Temptation

By the Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

A woman was showing her friend a dress she bought earlier in the day. It was a beautiful dress but she was nervous because money was tight in the family and she hadn't discussed the purchase with her husband. She was afraid he was going to be mad. She assured her friend she tried to resist the temptation. She said, "I could feel the devil tempting me, telling me I should get it and he kept at me, tempting and tempting until I shouted 'Get behind me Satan!'" Her friend shouted "Amen" but then looked confused and asked, "then why do you have the dress?"

"Because I heard the Devil say, 'Mm mm mm, it looks even better from the back.'"

Play write Oscar Wilde wrote, "I can resist anything but temptation." Few stories are more delicious about temptation than that of Eve and the apple. How many of us are fine until we're told what NOT to do? Imagine that rush of joy she felt after the first bite when her eyes were opened and she saw as she had never seen before. And then the consequences.

The temptations of Jesus is a story that shows a very human dimension in a man whose humanity we often lose track of. Most stories focus on the miracles and healing, the great teaching and other stories that reveal the truly divine in him, But this story, placed strategically on the first Sunday in Lent, demonstrates a truly human characteristic. As we enter Lent and are encouraged to look at our own temptations and how we did or did not give into them, we do so from the vantage point of seeing Jesus in a similar situation. His temptations were our temptations in the way that there is nothing new under the sun.

The temptations were about materials, power, and glory. Whether it's making bread when you're hungry, or proving that you can't get hurt, or placing yourself in a position to be adored by others -- the situations are different but at their heart, all temptations fit these categories.

The devil also plays a common role, using what we love to make us do what we don't want to do. Here, the devil uses scripture to tempt Jesus. He says, "It is written 'He will command His angels concerning you... On their hands they will bear you up....'" Misusing scripture is an old trick also. Jesus deftly parries each use of scripture with another verse.

Jesus resists each temptation, but it's wonderful for us that he had them. As in so many situations, he shows us the way out of trouble. Temptation exists, but we don't have to give in.

The current recession is a litany of temptations for material, power and glory that we given in to with disastrous results. On so many levels the desire to have more, to be more impressive, or to exert more muscle and gain economic power and prestige proved too strong for so many who wanted their own corner of Eden and ended up being pushed out. There's nothing wrong with wanting and working toward goals, but when they become obsessive or necessary for concepts of self worth, we enter a dangerous place.

Jesus reached what may have been the most decisive moment of his earthly life. Had he made the bread, or jumped, or bowed to the devil in exchange for glory, things would have turned out very differently for all of us. But he didn't. He embraced who he was and kept perspective on what was really important -- his relationship with God and other people. He did not strive to be better than others, but relished being equal to them.

The Apostle Paul writes about the theme of temptation and obedience in his Epistle. He compares Adam and Jesus, whom he refers to occasionally as the new Adam. The old Adam's disobedience led to his downfall and the new Adam whose obedience led to his resurrection. The analogy is for our benefit and it's not about punishment for crimes as much as it is as a way of living. Those whose lives are filled with the obsessive need to get more stuff, power or glory create a hell for themselves of looking over their shoulders to see who's going to knock them down. We're seeing this play out tragically in the Middle East. The opposite of this scene is one that played out in South Africa with Nelson Mandela, who is one of my heroes. He had his own moments of temptation and decision. Amid blood thirsty calls for revenge and plunder, his own anger at his imprisonment, he chose a path of peace and reconciliation. We see these temptations in scripture in the language of story and symbol, we see them played out on the world stage and the season of Lent is to give us a time to see how it plays out in our lives.

We all have our own moments of decision. Nations are not resting on most of ours, but lives of people important to us are impacted by our decisions and how we respond to temptations. The language of Genesis has God expelling Adam and Eve, but I think it was they who chose to leave without realizing it. Just as we leave the peace and serenity of our lives when we choose to make harmful decisions. The choices may not be conscious, but they are real none the less.

Jesus shows us how to regain Eden by loving God and our neighbor. The scriptures are for our learning, the traditions of the church are a vehicle to put that learning into practice. This season of Lent is one such tradition. Its solemnity symbolizes how seriously we take the opportunity to examine ourselves and sift our choices. The disciplines of giving up something or taking something on that challenge us and help us grow, stretch us and give a glimpse of how we might improve. They all add up to a preparation for the feast of the Resurrection called Easter in which the promise of Jesus is echoed again that there is always new life, even in the midst of sadness or destruction.

When we take a snapshot of our world today, there is so much pain and anguish. The ongoing war and strife in Afghanistan and Iraq, the terrible earthquake in Tokyo as well as the one a year ago in Haiti. Temptations come in the form of what we want to do for ourselves and another form of temptation comes in feeling powerless to meet challenges which seem too big for us.

If we focus on the pain and anguish, we'll miss the signs of resurrection in their midst. People meet suffering with love. For every problem and challenge, there are people who work in a variety of ways to address it. Friends helping other friends, groups of people helping each other and in some cases nations helping each other. Next week a group of children from Africa who are orphaned by AIDS and other diseases or violence in their own country will witness to us the power of resurrection in their lives. They've risen to meet their challenges with faith and courage. Their song and movement are signs of their triumph. They are not paralyzed or broken by their tragedies and setbacks. They might be tempted to give in, but they don't.

None of us have guarantees of lives without tragedy or setbacks. I think the first temptations for materials, power and glory are attempts to barricade ourselves from such things, but ultimately such attempts fail. The biggest temptation is to believe that God has abandoned us and left us to our own devices. But again and again we see how God is at work in the love and persistence of the good that is present in people who meet their challenges in faith and help others to do so. Worshiping God is a way of tapping into that strength and courage to meet our own struggles.

In Luke's version of this story he said that after the Devil departed, he waited for another opportune time to visit Jesus. Matthew doesn't have that, but there's some truth in that too. Temptation comes whether the devil is in front of us or behind us, at very surprising times.

Use Lent as a time to think about these things and to allow them to make the promise of new life and resurrection strengthen us to meet life's challenges. Amen.

© 2011 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

"I am about to do a new thing"

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

The first lesson this morning is from the prophet Isaiah. It’s a long book of 66 chapters whose content covers more than a generation of history and material. Biblical scholars have identified four different writing styles, and, given the time span of information covered, have concluded that the book must be the work of four authors whose works have been compiled into one book.

This is not an unusual practice. The authors, using the primary Isaiah as their inspiration, see their works as a continuation of his. In other words, their writing conveys what they believe Isaiah would have said if he was in their situation. The book of Isaiah is the largest of the books called “Major Prophets” in the Old Testament and was written in the years leading up to the sacking of Jerusalem, the beginning of the Babylonian Exile and well into the sixty year period.

In both Jewish and Christian traditions, the Book of Isaiah serves as part of the foundation for the hope and expectation of the Messiah. In our Christian tradition, we hear lessons from Isaiah particularly during the Seasons of Advent and Lent. Both these seasons highlight the aspects of expectation of God’s action in the world. Advent highlights the expectation of the coming of the Messiah into the world, and Lent highlights the expectation of the resurrection.

In the season of Advent we read a passage from Isaiah that is very famous. Here it is: “A voice cries out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” It’s a directive to the people of Israel to get ready, to clean house, to prepare for God’s arrival. Prepare personally and prepare as a society. But prepare. That directive is in the 40th Chapter of Isaiah.

Our lesson this morning is from the 43rd Chapter of Isaiah. Listen again and see how these lines compare with those from just a few chapters earlier. “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert....” I will make a way in the wilderness.

The message that comes through time and again in the Bible is that when we are unable to make a way to God, God will make a way to us. Similar to last week’s story of the Prodigal son, the son makes an effort, but the Father rushes out to embrace him and welcomes him in a much larger way than the son could eve have imagined.

Isaiah makes this theme within the context of a few chapters. It’s good for us to work on the way to God, on preparing and making it clear; but in the end, it is God who makes the way to us. Jesus refers to himself in the Gospels as The Way, the Life and the Truth. In Jesus, God makes a way to us. We know God better because of, and through, Jesus.

Since we’re observing Women’s history month, I’ll use an example from the history of women in the Episcopal Church. Comedian Robin Williams, who is an Episcopalian, drew up a top ten list of reasons to be an Episcopalian. I’m just going to give you one, you can google the rest. Number eight on the list is this: Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.

But it wasn’t always that way. Women weren’t allowed to be Vestry members until the 1950’s. The subject of women priests (and no one even breathed about women bishops), came up strong in the 1970’s culminating in the “illegal” ordination of the notorious Philadelphia Eleven in 1976 by “renegade, activist Bishops”. These eleven women were ordained outside the parameters of General Convention and it formed a delicious controversy for many years, some echoes of which still linger. But it also served to break the impasse in the debate and paved the way for General Convention to legislate the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church. Many priests and parishes threatened to leave, some did, and the world continued to turn. But justice was served. In one sense quickly, given the progress from vestry to priesthood in 20 years. But in a larger sense much too slowly, since the whole gender issue of equality was absurdly late in being raised.

The Episcopal Church struggled to make a way in the wilderness and made some noble efforts. But in looking back historically and spiritually, it definitely looks like the Spirit of God moving those who wanted to do what was right and guided the Church into the way of justice. It’s a slow process still, since some dioceses in this country still refuse to ordain women, but even their numbers are dwindling. Globally, the rights of women are shockingly absent and this includes among the Anglican churches for whom women priests are a long way off. But inevitably justice will happen, people will try to make a way into it, and God will do the rest. Love and Justice are of God, and God will not be blocked.

In the Gospel lesson, Jesus is at the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus. They were clearly good friends since this is the third story that includes them. It also takes place the week before Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem and his crucifixion. There is an ominous tone to this story about the use of expensive oil. Judas takes the posture that it’s a wasteful luxury. The wider context is that Jesus is being prepared for death and burial, although most don’t realize this.

Mary is the member of the family who seems most spiritually attuned. Her actions demonstrate faith, sacrifice and humility. Presumably she bought the ointment in the first place. And in the previous story regarding this family, Jesus raised the brother Lazarus from the dead. So it’s likely that in gratitude, no expense was too much to show appreciation. And Mary acted out of instinct and love. She was making a way to Jesus, even though she may not have realized the full import of those actions. And later that week, God would be making the ultimate way to humanity through his actions.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul gives a lesson in humility. He lists his very impressive resume for the church in Philippi. He was born in the right family, attended the best schools, held high positions in the synagogue and society -implying that it was higher than theirs - and clearly told them that all that means nothing at the end of the day. He says, “I regard all that as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him...”

We can let ourselves get in the way that we try to prepare for God. Our own resumes or backgrounds or accomplishments can be very beneficial in terms of the service that we offer. Like Mary, offer to God our best. But those same aspects of ourselves can get in our way if we treat them as measuring sticks as to why we are better than others or deserve more. That can also work in reverse. Because of disadvantages, setbacks or past hurts, we may feel deserving of better. That also might get in our way. Anything that blocks us from working in God’s service to bring mercy and justice to God’s people works against us.

It’s the humility demonstrated by Mary and Paul in our lessons today that begin the way to God. God’s love comes to us regardless of the resume. Each of them defied the expectations and stations of their worlds to get to know Jesus better. They knew that their worth and esteem was rooted in God’s love more than anything else.

Jesus says something at the end of the lesson that has often been misused. He says, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” This line has often been misused throughout history to justify callous behavior toward the cash and materially poor. But given the way the Gospels use words, the “poor” Jesus may be referring to, might very well be those who are poor in spirit, those who don’t know how to put aside the resume. That is, those who let them get in their way to God or God’s service.

Paul certainly used his credentials when it served his purpose. He claimed his Roman citizenship quite boldly and prominently when it was able to further his mission. He didn’t count it as rubbish then. But only when he used it as a measuring stick of his worth.

Regardless of our credentials, resumes and holdings, our value and worth before God is in our humanity alone. Accepting that calls out the humility in us and begins to prepare the way of God. Even as we start on the way, we come to see clearer as time goes on that God has already cleared the way for us. “I am about to do something new, “ Isaiah tells us God says, “Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Whether out in the world or deep within us, those place that are tangled or parched have hope. Amen.

©2010 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

Reconciliation

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

Paul wrote to the Corinthians “...We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” It’s a heartfelt plea from someone who cared very much for them. He told them, “We have been given a ministry of reconciliation.”

Ah, but there’s a catch. Before we can embark on this wonderful ministry of reconciliation, we must first be reconciled ourselves. That was the Corinthians’ problem. They were so convinced of their own sacred status that they had fallen into a less than perfect lifestyle of proving themselves holier than the next member of their community. They were exclusionary, judgmental, elitist, and mean to one another. Paul, needless to say, was disappointed in them and wrote this letter to correct their behaviors.

Each of these readings refer to some who reached for something better and run into problems because either they weren’t ready or didn’t know what they were getting into.

In the lesson from Joshua, the Israelites had finally gotten into the Promised Land after wandering in the desert for forty years. By that point Moses has died and Joshua had taken his place in leadership. The painful memories of slavery in Egypt could recede as well as the long period of searching. Their new life was about to begin. The promised land they had worked so hard to enter was theirs. Or was it?

It seems the Promised Land was not delivered empty. It was a country that had been inhabited for many generations by people who were not convinced by Hebrew stories of God making a promise to a man they didn’t know who was long dead. The land that had been promised to the Israelites was inhabited by the Canaanites, and they had no intention of leaving. Some kind of accommodation needed to be made, some kind of peace and reconciliation between two peoples who inherited the land.

The Prodigal Son as we know it, is that famous parable of a young mans’ dreams of the good life and his impatient acts to get it. He blundered his way through reckless waste in the hope of finding his own promised land. He lost everything and hit bottom. The realization of his own foolishness sobered him up and he returned to his father’s house to face the consequences.

In each of these stories, as different as they are, there is the theme of reconciliation uniting them. The people of Israel had dreamed about the Promised land for such a long time that it became romanticized as the land flowing with milk and honey. Everything would be wonderful, very much a utopia. The younger son of the parable also hoped for a utopia. A young man with a windfall of new money sees the world as his oyster. Each were in for a rude awakening.

When we put the story from Joshua and the Gospel lesson side by side, the two peoples of Israel and Canaan could be compared with the two sons. The Canaanites stayed in the land while the Israelites left the land so long before for a better life, which they enjoyed for a while. That is, several generations before it all went bad and they became slaves in Egypt. Beaten down they came back home. The Canaanites, like the older brother in the parable were not happy about their return. As far as they were concerned all the land was theirs. They didn’t want to hear about any promise made to a hundred year old man a few hundred years ago, by a god they didn’t recognize. The tensions between the two groups festered for many years without being fully resolved. There was no parent to mediate as there is in the Gospel lesson.

One of the ways we can read Bible stories is to put ourselves in the place of one or more of the characters. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, who do you identify with, given some of the issues in your life? The younger son who wanted to get away from the world he knew and stretch his legs to find his promised land? The older son who remains responsible and stays at the work and then resents the return of the younger son? The parent who mediates the factions? Or the fatted calf who feels like an innocent bystander caught up in a family drama that’s not going to end well for him no matter who celebrates?

Reconciliation isn’t easy. Reconciliation with ourselves, reconciliation with others and reconciliation with God. I’ve always liked the phrase in the parable that says of the younger son in the pit of his remorse: when he came to himself... There was in him a moment of awakening when he realized his mistakes and wanted to turn around. He was fully spent in the pursuits of false dreams and the consequences of his actions reach a point of such pain that he could no longer stand it. He had to admit first to himself what he did that was wrong and then admit it to the person he wronged, in this case his father. When “he came to himself” he found the integrity in his spirit that had left him for a while during his misadventure. But he found it and tried to make things right again. He grew up. He was reconciled to himself first and then worked on being reconciled with his father. By the end of the story he found peace and a reconciliation he never thought possible. Oddly, the older brother has not shared in the reconciliation, with himself, his brother or his father. He remains judgmental, angry and separated from the festivities. Until he realizes these defects in himself, until he’s reconciled to himself, he can’t be reconciled with anyone else. In this sense, he too is a prodigal son who has left and we hope returned, though the parable doesn’t say one way or the other.

In the stories of Lent, we’re given different lenses to look at ourselves and our relationships. Where have we made mistakes that we need to admit and be reconciled with ourselves? Where do we have the work to do of being reconciled with those we have harmed? Where have we stood in judgment of those trying to make amends, feeling self righteous or angry? I sometimes wonder if the older son was really envious of his younger brother for being more daring than he and risking big, even if it did blow up in his face? Regardless, there are times when we’ve all stood in those shoes as well. Even the older brother needed to “come to himself” and admit his wrongs to be reconciled with himself, in order to be reconciled to his family.

The gospel lesson begins with the tax collectors and sinners (other translations read prostitutes) listening to Jesus; while the Pharisees observed this grumbling in judgment. These groups also like the younger and older sons were in need of reconciliation with themselves and each other. The father was delighted at the return of the younger son and all was clearly forgiven. God takes pleasure in reconciliation, not punishment. People get caught up in wanting punishment. In this parable Jesus sets up a paradigm of radical forgiveness in a way that people, through the eyes of the older brother think is unjust. Yet how wonderful it is to know that’s how God is.

Think about this parable in the days ahead and consider the brothers and how you relate to them. Or as Paul says, “God...has given us a ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them...so we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Amen.

©2010 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

Believing in God's Promise

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

The first lesson today from Genesis tells an old story. Not quite in the beginning, but close to it. The central figure in this story is Abram. Shortly after this story his name would be changed and he would come to be known as Abraham. But at this point, he’s still Abram. Genesis has described several conversations between God and Abram up to this point, and in each one God has promised Abram that he would make a great nation of his descendants. Apparently Abram was getting tired of this promise since both he and the reader at this point are aware that Abram is in his late seventies and his wife Sarai is not far behind in years and they had no children.

God seems oblivious to this fact as the promises continue, but Abram is annoyed. Finally Abram calls out and says “What will you give me, because I am childless and the only heir I have is my servant Eliezer.” But then an amazing sight is described that is in fact a ritual of covenant between God and Abram. In the offering of animals and the mysterious appearance of a smoking pot that passes between them, a deal is made. God formalizes the promise and just beyond the lesson we read, a prediction is made that foretells the descendants of Abram leaving that land, being enslaved in Egypt and then returning. The deal God made with Abram was the promise of the land that would become the nation of Israel.

All of this because Abram was a righteous man, and God likes righteous people. Righteousness involves to trusting, and often waiting. By the end of his life, Abram had two sons, one by his wife’s servant Hagar named Ishmael, and one by his wife Sarah named Isaac. But he had faith that out of these children a mighty nation would come. He had this faith, because God had promised.

God’s promise is a theme that runs through the Bible constantly. Another theme is the difficulty people have in believing it, or at least having the patience to see them come to pass. In the Gospel lesson another promise is alluded to. Jesus responds to the Pharisees who warn him about Herod’s threats by invoking the words “third day”. Those words used in the body of the Gospels foreshadow the resurrection on the third day and the promise of God made to all believers through the resurrection.

The Bible is a book written many years after the stories they describe and the writers include elements of foreshadow to tie the themes together for the readers and show how God’s promises eventually come to pass. What distinguishes a righteous from an unrighteous person is the one who holds onto the faith in the promise and the one who doesn’t. The one who lives into the promise and the one who acts as though it doesn’t exist.

One of the strengths of the themes in these stories, the tireless patience of the writers, and the examples of the righteous people they depict, is that any reader can identify with them in their own difficulties and despite apparent obstacles, believe that God’s promise will come true and always comes true.

During this February observance of Black History month among other events and activities, there have been pictures on the bulletin covers of contemporary African American religious leaders. On the cover today is a picture of The Rev. Peter Gomes, professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University and Chaplain of Harvard’s Memorial Church. He’s an American Baptist minister and among his many books is one that became a best seller in 1996 called The Good Book. In it he describes how the Bible has been used as a weapon throughout history against Jews, women, homosexuals and usually any kind of change and progressive justice. His new book, called The Scandalous Gospel is a discussion of the radical nature of the Christian faith that most contemporary Christians would find, well, scandalous. He argues that true Christian values have been left behind and replaced with harsh, judgmental, narrowly focused and self serving ideologies. Actual Christian love, as Jesus lived and taught it, is far more inclusive and caring than today’s Christians would recognize.

As a man of faith, a gay man, an African-American man, a professor and prophetic voice in America and the world today, Rev. Gomes also speaks of the promise of God, it’s obstacles in societies, and yet its endurance and ultimate victory.

It’s hard to tell people to wait. It’s harder to be a person who does wait. The people in Haiti must wait. Their ordeal will end, but not for a long time. Now the people of Chile, as well as the people of the Middle East and Africa, and even in America. The promise of God reaches individuals and nations, but sometimes it seems excruciatingly slow or at worst forgotten.

One of the major tensions for us to balance what must wait with what can change now. Sometimes being told to wait is simply an effort to put off changing what is wrong. Dr. King’s famous statement that justice delayed is justice denied argues against the obstacle of waiting. How long were African Americans told to wait, that “now is not the right time”. Similar statements are being made today with marriage equality and even health care. In the end, waiting and stalling are not the same and we need to be careful about mistaking one for the other.

Jesus refers to prophets being killed in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is an important image since it is the capital of Israel, the very heart of the country, and the tangible symbol of God’s true promise to make them a nation. And yet in the midst of this promise, suffering and division has always been present. There is bitter grief in Jesus saying how he would gather them all like a hen gathers her chick if they would but listen.

How many problems and issues in the world that bring suffering would be solved if people would listen to the love of God and extend that loving hand. How simple it seems for the love of God to gather people, and yet we would not.

The collect we opened the service with for this second Sunday of Lent asks God to “...be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ, your son.”

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with need and injustice in the world. It’s easy to walk away and say nothing can be done. But at the very least, awareness is something. Awareness leads to prayer and prayer leads to action. When we are called in extraordinary circumstances to show God’s love, we do. The generosity and outpouring of prayer and goodwill flows to various people in times of need. Our challenge is to embrace people in the ordinary times as well. We’ve demonstrated this many times in responding to disaster relief, to homelessness, and to people in need in our own parish. It’s all part of the unfolding promise of God.

But the promise of God does not only flow out to others. The promise of God is to us too. Abram was a simple man who heard the promise of God in a vision and believed it. He didn’t see its fullness, but his faith in it determined how he lived his life. He did not live as someone who felt beaten and betrayed by a promise not kept, but as someone who lives in the expectation and joy of a promise not yet fulfilled.

How each of us approaches our lives is really up to us. We can live in dread of inevitable disaster, or in optimistic hope of inevitable victory. The Scandal of the Gospel, found in the Good Book is a profound belief in the promise of God and the unshakable quest to embrace it. The promise of Jesus is a life of fullness and eternal life.

God showed Abram the sky and told him to count the stars if he could. That same number would be the number of his descendants. For a seventy something year old man without any children, that must have seemed pretty far fetched. But he believed even when the promise seemed absurd. And it filled his life with joy and expectation. God’s promise of love, inclusion and justice sometimes seems equally far reaching and absurd, and yet it’s what informs our lives. We can live in the joy and expectation of God’s promise unfolding. Amen.

©2010 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

Lent

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

Our service today is vastly different from the one we had last week. For those who were not here last week, we broke from our traditional liturgy and had a Mardi Gras feel. Richard Berggren and some of his musical associates put together a jazz ensemble and arranged hymns, service music and anthems with toe tapping energy. Vanessa Aiken, who has provided us with beautiful liturgical dancing several times in the past, shared her gifts again with us from the opening song “When the Saints Com Marching In” as she danced down the aisle to various other pieces during the service. Dean Kravitz played jazz arrangements of hymns during Communion, and one of my friends named Kenny Ford, who sang an anthem at my 25th anniversary service last month, was invited to return, to sing another one.

Mary Davis was invited back to preach for us and did her usual outstanding work. And then the coffee hour afterward. “Coffee Hour” is a rather humble name for the feast that was prepared by the Absalom Jones Committee. The mood was high and the music wonderful. All in all, my Lord what a morning.

Today’s service couldn’t be more different in style. We have entered into the season of Lent the past Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. It’s far more somber and serious. Mardi Gras all over the world are a last hurrah for the faithful who enter this wonderful season of Lent. For many, Mardi Gras is just one more party, but to Christians it’s a joyous conclusion to the Christmas season and a transition to a time of preparation for the Easter season. The church also goes from celebration to celebration, but we divide them with seasons that help us to get ready. In this case, Lent is the season that prepares us for Easter. It’s a time to slow down and think about the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the promise of resurrection made on that first Easter day.

Well, slowing down is the first problem. Who can do that? Our fast paced world and culture of exhaustion have no intention of slowing down. If anything, the pressure is always there to move faster. And we do move faster to the point where we begin to think that exhaustion is normal. We’ve lost the skill of slowing down. After our most recent snow storm I heard so many people talk about how wonderful it was to be home form school or work, only to be bored by day's end not being able to get out and about as usual.

We don’t know how to slow down and we come face to face with the realization that even taking things slow is a skill that needs to be developed. The season of Lent is a silent appeal to do just that. Develop the skill of slowing down. Do this by increasing the time we spend in prayer or meditation. (I’ll take a moment to brag about the Confirmation Class. When we start the year with new students the first thing I do with them after the preliminaries is to teach them to meditate. They look at me in the way Middle School youth look at adults when they’re sure we’ve lost our minds. We begin with an explanation of what meditation is, a time to still the wild random thoughts and become centered. I time them and say we’ll go as long as we can before someone starts giggling. The first class is usually about 8 seconds. But over the weeks and months we’ve gotten up as high as 10 minutes. For ten youth, that’s pretty good.) It’s a skill I encourage everyone to work on.

Lent is also a time of self reflection. Each of us has things in our lives that we are embarrassed, sorry, or even ashamed about. There are things we would like to improve. One of the consequences of meditation is that these things generally rise to the surface of our consciousness demanding attention. People generally have ways to cope with these invasions to our consciousness - we stay busy, turn on the TV or music or just keep talking. Silence is often threatening because it means that what we don’t want to look at is right there in front of us. While we can certainly address these things all year long, Lent is a time to give particular attention to the practice of silence, allowing these thoughts to emerge and deal with them sacramentally. “Confession” is a word that strikes fear in the hearts of many who grew up under a stricter model than the Episcopal Church offers. We have the General Confession as part of our weekly service, but we also have private confessions available by appointment. This comes as a surprise to many, but I assure you it’s true. We don’t use little booths for confession, we hold them in more comfortable manner, such as in an office. Still, confession and pastoral conversations are ways to address some of the issues that surface during our meditations, issues that can reach anywhere from slight embarrassment to perhaps making us feel unloved or unworthy of the love of God. And sometimes the issues are not of a negative nature, but calls of discernment. Sometimes there are goals or projects or even life changes that are exciting and scary and silence brings them up too.

I encourage you to take advantage of this Lent to slow down, meditate and pray, and seek the pastoral conversation of your clergy or even a close friend. If you would like to discuss confession, Chris and I will be happy to do so.

The seriousness of the tone of today’s service is intentional to convey the seriousness of the work that self reflection is. It’s not intended to accuse or punish, but identify and heal. Too long has the church taken on the role of punisher and not enough time as healer. Much of the ministry in St. George’s is focused on healing and the opportunity for prayer, meditation, confession, and pastoral conversation are forms of it.

In the Gospel lesson, Jesus is in the desert. The story takes place right at the beginning of his ministry after he was baptized by John in the Jordan River. Through Baptism and the words heard form heaven by God calling him his beloved son in whom he was well pleased, Jesus takes a time of silence for forty days. What wells up in him are the temptations to abuse his newly formed ministry. For personal gain, power, or aggrandizement. He could have had it all. But it would have been at the sacrifice of his mission to bring the people of God back into relationship with God. Through his prayer and mediation he confronted each of the temptations and stayed true to his call. I always remark on the closing line of this passage, “When the Devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.” Temptations don’t go away, they wait for an opportune time. Even for Jesus.

As part of Black History Month, the Absalom Jones Committee has been sponsoring a film series on Friday nights. This coming Friday the movie is “Crash,” an amazing story that addresses many shades of racism and prejudice. It will be followed up on Sunday with a discussion forum highlighting some of the themes raised in the movie. This past Friday we watched “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.” It’s a documentary about the Women’s Peace Movement in Liberia that led to the exile of President Charles Taylor. It’s a stunning example of a leader who succumbs to each of the temptations Jesus faced in the desert, and turned an opportunity to serve his country into a nightmare of unspeakable cruelty and terror. It is an equally stunning example of the power of prayer and a commitment to peace to overcome it. The women in Liberia and eventually Ghana were fed up, and refused to tolerate the abuses they received – the killings, rapes, looting and continual terror and deprivation they were subjected to as a nation and gathered in prayer and grew in numbers and influence until they forced concessions that led to peace. They were not interested in satisfying greed, a need for power or grandiosity. They wanted peace for the country and safety for their children and themselves. One of the moving interviews was of a woman who told how hard it was to forgive the soldiers who acted so cruelly. But she came to the conclusion that despite how difficult it was, it was necessary if she and the country were to heal. That is an example of praying the Devil back to hell.

The three temptations Jesus faced in the desert are fundamentally the same that anyone faces. Material things, power or control, or manipulating how we are seen or treated by others. There’s not much new under the sun, and there’s no such thing as an original sin, it’s all been done before. But the temptations to do things, and the actual acting out and doing things that harm others or ourselves are very real.

The traditions we bring back today, specifically the singing of the Great Litany and the choice of hymns and other music, stand in stark contrast to the high celebration of last week. Joy can be very surface and actually a mask for what lay beneath. Taking the time to do some soul searching and soul finding, gives reason for real celebration. It’s definitely fun to have a party, but a real celebration comes after a journey. A journey in which obstacles have been overcome, growth has happened and healing has occurred. I invite you to take Lent seriously and see it not as an antiquated season of the Church year, but an opportunity for real growth and healing. Amen.

©2010 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

Now Now Now

By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven, Sabbatical Priest

“The hour has come.” May I speak in the name of the Living God who holds all our times in Her hand. Amen.

The last sand is falling through the hour glass. Two Greeks have come to see Jesus in the gospel this morning (showing us that the world beyond Israel is being drawn in) but the time of public preaching and teaching is over. There is no more time for parables that confuse, console and give cause to ponder. No time for miracles and healings to woo and win people to a deeper awareness that something eternal, something transformative and life giving, something of God is breaking in here. There is finally, after all he’s done and tried to do, no more time.

“The hour has come from the Son of Man to be glorified.” Over and over in John’s gospel we have heard the phrase: my hour has not yet come. And now, at last, it has. We know something about this in our own lives. Our daughter is a high school senior. The college acceptance letters have arrived. By fall for her—not to mention her brother, dad and me—the hour will have come.

A seminary classmate described waking up one morning after 10 years of infertility treatment to the quiet conviction: It is enough. “I never looked back,” she said. She’s now the mother of two adopted children. Her hour had come. Sometimes we seem to have a choice and sometimes we’re dragged kicking and screaming to the brink of a new world.

The hour has come for Jesus too. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit,” (v. 24).” He is talking about himself. In a few days the events of holy week will unfold. Jesus will die on a cross. He could have avoided it—could have headed for the hills, could have called on his disciples, called on the crowd itching for a king, called on angels to save him. But he didn’t. Jesus came not to be saved but to save. He saw a purpose in his dying that was worth the cost. “What should I say—‘Father save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”

He will let the full weight of our fear, envy, political expedience and sin fall on him. Not in weakness but in power. Not to glorify victimization but to stand by choice with those who have no choice—the victims of domestic violence, rape and child abuse, the victims of poisoned wells, burned huts and bodily degradation in Darfur, the victims of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, of flooding in North Dakota and Minnesota, of economic chaos. I could go on.

This is what God is about. This is what God calls us to. “Whoever serves me must follow me.” It’s what he’s been saying all along. “Love one another as I have loved you.” “Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” “I am among you as one who serves.” No wonder the disciples fled on Good Friday. All of us—if we’re honest— hear our mother’s calling about now. Love to Lord, can’t, gotta go!

God is intimately connected to the suffering of the world. It’s a very maternal image. The great preacher Jim Forbes said God was like his mother calling at dinner time: Are all the children in? Nobody is forgotten. No one is outside the arena of God’s concern and care. It’s a lovely image of God this Women’s History Month. This is no impassible, unmovable God, untouched by human suffering. In the cross God takes the pain of the world and writes it on the palms of his outstretched hands. God loves God’s children enough to die for them—what mother can’t understand that? Or father either.

The suffering cry out in pain but the cry comes first from God. We are such sensitive beings made in the divine image—imagine the exquisite sensitivity that must be God’s! We are sensitive to suffering and we are created in the image of God. Imagine the exquisite sensitivity that must be God's! We yearn to love and be loved, to see and be seen, imagine the yearning relatedness in the heart of God! God loves us, wants to be in relationship with us, overturning all our expectations, overthrowing all that gets in the way.

“The glory of God is a human being who is fully alive,” wrote Irenaeus, in the 2nd century. What does it mean to be fully alive? It means to know you matter to God and to the world, to be connected to God and to others in a way life-giving, life changing and free. The divine love will sacrifice whatever is necessary to clothe our nakedness with dignity, to awaken us to the immensity of our worth in God’s eyes, to a love than which nothing greater can be conceived, a love that will cast down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly, a love that will make the first last and the last first, that will make us fully human, fully alive at last whatever the cost. Fear not! “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” Now. Now. Now. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all peoples to myself.”

The cross has been used to glorify victimhood—especially in women. It’s been used to oppress and control. My friend from seminary had an alcoholic father who used to beat her mother, break up the furniture and come after them. “He’s going to kill us!” she’d scream at her mother, “Why don’t you get us out of here?” and her mother would reply that it was her cross to bear. No. No. No. No. No. This is a criminal distortion that grieves the heart of God. The goal of the cross is not victimhood and suffering—the goal is salvation and joy—human beings fully human, fully alive. To say otherwise is like saying the goal of pregnancy is labor and delivery instead of the baby. Labor and delivery may well be involved but the goal, in both, is new life. Now. Now. Now.

If women are in the image of God, as Genesis tells us, then women’s experience is part of God’s experience and has its truth to tell. Women’s experience doesn’t separate power and compassion. Women’s lived experience involves openness to the ones loved, a vulnerability to their experience and solidarity with their well being. Women give birth—in pain and in power—in love, undivided. We sacrifice our lives, time, money and no small amount of sanity to bring others to autonomy and fullness. Women’s power brings forth and stirs up. It fosters life in all its dimensions in a movement of spirit that builds, mends, struggles with and against, celebrates and laments. It is the power of love to transform and connect that changes people and changes the world by entering into suffering, entering into the crucified history of the world with healing and liberating power.

Women with children at the breast, at the knee, at the door heading out into the world know the immediacy of love, the urgency of NOW. God is connecting with us NOW through Jesus Christ. “The whole world has gone after him,” said the religious leaders after Palm Sunday in dismay. Little did they know! How will Jesus transcend the boundaries of time and space? How will he make the leap from 1st century Palestine to 21st century America? He will do it by being lifted up. The cross lifts Jesus beyond the boundaries of life and death, time and space: he is utterly unbound. “And I when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all peoples to myself.” He is the grain whose planting has birthed such fruit.

We’re called to do something with our life—as Jesus did with his. “Those who want to serve me must follow me.” We’re called to die, to give ourselves to God and one another sacrificially, in ways that make a difference, in ways that bring life. If you want to know if your suffering is of God ask yourself: does this bring LIFE. Becoming fully alive is not pain free but it is life giving. So many people are looking for faith, for spiritual fulfillment, but aren’t finding it. Maybe they, maybe we, are looking at it the wrong way. We’re looking to gain something we think we don’t have. Maybe we should be looking to lose something that’s already ours—things we “hate” to use Jesus’ phrase, that keep us from the love, mercy and healing of God in Christ, that keep us from trusting in the One who loves us enough to die for us and rise again. What on earth can compare to what’s to be gained in Jesus Christ? The hour has come my friends. What have we got to lose?

© 2009 The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven

In God We Trust

By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven, Sabbatical Priest

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our strength and our redeemer. May I speak in the Name of the Living God. Amen.”

Moses came down from Mt. Sinai and said to the people, “I got good news and I got bad news. The good news is I got him down to 10. The bad news is adultery is still on the list.”

I did my seminary field work in a synagogue—with Kevin Coffey, a priest from the diocese some of you may know. That’s how we met. Our theology professor was very active in interfaith dialogue and wanted to pioneer a placement with his friend Rabbi Block at Brotherhood Synagogue. My bishop who was also very involved with the dialogue, leapt at the chance to have me participate. So just as Mary heads off to St. George’s on Sunday mornings...we headed off to shul on Friday nights.

Our first experience was, appropriately, a bris—a circumcision of a baby boy on the 8th day—whose grandfathers winced as they held his legs. The child made barely a sound and he seemed to enjoy sucking on the linen dipped in sacramental wine shared with him for the occasion. We cast our sins into the E. River on Tashlich on the first day of Rosh Hashona. We atoned on Yom Kippur. We remembered the dead. And we stood Friday after Friday at the opening words: Hear O Israel the Lord thy God, the Lord is One and learned not to write in shul—no matter how marvelous the rabbi’s sermon. (oops!) Later a Jewish seminary student began doing his field work at Episcopal Church. Each of us learning about the other’s liturgy and customs by living through them with the congregation. All in an effort to deepen interfaith understanding in students who would one day lead and influence congregations themselves.

It changed my life. Judaism came alive, not just as an historic tradition for which I already had an appreciation, but as a living one. I began to see the world through Jewish eyes. And the world certainly looked different. I noticed, for example, for the first time that Christmas—a Christian holiday—was also a federal holiday. I felt like a man at a women’s meeting—I’d never experienced myself as part of the power structure that way before. But perhaps the thing that changed most for me was my understanding of the “law.”

Christians have an almost snooty understanding of law. We like to think of ourselves as “spiritual,” and by contrast, paint the Jews as “legalistic.” We’re the “spirit of the law” they’re the “letter of the law.” Now it’s true that Jesus was highly critical of the legalistic Pharisees of his day. But we do a great disservice to the Jewish people to tar the whole for the abuses of the few. You want to see legalistic, try to change anything liturgical in the Episcopal Church. As the retired Bishop of Ohio once put it: contrary to popular Episcopal practice, Jesus’ 7 last words from the cross were not: We’ve never done it that way before. I confess I had this almost unconscious sense that in contrast to us, the Jews were locked into a literal “letter of the law,” a narrow, overly defined, legalistic minefield, hemmed in on every side. What I found was a literal delight in the law of the Lord far richer and more spirited than anything I’d ever known before or experienced since.

It came home to me on a lovely feast called “Simchat Torah” a festival of rejoicing over the giving of the law. It literally means: the joy of the Torah. It celebrates the completion and the beginning of the reading of the Torah—the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Pentateuch, the Law of Moses. The night the day began (the Jewish day begins at sunset) the sacred scrolls were taken from the sanctuary--covered in different colored velvet vestments and silver--and carried in procession downstairs where a band was striking up the music. This was no stately Episcopal procession! We were dancing and singing and clapping on our way. I was stunned when the rabbi handed me the torah he was carrying wrapped in blue velvet as we danced together down the stairs. (Drop one of these and the congregation is in mourning for something like 40 years – “long time” – no pressure).

The centuries fell away as the Rabbi’s son made like a bull to charge the Torah and the Rabbi lifted it high. We were spinning and dancing to this wonderful eastern music. I could imagine the firelight, the earth underfoot – Jesus taking part in such a feast with great zest. It was ancient and marvelous, created during the exile 500 BC, and like nothing I’d been a part of before. Everyone took turns – young and old alike – whirling the Torahs across the dance floor like a bride, clapping and stomping our feet to the music, spinning and dancing getting hot and thirsty. The youngest and frailest circled by others lest the sacred Torah slip and fall to the floor.

I don’t know about you but I’ve never danced with Scripture before. And I haven’t since. Once you do you can certainly never look at it again as a burden. “The Law of the LORD is perfect and revives the soul,” sang the psalm this morning, (Ps 19:7a). Yes, indeed. “The statutes of the LORD are just and rejoice the heart”(19:8a). There was great rejoicing. “More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold,* sweeter far than honey, than honey in the comb” (19:10). It’s all true. The stained glass window across from me in the seminary chapel of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments never looked the same again.

The Ten Commandments we heard this morning are a succinct statement from our talkative God about how we should live as God’s people. They’re called the 10 words and are shorthand for the entire Torah. They tell us what God values, what matters to this righteous God who delivered the people of Israel simply because he “heard their cry.” And who would not then leave them flailing about in the dark. “The testimony of the LORD is sure and gives wisdom to the innocent” (Ps 19:7b). “The commandment of the LORD is clear and gives light to the eyes” (19:8b). “In keeping them there is great reward”(19:11b). The Jews received the testimony of the LORD in the spirit in which it was given—with gratitude and rejoicing, as God’s gift to God’s people for the right ordering of their lives; their duty to God and their neighbor.

The Ten Commandments did not come about as an abstract set of rules upon which all reasonable people ought to agree. They were not formulated to make society flow more smoothly. They are part of the story of Israel’s deliverance, given to the people of Israel as their response to what God has done. They’re the ethical demands God places on the people God has saved. “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.” Because I delivered you; therefore you are mine. As a sign of being mine you will live in this way. When the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD and animal sacrifice stopped the 10 Commandments remained setting the people of God apart and ordering their way of life.

But everyone didn’t live happily ever after. The problem is what it always was. These commandments — while so clear — are hard to obey. In fact, in much of the New Testament the law serves to show just how far short of the will of God we fall, underscoring the need we have for Jesus. We want to remain faithful to God in this covenant relationship but we can’t. The sacred space between us needs to be cleansed from the accumulated debris of sin and broken promises. When we cannot do it, God does it himself in Jesus Christ.

The cleansing of the temple we see today in the gospel is the visceral enactment of the “jealous” love of God for God’s people — a love that seeks to overturn and drive out all that rivals the place of God in our worship, our work, our community and our hearts. It’s not just the so-called religious arena that God claims. The Temple was the physical icon of the legal, social, and religious infrastructure of the people. When Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers he laid claim to all that seeks to get in the way in every area of our lives, every area, though it’s true we often have particular difficulty where money is concerned. That’s why we write on our money: In God we trust because around money we have such a hard time doing just that.

We’re in the midst of a huge economic downturn. Leaders are caught in the terrible quandary of facing laying people off to keep businesses afloat. It’s agonizing. We write: In God we Trust on our money. But I wonder. Any self-respecting space alien landing here looking for our god would bypass our little churches and head straight for the Short Hills Mall. Who is this god whose devotees require acres and acres of parking? “In God we trust,” we write. Is it true? Or only what we wish were true? Money cannot bear the weight of our lives. It cannot give us meaning, self-worth or, finally, security. But God CAN, God DOES. In GOD we trust. We come here to remember that, to remind ourselves, to remind each other.

Imagine what our lives might be like if this “information” became “revelation” Imagine what it would be like to live our lives trusting God, obeying God. For one thing we’d discover that our circumstances don’t determine our attitude. The economy is uncertain, getting and keeping a job is in jeopardy, so is our ability to pay for college, to fund our retirement. But God is not uncertain. God is not in jeopardy. Our collective circumstances may not look so good — unless we compare them to most of the world’s population — but we believe in God who, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “can make a way out of no way.” We need trust in the miracle of God’s abundance. This is the God of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. This is the God of Easter. We need to do what we can and trust God for the rest. We need to take responsibility where we can—and cast our worry, our care on God. We often do the reverse. We cast our responsibility and keep our care. We need to do what we can and cast our care on God.

Each of us has sphere of influence—whether it’s the home, the classroom, the board room, at the store or on the street. We have good news to bring to these troubled times. We can begin by putting our mouths where our money is: In God we trust. There IS no distinction between secular and sacred, between religion and politics, between Wall Street and Main Street, between you and me, black and white, male and female, gay and straight, rich and poor. We are called to be good stewards of our money, our allegiances and our lives because they all belong to God. It’s God’s world and in God’s eyes it doesn’t look the way it does on our maps with lines dividing “us” from “them” around the globe. As Margaret Mead said, “We have searched the whole world and found only one human race.” You and I are called to witness to that reality in as many ways as there are people here in all the dimensions of our lives. Let’s put our mouths and our lives where our money is: In God we trust.

Lent is about coming to terms with a God who will brook no rivals, “whether in the form of anything that is in the heaven above or in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth,” a God willing to be crucified to set us free, to make us new, to make us His. Doesn’t that make you want to dance for joy?

© 2009 The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven

Nobody Special

By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven, Sabbatical Priest

Take my lips and speak through them. Take our ears and hear through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for Thee. May I speak in the name of the Living God. Amen.

Abraham got God’s attention not by being a saint but by being someone who allowed God to make him somebody when he was nobody special to begin with. That’s why he’s so remarkable. God said: I’m going to make you the father of many nations and Abraham who was 100 years old and whose beloved wife Sarah had been infertile for decades said: I believe you. He didn’t tiptoe around cautiously asking a lot of skeptical questions. He didn’t say: Look, Lord, by any account that ship has sailed. How could a couple “with one foot in the grave have another foot in the maternity ward” (in Buechner’s lovely phrase). What he said instead was: Count me in and he set out to claim not knowing where he was going for however long it took. Abraham and Sarah embraced what God was doing—not trying to do it themselves (as if!) but trusting-God-to-do-what God had promised. “Hoping against hope,” wrote St. Paul, Abraham “believed he’d become the father of many nations,” Sarah, that she would “give rise to nations.” That God could “give life to the dead and call into existence the things that are not” and on that faith, that turning point, the door to the future swung open.

When I was a student at The General Theological Seminary in NYC they took us to worship services in different traditions to expose us to different ways of approaching God. We went to an Orthodox Jewish service. I remember being shepherded with other women to a back staircase where we watched the proceedings below from the balcony. We went to a Syrian Orthodox service with its incense, bells and vestments. We met the Archbishop I remember kissing his ring. And we went to a store front Pentecostal church in Harlem where we sat in a low ceiling rectangular room, in rows of metal folding chairs. I remember the women in white who assisted those who were slain by the Spirit and I remember the preacher.

The service had already been going a while when we got there and it continued after we left. This young man wasn’t the regular minister but he’d been invited up by him. He stood up there in his new brown suit and started out saying all the right things but it all just lay flat. And I thought, well this sure isn’t what I was expecting. What a disappointment. He was flailing around up there. He knew it and we knew it. Suddenly he turned away and stopped, seemed somehow suspended in some kind of inner debate.

Then he turned back. “I haven’t allllways been a preacher.” The change was palpable. (There were a couple of “Amens”). “In fact, I’d never have been seen around people like you.” (“Yes,” people could relate to that.) “I did drugs.” Congregation paused to consider this a minute. “I have the needle marks in my arms.” (Mmmm mmm) “And I did all the nasty, ugly things you think of when you think of people doing drugs.” (There was silence as our collective minds considered what disgusting things these might be.) “I haven’t alllways been a preacher.” (Where was this going we wondered together? This is sin, not salvation. So many of us thinking it it was almost audible: Who did this guy think he was to be standing up there, in church, with a microphone in his hand?)

“I haven’t alllways been a preacher. What do I do when I see the people who used to know me? They see me in my suit. And I know what they’re thinking. They’re thinking, ‘Who do you think you are being a preacher? We remember you when you were lower than the low.’ What do I do? Do I cross the street?!” (hmmm hmmm) “No, I don’t. I hold my head up and I walk on by because I am not ashamed of Christ!” (“Amen!”) “I am not ashaaamed of Christ!” he said, slapping his heel against the floor for emphasis. “I am not ashamed that Christ has set me free. I am not ashamed that he has washed me clean. I thank him. I thank him every day. I am not standing up here because I’M good. I am standing up here because HE’S good. I am not ashamed of Christ.”

The place went wild. Tears were streaming down our faces. We were in the presence of God. We were eye witnesses to the gospel, like all those people centuries before. And we were ashamed. Not of him but of ourselves. Ashamed of having judged this man for doing things we told ourselves we’d never do, for doing things we’d never admit if we had—for fear of encountering others as judgmental as ourselves. We had found him wanting but God had found him worthy. It still has the power to wound me when I think on it—to wound and to make whole. Like Abraham, he had gotten God’s attention not by being a saint but by being someone who allowed God to make him somebody when he was nobody. There is hope for us yet.

This is why Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him because he knows that until we do we can’t follow him. Not really. Not until we, like Abraham and Sarah and the Pentecostal preacher, deny that our salvation depends on us, deny that our sins and shortcomings are a deal breaker, deny ourselves center stage. Until we do that we don’t really follow because we’re too busy leading. “Get behind me, Satan.” Jesus says to Peter and to us when we have lost our place, setting our minds “not on divine things but human things” making us not rocks of faith on which to build but rocks in Jesus’ way. Even the disciples had problems with this. We are not alone.

If we want the new life Jesus died and rose to give us we must take up our cross—sacrifice our pride in going it alone, sacrifice our fear of being seen as vulnerable and foolish and in need of saving—as though Jesus were just the icing on the cake for us, an extra dose of self-help, as if Good Friday and Easter were optional extras. Each of us has some “deal breaker” defect, at least in our own minds. What’s yours, I wonder? What is the impossible thing that God just won’t be able to get past with you? What is the secret you’re afraid will be revealed? Of what are you ashamed?

Friends, we don’t need to be ashamed of Christ, ashamed of what he’s done for us, ashamed we needed him to do it. We’re frightened, broken, guilty and ashamed and God loves us. We love God but strangely we try to do without God. Odd, isn’t it? Not so much because of arrogance maybe as because we don’t even think of asking for help. We feel we should be able to do whatever it is on our own. Because most of the church’s writing on sin has come from these incredible power-house men like St. Paul and St. Augustine—for whom bullying pride and arrogance were the real temptations—we’re all on alert for these rearing their ugly heads with the sometimes odd result of people trying to repent of pride and arrogance who wouldn’t know self-assertion if it came up and hit them in the face.

Since it’s Women’s History Month I feel I should point out that girls and women are more apt to sin—an archery term which means “to miss the mark”—by erasing themselves rather than overly asserting themselves. I think of the cartoon where Donald Duck gets in a fight with the cartoonist who just erases Donald when he gets annoying. You see this big yellow pencil eraser going back and forth, back and forth. Until nothing’s left but the talking mouth which then, too, goes. We don’t need a cartoonist we’ll erase ourselves so our hurt, or anger or point of view won’t disturb the status quo and then we simmer with rage and resentment and try to work our will through manipulation. It’s not that men can’t sin the exact same way and that women can’t be prideful. It’s just that it’s worth it to spend some time checking our assumptions as to where the sin is.

Having said all that, maybe this erasure problem is an inverse sin of pride after all. Maybe I don’t want to see myself—or heaven forbid for others to see me—in need of God. I suspect I’m not alone in this. As the Bishop pointed out in his Lenten letter we’re all about independence in this culture. We want to gain salvation the old fashioned way (to a coin a phrase) we want to earn it. The pain of seeing ourselves complete—without excuses—is so great. But I am because you are. Because you see me I exist. To the extent that I will not let you see me, I do not exist. We bring one another into being. Nothing human is alien to us. Nothing human is alien to us. We want to see ourselves through rose colored glasses—maybe we hope others will see us that way—because maybe we’re afraid we’re not that beloved after all.

Everybody has a reason why they think God can’t use them. Abraham was too old and Sarah laughed out loud; Moses protested that he didn’t speak well; Isaiah that he was “a man of unclean lips;” Jeremiah that he was “only a youth;” Mary that she had “no husband.” Every one of them said: I cannot do it. I am not enough. And every one of them was right! They were not enough. But God is enough and God who “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that are not” can make ANY of us equal to ANY task to which God calls us. We are saved by grace through faith and we are transformed the same way: not by our own efforts but trusting and embracing the love of God at work in us. Abraham and Sarah were 100 years old when Sarah gave birth to a son, Isaac which means: he laughs. They are the parents of many nations: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Moses our insecure speaker is remembered for his words: Let my people go. The young Jeremiah faced down the principalities and powers of his day. The forgiven Isaiah saw the throne of God. The virgin, Mary, gave birth to God’s own Son.

What are you and I called to do that we’re OBVIOUSLY ill-equipped for? What are you and I called to do that everyone can see we’ll need God to accomplish? What cross will be your resurrection? What do you need to lay down so that God can raise you up? What impossible life is being born in you? Nothing we’ve done or can do will ever be able to separate us from the love of God who “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that are not” and on that faith, that turning point, the door to our future swings open.

© 2009 The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven

God's Beloved

By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven, Sabbatical Priest

O God you call us on journeys whose ending we cannot see, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Good morning, Saints! It is wonderful to be with you for the 14 weeks of Father Poppe’s sabbatical. Fr. Poppe’s on his way to Africa, London and Europe—poor thing!—but we who stay home are on a journey, too. Proust says, “The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” We’re on a sabbatical journey, a Lenten journey and, for the month of March, a women’s history month journey—a journey that can help us see the truths that can heal us, the patterns that hurt us, the assumptions that limit us. Unlike Bernie, we’re hoping to lose some baggage on this trip, you know what I mean? To see ourselves as God sees us, to look at things we think we know—ourselves, God, each other—and discover things we never imagined, to see them with new eyes.

To go on this journey we have to believe there’s more to life than what we’ve found: more joy, more purpose, passion and peace. Like Jesus in the gospel for this morning we have to be willing to leave Nazareth for the waters of new birth, to step out in faith in spite of all the reasons not to. Their name is legion and I’m sure Jesus knew them: My mother needs me. My work needs me. It’s selfish! It’s risky. I know who I AM here. What makes me think God wants something different for me now? Change is scary. What will it mean? What will it cost? And yet—it might answer this nameless yearning; it might energize me beyond my knowing, it might make a difference to the world.

Jesus bursts on the scene in Mark’s gospel with no advance warning, no introduction, no birth narratives, no stories of growing up, for all we know he’s just a carpenter from Galilee come down with everyone else to this crazy prophet John baptizing in the Jordan. John was a kind of performance artist, as all the prophets were—enacting the story of repentance, the story of being new birth. It was the enactment of a distance closing—the huge distance between guilt and forgiveness, brokenness and wholeness, being lost and being found. Jesus, not in need of forgiveness, goes anyway leaving—literally—home and mother, job and identity—on the river bank with his clothing. He steps out into the water and discovers a distance has been closed for him too.

The heavens were torn apart. The Greek word means “split open.” The membrane between heaven and earth, between God and Jesus split open—it’s very much a birth image—and the Spirit descends like a dove into him (says the Greek) and from within heaven comes a voice: You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. They were words that would have been familiar. The first part from Psalm 2:7 for the king’s coronation—“You are my Son, this day I have begotten you,” or, in the words of the Message: Today is your birthday. The second: “With you I am well pleased,” is an echo of Jesus’ beloved Isaiah, one of the Servant Songs: Behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect in whom my soul delights! The suffering servant by whose wounds we are healed.

He sees himself with new eyes. It’s a shattering insight, an experience that divides life into “before” and “after.” The Spirit drives him out into the wilderness, the place of no illusions and no resources of our own. There is no one to impress, appease or distract; no place to hide from angels, wild beasts, Satan, and God all of whom see us more clearly than we see ourselves. We’re alone with God, alone with ourselves. The temptation is to run away, head back home and try to carry on as before. There is the temptation to take control from God: Yes, Lord, I know you rent the heavens and came down but I got it from here! I’m good to go. Gotcha covered. There is always the temptation NOT to be who you ARE because the devil knows that once we discover who we are then we are well on the way to discovering what we can DO, which is to make a difference in this world beyond our wildest dreams.

Satan aids and abets our “going it alone.” Some of you know I was an interim at St. Mark’s, WO, several years ago. It was a wilderness experience—poor, black, urban, mission: which one of those words did I know anything about? “We can do this,” I said rolling up my sleeves as they watched. “Busy, busy, busy,” they said. It was like trying to turn a battleship. Eventually I got tired—just like they’d gotten tired, 35 people rolling around like marbles in a shoebox in a landmark church that sat 400. Eventually I got it. I’d never met a circumstance—not at work, not like this—that I couldn’t woo and win by sheer force of personality. And when we all got to the end of our collective strength we finally realized: We don’t have anything but God. What a funny thing to say: if we had God who could have more? The place might close. It might stay open. We couldn’t control it. We were thrown back on God. It was total surrender. And I have to tell you our spirits caught fire, my preaching caught fire. In practical ways and spiritual ways we asked and received, we sought and found, we knocked and doors were opened—file cabinets, computers and a secretary materialized, 3 Sunday School teachers, energy and hope. I left a new person.

A new clergy couple came—wonderful spirit filled people. Eventually, still, the church closed. Being faithful doesn’t make things always turn out the way we want them to: Father, take this cup away from me; being faithful means discovering that the worst thing is never the last thing. The worst thing is never the last thing. It’s never the end of the story. Like Jesus, we came out of that wilderness with good news and were sent forth to proclaim it. God loves us. If we really want to experience that we have to stop trying to change ourselves, and others and our circumstances by our own efforts, on our own terms, under our own power. We need let go of who we’re trying to be so that God can free us to be who we are.

We need to change our minds. That’s the first sermon Jesus ever gave. I have it on my desk, in slightly different translation than we heard this morning: After John’s arrest JESUS came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God and saying, “The time has come at last—the KINGDOM of God has arrived. You must CHANGE YOUR MIND (all caps) and believe the Good News.” (Mark 1:14-15) If we want to live the life Jesus lived and died and rose to give us we have to change our minds, change our lives, not by our own heroic efforts but by absolute surrender to the absolute love of God. “Yeah, yeah,” we say. “Jesus loves me this I know.” Tell me something I don’t know.” But the problem is we DON’T know. We know it as an idea, a concept, but far less as a living, breathing, certain, sustaining, transforming, alive, empowering REALITY.

No less a prophet, priest and teacher than S. Africa’s first black Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he gives only one sermon everywhere he goes: God loves you. Full stop. I was listening to an old 1999 interview between Father Tutu (as he prefers to be called) and Bill Moyers who asked him: What is the worst thing about Apartheid? “When it makes you doubt that you are a child of God,” he said. “When you are subjected to treatment that begins to work in here (taps his forehead) and you begin to say, maybe they are right. Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes. And so when they call you a non-European, a non-this you may think it is not working on you, but in fact it is corrosive of your self- image. You end up wondering whether you are actually as human as those others.” He started preaching, “God didn't make a mistake creating you black. Celebrate who you are. God loves you.” (From The Moyers Files: Bill Moyers talks with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, April 27, 1999 www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/archives/tutu_ts.html)

Girls and women have a similar problem. Each time a girl opens a book and reads a womanless history,” wrote Myra Sadker (1943-1995) who pioneered much of the research documenting gender bias in America's schools, “she learns she is worth less.” “From grade school through graduate school, from inner city to rural towns, Sadker uncovered not only blatant gender discrimination in textbooks and sports funding, but also subtle patterns of inequities that shaped the lives of girls and boys.” (http://www.sadker.org/) I was shocked to learn on the National Women’s History Projecth website that only 3% of educational materials deal with women’s contributions. How can we know what we’re capable of when we have no idea who we are? (http://www.nwhp.org/)

The Congressional Resolution Designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month” first passed in 1987 speaks of the historic contributions to the growth of our Nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways by American women of every race, class and ethnic background women’s critical economic, cultural and social roles in every sphere of life. It tells of women constituting a significant portion of the labor force working inside and outside of the home, women’s unique role as the majority of the volunteer labor force of the Nation, the role of women in the establishment of early charitable, philanthropic and cultural institutions, women’s leadership in every progressive social change movement; women’s leadership in securing not only their own right of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and other movements, especially the peace movement which create a more fair and just society for all; the Resolution concludes that “whereas despite these contributions, the role of American women in history has been consistently overlooked and undervalued, in the literature, teaching and study of American history therefore be it resolved that march be set aside as Women’s History Month… the Congress and President calling upon the people of the United States to observe these months appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities.”

When women’s history is taught the self esteem of girls and women goes up and their vision of what is possible expands. The respect of boys and men goes up. Achievement by girls and women increases. And violence against women decreases. We need to know who we are. “You are my beloved daughter. With you I am well pleased.” What might happen if we changed our minds and believed this good news? If our self talk weren’t about our “fat thighs” and how sensitive, dumb and emotional we are and instead was: God loves me. I am God’s beloved. God is pleased with me.

Like the narrator sang last weekend in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: You are what you feel. What we think may be wrong but if we believe it it’s true for us. Our beliefs change our reality. If we want to change our LIVES we have to change our THINKING and to change our thinking we have to be aware of it. I saw a therapist on television who said he told his patients to put a rubber band on their wrist for a week and snap it every time they said or thought something negative about themselves. Red wrists at the end of 7 days show us a lot about our thinking. I told this story to my kids and for days when they heard me say something negative about myself they’d say: Snap! Most of us wouldn’t be friends with people who talked to us the way we talk to ourselves.

God says: You are my beloved; with you I am well pleased. God is not in heaven slapping the divine forehead saying to Jesus, “Oh, no! There goes Anne being Anne again!” God is not in a state of shock and surprise that we are the way God made us. We are not a disappointment to God. God made us black, white, gay, straight, lesbian, male and female. God made us who we are as we are for a purpose. Want to know your purpose? You need to learn who you are. If we want something to be useful we first need to see what it is. What are its given characteristics: is it a dahlia or a donkey an orange or an automobile. I wasn’t created to be a Carmelite nun under a vow of silence, you know? Much as my family and friends would like it from time to time. I’m a TALKER. That’s what was always on my report card: “Talks too much in class.” Oh well, now I talk for God. God doesn’t seem to mind. God made me fired up and ready to go. I’m learning to accept I’m more your crashing ocean deep than your still silent pond. I’m learning more how to surf the waves of my enthusiasm rather than let it send me cart wheeling onto the beach in a heap. Point is: I’m not a mistake. You are not a mistake. You are not a disappointment to God. God loves you: Full stop. No disclaimers.

Jesus believed God loved him—fully, utterly, completely. Everything else he accomplished flowed from that. Jesus found his identity in God. Jesus found his strength in God. When John was arrested he came out of the wilderness preaching what he had discovered. That God’s love makes all things possible. It was enough to sustain Jesus to the cross and beyond. It is enough to sustain us. “Change your mind” Jesus calls to us “and believe the one that can make all the difference if only you will let it in: You are God’s beloved. With you God is well pleased.”

© 2009 The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven