October 13, 2019

Stewardship story #2

Grace Church

First story: The Son of Abraham and the three requests

Remember the story: The angel awakens the Jewish farmer and says God has looked with favor upon him and therefore grants him three requests. First request? One thousand cattle. The second request? A son. The catch? His neighbor will be given a double portion of requests. Final request: He will be made blind in one eye. And that request came out of his bitterness at his neighbor’s better fortune and was not granted. The sidelong glance of envy causes him to lose perspective.

Today, we here a second story.

Second story: The Two Brothers

There once was a farmer who had two sons. He loved them both and taught them well. When he died, he left his land and farms to the two of them, They chose to work together and share in a living partnership 50% of all they had grown.

One brother married and had eight children. In a particularly good year he thought: My brother will not have a family to care for him in his old age. I have been so blessed with a wonderful wife and children. It is only right that he have more. And so in the middle of the night, this brother moves grain from his barn to his brother’s barn.

The other brother never married. He thought. My brother has many responsibilities and many mouths to feed. It is not right that I have so much and only myself to care for. And so in the middle of the night, this brother moves grain from his barn to that of his brother.

Well, one night when the moon was full and they each set out on their secret task, they came face to face, each on a ministry of generosity and a mission of love.

And the old rabbi who tells this story says that when those two brothers came together, though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, a gentle rain began to fall.

Do you know what it was?

God weeping for joy that two of his children realized there was enough. You see, love is the conviction that there is enough. Fear is the suspicion that there isn’t enough but the good news of the power of love is that love can out fear. Love empowered these brothers to look beyond themselves and sense the need of the other.

These two brothers learned that the greatest joy comes when we trust that there is enough for all of us. It is state of mind and a spiritual practice that, contrary to a culture that frightens with the language of scarcity, exposes a realm of abundance. When I trust that there is enough, I am liberated from the fear that leads to selfishness. Only then can I be a blessing to someone else. This is a living embodiment of the great commandment. The truth is not in the rock logic of insufficient but in the water logic of abundance. The truth of Jesus is that his answers always hold out the hope that life can be much richer than we can ever imagine.

There is enough, gifts enough for all, when we have eyes to see. When we have not lost perspective with that sidelong glance of envy. I suggest that the two avenues of joy are gratitude — astonishment for what we have and generosity — knowing how to take that and make it a blessing to others.

Our very lives are like these three requests granted to the Jewish farmer. Our very Ives are pure gift, undeserved, dependent on the utter graciousness of God.

As long as we stay in tough with the unending astonishment that life is a gift and that birth is a windfall, it gives us a way of looking at the particulars with a sense of awe and gratitude that I believe is the very wellspring of authentic and joyful life.

When the farmer compared his life before the angel came, to the 1000 cattle and a child he so wanted, this was an occasion of great delight. But when he shifted his focus into the sidelong glance of envy — suddenly he had a different perspective. The generous gift of God became tainted in the sidelong glance of envy — where there had been abundance, he could only see scarcity.

Jesus stands before us again and again and says, “It’s in the seeing and believing that we find life, either the chance to give thanks or the choice to see that our neighbor has more. An expression of gratitude or a cry of despair. On this day, we begin to examine what pulls us to shift our gaze from gratitude to despair. Stewardship is the spiritual practice of giving thanks for the gift of this life. The sidelong glance will never sense the goodness of God.

The goodness of God is only seen through the eyes of gratitude.

Remembering that every breath is a gift and more than we deserve.

And I would suggest that if you will live in these two stories and these two hands of the Christian life, then you have embraced the great commandment: love God and love your neighbor.

Your gratitude will have not autumn and your generosity will continue to grow as you perceive more and more the very abundance of God.

In these early autumn nights, the sky has been very clear and when I’m out late walking my puppies, I am captivated by the night sky — full of galaxies, suns and their planets — the abundance of the universe is staggering.

And when I study the richness of our humanity and learn that the network of our mind — body and soul, soul and body — this neural network contains more connections that the vastness of the universe. It is mind blowing to consider our potential. But all of us are of two minds — one is activated by self-interest that is driven by threat and fear.  The other is elevated by the capacity to love, to be compassionate, rational, thoughtful and generous.  Paul spoke of this duality in theological terms and neuroscientists and social biologists understand it in scientific terms. And Jesus, taught and enacted the better way — a way that gave everything away, for our sake.

These two stories, like the parables of Jesus break open the great paradox of our humanity — we can be selfish, envious and cruel and we can be generous, loving and kind. We exist as the Body of Christ to be witnesses to the second story — what will others see when they encounter the good people of Grace? What is our witness to this island home?

It is interesting that in both of these parables, God ends up weeping. I close with the simple question. This day God is weeping over every one of us. I wonder, is God weeping for sadness because of our envy or for joy for our generosity?

For what are you grateful this year?

In what have you been generous?

September 22, 2019

Proper 20 Luke 16:1-13  Grace Church

The Scandal of Grace

SCANDAL. It seems that we are obsessed with scandal every week — celebrity, political — the petty and the obscene get equal attention and we lack the capacity to discern or sort the truth. But I am here today to finish what I started last week — to come an speak about the scandal of Grace in today’s gospel. Luke uses the word “scandal” and points to the radical scandal of grace. This week Jesus tells another grace laden parable following on the heels of the beloved story of the prodigal son — or as I prefer, the parable of the loving father and his two sons. This one is for his disciples.

In the 15th chapter of Luke, there is recorded an address to the tax collectors and the Pharisees about the joy of finding the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the supreme joy of the Father who says, “It is fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost and now is found.” With the righteous Pharisees and the unrighteousness tax collectors listening, Jesus is on a roll. Even the disciples are starting to see how radical their teacher is becoming. This next parable is for them and it will leave them dazed and confused. They were sure they had bet on a winning Messiah, but with this parable….

These stories are so astounding and so radical, they serve notice to the end of “getting it right.” Jesus is declaring through word and deed the end of the religious quest of getting it right. With incredible dexterity, the sharp edge of satire and absolute brilliance, he undermines the rigid and lifeless relationship of the Pharisees with their bookkeeping God. The story of the prodigal and the crafty manager story for today become vehicles for grace for all who can hear them.

And here’s the rub. We have as much difficulty with these stories as the Pharisees or disciples. We, too, want to discover some moralistic truth that we can use to beat others into submission. We, too, are desperately searching for a savior who’s going to tell those other people how to get it right. It’s in our nature, our fallen nature, to seek ways to appear respectable and righteous — “we’re number one” comes easily to our lips. And Jesus knew that. And knows that.

It is here that Robert Capon in his Parables of Grace comes to take us on a wild ride that leads to the true joy of Jesus. We keep looking for the logical point, not the mystical truth — the scribes and Pharisees are bound up in their righteous management of the law and the disciples are hoping for a quick resolution so that they can take up the righteous management of life on their terms.

But Jesus is not about management, Jesus is about manifestation of what is true from the beginning. In the first creation story, we are created male and female, we are created in the infinite mind of God, out of time and space. In the second creation story we find ourselves in time and space, in the Garden of Eden. There is an ecology of opposites that runs through both stories but as we hear in the second story, we fail to accept the reality of opposites — light and darkness, good and evil, life and death. We resist, we rebel, we want to manage them. Capon says, “We invented death as robbery,” not death as gift. We failed to trust God in the rhythm of creation and saw death only as a recipe of extinction, instead of the evolving glory that allows all creation to flourish.

Jesus comes to show us the way through the portal that has always been there, that even in death, there is another side, life rises. We have substituted “religion” (currying God’s favor) for grace, “righteousness” for trust, and “morality” for truth.

And we have as much difficulty with these stories as the Pharisees. We, too, want to discover some moralistic truth and rules we can use to beat or shame others into submission. We are desperately searching for a savior who’s going to tell those other people how to get it right. It’s in our nature, our fallen nature, to seek ways to appear respectable and righteous.

Jesus, reflecting God’s glorious and forgiving love, won’t give us the ammunition we see desperately desire. Instead, he tells stories of lost sheep, missing coins and prodigals who are embraced by the loving arms of fathers and even dishonest managers who are commended for their dirty dealings by the lord of the manor.

All these parables are about folks who acknowledged they had nothing left to lose, they were as good as dead. For the son who squandered his inheritance and then the manager who squandered his boss’s property, “the jig is up.” Time has run out and they both come to their senses. They come to their senses, not out of moral insight but out of sheer desperation. The boy goes home to fill his belly. The crafty manager settles cheap with his boss’s debtors and gives them extraordinary write-offs. Such a deal. You owe 100 jugs of oil? How about 50? A hundred containers of wheat? Pay for eighty. An offer they can’t refuse. Extravagant debt, reduced extravagantly. And this guy’s motives aren’t even pure. He’s just trying to buy good will, so that he won’t end up digging ditches. He figures these debtors may welcome him to their homes and he can stay afloat.

What a scoundrel! But wait. Now comes the shocker in both of these parables. What does the father of the prodigal do? Does he run down the driveway and take a belt to his errant son? No, he embraces him and proceeds to treat him like a missing prince come home. And what does the rich man do to his crafty manager? Sue him for malfeasance and fraud. Call the Better Business Bureau and the attorney general and seek to indict him? No, again. The rich man commends the one who squandered his money.

So what’s going on here? Jesus, what are you telling us? What is the point of reinforcing bad behavior? No self-respecting Messiah should be holding these two scoundrels up as deserving of anything but condemnation. And therein lies the rub: Jesus is telling us once and for all that the gospel is not about respectability. It is about unconditional acceptance, absolute forgiveness, even in the light of the most outrageous behavior. In fact, what we must face is infinite justice in the arms of a loving father and a rich man.

We human beings have done and do the most horrendous things. We are capable of unspeakable horrors. All of us. Any one of us. And those of us who think that we don’t or couldn’t, run the risk of believing that our own righteousness brings us closer to God. And that is where we are wrong. And that is the point of the whole gospel story.

We can never enter the Kingdom of God on respectable behavior. The unique contribution of this parable of the unjust steward to our understanding of Jesus is its insistence that grace cannot come to the world through respectability. Respectability regards only life, success and winning. It will have no truck with the grace that works by death and losing, which is the only kind of grace there is.

The parable says in story form what Jesus himself said by his life. He was not respectable. He broke the Sabbath. He consorted with crooks. And he died a criminal. Now, at last, in the light of this parable, we see why he refused to be respectable: he did it to teach a world that respectability could only terrify, shame and condemn. Capon says, “He became sin for us sinners, weak for us weaklings, lost for us losers, and dead for us dead.”

If we look at Jesus through the lens of respectability there was not much edifying. “If Jesus were interested only in respectability, he would not have dined with tax collectors and harlots. He would not have violated the Sabbath. He would not have been accused of being a drunkard and a glutton, he would not have died as a criminal in the most disreputable way imaginable.”

In fact, as Capon tells us,  “If Jesus had only paid more attention to being respectable, he would have lived to a ripe old age.” But grace, unmerited favor cannot come through respectability. In the topsy turvy economy of God, we win by losing, we come in first by being last, we lead by serving, we gain by letting go, we receive by giving. The reason Jesus made wasteful extravagant people into heroes was to shake us out of our self-righteous respectable arrogance. The God Jesus seeks to communicate to us is more lavish in grace than the prodigal’s father or the dishonest manager’s boss. And only this can sweep the whole of humanity into the net of God’s love. It’s for us all and our only response can be to give thanks for a merciful God who spares us all and then, shows us the way to be human, made in the image and likeness of God.

As we gather for this ordinary meal of bread and wine, we encounter extraordinary grace that squanders this supper on us. The parable today is not about morals in the market place. The story today communicates the way we are to receive God. Let us come to our senses, drop the pretense of respectability and receive the very kingdom of God in our own hands. It is a gift of love, given to us. And as we receive this gift, we are then told to “go forth into the world, rejoicing and giving thanks.”

Amen.

September 15, 2019

Proper 19C

Luke 15:1-13

Grace Church

Today is just prologue for next week’s most challenging parable, The Parable of the Unjust Manager and we must get ready for it. We will ease into position before we take a leap of faith off the cliff. Many preachers will avoid it, opting instead for a little Old Testament fire from the prophet Amos or Jeremiah, and others will take an easier path and just focus on the last line: You cannot serve God and wealth.” That’s a nice jump start into our stewardship season, Abundant Grace, but that’s taking the easy way out, and if there is one thing I know about the Gospels, it is never easy. And the parables, you must understand, they must never be used to make a direct, left-brained, linear point.

We can only find traction in the mystical and poetic realm of the right-brain, the domain of the complex, paradoxical tension that allows us to enter into the mind of God — that place where we see as God sees, that place of longing where God plays hide and seek with humanity, the threshold where we glimpse paradise. And thus, we must enter through this narrow place, slipping into the mystery of Christ.

This Sunday, I am especially mindful of the challenge because in the world of Godly Play, first we must get ready, we must settle into place and prepare our hearts to wonder. This week we will get ready for the most difficult parable. Luke provides us with two tiny parables, followed by a parable that is not assigned for today but cannot be avoided. The Parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Prodigal Son (or the Parable of the Loving Father, as I prefer) are offered by Jesus to the tax collectors and sinners, and delivered in the presence of the Pharisees and the scribes who complain, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Now, don’t forget, Jesus just had a big Sabbath meal at the house of a leader of the Pharisees, offending his host and the guests by healing on the Sabbath, chastising their choice of seats, and finally offering the Parable of the Great Feast, indicting the privileged who had excuses for their absence, and welcoming the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame who fill the banquet hall for the feast. The privileged are left behind: “For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.”

Jesus then speaks to the crowds of the cost of discipleship: “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” The call to be all in, to be the salt of the earth, is for those who have ears to hear. And it is those, the tax collectors and sinners who came to listen, to hear the hopeful words, the words that they too might be saved.

This is not good news to those whose worldview demanded obedience to the Law. And here is the fun part. The disciples of Jesus were surely there, watching and listening to their teacher work his confounding magic, toying with the Pharisees, twisting words until their world was turned inside out with these tales of lost, seeking, finding and rejoicing. “Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” What? This would be crazy — leaving ninety-nine perfectly good sheep in the wilderness? Remember, the wilderness is the place of testing. For one errant sheep? This is madness. And because Luke is always careful to nod to women, we now hear about the woman and the lost coin who tears through the house to find one silver coin and then rejoicing, shares with her neighbors and may even throw a party? The party probably costs more than the value of the one coin. Why would she do this?

But these two parables are just warming up the crowd. Luke, alone, offers the Parable of the Prodigal, the Elder Son and the Loving Father and both the placement of this story and the utter brilliance of this gospel, we come to the heart of the Good News of finding what is lost and celebrating with joy. Let me remind you by reading it — remember the gospel was meant to be heard. (Luke 15:11-32)

The Pharisees must have been seething as Jesus finishes with the tale of a well behaving but bitter older brother and a lost loser of a younger brother, now feasting on the fatted calf after taking his inheritance and essentially telling his father, “You’re dead to me.”

As Jesus ends the tale with these words from the Father, “But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and his been found.” The disciples were ready with a high five or two. Jesus just spiked it in the end zone.

And this is where Luke turns up the heat and Jesus, without missing a beat, turns to his disciples and says, “There was a rich man.” Next week brings the parable that turns the whole story upside down and Luke in his methodical, intentional and deliberative way brings the house down around us, all of us: the crowds, the Scribes and Pharisees, the disciples and of course, the good people of Grace Church.

Stay tuned. Next week, the rest of the story. I think we are now ready.

Amen.

September 8, 2019

Pentecost 18C

Luke 14:25-35

Grace Episcopal Church

It was a dark and stormy night last night, and I thought about what it must have been like for the good people in the Bahamas, in Abaco last Sunday night. Today in the Bahamas, including Grand Abaco, 70,000 homeless, 10,000 homes destroyed. As many of you know, George and Stepper LeBoutillier have a home on Abaco, it was built by George’s father and has endured more than one hurricane through the years but the early news was not good, in fact, the catastrophic winds and water of Dorian, leveled almost everything.

When I saw George and Stepper on Thursday, George said this, and it may be the only sermon we need for this morning: “People are talking about rebuilding but first the community must be rebuilt.” Stepper spoke about the Haitian people on Abaco, some having left Haiti after the catastrophic earthquake of 2010 — “They live in tiny shacks, tents, I don’t know how they even survived.” George and Stepper both said it. There must be a perspective that looks beyond the differences, beyond the privileged and the disenfranchised, there must be a way to bridge the divide that separates us into winners and losers, that draws all humanity and creation together, there must be a perspective that calls forth compassion in the midst of suffering.

So, today, I am making an offering and invite you to consider a gift as well. My gift is in thanksgiving for George and Stepper, two members of our beloved community who know what it means to be “salt.” And it is these two verses that are a necessary addition to our gospel reading today: “Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen.” (Luke 14: 34,35)

We began today with this reading from Deuteronomy. Moses led the people of God through the wilderness for forty years and with these words marks their arrival into the land God promised. Moses reminds the people of God of the command to keep the commandments of God and to choose life.

Moses conveys the demands of God and the promises of God so that the people of God will prosper. This arc of the salvation history extends the call to choose life and to follow in the way of God so that all the peoples of the earth will be blessed. It is a reminder of the high purpose of the Hebrew people — they were blessed in order to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. They were set apart to be witnesses of the one God.

As the rest of the story unfolds through Joshua, the judges, the kings, the priests and most profoundly through the prophets, we see them as both faithful and flawed. The prophets again and again were raised up to call the people of God to return to the Lord. These scriptures show the best and worst of humanity and we can see our own human strengths and limitations in them. And then, finally, the blessing comes; it comes through mother Mary and father Joseph, it comes in the form of the sacred child, Jesus, who is now the one on the way to Jerusalem and to certain death.

In our Gospel reading today, the price is clear — to choose life means to accept the invitation to be disciples of Jesus and to be a follower of the Way. To follow Jesus is to reorient all other claims on one’s life. And as  must choose to be disciples of this prophet who will save us all through the only thing we all have in common: death. We cannot save ourselves by good intentions or good deeds. The price for our salvation is a death, a death for all of humanity. Let me be clear: Jesus dies for all humanity and those who follow in his way,  be willing to offer our own lives and accept our own death. This is the cost. The benefit is that we also experience the joy of the resurrection.

First, I must share the Parable of the Banquet ( Luke 14:15-24). The scribes and the Pharisees are too busy to attend. Those sought on the highways and byways were the last, the least, the lost, the little and the dead. The losers, those who were already clear that life was not under control. The Parable of the Banquet and the demands of discipleship from the gospel of today, together make the same point: The call of God issued by Jesus (the Prophet) must relativize all other claims on life.  What does it mean to be all in? The world tells us we can have it all and Jesus tells us we must choose to be all in, so what is the price?

In the Parables of Grace, Robert Capon says it this way: “Jesus’ point is not simply that discipleship in the way of death-resurrection is expensive; more important, it’s that it is liberating once the price is paid. For the very next thing he says is the Parable of Salt (Salt is wonderful, but if salt has become insipid how can you make it salty again?) Think about what Jesus is actually saying. On the one hand, it is terrifying and unreasonable: in order to gain salvation, life, and reconciliation, you have to lose every amenity, every relationship, every last scrap of the good life you might have. In short, you have to be dead. On the other hand, the deal is a bargain to end all bargains: sooner or later, you’re going to have to lose all those things anyway — Willy-nilly, the death that is your wherewithal for buying a new world is already in the bank.”

“What has that to do with salt? Just this: the saltiness of Jesus’ disciples — the taste, zip, and zing that the church at its best can give to the world — derives precisely from our recognition that the Good News is one huge, inside joke. Because it really is a divine comedy. Sure, the price of salvation is high. And sure, you should sit down and count the cost. But do you see what you come up with when you get done counting? You come up with the absolute certainty that everything you’ve got turns out to be exactly the right amount to cut you in on the deal: you have one life, and the price is one life. Even more hilarious than that, you would have to shell out everything anyway, even to get nothing for it. And funniest of all, even if you shell out only because you have to, your total loss will still get you one ticket to the final party. It’s exactly like the Great Banquet, in fact: all you have to be is a certified loser and God will send his servant Jesus to positively drag you into his house. And that’s the saltiness of the joke: salvation (root sal, which is salt) really is free. Which is exactly what salt is: not worth buying for its own sake, but dirt cheap considering the way it perks up everything else.”

“And we, the church, we must get out of the business of salvation through moral success, intellectual competence, and spiritual triumph. The Gospel is not a tragedy; it’s precisely a hilariously salty story — so flavorful it’s in positively bad taste — in which teachers, crane operators, models, bag ladies, tennis pros, drug addicts, bankers, lawyers, and fishermen all get away with murder just by dropping dead. We are raised, reconciled, and restored not because we are thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent but because we are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God — because, that is, Jesus has this absolute thing about raising the dead.”

And that is good news, indeed!

Amen.

August 25, 2019

Proper 16: Luke 13: (6-9)10-17 (18-20)

Grace Church

The intermittent rain, darker mornings, and the chopping of wood is a reminder that winter is coming to Lopez Island. Last Sunday we heard Jesus the Prophet warning the crowds of their hypocrisy — they could perceive the signs of the earth and sky but were unwilling to understand the sign of the times. We, too, are good at observing the times and the seasons of the earth and sky and I have been warned that winter is coming.

In the desert there is a moment in September when the shift of the sun would tell me that we had survived another summer — something so subtle, yet so welcome — autumn had arrived. It would be another month before temperatures dropped but the light was different.

Last week’s gospel reading marked that shift in Luke’s telling of the good news and from that moment until the night of his last meal with his disciples, Jesus is laying waste to the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, the tyranny of the oppressors and he is raising up a vision of the realm of God where all will be called beloved. Framed and couched in the form of parables — Jesus speaks of a realm of forgiveness, abundance, mercy, mystery, hospitality, humility, discipleship and grace. Confronting the system of corruption and domination, Jesus is on the way to certain death and through death will save us all.

We are the recipients of his sacrifice and are called to live in this way of Jesus the Christ — the anointed one because he did this for us all. So what does that mean for us, here at Grace Church on Lopez Island?

Let me begin on the streets of New York. I lived in Midtown Manhattan for two and a half years. My tiny apartment was on 58th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue. My office was about six blocks away and I passed the UN building on my way to work and I walked everywhere. I very soon discovered that when one walks in the city, one does not look at or acknowledge those on the street with you. Now this was a bit difficult for one reared in the South where “How are ya’ll doing” was considered good manners. I learned quickly to walk with all deliberate speed, head slightly down — do not smile or acknowledge others.

I also became very aware of the street people and homeless. Some had jobs handing out the free daily paper, others pushed garbage cans with brooms attached. Some were desperately ill, old and clearly suffering from the last stages of alcoholism or chronic mental illness. Many were regulars and one very elderly man always caught my eye. He was completely bent over, and as he walked he pushed a cart filled with his belongings. I often thought about what it must be like for him — he could not look up, his view was limited to the ground in front of him and in the rush of people and traffic, he must have struggled mightily to keep moving forward. He could not even see the faces of those who rushed by — this remains one of my most vivid memories of New York and a great sorrow for my inability to even acknowledge his presence. It is such an anonymous place and I could never find the courage to simply speak a word of kindness, much less do something that might be an act of mercy. And so, like everyone else, I simply walked on by, eyes averted, looking away.

Today’s gospel reading is a mirror for the church and for me — Jesus is in the synagogue on the sabbath, teaching. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. Our translation weakens this opening — it is more accurate to say, “Behold a woman.” This is a moment to be alert. Here is this woman, she was all bent over and completely unable to straighten up. Jesus calls out to her: “Woman, you have been freed of your weakness.” He placed his hands on her (a considerable violation) and at once she straightened up and glorified God.

Luke’s description, “The Spirit of weakness” is understood to be the result of demonic possession. Jesus liberates her — this is more than a healing — it is a setting free and her response is one of praise. Imagine. Eighteen years, bent over, unable to straighten up and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, you are erect — standing straight up. And what did she see? The face of Jesus, the astonished crowds, and the irritated ruler of the synagogue. What a sight that must have been!

But then, the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” And now, we see in the mirror, we see ourselves and all the righteous justification that gets in the way of compassion, mercy and loving kindness.

For you see, the scribes and the Pharisees believed that by perfectly keeping the Law, the reign of God would be ushered in — they were deeply sincere and committed to such a call. They saw the Law as a vehicle for grace for the whole world and here was the itinerant teacher, deliberately disobeying the Law — healing on the Sabbath, touching this woman! The ruler of the synagogue protests that the Law should prevail and she should have come on another day to be healed.

What gets in our way? What stops us from acting in the moment? What rules do we carry that keep us in bondage at the cost of another’s pain? And I think about that bent-over man in NYC and try to imagine the scenario. If I believed I had the capacity to liberate him from his imprisonment, what stopped me? I wonder what might have happened if I had even had the courage to say, “Good morning”?

Here is another story, a true story. Years after NYC, I returned to Phoenix and was back at Trinity Cathedral. One Sunday, I was sitting a couple of pews behind three friends. Two were seated three pews in front of me and the third was seating behind the two. During the reading of the lessons, a young woman with a backpack entered. She was disheveled and was a bit disordered. She sat between my two friends and at the beginning of the sermon, became disruptive, raising her arms above her head and making sounds, agitated and confused. As I watched, my two friends each scooted closer to her, gently touching her and soothing her. My third friend then leaned in and laid her hands on her back. As I watches, the woman began to relax and quiet. Throughout the sermon, the three women surrounded her with grace and love. Peace settled around them. Here is what happens when a community has the courage to reach out.  The community at Trinity has come to a place of spiritual maturity and it is with joy that I offer a vision of a better way.

This gospel ends with two parables. Jesus says, “What is the kingdom of God like? To what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and planted in the garden. It grew into a tree, and the birds of the sky made nests in its branches.” He also said, “To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman takes and sticks into flour; three small measures leaves the whole.” These parables speak to this moment in the synagogue. They frame the work of fulfilling the law with genuine acts of mercy.

I came here to be with you because I saw in you a community that would break the rules for the sake of the least, the lost, the lonely and the little. Perhaps all it takes is the smallest of beginnings — small and hidden acts of liberation — perhaps the liberation has already begun — People of God, stand up straight, lift up your heads, for the time of liberation has come!

Amen.

August 18, 2019

Proper 15C Luke 12:49-56

Grace Church

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” We have come to this moment in the midst of a heady round of conversations, parables and confrontations with the disciples, the crowds and the authorities. Luke’s masterful shaping of these encounters between Jesus and his disciples, the crowds and the scribes and Pharisees, creates momentum that leaves little doubt about the outcome. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.

As Jesus descended the Mount of Transfiguration and set his face toward Jerusalem, Luke drives the story forward with Jesus clear about the destination — he is clear, determined and aware of the fate that awaits him. At this point, the disciples have heard him predict his death twice that he will be handed over to the authorities, beaten and killed — “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.” They did not understand or believe him.

Today, we pause for just a moment. The crowds are surging around him. The disciples are seeking clarification, trying to understand the parables and where they fit into this journey to Jerusalem. And the authorities are on alert, looking for a reason to get this teacher under their control. It is in the midst of this chaos that Jesus says: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed?” Jesus, the Prophet dramatically raises the eschatological bar and all the promises of peace on earth are rent asunder by the truth that Jesus is not a meek and mild purveyor of platitudes to be nice. His stunning statement sets the path for the rest of the journey.

This prophetic declaration is filled with the emotion — Jesus is the Man of sorrows and in just a few chapters ahead, he says, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

I come to bring fire — I have a baptism with which to be baptized — what stress I am under until it is completed. The ostinato underneath Luke’s gospel is this: Jesus, the Son of Man or more accurately translated the Human Being, moves toward death for the sake of all humanity. Luke plants the seeds of hope in his prologue and the birth narrative, painting a vision of a new heaven and a new earth in the words of Gabriel, Zachariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon.

Luke shapes the young Jesus at the temple as a boy, in the river Jordan with John, in the wilderness of temptation, in the synagogue proclamation that today this scripture has been fulfilled, by the sea calling disciples, and in Galilee, among the crowds. We witness the young master as he heals, casts out demons, teaches, performs miracles and then goes up the mountain. There, everything changes — he has a choice to make — remain on the mountain to become yet another wise rabbi or to descend.  He sets his face to Jerusalem.

The ostinato has been there all along, a deep rhythm that undergirds his drive to Jerusalem — I come to bring fire — I have a baptism with which to be baptized — fire and water, life giving and life taking — fire and water, body and blood, bread and wine — the Son of Man, the Human Being comes to set our hearts on fire — Jesus carried a vision of an alternative reality in the future, heaven on earth and the only way to it is through the portal of death. The Son of Man, Wisdom’s Child will walk the way of the Cross and pull all humanity through the portal of death and into new life, resurrected life. He pays the price for us all, and we, if we’re willing to allow that same ostinato to undergird our own lives, we will also see a new heaven and a new earth — a vision of the Kingdom of God, here and now.

Through Jesus the Christ, Son of God, the Human Being, Wisdom’s Child, we are saved. The cost to us: trust Jesus and believe that this is the more excellent way to be human. We are called to see through the eyes of Jesus, to discern God’s will by seeing as God sees through the lens of Jesus. We know the price has been paid and the gift of life has been given to us, but will we trust the Word that has been promised?

Together, as Christ’s Body, we gather, listen, pray, sing, confess and celebrate the feast in order to practice this glorious life, and we learn to listen for the ostinato, that deep rhythm reminding us of the fire and water that saved us all.

The Letter to the Hebrews is a wonderful reminder of this underlying rhythm. After the author of the letter reviews the salvation history of the people of God, and the role of faith (trust) in the promises of God, we, the recipients of the ultimate gift of salvation, are charged: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Let us take a minute to remember some of those witnesses who have been saints in our lives — close your eyes, and silently or aloud, remember those who showed you the way of faith.

Amen.

July 28, 2019

Proper 12C

Luke 11:1-13

Grace Church

Good morning! Hearing Trevor so beautifully proclaim this lesson from Genesis, we encounter an amazing scene: Abraham bargaining with God for the souls of the innocent of Sodom and Gomorrah. Imagine, faithful Abraham, called by God to be the father of God’s people, and set apart to be the source of blessing for all the peoples of the earth, is bargaining with God on behalf of the innocents in Sodom and Gomorrah — as we know, there weren’t many.

It is one of the most colorful moments in all of scripture and although it seemed Abraham prevailed, at the end of the day, only Lot (Abraham’s nephew) and his family escaped God’s wrath. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed and we also remember Lot’s wife foolishly looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. And just as a reminder, the primary sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was their lack of hospitality. In the desert, hospitality is the difference between life and death.

But, there is more, for ultimately, in a great reversal and generations later, there is a cosmic denouement — the one truly innocent child of Abraham, Jesus, offered his life as a sacrifice for all humanity. This promise of blessing through Abraham has now reconciled humanity and all creation, and in him, in Christ Jesus, the whole fullness of God dwells forever in all of us.

Here is what we don’t always understand — Jesus, the very heart of the Creator, the second Adam, the promise to Abraham, restored all humanity. The particularity of God in Christ is in us and for us all. For those of us who have entered into this reality through baptism and have been shaped and formed in the very image of the living God, the bargain is complete, the price paid and we are the living reminders that salvation was for us all.

The challenge before us — what is our witness? How would anyone know that we are representatives of the love of God for all humanity? Too often, we hear the word witness and cringe but what makes us cringe is the transactional business of selling Jesus. That has become the contemporary model of delivering a commodity, evangelism has all too often, become a business model for selling Jesus. Now, please hear me, I understand that this is well-intentioned but, I believe it is very misguided.

We are witnesses, meaning we bear the image and likeness of Christ within. We bear the very heart of Christ to the world but that comes in and through the particularity of each of us. The word witness is from the Greek martyras. We are martyrs for the sake of the gospel. We are not purveyors of the commodity of Christianity — we are witnesses of God’s love.

It is manifest in how we live and carry ourselves and interact in the world and that is what deeply matters as Christian people. My fear is that all too often, we Episcopalians have not learned the art of being Christian in the world. And often, the church has not done a good job of equipping us to be living signs of God’s love. Our world is so very transactional that we have forgotten how to live any other way. Everything has become transactional, even Jesus.

Today we find Jesus and the disciples moving toward Jerusalem. They ask him to teach them to pray the way John taught his disciples. But listen to me, this will not be the normal petition to God, an ordinary prayer — Jesus is not giving them the words, he is reorienting them to this new realm, the Kingdom of God. Jesus is not setting up a transactional model to bargain with God.

Anytime we think Jesus is responding in a typical rabbinical fashion, we must be prepared for a surprise. Jesus always turns questions into opportunities to startle and awaken us in new ways. When the disciples ask him to teach them how to pray, he, instead, teaches them how to live. The pattern of the Lord’s Prayer sets up a pattern for our whole life — if we are mindful of what we are saying, and not simply reciting by rote memory, we may discover a secret for living.

This is Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. It is spare, only five statements and unlike Matthew who places it early in his gospel, Luke inserts it later, as things are heating up with the authorities. Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem.

Hear it in a version translated by a leading Biblical scholar Luke Timothy Johnson:

Father, may your name be holy!

May your Kingdom come!

Give to us every day the bread we need!

Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who owes us!

Do not lead us into testing.

Luke begins simply, just father, as in papa, an intimate who is also wholly other and holy.  Next, the longing for the reign of God to come and for a father who gives us what we need — not the whole world, not excess, just what we need. A father, who like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, forgives.  And a reminder to us to be generous in our forgiveness of others. And finally, a plea to help us live this way so as not to be tested. The very request of Jesus who was tested in the wilderness and who, in the Garden, asked to be spared from testing but at the end, offered everything.

The Lord’s Prayer is not a prayer of transaction but of offering, and it is not a negotiating tactic but a way of life. As we say it together, we remember we are following Jesus on the Way of grace.

So here are a few thoughts about how we practice making an offering instead of being swept up into the transactional world. I first began thinking about these things when I was twenty-four, newly involved as an adult in church. I joined the altar guild and in my initiation to the art of preparing the altar, learned this from my priest: We offer our best to the glory of God — all things to the glory of God. The ironing of linens and polishing of silver, the setting of the table and arranging the flowers — all things to the glory of God. To inhabit that thinking — offering my best to the glory of God — became a mantra and as I grew in grace and understanding, went to seminary and was ordained, those words became a living prayer.

Twenty years later, when we started a children’s choir at Trinity Cathedral, we were very careful to teach the children that they were not performing in church but making their offering to the glory of God. We learned to embrace and celebrate their gifts but did not applaud, and they learned to sing and make a joyful noise, offering their gifts to the glory of God. This thinking infused everything and the need for praise was replaced with the joy of serving, of offering. The benefit of this way of being together was elevated with the blessing of eliminating perfection as a goal. Each Sunday, we gathered and offered our best to the glory of God — sometimes it was spectacular and sometimes it was pretty good and sometimes, crazy things happened and we could just laugh. But all things to the glory of God was our mantra and offering was our charge.

Over the next few months, we will be setting a vision for Grace Church and I want you to know that I am so blessed to be here with you and that I will always offer my best to you and to the glory of God. That is my constant prayer. All things to the glory of God!

Amen.

July 21, 2019

Proper 11C

Luke 18: 38-42

Grace Church

Lunar Communion Sunday

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what is humanity that you should be mindful of us? The children of the earth that you should seek us out?”  Psalm 8:4

From the stories of creation in Genesis to this very day, we have wondered about our relationship with the cosmos — we have been both humbled by the awesome magnitude of the universe and prideful of our capacity to understand and control aspects of it. Fifty years ago on this day, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out of the lunar landing module and onto the dusty surface of the moon — Tranquility Base — but before they stepped out, Buzz Aldrin invited all who were listening in, to contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way.

He silently read from John 15:5: “As Jesus said: ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in Him, will bear much fruit, for you can do nothing without me.’” He then took out the bread, chalice and wine and offered thanksgiving — the first communion on the moon. He later shared the details of this story and reflected on the profound sense of presence in the vast emptiness of space.

During those heady years of space travel, I had the opportunity to meet and hear two of those early astronauts as they shared their personal faith stories. The humility and grace they exhibited reflected the profound sense of being connected to the realm of glory that surrounds and enfolds us.  This fiftieth anniversary boggles my mind and as I look around the room, I am reminded that those of us who are more than fifty-five years old, remember the moment Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the moon. We watched and listened — who can forget Walter Cronkite’s voice!

Remember what you remember! These moments are written on the heart, the soaring moments of accomplishment, compassion and sacrifice and, the dreadful moments of chaos, destruction and death — we remember with a clarity that holds the moment frozen in time and space as long as we live.

Today’s gospel reading from Luke is such a moment for Mary and Martha. Only Luke includes this tiny story, placing it just after the Parable of the Man who Fell Among Thieves (the Good Samaritan), tucked away between that parable and his teaching on prayer. Luke’s Gospel was written approximately fifty years after the events of Holy Week — there were still early followers of the Way of Jesus living, those who were witnesses to the teaching, the journey to Jerusalem, the chaos of the final week and then meeting Jesus in a new way in the resurrection appearances. Perhaps even Martha and Mary were still living witnesses to all that had transpired. Perhaps, they too, had continued in the prayers and the breaking of bread and offering of wine in Holy Communion.

These deep connections and threads of memories that hold us together are cords of love, that quantum entanglement of love or perhaps like branches of the vine, grafted on the rootstock of Jesus the Christ. And today’s tiny story of Martha and Mary, placed where it is, helps us remember the power of love that has connected all of us through these two thousand years!

Martha, unlike the priest and Levite of the parable, does not deliberately avoid her duty to be hospitable, she is simply overwhelmed by so much serving; there is simply so much to do. When Martha then turns on her sister Mary, she sounds more like the elder brother in the Parable of the Loving Father (Prodigal Son). Jesus responds, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious (entangled with life in the world) and are putting yourself into an uproar!”

How familiar does this sound? How much of my life has been squandered with misdirected busyness? How often have I felt overwhelmed? How often have I become disconnected from the very source of life. Mary has chosen the better part, she has chosen to be present to the guest and she has received the very lifeblood of his word. So here’s the challenge of this passage. We are tempted to set up a false dichotomy of Martha as the human doing and Mary as a human being or, in other words, the false dichotomy of contemplation being better than action.

But reality is this — we are called to lives of action and contemplation, doing and being. I believe we are invited into a life of expressive action, into a life of the present moment. Mary’s good portion is not that of inaction or even contemplation but of living in the present moment. Mary  followed her heart and acted expressively, doing what was right in the moment. She was connected and in relationship rather than reacting to the expectation of others.

Martha was living in the world of instrumental action, doing what she thought was expected of her. It is the way most of us live, most of the time. In fact, we think it is the way we must live.

Last week’s parable was all about expressive action versus instrumental action — the Samaritan, an outcast, identified with the man who was beaten and left for dead and enters into a relationship and connects with the man. He acted expressively, doing what is the right thing in the moment. He acted with compassion, he entered into a relationship where he suffered with another. The priest and the Levite, followed the rules and avoided the unclean man and felt justified that they had done the correct thing.

Martha is following the rules of hospitality but for all her busyness, she failed to actually be present to her guest. Mary has violated the customary rule that did not allow a woman to sit at the feet of a teacher but didn’t allow convention to drive her. She followed her heart. She and the Samaritan become our two models of discipleship. They show us a way of expressive action in a realm where there are only two rules: love God and love one another.

Jesus is the cord of love who connects us to the life source at the heart of the universe; Jesus is the power source. This is Jesus on the way to Jerusalem pulling all humanity with him and in the ultimate act of love, showing us the way of life. This is the mission of the church — to be living signs of this love — the life energy of love flows through us if we are connected. This is the true nature of prayer.

This life together in the present moment is quite simply, a life of continual prayer — love flows to us and through us, like a two-pronged plug, two laws of the universe: love God and love our neighbor, one another — prayer is not about religious language but about a constant flow of energy and it has been given to us as a gift. The easiest image is a plug — I can carry this cord and plug with me but unless it is connected to a power source, it is useless.

Our corporate prayer is expressed in Eucharist with the Prayer of Thanksgiving at the heart of our worship. When we gather here around this table, we are lifted up to heaven to celebrate the feast. Today, I would ask if you might watch me at the table as we celebrate this communion of bread and wine. Bring your eyes, ears and hearts to this table, for you, too are celebrants at the feast. And at the end of the prayer, I will wait for the great AMEN.

And finally, when strangers come into our midst, do they see the Body of Christ, do they encounter people of expressive action, people of love? When we, as individuals, meet the stranger in the market place or the farmer’s market, do they see Christ’s love in you or in me?

Fifty years ago, a man on the moon remembered to give thanks to God for the tremendous gift of love that was for us all. And the greatest story ever told, continues even today. It is not that we landed on the moon but that the very creator of the universe loves us still. Thanks be to God.

Amen.

July 14, 2019

Proper 10C

Luke 10: 25-37

Grace Church

In 1974 I was twenty-four, attending St. Francis Church in Temple, Texas and was involved in teaching Sunday School, serving on the altar guild and helping in the office a few hours a day. Robert Capon’s newest book, Hunting the Divine Fox had just been released and as I read it, the person of Jesus came alive to me in a radically new way, so much so, that I applied to the Seminary of the Southwest and entered as a student that fall. At that point, women were not being ordained to the priesthood and I couldn’t imagine it but simply knew that I felt a call to go. It’s often that way with Jesus, disciples are called to come or told to go forth. That coming and going has marked my life for these forty-five years and yes, it is a strange and wondrous thing.

So, here we are today and I still find the work of Robert Farrar Capon shining the light on the gospel, this greatest story ever told, especially as we find ourselves in the midst of Luke’s gospel and this flurry of parables. Today we encounter Jesus at his most subversive in this all too familiar interchange we often call the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Capon identifies this parable as the first among several misnamed parables. He prefers to call it the Parable of the Man Who Fell Among the Thieves.

Before we tackle this passage, I feel compelled to offer a bit of insight from Robert Capon. You must forgive me ahead of time for I know that across the land, preachers are offering words of encouragement about following in the footsteps of the Good Samaritan, encouraging their members to be active in outreach and mission, compassion and service. Those are all good and important callings but we must be careful not to misread this moment in Luke’s gospel.

In giving this parable the title: the Good Samaritan, we have failed to understand this encounter between Jesus and the lawyer, and we have, diminished the brilliant insight and the foreshadowing of the events to come. Instead we have named hospitals, Good Samaritan and written Good Samaritan laws and preached that the message of the parable was about being nice to our neighbors. And we should be nice to our neighbors and we should go the extra mile but this parable is more wondrous and more provocative than that, it more mysterious and confounding, and most of all, subversive than the Mr. Roger’s message, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

We cannot forget that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, a confrontation with the powers that be and facing certain death. Luke places this story and parable here where things are heating up — this is not an interlude reminding us to “be nice” — this is an encounter with the principalities and powers, the gathering storm.

Regarding Scripture, Capon writes: “The Bible is about the mystery by which the power of God works to form this world into the Holy City, the New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. It is not about someplace else called heaven, nor about somebody at a distance called God. Rather, it is about this place here, in all its thisness and placiness and about the intimate and immediate Holy One who, at no distance from us at all, moves mysteriously to make creation true both to itself and to God.”

He writes in the introduction on his trilogy on parables: “Parables are manifestations of the left-handed power of God.” And he goes on to say: ‘The Bible is concerned with the perfecting of what God made,  not with the trashing of it — with the resurrection of its native harmonies and orders, not with the replacement of them by something alien. And most relevant to us today, it is done not with straight-line power (use the force you need to get the result you want), the way of the mystery of God is through the paradoxical exercise of power, what Martin Luther called, left-handed power. Unlike the power of the right hand (which, interestingly enough, is governed by the logical, plausibility-loving left hemisphere of the brain), left-handed power is guided by the more intuitive, open and imaginative right side of the bran. In other words, left-handed power is paradoxical power. It looks to the world like weakness. But it is power — so much power, in fact, that it is the only thing in the world that evil can’t touch. God in Christ died forgiving. With the dead body of Jesus, the door was wedged open between God and the world, opening the portal, the very gate of heaven eternally.”

We are the recipients and the vehicles of this power, this paradoxical way of being in the world that sees the resurrected Jesus, now present as Christ to the whole of creation. In his series of books on the parables: The Parables of the Kingdom, the Parables of Grace, and the Parables of Judgement, this parable is found only in Luke’s gospel but the story is tied to similar events in Mark and Matthew. We often remember those as the story of the rich, young ruler. Mark and Matthew place the story during the final holy week, an encounter in Jerusalem, each author offering their own perspective. Luke has chosen to place this story as Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem. During this portion of the gospel, Jesus is entering into conversations with his disciples, with the crowd and with the authorities. Luke is both disciplined and intentional in the way these stories unfold and this story and the parable reflect a moment of heightened tension. This is a person of the law, an expert and the intent of his question, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life,” was likely more threat than curious but Jesus responds as if it was simply an honest question. As the lawyer responds correctly, Jesus says, do this and you will live. Then the lawyer plays his real hand, “And who is my neighbor?” Now, this lawyer knew very well the legalities of a neighbor, essentially meaning one of the people of his own circle — the issues of purity and affinity are at stake here.

Jesus speaks and what follows is a story with three players and one central figure — the actual Christ-figure is the man lying there by the side of the road, practically dead. Capon sees the Samaritan’s alignment with the Man-who-fell-among-thieves, as the offering of all that he has for the sake of the other — the Samaritan enters into the death-resurrection cycle, he enters into the realm of the hungry, the thirsty, the outcast, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned in whom Christ dwells and through whom he invites us to become his neighbors in death and resurrection.

Neither the Samaritan nor, Jesus is an example of some broader, saving truths about the power of human niceness. Capon says, “Jesus is the incarnation of the unique, saving mystery of death and resurrection. He tells this parable as he himself is on a downhill journey to his passion and death, and into the lastness, lostness that he now sees as the heart of his saving work. The man who fell among the thieves is the authentic Christ-figure in this parable” and that is both the good news and the great paradox. To claim this perspective invites us into a deeper conversation — a conversation that requires time together. I say these things because we are going to be about the hard work of discernment — are we going to be an outpost and signpost of the mystery of the realm of God or that pretty little white church on the hill? Are we willing to look at the world and the church through a prism for signs of God’s love and provision or through the institutional lens of survival?

This week, I spent time reading your stories in the archives, learning more about the transition from the original building and this building. Exploring your hopes and dreams, seeing so many accomplishments and moments of great love, service, celebration and joy.

And now, we come to a new moment and a new time. We must look forward, we must choose a path that allows Grace Church to be a living sign, complex and paradoxical to the world — an outcropping of the very realm of heaven, right here, a parable that will be revealed as we worship together, pray together, study together and serve in the name of Jesus who is Christ for the world.

Amen

July 7, 2019

Proper 9C

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Grace Church

This has been quite a week — as I said last Sunday, I was ready, although not quite prepared for the very long ferry delay on Monday evening — the “bomb” scare affected my daughter and son-in-law’s visit and they were caught in Anacortes, not arriving until 11:30 PM on Monday night.

A late night pot of chicken soup and tales of adult temper tantrums at the ferry terminal marked the beginning of the 4^th of July week for us — they were mere observers to the tantrums but we were reminded that our human physiology and neurological networks do not always handle change well and many reel in an emotional whirlwind, like dervishes of old, spinning in the wake of disappointment, frustration and delay.

Sandra and Patrick just kicked the dust off their feet and carried on to the next place — Lopez Island. Because it was so late, it was very dark and they did not get to experience the wonder of approaching the island as an entry point into paradise. That was my experience and it took my breath away the first, second and third time I approached Lopez — the road and the forest.

As they left behind the chaos of travel and piled into my car, we were getting ready for a time of grace. The next day was spent in rest and recovery, the rain a welcome treat for my desert dwellers and the fun of the 4^th oscillated with times of exploration and discovery on the island. They saw what I see and were reluctant travelers at the end of the week when it was time to depart — leaving was hard but they will be back.

After a month on Lopez Island, I find myself more and more detached from the chaos of the world and loving the rhythm of life here — a place to breathe and, for me,  a place to experience anew the arc of the great story of salvation — somehow it is easier to enter into the story with a sense of mystery and wonder when watching you people, the grace-filled citizens of Lopez.  Mind you, I’m not looking at, nor for, perfection. I’m looking at a community that is bound together with a profound sense of grace — a way of being together that might be called the beloved community.

In today’s gospel reading from Luke, we remember the sending out of the seventy followers. Jesus sends them out to proclaim the great good news, the Kingdom of God, the Realm of the Holy One, has arrived. They are told to take nothing but this news.

It comes, as Robert Capon shares in the Parables of the Kingdom, in this way. It is catholic, not limited just to the chosen. It is hidden, not plausibly and gratifyingly manifest. It is at work now, present to those who have eyes to see. It operates in the midst of hostility. And it calls for a response — a spirit of gentleness, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, generosity, and self-control. And most of all, it has been given to us, even today, in the madness of our world.

Paul ends his epistle to those foolish Galatians, reminding them of who they are and what they are to be in the world — a sign of the law of love guided by the spirit. They are lifted out of a life that is motivated by appearances — circumcising in this case and challenged to enter the new creation that establishes grace as the floor and paradise as our reality.

We, too, are being sent out with this great good news. We, too, are living signs. I believe paradise is our current and eternal reality, and as I said last week, although I love my country, I am first and foremost a citizen of this heavenly realm, this alternative reality. This rock island is an outcropping of the alternative reality — again, I’m not talking about perfection. I am talking about a collective state of being that is full of grace — it is a manifestation of our best social nature. Edward O. Wilson, the world’s leading social biologist has a clear definition of what constitutes a social species and we humans are among the few living animals that can claim the title.

There are fewer than thirty and most are insects — bees, ants, termites. One of the key elements of a social species is that of the nest — a place of belonging and in the case of human beings, a place where stories can be told, a place where the community can protect and care for the least, the lost, the lonely and the little. A place where the goodness of the many can prevail despite the bad behavior of the few.

Community, at its best, offers a glimpse of paradise — the realm of God is at hand and we see the possibilities for life in a state of grace.  We’ve all had those moments of paradise, those glimpses — suddenly there is an unexpected breaking forth of uncommon beauty or joy or wonder — we shiver at the sight and sound of it, we cry out, we leap from our seats, we see with new eyes, we hear in a new way and we are forever changed. Or, perhaps, for you, it is just the sight of the forest as the ferry approaches Lopez Island.

Just a moment in paradise, and then, often it seems lost to us. But the longing remains and with it a memory we cherish. This springs from our unique human capacity to tell stories and access memories. We alone collect those memories and weave stories from this storehouse of memories. No other creature can draw from that deep well within, weaving together stories, images linked in a vast network more complex than the entire universe. It is no wonder we humans long for paradise — for we have seen it, and we hold it in our mind’s eye — and we watch for it to come our way again and again — a glimpse of the reality that is ours to claim, a glimpse of glory.

What keeps us from entering this garden of delight, this elusive reality that lies just beyond our grasp? It is Eden, paradise, a home we long to find, a place we seek to be, a promise we hope to receive. This is the promise given to us by Jesus whom we call Christ — a restoration work that offers a return to paradise. It is not a promise of heaven in the “by and by” but an earthly abode given to all of us — for none are abandoned — it is an alternative world that beckons us beyond empire, domination and control — it is ours to receive — a gift. And therein lies the rub, we can’t quite receive it, we aren’t quite ready for the price — the leap of faith is too great and we are so afraid of letting go of an illusion of control.

At the end of E. O. Wilson’s book, The Social Conquest of Earth, this great social biologist writes: So, now I will confess my own blind faith. Earth, by the twenty-second century, can be turned, it we so wish, into a permanent paradise, or at least the strong beginnings of one.

This is quite a provocative and optimistic statement for a man so profoundly aware of the fragile state of the earth in this moment in time and so mindful of our dual nature, for I, on my own, can be a selfish creature bound to my own survival but we, we can be part of a community capable of great empathy, compassion and love. This is the tension we live with as human beings.

The Apostle Paul speaks eloquently to this point and Wilson has scientific evidence. We are of two minds — and paradise can prevail only when our commitment to each other, overrides our lower nature. The social human community can transcend the self-centered individual human being — that is the good news and it is also the gospel. And if this is true, a kind of earthly paradise is possible. It is the longing and belief of both theologians and scientists.

On Pentecost, we experienced one of those moments where a vision of paradise broke forth. This vision quickened a small band of disciples whose grief had turned to joy and whose despair was transformed into wonder on that first Easter Day. Fifty days later an ecstatic experience of wind and fire filled them with a hope of paradise on earth. And in this season after the Pentecost moment, we enter deeply into the gospel stories that transformed curious followers into saints and martyrs. And when it was all said and done, they trusted Jesus and entered paradise — there in the garden, the vision of a new heaven and a new earth, and there in the center of it all is the tree of life and the risen Christ.

That the message has been distorted and manipulated by individuals and by empires through the millennia cannot be doubted but the message itself lives — love one another as I have loved you. Love in action, service, sacrifice and humility. A spirit of generosity and gratitude flowing into the places of greatest need, relieving the suffering of the most vulnerable.

Love one another as I have loved you — the words of Jesus, whose grasp of Eden unfolded in a time and place that seemed far from paradise. A tiny nation overwhelmed by empire, citizens seduced by power and greed, the marginalized discarded as less than human and unrelenting brutality that used terror and torture to control the populace.

The gate of paradise is the heart of a servant — you and I are called to be living signs. Imagine, you are the gate of paradise and as we cultivate the practice of offering, of giving, of serving we will discover secret of paradise — you and I as followers of the way of Jesus the Christ, we become the gate of paradise to a longing world. It is the most wondrous news for today: We are the vehicles and portals to paradise.

 My hope and prayer for our time together is that we will continue to cultivate the fruit of paradise — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control. This is our work in the garden of delight, this island home we call Lopez.

Amen.