Alaska!

I received a phone call today letting me know that I have been accepted into the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program at Providence Medical Center in Anchorage, Alaska, for summer 2010. So, if all plans fall into place accordingly, we will be spending the summer in Alaska!

Praise the Spirit in creation

We sang this hymn this morning at our community Eucharist (Wednesdays are our "Sundays" here at the seminary). It's a truly beautiful hymn, #507 in The Hymnal 1982 (the official Episcopal hymnal).

Praise the Spirit in creation
Breath of God, life's origin
Spirit moving on the waters,
Quickening worlds to life within
Source of breath to all things breathing
Life in whom all lives begin

Praise the Spirit, close companion
Of our inmost thoughts and ways
Who, in showing us God's wonders,
Is himself the power to gaze
And God's will, to those who listen,
By a still, small voice conveys.

Praise the Spirit, who enlightened
Priests and prophets with the word;
His the truth behind the wisdoms
Which as yet know not our Lord
By whose love and power in Jesus
God himself was seen and heard.

These are just the first three stanzas (not "verses" -- as I'm learning in my "Singing the Word" class, hymns have stanzas, not verses, because they are poems) -- I loved the opening stanza and also the third one that acknowledges that even the "wisdoms which as yet know not our Lord" are inspired by the Spirit.

Biblical ethics?

It seems that my Basic Christian Ethics class will be giving me the most food for thought this semester. This week, in the first part of a section on "The Bible and Christian Ethics," we considered the role of the Old Testament in Christian Ethics. As part of our reading for Monday's class, we were assigned the following passages of Old Testament texts for reading:

Exodus 20-23 (The Ten Commandments and other laws)
Leviticus 20:6-26 (the "purity laws," including the infamous anti-homosexuality passage)
Deuteronomy 5:1-21 (The Ten Commandments again)
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (Israel's instruction to teach the law to their children)
Deuteronomy 10:12-13 (Summary of the law: What does the Lord require of you? To love and serve him.)
Deuteronomy 13:6-11 (Commandment to kill your children if they lead you astray from the worship of the one God.)
Deuteronomy 20:10-20 (Guidelines for war against other nations, including an injunction to kill all the people in the towns they conquer, but not to kill any trees!)
Deuteronomy 22:13-30 (Laws about sexuality, particularly about the importance of women being virgins when they are married -- the penalty is death if they are not.)
Isaiah 1 (The prophet denouncing the empty ritual of the temples as having no meaning because the people have turned away from God.)
Amos 5:18-24 (More condemnation of empty ritual - "I despite your festivals; I take no delight in your solemn assemblies")
Micah 6:6-8 ("What does the Lord require of you? To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.")

Among these passages, we find some real gems of "biblical ethics" -- for instance, in the passage from Exodus, we are told that killing another person is grounds for the death penalty. But killing a slave is grounds only for punishment, not death for the slave-owner, and only if the slave dies immediately. If the slave survives for a few days after being beaten and THEN dies, "there is no punishment, for the slave is the owner's property." (Exodus 20:21) How are we to apply THIS Scripture in today's world?

Or what about Deuteronomy 13:6-11, which instructs parents that they should kill their children if they worship any gods other than the God of Israel? So should modern-day Christian parents kill their children if they decide to convert to Hinduism or Islam?

At the same time, however, within this collection of sometimes horrific laws, there are also laws that I consider morally commendable, such as the prohibitions against lending money at interest (Exodus 22:25-27), and against oppression of "resident aliens" (Hebrew: gur, meaning one who is unable to be at home due to war or famine -- a modern-day equivalent would be refugees or undocumented immigrants, according to our Old Testament professor Becky Wright), since the Israelites were themselves once aliens in the land of Egypt (Exodus 22:21).

So what to do with these texts? How do we construct a consistent biblical ethic based on Scripture? Do we simply "pick and choose," throwing out the passages about killing one's children and keeping the passages about not oppressing refugees? What does it mean to say that this text is the "Word of God"?

Many of my classmates did not seem troubled by the difficult passages in the Old Testament, making comments about taking into account the time and context in which the Old Testament was written, and using analogies of human development to say that the earliest Old Testament laws were given to the people of Israel in an early state of development morally and that today we have progressed to a higher state of moral being in which we are able to understand and interpret more nuance than people were then.

But these arguments seemed hollow to me. For one thing, the idea that humanity has progressed over linear time (often associated with "modernist" thinking) was somewhat disproved by the atrocities of the 20th century, including two World Wars and the Holocaust. And it seems inconsistent to me to on the one hand talk passionately about how we should take more seriously some of the Old Testament teachings on economics (the idea of a Jubilee Year where all debts are forgiven, the practice of keeping the edges of the fields un-plowed and left for the poor to eat) while at the same time arguing that we should not pay attention to those parts of the Old Testament that seem offensive to us today.

For one thing, not everyone is agreed about which parts of the Old Testament are offensive. I find the so-called prohibitions against homosexual behavior to be offensive, but many Christians do not. The Evangelical churches I was a part of in college would criticize this kind of approach to the Bible for using "man's judgment" to evaluate the worth of "God's Word." Who are we to question God's Word, they would ask? And in some ways, I am still asking this question.

I suppose I am looking for a consistent way to read the Scriptures, and I want to be up front and honest about what standard I am using to evaluate them. If I want to say that certain passages are not in keeping with what I know about God and God's will -- well, where did I get my ideas about what God and God's will are like? I suppose I got my ideas about God from reading other passages of Scripture (like Micah 6:6-8 and many of the Gospel texts), but other parts of it come from my own inner sense of right and wrong, of what is good and just.

I guess I can be thankful that I am a part of the Episcopal Church, which approaches faith through the "three-legged stool" of Scripture, tradition, and reason -- not the "sola scriptura" (or "Scripture alone") of Martin Luther and the later Reformist (Protestant) churches. That at least gives me grounds to bring my own reasoning (in the context of the wider Church community) to bear on the Scriptures, rather than feeling obligated to take them all literally, at face value, and try to follow every law and regulation within them.

Sound familiar???

In preparation for my church history class on Wednesday, I'm reading a passage from John Jewel's An Apology for the Church of England, written during the English Reformation to defend the Church of England against the charges of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church.

As I read this passage where Jewel defends the Church of England by comparing the Roman Catholic Church's accusations against the Church of England to the erroneous statements about the early Christians by the larger pagan community -- both based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the community (either the Church of England, in Jewel's case, or the early Christians, in his historical example) was really about, due to lack of knowledge and understanding and interactions with the stated "opponents" -- I couldn't help but think about the situation of Muslims in America today, who are often accused of many things, erroneously, by those who simply do not understand their faith and practice but criticize from afar.

If you're familiar with this modern phenomenon, does any of this sound familiar?

18. And, whereas they pretend we have departed from the unity of the catholic church; this is not only odious, but though it is not true, yet it hath an appearance and similitude of truth in it. But, then, not only those things which are true and certain find belief with the ignorant multitude, but those things also which may seem probable; and so we shall ever observe that crafty and cunning men who had not the truth on their sides, have ever maintained their cause with the resemblance of truth; that those who could not dive into the bottom of things, might be taken at least with the show and probability of their arguments. Because the primitive Christians, our forefathers, when they prayed to God, turned their faces towards the rising sun, there were some that said they worshipped the sun, and that it was their god. And because they said, that, as to their eternal and immortal life, they lived on nothing but the flesh and blood of the Lamb without spot, meaning thereby our Saviour Jesus Christ, envious men, the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose only business it was to render the Christian religion by any means hateful, did thereupon persuade the people, that the Christians were impious men, that they offered human sacrifices, and drank man's blood. And when the Christians said, With God there is neither male nor female, that is, that, as to the obtaining of justification, there is no distinction of persons; and did salute one another commonly by the names of brother and sister; there were not wanting some who slandered the Christians thereupon, and said, they made no distinctions amongst them of sex or age, but acted like beasts. And when they met frequently in vaults and secret places, to pray and hear the gospel, which sort of private places and meetings had sometimes been made use of by conspirators against the government; there was thereupon a rumour spread abroad, that they conspired together, and had secret consultations about murdering the magistrates, and subverting the government. And because in celebrating the holy communion they made use of bread and wine, according to the institution of Christ, they were thought by many not to worship Christ, but Bacchus and Ceres; because those heathen deities were worshipped by the pagans with a like rite, with bread and wine. These things were then believed by many, not because they were true, for what could possibly be less so? but because they had a kind of resemblance of truth, and by that show of truth were fitted to deceive them.

The Bottom Dollar

In my Basic Christian Ethics class today, we discussed Anthony Trollope's novel, The Warden (1855). The story is concerned with a priest in the Church of England who receives a large sum of money for a position in which he actually does very little work, while the old men in the almshouse or hospital (modern equivalent: nursing home or assisted living facility) that he oversees remain in a basic level of poverty. The position was originally created by someone's will, who left a fixed sum of money to the men in the almshouse and decreed that the extra generated by the lands owned by this man should go to the priest in charge of the hospital. Only problem is, when the will was first established, the land was mostly farmland, generating a small income. At the time the novel takes place, it is 400 years later, and the land is now suburban land that has been developed and brings in a huge amount of rental income -- so the priest now receives approximately 10 times the amount of a normal priest's salary, while the situation of the men who are the beneficiaries of the will has remained unchanged.

Discussing this ethical situation has gotten me to thinking about the role of money and salaries in priests' discernment of their calling. Our professor informed us that the Church of England now has a system in which all priests are paid the same amount, and it's barely enough to live on. In the American Episcopal Church, however, the salaries of priests vary quite widely, from barely enough to live on in some smaller parishes to upwards of six-figure salaries in some of the wealthy and endowed parishes. So what happens when, as a priest, you are job-hunting and you find that there is a $35,000/year job serving as the rector of a very small parish in a poor part of town, where you will be the only staff member of the parish, or a $150,000/year job serving in a wealthy urban parish where you will be supported by a staff of 20+ people, including four other priests to share the load of priestly duties (celebrating Eucharist, preaching, visiting people in hospitals, leading adult education forums, etc)? Which position would YOU hope you would get, if they chose you? But what if God is actually calling you to serve among the poorer population, even if it means more work and less money? It seems to me it would be rather convenient to take the money question out of the equation -- if we had a system like the Church of England, where all priests were paid the same amount, we could focus solely on the job and the sense of calling rather than worrying about our salaries.

On the other hand, I could see this creating a problem much like the problem in the education system in America -- teachers are paid so low wages that no one is willing to take on the jobs for the amount of work they require. People always say of the so-called "helping professions" that "you don't do it for the money," and consider this to be a good thing, thinking that one's motivation is somehow more pure if money is not part of the equation. But there's also a problem if the people serving in these positions are not able to maintain a reasonable standard of living.

Thoughts?

Revival of the Blog

I first began this blog in 2006, during my Episcopal Service Corps internship year in Omaha, Nebraska (Resurrection House). The idea was to chronicle my year of vocational discernment there, and wherever that might lead me.

Three years later, I am a junior (first-year) seminarian at Sewanee: The University of the South, and a Postulant for Holy Orders (for you non-Episcopalians out there, that means I'm in the second of three stages on my way to ordination as an Episcopal priest). Somehow, in the midst of my actual discernment process for the priesthood once I moved to Atlanta, I stopped keeping up with this blog. It seems now might be a good time to revive it.

I will attempt to post fairly regular reflections on my journey to the priesthood, and God willing, once I am ordained, I will continue to use this space to reflect, since I will never NOT be "seeking the call."

For now, I will be posting lots of things retroactively. As I write this post on Jan. 22, 2010, I have not updated this blog since the fall of 2007. I'm going to attempt to "fill in the blanks" now and post-date the entries for easy recovery later.

Grace and peace be with you, and thanks for reading.

Sermon - Second Sunday of Pentecost, Year B

Sermon delivered at Holy Trinity Parish, Decatur, Ga., on the Sunday of my last week of work there as communications coordinator after nearly two years.



What does it mean to be "chosen" by God?

In the Hebrew scripture for this morning, we read the story of God choosing David to replace Saul as king of Israel. The prophet Samuel surveys the sons of Jesse and discerns that David is the one God has chosen.

In essence, the work Samuel does in discerning the next leader of Israel is the same work that discernment committees do in choosing the next leaders of the church. As individuals present themselves as interested in a career in ordained ministry, it is the committee's responsibility to listen and to pray, and to discern which of these individuals God has chosen to serve as deacons or priests in the church.

I stand before you today as a product of that process. The committees met, the prayers were said, the bishop was consulted, and at the end, all these people affirmed that they believe that I have been chosen by God to be a priest.

And I believe it, too. The discernment process and the ordination service do not allow for a kind of "oh, if you insist...." approach to putting on the collar. Aspirants for the priesthood are not allowed to play the role of the reluctant leader, having greatness thrust upon them. A large part of the discernment process is learning to claim one's sense of calling. When the bishop asks in the ordination service, "My sister, do you believe that you are truly called by God and his Church to this priesthood?" I must be able to answer confidently and firmly, "I believe I am so called."

In essence, I must stand up and proclaim to the world that I am chosen by God.

Sounds just a bit arrogant, doesn't it? -- maybe even dangerous. We are rightly suspicious of people who claim to be "chosen by God" -- for me, that language conjures up images of early Puritans proclaiming who is and who is not among the "elect" few whom God has chosen for salvation, in a system that I would call theologically abusive. Throughout human history, people have used language about being "God's chosen people" to justify pursuing their own self-interests, often through violence.

But what we miss if we think of being "chosen by God" as arrogant is the fact that being "chosen by God" does not make us any better than anyone else -- because here's the secret -- God has chosen EVERYONE. But we are chosen to do different things, to play different roles. Claiming to be "chosen by God" only becomes arrogant when we believe that the thing God has chosen us to do is better than the things God has chosen other people to do.

My grandfather, who was not a church-going man himself, used to always say, "What a good thing it is that God made us all different -- that's what makes the world go 'round." Or, in the words of the Apostle Paul in the letter to the Ephesians:

"[E]ach of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ." (Ephesians 4:7, 11-13)

What role has God chosen you to play in building up the body of Christ? Even this passage from Ephesians is quite limiting, as it talks about people being called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers -- but God also chooses people to be doctors and lawyers and English tea volunteers and vestry members and gardeners and finance committee members. Where do your gifts lie in serving God and bringing others to the knowledge and love of God?

In my experience of discerning my calling to the priesthood, I have come to believe that we all have a particular calling in life, a particular path that will bring us to a place of abundant blessing if we choose to follow it. I do not believe that God will reject us if we do not choose that path, but I do believe that we will find more fulfillment and abundant blessings if we do follow it.

In late college and the beginning of graduate school, I planned to pursue a career in journalism. I knew I loved studying religion, and I was also a good writer, so I thought I would combine these two things and become a religion reporter for a newspaper. My experiences in the world of journalism were all rewarding in some sense, and I believe that God was surely with me, guiding me and loving me through all that I did in that field of work. But while I was writing articles and copy editing newspaper pages, I couldn't shake the sense that there was something more important that I should be doing.

From the first time I began to read the Bible in earnest in late high school, I had been struck by Jesus's injunction to reach out to the poor. Passages from Scripture like, "If you love me, feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17), and "whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40), would ring in my head as I walked past homeless people begging for change on the streets of Cambridge.

Finally, I listened to the call and began to volunteer with an outdoor church for the homeless in Cambridge, similar to the Church of the Common Ground here in Atlanta. Although I felt completely unqualified and incompetent in this ministry, it certainly brought me much closer to God than journalism ever had. I began to write about my experiences with the Outdoor Church, and some of my mentors began to suggest that I might consider pursuing ordained ministry. Although every practical bone in my body told me it was time to get a "real job" and start making money to pay off my educational debt, I felt the call to devote intentional time to seriously discern whether or not I had a calling to ordained ministry, so I spent a year in intentional community living and discernment in Omaha, Nebraska, through one of the Episcopal Service Corps internships for young adults. While I know God would have been with me even if I chose not to go to Omaha, it became obvious to me once I arrived and met the wonderful people there who supported me in my discernment that I had found the place of deep blessing that God had for me at that time.

Listening to God's call is not often easy or practical, in my experience. But when God chooses us to do something, we actually have very little choice in the matter. From comparing notes with others in the field of ordained ministry, I have heard countless stories of people who have denied their calling for many years, pursuing another career, until finally they were able to accept God's call, to recognize their chosenness, and begin to live into that place of deep blessing to which God had been calling them all their lives. Like Jonah, we are finally unable to run from our calling, however scared we might be to accept it.

It has certainly been difficult for me to accept that I am chosen by God. Ironically, although I look for approval from others and struggle with perfectionism, it is actually difficult for me to accept praise, and even harder to truly acknowledge that I am fundamentally accepted, even chosen, by God. My perfectionism often leaves me feeling woefully inadequate in the face of the calling I have received. Perhaps that's why I was brought to tears by the following quote, which I first heard in a sermon that a friend of mine gave at St. James Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the church I attended while I lived in Boston. It is often attributed to Nelson Mandela, but was actually written by Marianne Williamson, an author and minister in the Unity Church. She writes,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

My years in discernment have begun for me the process of becoming liberated from my own fear -- fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being hurt -- and becoming reborn as "a new creation" (as Paul says in 2 Corinthians), a more calm and confident version of myself who is able to claim her gifts and own her calling. The process is difficult and ongoing, but it is happening. I am learning to accept my chosennesss, to acknowledge that I am the beloved of God - to stand up and say, "Yes, I am chosen."

I believe this is what happens when we begin to follow the path that God has prepared for us -- we are brought face to face with our belovedness and are liberated from our fear. God begins to pry open our hearts to accept God's love and begin to offer it to others. It may not always be the path we would have expected to take; it may not be the path that others would have us take -- but it is the path God calls us to nonetheless. And it is an invitation to a place of great blessing.

My prayer is that each of you would find that path, that place of great blessing, in your own lives, and in doing so you would find yourselves face to face with a God who loves you and who chooses you - every day and every hour - to represent God's love to the world.

The Lord has chosen YOU. Stand up and proclaim it to the world, and "let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify God in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). Amen.

Sermon - First Sunday of Advent, Year B

Delivered at Holy Trinity Parish, Decatur, Ga.

"Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven." (Mark 13:26-27)

For many years, I missed this part of Advent.

"Oh, it's the first Sunday of Advent, what a lovely season," I'd think to myself. Time for Advent wreaths and the lovely greenery decorating the church, time for the beautiful Advent lessons and carols, time for those fun chocolate Advent calendars to help us count down the days to Christmas.

I had never really looked closely at the Scriptures that we read this time of year - Scriptures that are not just about foreshadowing the birth of Jesus in the first century, not just about waiting for Christmas, but about waiting for that other coming of Jesus - the Second Coming - which we affirm every week when we recite the Nicene Creed - "he will come again to judge the living and the dead."

In all the loveliness of the pre-Christmas season, somehow my mind conveniently edited out the judgment part of Advent.

This is easy to do, especially when you're part of a church that doesn't like to focus too much on judgment. We are a church of welcome, of inclusion, not a church of judgment and exclusion. It's one of the main reasons I chose in my adult life to become an Episcopalian. (I'm not a "cradle" case like some of you out there.)

But we don't get to edit out the judgment part just because it makes us uncomfortable. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, every year during the end of Pentecost and the beginning of Advent, we read these passages of Scripture that speak about Jesus's Second Coming and the final judgment of all humanity. And today, I am inviting you to engage with that part of our tradition that we so often want to gloss over.

Now, don't start squirming too much. I'm not going to launch into a fiery "hellfire and brimstone" kind of sermon here. We are still in the Episcopal Church, after all. And actually, I think most of us don't need fear-mongering tactics to get us to reflect on God's judgment. I suspect it is a question that many of us reflect on quite often, however quietly and privately. It is a question basic to the human condition, a question that we revisit every time we encounter sudden and unexpected death.

At its most universal, the question is this: "If I died tomorrow, what meaning would my life have? What would I have contributed to this world?"

At its most specific, within the Christian faith, the question is this: "When I meet Jesus, at my death or at the Second Coming, what will Jesus think of the way I have been living my life? How have I served God with this gift of life God has given me?"

Christian contemporary artist Nichole Nordeman asks this question in a song called "Legacy" that has spoken to me over the years. "I wanna leave a legacy," she sings in the chorus. "How will they remember me? Did I choose to love? Did I point to God enough to make a mark on things?"

The Scriptures we have been reading lately invite us to reflect on these questions. Last week we heard the parable of the sheep and the goats, from Matthew 25 - an image of the final judgment in which Jesus measures the faithful not by how many vestry meetings they've attended or how many church functions they've organized, but by how they've treated the "least of these" - the most vulnerable members of society - those who are hungry, thirsty, sick, or in prison.

And so on this first Sunday of Advent, as we begin to wait for Christ's coming - both on Christmas and in the Second Coming - we are invited again to reflect on this question. How are we living our lives? Are we living in accordance with the kingdom of God as described by Jesus in the Scriptures? Are we choosing to love? Are we pointing to God in all we do? Are we caring for the most vulnerable members of our society? Today marks the beginning of a year of carefully and intentionally asking those questions of our common life together.

Two weeks ago, the diocesan annual council voted to pass a resolution that commits the Diocese of Atlanta to focus intentionally on poverty for the next full church year, beginning today on the first Sunday of Advent and ending on Christ the King Sunday next November. The resolution instructs that every gathering of the church for the next year should begin with the question, "How shall what we are doing here effect or involve the poor?"

I have talked with some clergy from around the diocese who felt frustrated by this resolution and the demands it makes. They felt if they voted against the resolution, it would seem like they were "voting against the poor," and yet they didn't think simply asking this question at the beginning of Bible study or worship or vestry meetings would really accomplish anything - and worried that it would seem forced and inauthentic.

I can understand their concerns, but I was excited when I heard about this resolution. Call me naïve, but I think this kind of question is exactly the type of question the church should be asking every time it gathers as the body of Christ. To me, this is a "final judgment" kind of question.

In my vision of the Second Coming, if Jesus were to walk through those doors right now, I feel fairly confident he'd be asking us just such a question - how has what we have been doing here, in this place, effected or involved the poor, the most vulnerable of society? Would Jesus recognize this place and our work here as a continuation of the work of reconciliation and justice he began in first-century Palestine?

I acknowledge how cumbersome it may seem to keep this question at the forefront of every gathering of the church for the next year. But I think that is precisely the point. The prophetic voice has never been easy to hear. Sure, it may seem awkward to bring this "agenda item about the poor" into situations where it doesn't seem to "fit" - the Seniors in Action trip to hear the Atlanta Symphony's Christmas concert later this month, or the Feminist Theological Reflection Group's Advent party, or the next young adult dinner gathering - what do any of these activities have to do with the poor? Well, perhaps that is precisely the question we should be asking of all these activities.

At its best, this exercise will bring an awareness of poverty into those situations and circumstances where we do not usually think about it. Perhaps if we approach this year remembering how deeply and inextricably God's judgment is linked to our treatment of the most vulnerable among us, we might allow the prophetic voice of God to create in us a conversion of heart, mind and action with regards to our relationship with the most vulnerable in society.

As a parish that already does a great deal of outreach to "the poor" of our own city and around the world, I would encourage you, the people of Holy Trinity, to reflect particularly on this aspect of the question: "How shall what we are doing here effect or involve the poor?" We already do so much to "help" the poor; how can what we do in this place more fully involve the poor, so that we can break down the barriers between "us" and "them" that the language of "the poor" and "the rich" often creates? How can this community bring together people of different social classes to worship and share a common life together?

What would it look like, for example, if we both donated food to DEAM and invited our DEAM customers to worship with us on Sunday mornings? What would it look like if we went and spent time with the poor by becoming involved in the ministry of the Church of the Common Ground, an outdoor worshipping community for homeless men and women in downtown Atlanta? When we look around the table as we are gathered for Eucharist or for the many meals we will share together in this place over the next year, may we continually ask ourselves the question - who is not here? And what can we do to invite and involve those people in our life of worship and ministry in this place?

These are "final judgment" kinds of questions. How shall what we are doing in this place effect or involve the poor? How will our lives make the love of Christ known to the world? What would Jesus find in this place, and in our hearts, if he were to return today? The answers have implications not just for our personal reckoning as we stand before God in the final judgment, but for the kind of church and community we will be here and now.

Amen.

Sermon - All Saints' Day

Delivered (from memory - no notes!) at "Worship @ the Welcome Table," Holy Trinity Parish (Decatur, Ga)'s alternative, Saturday night worship service.

We saw him every Sunday.

His spot was by the trashcan on the corner of Church and Brattle Streets in Harvard Square, right across the street from the Crate and Barrel. From there, he sold copies of "Spare Change News," a street newspaper on issues of poverty, produced by volunteers, and sold by homeless and formerly homeless vendors on the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. From beneath his wool cap, his dark face would light up when he saw us, and we all came to expect the familiar greeting:

"Hello, family!" he would say to us as we approached him, a United Church of Christ minister, an Episcopal deacon, a Methodist seminary student, and me, just a random student of religion in graduate school who was absolutely sure that she was NOT interested in ordained ministry! (pause here for laughter ;o)

We would return Butch's greeting, "Hi Butch! How're you doing today?"

"Doin' alright, doin' alright," was always the response. His large grin was unfailing as he picked out which sandwich he'd like from the assortment we brought every week, and gladly took the clean socks that we offered, and always insisted that we all hold hands while he led us in prayer on that street corner, as busy shoppers brushed past us.

Butch was one of our many parishioners in The Outdoor Church of Cambridge, an ecumenical Christian community that takes the church to those who either cannot or will not reach it on their own.

Every Sunday for over a year while I was in grad school, I worshiped with The Outdoor Church in Cambridge Common, a large public park right outside of Harvard Square. We held an outdoor Eucharist, a liturgy that began every week with the same passage of Scripture that we just heard sung in the video:

Jesus said, "Come to me, all you that are weary
and carrying heavy burdens
And I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;
For I am gentle and humble in heart;
and you will find rest for your souls;
for my yoke is easy, and my burden light."

After the Eucharist, we'd share a simple meal together, usually comprised of sandwiches, fruit, and - of course - cookies. Then we'd load up all the extra food we had into coolers, and we'd set off into Harvard Square, with sandwiches and juice and cookies, and communion. Instead of setting up a soup kitchen and waiting for the hungry to come to us, we went to them.

I began volunteering with The Outdoor Church after about a year and a half of trying to ignore this inner constant nagging that told me that Jesus would probably be much more likely to be found hanging out with Boston's homeless population than going to class with a bunch of academic intellectuals, the likes of which I was surrounding myself with in graduate school. The Jesus I met in the Gospels seemed to be more concerned with feeding the poor and reaching out to the disenfranchised than almost anything else.

The Gospel lesson for today illustrates what some theologians have called Jesus's "preferential option for the poor." In it, Jesus turns conventional wisdom on its head, and calls "blessed" precisely the opposite of the things we usually speak of as blessings. Think about it. Most people use the term "blessed" when they are describing something good that's happened to them. "I'm so blessed to have my good health," or "I'm so blessed that my children are safe." "I'm so blessed that things are going so well for me right now at work." "I'm so blessed to have this house and this money."

But Jesus doesn't say that. Jesus says, "Blessed are you when things are really NOT GOING WELL. Blessed are you when you are HUNGRY. Blessed are you when you are POOR. Blessed are you when you are MOURNING."

It's not a coincidence that we read this scripture on All Saints' Day, the day we remember all those saints of the church who have gone before us. For a saint is not, contrary to popular culture belief, a person who is perfect or lives a holy life in such a way that they never have any trouble. But a saint is one who recognizes the holiness in imperfection.

The Church hasn't always done a very good job of reminding us of this -- if you think about the icons that we have that represent the saints (pictured at right) in these sort of statue-like figures, holding out their hands in blessing, with halos, who look very much removed from who we are as living, breathing human beings that make mistakes.

But the Episcopal Dictionary of the Church defines as saint as "a holy person, a faithful Christian, one who shares life in Christ." Notice it didn't say "perfect" anywhere in there. Faithful, yes. Perfect? No.

So what does it mean to be a saint? To be holy, faithful? To be one who shares life in Christ? What does it mean to share life in Christ?

If our scriptures for today are any indication, perhaps to be a saint is to recognize the blessedness in the things that the world often devalues, avoids, or shuns.

This All Saints' Day, as I remember the saints who have gone before us, I am particularly remembering Butch. I left the Outdoor Church in 2006 when I graduated and moved away from Boston, but I've kept in touch with the ministers - Jed, the UCC minister and Pat, the Episcopal deacon. And in February of this year, I received an email from Jed with some sad news.

"Pat and I have some bad news," he wrote. "Butch died sometime two weeks ago, apparently of a heart attack. Last summer he told us he needed to be hospitalized for a few standard tests, and then disappeared."

Jed and Pat tried to visit Butch in the hospital, but to no avail. They had no contact information, they couldn't find him, the hospitals were unhelpful. They finally learned of his death from Frenchy, one of our other parishioners in The Outdoor Church who was sort of the unofficial "mother" of the Harvard Square homeless community, keeping tabs on everyone and informing us of what everyone was up to if we hadn't seen them in a while.

When I heard about Butch's death, I wished more than anything that I could have gone to his memorial service. You see, for me, Butch was one of the saints. Butch's faith was an example to me. Butch taught me a lot about looking for the best in everything and everybody. About seeing the blessings in those things I might not be inclined to see as blessings. When I think about the great cloud of witnesses, the great communion of the saints, I picture Butch there, with his arms open wide in welcome, and calling out to everyone he meets, "Hello, family."

Who are you remembering today? Who in your life has shown you what it means to be a holy person, a faithful Christian, one who shares life in Christ? Who in your life has exemplified what it means to recognize the blessedness in the things the world so often devalues?

I invite you to hold those people in your minds and hearts, and please join with me in a prayer of thanksgiving.

Gracious and holy God, we give you thanks for the great cloud of witnesses and saints that have gone before us, of the examples that they have shown us of what it means to live a holy and faithful life in service to you. Grant that we may follow their example and one day enter with them into that great communion of the saints, which worships you for all time, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever, Amen.

(From left: Rebecca (Methodist seminary student), Jed (UCC minister), Pat (Episcopal deacon), and me.

House of Prayer

When I was at Song School in Colorado with my sister a few weeks ago, I bought Vance Gilbert's newest CD, Up On Rockfield. This song really struck me. Definitely recommend this song and the CD.

HOUSE OF PRAYER

This is not my house of prayer
But I was in your neighborhood
I just had to kneel down here
Thought it just might do some good

Seems like everywhere I turn
I see the whole world coming apart
I couldn’t take another step
Not with this troubled heart

Tell me, do you think he’ll mind?
When my kneeling down is through
This is not my house of prayer
But it’s gonna have to do

This is not my house of prayer
But tell me, does your God above
Promise you a place at the table
No matter how or who you love

When I fold my hands to pray
You hold yours a different way
Tell me about your house of prayer
Is everyone allowed in there?

Tell me how you justify
Having heaven on your side
Can’t God show up anywhere
What if we let him decide?

(bridge)
So many people, so many ways
To love and praise and sing
And God has to listen to every word
I remain amazed at how we can all be
Searching for the same thing
And never feel like we’re being heard

This is not my house of prayer
This is not my house of prayer
This is not my house of prayer
But it’s going to have to do

(solo)

Written 2006 by Vance Gilbert & Lori McKenna
© Disismye Music ASCAP/Lori McKenna: Warner Bros. Records