God So Loved the World. And You.

2 Lent - Cycle A

God so loved the world.

God so loved the world.

And I learned about love from my grandma.

“When you was a little girl…” That’s how the story began, told by a woman who was born in 1911 in Drumright, Oklahoma—she told it to another woman who was no longer a little girl. And yet still is. And she hung on every word.

“When you was a little girl, you was the sweetest thing. And you loved that baby Jesus. Your mama would bring you over at Christmas time and you went straight for the figures. You loved to play with the baby Jesus. Then when you went home, as soon as your mama walked in the door, the phone would be ringin’. ‘Baby Jesus is missin’ again!’ and there he’d be, in your tight little fist.

“We was always takin’ that baby Jesus away from you, and you’d kick up such a fuss. Then you started hidin’ him in your shirt. Your mama would find him when she got you ready for bed.”

You loved that baby Jesus.

So here is a proposal for you. The Christian life is an invitation to fall in love with Jesus. Because, here’s the thing, Jesus is in love with you. Is his love requited?

The Way of the Magi/The Way of Love

Epiphany - Cycle A

It was a lousy time to be born. I mean, of all the times and all the places, why bring a baby into that world?

A tyrant was on the throne, known for his cruelty to children, even his own. A nervous tyrant, no less, indebted to a foreign power, as he was. If he couldn't maintain his authority, he knew they had the goods on him, and were just as cruel as he. So when he trembled, everybody around him trembled. They knew he would not go down easy.

It was a lousy time to bring a child into the world, when anything could happen, and it was not going to be good. And it's not as though these parents had any resources to protect this child, hardly more than children themselves, on the move, sleeping rough, soon to be refugees depending on the hospitality of people whose language they did not speak.

It was a dark time to bring a child into the world.

What Does God Want From Me?

Proper 13 - Cycle C

The rich old guy died, and everybody wanted to know, casual acquaintances, total strangers, certainly the heirs. They asked the accountant, “How much did he leave?” So the accountant pulled out the file, worked the calculator keys, scribbled some notes, consulted the closing market numbers, referred again to the calculator, finally punched “enter,” and looked up. “He left – everything.”

Everything.

The summer months give us Gospel readings from the middle of Jesus’ public career. Having established a reputation for wisdom, an engaging style and – his own take on things, he attracts crowds who want to hear more. He teaches. Today one of the crowd provides the opening line, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

Life Begins With Breath

Pentecost - Cycle C

In the Bible, life begins with breath.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

Spirit, Ruach in Hebrew – the word means wind, like the rush of wind that filled the house on the day of Pentecost.

And then the wind formed the formless earth.  God spoke.  And the breath that was God’s Word began to create.  Let there be…

There is a second version of creation that follows in the next chapter that is more specific about breathing life into human beings.  Then the LORD God formed a human of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the human became a living being.

What Is Your God Story?

Proper23 – Cycle B

I know of a pastor who does this thing.  He goes to a coffee shop, orders his coffee, sits at a table, and pulls out a sign that he puts on the table.  The sign says, “Tell me your God story.”

Then he drinks his coffee.  People sit down.  They tell him a story.  They tell him all kinds of stories.

I remembered that pastor as I have been reading a book that will be part of diocesan convention next week.  The book’s author, Dwight Zscheile is our keynote speaker.  The book is called The Agile Church.

The chapter that engaged my imagination is “Disciplines of a Learning Church.”  The first discipline is: Cultivate places for conversation and practice.  The author writes about how the church typically approaches nonchurch members.  Typically, we invite them to come to us so they can hear our story.

Now let me say, it’s a powerful story.  In fact, the fourth discipline he names is: Interpret the present in light of the past.  Our story, the one we are living now, is part of a bigger story.  When we read Scripture every Sunday, we are connecting to that bigger story.  And we draw from it.  The bishop described this two weeks ago – the Book of Exodus, the people of God on the move from their settled past to an unknown future.  Their holy place, their sanctuary was a tent.  They folded it up and they moved.  And Jesus who did not have a place to lay his head, whose ministry was always on the road, or in somebody’s living room for the evening.

On the move is part of our past and it sustains us as we fold up our tent and move into our future.

But that’s the fourth discipline.  Let’s go back to the first.

Baptized into a Life That Matters

Proper 20 -- Cycle B, September 23, 2018

The first movie I ever say was Sleeping Beauty.  It began with a christening.  All the people and all the fairies of the kingdom came to greet the little Princess Aurora, to offer gifts and wishes and blessings.

And here we are this morning for little Josephine, with gifts and wishes and blessings.  The corporate blessing, the blessing we have gathered to offer is this: that Josephine may lead a life that matters.

In this great big world that ignores all but the powerful and mighty, first we say that Josephine herself matters.  She is a precious child of God, a princess in her own right, in the kingdom of God.

And then we are here to lead her to live a life that matters.

The last several weeks our lessons have been about wisdom.  To know what is a life that matters and then to live it -- what could be wiser than that?

That is our wish, our blessing for Josephine this morning.

I remember the evening after my son Jacob was born.  I held him in my arms and prayed that he would be happy.  Isn't that what parents say, "I just want my children to be happy."

A friend in Costa Rica said something similar for himself a few years back.  He was feeling sorrowful, as he often does, and was in his cups, which he thinks would make him less sorrowful.  But it doesn't.  He said to me, "All I want is to be happy.  Is that asking too much?"

He asked as though he thought I would have the answer, me being a priest and all.  Now, it's not my first rodeo, and I don't counsel people while they are drunk.

But I did have an answer.  I'm saving it for him.

No, to be happy is not asking enough.  The thing is, if what you are pursuing is happiness, you will never get there.  Oh, you might experience pleasure.  You might distract yourself temporarily from your sorrows.  But it's when you lose yourself in something else, when you create, or help, or stand up for something important, or love, when your own happiness is forgotten, that's when it comes.