Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I’ve continued to mull over what it means to remain spiritually grounded in such a time as this; I preached on Sunday about having God’s vision of the beatitudes to see blessing in places where the world does not. Poverty, mourning, hunger, persecution—those are not particularly comfortable places to be. But Jesus calls them blessed, and calls us to see that as well.
This is a profound discipline: we must be grounded in the vision of God’s love and power as equally as we are opposed to hatred and violence. On the one hand, spiritual sustenance is easy to understand. Of course it’s important. What actually happens when we pray, though, can use some thinking-through. Prayer brings us before God, of course. We make ourselves available to love and be loved. The other important thing about prayer is that we are better able to put struggle, anxiety, and conflict in context. Prayer helps us to widen our view. We are not the saviors of the world. We have some work to do, but it’s not up to us completely.
Hopefully, being able to put ourselves and the world in the context of God’s love, we can also do so for those with whom we disagree. In all the best activism on the part of those who are oppressed, it can be easy to forget that it is hatred and fear that are the enemy, not the people who seem to promote them. In prayer, we glimpse a unitive reality in which we are equally in need of God’s grace and compassion. Even if just for a moment! Jesus tells us, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. When we are hungry for justice, we must know that even in our hunger we are being filled by the grace of God, as that hunger is God’s life living within us.
This evening, take a moment and really pray the beatitudes. Look with God’s eyes to see blessing in the world, and allow your heart to perceive it.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Blessings,
Sara+
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Baptism, the Spontaneous Outpouring of God's Love
Dear People of Christ Church,
I hope those of you who gathered for church on Sunday after the blizzard enjoyed our service in the parish hall as much as I did. When I got to church at 7:30, as I usually do, I discovered there was no heat; the church was 33 degrees and the boiler that heats the church sanctuary was silent. Our repair folks came out soon enough, but to move a space that large 30 degrees takes some time, so as people began arriving to help we got busy moving chairs. Sundays after large storms are never too full, so the 55 or so of us who gathered fit easily in two concentric circles in the hall. I put a small table at the center for an altar and preached with no pulpit and no text. I do that anyway at 8:30, but with a bigger crowd the energy was quite different.
I’ve preached in different ways over the years I’ve been at Christ Church—there are years in the pulpit and years out of the pulpit. I’ve sometimes used my manuscript as a text to read and other times more as an anchor I rarely look down at. Preaching feels more spontaneous and connected without that safety blanket—it’s just you and me and whatever the Holy Spirit allows me to remember about my planning—but can be hard. Our text for Sunday, though, was a perfect reading for not having everything written down in front of me.
There’s always something confusing about the baptism of Jesus, our Gospel for Sunday—we tend to think of baptism as a moral event, the necessity of which comes from our own human moral failures. Even if we might not take this argument all the way to the end, there’s a hierarchy implicit in baptizing that makes it seem like a flow of power from powerful to powerless. John named this, too—he wants to receive what *Jesus* has, and sees himself as powerless to give Jesus anything on his own. He doesn’t see how he has authority over Jesus in being able to perform the rite.
Liturgical stuff gets us in trouble like this all the time. We’re quick to superimpose the hierarchies on the world onto our faith. That’s what John was doing…remember how he made that comment about being even unworthy of tying the thong of Jesus’ sandal? He does it again here.
We ask the same question. If part of what happens in our baptism is a sinful person being formed in a moral community (which, make no mistake, it absolutely is), then why does Jesus “have” to do it? We’re obsessed with freedom and individual choice so there seems to be something at stake in whether it’s necessary. It might be necessary for us, but is it for Jesus?
That’s what was great about preaching this piece without a text. Jesus’ baptism was just about the love of God. That’s it. No hierarchy, no authority, no “you should be baptizing me, not me you.” Just love. The most simple thing. Anyone can do it.
The rite itself is just occasion for us all to get clear about God’s love in Christ. Anyone can be a Christian. There’s no esoteric secret knowledge required. You don’t even have to be sure about everything! Your doubts and questions get to come along. In baptism we take on God’s love. We receive the memories of thousands of years of God’s faithfulness, in Creation, in the calling of the people of Israel through slavery and exile and return, in the birth of God as human in Christ, Christ’s self-giving love and the resurrection. All of God’s love and faithfulness become ours in baptism. Jesus is baptized, and we can be baptized, and it could not be more simple. Just like preaching without a text… Sort of.
Blessings,
Sara+
I hope those of you who gathered for church on Sunday after the blizzard enjoyed our service in the parish hall as much as I did. When I got to church at 7:30, as I usually do, I discovered there was no heat; the church was 33 degrees and the boiler that heats the church sanctuary was silent. Our repair folks came out soon enough, but to move a space that large 30 degrees takes some time, so as people began arriving to help we got busy moving chairs. Sundays after large storms are never too full, so the 55 or so of us who gathered fit easily in two concentric circles in the hall. I put a small table at the center for an altar and preached with no pulpit and no text. I do that anyway at 8:30, but with a bigger crowd the energy was quite different.
I’ve preached in different ways over the years I’ve been at Christ Church—there are years in the pulpit and years out of the pulpit. I’ve sometimes used my manuscript as a text to read and other times more as an anchor I rarely look down at. Preaching feels more spontaneous and connected without that safety blanket—it’s just you and me and whatever the Holy Spirit allows me to remember about my planning—but can be hard. Our text for Sunday, though, was a perfect reading for not having everything written down in front of me.
There’s always something confusing about the baptism of Jesus, our Gospel for Sunday—we tend to think of baptism as a moral event, the necessity of which comes from our own human moral failures. Even if we might not take this argument all the way to the end, there’s a hierarchy implicit in baptizing that makes it seem like a flow of power from powerful to powerless. John named this, too—he wants to receive what *Jesus* has, and sees himself as powerless to give Jesus anything on his own. He doesn’t see how he has authority over Jesus in being able to perform the rite.
Liturgical stuff gets us in trouble like this all the time. We’re quick to superimpose the hierarchies on the world onto our faith. That’s what John was doing…remember how he made that comment about being even unworthy of tying the thong of Jesus’ sandal? He does it again here.
We ask the same question. If part of what happens in our baptism is a sinful person being formed in a moral community (which, make no mistake, it absolutely is), then why does Jesus “have” to do it? We’re obsessed with freedom and individual choice so there seems to be something at stake in whether it’s necessary. It might be necessary for us, but is it for Jesus?
That’s what was great about preaching this piece without a text. Jesus’ baptism was just about the love of God. That’s it. No hierarchy, no authority, no “you should be baptizing me, not me you.” Just love. The most simple thing. Anyone can do it.
The rite itself is just occasion for us all to get clear about God’s love in Christ. Anyone can be a Christian. There’s no esoteric secret knowledge required. You don’t even have to be sure about everything! Your doubts and questions get to come along. In baptism we take on God’s love. We receive the memories of thousands of years of God’s faithfulness, in Creation, in the calling of the people of Israel through slavery and exile and return, in the birth of God as human in Christ, Christ’s self-giving love and the resurrection. All of God’s love and faithfulness become ours in baptism. Jesus is baptized, and we can be baptized, and it could not be more simple. Just like preaching without a text… Sort of.
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Midwives of the Love of God
Dear People of Christ Church,
This morning I’m writing in gratitude for the community we share, and in hope for our God who works wonders. Last night we gathered for Eucharist in the choir, about twenty of us, praying for the vulnerable and the afraid, reminding ourselves of God’s great providence and grace. The gospel text I chose for the day was of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry as told in the Gospel of Luke:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Jesus announces that that prophecy is fulfilled in him, that as the people gather there they are seeing the good news brought to the poor and release proclaimed to captives.The oppressed are free and the blind are given sight. Jesus goes on to do those things—healing, saving, transforming. The love of God in his life was so strong, so brave, that nothing could stop it, not even death.
Hearing those words, we remembered together that the mission of the church is that same mission. Like Jesus, we occupy the place between the truth of God’s power and love and the truth of our broken and fragile world. In God’s dream of transcendent peace, Muslim women aren’t afraid to wear their veils while walking down the street. Immigrant kids don’t worry that their parents will get deported. LGBTQ people don’t worry their marriages will be dissolved. White supremacists don’t get air time next to legitimate political actors. We rest in that dream, at the same time as we live in a world where all of those things happen. One particular heartbreak and inspiration yesterday was reading the letter superintendent Echelson sent to faculty and staff of Waltham schools. Immigrant students are wondering if they should drop out of school, he said, to start making much money as they can, worried they’ll get deported. Arabic speakers are afraid for their safety. Echelson wrote, “Our students, particularly those students who might not feel safe right now because of their immigration status, perceived religion or any other variable, need us to show up for them.”
This is the transcendent, im/possible place: the place of the cross before the resurrection. The love of God is already showing up on the cross. The love of God is with the gay kid getting beat up and the woman being sexually assaulted. The love of God is incarnate in the mosque on Moody Street, at Temple Beth Israel, at St Mary’s and Sacred Heart. The love of God is showing up in Chaplains on the Way, at AA, at the Community Day Center. The love of God has always been there and will continue to be there. There are places where it hasn’t yet been born, but it is there. Our task as people of faith is to be midwives, to stand in support and accompany God’s love into the world.
We can do this: to bring that love to the desolate places, to have the courage to speak love to the dark abyss. To show up. That is our mission no matter who is president, no matter what prejudice seems to become acceptable. That is our mission, too, to those who disagree, to whom we are still bound in faith and love, who no less need the gift of God’s love.
Blessings,
Sara+
This morning I’m writing in gratitude for the community we share, and in hope for our God who works wonders. Last night we gathered for Eucharist in the choir, about twenty of us, praying for the vulnerable and the afraid, reminding ourselves of God’s great providence and grace. The gospel text I chose for the day was of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry as told in the Gospel of Luke:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Jesus announces that that prophecy is fulfilled in him, that as the people gather there they are seeing the good news brought to the poor and release proclaimed to captives.The oppressed are free and the blind are given sight. Jesus goes on to do those things—healing, saving, transforming. The love of God in his life was so strong, so brave, that nothing could stop it, not even death.
Hearing those words, we remembered together that the mission of the church is that same mission. Like Jesus, we occupy the place between the truth of God’s power and love and the truth of our broken and fragile world. In God’s dream of transcendent peace, Muslim women aren’t afraid to wear their veils while walking down the street. Immigrant kids don’t worry that their parents will get deported. LGBTQ people don’t worry their marriages will be dissolved. White supremacists don’t get air time next to legitimate political actors. We rest in that dream, at the same time as we live in a world where all of those things happen. One particular heartbreak and inspiration yesterday was reading the letter superintendent Echelson sent to faculty and staff of Waltham schools. Immigrant students are wondering if they should drop out of school, he said, to start making much money as they can, worried they’ll get deported. Arabic speakers are afraid for their safety. Echelson wrote, “Our students, particularly those students who might not feel safe right now because of their immigration status, perceived religion or any other variable, need us to show up for them.”
This is the transcendent, im/possible place: the place of the cross before the resurrection. The love of God is already showing up on the cross. The love of God is with the gay kid getting beat up and the woman being sexually assaulted. The love of God is incarnate in the mosque on Moody Street, at Temple Beth Israel, at St Mary’s and Sacred Heart. The love of God is showing up in Chaplains on the Way, at AA, at the Community Day Center. The love of God has always been there and will continue to be there. There are places where it hasn’t yet been born, but it is there. Our task as people of faith is to be midwives, to stand in support and accompany God’s love into the world.
We can do this: to bring that love to the desolate places, to have the courage to speak love to the dark abyss. To show up. That is our mission no matter who is president, no matter what prejudice seems to become acceptable. That is our mission, too, to those who disagree, to whom we are still bound in faith and love, who no less need the gift of God’s love.
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Follow the Path of Love
Dear People of Christ Church,
I’m back in the office now for two weeks between last week’s trip to Central New York to meet people in advance of the Episcopal election there and my family vacation, which we’re taking the second and third weeks of August. I heard good things about your time with the Rev. Thea Keith-Lucas, Episcopal Chaplain at MIT, who will be back again for one Sunday in August. (Norm is taking the other.)
As you may know, my husband Noah is a candidate for bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Central NY. Last week they had the “Walkabout” Meetings where the candidates answered questions from the diocese and we all visited ministries of the diocese. The transition and discernment committees’ hospitality was wonderful, even in the midst of long days. From Wednesday – Saturday, we all got on the bus around 10AM each day and got back to our hotel at 10PM. The diocese spans south to the Pennsylvania border, east to the Adirondacks, West to Ithaca and Elmira, and then north to Lake Ontario and the city of Watertown.
I have said many times that there is blessing on all sides—blessings if Noah is elected and new communities and ministries come into our life—and blessings if we stay in Massachusetts with our communities at Grace Medford and Christ Church. All along in this process it has been an exercise in “yes” to invitations—yes to the invitation for Noah to be nominated, yes to the discernment committee’s retreat, and then yes to joining the slate. Now that journey has come to an end, and it’s up to the people of Central NY. (Quick primer on bishop elections in the Episcopal Church: Each parish has lay voting delegates. Every canonically resident clergy person also votes. The final decision is made when a candidate has been elected in both the lay and clergy orders. They begin voting in the morning, and vote until there’s a clear decision. Church wide, there are 7 other couples of a bishop married to a priest; yes, I could still do parish ministry!)
It’s one thing, though, to believe that either outcome is a blessing (which they both would be) and another thing to stay centered in the midst of the not-knowing. The slate was first released on May 1 (after a months-long process of interviews and retreats for the candidates). Ten days now until the election, it’s even harder to know what either outcome would feel like.
Last week’s Gospel told us to pray: “God in heaven, your will be done.” But then what?
In June I quoted in this space a piece from Carlo Carretto, an Italian desert monastic (1910-1988) who wrote the book Letters from the Desert. Stay or go, be active or contemplative, city or country—the only decision there is to make is to follow the path of love. Reading Carretto in this time of my own uncertainty reminds me of an image of one of the speakers I heard at Wild Goose Festival earlier in July. Gabrielle Stoner talked about how we get attached to stories about ourselves— “I always ___” or “I could never ___”. Rather than be convinced of this insistence on narrow identity, in our spiritual lives we are invited to “widen the aperture”: to look wider than just the current moment or current question to a more transcendent consciousness. Spending time with Carretto’s invitation to focus on love rather than endless obsession on personal circumstance and clever understanding takes me out of the current roller coaster of wondering what will happen on August 6.
Here’s more about what Carretto says about prayer:
“As long as we pray only when and how we want to, our life of prayer is bound to be unreal. It will run in fits and starts. The slightest upset—even a toothache—will be enough to destroy the whole edifice of our prayer-life. ‘You must strip your prayers,’ the novice master told me. You must simplify, deintellectualize. Put yourself in front of Jesus as poor—not with any big ideas, but with living faith. Remain motionless in an act of love…don’t try to reach God with your understanding; that is impossible. Reach [God] in love; that is possible. (13)
Reach God in love. That is possible.
Blessings,
Sara+
Miss the sermon Sunday 7/24? It’s here!
I’m back in the office now for two weeks between last week’s trip to Central New York to meet people in advance of the Episcopal election there and my family vacation, which we’re taking the second and third weeks of August. I heard good things about your time with the Rev. Thea Keith-Lucas, Episcopal Chaplain at MIT, who will be back again for one Sunday in August. (Norm is taking the other.)
As you may know, my husband Noah is a candidate for bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Central NY. Last week they had the “Walkabout” Meetings where the candidates answered questions from the diocese and we all visited ministries of the diocese. The transition and discernment committees’ hospitality was wonderful, even in the midst of long days. From Wednesday – Saturday, we all got on the bus around 10AM each day and got back to our hotel at 10PM. The diocese spans south to the Pennsylvania border, east to the Adirondacks, West to Ithaca and Elmira, and then north to Lake Ontario and the city of Watertown.
I have said many times that there is blessing on all sides—blessings if Noah is elected and new communities and ministries come into our life—and blessings if we stay in Massachusetts with our communities at Grace Medford and Christ Church. All along in this process it has been an exercise in “yes” to invitations—yes to the invitation for Noah to be nominated, yes to the discernment committee’s retreat, and then yes to joining the slate. Now that journey has come to an end, and it’s up to the people of Central NY. (Quick primer on bishop elections in the Episcopal Church: Each parish has lay voting delegates. Every canonically resident clergy person also votes. The final decision is made when a candidate has been elected in both the lay and clergy orders. They begin voting in the morning, and vote until there’s a clear decision. Church wide, there are 7 other couples of a bishop married to a priest; yes, I could still do parish ministry!)
It’s one thing, though, to believe that either outcome is a blessing (which they both would be) and another thing to stay centered in the midst of the not-knowing. The slate was first released on May 1 (after a months-long process of interviews and retreats for the candidates). Ten days now until the election, it’s even harder to know what either outcome would feel like.
Last week’s Gospel told us to pray: “God in heaven, your will be done.” But then what?
In June I quoted in this space a piece from Carlo Carretto, an Italian desert monastic (1910-1988) who wrote the book Letters from the Desert. Stay or go, be active or contemplative, city or country—the only decision there is to make is to follow the path of love. Reading Carretto in this time of my own uncertainty reminds me of an image of one of the speakers I heard at Wild Goose Festival earlier in July. Gabrielle Stoner talked about how we get attached to stories about ourselves— “I always ___” or “I could never ___”. Rather than be convinced of this insistence on narrow identity, in our spiritual lives we are invited to “widen the aperture”: to look wider than just the current moment or current question to a more transcendent consciousness. Spending time with Carretto’s invitation to focus on love rather than endless obsession on personal circumstance and clever understanding takes me out of the current roller coaster of wondering what will happen on August 6.
Here’s more about what Carretto says about prayer:
“As long as we pray only when and how we want to, our life of prayer is bound to be unreal. It will run in fits and starts. The slightest upset—even a toothache—will be enough to destroy the whole edifice of our prayer-life. ‘You must strip your prayers,’ the novice master told me. You must simplify, deintellectualize. Put yourself in front of Jesus as poor—not with any big ideas, but with living faith. Remain motionless in an act of love…don’t try to reach God with your understanding; that is impossible. Reach [God] in love; that is possible. (13)
Reach God in love. That is possible.
Blessings,
Sara+
Miss the sermon Sunday 7/24? It’s here!
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Love, the Motive for All Good
Dear People of Christ Church,
In our Gospel on Sunday, the response to Jesus and his disciples is pretty ambivalent. It seems that people want to follow him, but that they all have something to do first—to care for a dying father, to say goodbye to those at home, we could probably all add to the list. We all have a list of things we “need” to do…
Jesus is pretty unimpressed and appears to dismiss them—“”No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Ok! Leave everything, and right away. Except… Last week, the person Jesus healed says he wants to follow Jesus, and Jesus says no. Stay. Stay and talk about what God has done for you.
So which is it? Does staying home with your commitments render you unfit for the kingdom of God, or is it the most faithful thing you can do to honor God through the care and relationships God has given you?
Both, of course, and more.
Trying to spin out a general rule out of Scripture is like untangling a spider web; each individual story can be read on so many different levels. The soft fibers get caught everywhere in your hair and hands, and all you were trying to do was find one set of instructions. But there is no one set of instructions, unless you step way, way, way, back. Staying or leaving might both be the most faithful choice, or God might have something else in mind. I want to share something I found recently by the Italian monk Carlo Carretto. (1910-1988) He had had a very “productive” activist career and had accomplished a lot, but left to be a monk in the desert in favor of contemplation and simplicity. He wondered if he’d made the right choice, if he were wasting his life. Here’s where he came down:
Only one thing in this world is not problematic: charity, love. Love alone is not a problem for him who lives it. To those who ask me if I am wasting my time, I can only say. “Live love, let love invade you. It will never fail to teach you what you must do.”
Charity, which is God in us, will point to the way ahead. It will say to you “Now kneel,” or “Now leave.” Don’t worry about what you ought to do. Worry about loving. Don’t interrogate heaven repeatedly and uselessly saying, “What course of action should I pursue?” Concentrate on loving instead.
And by loving you will find out what is for you. Loving, you will listen to the Voice. Loving, you will find peace. Love is the fulfillment of the law and should be everyone’s rule of life; in the end it’s the solution to every problem, the motive for all good…
And if the will of God urges you to seek out the poor, to give up all you possess, or to leave for distant lands, what does the rest matter? Or if it calls you to found a family, or take on a job in a city, why should you have any doubts?
Why should you have any doubts? Only love.
Blessings,
Sara+
Miss the sermon on 6/19? It’s here!
In our Gospel on Sunday, the response to Jesus and his disciples is pretty ambivalent. It seems that people want to follow him, but that they all have something to do first—to care for a dying father, to say goodbye to those at home, we could probably all add to the list. We all have a list of things we “need” to do…
Jesus is pretty unimpressed and appears to dismiss them—“”No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Ok! Leave everything, and right away. Except… Last week, the person Jesus healed says he wants to follow Jesus, and Jesus says no. Stay. Stay and talk about what God has done for you.
So which is it? Does staying home with your commitments render you unfit for the kingdom of God, or is it the most faithful thing you can do to honor God through the care and relationships God has given you?
Both, of course, and more.
Trying to spin out a general rule out of Scripture is like untangling a spider web; each individual story can be read on so many different levels. The soft fibers get caught everywhere in your hair and hands, and all you were trying to do was find one set of instructions. But there is no one set of instructions, unless you step way, way, way, back. Staying or leaving might both be the most faithful choice, or God might have something else in mind. I want to share something I found recently by the Italian monk Carlo Carretto. (1910-1988) He had had a very “productive” activist career and had accomplished a lot, but left to be a monk in the desert in favor of contemplation and simplicity. He wondered if he’d made the right choice, if he were wasting his life. Here’s where he came down:
Only one thing in this world is not problematic: charity, love. Love alone is not a problem for him who lives it. To those who ask me if I am wasting my time, I can only say. “Live love, let love invade you. It will never fail to teach you what you must do.”
Charity, which is God in us, will point to the way ahead. It will say to you “Now kneel,” or “Now leave.” Don’t worry about what you ought to do. Worry about loving. Don’t interrogate heaven repeatedly and uselessly saying, “What course of action should I pursue?” Concentrate on loving instead.
And by loving you will find out what is for you. Loving, you will listen to the Voice. Loving, you will find peace. Love is the fulfillment of the law and should be everyone’s rule of life; in the end it’s the solution to every problem, the motive for all good…
And if the will of God urges you to seek out the poor, to give up all you possess, or to leave for distant lands, what does the rest matter? Or if it calls you to found a family, or take on a job in a city, why should you have any doubts?
Why should you have any doubts? Only love.
Blessings,
Sara+
Miss the sermon on 6/19? It’s here!
Thursday, March 10, 2016
We Are Worthy
Dear People of Christ Church,
I recently had some time to spend with my kindle, and found Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. I’ve read a lot of her stuff before, but hadn’t spent much time with this one. Brown’s research started out being about shame—our fear of being unworthy of love and belonging. Since love and belonging are two of the most central human emotional and spiritual needs, shame feels profoundly dangerous to us, and we try to avoid it at all costs. What’s worse, we have a tendency to further isolate ourselves when we feel shame, by bringing in secrecy, silence, and judgment of others to insulate ourselves from the pain. This then spirals out again, which leads to further isolating, further judging, and further suppressing of our feelings. The good news is that we can do things differently—if instead of nurturing our shame we nurture ourselves and remember our inherent worthiness, that cycle is broken. Reaching out to others, reminding ourselves that we aren’t defined by our failures, that we are worthy of love no matter what—Brown calls the capability for that work “shame resilience.”
It’s striking to think about shame in this way as we head into Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday on March 20. Though we often forget it, Scripture can be profoundly psychologically insightful. Unfortunately we often do profoundly un-psychologically insightful things with Scripture!
In thinking about the crucifixion, we sometimes say that Jesus took on our shame and sin, to offer it to God, to heal us. The liturgy for the Stations of the Cross is full of this. That’s true, but Jesus didn’t do that as though we had a dirty shirt on and he took it off of us and put it on his own body. Instead. Jesus’ transformation of our humanity comes from the inside; his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection (yes, all four) symbolize God’s insistent, constant presence with us. It’s true that Jesus’ peaceful response to the violence he faced saved us. That’s true. In a very literal way, yes, we are saved by the cross. But we’re not “more saved” because it was “more worse.” We just are saved. Because God loves us. We just are worthy. Again, because God loves us.
Much is made of the crucifixion as being a particularly grisly and fear-inducing method of enforcing capital punishment. Many people were put to death in the Roman Empire, some by crucifixion, but by no means all. Crucifixion was a warning sign—it served to instill fear. That was its purpose. Yes, it was also shameful. But to say that Jesus’ death was uniquely shameful I think misses the point. The point is that Jesus’ death was not uniquely shameful. It was a way an abusive regime kept its people in line. That’s part of what’s salvific about it—that God experienced, from the inside, the worst of humanity. And God’s love would not be defeated.
We are all worthy—shame doesn’t have the last word for Jesus or for us. I’m getting ahead of us and close to Easter—there is a ways to go—but the resurrection is always true, even in the depths of Lent.
Blessings,
Sara+
I recently had some time to spend with my kindle, and found Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. I’ve read a lot of her stuff before, but hadn’t spent much time with this one. Brown’s research started out being about shame—our fear of being unworthy of love and belonging. Since love and belonging are two of the most central human emotional and spiritual needs, shame feels profoundly dangerous to us, and we try to avoid it at all costs. What’s worse, we have a tendency to further isolate ourselves when we feel shame, by bringing in secrecy, silence, and judgment of others to insulate ourselves from the pain. This then spirals out again, which leads to further isolating, further judging, and further suppressing of our feelings. The good news is that we can do things differently—if instead of nurturing our shame we nurture ourselves and remember our inherent worthiness, that cycle is broken. Reaching out to others, reminding ourselves that we aren’t defined by our failures, that we are worthy of love no matter what—Brown calls the capability for that work “shame resilience.”
It’s striking to think about shame in this way as we head into Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday on March 20. Though we often forget it, Scripture can be profoundly psychologically insightful. Unfortunately we often do profoundly un-psychologically insightful things with Scripture!
In thinking about the crucifixion, we sometimes say that Jesus took on our shame and sin, to offer it to God, to heal us. The liturgy for the Stations of the Cross is full of this. That’s true, but Jesus didn’t do that as though we had a dirty shirt on and he took it off of us and put it on his own body. Instead. Jesus’ transformation of our humanity comes from the inside; his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection (yes, all four) symbolize God’s insistent, constant presence with us. It’s true that Jesus’ peaceful response to the violence he faced saved us. That’s true. In a very literal way, yes, we are saved by the cross. But we’re not “more saved” because it was “more worse.” We just are saved. Because God loves us. We just are worthy. Again, because God loves us.
Much is made of the crucifixion as being a particularly grisly and fear-inducing method of enforcing capital punishment. Many people were put to death in the Roman Empire, some by crucifixion, but by no means all. Crucifixion was a warning sign—it served to instill fear. That was its purpose. Yes, it was also shameful. But to say that Jesus’ death was uniquely shameful I think misses the point. The point is that Jesus’ death was not uniquely shameful. It was a way an abusive regime kept its people in line. That’s part of what’s salvific about it—that God experienced, from the inside, the worst of humanity. And God’s love would not be defeated.
We are all worthy—shame doesn’t have the last word for Jesus or for us. I’m getting ahead of us and close to Easter—there is a ways to go—but the resurrection is always true, even in the depths of Lent.
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, March 3, 2016
"I Will Come the Rest of the Way to You"
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I’ve been spending a lot of time with the prodigal son, part of our Gospel Passage for Sunday. On Tuesday nights our Bible study is on the Scripture for the coming Sunday, so we spent time listening for what this passage says to us now. Usually we read the prodigal son by itself, but in a happy accident we heard the parables it follows: the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the woman who has lost a coin. All three stories, taken together, have a bit of a different sense than they do individually, which is how we usually hear them.
Hearing it as we did next to stories about lost sheep and lost coins, we have an opportunity to see the story as not being about the son’s repentance, but instead about the father’s pure love and forgiveness. A sheep can’t say it’s sorry. A coin doesn’t go off and enjoy itself under the couch and then “come to itself.” Is the son actually sorry? Maybe, maybe not. What’s at stake, if so? Maybe the father loves him so much it doesn’t matter. He “comes to himself.” But maybe it’s not his volition or his repentance that are the point.
The Jewish Bible Scholar Amy Jill Levine says that we get it all wrong when we read this text by itself, because that focuses too much on the son. Instead, it’s actually all about the father. What’s more, there’s also nothing especially Christian about how he reacts; it’s not like Jesus was reflecting some new innovation in the love of God, trying to set up the father as acting somehow contrary to how he’d normally react in his cultural context. Instead, Levine says, fathers love—that’s just what they do, there’s nothing unusual about it. She quotes similar rabbinic stories like this:
Pesikta Rabbati (184–85) recounts: A king had a son who had gone astray from his father on a journey of a hundred days. His friends said to him, “Return to your father.” He said, “I cannot.” Then his father sent word, “Return as far as you can, and I will come the rest of the way to you.” So God says, “Return to me, and I will return to you.”
Returning to God, allowing God to find us, being forgiven even when we don’t repent—one of the translations we heard on Tuesday night has the father calling for the ring and the robe before the son has even had time to say anything at all. It’s just his son. He just loves him and is thrilled to have him back.
I’m sharing here images from our own stained glass windows. Yes, it might not actually be “about” the son, but look at the suffering on the younger son’s face—look at the rage on the older brother’s, seeing the party in the distance—see how broken they both were, and in such different circumstances. More than one person mentioned how we remembered former beloved parishioner Marcia Luce’s frank distaste for the story, thinking the older brother go ripped off. Maybe it’s because I identify too much with the younger brother, but I can’t muster up too much sympathy for his anger. I just love this father too much, thinking about how much I need unconditional love like that, thinking about how far God has come to find me.
Blessings,
Sara+
P.S.—thanks to Heather Leonardo, who is offering the children’s sermon this Sunday!
Blessings,
Sara+
Miss the sermon from Sunday, February 28? It’s here.
This week I’ve been spending a lot of time with the prodigal son, part of our Gospel Passage for Sunday. On Tuesday nights our Bible study is on the Scripture for the coming Sunday, so we spent time listening for what this passage says to us now. Usually we read the prodigal son by itself, but in a happy accident we heard the parables it follows: the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the woman who has lost a coin. All three stories, taken together, have a bit of a different sense than they do individually, which is how we usually hear them.
Hearing it as we did next to stories about lost sheep and lost coins, we have an opportunity to see the story as not being about the son’s repentance, but instead about the father’s pure love and forgiveness. A sheep can’t say it’s sorry. A coin doesn’t go off and enjoy itself under the couch and then “come to itself.” Is the son actually sorry? Maybe, maybe not. What’s at stake, if so? Maybe the father loves him so much it doesn’t matter. He “comes to himself.” But maybe it’s not his volition or his repentance that are the point.
The Jewish Bible Scholar Amy Jill Levine says that we get it all wrong when we read this text by itself, because that focuses too much on the son. Instead, it’s actually all about the father. What’s more, there’s also nothing especially Christian about how he reacts; it’s not like Jesus was reflecting some new innovation in the love of God, trying to set up the father as acting somehow contrary to how he’d normally react in his cultural context. Instead, Levine says, fathers love—that’s just what they do, there’s nothing unusual about it. She quotes similar rabbinic stories like this:
Pesikta Rabbati (184–85) recounts: A king had a son who had gone astray from his father on a journey of a hundred days. His friends said to him, “Return to your father.” He said, “I cannot.” Then his father sent word, “Return as far as you can, and I will come the rest of the way to you.” So God says, “Return to me, and I will return to you.”
Returning to God, allowing God to find us, being forgiven even when we don’t repent—one of the translations we heard on Tuesday night has the father calling for the ring and the robe before the son has even had time to say anything at all. It’s just his son. He just loves him and is thrilled to have him back.
I’m sharing here images from our own stained glass windows. Yes, it might not actually be “about” the son, but look at the suffering on the younger son’s face—look at the rage on the older brother’s, seeing the party in the distance—see how broken they both were, and in such different circumstances. More than one person mentioned how we remembered former beloved parishioner Marcia Luce’s frank distaste for the story, thinking the older brother go ripped off. Maybe it’s because I identify too much with the younger brother, but I can’t muster up too much sympathy for his anger. I just love this father too much, thinking about how much I need unconditional love like that, thinking about how far God has come to find me.
Blessings,
Sara+
P.S.—thanks to Heather Leonardo, who is offering the children’s sermon this Sunday!
Blessings,
Sara+
Miss the sermon from Sunday, February 28? It’s here.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Deeply Seen by Jesus
Dear People of Christ Church,
I’m still mulling over the Gospel for Sunday, Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man. It’s an astonishing and tragic moment: he comes up to Jesus and bows down, offering deference and respect. “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We can imagine that maybe he’s expecting to be told he’s doing well; he says he has kept all the commandments. But something unanticipated happens—Jesus looks at him, and loves him. In that loving glance, Jesus sees him and knows him, and tells him what he’s missing: “You lack one thing. Go, sell all you own, and give the money to the poor. Then come, follow me.” The man was looking for approval, not grace. Certainly not this kind of love that will change his life. So he leaves. The text says, “He went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
This, it seems to me, is as clear a picture of hell as we ever see in the New Testament. Never mind all that stuff about the eternal fire where the worm never dies we heard a few weeks ago. This is the real thing. All of the promises of God’s eternity so close he could touch it, and instead he turns his back. The psychological keenness of the Gospel story is so striking—he went away grieving. Giving in to his fear, he can’t listen to his sorrow. He walks away into hell, rejecting the invitation and love of Jesus.
There is a stained glass window at Grace Church in Medford, where my husband is the rector, that has a person with exactly the same expression as I imagine Jesus offering this young man. It’s full of compassion and love, a deep, knowing comfort. In this all-encompassing gaze, you are seen, deeply seen. All of your fears, all of your vulnerability, all of your joy and strength. And I imagine when this young man encountered Jesus looking at him like that, he just couldn’t manage it. It was too much. This is where the depth of this story really hits home—that glance. How often do I let my fear of vulnerability take over? How often do I rely on the safety of invisibility rather than the risk of transformation?
What would I do if I heard that call to sell everything I own and give it to the poor? Jesus is really clear here—it’s give the money. Not to a charitable organization that will “responsibly” dole out assistance. It’s about the cash, here, giving it up and giving it to those who don’t have any. Is this the call of the Gospel now? With every home improvement project and nice sweater I buy, am I walking step by step away from the promises of eternal life? Is it possible still to inch closer and closer, slowly, slowly, near to God’s dream of peace and justice, however often we become distracted and confused? How about you? Where are you encountering that love of Jesus, and how are you turning toward it?
Blessings,
Sara+
P.S. So—when I say I like the window—I really like the window. I sat opposite it when I was on sabbatical three years ago and sang in the choir at Grace, and started contemplating it as a tattoo. This fall I took the plunge—more about that process on my own blog.
I’m still mulling over the Gospel for Sunday, Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man. It’s an astonishing and tragic moment: he comes up to Jesus and bows down, offering deference and respect. “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We can imagine that maybe he’s expecting to be told he’s doing well; he says he has kept all the commandments. But something unanticipated happens—Jesus looks at him, and loves him. In that loving glance, Jesus sees him and knows him, and tells him what he’s missing: “You lack one thing. Go, sell all you own, and give the money to the poor. Then come, follow me.” The man was looking for approval, not grace. Certainly not this kind of love that will change his life. So he leaves. The text says, “He went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
This, it seems to me, is as clear a picture of hell as we ever see in the New Testament. Never mind all that stuff about the eternal fire where the worm never dies we heard a few weeks ago. This is the real thing. All of the promises of God’s eternity so close he could touch it, and instead he turns his back. The psychological keenness of the Gospel story is so striking—he went away grieving. Giving in to his fear, he can’t listen to his sorrow. He walks away into hell, rejecting the invitation and love of Jesus.
There is a stained glass window at Grace Church in Medford, where my husband is the rector, that has a person with exactly the same expression as I imagine Jesus offering this young man. It’s full of compassion and love, a deep, knowing comfort. In this all-encompassing gaze, you are seen, deeply seen. All of your fears, all of your vulnerability, all of your joy and strength. And I imagine when this young man encountered Jesus looking at him like that, he just couldn’t manage it. It was too much. This is where the depth of this story really hits home—that glance. How often do I let my fear of vulnerability take over? How often do I rely on the safety of invisibility rather than the risk of transformation?
What would I do if I heard that call to sell everything I own and give it to the poor? Jesus is really clear here—it’s give the money. Not to a charitable organization that will “responsibly” dole out assistance. It’s about the cash, here, giving it up and giving it to those who don’t have any. Is this the call of the Gospel now? With every home improvement project and nice sweater I buy, am I walking step by step away from the promises of eternal life? Is it possible still to inch closer and closer, slowly, slowly, near to God’s dream of peace and justice, however often we become distracted and confused? How about you? Where are you encountering that love of Jesus, and how are you turning toward it?
Blessings,
Sara+
P.S. So—when I say I like the window—I really like the window. I sat opposite it when I was on sabbatical three years ago and sang in the choir at Grace, and started contemplating it as a tattoo. This fall I took the plunge—more about that process on my own blog.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Rest in Peace, Paula
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, I write with a mixture of joy and sadness. Joy at the amazing gift of the ten year anniversary of ministry celebration on Sunday—truly, it is a marvelous gift to be your priest—and sadness, with the death yesterday of Christ Church friend Paula Tatarunis. Paula had been on a complicated road of recovery from an AVM in her brain that came to light in February, and had been in various states of consciousness since then, almost recovering in April and having a setback when her brain began to bleed in a procedure intended to prevent future strokes. Paula was a brilliant, creative, dedicated, thoughtful, and just generally remarkable human being. She went from lurking in the back pew to being in charge of the altar guild in about five minutes, and helped to keep the choir together in some pretty lean times. She read everything from classical and medieval theology to inter-church debates over Anglican polity with the same intellectual fervor, humor, and some skepticism. She was a doctor at the clinic at Lawrence Memorial in Medford, but had also spent time as a “jailhouse doc” at MCI Norfolk, with a deep passion for justice for the men who were incarcerated there. Paula never rested on anything so simple as tradition or custom in her own spirituality, but was unfailingly dedicated to embodying the wider church tradition, setting the altar with a military precision pretty impressive for someone who was more of a pacifist.
Over the years, Paula came to find that she and Jesus were working through some differences that felt irreconcilable to her. The amount of translation she found herself needing to do to be in church was just too much. The mystery of God for Paula was silence and stillness, out taking pictures of dead weeds. God was harder to find for her in the particularity of Jesus and the practices of the church. We emailed off and on throughout her sojourn away—she was always still wrestling, always still seeking. Last December she came one Sunday and as we were emailing afterwards said it felt good, but that she felt like her vocation was in the outer darkness. She had so much light, though. It was a privilege to be her priest and a daunting wonder to plan her funeral for this Saturday.
I don’t know how other clergy do it, but I fall in love with each of you every single time, and it’s always bound for heartbreak. I cry at your funerals and your baptisms, just astonished at the grace of God and the fleeting nature of it all. This, of course, is the way of the cross—it’s the shape of human life that loss and grief weave through unbearable beauty. One of the graces of the time of accompanying Paula through her journey these last months has been getting to know her husband, Darrell, who, though he dismisses himself as an “agnostic Jewish heathen” shows a love for his wife so deep I can only see God there. The way of the cross is the way of life, as, too, resurrection. Whatever Paula finally thought about the theology of the Trinity, I am so sure that Jesus was just as in love with Paula as those of us who were blessed enough to know her in her life.
Services for Paula will be at Christ Church this Saturday at 1pm, with a larger memorial service with poetry and jazz planned for late October.
Blessings,
Sara+
This week, I write with a mixture of joy and sadness. Joy at the amazing gift of the ten year anniversary of ministry celebration on Sunday—truly, it is a marvelous gift to be your priest—and sadness, with the death yesterday of Christ Church friend Paula Tatarunis. Paula had been on a complicated road of recovery from an AVM in her brain that came to light in February, and had been in various states of consciousness since then, almost recovering in April and having a setback when her brain began to bleed in a procedure intended to prevent future strokes. Paula was a brilliant, creative, dedicated, thoughtful, and just generally remarkable human being. She went from lurking in the back pew to being in charge of the altar guild in about five minutes, and helped to keep the choir together in some pretty lean times. She read everything from classical and medieval theology to inter-church debates over Anglican polity with the same intellectual fervor, humor, and some skepticism. She was a doctor at the clinic at Lawrence Memorial in Medford, but had also spent time as a “jailhouse doc” at MCI Norfolk, with a deep passion for justice for the men who were incarcerated there. Paula never rested on anything so simple as tradition or custom in her own spirituality, but was unfailingly dedicated to embodying the wider church tradition, setting the altar with a military precision pretty impressive for someone who was more of a pacifist.
Over the years, Paula came to find that she and Jesus were working through some differences that felt irreconcilable to her. The amount of translation she found herself needing to do to be in church was just too much. The mystery of God for Paula was silence and stillness, out taking pictures of dead weeds. God was harder to find for her in the particularity of Jesus and the practices of the church. We emailed off and on throughout her sojourn away—she was always still wrestling, always still seeking. Last December she came one Sunday and as we were emailing afterwards said it felt good, but that she felt like her vocation was in the outer darkness. She had so much light, though. It was a privilege to be her priest and a daunting wonder to plan her funeral for this Saturday.
I don’t know how other clergy do it, but I fall in love with each of you every single time, and it’s always bound for heartbreak. I cry at your funerals and your baptisms, just astonished at the grace of God and the fleeting nature of it all. This, of course, is the way of the cross—it’s the shape of human life that loss and grief weave through unbearable beauty. One of the graces of the time of accompanying Paula through her journey these last months has been getting to know her husband, Darrell, who, though he dismisses himself as an “agnostic Jewish heathen” shows a love for his wife so deep I can only see God there. The way of the cross is the way of life, as, too, resurrection. Whatever Paula finally thought about the theology of the Trinity, I am so sure that Jesus was just as in love with Paula as those of us who were blessed enough to know her in her life.
Services for Paula will be at Christ Church this Saturday at 1pm, with a larger memorial service with poetry and jazz planned for late October.
Blessings,
Sara+
Friday, May 29, 2015
End of Life Conversation
Dear People of Christ Church,
Tuesday, June 2, I hope you’ll join me for our “end of life issues” conversation. This is the third or fourth year our parish has offered this time, and there just aren’t enough words to say how important it is to grapple with these hard questions.
I write about death in this space a lot. I write about death when someone beloved to our congregation dies. I write about death when we host these conversations every year. I write about death as we get close to Thanksgiving—having everyone at the table is a good time to talk about end of life questions. I think about death a lot. But thinking and writing about death a lot isn’t the same as being okay with it.
And that’s why we have to practice.
That’s why we have to talk about death again and again and again, until we can get it from our brains into our hearts and back to our brains that death is part of life, that we have reason to trust God and trust those we love, that the “One who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give new live to our mortal bodies” through God’s indwelling Spirit (BCP 501). God is love. The love that makes us grieve for one another is the same love that gives us everlasting life. Our love for each other and the love of God are of one piece. God’s love weaves in and out of our own lives in each of us.
For those of us who are left behind, though, death is terrifying. We know who we are in relation to those around us. Our parents, friends, spouses, children—they help make us who we are. We fear not having those we love. Who will we be without them? So it seems easier to save up the hard conversations for later. It seems like maybe if we don’t talk about death, it won’t be real. But our denial of death doesn’t make it less real. The less we talk about what we want for the end of our life, the harder it is to face when it actually happens.
What kind of care do you want in case of a traumatic injury? Under what circumstances would you want to initiate a “Do Not Resuscitate” order? Is it important is to you to be at home when you die? What hymns do you want to be sung at your funeral? Do you want someone to offer a eulogy about you? What Gospel do you want to have preached? Are you a “many dwelling places” kind of person, or do you go for the beatitudes? Have you filled out a health care proxy form, and does your doctor have a copy? Would you consider leaving a gift to your church, or other organizations that are important to you, in your will?
The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome,
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39)
Thanks be to God!
For our end of life issues “workbook,” see A Christian Prepares for Death
Blessings,
Sara+
Tuesday, June 2, I hope you’ll join me for our “end of life issues” conversation. This is the third or fourth year our parish has offered this time, and there just aren’t enough words to say how important it is to grapple with these hard questions.
I write about death in this space a lot. I write about death when someone beloved to our congregation dies. I write about death when we host these conversations every year. I write about death as we get close to Thanksgiving—having everyone at the table is a good time to talk about end of life questions. I think about death a lot. But thinking and writing about death a lot isn’t the same as being okay with it.
And that’s why we have to practice.
That’s why we have to talk about death again and again and again, until we can get it from our brains into our hearts and back to our brains that death is part of life, that we have reason to trust God and trust those we love, that the “One who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give new live to our mortal bodies” through God’s indwelling Spirit (BCP 501). God is love. The love that makes us grieve for one another is the same love that gives us everlasting life. Our love for each other and the love of God are of one piece. God’s love weaves in and out of our own lives in each of us.
For those of us who are left behind, though, death is terrifying. We know who we are in relation to those around us. Our parents, friends, spouses, children—they help make us who we are. We fear not having those we love. Who will we be without them? So it seems easier to save up the hard conversations for later. It seems like maybe if we don’t talk about death, it won’t be real. But our denial of death doesn’t make it less real. The less we talk about what we want for the end of our life, the harder it is to face when it actually happens.
What kind of care do you want in case of a traumatic injury? Under what circumstances would you want to initiate a “Do Not Resuscitate” order? Is it important is to you to be at home when you die? What hymns do you want to be sung at your funeral? Do you want someone to offer a eulogy about you? What Gospel do you want to have preached? Are you a “many dwelling places” kind of person, or do you go for the beatitudes? Have you filled out a health care proxy form, and does your doctor have a copy? Would you consider leaving a gift to your church, or other organizations that are important to you, in your will?
The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome,
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39)
Thanks be to God!
For our end of life issues “workbook,” see A Christian Prepares for Death
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Called to Rejoice: Equal Marriage, Step by Step
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, I'm all aflutter about the decision in my home state of Pennsylvania to allow same sex marriage. Of course, it's been the law in my chosen state for ten years (we moved here in 2004, too, the same year it came through), but this feels different. Pennsylvania is such a big state-the part I'm from is basically Ohio-and while it's may not be such a paradigm shift for Philadelphia, for Erie, this changes a lot. Admittedly there was something Onion-satire-like about the headline on the Erie Times-News: "Another same sex couple applies for marriage license."
In Massachusetts, this is old news. Still, there's something about the place where I'm from recognizing the right to marriage for all people that feels healing. My right to marry my spouse was never questioned because my beloved happens to be male, but that is not the case for one of my high school best friends, who had three weddings with her wife-one commitment ceremony, one legal NH civil union (presided over by yours truly), and one party when that civil union became a legal marriage on January 1 2011. Phew. They had to buy a lot of champagne.
Marriage is a sacrament, a gift, and a blessing. There's an old image of the church that imagines us as "the bride of Christ"-this is not an image that I feel particularly drawn toward, but it reminds us that the covenant of marriage is holy-and the failure of the church or the state to extend equal benefits to all is just an injustice. Of course I believe in separation of church and state, but I also want a wedding I officiate in church to be legal in the eyes of the state. I haven't been to Pennsylvania in years, but I still feel so grateful for this. Judge John Jones, in the PA case wrote, "In the sixty years since Brown was decided, 'separate' has thankfully faded into history, and only 'equal' remains. Similarly, in future generations, the label 'same-sex marriage' will be abandoned, to be replaced simply by 'marriage.' We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history"
This is the country we are becoming; we're not there yet, but slowly, slowly. This is what we say we'll do in our baptismal covenant: to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being. With each state where marriage for all becomes a reality, we get just a little closer to making that possible. Oregon went this week, too. Now, reader, I've been sending this newsletter every week for almost nine years, and perhaps you've read this before. But it's like that parable Jesus tells in Luke 15:
Which one 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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.
Every time, every time there is a victory for peace and justice, we are called to rejoice. So today, I'm rejoicing for those two couples in my hometown who've gotten their marriage licenses. Easter continues!
Blessings,
Sara+
This week, I'm all aflutter about the decision in my home state of Pennsylvania to allow same sex marriage. Of course, it's been the law in my chosen state for ten years (we moved here in 2004, too, the same year it came through), but this feels different. Pennsylvania is such a big state-the part I'm from is basically Ohio-and while it's may not be such a paradigm shift for Philadelphia, for Erie, this changes a lot. Admittedly there was something Onion-satire-like about the headline on the Erie Times-News: "Another same sex couple applies for marriage license."
In Massachusetts, this is old news. Still, there's something about the place where I'm from recognizing the right to marriage for all people that feels healing. My right to marry my spouse was never questioned because my beloved happens to be male, but that is not the case for one of my high school best friends, who had three weddings with her wife-one commitment ceremony, one legal NH civil union (presided over by yours truly), and one party when that civil union became a legal marriage on January 1 2011. Phew. They had to buy a lot of champagne.
Marriage is a sacrament, a gift, and a blessing. There's an old image of the church that imagines us as "the bride of Christ"-this is not an image that I feel particularly drawn toward, but it reminds us that the covenant of marriage is holy-and the failure of the church or the state to extend equal benefits to all is just an injustice. Of course I believe in separation of church and state, but I also want a wedding I officiate in church to be legal in the eyes of the state. I haven't been to Pennsylvania in years, but I still feel so grateful for this. Judge John Jones, in the PA case wrote, "In the sixty years since Brown was decided, 'separate' has thankfully faded into history, and only 'equal' remains. Similarly, in future generations, the label 'same-sex marriage' will be abandoned, to be replaced simply by 'marriage.' We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history"
This is the country we are becoming; we're not there yet, but slowly, slowly. This is what we say we'll do in our baptismal covenant: to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being. With each state where marriage for all becomes a reality, we get just a little closer to making that possible. Oregon went this week, too. Now, reader, I've been sending this newsletter every week for almost nine years, and perhaps you've read this before. But it's like that parable Jesus tells in Luke 15:
Which one 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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.
Every time, every time there is a victory for peace and justice, we are called to rejoice. So today, I'm rejoicing for those two couples in my hometown who've gotten their marriage licenses. Easter continues!
Blessings,
Sara+
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
From 12 20: The Christmas Moment
Dear People of Christ Church,
It's so nice to be back writing to you, particularly knowing how well things have gone in my absence! I am so thankful to Rev. Norm Faramelli for holding down the fort, and to Sharon in the office for managing everything so smoothly behind the scenes. And there are not enough thanks and blessings for Jonathan, your senior warden, Victoria, and all the vestry! At the root of it all is my gratitude to God for all the ways God has made this such a strong church and to each of you who make it what it is. Since it's the end of the year, I also offer thanks to those who have made financial pledges for 2013-get those cards in!
So what have I been up to?
My initial goals were writing poetry and singing, and for September, November, and December, I was immersed in those projects. I met with teachers affiliated with Bethany House of Prayer (for poetry) and Episcopal Divinity School (for singing), and have collected a few things I've written which hopefully soon will reach the light of day and into a readable form. I attended church on Sundays with my family at Grace Church, Medford, where Noah is the rector, and sang in the choir there, which was so much fun. So. Much. Fun. I was happy to see many of you when I came to church on December 2 before taking off for Africa. My trip to Tanzania and Uganda was amazing-beautiful, heartbreaking, fascinating-the adjectives continue. I wrote and posted pictures whenever I had internet access at my personal blog- www.saraiwrites.blogspot.com -and you're welcome to take a look.
Finally, Christmas. Throughout my time in Africa, my thoughts returned often to all the hustle and bustle that must have been taking place at home, none of which was evident where I was. I did, however, see Christmas everywhere. Why Christmas? Because Christmas is the time when we look to God, most ultimate power of the universe, born in powerlessness.
In this Christmas moment, God has chosen the weakest possible place to show us who God is. At Christmas we learn that God will always go to the place of the least power. God will go to the kids we met in Tanzania who have no access to health care within 100 miles. God will go to the Ugandan teenager whose parents have died of AIDS and whose grandmother is dying too and can't take care of her. To the twelve year old who doesn't have enough food and gets dizzy from his HIV medicine. To the fifteen year old who has become the head of her household and goes out to sell charcoal before school.
To Newtown, and to all victims of gun violence. To the new immigrant struggling to learn English and the elder who stretches to make ends meet by the end of the month. To the gay teenager coming out to his parents, unsure of how they will react. All of those places of weakness and struggle are where God will be born. All of those people will not be abandoned. God will be born, too, in places of justice-making. Where Ann Nyangoma, the director of the education program we visited offers comprehensive family support and school tuition to sponsored students. Where Bishop Maimbo of the Anglican Diocese of Tanzania helps his parishes start microcredit programs and build capacity for local hospitals. Where the Community Day Center of Waltham offers a refuge from the street. All of these are images of Christmas, where a different vision of power comes to be. Not the power of wealth or influence, but the power of vulnerability and love.
There is nothing wrong with presents at Christmas. But that version of giving isn't the whole story. Christmas isn't just about giving. It's about being changed, top to bottom, and bringing that change into the streets. Celebrating the birth of God born in a truly marginal place-among people who are oppressed, who society turns away from-how will we be moved? How will we turn away from imaginary conflicts over public displays of religion and look at where God can actually be found?
How will we hear what God asks of us, and how will we respond?
Blessings,
Sara+
p.s. Visit www.maserekafoundation.org for more on the group we spent time with in Uganda; my
blog is at www.saraiwrites.blogspot.com
It's so nice to be back writing to you, particularly knowing how well things have gone in my absence! I am so thankful to Rev. Norm Faramelli for holding down the fort, and to Sharon in the office for managing everything so smoothly behind the scenes. And there are not enough thanks and blessings for Jonathan, your senior warden, Victoria, and all the vestry! At the root of it all is my gratitude to God for all the ways God has made this such a strong church and to each of you who make it what it is. Since it's the end of the year, I also offer thanks to those who have made financial pledges for 2013-get those cards in!
So what have I been up to?
My initial goals were writing poetry and singing, and for September, November, and December, I was immersed in those projects. I met with teachers affiliated with Bethany House of Prayer (for poetry) and Episcopal Divinity School (for singing), and have collected a few things I've written which hopefully soon will reach the light of day and into a readable form. I attended church on Sundays with my family at Grace Church, Medford, where Noah is the rector, and sang in the choir there, which was so much fun. So. Much. Fun. I was happy to see many of you when I came to church on December 2 before taking off for Africa. My trip to Tanzania and Uganda was amazing-beautiful, heartbreaking, fascinating-the adjectives continue. I wrote and posted pictures whenever I had internet access at my personal blog- www.saraiwrites.blogspot.com -and you're welcome to take a look.
Finally, Christmas. Throughout my time in Africa, my thoughts returned often to all the hustle and bustle that must have been taking place at home, none of which was evident where I was. I did, however, see Christmas everywhere. Why Christmas? Because Christmas is the time when we look to God, most ultimate power of the universe, born in powerlessness.
In this Christmas moment, God has chosen the weakest possible place to show us who God is. At Christmas we learn that God will always go to the place of the least power. God will go to the kids we met in Tanzania who have no access to health care within 100 miles. God will go to the Ugandan teenager whose parents have died of AIDS and whose grandmother is dying too and can't take care of her. To the twelve year old who doesn't have enough food and gets dizzy from his HIV medicine. To the fifteen year old who has become the head of her household and goes out to sell charcoal before school.
To Newtown, and to all victims of gun violence. To the new immigrant struggling to learn English and the elder who stretches to make ends meet by the end of the month. To the gay teenager coming out to his parents, unsure of how they will react. All of those places of weakness and struggle are where God will be born. All of those people will not be abandoned. God will be born, too, in places of justice-making. Where Ann Nyangoma, the director of the education program we visited offers comprehensive family support and school tuition to sponsored students. Where Bishop Maimbo of the Anglican Diocese of Tanzania helps his parishes start microcredit programs and build capacity for local hospitals. Where the Community Day Center of Waltham offers a refuge from the street. All of these are images of Christmas, where a different vision of power comes to be. Not the power of wealth or influence, but the power of vulnerability and love.
There is nothing wrong with presents at Christmas. But that version of giving isn't the whole story. Christmas isn't just about giving. It's about being changed, top to bottom, and bringing that change into the streets. Celebrating the birth of God born in a truly marginal place-among people who are oppressed, who society turns away from-how will we be moved? How will we turn away from imaginary conflicts over public displays of religion and look at where God can actually be found?
How will we hear what God asks of us, and how will we respond?
Blessings,
Sara+
p.s. Visit www.maserekafoundation.org for more on the group we spent time with in Uganda; my
blog is at www.saraiwrites.blogspot.com
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Feb. 14: Cyril or Valentine?
Happy Saints Cyril and Methodius Day!
OK, it’s also Valentine’s Day, but not on our saints’ calendar. Cyril and Methodius were a pair of Greek brothers in the ninth century. They were missionary priests sent to the Khazars, near the Black sea in what was later Russia. They learned the local language and translated much of the Bible into Slavonic, which had no written form, so local people would be able to read Scripture for themselves. Their work to give it a printed language gave rise to the Cyrillic alphabet (Cyrilà Cyrillic), still used (in a modified form) in Russian and its linguistic cousins. They are regarded as the founders of Slavic literature, and celebrated today because Cyril died on this date in 869. You can read more about them at (http://satucket.com/lectionary/Cyril&Methodius.htm).
A lot less is known for certain about “St Valentine.” There was a historical St Valentine (or several—of the early church martyrs there are three by that name—it was actually pretty common), and there are many legends surrounding the name and the reason Feb. 14 has come to be associated with it and romantic love. One story holds that Valentine was a priest in Rome, and the Emperor (Claudius II) ordered young men not to marry. He thought he’d have more soldiers if there were no wives to convince their husbands to stay home. Valentine, a priest, secretly married young lovers. He was supposedly martyred on Feb. 14. We also may have Gregory Chaucer, author of the medieval Canterbury Tales, to thank for Valentine’s Day on Feb. 14. He mentions it in the context of the mating of birds halfway through February to encourage all of creation to, well, mate.
So which is it? Cyril or Valentine? Obviously, the Christian tradition has a lot to say about love: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4.12). The church has not historically been very excited about the romantic love that Valentine’s Day sentimentalizes. Sex is bad, sex is dirty, and nice people don’t talk about it. Or, on the other extreme, sex is so elevated and so otherworldly, regular people don’t talk about it. The problem with this attitude is that it’s allowed our cultural conversation about relationships to be totally dominated by gender stereotypes and one-dimensional, frequently antagonistic views of human relating. None of us are from Mars or Venus—we’re from earth! All of us! We can speak to each other, and share what’s on our hearts in trust and in faith. We can show our love for each other in mutual and life-giving ways. But you wouldn’t guess that watching “Wife Swap” or “Desperate Housewives.”
So, here in my newsletter, I’m encouraging all of you to take this February 14 for both Cyril AND Valentine. Cyril and his brother worked to make the word of God intelligible to people, so they could understand each other and God. Love in all its forms is surely the word of God and a sign of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So sit down with the person you love and ask them: where is the word of God in this relationship for you? How can we speak God’s love to each other, in all of the ways, physical as well as emotional, we relate to each other? If you aren’t part of a relationship like that, pray for a moment about how God is glorified in the way that you show love for yourself; how you take care of your health, how you eat well, how you exercise and how you make time for friendships and community. Thanks be to God for all of our saints.
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