cross. 

Amen.

For the people of St. Philip's
Feb 15, 2009
 B 6 Epiphany
Mark 1: 40-45
Maria Hoecker , preacher

Mark is a great story-teller.  Can you tell from this Gospel reading this morning? 

One of the difficulties in reading short sections of Mark each Sunday is that we never get to hear the Gospel of Mark as it was intended to be heard.  Many folks don't realize that this is an epic drama which is meant to be told as a story.  Maybe it's because we usually hear Mark's Gospel broken up into little weekly vignettes. The storyline sort of loses its punch when we read it that way, confined to a weekly lectionary.  Have you ever noticed that Mark is always saying, "immediately "this and  "immediately" that.  There is a intended message of urgency in this drama.

 Mark's relatively short and action-packed Gospel was meant to be heard, not read. It was originally told as a story from beginning to end to a live audience. Mark wrote the script in Greek. Mark was an associate of St. Peter and likely wrote his gospel in Rome where Peter was based.  Probably this Gospel was written for Gentile readers in general, and for the Christians at Rome in particular. The gospel is usually dated between 62 and 75 AD, sometime shortly after Peter's martyrdom in Rome in 64 AD  .  Mark told the story first and then Matthew and Luke drew directly from him. Have you ever tried to read the Gospel of Mark from start to finish in one sitting?  Try it sometime.  Better yet, read it aloud.

Mark's Gospel is blunt and full of action.  He uses the word  "immediately" no less than eight times. This is an urgency in its telling….we hear it today in fact….."and immediately the leprosy left him" (Mk 1:42).  Mark means to tell us that Jesus didn't mess around.

The healing of the leper is the only such healing mentioned in Mark.  In this first chapter of the story Mark immediately shows us the humanity of Jesus.  Not as a newborn babe as Luke presents, but as a miracle worker, a healer.   Jesus, with a deep feeling of compassion, reaches out to an untouchable man.  Jesus touches a leper.  In reaching out, Jesus also claims his own humanity. He's not too holy to touch the unholy as has been determined by the priests.  Back then priests decided who was touchable and who was cast out, but Jesus reached past those rules set by the religious authorities.  Jesus intentionally took the risk of also becoming labeled as an untouchable. 

(as aside)  You know how we have words to categorize groups ....herd of cattle, gaggle of geese, etc.....I have one.  A pride of priests.  When priests get together, they can be a tough crowd.  Jesus found that out.

When Jesus healed the leper it meant so much more than merely changing the texture of an outcast's skin. Leprosy as defined in the Bible could be as disfiguring as elephanitis, or as benign as mildew on the walls. Sometimes contagious skin conditions merited being isolated from the group, but more often those who were labled as dangerous to the community were not contagious.  We now know that that mental illness, blindness, rashes are not indicators of being plagued by unclean spirits.    That's not the point I'm making here.   This healing of the leper is not an isolated miracle, it is not a private blessing, it's not another "Jesus healed me" story.  The point is that Jesus always sought to mend the torn fabric of relationships within community.  By sending the healed leper back to the pride of priests who banished him from the Temple, Jesus strikes a blow at one of the forces in society throughout time which cripples, alienates, and destroys human life. -- Separation from community.   

Jesus violated the purity laws by touching the leper, and then he ordered the healed leper to obey the law and submit to the authority of the community's priests for the ritual of cleansing.  Jesus insists that the healed man return to the religious community, return to the church if you will, in order to be reincorporated into the community.  Jesus asks the leper to quietly return to the same community that cast him out.  Do you hear a pattern there?  That's what Jesus will be doing later in Jerusalem.


Following the healing, the leper is given two instructions.  The first instruction is to be quiet about what happened.  This is not the case of Jesus using false humility in an effort to advertise his ministry.  Jesus wants no part of fame and recognition.  He seeks to find people of faith.  He does not seek notoriety.  All the way to the cross Jesus will be trying to transform those who mistakenly believe that "where the messiah is, there is no misery."  Instead, he lives a Gospel message that shows "where there is misery, there is the messiah."

The second instruction that Jesus gives is that the healed man must go back into his community, flawed though it may be.  He must follow the requirements of the law and participate in the ritual of restoration with the priest.  We are meant to live in community, flawed though it may be.

But the healed leper wasn't quiet about what happened.  Perhaps those who witnessed a transformation in him pulled the story of his healing out of him.  Perhaps they wouldn't let him go until he told them of this amazing man named Jesus.   As Jesus knew would happen, the telling of the Good News brought him fame.  The new-found fame created audiences, not congregations of faithful people, and Jesus had to avoid the towns, keeping himself in the country side.  Yet still they came.

It is a powerful story, an awesome drama, which when read or heard in one sitting reiterates the theme of Jesus' mission for all of humanity.  That is that the Kingdom of God is now.  Right here, immediately, right now.  Jesus continually sought to point us toward God.  Jesus sought to show us who God is and what God might be like and how we are to live if we wish to be a part of God's Kingdom. 

++++
I wonder.  Who are the untouchables in our lives?  Who is it that we in the Church have declared to be "unclean"?  Who have we cast out?  We all do it.   Who is outside of our circle?  On some level I would guess that each of us has declared there is an untouchable leper in our life.   Who would we like to cast out until they change and become more like us?  Yes, we all do it.  We are human after all.    Yet, Mark has brought us an urgent message this morning.  This message is charged with Good News.  It's calling us to move outside of our safe circles of sameness and reach out to the outcasts we ourselves have pushed away.  The outcasts are of our own choosing.  We the religious people are always fighting about that, you know, who's in and who's out.

Look around.  Who is not here? Who has been pushed out?  Where are they right now? Do we care?  Jesus is showing US the way back in.  We have to be Christ for each other, and we have to pray for the grace to let others be Christ for us.

Forgiveness. Compassion. Love. It begins in our hearts and moves out to the world around us. We love Jesus because he first loved us – warts and all. And in loving us, Jesus gives us power to do the His work.

We come to Jesus begging and we show our true selves.  Jesus heals us first and then sends us out to our sisters and brothers with the power of his Spirit.  We must be the hands that reach out and heal the wounded outcasts.  We are the ones to express the words that soothe a troubled spirit. We can be the arms that reach out and heal people who feel as though they are being pushed away by the church….by us.

All we have to do is make a choice to step forward.  "I do choose," says Jesus.  Reaching out in prayer, with a healing touch, doesn't require soliloquies. All we have to say is " I am here, in Jesus' name, I am here."  I am here in this place, in this moment, and I want you to be here too.  That is when we know that the Kingdom of God is now.  We know that the Kingdom of God is right here, right now.  And we know that in this moment, when we dare to reach out to those we do not want to touch, we too are healed.

For the people of St. Philip’s
4 Epiphany, Year B
February 1, 2009
 I Corinthians 8:1-13
Maria Hoecker, preacher

True story: there were once some missionaries in the Philippines who set up a croquet game in their front yard. Several of their Agta Negrito neighbors became interested and wanted to join the fun. The missionaries explained the game and started them out, each with a mallet and a ball. As the game progressed, the opportunity came for one of the players to take advantage of another by knocking that person’s ball out of the court. A missionary explained the procedure, but his advice only puzzled his Philipino friend. “Why would I want to knock his ball out of the court?” he asked. “So you will be the one to win!” a missionary said. The short-statured man, clad only in a loin cloth, shook his head in bewilderment. His “civilized” neighbor was suggesting something absurdly uncivil. Competition is generally ruled out in a hunting gathering society, where people survive, not by competing with one another, but by working together.

The game continued, but nobody followed the missionaries’ advice. When a player successfully got through all the wickets, the game was not over for him. He went back and gave aid and advice to his fellows. As the final player moved toward the last wicket, the affair was still very much a team effort. And finally, when the last wicket was played, the “team” shouted happily, “We won!” “We won!” (p 123) Illustrations Unlimited).   

Can you imagine what would have happened if those  missionaries had tried to teach their neighbors the rules for tonight’s Super Bowl game!!!

I think the apostle Paul would smile at this story. Today we read from his first letter to the Corinthians, one of the earliest Christian communities. In fact, back when this letter was written, I don’t think the term Christian had even come into use. Paul had his work cut out for him with this group.  In this first letter, Paul covers a number of practical situations: everything from what to do about a man who is living with his stepmother, to how best to arrange one’s hair when prophesying in church, to what food shall we eat?

The missionaries teaching their neighbors how to play a game knew the correct rules, but they did not impose their rules on their indigenous neighbors. The missionaries explained their rules once, but then they stepped back and observed as their neighbors acted in accordance with their own wisdom.  Thankfully the missionaries didn’t take the mallets away and insist that everyone play right or not at all. To do so would have been counter-productive, it would have oppressed the cultural values of those with whom they were living in community.  Even though the missionaries may have had knowledge of the rules of the game, the question would have hung in the air, “who sets the rules?”

In our epistle reading today Paul is trying to bring an end to the confusion around what folks ought to do with food that has been sacrificed to idols

Apparently, there were people in the Corinthian community who believed that food sacrificed to an idol was untouchable, but there is only one God in Paul’s mind, and that is the Lord. Therefore the food that was being sacrificed to idols was really just food being sacrificed to nothing.

So Paul thinks the food given for sacrifice could be eaten just like any other food, but Paul stresses to his friends in Corinth that they need to be very careful.   We all need to be careful.   Determining how we should act in a given situation is not just a matter of knowing what is right or customary. We must always take into account how our actions will affect the life and growth of other people.

My favorite verse in this chapter reads, “Knowledge puffs up but love builds up.”  I kept that verse close to me in seminary.  Knowledge is good, important, and something to strive for, but knowledge without compassion is dangerous. Our goal as Christians is to know God—not to know about God.  Any knowledge gained will not automatically bring us any closer to God.  The point of the game is how we use our knowledge.  Do we have to be the one to set the rules, or is it enough to be considerate of all the players.

Paul’s message to followers in Corinth was this: let love guide you, because great minds DON’T think alike.

We will never live in a world where we all agree on the rules of the game, and that’s a good thing. None of us knows all there is to know, thanks be to God.  We need to play well together.  Our challenge, always, is to let love inform us before we act.

Corinth was a church with many, many problems.  And one of the biggest problems was that it had members who thought they knew all the rules of the game.  Paul reminds them (and us) that while knowing so much might seem like a good thing, it can lead to pride which is contrary to Jesus’ call to walk humbly with him.  A quest for knowledge that is not tempered with love will certainly lead to conflict and the destruction of the church.  Instead Paul tells the people here and elsewhere in this letter that the better way is always love first.  Love builds up rather than destroys.  Love is more concerned with the other.  Love is the bond that holds a church together.  Love holds us all together.

It’s not about the food, it’s not about the rules about food.   It’s about love.  It’s always about love.  God is love.  Paul writes about this gift of love that God has given us through Jesus Christ and how, by the power of the Holy Spirit , God’s love works through us.. …….1 Corinthians 13 , paraphrased.

If I speak with great eloquence, conviction and beauty, but do so without love, my words are little more than bombastic bellowing or a grating noise.

And though I have the power to speak for God and understand every mystery and comprehend all knowledge, and if I have all the faith that could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

And though I give away everything I possess, and even if I offer my own body as a sacrifice to the flames of fire, but have not love, I have gained nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind. Love does not envy, love is not arrogant or proud. It does not act unseemly; it is not self-seeking, not easily provoked, and does not dwell on evil. It does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, has faith in all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

As for prophecies, they will vanish away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it too will end. For now we know in part and prophesy in part, but when all is brought to completion, then all that is partial will pass away.

When I was I child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I put away childish ways. For now we see as in a mirror darkened and distorted, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know even as I am fully known.

And so it is that faith, hope and love live and dwell within us, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

A blues song, written by Big Bill Broonzy in 1947. In the 1940s, Broonzy began to become increasingly dissatisfied with the slow pace of social change, especially with regard to race relations. Broonzy had been especially hopeful that black participation in World War II would lead to greater social equality back home. "Black, Brown, and White" reflected his growing fear that the wartime experience had led to little substantive change.

After every American record company Broonzy approached refused to record "Black, Brown, and White," Broonzy recorded it several times in Europe. Although it led to his estrangement from the American recording industry, and was never well known during his life, the song Broonzy called "the best, most important song I ever wrote" is now one of his best known.

---

This little song that I'm singin' about,
People you know it's true.
If you is black and gotta work for a livin'
Now, this is what they will say to you -

They says, if you was white, you'd be alright,
If you was brown, stick around,
But as you is black, oh brother,
Get back, get back, get back.

I was in a place one night,
They was all havin' fun,
They was all buyin' beer and wine,
But they would not sell me none.

They says, if you was white, you'd be alright,
If you was brown, stick around,
But as you is black, oh brother,
Get back, get back, get back.

I went to the employment office,
Got a number and I got in line.
They called everybody's number,
But they never did call mine.

They said, if you was white, you'd be alright,
If you was brown, stick around,
But as you is black, oh brother,
Get back, get back, get back.

Me and a man was workin' side by side,
This is what it meant -
They was payin' him a dollar an hour,
They was payin' me 50 cents.

They said, if you was white, you'd be alright,
If you was brown, stick around,
But as you black, oh brother,
Get back, get back, get back.

I helped build this country,
And I fought for it too.
Now I guess that you can see
What a black man have to do.

They says, if he was white, he'd be alright,
If he was brown, stick around,
But as he was black, oh brother,
Get back, get back, get back.

I helped win sweet victory,
With my little plow and hoe.
Now I want you to tell me brother,
What you gonna do 'bout the old Jim Crow.

Now, if you was white, you is alright,
If you was brown, stick around,
But if you is black, oh brother,
Get back, get back, get back.

 
 
For the people of St. Philip’s
Jan. 22, 2006
3 Epiphany, Year B
Mark 1: 14-20
 
I have a fish story from Sewanee.
 
As many of you know, I spent the past several days in Sewanee at a centering prayer retreat. St. Mary's retreat center is
located on the Cumberland Plateau near Sewanee, TN. For those of you who aren't familiar with 
centering prayer, my time was spent in community with 27 people for eight days of silence and prayer.
 
We moved through the days together- praying, eating, and sitting together-- but we were freed to be in an inner solitude
by not making eye contact nor speaking to each other during most of those days. Some of my dearest 
friends were also on that retreat. These dear folks I haven't been with much since we moved from Sewanee days after
Rick's funeral there in August.
 
This space of time and place with quiet friends freed me to grieve openly and know that no one around me would feel
compelled to soften the pain I was in, for I needed space to feel it. Their quiet presence was balm because they knew me
and they knew Rick, and they deeply knew why I was crying. I thank all of you here for granting me that space of time
and place to rest with them and with God.
 
Part of my routine after breakfast was to go on a long walk each day to a library on the edge of the bluff. I was having a
hard time that particular morning. Part of my purpose in being at the retreat was to deeply 
contemplate my upcoming ordination to the priesthood (Feb 2006), as it's been a long process of formation. I have enjoyed my
ministry as a lay person, and I was trying to sort out what ordination means as we are all ministers in Christ 
by virtue of our baptism.
 
I found myself at the edge of a reflecting pond near the entrance to the library. As I stood there, weeping, I began to notice
that over the course of about five minutes all the fish in the pond were slowly swimming toward 
me. There were hundreds of them, all different sizes, all looking at me with these big ol' fish eyes, all waiting expectantly.
Slowly I realized that they were wanting something from me. They wanted me to feed them. 
They wanted bread.
 
I didn't have any bread.
 
They were nearly motionless, suspended at all levels in the pond, all facing me, all waiting for something. I stood there,
empty handed, wondering where that bread might come from. Then it all came to me. John the Baptist in the recent
lectionary readings saying of his friend Jesus, " I must decrease so that He might increase." Me, the future priest feeling
rather small, with no bread. I look at the fish assembled, and I say to them, 
" I have no bread! Jesus, Jesus is the bread. It all has to come through him."
 
With that realization I was freed. Jesus is the Bread, the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven. All I have to do is open my
hands, open my heart, and the Bread will come for the hungry fish.
" I will make you fishers of people, " Jesus says.
"Show me the way" says I.
" Come follow me." says Jesus.
 
I am a shy and reluctant fisher of people. Following Jesus is not an easy road. Thomas Merton struggled with many of the
same questions and uncertainty that we all face. I spent a good deal of time contemplating his 
words on my retreat, and I have printed one of his prayers in my ordination bulletin. I'd like to read his prayer to you
today.         

+peace,  Maria

In Thoughts in Solitude, Part Two, Chapter II consists of fifteen lines that have become known as "the Merton Prayer."

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"
© Abbey of Gethsemani

~ The Gift Outright ~

The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia.
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak.
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

~ Robert Frost; 1874-1963 ~

For the people of St. Philip's
 John 1: 43-51
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 18, 2009
Maria Hoecker, preacher. 

The text from our Gospel reading is all about evangelism and mission.  The dreaded "E" word distilled to its essence.  First, Jesus said to Philip, "Follow me," and lo and  behold, Philip followed! 

It's amazing if you think about it.  Jesus said, follow me, and  here we sit, in St. Philip's Church, nearly 2000 years later.   Follow me.  That's  backwards from the way we are inclined to gather people into the Christian faith these days, ever plotting and strategizing as to how we can attract folks to come and see.   Do you know the song  Day by Day?  It's  in the musical Godspell.   It has the line, " To see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, Follow thee more nearly, Day by Day. "    

This is a wonderful description of a way to lead a Christian life. …follow me.  It describes a growth in understanding, a growth in love, and a growth in obedience. But it is NOT the way Jesus recruited his disciples.   He did not say, "Here are some commentaries on scripture and some books of theology. I want you to study them and get to know me. Then when you know me, I want you to describe, if you love me, what your love for me is like. After that you can follow me." Thank goodness Jesus didn't ask Philip to first go to seminary before he followed him!!!!   Seminary is famous for sucking the Spirit right out of you.    What Jesus said to Philip was so much simpler and, in a way, much more difficult. He just said, "Follow me."     If you have to think about it too much it just doesn't make any sense.  That's the way it should be.     Follow me.  Trust in me.  Love me, says Jesus. 

The reason this story is so important is because it goes to what the heart of being a disciple of Jesus means.   A disciple is not one who studies the teacher.   A disciple is a person who actually walks with the teacher.

Jesus asks Philip to come and walk with him.

One of the consequences of walking along with Jesus was that Philip became convinced that Jesus was the one who is described by the language "him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write. " And so Philip told Nathanael, based on that perception, "Come to Jesus and believe."

In a sermon,  J. Hugh Magers writes that there are studies that show that most people come to church and into a claiming of Jesus as savior because someone invited them. Typically this is a family member or friend who beckons. It doesn't matter a whole lot what the motivation behind the invitation is. It can range from loving someone so much that you want to spend an eternity with them and know that a shared belief in Jesus is essential, to simply being kind enough to invite someone who doesn't have friends in hope that might be remedied by being part of a church congregation. Whatever brings a person in, the object of that is to spend time with the teacher and become a disciple.

I was invited into the Episcopal Church.  My best friend, Katie, did the calling.  I was  a half-hearted Methodist at the time,  this was nearly 15 years ago.  First she invited me to her wedding to Dan.  Trinity Episcopal Church,  Atchison KS.   I was so intrigued by the beautiful simplicity of that wedding, it was so sacred, the liturgy as profound as the love between Katie and Dan.  About four years later I attended Dan's funeral.   The profound became poignant.  He was dead of cancer, Katie was left widowed with a very young son.  We buried Dan in Trinity's Memorial Garden on a hot day in July.   The funeral was every bit as profoundly moving as their wedding had been, a sacred expression of their love in Christ, shared until in death, one of them parted.

Not long after that, Katie invited Rick and me to sing in Trinity's choir.  "Come on along with me, sit with me, I'll show you what to do, " is what she said.  It was a bit intimidating, what with all the bowing and kneeling and book fumbling, but Katie showed me the way.  We sang alto in the choir and she taught me merely by standing and kneeling and singing alongside me as we went along.   We literally became neighbors, next door neighbors.    She is Max's godmother.   We were with Katie and her family just a few weeks ago, when we made our trek back to Kansas. Peter is a fine young man of 16 years.  Katie is married to Reagan now.  Katie and I talked long into the night of love and loss.  We talked all the next day as though we had never parted , glad to be together again.  She's been there for me, as I've been there for her.   She came to Rick's death bed in Nashville.  She came here to Brevard, for my ordination to the priesthood.  It's been seven years since the Hoeckers left Third Street in Atchison to go to seminary,….seven years since Trinity parish sent us to seminary with love, prayers and pledges of money to help us answer the calllings they saw in us…".Come follow me, Jesus said."

And now Rick's ashes are buried next to Dan's in that Memorial Garden.   We buried him on a hot day in July. Katie and I are sisters in Christ, we have been all along, walking along….she out on the prairie and now I in the mountains, making our way as we continue to bid each other toward Jesus's call to "follow me."    If one starts to falter, the other is there to encourage, day by day.  That's what we do for each other.  That's what friends do for each other.   That's all any of us can do for each other.

Jesus ends the Gospel for this Sunday with this image, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

All Christians who are disciples, who spend time following Jesus, have stories to share of signs and wonders they have seen as heaven opens up and the angels of God ascend and descend upon the Son of Man.

There's a story about a group at the Episcopal Church Center in New York who meet regularly to read the Gospel and ask specific questions in a time of prayer. Three Native American clergy developed the process, called "Gospel Based Discipleship."

The time set aside for Gospel reflection and prayer has come to give shape to the ministries of the people who participate.

The reflection questions are quite simple: "What is Jesus (the Gospel) saying to me?" and "What am I going to do in response to Jesus (the Gospel)?" Each of these questions is preceded by a reading of the Gospel appointed for the day, and is followed by sharing of what those gathered hear Jesus saying.  It's as simple as that,   it's not about getting the "right" answers….it's all about  asking the questions.  It's about how we as disciples discern, asking the hard questions as to what God calls us to do in our ministries as baptized members of Christ's Body….as followers, not leaders.

Sometimes our response to a call is very powerful; more frequently it is quiet, or we receive the news with dismay. But in all cases, in this journey,  we disciples , all of us, are invited,  led, nudged, or sometimes dragged, kicking and screaming, into new levels of awareness, insight, mission, and ministry.    I don't know about you , but since those quiet peaceful beginning days in the Trinity choir,  I feel like I'm following Jesus kicking and screaming a good bit of the time….God laughs whenever I decide I now know where Jesus is calling me to be.

One of the regular participants in the bible study described it this way. "We are called by Jesus to follow him and be with him. It doesn't mean that we know where we are going or what will happen. I was worried at one time about the effect my following Jesus would have on my family. Somehow, out of that day's Gospel, Jesus said to me, 'Do you suppose that I love your family?' I had to answer, 'Yes.' Then it came to me that as I follow Jesus, wherever that path leads, my family will be blessed. The anxiety went away. I realized that I could have spent months in counseling at no small expense, or just lived with the anxiety and been mildly crazy and somewhat ineffective, or I could spend time following the teacher. Following the teacher is the way to go."  There is only one true teacher.

It's as simple as it can be.  Follow Jesus.  Jesus knows the Way.

Having Confessed by Patrick Kavanagh Having confessed he feels That he should go down on his knees and pray For forgiveness for his pride, for having Dared to view his soul from the outside. Lie at the heart of the emotion, time Has its own work to do. We must not anticipate Or awaken for a moment. God cannot catch us Unless we stay in the unconscious room Of our hearts. We must be nothing, Nothing that God may make us something. We must not touch the immortal material We must not daydream to-morrow's judgment— God must be allowed to surprise us. We have sinned, sinned like Lucifer By this anticipation. Let us lie down again Deep in anonymous humility and God May find us worthy material for His hand. "Having Confessed" by Patrick Kavanagh, from Collected Poems. © W.W. Norton & Company, 2004. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Widow's Scarf
- Diana Cole (Christian Century, May 20, 2008, p. 30)

My mother's elegy was long and red.
Off the needles, stitch by stitch it slipped,
when tears failed her and words knotted in her throat.

It kept her from going crazy,
this long, thin thing
falling off ...  Read Moreher lap,
curling into itself,
with each row making it through one minute,
her mind occupied in her hands.

How else to spend those first nights
with a husband dead
and never before alone in a house more than a day?

Over time the scarf lengthened less,
until one afternoon, needles crossed mid-stitch,
its keening accomplished,
it was laid aside.

I would not have been a poet
except that I have been in love
alive in this mortal world,
or an essayist except that I
have been bewildered and afraid,
or a storyteller had I not heard
stories passing to me through the air,
or a writer at all except
I have been wakeful at night
and words have come to me
out of their deep caves
needing to be remembered.
But on the days I am lucky
or blessed, I am silent.
I go into the one body
that two make in making marriage
that for all our trying, all
our deaf-and-dumb of speech,
has no tongue. Or I give myself
to gravity, light, and air
and am carried back
to solitary work in fields
and woods, where my hands
rest upon a world unnamed,
complete, unanswerable, and final
as our daily bread and meat.
The way of love leads all ways
to life beyond words, silent
and secret. To serve that triumph
I have done all the rest.

"VII" from the poem "1994" by Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997. © Counterpoint, 1998. Reprinted with permission.

In the vivid red
of the fresh berries,
in the pebbled skin
of an emerald lime,
in the bright colors
of things made
to be transitory,

you see the same
loveliness
you find in your own
delicate flesh,
the lines fanned
around your eyes
charming like
the burnish
of plums,

your life like
all the other
fragile organics,
your soft hand
hovering over
the succulent apple,
you reach for it,
already transforming.

At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards;
at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered.
Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.
Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance,
and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been:
but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long,
for that is to place it in time.



(Burnt Norton, -part of Part II,  Four Quartets.  T.S. Eliot)
http://www.artofeurope.com/eliot/eli5.htm