Grace Episcopal Church Blog

Feeding & Walking

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 18:07:14 GMT

Deacon Bette's sermon for Pentecost X, July 28, 2024

Feeding and walking–two perfectly ordinary human activities, right? But when Jesus does them, extraordinary things happen.

Today our Gospel lesson comprises two—not one, as is more usual—but two important stories from Jesus’ ministry here on earth. I’m not sure if that is a blessing or a curse.

So I spent a couple of days last week trying to decide which one I was going to focus on in this sermon. And of course, a million words could be said about each of them. But that wouldn’t do, so which?

Then finally Friday morning I sat down with my computer and began to write this sermon, which hopes to say something meaningful about both—maybe even about the two of them together—as they are presented to us in the 6 ^th chapter of the Gospel according to John.

So here goes: Walking and feeding—two perfectly ordinary activities, except when Jesus does them. That’s the connection, of course. Jesus does them. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Not an earth-shaking statement, right? But… when Jesus did them, the earth was shaken. Things changed.

Let’s start with feeding: When humans feed, we divide the food we have amongst the people we need to feed. Generally speaking, that is. And if we do it totally evenhandedly, the more people to feed, the less each person would get. And vice versa.

I grew up in a large family and, as mom’s primary helper, became skilled at cutting the pie or the beef roast or whatever into enough pieces to go around.

But, of course, as a society and on a global level, humans do not divide food or anything else at all equally. Some get plenty; others starve. We divide according to our merit system or the biases of economic systems. It’s never a matter of “not enough”; it’s always a matter of maldistribution.

Not so when Jesus feeds. When Jesus feeds, everybody gets what they need, and there’s plenty left over. Same is true when God feeds, as in Second Kings…

You’ll notice that in this case, Jesus does what God has already done. That shouldn’t surprise us: Jesus said, often enough, “I and the Father are one,” or similar words to that effect.

So Jesus blesses a few loaves and a couple of fish and through his compassion and his act of thanksgiving and praise, God became known to the gathered throng in the breaking of the bread.

And when God becomes known to humankind, our hearts are opened and miracles happen, miracles of giving and sharing, of welcoming strangers…, of caring for the least among us. So much so that we have more blessing left over than what we started with.

God’s grace is always offered fully to and for all. When Jesus feeds, the world of division and inequality as we know it, is turned on its head.

What about walking? Jesus walks where we cannot: Upon the turbulent sea. This story puts me in mind of the chaos of pre-creation. Genesis speaks of a formless void, of darkness covering the deep and of a wind. Sounds a lot like what the world must have looked like to the disciples in that storm-tossed boat.

The wind was from God, Genesis says, but it is not until God speaks, “Let there be light,” that light appears. And as Genesis tells the story, God continues to speak the universe into existence. Order out of chaos. God’s words are powerful.

Likewise, Jesus walks upon the stormy waters. The disciples see him but think he is a ghost. But when he speaks—It is I, he says, in our translation—the wind and the water lie down. Calm and order are restored. Language experts tell us that the words Jesus uses to identify himself in this story are the ones God uses for the same purpose when speaking to Moses from the burning bush.

It sounds like the chaotic, upside down world the disciples were experiencing was restored instantly. They “wanted” to take him into the boat, it says, ` but apparently didn’t have time to do so because there they were—at their destination, back on terra firma.

In Matthew’s account of this event, Peter gets out of the boat and proves what we all know: Mere humans cannot walk on water.

But we do walk into each others’ lives We do walk into and through our shared public spaces—which are often turbulent, even chaotic. We come to church Sunday morning and walk together a ways, then go our separate ways. We go to our jobs and walk with our co-workers for a ways. On our way to or from work, we might walk momentarily into the life of a homeless person, or a long-lost friend, or a person whose very appearance tips us off that we won’t like him or her.

Jesus walked. Into the lives of his disciples, from village to village throughout Galilee, across the turbulent sea. Ultimately, he walked to his crucifixion in Jerusalem. And everywhere Jesus walked he brought love and healing and reconciliation.

When we walk into the lives of others, what do we bring? Peace or conflict? Healing and reconciliation or pain and strife? Do we fan the flames of political division with our rhetoric? Or do we speak calmly and listen respectfully?

I want to address the issue of social media for a moment. Because like it or not, social media are public, political, social, and religious realities in our lives. It is shared space we walk into and through—most of us—on a daily basis.

It has its value! I learn of many things happening in the community, things I appreciate knowing about, through Facebook. I connect with faraway friends and family through Facebook.

But whether you find any good in them or not, the bottom line is, Facebook and other social media are contemporary realities. And it appears to me that a very high percentage of what transpires there contributes significantly to the political and social divisions and hostilities that characterize our common life today. It’s more a spitball fight than a conversation.

I am speaking to myself as much as you. I must remind myself constantly to read and reread before I click “send.” To try to view that “funny” meme through the eyes of other people—especially people not like me—before I reshare it.

I spoke earlier of the power of God’s words, and of course they are! But remember that in chapter 2 of Genesis, God has Adam name the creatures! One thing we must take away from the creation story is that all words are powerful.

Human words are powerful and with them we can bring calm and reconciliation to political conflict, or we can fan the flames with inflammatory rhetoric. We can listen respectfully and disagree calmly, or we can slash and burn and belittle and demean.

The prologue to John’s Gospel tells us two things about Jesus: First, that we was there in the beginning with God, and second, that Jesus himself was God’s Word that became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory.

As his followers, we are now his hands and feet, his spokesperson. We must learn to feed as he fed. We must walk, as the Psalmist says, in the land of the living, bringing peace and love and reconciliation as he did. We must use our words as he used his, to calm the turbulent seas of this world that God so loves.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

Belief in Action

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 19:17:04 GMT

Fr. Don's sermon for Pentecost VI, June 30, 2024

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A Measure of Faith

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 16:08:43 GMT

Fr. Don's sermon for Pentecost III, June 9, 2024

Jesus the Plumb Line

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 14:31:07 GMT

Deacon Bette's sermon for Pentecost VII, July 14, 2024.

When I was a kid, family vacations consisted of the occasional drive to Ohio to visit my father’s family. That was before Interstate 80 had been built, and so the journey included passing through Chicago.

My father was always looking for enriching opportunities for his children, and so we typically spent a day on the way to Ohio at one or more of Chicago’s amazing museums. It was at the Museum of Science & Industry that we encountered the giant Foucault pendulum, swinging ever so softly and silently, from a domed ceiling high over our heads.

A Foucault pendulum is, of course, a plumb line. It is, basically, a weight on a string.. that obeys the law of gravity by hanging straight down—regardless of what you hang it from. The one in Chicago is a polished steel orb suspended on a cable from the center of the building’s dome five stories overhead.

And it moves because the earth moves! In other words, the plumb line must obey the laws of gravity and always hang straight down. But because the earth is not a perfect sphere, and because it moves—rotating on its axis as it traces its trajectory around the sun—that building is also moving, and the plumb bob must constantly adjust its position in order to obey the law of gravity and hang straight down.

And so it gently swings, translating the earth’s movement into a highly regular, beautifully precise pattern of movement—on a scale that the human eye can actually see. BTW, you can now watch a video on YouTube of the Foucault pendulum’s movement and pattern.

In other words, we know this planet we call home is, in fact, spinning and hurtling through space at an alarming speed. Yet we detect none of that. It is beyond the capacity of our human senses, our human perspective, our human experience.

But the giant plumb line brings it down to earth. A Foucault pendulum scales it down, transforms it, so that we mere mortals can in fact experience, perceive, see… the very movement and rotation of the earth itself.

How much of that did I understand as a child, standing in that museum looking at the Foucault pendulum? I don’t know. Probably not much. But I do remember awe and wonderment.

And, in striking contrast to today’s Old Testament story, I remember it as a calming, reassuring experience rather than a threatening one. Of course, plumb lines have more than one use. They are a builder’s tool for keeping things straight and upright, and a similar kind of discipline appears to be on God’s mind in this conversation with Amos.

“Look, I am not going to continue to look the other way,” God says. “In fact, I’m going to put myself right there in the midst of my people Israel. I’m going to be a plumb line showing how crooked they really are. And, by the way, their crookedness is going to get them into all kinds of trouble. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

So.., how do we reconcile these contrasting images of a plumb line? Is it an eloquent translation of God’s creation into terms humans can comprehend, or a harsh discipline that ensures mortal failure? Is it a reminder of the order of the universe, or a measure of the chaos humans inevitably create?

I would say it is “both and”—both eloquent and harsh, both about order and about chaos, both reassuring—for it is evidence that God is among us, and frightening—for it shows how utterly unworthy of God’s presence we are.

Now, doesn’t that sound a bit like Jesus? I mean, in Hebrew Scripture, the prophets were God’s plumb lines. God put them among the Israelites to be spokespeople for God. And through them God conveyed reassuring messages, like “you will be my people and I will be your God.”

But the prophets also called the people to account for their bad behavior. The prophets also spoke truth to power and called on the people to repent and turn back to God when they had strayed, which they did—a lot, just like we do—a lot—today.

So when I read Amos today, when I hear God saying, See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people, I think “Jesus.” Right? God’s son, the only and beloved son, comes to be among God’s people, to call them to repent and to show them the way to be human as God intended humans to be.

So let’s talk about what kind of plumb line Jesus is.

The first thing I would note is that Jesus brought The Divine—a great mystery beyond our comprehension, like the movement of the earth is beyond our comprehension… Jesus brought that Great Mystery to earth in a form we could recognize, perceive, and experience as real.

It is interesting that the early church struggled with who Jesus was and it took a few hundred years for the belief that he was Divine to become doctrine. Today I believe we have trouble remembering he was also human. And that is to our peril, for if we forget that he was human, how can we take seriously his command that we follow him?

Indeed, Jesus spent a good bit more time preaching and teaching about what we should DO, how we should live our lives, than about what we should believe. The Sermon on the Mount, for example, one of Jesus’ most significant and sustained teachings, is not a rundown of Christian doctrine! It’s all about how to live a righteous life: Be the light of the world, Jesus says, reconcile with your brother, do not lust after the spouse of another, do not seek retaliation, do not judge, love your enemies, fast and give alms in secret, pray like this, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And on and on it goes.

There’s nary a word about what we should believe. Indeed, the final paragraph begins with Jesus saying, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Not believes , but does . Jesus was an action-oriented man.

The Gospels give us many glimpses of Jesus the Plumb Line. Another of my favorites is the teaching we know as “the Good Samaritan.” The context of that story is an interaction between Jesus and a lawyer. The lawyer is up to nothing less than entrapment. He knows perfectly well that some of Jesus’ teachings and practices have been rather unorthodox, and so he asks a question that everyone present knows the “right” answer, the Scriptural answer, to.

It is a question designed to make the asker look pious, even as he is hoping that Jesus will go out on a limb that he can then chop off. “What must I do to be certain I’ll go to heaven,” he asks.

But Jesus doesn’t rise to the bait, nor does he strike back. Rather, he invites the lawyer to share the Scriptural answer everyone knows, and the lawyer obliges: “Love the Lord your God.., and your neighbor as yourself.”

Yup, says Jesus, there you go! Ask a simple question, get a simple answer! Standing there with egg on his face, the lawyer tries again. Surely he can engage Jesus in a face-saving debate if he asks him a truly legal question! So... “Who is my neighbor?” he asks.

And so Jesus tells the story that is one of the most familiar of the whole Bible. Notice that Jesus does not say the Samaritan is “good.” Indeed, Jesus doesn’t say a thing about the Samaritan, what kind of person he is or what he believes. All Jesus talks about is what he does —which is pick up the guy in the ditch and tend to his needs.

On the other hand, the guys who walk by and do nothing—Jesus tells us who they are—a priest and a Levite. We take from these titles that these guys who walk by believe all the right things yet do nothing to help the guy in the ditch. Sadly, it is a lot easier to believe all the right things, to go to church and worship Jesus, than to follow him and do the things he would have us do.

Jesus is God among us, saying over and over again, in every possible way: We are all God’s children. We are all in this together. Not one of you is any better than anyone else. Not one of you is loved by me any more or any less than anyone else. Stand by me. Walk with me. Do the things I do, be the kind of human I am, and you will never again have to ask, “Who is my neighbor?”

That’s the kind of plumb line Jesus is.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

One Disposable Cardboard Boat

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:43:07 GMT

Deacon Bette's sermon for Pentecost V, June 23, 2024.

My brother Adin, who is close to me in age, just about a year and 3 months younger, served a tour of duty in the Army in Vietnam during the war. And like so many veterans of that war, he came home not in the best shape mentally and emotionally.

His way of dealing with that was to adapt a Volkswagen bus into living quarters on wheels—he was handy like that—and head out on the road with no particular destination in mind. When he needed cash, he stopped somewhere, got a job doing whatever—picking fruit, mopping floors. Whatever.

He hated cold weather, so he ended up in Florida and got a job scraping hulls at a marina that tended yachts. It didn’t take his boss long to figure out he was handy, so next thing you know, he had been promoted to fixing yachts and then remodeling the interiors of yachts.

From all that, he got bitten by the sailing bug and next thing we at home in Iowa hear is that he is building his own boat, so to take his wanderlust out to sea. I’ll never forget the first time I visited him in Florida. He had found a place to park his VW bus and build his boat, and he was standing there using an axe to carve a hunk of wood on two sawhorses into the keel of what would become a beautiful, 30+ foot, seaworthy sailboat.

It took a couple of years, but when “Harmony”—that’s what he named his boat—when Harmony was finished, he set out into the Caribbean and repeated the pattern. When he needed cash, he stopped at an island, got a job, earned what he needed then set sail again. Until he stopped at St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, got a job working for a farmer who provided produce to resort hotels on the island, and eventually fell in love with the farmer’s daughter. But that’s another story.

The story I must get to today in light of our Gospel lesson, is that I spent a week living on Harmony and sailing around the Caribbean with my brother. And we had a blast. We set sail from St. Croix to St. John, which is far enough away from St. Croix that you lose sight of land for a while on the journey.

As I recall, we did not go ashore for most of a week. We ate fish and lobster we speared wherever we anchored in sheltered spots around St. John. I should clarify: my brother speared, because even though I was a pretty skilled snorkeler, I was not that good with the spear!

The day came that we reluctantly had to head back to St. Croix for me to catch a plane home. We knew how long it should take, and we set sail in good time. But, lo and behold, we got out in the middle between the islands, where not one speck of land was visible—the 360-degree horizon was all water—and the wind died. I mean, died. The sea was glass. I had not even thought it possible for the sea to be that flat and glassy.

Now my brother’s boat had an engine, but he had told me before we left: the engine is broke. I said, ‘who cares? I want to sail anyway.’ Famous last words, right?

So there we are, with no land in sight and no wind. We put up every sail the boat had. My brother even rigged some canvas into an extra makeshift sail. He lashed the tiller to one side so we would drift in circles, and there we sat. Well, I sat. My brother paced and fumed and finally I said, “Adin, I think God is trying to teach you patience.” To which he replied, “Well, I’ve got news for God: I’m getting my engine fixed!”

Fair enough. I do not recall how long we drifted, except that my flight home took off and landed in Florida while we were out there! But what happened next astonishes me to this day.

I was sunbathing and reading a book. My brother was lounging in the back of the boat. Suddenly, the air changed. So very subtle, yet… Maybe it moved a bit—not quite a breeze but movement. Maybe a fraction of a degree drop in temperature? Maybe the slightest fragrance of… maybe rain? I look up from my book, but my brother snaps to attention. And within seconds, he’s on his feet yelling, “Come on, Betts. (That’s what my sibs called me: ‘Betts.’) We gotta get some sail down, now!”

And we went to work, jerking down sail as fast as we could. Within minutes we were down to the main sail and then streaking toward St. Croix at full speed, pushed by a perfect storm of wind and rain.

Later, I asked my brother for an explanation for jerking down sail when the wind was coming. I was too green to understand that the wind would most likely have pushed us over—capsized us—if it had gotten to us with all the sail we had up while we were becalmed.

My point? Not that my brother is like Jesus. I know him too well. He's no more like Jesus than any of the rest of us in this room!

Here’s my point: We are all boat builders of one kind or another. We spend our lives building boats—or houses. We build savings accounts and investment portfolios, networks of friends and allies. We build marriages and families and communities. These things make us feel safe. With these things, we can face the sea of life with its many storms and have some hope of sailing through.

Then along comes one of the many storms of life, one that threatens to capsize us, and we realize the boat we have built might just as well be cardboard. None of it can save us from grief and loss and fear. And then comes Jesus saying, Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?

Do you still not get that all this earthly stuff is passing away? That your ultimate hope and security does not lie in things of the earth? That this earthly stuff we invest so much time and energy in building is just.. a disposable cardboard boat?

Now, I’m like you. I do not want to have to sail through life without some financial comfort and the physical comfort that comes with a house and friends and family I can reach out to if needed—even though I’m not very good at doing that! So I too build my boat as best I can.

But… let us not be confused about what we are doing and why. Let us not confuse all of that with our foundational source of hope and security. For me, the best reminder… is our liturgy for the burial of the dead. Indeed, more than either of the creeds we say, the anthem spoken by the officiant at the beginning of a funeral service, is for me, our best statement of faith.

It’s on p. 491 of the Book of Common Prayer. I’ll share just a few lines from near the end, which are, in fact, quoting Romans 14:8:

For if we have life, we are alive in the Lord,
and if we die, we die in the Lord.
So, then, whether we live or die,
we are the Lord's possession.

Jesus stilled the storm and his disciples did not perish that day. But if what we take from this story is that when the sea gets rough and we get afraid, Jesus will miraculously pop in and fix everything, we will have missed the point.

Because some day, some storm will take us out. Us, all of our loved ones, all earthy things we hold dear. All of the boat-building we have done cannot prevent that.

Faith is not believing that Jesus the Miracle Guy will pop in and fix everything for us. Faith is knowing that whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

And knowing that, friends, is all we really need to get through this life. That, and maybe one disposable cardboard boat, just for the fun of it.*

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

*I am indebted to Suzanne Guthrie, who introduces the phrase “1 disposable carboard boat” in a tongue-in-cheek list of liturgical props to accompany Mark 4:35-41. (Edge of the Enclosure, Proper 7, Year B; online, 6-20-2024).

"The Best Summer Camp!"

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:18:26 GMT

by Ivy Napoli

I have gone to Camp Hardtner for two years now, and it is one of the best places to be over the summer. One of the reasons I love going to camp is because it is a good place to de-stress and get out of the real world for 6 days. The first time I went to Camp Hardtner. I was a little nervous because I was worried that I wouldn't make any friends, but boy was I wrong! I have made more life-long friends at camp than at home, both counselors and campers. The counselors at Camp Hardtner are some of the best people I have met in my life. They are easy to talk to, and they are never judgmental. They are a big part of camp for me. Another great part of camp Is the atmosphere. You are in the middle of the woods with beautiful scenery and wonderful cabins. The games that we play are also so fun and awesome. There is never a dull moment at Camp Hardtner.

The biggest impact that Camp Hardtner has made on me is the spiritual growth that I have gone through at Camp Hardtner. The church services at Camp Hardtner are unlike any other I have gone to. The atmosphere in the church while we are there singing and worshiping is something I have never felt anywhere else but at camp. There Is more than one chapel at Camp Hardtner. There is a big church and one outside right by the water. The one right by the water is my favorite because you can see God's creation while you are worshiping HIm. I don't think I could encourage anyone enough to go to Camp Hardtner! It is the best summer camp you could go to!!!

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Balancing Monstors of Love

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 16:23:11 GMT

Deacon Bette's sermon for All Saints, Nov. 5, 2023.

“We believe… in the communion of saints.” Our Apostles Creed—which we will say momentarily--says so, and today is All Saints, the day the Church celebrates the communion of saints.

The Apostle’s Creed is also our Baptismal Covenant, and so, every time we baptize someone, we affirm our belief in the communion of saints. It’s right there in a list of things we believe, sandwiched between “the holy catholic church” and “the forgiveness of sins.” Pretty important stuff.

In fact, All Saints is one of the Principal Feasts of the Church, right up there with Easter, Pentecost and Christmas. But what does it mean to believe in “the communion of saints”? We have images and ideas galore to go with those other principal feasts, but what images and ideas come to mind when we say we believe in the communion of saints?

Today’s entrance hymn (#287) evokes for me, images of the past. The first two verses are about those who have died: “For all the saints, who from their labors rest…” These verses are written mostly in the past tense: They confessed Jesus before the world, and he was their rock, their fortress, and their might...

By verse four, we’re moved to the present, but remain connected with those who have gone before: “O blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.”

And, if we hang in all the way to verse seven, we look to the future: “…lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day; the saints triumphant rise in bright array, the King of Glory passes on his way.”

So there you have it. The communion of saints is about the past, the present and the future, and about the relationships that are the thread connecting the past, present, and future.

That’s the first piece of the picture I want to paint with you today. The communion of saints stretches through time. It is about the great ongoingness.. of God’s relationship with God’s people.., and about the relationships of God’s people with each other.

I struggled over the past few days trying to come up with an analogy or metaphor for the communion of saints, something that would help me share my sense of it. The best I came up with, and it’s not perfect, is a river.

The communion of saints is a mighty river, made up of the people of God, extending backward and forward, from this moment… in time and space.

Our readings today can help us fill out this image of the communion of saints as a mighty river extending through time.

To begin with the Revelation: No matter how often I read or hear it, I am always thrilled by the picture John paints: “…and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…

In my mind’s eye, I see trickles of people from all over—across the continents and from around the globe, an incredibly diverse array of people—coming together to form this great multitude, like trickles come together to form a mighty river.

And what is it that brings them together? What, in all their diversity, do they share? Our lesson from First John tells us it is the love God has given us. Indeed, we are called children of God because of the love the Father has given us.

Notice that John does not say, “See how the Father loves us.” Rather, he says, “See what love the Father has given us.”

The difference it makes is that we cannot be the passive recipients of God’s love. We have been given the ability to love, and the only way to accept that gift is to love like God loves.

God’s love demands a loving response, not only to God, but also to the saints of all ages. Solidarity arises not simply from contemporary people of faith, but from all those who precede and those who will follow.

In other words, the love that comes from God constitutes the community of believers. It is the thread that binds all believers together, past, present, and future, known to us and as yet unknown.

Hearing about God’s love is pretty comforting to us, but First John makes another point about the community of saints that is not so comforting: “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

Here the author of First John draws attention to the outsider status of the communion of saints. A community constituted by God’s love is a community the world, constituted by other values, will have trouble understanding.

Indeed, the very definition of “the world” is that which is alienated from God by its own blindness, its inability to see and accept God’s constituting love. So, does that mean that to be a saint, one must be aloof from the world? Must stand apart so as not to be sullied by the sin and violence of the world?

Far from it. Remember that “God so loved the world” that he came to it in the form of a human in order to experience the world as humans experience it, in all of its pain and suffering even unto death. To love like God loves is thus to love the world.

You are probably familiar with the pop music of Jewish Canadian balladeer, Leonard Cohen. He is, perhaps, an unlikely source for a sermon on the saints, but in fact, in addition to many songs, he wrote an experimental novel called “Beautiful Losers.” And in that novel is a paragraph about saints.

Cohen says saints are humans who have a special connection with the “energy of love,” and this enables them to achieve a kind of balance in the midst of the chaos of life on planet earth. Cohen says the saint does not resolve the chaos. There’s something incredibly arrogant about the notion that a human could put the universe in order. Rather, it is glorious balance the saint achieves. Here is the description in Cohen’s words:

[The saint] rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is a caress of the hill. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shapes of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart.

Cohen concludes by noting, It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.

“Balancing monsters of love”—people who are fully in the world, fully in touch with trials and tribulations, pain and suffering, life and death in all its glory and pathos—and still love humankind as God loves us—the twisted and misshapen along with the fine and good.

And what are the saints doing as “Monstors of Love”? Author Madelaine L’Engle gives us a glimpse in her book, “A Stone for a Pillow.” She tells of a good man who dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter welcomes him at the pearly gates. He enters and wanders about, blissfully happy. It is exactly as he expected: streets of gold and alabaster, plenty of milk and honey, golden harps and heavenly music.

But as he wanders about in amazement, he gradually realizes there’s no one else there. The streets are empty except for him. Finally, he goes back to the gate and asks Peter: Is this really heaven? And Peter says, Yes, don’t you like it?

And the man says, Yes, yes, it’s gorgeous. It’s everything I was taught it would be. But… where is everybody? Where are the prophets and the holy family? Where are all the saints?

Peter answers, “Oh, them? They're all down in hell, ministering to the damned. If you'd like to join them, I'll show you the way."

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Weeds, Flowers, and Thistles

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 23:44:31 GMT

Deacon Bette's sermon for Pentecost VIII, July 23, 2023.

I was born and raised on a small farm in Iowa. There were plenty of things we didn’t have much of—money, for example. But one thing of great beauty we had plenty of on that farm was the Iowa state bird, namely the American goldfinch.

And why did we have plenty of goldfinches? Because we had plenty of their favorite food: Thistles! Goldfinches love thistle seed.

Now I had a rather love-hate relationship with those thistles. On the one hand, they attracted goldfinches. And butterflies! Butterflies love the nectar of thistle flowers. So the thistles drew beauty to the farm.

At the same time, thistles are a weed. They pop up early in the spring and grow fast. They were definitely a problem in the vegetable garden and in the fields where corn and oats were supposed to grow.

So… my siblings and I had a job. Day after day in the spring and early summer, we were sent out with gloves and a long-handled tool with a straight 6-in blade on the end of it to “stick thistles.” That is, you stab the blade into the ground around the base of the thistle in order to cut the tap root several inches below ground. This didn’t actually kill the thistle; it just delayed its re-growth long enough for the crops to get ahead of it.

But, thankfully, we never succeeded in sticking ALL of the thistles. We still had plenty in fence rows and non-cultivated areas to draw plenty of butterflies and, when they grew to maturity and went to seed, to feed plenty of goldfinches.

Well, here we are talking about thistles again! In case you weren’t here last Sunday, thistles were featured in last week’s sermon as well. And in that sermon they were cast in rather bad light. Our subject was the parable of the sower and I suggested that we each have a patch of thistles in our heart that is a lot like the thorny ground in that parable, the ground where nothing good can grow because it is crowded out by the thistles of pride, greed, arrogance, and all the bad stuff that keeps the love of God from flourishing in our hearts.

It was a pretty dim picture of thistles. It was also pretty cut and dried: fertile ground "good," thistle patch "bad." And that’s how that parable reads: The sower sows, the seeds fall on good soil and bring forth much fruit, or they fall on bad soil, rocky soil, thorny soil, and produce nothing.

So several of us had a really interesting discussion over coffee and donuts last Sunday between services. Where do the weeds come from? Especially after we have vigilantly expended time and sweat pulling every weed we can find, how do they get back into the yard and the flower beds? And do we pull them or not, especially if we are possibly going to damage a plant we want to keep by doing so?

About that there was some disagreement! I mentioned today’s parable in favor of leaving the weeds alone. Others at the table said, ‘Pull ‘em, along with the good stuff if necessary!’ It was a totally friendly disagreement.

So here we are today with what we might call the parable of the weeds, and Jesus himself makes a mess out of clarity. Don’t pull the weeds, he says, let them be. The angels will do the dirty work later on. What is up with that?

You know what I don’t understand? Why my siblings and I never thought of using that on my father! I mean, we went to Sunday School every Sunday and to Bible School for at least two weeks every summer. We knew the stories! And we never once thought of using that story on our father to get out of sticking all those thistles.

Maybe we sensed it would not have worked. Because here’s the thing: The Bible also teaches us to strive for the good, to work at being righteous, to cultivate a relationship with God so that we, too, can grow in love and charity and holiness, and spread those seeds in the world, not to earn God’s love but because that is the only possible response to being God’s beloved. Striving to be better is what we do. We will keep driving the weeds out of our yards and our hearts, and they will keep coming back.

See, life is messy. Things are not always what they appear to be on first glance. “Good” and “bad” are rarely as clear and cut and dried as we would like. I love this little poem by Ian Emberson. Perhaps you’ve heard only the first line…

A weed is a flower in the wrong place,
a flower is a weed in the right place,
if you were a weed in the right place
you would be a flower;
but seeing as you’re a weed in the wrong place
you’re only a weed –
it's high time someone pulled you out.

Seems the poet was not in the best of humor when he wrote that!

Friends, I am not in the weed-pulling business this morning. I did my share of that when I was a kid. Moreover, if I have learned anything in my 70+ years, it is that life is messy. That weeds are beautiful and that flowers can stick you with their thorns.

But the messiness of life, the sometimes lack of clarity between good and evil, does not relieve us of the call to build the kingdom of God hear and now and to do it with joy and gusto. I hope it teaches us to do it with a good measure of humility, because our knowing, our understanding, is so often contingent and near-sighted.

A Dean I worked for many years ago at Penn State had a memorable way to make a point. When he wanted us to be more daring in trying things new, he’d say, “You can’t live life as if you’re about to be hit by a bus.” But I would add, you also can’t go around stepping off of curbs without looking right and left because a bus just might be barreling down the street toward you!

Here's what I want us to take away today: When we find the Bible lining up behind our own, each of our own, biases and prejudices, judging harshly the people we love to judge harshly, reinforcing the worldly values we hold dearest… that is when we most need to check ourselves and our reading of the Bible. That’s when we need to talk to others, especially others who are as different from us as possible who read the Bible and see the world from very different pespectives.

When we think we know the Truth with a capital T, when we see right and wrong with utmost clarity, when good vs. evil are cut and dried, when we have the strongest urge to lay waste to all those weeds messing up our lives… that’s when we most need to take a step back.. and bow our heads. We need to bow our heads in humble recognition of the limitedness of human understanding. We need to bow our heads in reverence before the Wisdom that holds together all of life's messiness.

BTW, here in Louisiana, I eagerly await the annual visit of the goldfinches to my backyard, as they pause for a week or two on their journey back to Iowa for the summer. And how do I attract them to my backyard? NOT by planting thistles, but by going to Lowe’s and stocking up on thistle seed for the special thistle seed feeder, of course! But the fact that I can do that—go to Lowe’s and buy thistle seed by the 15-lb. bag—means that someone, somewhere is farming thistles. Someone somewhere is planting thistles on purpose and harvesting their seed. Let that sink in for a moment.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN

This sermon was preached at Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, LA. Both of the photographs with this sermon were made by me. The title photo is a pair of American Goldfinches in breeding plumage feeding on thistle seeds in my back yard in Swartz, LA, 2/18/2022. The second photo is an American Goldfinch in winter plumage feeding on a spent thistle flower along a roadside in rural Iowa, 9/19/2018, when I was home for a class reunion.

Soils, and Sowers

bkauffman@graceepiscopal.org — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 02:15:02 GMT

Deacon Bette's sermon for Pentecost VII, July 16, 2023.

So today we have the Parable of the Sower. It is very familiar to us. All three of the synoptic Gospel writers—Matthew, Mark and Luke—tell this story, and they tell it pretty much the same way.

It also has the distinction of being one of the few that Jesus himself explains the meaning of. Maybe. Perhaps I shouldn’t spoil that by telling you that some scholars who have studied the New Testament extensively actually don’t think Jesus said those words. They think those words are an early church understanding that some scribe added later to make sure they became the dominant meaning!

Who knows? Jesus certainly was not in the habit of explaining himself and translating the meaning of his parables. On the other hand, even though we are no longer the agrarian community Jesus was preaching to, the explanation makes sense. Soils and growing conditions differ, and that has everything to do with what grows. That is obvious.

But there’s something that is not so obvious, I think, when we turn from soils to humans, when we look for the relevance of this parable to our lives today. It’s this.

We humans have a strong tendency to look at the growing conditions in the parable as representations of different humans and groups of humans. It’s just how we think. As humans, we are deeply invested in the classification of human beings, as in yankees vs. southerners and conservatives vs. liberals, insiders vs. outsiders. We look for neighborhoods, social and civic organizations, clubs and churches where the other people there are enough “like me” that I “fit in.”

When we use that very human mentality to look at this parable, we pious Christians come out pretty good. Here we are at church on Sunday morning and most Sunday mornings, pretty much the same group is here! We must be the fertile soil on which the seeds fell, germinated, took root and thrive, right?

And we can probably name other people—individuals and groups—who are like the other soil types: Right here in front of us is the hardened path of the nonbelievers, the ones who worship God of another name or who refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Lord. And over there is the thistle patch, the ones who might say they believe but whose first priority is making money or having fun, who are too busy to be at church on Sunday morning. Then there’s the rocky soil of the ones who find God in a big, dramatic mountaintop experience but who walk away the minute the magic wears off and all of life’s messiness remains.

I’m sure we can all think of individual people and groups we would put into each of those soil classifications. And it’s kind of fun and interesting to play that game! Especially since we are most likely putting ourselves first in the classification of fertile soil. Because, again, here we are at church on Sunday morning and not just this Sunday but most Sundays.

So I want to challenge you this morning with a somewhat different understanding of this parable. I want us to contemplate the possibility that these types of soil do not represent different kinds of people. I want us to consider the possibility that we, each and every one of us, are all of these things.., all of these different types of soil, and often all at the same time.

Here’s what I mean. Jesus spent a lot of time teaching and showing us about God’s love for us. We could call those the “Jesus-loves-me” teachings. It’s no accident that one of the first worship songs most of us learned was “Jesus Loves Me.”

So here’s my question: Is your heart fertile ground for the “Jesus-love-me” teachings? Mine is! When Holy Scripture is talking about how God loves us and how we can never be separated from the love of God, or when I am proclaiming the Gospel at a funeral and it is that most popular of all Gospel passages for funerals about Jesus going to prepare a place for us and coming to take us there to be with him forever…. Oh, yes! My fertile-ground heart rejoices and overflows with love and joy for God, myself and my neighbors.

But… then there’s those challenging teachings of Jesus, like the one about the workers who all get paid the same even though some of them worked all day and others just an hour. “How’s that fair?” the hard ground of my heart screams.

There’s those neighbors who are so very unlovable, who believe the darndest things, who share memes on social media that make me cringe, who are just so wrong about everything… and Jesus says to love them, too. Those teachings of Jesus tend to fall into the thistle patch of my heart, the place in my heart that is so full of thistles of pride and self-righteousness and arrogance that those seeds of Jesus’ teachings don’t have a chance.

My point is that what kind of soil our heart is.. depends a great deal on which teachings of Jesus are being cast our way. We are fertile ground for some, especially those that reinforce our place in the world and make us feel comfortable, secure, and loved. But our hearts can be—at one and the same time—hardened against those teachings that question our most cherished values, that call us out of our comfort zone in our relationships with other people, and that challenge us to rethink our priorities.

I’m suggesting that each and every one of us is a mix of the different soil types described in this parable. We are indeed fertile ground. But right there in the midst of the fertile ground is a patch of thistles. Between the two runs a path of hard, hard ground where we’ve paced back and forth in times of anxiety and distrust and fear. And maybe we’ve built a rock wall around one corner of our heart, as if to keep it hidden from the prying eyes of God! Who knows what we’re trying to hide back there!

Friends, my invitation today is that we use this parable of the sower and the soils to do some serious introspection. I think we can each learn a lot about ourselves by reflecting on which teachings of Jesus are warmly welcomed by the fertile soil of our hearts. But what about the thistle patch? What are the thistles in your heart that get in the way and crowd out the teachings of Jesus? Who or what have you hardened your heart against? And what have you stuffed behind that rock wall in the corner of your heart? What resentments, hurts, angers are you nursing back there that rob you of your joy and keep you from spreading the love of God in the world?

I am reminded of one of my favorite statements of Franciscan friar and RC priest Richard Rohr. He says, “It’s a lot easier to go to church on Sunday than it is to follow Jesus.”

And that points me to my final word. You see, we are not merely soil for the teachings of Jesus, we are called to be sowers as well. We are not merely to be believers; we are the “sent ones,” the ones who have been sent out to share the love of God in a hurting world. The purpose of introspection is not merely a better life for you and me. It’s not merely more piety and better church attendance (although that is a good thing).

It IS to know what kind of seeds you, me, every one of us is sowing in the world. Because as long as we are alive, as long as we are out there mucking around in the world, interacting with others, doing whatever it is we do... we are sowing seeds. What kind of seeds are we sowing? That is the question.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN

This sermon was preached at Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, LA. The illustration on this blog post is "The Sower" by Vincent Van Gogh.

King Cake

khawkins@hawkinsphoto.com (Kevin Hawkins) — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 14:16:01 GMT

Why do we have King Cakes?

The story of these glazed and frosted pastries dates back to the Medieval Times, when French, Belgian, and Spanish cultures commemorated the 12th day of Christmas with gifts and sweets. Biblically, the kings during this time would have been visiting the newborn baby Jesus, bringing gifts and sweets of their own. That's where the "king" in king cake comes from. Today, the cakes are fried and doughy, glazed and frosted, typically in the Mardi Gras colors. They're usually circular and braided, to resemble a King's crown. Most cakes are baked with a tiny baby figurine on the inside, and whomever finds the toy, as tradition holds, must host the next big party.

Text from: Town and Country Magazine Jan 2022

What is the Epiphany?

khawkins@hawkinsphoto.com (Kevin Hawkins) — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 15:35:28 GMT

The Coming of the Magi - Jan 6th

Merriam-Webster defines The Epiphany as: "A Christian festival held on January 6 in honor of the coming of the three kings to the infant Jesus Christ."

The 12 Days of Christmas comes from Dec 25 (the birth of Jesus) to Jan 6 (the arrival of the Wise Men). According the Matthew, the wise men came after the birth of Jesus. So please celebrate The Epiphany with your fellow Christians!

The Flowering of the Cross

khawkins@hawkinsphoto.com (Kevin Hawkins) — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 18:16:21 GMT

Why do we Flower the Cross at Easter?

On Easter Sunday morning some Episcopal, Lutheran, and other Protestant churches incorporate a folk ceremony called “The Flowering of the Cross” into their worship service. Members of the congregation bring flowers or greenery to church. A bare wooden cross, dotted with pin holes, covered with chicken wire or strung with vines stands in the church. At some point before, during or after the service worshipers are invited to approach the barren cross and twine a flower around one of the wires or vines, or to place a blossom in one of the pinholes. The congregation continues to decorate the cross until flowers cover it completely.

Some churches link this ceremony to other events in the Christian year by making the cross out of the previous year's Christmas tree. The barren cross may then be brought into the church on Ash Wednesday or on some other suitable occasion during Lent.

The flowering of the cross represents the transition from Good Friday to Easter, from meditation on Jesus' death to joyful celebration of his resurrection. The ceremony transforms a barren cross, a reminder of Jesus' death, into an Easter symbol. Covered with fresh, living flowers, the cross serves not only as an emblem of Jesus' resurrection but also of the continuing presence of Christ among today's Christians. In another variation of this ceremony worshipers cover the cross with homemade butterflies, another symbol of new life.

The Easter Egg - A History

khawkins@hawkinsphoto.com (Kevin Hawkins) — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 20:55:18 GMT

Where did Easter Eggs come From?

According to the History Channel, here is the story behind Easter Eggs.

Easter is a religious holiday, but some of its customs, such as Easter eggs , are likely linked to pagan traditions. The egg, an ancient symbol of new life, has been associated with pagan festivals celebrating spring. From a Christian perspective, Easter eggs are said to represent Jesus’ emergence from the tomb and resurrection. Decorating eggs for Easter is a tradition that dates back to at least the 13th century, according to some sources. One explanation for this custom is that eggs were formerly a forbidden food during the Lenten season, so people would paint and decorate them to mark the end of the period of penance and fasting, then eat them on Easter as a celebration.

Maundy Thursday, What is it?

khawkins@hawkinsphoto.com (Kevin Hawkins) — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 16:04:17 GMT

Maundy Thursday - The Last Supper - New Commandment Thursday

Here is an excerpt from an article on the website www.anglicancompass by Greg Goebe l.

I don’t think there has ever been a child who didn’t think I was saying Monday Thursday during the Holy Week announcements. Growing up, I thought today was Monday Thursday until about age 14. And when I finally learned it was “Maundy,” no one could explain why it was called that!

But friends, I have trekked through the boring dictionaries of liturgy for you! ‘Maundy’ is derived from the latin ‘mandatum’ which means basically “commandment.”

Because Thursday night of Holy Week corresponds to the Last Supper, it includes Jesus saying, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” This is the night of that New Commandment, in other words, it is New Commandment Thursday .

Maundy Thursday services traditionally include a focus on the Last Supper, not only as the beginning of the Triduum (the Great Three Days), but also as the institution of the Lord’s Supper, Eucharist, Communion. In many places, a foot washing service is included, and the service often ends with the Stripping of the Altar.