Epiphany Service Team Arrives at El Hogar!

Hola from rainy Tecucigalpa!

The Epiphany All-Men's Glee Club and traveling Service Team has arrived safely in beautiful Honduras. We were scooped up at the airport by Senor Raul Castro. All the porters at the airport clearly know Raul Castro, El Hogar´s Project Manager-they just came up to us, pointed at our bags, and asked, "Raul?" When we nodded yes, they seized our bags, and hustled us and them outside to where Raul and Matt Engleby, Executive Director of El Hogar Projects, were waiting to welcome us. In no time at all, the El Hogar van was filled high with luggage and people and heading back to El Hogar de Amor y Ezperanza. We arrive around mid afternoon, and since then have settled in, eaten twice (!), and received a guided tour of the facilities from Matt. We met a number of the children during the tour, all friendly, and ranging from shy to outgoing.

My wife and I visited the El Hogar facility in downtown Tegucigalpa seven years ago. Jefferson, one of the little children we met then, is no a graduate, has a job at El Hogar, and has won a full four-year scholarship to a local University, where he will be majoring in Business Administration. Jefferson is not the only one who has grown up since my last visit: El Hogar has some beautiful new buildings, including a lovely multi-story dorm for the children, and a spanking new, greatly expanded dining facility, which is due to open this week!

We're all excited to be here, and a bit overwhelmed. We're headed to bed now. In the morning we'll go to church with the boys, and on Monday head out to Santa Lucia, where we'll be doing some construction for the new residence for the older girls.

Greetings from Tom, Tom, and Tom, Rich and Rich, Bill and Bill, and Josh and Ed!

-rich

Headed to El Hogar

Tomorrow morning about 4:15am, while most of you are sleeping, Kate Reynolds, Pam Chester, Eileen Marks, and Stephanie Terry will be driving their husbands, their priest, and their husbands' friends to Logan for our flights to Tegucigalpa. When we arrive at TGU we'll be met by the staff at El Hogar, and before the afternoon ends we will have settled into the volunteer house.

Who are we? We are 9. All of us are married, 8 of us have kids, 1 of us is gay, 8 of us live in Winchester, 1 in Belmont; 3 of us have been to El Hogar; we are trained in engineering, finance, and theology, and only one of us is reasonably able to speak Spanish. We are all white and our ages span three decades--two of us are in our 40s, 5 of us are in our 50s, 1 of us is in our 60s, and 1 of us in our 70s. all of us are connected to the Parish of the Epiphany. Why are we going? My guess is that our motivations run the gamut. Some of us are going because what we experienced the first time was so compelling that we want to return. Some of us are going because our spouses or our kids have said, "You need to go to El Hogar." Some of us may not know, exactly, why we said "yes," but we did, so off we go. I think all of us believe the Prayer of St. Francis which says, "it is in giving that we receive...and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life." What will we do? Well, pretty much anything we're told. We'll work some every day at the new campus for girls (yes, I have work gloves!), we'll spend time with the children--which means we'll play soccer, take all kinds of snapshots (which the kids love), listen to them read books to us in English, witness their praying, and wonder how it is that such joy can overflow from such poverty. To answer the question, "what will we do?" I would say, "we'll be missionaries." Which is not the 19th or even 20th century expression of mission, but of the way we do it between the Epiphany and El Hogar...a relationship, rooted in God's boundless love for that community and ours, which grows deeper because we believe our friends at El Hogar have at least as much to give us, as we have to give them.

And you...what can you do? Check this blog out every day. Pray for us. Pray for the children and the staff at El Hogar. Be kind to our "left behinds" (our families here in Boston). When we come home, late on Saturday the 20th, please be prepared to see immediate changes in the way we think and speak, as well as the possibility that whatever transformation will occur might not be readily apparent for a very long time. In short, trust that God will be with us...while we're away, while we're there, and when we come home.

To nurture and to be nurtured

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.

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.

Praying Twice

Last night I greeted the Adult Choir at the Parish of the Epiphany. It was their first Thursday evening rehearsal of the “program year” and a reminder, as I looked into their faces, of all the commitment and love they give to our parish’s common life. 

This morning I did some writing for the Sunday leaflet about a hymn (Crown him with many crowns) and it led me into all sorts of directions and source material about 19th century hymnody. Which led me to think about my clergy group, a group of eight other priests who lovingly tease me about my nerd-like interest in hymns. So I said, “thank you, God, for those guys.” 

The Grenell Island Chapel

Last Sunday I visited a summer chapel on Grenell Island, a small hamlet of 50 or so cottages in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. It was a pan-protestant service led by a retired American Baptist denominational executive. The liturgical elements would have been familiar to most Christians; it was indeed a hybrid, necessary I’m sure, for the ecumenical crowd who live on that island. The singing was so-so, until we got to the “doxology.” This refrain, which is sung in so many churches at the offertory procession, but is often castigated, even spit on, in more liturgical traditions, revealed a community of worship who can sing! At that point the little chapel’s walls were almost reverberating...everybody was singing, not with their hymnals, but from their hearts. The Holy Ghost had shown up and we were having church.

There’s a whole story about how I came to faith, why I love hymns, and what they do for me...for my prayer life, and for my preaching. It’s a story to tell for another day. Today, I’m grateful for the music at the Parish of the Epiphany, for our interest in singing, and for  the way it helps us to pray not once, but twice.

Windy, windy, windy

It’s been wicked windy at Thousand Island Park revealing beautiful white caps up and down the   mighty St. Lawrence River. It’s impossible for me not to think about wind, which today isn’t especially welcomed by boaters, and at 20mph it’s even a little noisy to visit on the porch. 

The daily office readings from the New Testament are making their way through the Acts of the Apostles, and the “wind of change” is fierce for Peter. Here’s what we know about St. Luke, the author of Acts: he continually heralds the glory of inclusiveness. Today’s installment focuses clearly on Peter’s “conversion” to associate with Gentiles, something about which he heretofore has been reluctant (at best) to do.

Who among us can’t relate to Peter? The world changed radically before his very eyes, and so is ours. The church is engaged in what some have called the biggest change in 500 years. Our own nation’s economy and identity are blowing all over the place, and I hear elders saying they’ve never known America so divided as they do in these days. 

We all have to grapple with change, whether tragic or welcomed; whether it comes from loss or gain. The gospel responds with a blessing of hope that in the midst of change disciples of Jesus Christ proclaim again the glad news that Christ is risen from the dead. So we celebrate, and share with others, the reality that God’s wind, fierce at times and gentle and quiet at other times, leads  the church to embrace all people.  

For me, the question remains: will I sense the wind of change and follow God’s lead? 

A life well-lived: Betty Sawyer, rest in peace and rise in glory

Two days ago Betty Sawyer died, a giant in faith and service to the Episcopal Church, a woman whose twinkly eyes and faithfulness to prayer were consistent invitations to join her in practicing the Christian way. Her walk with Jesus always seemed to me both contagious and selfless. Betty Sawyer was a leader in the church long before women were ordained to the priesthood; I can imagine that if the door to priesthood had been open to her she would have walked in that path many years ago. 

In the last couple of years she began to be a little confused. There were moments--sometimes within the same sentence--when she was crystal clear, alert, and filled with insight, then suddenly she’d be addled, unable to complete the thought that had begun. One day, about four months ago, she insisted that I was one of the brothers from the monastery. When I assured her that I wasn’t, but that I was “Thomas, your rector, from the Epiphany” she said, “that’s ridiculous. They’d never have you be the rector!” I’m not sure if that was an indictment of the Parish of the Epiphany, or of myself, or both! When I laughed, she smiled graciously, and she seemed wholly herself again, and then with every ounce of gentleness and genuine concern, she said, “how are things going for you?” 

She loved the world and everything good in it. But that’s not to suggest she was inexperienced with either pain or death. Maybe it was the holy combination of loving what was good and knowing about death that made her so generous. In a way, Betty Sawyer always impressed me as one who was willing to do everything she could, and to give everything she had to save the particles of her life, and to invite others to do likewise. She raised the level of life by the level of her own call to “do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.” It was her way in life and in death; at home, at church, at work; when she was busy and when she was idle; when she was sick in bed, and when she was up, and well and active.

When I first arrived at Winchester, three years ago, she gave me a copy of William Temple’s book, Christian Faith and Life. I don’t consider it a coincidence, but rather a profound gift of serendipity that yesterday afternoon as I walked into the kitchen door of a neighbor’s cottage to borrow green  olives, there was lying open on the reading table Temple’s Nature, Man, and God. Not the same book, but what’s the likelihood of that convergence? In that book...the one at the neighbor’s here in Thousand Island Park, there is a prayer which Temple wrote for a series of lectures at Oxford in 1931:  

O Lord our God, from whom neither life nor death can separate those who trust in thy love, and whose love holds in its embrace they children in this world and in the next: so unite us to thyself that in fellowship with thee we may be always united to our loved ones wether here or there; give us courage, constancy, and hope; through him how died and was buried and rose again for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Betty’s requiem will be Saturday, 22 September at 11:00am at the Parish of the Epiphany.

Opening our ears

Two days with a friend with adult-onset hearing loss leaves me sensitized to this impairment, especially to its myriad negative psychological and emotional consequences. My friend is neither part of the hearing world nor part of the deaf culture. She lives somewhere in between, I suppose. She reports feeling isolated much of the time, of no use most days, and over the course of the past several years she finds that it’s easier to stay away from social gatherings, including church. So yesterday at worship, at the Church of Saint Lawrence in Alexandria Bay, New York (the Diocese of Central New York) I paid close attention to how well people read, the degree to which the sound amplification system was used effectively, and generally whether people could pick up on the nuances in communication and patience which are required to make people with hearing loss welcomed and integrated. Evidently the folk at the church did well because my friend said she was able to hear. 

In the mid-1800s there was an Episcopal Church established in New York, called St. Ann’s Church, still very much alive today, and is given the moniker “the mother church” of all congregations of deaf people in the United States. 

Thomas Gallaudet

Henry Winter Syle

Today,  August 27th, the church commemorates two men, Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle--considered the founders of the Episcopal Church’s ministry to and with deaf people. Thomas Gallaudet was born in Hartford in 1822 to a deaf mother and a hearing father. He later married Elizabeth Budd, who was deaf. It was Thomas who started St. Ann’s Church, and from that genesis there sprang up congregations for the deaf throughout the country. One of Gallaudet’s students, Henry Winter Syle, who became deaf at an early age, was the first deaf person to be ordained to the priesthood (in 1876). 

I’m glad to be part of a church with this history.  But, I wonder about those of us who serve countless people who are not deaf, for whom sign language isn’t possible. What will the church’s response be to the ones among us who have hearing loss? What shall I do to make certain the doors of my church will be open to my friend? Jesus said (Mark 4:9), “let those with ears, hear.” 

Let us pray.

O loving God, whose will it is that everyone should come to you and be saved: we bless your Holy Name for your servants Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle, whose labors with and for those who are deaf we commemorate today; and we pray that you will continually move your Church to respond in love to the needs of all people; through Jesus Christ, who opened the ears of the deaf, and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Bartholomew

Today is a major feast, a red letter day. We should be planning a solemn mass with full choir and a festive dinner, for this the Feast of St. Bartholomew. He is a saint about whom we know almost nothing. His name is listed only in three of the gospels (not in John). And even more, legends abound about what happened to Bartholomew. Some say he ended up in India, others suggest Armenia where evidently he was skinned alive. 

In the Hymnal 1982 there is only one hymn for this day (#280), written by John Ellerton, a 19th century hymn writer. The third stanza captures it, I think:

All his faith and prayer and patience, all his toiling and his strife, all are veiled from us, but written in the Lamb’s great book of life. 

The point here is that whatever happened in Bartholomew’s life it’s not written down for us here. We can’t turn to early Christian history books to read about Bartholomew, certainly not in the way we can about Thomas, or John of Patmos, or even Mary Magdalene. All is veiled. 

Except for one thing, which is not veiled, one thing we know “for sure” about St. Bartholomew. And that one thing is very significant. We know that he was a follower of Jesus. That’s enough, in many ways, because whether we die with a great deal of fame and recognition, or whether we die entirely unknown, each of us is known by God. And for those of us who are baptized into the great fellowship of Christ our life’s work is to remain faithful. What does that mean? For me, it means to keep walking in and toward the light of the good news which Jesus proclaimed and lived. Though let’s be clear also to state there are many ways to walk this walk. How I do it is different from how another travels it. The point is to be a disciple...whether we’re known by name is secondary. 

Mary Anne Evans was born in 1819, and died in 1880, but she isn’t known for being Mary Anne, but for her pen name, George Eliot. Her novels depict 19th century England with piercing reality, and perhaps the most well-known is Middlemarch. In that book George Eliot might have had Bartholomew in her mind when she wrote:

“For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs” (Middlemarch).

Let us pray. 

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

Give us Grace

Yesterday Tom and I were at lunch with friends. The conversation turned to answering the question, “what do you most look forward to about being in the Thousand Islands?”One of our companions, a retired Episcopal priest who is quite erudite, and even a bit enigmatic at times, said, “I love to read. I try to do it all day.”

There are many great things about life at Thousand Island Park. The porch is one, the re-connection with neighbors and friends is another. Long walks and river breezes are two more. Swimming is definitely a great thing here. The list could go on and on.

But maybe our luncheon guest is on to something about reading. It’s as if there’s more time...and I admit that I return to books I’ve read before, and read them as if they’re absolutely new. I suppose in a way they are. Give us Grace is an anthology of Anglican prayers compiled by Christopher L. Webber (Morehouse, 2004), and it’s a book I know quite well, but I never noticed the section of prayers from the Anglican Church in Kenya, until early this morning. Here’s a prayer from Kenya, a postcommunion prayer which leapt off the page. Maybe it will be for you a kind of grace today. Maybe today you’ll read something that’s old as if it’s completely new. I hope so:

Let us pray. 

O God of our ancestors, God of our people, before whose face the human generations pass away: We thank you that in you we are kept safe for ever, and that the broken fragments of our history are gathered up in the redeeming act of your dear Son, remembered in this holy sacrament of bread and wine. Help us to walk daily in the Communion of saints, declaring our faith in the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection of the body. Now send us out in the power of your Holy Spirit to live and work for your praise and glory. Amen. 

Our desire...for the bread that lasts

Today's reading is from St. John's gospel, beginning at the first verse of the sixth chapter.

The Daily Office readings are about to repeat most of what we’ve been reading every Sunday this summer: bread, bread, bread! 

Last Sunday at the Epiphany Father Pitt preached, following four weeks of my preaching on Ephesians, which meant that we finally, thanks to Louis, heard a sermon on the gospel’s weeks-long emphasis on bread. Of course it was an excellent sermon, and at its end Louis asked us, “when you pray ‘give us this day our daily bread’ what are you praying for? What bread?” 

I think God cares about our answer, about our hunger, about our desire. That for which we’re longing and hoping...God cares about it. This story of the feeding of the 5,000 is told in all four gospels. There’s something about our hunger, our desire, that’s key to Christian discipleship. And, that’s what I think Louis was saying on Sunday. The way St. John tells this story--with important differences from the other versions--Jesus is the one who can end hunger. In this story, Jesus is the host; he distributes the food.

Because in St. John’s teaching it's Jesus himself who will become the real food; Jesus who will say to us just a few verses later, "I am the bread of life. Those who come to me will never hunger." Jesus is saying, "I am the real food. The most important food. Don't spend your lives on food that spoils, or stock the cupboards with things that will perish. Make me the staple, because it’s food that will last.” Jesus is ready, right now and always, to fill us with his love, with his call toward justice and right relationship, and with his peace. 

Let us pray.

O Lord, our Father, which art in heaven, grant unto us thy grace; as the children of thy kingdom, that we labor not only for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life. Give us the true bread from heaven, even the flesh of thy dear Son, for he is our spiritual food and sustenance, without which we can have no life in us. 

(The prayer is from Fr. Richard Meux Benson, 1824-1915, the founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist) 

Pascal & the decision for Christ

Today the church commemorates Blaise Pascal, born in France in 1623, and who died there in 1662. He was home-schooled by his father, but with connections to Mersenne, Fermat, and Descrates, it wasn’t fluff. He was a physicist, a mathematician, a Christian apologist, and a defender of the idea that salvation is a free gift from God, which was something only Protestants believed. Much of Pascal’s life was spent writing in defense of this idea, engaging it so mightily that scholars estimate that over a million people read his underground letters which not only defended the theological premise that salvation is a free gift, but also attacked the Jesuits, who were utterly opposed to what they believed was heresy. In one of his letters Pascal wrote that oft-quoted line, “this letter is longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.” 

In his later writings Pascal underscored two things: first, was the hopelessness of humanity without God (the need for a savior), and the second was the statement that to receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, all we need do is ask.

A few weeks ago I was at the Monastery in Cambridge for their Tuesday evening Eucharist. The brother who preached (about Mary Magdalene, the resurrection, and being a follower of Jesus) made an explicit invitation to his congregation, a bold invitation. Bear in mind that Brother Robert knew some of us well, including of course his brothers and the many people who make the Monastery their primary faith community, while others of us he knew not at all, having never met the visitors there that night, or the person on retreat for whom he might have only been able to recognize a face, without so much knowledge of her or his name. So in that context Brother Robert said (and I paraphrase), “if you have not invited Jesus into your heart do so this evening. The truth of the resurrection is yours for the asking.”

Maybe Brother Robert had been reading Pascal. Or, maybe he himself once asked Jesus to be the center of his life.

I wonder how many followers Jesu can have? Can he have me? Can he have you? The decision is ours.

Almighty God, who gave your servant Blaise Pascal a great intellect, that he might explore the mysteries of your creation, and who kindled in his heart a love for you and a devotion to your service: Mercifully give us grace to see in you, and in your Son, Jesus Christ, the truth of how we might live. Give us courage to never fail to reach out to him, for he is the one who reaches out to us always. All this we pray in his name, and to his glory. Amen.

Sources:

Lesser Feasts & Fasts, 2006 (Church Publishing); www.missionstclare.org (a daily office resource), and Longer than usual: a biography of Blaise Pascal (Alfred Knopf, 1979).

Healing on the sabbath: do you want to be made well?

Today's reading is John 5:1-18

Yesterday afternoon I made several pastoral calls on elderly parishioners. Soon I'll be on vacation and I wanted to connect with these folk. I love all of them, and I will genuinely miss them, and I would by lying if I didn't also admit that doing so was part of my pre-vacation to do list. It was a fantastic day!

One woman, in her 90s lives in a retirement home. She gets to church regularly, thankfully because her spirit is as contagious and life-giving as any I've ever known. Her beam lights up a whole room. She loves sermons...has a whole collection of them from former rectors, from me, as well as from other churches. She just reads them, over and over. In her words she reads them "for some new way to hear or to see."

I told her about my posting to this blog. She seemed both perplexed (why would I do this?) and relieved for not having a computer so that she didn't feel obligated to read these posts, in addition to her sermon regimen. Still, I told her about the daily office readings, and how I try to link my writing here to the day's gospel lesson.

Without missing a beat she said, "what's the reading for tomorrow?" So I pulled out my iPhone, found the reading, and read it to her. When I looked up she was her beaming-self, but even brighter than usual, like a little kid at an amusement park. "What's so funny?" I asked. "Oh, it's not funny, it's the best coincidence ever is all. That question, 'do you want to be made well?' was the question my friend posed to me the day I got sober. The answer back then was 'yes' and I've had a whole new life every since."

When Jesus asked the man "do you want to be made well?" he was doing that on the sabbath, a Saturday. Today is Saturday, and I wonder how you might answer the same question: "do you want to be made well?"

Let us pray.

In your boundless compassion, O God, lead us to pools of healing water, and to paths where we will walk with integrity, and even into your constant embrace. By the might of your Spirit heal us and make us well, through Jesus Christ, our friend and Savior. Amen. 

Welcome

The Gospel for today is from John 4:43-54.

The Galileans welcomed Jesus. They welcomed him.

At the Parish of the Epiphany we've had a welcoming team working really hard for over two years. We've redesigned things, organized events, delivered flowers, held inquirer's classes, and just about everything else evangelism experts suggest. No question we've been successful, but integrating those visitors and newcomers, well, that's been a much bigger challenge.

In the olden days the rector used to ring the doorbell of those who visited or who were new to the area. Now, we "shop for a new church" and the sign of a good and successful rector is the presence of a welcoming team whose ministry is to welcome and assimilate newcomers.

Really?

As I approach middle-age I'm discovering that some of the old-fashioned techniques of parochial ministry might need to be applied anew in 2012. I have never rung the doorbell of a newcomer. But maybe I should.

In a conversation with one leader I mentioned that I was thinking about doing this. She was stunned to learn that I don't: "trust me, if you or Audrey show up at the door, get to know them, invite them to serve in some way, they'll feel welcomed, and they'll get involved!"

The Galileans welcomed Jesus, true enough. But they welcomed him because they had "seen all that Jesus had done." I haven't seen everything that Jesus has done in your life, but I've seen it in mine. How can I do anything else but to welcome him, and by extension, to welcome others?

Hearing for ourselves

Today's reflection is based upon the Gospel reading appointed for today, John 4:27-42.

Yesterday I officiated at the funeral of Constance Davy, the oldest member of the Parish of the Epiphany. She would have been 99 this November. Connie Davy grew up in Winchester, and in these latter years she was completely blind, but always eager for a visit, and really glad whenever Peggy Roll, another parishioner and a fantastic baker of cookies, dropped off a half-dozen or more, preferably fresh from the oven.

When Connie's health began to fail, early in July, I visited with her. She spoke about her readiness to die. When I queried, around the edges, about her faith she said, "I really don't pray." Honesty matters, I say. So I responded by saying so, and assured her that formal praying is not a prerequisite for God. 

The day she died her great-nephew, Chris, a man about my age, and Chris's 6 year old son, Quinn, were singing to her. This father and son duo, with guitar and violin (the little boy with the violin), stayed with Connie until she died, a holy moment for all of them, I'm told. 

Just before the funeral started I learned that Connie had a Bible, and I saw for myself page after page of underlines and margin notes, clearly something she did before she lost her eyesight. Just because she didn't want to speak to the rector about her prayer life doesn't mean she didn't have one!

In today's gospel reading John 4:27-42 the disciples are astonished that Jesus had been speaking to a Samaritan woman (a double outsider), and she herself returns to the city to say, "he told me everything I had ever done!" Meanwhile Jesus is getting pestered by the disciples to eat something, so he responds not by eating, but my preaching. From those conversations (with the disciples) Jesus spends two days with Samaritans, and it is they--the Samaritans--who turn to the woman who had been at the well with Jesus, to say, "it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

Connie Davy didn't need to hear about Jesus from me! She had heard for herself.

Let us pray.

Gracious God, by whose will it is that we walk by faith and not by sight in the mysterious universe you have created, increase now our faith in you that in the midst of things which pass our understanding, we may not doubt your love, or miss your joy, or fail in our thanksgiving. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Mary, the Mother of our Lord

I'll never forget the St. Mary day, in 2006, when I was walking across Spain. I didn't realize it was the 15th of August, but about noontime, as I entered a tiny village west of Leon, there were throngs of people walking out of their doorways and crowding the steps of the local church. At first I figured it was a funeral procession, but the mood was too light for death. I noticed a number of women wearing blue, and also that children were carrying flowers. A wedding? No, not at noon. Then I remembered: it's the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin!

In our creeds only two people, besides Jesus, are mentioned. One is Pontius Pilate, and the other is Mary. 

I think of Mary as a role model, a pattern to follow in my response to God. She was a woman whose life said "yes" to God, who called herself God's servant, who praised God for turning the world upside down, who joined others in prayer. I like to think of her inspiring me to open my heart in a way that's similar to how she opened hers.

The Episcopal Church is all over the map when it comes to Mary's role in worship. Some of us have rosaries, and most of us know the "Hail Mary" a traditional prayer, from Scripture, asking Mary to add her prayers to our own, interceding for us. In our Prayer Book we find the "Song of Mary" in the Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child (p. 439), and we acknowledge in our calendar several days commemorating her life: the 25th of March (the Annunciation, when Gabriel tells her she is to bear God's child; the 31st of May, when Mary visits with her cousin Elizabeth and the child in her womb leaps; the 15th of August (today, her feast day); and 2 February the day Mary & Joseph presented Jesus in the temple. 

Let us pray.

Almighty God, 

of your saving grace 

you called Mary of Nazareth 

to be the mother of your only begotten Son: 

Inspire us by the same grace 

to follow her example of 

bearing God to the world. 

We pray through Jesus Christ her son our Savior. Amen.

Collect for the Blessed Virgin Mary, Godbearer, from Holy Women, Holy Men, p. 729

Jonathan Myrick Daniels

Today's is Jonathan Daniels day, at least on the official calendar of the Episcopal Church. But I'm struck that in some parts of the country, especially his home state of New Hampshire, and here in Massachusetts, and most certainly among many in Selma, Alabama, Jon is one of those saints who seems a whole lot more connected to us, certainly more than many of the "saints" listed in the pages of Holy Women, Holy Men.

His story goes back to the mid-1960s. A seminarian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jonathan Daniels joined others in responding to Martin Luther King's appeal to help ensure access to voting booths for African Americans. He ended up taking a leave from seminary to live in Selma to continue the work there. The "outside agitator" (the phrase some locals used to describe freedom riders) died from a gunshot wound on 20 August 1965. The bullet was not intended for him, but rather for a 16 year old girl, Ruby Sales, but Jon stood in front of her, saving her life and giving up his own. Years later Ruby Sales herself attended the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge.

In Jonathan's own words, found in his letters and papers after his death:

“The doctrine of the creeds, the enacted faith of the sacraments, were the essential preconditions of the experience itself. The faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown. . . . I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection. . . with them, the black men and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout. . . .We are indelibly and unspeakably one.”

May his soul rest in peace and rise in glory. 

Be Kind, the 4th of 4 on St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians

A sermon for the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, Massachusetts, preached on Sunday, 12 August 2012. To God be the glory. 

In the end is our beginning. So saith T.S. Eliot (East Coker).

For those of you who are visiting or who have been traveling, today is the fourth of four sermons on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. We’ve discovered several invitations: to be in, to claim the expansive embrace which Christ offers all to be part of the church. Be in. And we’ve heard the exhortation about fulfillment, and maybe even understand a little more about how life with Christ is much richer than anything we can achieve or attain or acquire. Be fulfilled. Last week we noticed a shift in the tone of the letter, from doctrine and theology, to practical counsel for living. Be mature, humble and faithful, even if there aren’t any medals for living a grown-up faith. 

Today we end with “Be kind.” But it’s really the beginning, it’s a first step in a life-long Christian practice. I think of kindness as the essence of resurrection-shaped life. Kindness is more than being nice, more than putting into practice the sentiment on the bumper sticker “practice random acts of kindness.”  To be kind acknowledges the Christ within, a way to show forth the truth that each of us is made in God’s image. 

The story is told that a pastor in an Alpine village wrote a blessing following an avalanche which took the lives of several of his parishioners. Funeral after funeral, the kind that are really sad and mournful, the pastor looked out onto a congregation of pain, so he wrote a blessing, which he used at the subsequent funerals. (told by Marcus Borg at a Jesus Seminar conference at Trinity Cathedral in Portland, Oregon, in 2002).

Before long it became the signature blessing at the church. Years later the rector at St. Bartholomew in Manhattan made it famous, first using it at the hastily put together 9:00pm service on September 11, 2001. The church was packed with people, many of them already grieving the deaths of their loved ones, others awaiting word in hope that the inevitable wasn’t true. So William McD. Tully, a preacher’s preacher, ended the candle-lit service by saying, Life is short, and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us. So be swift to love, make haste to be kind, and may the blessing of God be with you.

Make haste to be kind. It’s a more colloquial way to say what St. Paul says in today’s reading: “let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” To what extent though? How much kindness should we, or in the face of real evil, can we show? Well, the word “all” is used in this section not once, but twice. “All bitterness and wrath,” “all malice,” 

Notice the word anger is not preceded by the word all. There’s nothing unfamiliar about anger; Jesus himself expressed it when he turned over the tables in the temple, and when he confronted the pharisees about their narrow interpretation of the law. So let’s be clear: the opposite of anger is not kindness. Anger can be a productive and even God-sanctioned response. I think St Paul refers here to the inner bitterness and malice--those are the things that must go. Here’s how I think about it: kindness isn’t merely an external display of manners, it’s an internal change of heart. To be kind is to be tenderhearted. If our hearts are hard on the inside, and the manners are meek and polite and helpful on the outside, it’s not kindness. 

My friend Diana Jewell Bingham tells the story of her mother, Anne Rea Jewell. Near the end of Mrs. Jewell’s life she spent much of her days in bed, though she was still very much alert and able to talk. One day Diana was grousing about her sister-in-law, going so far as to suggest that only Diana herself should be nearby. Mrs. Jewell took Diana’s face in her hands and said, “Diana, be kind.” 

Sometimes you hear me say that I believe a Gospel value is to have a thin skin, not a thick one. Soccer coaches tell their players to get a thick skin. It’s easier to get through middle school, at least, with a tough skin. So we say “shake it off. Tough it out. Don’t let it bother you.” To be kind or to be tenderhearted is to have our insides easily touched. When our skin is tender it’s not very long before we feel pain, and when our hearts are tender, we feel easily and quickly. 

Which is why we can’t just decide to be kind, it’s not like a faucet that can be turned off and on, and that’s because kindness is a deep character quality. From whence does it come, kindness? For sure it’s not exclusive to Christians, or even to Jews, though its importance runs throughout both testaments of our scripture. Nor is it limited to religion, plenty of non-religious people are kind, even folk who are hostile about religion and spirituality. What then about kindness is particularly Christian? 

Let’s look at the text to find two things. 1) Forgiveness, and 2) Christ’s love, so fierce that it became a fragrant offering. Forgiveness and Jesus’s love--they’re the lenses through which we see kindness, and the roots from which our own kindness grows outward and upward. Something else that’s particular to Christianity and kindness is that our baptisms incorporate us, fuse us if you will, into Christ’s own self. We are anointed with the Holy Spirit, and from that moment all the way through life and beyond death, we  embody the loving kindness of God.

About a month ago I called a friend to apologize for something I had said, and on the phone I asked his forgiveness. He didn’t say, “oh, that’s okay” nor did he say, “don’t worry about it, it was nothing.” He said, warmly and genuinely, “forgiven and forgotten.” He meant it, I could tell. We can’t have a kind core if we forgive a wrong but secretly plan to keep it in the back of our minds for a later argument. 

T.S. Eliot’s words, “in the end is our beginning” couldn’t be more apt. To be kind isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. As we conclude this series remember the expansiveness of Ephesians, hold fast to its strong counsel about how to live, its gentle and unswerving principle that growing up is an ongoing task for which we’re already equipped. We must never forget that we’re in, and we will live well if we claim the wisdom to be fulfilled, and the gentleness to be mature. But that’s not all. From Christ’s own store of love, we’re given a precious and infinite gift, sometimes quietly given, sometimes loudly, throughout every generation, in every person every morning, when we hear him say, perhaps even with a sense that his hands are holding our face, addressing us gently by our name, to say, “be kind.”

A tribute to Edward Friedman and his role in shaping leaders in the Episcopal Church

Edwin H. Friedman is saving my life. Not in the way Jesus does, but gosh sometimes Friedman's stuff is just what the doctor ordered. Who's Freidman? Edwin H. Friedman is a deceased rabbi who was a practicing family therapist. He wrote several books, and before his death in 1996, he was all the rage on the speaker circuit with religious institutions and therapy training centers. He was funny, wicked smart, and right-on. A lot of us grew up with Generation to Generation and in the past several years any number of judicatories (of nearly every denominational stripe) have focused on his first posthumous book, compiled by his widow and a former student, Failure of Nerve. There are two other books published posthumously: The Myth of Shiksa (which I have not read), and What are you going to do with your life? Unpublished Writings and Diaries (2009 Seabury Books). The latter has been my reading-food the past month. The book is largely autobiographical because Friedman discusses his understanding of why he wanted to be a rabbi, as well as his questions about the decline in his health. In some ways typical Friedman material. But what makes this book stand out, I think, are all the sermons. I don't think any other book of his--published before his death (1996) or afterwards--gives us a picture of how he himself pastored.

I'll leave you with one nugget. I think asking questions of God is essential to a grown-up faith. My best "mountain tops" have been when God and I have been intensely engaged, not necessarily arguing, but marked with strong questions on my part, and in those moments I've often felt closer to God than any other time of prayer or worship.

In Friedman's book, What are you going to do with your life?" there is an address he gave at a high school's  commencement service. Here's what he wrote:

As one rabbi friend said, who was also speaking to a graduating class, 'if you don't have answers do not feel too badly. But if you do not have questions, you better feel your pulse.'

Hope your pulse is strong today!
Faithfully,
Thomas

Lessons from the Camino to Santiago

Six years ago today I walked into the Spanish city of Pamplona, which was day two of my 22 day trek to Santiago. There's any number of things to read about the pilgrimage, and far better writers than I have given voice to the beauty and the struggle of making the trek, and now there's even a modern film with Martin Sheen which captures some of the imagery, as well as the intensity of the Way.

Here's what I learned:

1) Walking alone is a great gift. Insights emerge, "fightings within and without" which made me turn closer to God, rather than toward self or others.
2) The "engine" inside of me which can sometimes propel me with anxiety and unsettledness is the same engine that needs to rest, and to move more slowly on the path. Still, the engine has integrity and should never be belittled.
3) Friends are given every day...always.
4) In darkness we need only enough light for the next step, not the whole journey.

TJB