Time to hit the dusty trail...

God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
In February of 2001 when I had received my call to ordained ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit I met with my rector, Thomas, several times. In one of those meetings he asked me what I would like to do for discernment. Now being quite new to the language of Episcopalian clergy, having been brought up Lutheran, I didn’t really know what Thomas meant by “discernment”, so I asked him what he meant. And he answered that discernment was a time of seeking to find out where God was calling me; a time to test my call to find some deeper meaning and direction. He asked me again what I wanted to do for discernment and I answered without hesitation without thinking, “hospice”. I had worked with some hospice patients at the nursing home where I was Nutritional Services Manager and I always wished I could do more than provide food in the way of comfort and compassion. Thomas introduced me to the Chaplain at a local hospital and I was fortunate to enter his training program for associate hospice chaplains. After some weeks I received the name of my first hospice patient, her address, and general information about her name, age, diagnosis and so forth. Now in this present time of privacy it is not allowed to disclose names and information about a patient to anyone except family members. However, this particular patient asked me to keep her name alive and tell her story and so what I tell you about her, I have her permission to tell, especially after her death. Her name was Pati, and she was 55 years old. I stood at her door one Friday afternoon after work, and was terrified. I wondered what the heck I had gotten myself into, how I was going to be of any use to her at all, whether she would even be glad to see me, although she had requested a chaplain’s visit. I said “Come, Holy Spirit” and I knocked on the door. She let me in herself. Pati was a thin brunette with a lot of energy despite the spreading breast cancer in her body.
Right away she told me that she didn’t want to talk about God. God had let her down badly and she didn’t think God cared about her at all. To say she was mad at God was an understatement. She considered herself a spiritual person but we could not talk about God. No praying, no communion, no psalm-reading; I was at a loss, especially in light of my extreme inexperience in all of this. Come, Holy Spirit. I told her we could just talk and that I was interested in her story and spending some time with her on a weekly basis and she seemed ok with that. So every Friday after work I went to visit her and we got to be pretty good friends – enough so that I could risk talking about my own journey and how I got to be at her door that first day. I told her the story I told you about losing my job and feeling a strong call to ordained ministry at that time and about how I was in discernment for ordination, and that without the call of the Spirit and the direction of the Spirit through Chaplain Schwing I would never have ended up at her house. And THAT was enough evidence for me at least that God had not forgotten her. God had put us together at this time and place to be healing and comfort for each other. My presence had to be enough evidence that God cared about her still. I don’t think she really totally believed me, but she was polite enough not to argue. After that we didn’t talk about God anymore. At this point that I realized her beef was really with the church and a particular philandering preacher rather than with God exactly, but for her it was all the same. The church and pastor she loved let her down and God let her down and that was it. She had closed the door but cracked it open a little to let me in and I tried hard to bring some light in with me. The Holy Spirit put words in my mouth that I didn’t know I had during that time and taught me to be patient and forgiving and loving. I fell in love with this soul called Pati. I visited her for nine months. I never missed a visit and she never called me off. At one point she asked me how many patients I saw each week – she thought she was just one of many. When I told her she was the only one I saw something in her change. As time went on she became more and more sick and vulnerable, of course. By this time I was vulnerable, too, as I had grown to love her great sense of humor and somewhat cynical view of life. One day we were going over the whole issue of God forgetting about her again when she stopped and was quiet. She said she had been waiting for a miracle – to literally hear God’s voice and feel God’s presence. She wanted a big and showy gesture from God– to make up for her disappointment and anger about her church experiences and especially to make up for the years she was losing with her kids to cancer. What she got was me for a chaplain, not much in your way of showy gestures. But she stopped talking and said, “I get it. Now I get it. God called you to come and be with me now.” I said, “yes.” “God sent you to be with me.” “Yes, that’s right.” And I started crying, not her. She comforted me, not the other way. God’s power was made perfect in my weakness because she got it that God had not forgotten her and loved her still. For me, her awareness was everything I had hoped and prayed for. It was a miracle for us both.
Today, July 5th, is the 7th anniversary of Pati’s death, so it is right and proper that I would tell you about her on this day. I am grateful to share her story with you. I was privileged to lead her memorial service and that afternoon I met a group of ladies in turbans covering bald heads from chemotherapy. They introduced themselves as the “boat people” from Pati’s cancer support group, that was what Pati called them. Why boat people? Because we were all in the same boat, they said. That was Pati, witty and bright to the end.
In our Gospel for today, Jesus sends the disciples out two by two to spread the gospel by comforting and healing – or in Mark’s words, “They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.” It seems like a dauntingly immediate task – take no shoes, bag, cloak; travel lightly, move urgently, repudiate violence, shake the dust off your shoes if someone is unfriendly to your mission. Jesus has work of love, comfort, compassion, healing and miracles for us to do. We are weak, says St. Paul, but God’s power is made perfect in our own weakness. Paul says, “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” For me this is the essence of faith – knowing my own weakness and having confidence against all odds that God will give me the courage and words to do God’s work in the world. Marcus Borg, a contemporary theologian makes this comment about faith: “The Hebrew word for faith in the Old Testament is emoonah. What makes that word interesting is that it's the sound that a baby donkey makes when it is calling for its mother. There's something kind of wonderful about that. There is an element…I don't know if you want to say of desperation in it or not, but there certainly is an element of confidence also that the cry will be heard.”
We have confidence that our faithful cry will be heard – that God hasn’t forgotten us here in Antioch, though the budget is a challenge and the numbers are fewer than in the past, and now we are setting out on a new journey that has yet to be charted; but our weakness and our awareness of our weakness, is God’s strength and God’s power will be made perfect in our weakness. Now God sends us out into the field to preach and teach the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by word and deed. Even if we don’t know how to start. Don’t pack anything, don’t take a lunch – the mission is urgent! And God will give us the grace to do the work God has called us to do in 2009 in Antioch, California. Amen.
- 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 and Mark 6:1-13

Lord we pray for those who have died in the past weeks and for their families and all those who love them. We especially pray for Ray who we loved and knew and hoped for and will miss. Bless his daughter and grandchildren that the best of him may live on in them and that they may be strengthened in his love and Yours. Amen.

We Love You...

For an old friend who died too young. For a friend not seen for many years and yet it was just like yesterday. For a friend who wanted to stay longer at the party but had to go... we love you and we will miss you, Kirk.

Perserverance

“Have you still no faith?” These words from Jesus to the disciples during the storm must have stung, considering their devoted friendship and loyalty. Jesus had been teaching parables to a large crowd from a boat close to the shore for many hours. He asked to cross to the other side, perhaps for some private time with the disciples and so they took off across the water in the same boat. Jesus then fell asleep on the cushions, exhausted. Soon the storm began to rage, threatening to send them all to a watery death. The disciples woke him up to warn him about the storm, or at least to make him aware of the fearsome weather they were facing. Jesus responds in a frustrated and weary way – not a very flattering picture of him at that moment. His attitude seems to be that of a long-suffering parent – “Don’t you get it yet?” And yet we see that the disciples DO “get it”. One of the themes we hear in Mark’s gospel is the necessity of being open to the reality of who Jesus really is – the Son of God. This faith is what makes miracles possible. My New Testament professor, Scott Sinclair says, “In Mark faith produces miracles but miracles do not produce real faith.” So it seems that in this story of the stilling of the storm and the sea, the miracle was possible because the disciples were open to Jesus’ power and authority, believed in him, and did, in fact, have faith. This is just one of the puzzling and ambiguous stories we find in Mark’s Gospel, put there to cause us to ponder and think.
Each Sunday one of the focuses of our worship is the proclamation of the Gospel. The readings from the different Gospels follow a pattern. The Sunday readings from the Bible are divided into three years which are called A, B and C. The A years contain readings from the Gospel of Matthew, the B years contain readings from the Gospel of Mark and the C years contain readings from the Gospel of Luke. What happened to John? The readings from John come during Easter and other special times. We have just finished some readings from John and are now in year B – moving into the series of readings from Mark. So that’s where we are in the liturgical scheme of things. The Gospel of Mark was most likely the first one written – possibly before the fall the Temple in Jerusalem around year 70 of the current era. Mark based his writings on stories and sayings that he had heard repeated from those who had known Jesus personally. What prompted Mark to write down what he knew were two crises in his world. One was the arising of competing and false “Christs” or “Messiahs” who claimed to be like Jesus and were threatening to lead susceptible believers astray. The second challenge in the society of the time was the nightmarish persecution of the Christians that had begun after Jesus’ death. Even though they were technically still Jews, the early Christians were persecuted and martyred for their beliefs and had to worship in secret to be safe. So Mark set about writing down what he knew about Jesus as a response to these two ongoing events of his time. Similarly, St. Paul was part of the spreading of the Word to the gentiles in the surrounding countries – and we talked a little last time I preached about his trials and tribulations. The first century Christians faced an uncertain life in Christ – threats from other religious groups and government – and the uncertainty of not knowing who they could believe. Another theme of Mark’s Gospel rises out of these problems - the necessity of perseverance in the face of suffering for followers of Christ. This suffering is to be accepted as part the Way to the cross just as Jesus did accept his own suffering.
In our reading from 2nd Corinthians today we hear a little about St. Paul’s struggle to maintain relations with the churches he had established. There had been some falling out with the people at Corinth and letters we do not have today may have been passed back and forth by Titus – a co-worker with Paul. Finally Paul receives reassuring news about the Corinthians’ feelings toward him and 2nd Corinthians is written in response to this good news. These letters were written in approximately the same time frame as the Gospel of Mark – before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70. So in this reading we hear about the trials of Paul and his co-workers to keep up their walk with Christ on the Way to the cross – perhaps some are thinking of giving up because Paul exhorts them not to “accept the grace of God in vain.” “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 3We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; 10as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” Can you tell this is one of my favorite verses?
So we hear of the trials and sufferings of the early Christians – the threats from without and within and the temptation to give up in the face of all these challenges. We know that Mark believes perseverance during suffering leads to faith which can produce miracles and encourages believers to follow Jesus on the Way to the cross no matter what may come. Perseverance on the way to the cross can produce miracles.
Well, then, what about us, here in modern-day Antioch, Ca? What circumstances of contemporary life make it difficult for us to be faithful to following the path Jesus took? What encourages us to continue and not give up in the face of hardships? And what are the hardships of living the life of Christ and following his path to the cross for us today?
Could the challenge to our faith in contemporary times come from within rather than from without? No one in 2009 in America will literally be fed to the lions for professing to be a Christian. There may be some false prophets out there for sure, I will not deny that. But I think that the real challenge for us is to live a life steeped in the Way of Christ in a society that, for the most part, doesn’t get it. We are challenged to intentionally live a life that is not anything like the lives around us. What percentage of Californians go to church each Sunday morning? How many pray over meals in restaurants? What keeps us from personal prayer? Do we think, I am too busy, too tired, too overwhelmed by keeping things going to attend to my spiritual life? Too embarrassed at being different? Afraid to offend? Or be politically incorrect? Too caught up in the social and economic daily struggle? Or what if, one day, we wake up and find that our connection to God is gone? We feel that God has abandoned us – because something terrible has happened – or out of the blue - the real dark night of the soul – when we pray and we hear no response. This happens to priests, deacons, bishops, lay people, mystics, monks, sisters, people of all religious persuasions - even Mother Teresa. What then? Our challenge is within us to follow the path that Jesus took to the cross. We shouldn’t be deceived into thinking we have it any easier than all Christians throughout the centuries. A life lived in Christ is not easy. It is not easy but it is everything.
At our baptism we or someone acting on our behalf pledge us to participate in the life of Christ in five ways: Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? These are our walking orders – teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer, resisting evil, repentance, proclamation, serving Christ, loving your neighbor, promoting justice & peace, and respecting the dignity of all. God grant us all perserverance on our way.
Perseverance can produce miracles on the way to the cross. The storm was stilled after the disciples called out to Jesus – because they HAD FAITH he could do something, even if he was a little cranky about it. In their dark scary night they believed in the miracle of safety and sanctuary in Jesus’ presence. They had the faith that could lead to miracles.

We have the faith that leads to miracles on the way to the cross. Let it be so. Amen.

Unseen Hope (Sunday June 7th)

Unseen Hope

When I watch the news these days I sometimes feel hopeless – there are so many stories of people really suffering, homeless families, folks who have lost jobs they held for decades, kids going hungry. Not just a few, a LOT of people. At times it seems to me that the situation is really not fixable, and I turn the TV off, because the problem is too big for me. There have been some glimmers of hope that we might have hit the bottom of the recession, but for a lot of Americans new jobs and permanent housing are a long way off. The OT lesson for today has a sense of this desolation and emptiness – Isaiah is sent out to talk with those who can’t listen with their ears and see with their eyes and who won’t turn and be healed. He asks the Lord God, “How long, O, Lord?” And the reading from Romans’ echoes the feeling of even the earth groaning with labor pains. Paul writes, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” The world groans in pain while waiting for redemption. Our world groans in social, financial and spiritual pain while waiting for redemption from the actions of those, and perhaps all of us, who would not see with their eyes, hear with their ears, or turn and be healed.

Almost ten years ago I was working in a Skilled Nursing Facility in San Francisco. And I volunteered with a program at the Episcopal Sanctuary near where I worked. I felt like I was right where I was supposed to be – I loved my job and I loved helping to set up a program at the Sanctuary called CHEFS – Conquering Homelessness thru Employment in Food Service. It was a good time in my life, I felt useful and purposeful. Like I was making a difference in my little part of the world. Then the company I worked for went into bankruptcy and I lost my job. That’s the really short version – I ended up feeling like I had been used and betrayed by the system I trusted and I was scared, too, I had three kids at home and I was a single mom. Having just bought a house and moved to Concord, I wondered how I was going to make ends meet and I have to admit I was more than scared. But I never got to the really hopeless part because I was able to find a job within a couple of weeks. I was lucky and I believe the Spirit was with me. I can’t claim to know what people feel when they are out of work for months, have maxed out their credit cards, have sold everything they can sell and see that their options are running out. That’s where too many people are in America today. This is the dark night of the soul, when hope has run out. I heard a little boy whose family is in a bad financial situation say on the radio the other evening, “I’ve given up.” A seven year old without hope.

St. Paul knows this kind of hopelessness, too. In our reading today St. Paul talks about human suffering from his own experience. During his career of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the gentiles – the people who were not Jews – he had some incredibly rough times: shipwrecks, imprisonment, unfriendly crowds, difficult living situations, depending on the kindness of strangers for food, housing and so on. Paul’s early life as an educated Greek, Roman citizen, respected religious leader, and persecutor of Christians, was totally turned upside down by his call to evangelize for Jesus Christ. As he said himself, he was the most unlikely to be called to be a disciple of Christ. He went from a life of privilege to a life of struggle and suffering for the sake of the Gospel. So Paul knows all about hope. The intensity of his hope is based not on a change in the human condition, but he looks forward with hope to something he couldn’t even imagine – the full glorification and liberation of God’s Kingdom. I can’t even imagine what that might look like. I know what I hoped for in my dark night of the soul – some real human relief from the fear that I might not be able to take care of my family. I got that, thanks be to God, but I experienced something else, too. Paul talks this new Kingdom of Jesus Christ as the “first fruits” of the Holy Spirit. The Sunday after I lost my job I went to church as usual and was very aware of how lost I felt. I sat in my pew and felt all the sadness and fear and wondered what I was going to do – and then I had a thought. I thought, “now I can go to Seminary”. An old deep desire of my heart – something I hadn’t thought of for years – resurfaced by the power of the Spirit through my heart broken open by human grief. And I did eventually go to the School for Deacons at the Seminary in Berkeley and eventually ended up here with you. The fruits of the Spirit opened me to not just a new job, but a new life in Christ, living more and deeper into the Gospel. Thanks be to God.

In today’s Gospel, Nicodemus comes to visit Jesus at night. Nicodemus also was a Pharisee, a religious leader, like Paul; and member of the Sanhedrin which was a Jewish council of judges; he was an educated and important man. Some Biblical historians think that he is the same Nicodemus ben Gurion, who is mentioned in the Talmud (a book of Jewish law and writings) as a wealthy and popular holy man who had the power to do miracles. He comes to Jesus by night, looking for some answers. The powers that be have seen the miracles Jesus has been doing around the countryside and they know that apart from a relationship with God, no one can do these amazing acts. Jesus answers the unspoken question Nicodemus asks. Who are you, how can you do this? What does it all mean? Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus is confused by this conversation because he doesn’t understand life beyond his human experience. Nicodemus has come to Jesus hoping to hear something – but what? When Jesus explains about life in the Spirit Nicodemus thinks Jesus is talking about climbing back into the womb and being born human again. Jesus is talking about the life lived in the Spirit – the great gift of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, given to all of us after the Resurrection to be our comfort and hope in the present days of human suffering. We experience the first fruits of this hope through the Holy Spirit. As adopted children and heirs to the kingdom along with Christ we wait with creation “in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” And what gives us this hope is the movement of the Spirit in our lives. Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost – the day when the gift of the Spirit was given – and spread through the world through human beings like us. Pentecost brings us together as God’s beloved family and reminds us of Jesus’ commandment that we love one another as he loved us.
Where is the hope that our world needs today? It is foolish to place our hope in things of the flesh, as Paul says, hope that is seen is not hope. And he goes on to say that if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Nicodemus got the answer to his unspoken question from Jesus and evidence of his behavior after this conversation with Jesus shows that he might have had the ears to hear and turn and be healed. And me? My experiences of the power of the Holy Spirit in my life have taught me to depend completely on Jesus for my life and hope. Being human it’s hard not to feel hopeless and desolate at time; it’s hard to always remember that I am born of water and spirit; and I depend on the Holy Spirit to bring me back to hope and love again through the fellowship of the community of believers. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Amen. 17

For the Dying...

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death...

Luke 1:78-79

Please, Lord, be with all those who suffer today from life-threatening diseases and the knowledge that their lives on earth are nearly over. Bless their families with peace and love and take the dying into heaven to live with you forever. Amen.

Matthew and I used to walk the setter Morgan by Iwo Jima and look out over Arlington Cemetary. I am in awe of the sacrifice that has been made on our behalf and I bless all those who were brave enough and cared enough to give all they had to give. Please, God, no more war. Amen.