Last Thursday I was with the Sisters of St. Anne, a religious community of five women--three of them are filipino, one is from the Bahamas, and the other from Brooklyn, though each has been in the order their entire adult lives. In that sense, given their life-long vocations, it's important to say that their home is at the convent in Arlington Heights, Massachusetts.
Every morning at 8:00am they gather in their exquisite (Ralph Adams Cram) chapel, stunning in its simplicity, for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. None of them is ordained so the sisters rely on priests from around the Diocese of Massachusetts to preside and preach. It's my privilege to be among the priests whom they invite; my day is usually the last Thursday of every month.
Arlington Heights is so close...it takes me fewer than ten minutes to get there. And without fail one of them is in the sacristy to welcome--with such warmth and genuine interest. Everything is neat as a pin...the sacristy, the vestments, and the altar furnishings are spotlessly laundered, and done so with devotion and years of steeped-in prayer. The liturgy is straight-up Prayer Book, but oh how they're there. The responses are are strong, and the quiet is long.
After Mass, as I drove over the hill into Winchester, I realized that I felt every bit as home there, with the sisters, as I do with the people at the Parish of the Epiphany, and that both communities have the capacity to do two things: to nurture me, and to be nurtured by me. If there's nothing else to the sacrament of Holy Baptism surely it's that...a mutual portion of Christ's presence.
02 October 2012
01 October 2012
A sermon for the Parish of the Epiphany
A sermon for the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, Massachusetts, preached by the rector, the Reverend Thomas James Brown, on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, 30 September 2012, based upon the Book of Esther. To God be the glory.
We’ve heard three sermons this month. The first was from a stranger about the vocation to welcome, the second was from the assistant rector about the vocation to teach, and last week the Bishop Suffragan preached on the vocation to serve. I hope this will be a sermon about all three, I hope God will put it upon our hearts to say yes, to run and not walk, into each of those roles of welcoming, teaching, and serving.
Will you hear the story of Esther? It only comes around one Sunday every three years. Esther is a messiah, not the Messiah, but she saves the Jews from annihilation, and it’s her story that birthed the Jewish festival of Purim. We have to understand some of the context. At the end of the exile, the Persian empire, nearly 500 years before the birth of Christ, was a place where many Jews continued to choose to live. Most of them had returned home, but over the course of their living in exile, many discovered that the land of Israel was not the only place where God dwelled, and so it was that many Jews, including Esther, along with her cousin/surrogate father, Mordecai, were among the Jews who stayed. But living under the rule of King Ahasuerus was not easy. He acted omnipotently, he was fickle, extravagant, overly-sexed, and a combination of an absent-minded professor and a bully. Ahasuerus’s closest advisor is Haman, who has made it clear that he wants the Jews killed, and through his machiavellian maneuvers the King decrees that all Jews will be killed. There is one shred of hope for the Jews: Esther. Through Cousin Mordecai, who coached her, Esther underwent a year of spa treatments to have a one night hook up with the king. Things must have worked well because Ahasuerus made Esther his queen, but in title only. In every other way she was a subject, and just as vulnerable to being put to death as anybody else. Esther is so cut off that she knows nothing of Haman and the King’s plans to annihilate the Jews, so Mordecai fills her in, and says, “Esther, it’s up to you.” Esther protests and says she has no power, but Mordecai holds firm and seals the argument by saying, “Esther, do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than the rest of us Jews? Your silence will get you killed. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” God will use Esther to save God’s people. For just such a time as this.
On September 10th Jorge Fuentes was shot outside of his home in Dorchester. The Sunday after Jorge’s death you gave over $2,000 to support a South End parish church and their programs. It’s called St. Stephen’s. It’s a community which mattered so much to Jorge, and it’s also a center of our own transformation. The day after you gave all that money several of us went to St. Stephen’s on Shawmut Avenue for a vigil. The street was packed with people from every walk of life. There were old people, Spanish speaking people, African-Americans, there were young people doing a City Year, diocesan priests and deacons, and our bishop; there were scores of parishioners from St. Stephen’s, and of course Jorge’s family, friends, and neighbors. At 9:00 the hundreds of us walked in procession carrying lit candles, just around the block really, stopping several times to remember the young men who have been killed in the neighborhood, including the painful irony of Jorge’s uncle and namesake, who was killed 20 years ago. At the end, the Reverend Liz Steinhauser, the associate at St. Stephen’s, read the names of all 36 people who have died from homicide in the City of Boston since January 1st of this year. It was a moment I shall never forget.
On Wednesday, September 26th, ten days later, something else happened. My colleagues had hosted a birthday party for me following our staff meeting, as a result I was leaving later than I should have for a meeting at the diocesan office, a meeting which Bishop Shaw had organized to talk about the Episcopal Church’s response to our city, to Jorge’s death, and to the gospel itself. I walked into the conference room with 20 or so others...legislators, priests from the suburbs and from the city, Tim Crellin, the vicar at St. Stephen’s, and his wife, Jenny, and Liz Steinhauser, and several others whom I’d never met. Like unto the vigil outside of St. Stephen’s, the power in that meeting, the power of God that is, was so strong that I believe it will shape a chunk of our life together for a long time. At one point I felt as if my heart was missing a beat because of the intensity of the moment. In the days since then I feel as though a different kind of reality is taking shape. We will not say that God willed Jorge’s death. But maybe God has put us, along with other Episcopalians in and around Boston, for just such a time as this.
I’m asking us to follow in the way of Esther, who did indeed save her people. She was propelled to action of extraordinary resolve and courage, going so far as to seduce Ahasuerus until he issues a new decree, and the Jews are saved. We are propelled to no less an extraordinary posture of courage and action. Oh how Esther is a story for us today, teaching us that life in our city is dangerous, but not without hope. We can’t and shouldn’t do it alone, but we cannot merely sit back and wallow in sadness.
Teens in our city have almost universal access to drugs and guns, and a seemingly universal barrier to jobs and exit pathways from poverty. Perhaps we have come to this place, to this moment, to these people, to this challenge, for just such a time as this. At the meeting at the diocesan office Liz proposed that we create 910 additional jobs for teens during the next year, redeeming the date 9/10, and doing that in partnership with the city, with St. Stephen’s, and with the government. She wonders if we can build an after school program at Madison Park High School, the only vocational school in our city, where students are dismissed at 1:45 and where there are 5 guidance counselors for all 1300 students. I believe we are so called and I am ready and willing to take us there. But that’s not all. With your support and participation we’ll invite every single one of our 190 faith communities to read the book, The New Jim Crow by Michele Alexander. Even more, I believe that we will, despite the supreme court’s recent ruling, work to end gun trafficking and gun sales. Perhaps we have come to this place, to this moment, to these people, to this challenge, for just such a time as this. In 2013 our parish will celebrate 125 years since our founding. We moved from Mt. Vernon Street to Church Street in 1905, and since then we’ve been moving from here to all sorts of towns-- to Woburn, Chelsea, Cambridge, Lawrence, Tegucigalpa, San Salvador, Leogane, Kigali, Jerusalem, and yes, to Boston!
Throughout all the generations of our parish’s life various Mordecais, some of them rectors, most of them lay people, have grabbed our ears, our checkbooks, our devotion to Jesus Christ and the worship of his church, and said, “Maybe you’ve been given this desire, money, this talent, this vision, this call for just such a time as this.”
Esther didn’t have everything, and neither do we. But we have some things...a desire to welcome and invite others, a call to teach and to learn, and to serve the city for just such a time as this. Esther said yes. If she can do it, so can we.
We’ve heard three sermons this month. The first was from a stranger about the vocation to welcome, the second was from the assistant rector about the vocation to teach, and last week the Bishop Suffragan preached on the vocation to serve. I hope this will be a sermon about all three, I hope God will put it upon our hearts to say yes, to run and not walk, into each of those roles of welcoming, teaching, and serving.
Will you hear the story of Esther? It only comes around one Sunday every three years. Esther is a messiah, not the Messiah, but she saves the Jews from annihilation, and it’s her story that birthed the Jewish festival of Purim. We have to understand some of the context. At the end of the exile, the Persian empire, nearly 500 years before the birth of Christ, was a place where many Jews continued to choose to live. Most of them had returned home, but over the course of their living in exile, many discovered that the land of Israel was not the only place where God dwelled, and so it was that many Jews, including Esther, along with her cousin/surrogate father, Mordecai, were among the Jews who stayed. But living under the rule of King Ahasuerus was not easy. He acted omnipotently, he was fickle, extravagant, overly-sexed, and a combination of an absent-minded professor and a bully. Ahasuerus’s closest advisor is Haman, who has made it clear that he wants the Jews killed, and through his machiavellian maneuvers the King decrees that all Jews will be killed. There is one shred of hope for the Jews: Esther. Through Cousin Mordecai, who coached her, Esther underwent a year of spa treatments to have a one night hook up with the king. Things must have worked well because Ahasuerus made Esther his queen, but in title only. In every other way she was a subject, and just as vulnerable to being put to death as anybody else. Esther is so cut off that she knows nothing of Haman and the King’s plans to annihilate the Jews, so Mordecai fills her in, and says, “Esther, it’s up to you.” Esther protests and says she has no power, but Mordecai holds firm and seals the argument by saying, “Esther, do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than the rest of us Jews? Your silence will get you killed. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” God will use Esther to save God’s people. For just such a time as this.
On September 10th Jorge Fuentes was shot outside of his home in Dorchester. The Sunday after Jorge’s death you gave over $2,000 to support a South End parish church and their programs. It’s called St. Stephen’s. It’s a community which mattered so much to Jorge, and it’s also a center of our own transformation. The day after you gave all that money several of us went to St. Stephen’s on Shawmut Avenue for a vigil. The street was packed with people from every walk of life. There were old people, Spanish speaking people, African-Americans, there were young people doing a City Year, diocesan priests and deacons, and our bishop; there were scores of parishioners from St. Stephen’s, and of course Jorge’s family, friends, and neighbors. At 9:00 the hundreds of us walked in procession carrying lit candles, just around the block really, stopping several times to remember the young men who have been killed in the neighborhood, including the painful irony of Jorge’s uncle and namesake, who was killed 20 years ago. At the end, the Reverend Liz Steinhauser, the associate at St. Stephen’s, read the names of all 36 people who have died from homicide in the City of Boston since January 1st of this year. It was a moment I shall never forget.
On Wednesday, September 26th, ten days later, something else happened. My colleagues had hosted a birthday party for me following our staff meeting, as a result I was leaving later than I should have for a meeting at the diocesan office, a meeting which Bishop Shaw had organized to talk about the Episcopal Church’s response to our city, to Jorge’s death, and to the gospel itself. I walked into the conference room with 20 or so others...legislators, priests from the suburbs and from the city, Tim Crellin, the vicar at St. Stephen’s, and his wife, Jenny, and Liz Steinhauser, and several others whom I’d never met. Like unto the vigil outside of St. Stephen’s, the power in that meeting, the power of God that is, was so strong that I believe it will shape a chunk of our life together for a long time. At one point I felt as if my heart was missing a beat because of the intensity of the moment. In the days since then I feel as though a different kind of reality is taking shape. We will not say that God willed Jorge’s death. But maybe God has put us, along with other Episcopalians in and around Boston, for just such a time as this.
I’m asking us to follow in the way of Esther, who did indeed save her people. She was propelled to action of extraordinary resolve and courage, going so far as to seduce Ahasuerus until he issues a new decree, and the Jews are saved. We are propelled to no less an extraordinary posture of courage and action. Oh how Esther is a story for us today, teaching us that life in our city is dangerous, but not without hope. We can’t and shouldn’t do it alone, but we cannot merely sit back and wallow in sadness.
Teens in our city have almost universal access to drugs and guns, and a seemingly universal barrier to jobs and exit pathways from poverty. Perhaps we have come to this place, to this moment, to these people, to this challenge, for just such a time as this. At the meeting at the diocesan office Liz proposed that we create 910 additional jobs for teens during the next year, redeeming the date 9/10, and doing that in partnership with the city, with St. Stephen’s, and with the government. She wonders if we can build an after school program at Madison Park High School, the only vocational school in our city, where students are dismissed at 1:45 and where there are 5 guidance counselors for all 1300 students. I believe we are so called and I am ready and willing to take us there. But that’s not all. With your support and participation we’ll invite every single one of our 190 faith communities to read the book, The New Jim Crow by Michele Alexander. Even more, I believe that we will, despite the supreme court’s recent ruling, work to end gun trafficking and gun sales. Perhaps we have come to this place, to this moment, to these people, to this challenge, for just such a time as this. In 2013 our parish will celebrate 125 years since our founding. We moved from Mt. Vernon Street to Church Street in 1905, and since then we’ve been moving from here to all sorts of towns-- to Woburn, Chelsea, Cambridge, Lawrence, Tegucigalpa, San Salvador, Leogane, Kigali, Jerusalem, and yes, to Boston!
Throughout all the generations of our parish’s life various Mordecais, some of them rectors, most of them lay people, have grabbed our ears, our checkbooks, our devotion to Jesus Christ and the worship of his church, and said, “Maybe you’ve been given this desire, money, this talent, this vision, this call for just such a time as this.”
Esther didn’t have everything, and neither do we. But we have some things...a desire to welcome and invite others, a call to teach and to learn, and to serve the city for just such a time as this. Esther said yes. If she can do it, so can we.
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