ThisWeeksSermon October 12th Pentecost 22

“Welcoming the stranger.”
The 22d Sunday After Pentecost, October 12, 2008

"This, I believe, is our mission in this community, to offer the approval and kindness of “that which is greater than us,” to offer the gift of acceptance, and to offer it without expecting a single thing in return."

"Even though scholars are producing more books and articles, challenging us to rethink what it means to be a Christian today, often one of the last places you will hear these topics being discussed is in church."

[Audio version of the sermon available by selecting the link on the right side of this page.0

May I speak only the truth, and may only the truth be heard by you, in the name of God our Creator, our redeemer, and our sanctifier.
Amen.

In the next weeks and months, we have three (possibly four) baptisms and two weddings coming up here in our little church.
Caleb Matthew Hurst, born in August, will be baptized in two weeks.
Two weeks after that, Jason and Emily will be baptized.
These twins were born in January.
Along the way, there’s a possibility that we may even be baptizing Amelia Jane, our granddaughter, depending on how mom and dad work out the logistics of bicoastal family and friends.
Then, in May, we have the Smith-Richardson wedding, Matthew and Renai on the 9th of May, and later, in August, it’ll be the Cudak-Crawford wedding, Dawn and Sean on August 8th.
Most of you haven’t met any of these folks.
And I can already hear a little grumbling in the background.
“They come here to baptize their babies, or to get married, but after that, we don’t see them again.”
But, you know, I think that’s perfectly all right.
We may not see them again.
On the other hand, we just may.
It may not be this winter, or this spring, or this year, even.
But we make a connection.
We offer a gift.
And it’s a gift like any other gift.
No strings attached.
This gift is the gift of the grace of God, given without the expectation of anything in return.
I refuse to be the “police” of the sacraments, deciding who should or should not receive God’s blessing.
Giving away the sacraments unconditionally seems totally right to me.
This, I believe, is what Jesus would have us do.

Our mission/our ministry
Actually, I think this generosity might very well be the mission of this parish in this community, offering “the gifts of God for the people of God” in Marlboro, New York, offering the unconditional acceptance of God to those who simply ˆ for it.

Honest dialog: missing in our churches?
We offer these gifts in the context of our beautiful liturgy, and in an open-minded environment where there exists the possibility of questioning and dialog about what God is, and who Jesus was.
For example, the question of how God could be thought of as loving, generous, and merciful, and then arrange for his own son to be tortured and killed.
We can talk about such a question here.
Another example.
Is Christianity God’s only, or even best, option for bringing salvation to the world?
Maybe not.
We can talk about that question here as well.
The latest thinking about the historical Jesus, and about the twisted roots of the Christian beginnings, appears on the front pages of Time magazine and Newsweek, but these things are seldom discussed in churches.
Even though scholars are producing more books and articles, challenging us to rethink what it means to be a Christian today, often one of the last places you will hear these topics being discussed is in church.
Surveys show that people in the pews want our churches to address these issues in an open and direct way.
They want a safe place to talk about our Christian roots, and about our religious beliefs or disbeliefs.
It’s ironic that as churches are declining in membership, the general public seems to have more interest in religion and spirituality than ever.
People are looking for churches that are not afraid to talk about a more progressive approach to Christian traditions and beliefs.

Reclaiming the core of Christianity
The interest in reclaiming the core of Christianity, distinguishing the myth and the mystery from the facts and the history, this interest actually was surfacing years and years ago, when I was in seminary, but it was a best-kept secret by the clergy for a long time.
Still is in some places.
It wasn’t talked about.
It’s mainly in the last couple of decades, though, that a number of books aimed at lay people have been written about the historical Jesus, books that challenge our traditional and orthodox perspectives.
Previously these books were written by scholars, for scholars, but not so much any more.
Everybody’s reading them.
Ignoring the challenging issues and questions that have been raised by science and scholarship has not worked in the past.
It is not working today.
And it will not work in the future.

Everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.
This morning we heard the parable of the wedding celebration.
There are actually three different versions of it: a version by Luke and another in the Gospel of Thomas.
This morning we have Matthew’s version.
Matthew turned the parable into an allegory of salvation.
A king (that would be God) prepares a feast for his son (Jesus).
The king invites his subjects (the Jews) to the banquet.
Those invited treat the invitations lightly and end up killing some of the king’s servants.
The king destroys them and their city (Jerusalem).
Then the king invites foreigners to the feast.
This allegory would have been alien to Jesus.
Remember, Jesus was a Jew, and this story has been thoroughly Christianized.
Matthew’s prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem was actually looking back.
That destruction had already taken place.
Matthew went on to add a warning addressed to the one who came to the banquet not properly dressed.
Here Matthew is referring to people who have joined the Christian community, but turn out to be unfit, and so they’re expelled.
Matthew, throughout his narrative, dwells on the idea that there will be a last judgment when the good and the bad, the deserving and the undeserving, will be sorted out.
The words, Many are called, but few are chosen
are considered to be entirely the creation of Matthew.

The centerpiece of the parable
The centerpiece of the parable, however, comes down to this, I think.
Guests were invited off the street.
They didn’t do anything to earn the invitation.
It was a gift.
This is a story about God’s “grace,” the gift of free, unmerited approval and generosity of God.
Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; just come to the wedding banquet.
Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in his interpretation of the reading, … the prime rib is ready for carving.
Come to the feast!
That’s God’s invitation.
Come to the feast.

Paul Tillich said this
Paul Tillich, one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century, said this about the meaning of this invitation.
You are accepted.
You are accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know.
Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later.
Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much.
Do not seek for anything; do not intend anything.
Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.
When that happens to us, we experience the grace of God.

Our mission
This, I believe, is our mission in this community, to offer the approval and generosity of “that which is greater than us,” to offer the gift of acceptance, and to offer it without expecting a single thing in return.
I believe that we, in this community, are called to minister to those who have no minister, to welcome the stranger, with no strings attached.

Prayer
Let us pray.
Eternal God, the Great Mystery that is outside everything and yet at the same time inside, keep alive in each one of us the search for a faith that is real, a faith that helps us to live happier lives, a faith that gives us a fuller meaning to life and the events of life.
Bring us to know the goodness that flows from the heart of the universe and may we be expanded in heart and soul by that goodness.
This is our prayer. Amen.

ThisWeeksSermon October 5th Pentecost 21

“We all breathe the same air.”
St. Francis of Assisi & Blessing of the Animals, October 5, 2008

" Those of us who have held an animal companion
as it breathed its last breath,
we know this to be true.
These other animals,
the nonhuman ones,
are an integral part of God’s creation."

[Note: The audio version is clickable on the right side of this page. The quality is not good! But if you adjust the volume as you go along, it's listenable. Technical difficulties! Also, the first part of the sermon wasn't scripted. I had been counting on covering that base by publishing decent audio. But since that failed, I listened phrase by phrase and keyed it here for you. Read on.]

I ran into this book this summer when I was camping up in the Adirondacks.
The woman who runs the campground, Pam, had been reading it and recommended it, and it looked really cool, and I thought it might contain something that I could use at one of the children’s services, and so I bought the book. It’s called Swine Not. The subtitle is A Novel Pig Tale.
Jimmy Buffett wrote the book, believe it or not. You know, he’s had several books on the New York Times best-seller list, including nonfiction. Who knew! Of course I remember him because of his song, “Wasting Away in Margaretaville. We could sing a few bars.
Let me read what it says on the flap inside the back cover.
“It was serendipitous when longtime friend Helen Bransford showed Jimmy a short manuscript and photo-illustrations based on her pet pig, Forkie. For years Helen’s friends had been entertained by her funny stories about her adventures in New York City, hiding the family pig in an upscale hotel. Now Bransford, an author and artist, presents readers with an unforgettable pigaccompanied by a tale that only Jimmy Buffet could invent.
So this is a story about a pig who lived in a New York hotel. I’ve got a few notes here.
The story starts in a little town in Tennessee, Vertigo, Tennessee. That’s where Rumpy the pig lives with her family on this farm. The story ends up in New York City in this posh hotel across the street from Central Park. The characters in the story are Rumpy, the pig. In Tennessee, she was an entertainer. She danced for people. I think it was the tango. I can’t quite remember. When she entertained, she’d be the star of the show. She also could play soccer. The position she played was goalie (I think). She wore a face protector, and guarded the goal. She would guard the net and did a very good job of it, using her nose to send the ball flying back. Rumpy has a keen sense of smell. And I understand that all pigs do. At one point in the story, she could smell cotton candy half a block away, and head right for it.
Another character in the story is a cat. The cat’s named Syrup. She plays a smaller role, but it’s important nonetheless.
There are twins in the story, a boy and a girl. The boy’s name is Barley. He is an avid soccer player. When Rumpy played soccer, they’d kick the ball back and forth out on the field down in Tennessee, and also in Central Park, eventually. Darryl Meacham, the soccer player, is Barley’s hero, his role model in life. Barley wants to be Darryl Meacham.
Maple, the twin sister, she loves to sew, and she’s very very good at it. Her goal in life is to be a fashion designer, and her role model in life is the fashion designer Karen Wu. She wants to be Karen Wu when she grows up.
The mom is Ellie. On the farm, she’s really an “earth mother.” She gardens, and she cans, and she cooks, and she’s really especially good at pastries.
The dad is Oscar. I think Oscar is modeled after the author, Jimmy Buffett, because he’s kind of a vagabond, a drifter. He and his wife haven’t divorced, but he disappears, and then he comes back, and everybody loves him when he’s there, but they never know when he’s going to leave or when he’s going to come back. So that’s Oscar.
In New York City, there’s a character named Boucher. They call him “Boucher the Butcher.” He’s the head chef in this hotel restaurant, and you never read about him without a knife in his hand. He is not a vegetarian. He loves serving very rare, bloody meat to his patrons in the hotel restaurant.
Then, the other two people who appear in the book eventually are Lukie, Rumpy’s twin brother, and Darryl Meachem shows up at the end of the story as well.
So the family, they move from Vertigo, Tennessee to New York City. Ellie, the mother, gets a job as the pastry chef in this kitchen where Boucher the Butcher runs things. It’s a posh hotel. Upper East Side. Across the street from Central Park. Famous restaurant. People come from all over to eat in that restaurant.
The family’s given a penthouse to live in. It’s totally glass. Windows all the way around. They call it “the fishbowl.” It’s quite a beautiful place. They can look down in Central Park and beyond. The problem is that they have Rumpy the pig living with them in this glass house that everyone can look into, and there’s a rule in the hotel, and the rule is “No exotic animals allowed.” Dogs and cats are okay. But not pigs. So Maple, the twin sister, she’s pretty creative, and she figures out a way to disguise a room service cart in such a way that they can squeeze Rumpy into the bottom of the cart. There are places for her feet to come down through the bottom so she can move the cart around. They give her a little porthole so she can see where she’s going. Tablecloth to the floor. Dirty dishes on the top so it looks like it belongs there. And Rumpy can actually navigate the halls of the hotel, and into the elevator and everything. The other thing that Maple, the twin sister does, is she creates a costume for Rumpy. It’s a costume that makes Rumpy look just like a dog. It’s so believable that Rumpy can walk through the hotel lobby without being detected. When she gets out on the sidewalks, dogs are coming up and sniffing her. They believe she’s really another dog.
Well, the drama in the story is about Rumpy’s loss of her twin brother. They were separated when they were babies. She longs to find her brother Lukie. Her understanding is that Lukie’s living in New York City somewhere. So this whole thing’s about her reconciling with her brother. So the story climaxes one night when Rumpie gets a scent of her brother, Lukie. She can smell him. He’s over in the park somewhere. She’s alone in the glass penthouse. It’s at night. She works her way out of the hotel, across the street, and into Central Park, and she’s on the trail of her brother, following him through the park. She’s in the zoo, and then guess what, Boucher the Butcher shows up with a sharp knife in his hand, and he’s interested in pork chops. Rumpy takes off running like crazy. But as she’s running, she notices a shed on fire, and there’s a sign on the side of the shed. (She can read, as a matter of fact.) There’s a sign on the side of the shed that says, Flammable Materials Inside, Explosives, right? So, trigger. Alarm! She sees this old woman sitting on a park bench with her back to it, the shed that’s on fire, and about to explode, and so Rumpy hesitates in her race, runs over, grabs the woman by the sleeve, spins her around so she can see what’s going on, and then she saves this old woman’s life. And it turns out that the mother of the mayor of the City of New York. It’s this “random act of kindness” that really turns things around for Rumpy. And she eventually does connect with her brother, Lukie.
I just want to read a couple of pages. It’s big print, so don’t worry. (Really nice illustrations. Every chapter starts with a really nice illustration. I’ll share the book with anyone who wants it. This is Rumpy speaking. Every chapter has a different speaker. Sometimes it’s Barley, the twin boy, sometimes it’s the girl, sometimes it’s Rumpy.
There is a song sung by great human named Aretha Franklin called “Respect.” I used to dance to it back in Vertigo when I entertained the locals. To tell the truth, I didn’t actually listen closely to the words. What I loved was the beat and particularly that place Ms. Franklin would sing, “Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me,” over and over again. Be you human, animal, vegetable, or microbe living at the bottom of the ocean, if you can’t dance to that part of the sing, well then, you need to move to another part of the galaxy. Humans do have their moments, you know, but they often make things much more complicated than they really are. We animals fight over territory, but nothing we have ever done has started a war. Sometimes I think it must be hard to be a human with a brain that can at times create such wonder and at other times wreak such havoc.
I had come to New York expecting the whole human world to fit into mine, and I was kicked out-of-bounds like one of Barley’s explosive crossing shots on the soccer field. I admit I whined and got depressed, but even in my times of hopelessness, I still knew in my deepest heart that somehow, some way, I would see my brother again. The gods of good fortune had smiled down on me, and because of a random act of kindness, my world came together the way I had always dreamed it would. I didn’t have to hide, wear a dog suit, or stuff myself into a room-service table any more. Not only had I found my brother but along the way I had earned a little “respect”—which in my humble, piggish opinion is all any of us really want anyhow.
At first, when Maple and Barley saw Lukie, they assumed I had a boyfriend. But Ellie chewed on her lip for a moment and said, “I can hardly believe it, but that is no boyfriend—that is Rumpy’s twin brother. I remember him from when they were babies. See how much they look alike?” Everyone made a huge fuss, and I twirled and twirled so Ellie would understand that she had been absolutely right.
A few hours after my ordeal with the Butcher, I was perfectly refreshed and enjoying my newfound celebrity status. E-mails and text messages spread the world like wildfire throughout the hotel about the heroic you-know-what living in the fish tank on the roof. And—get this—Lukie and I were invited to have dinner the next evening with the mayor and his mother. I was happy.
Rumpy put it this way:
“I didn’t have to hide, wear a dog suit, or stuff myself into a room-service table any more.”
(No more pretending to be something I’m not.)
“Humans often make things much more complicated than they really are.”

A special bond
Our relationships with our animal companions……
are pure and simple.
The bond between me and my dog……
is like no other relationship.
All of our communication is absolutely basic.
It’s eye to eye…
nose to nose…
my tug on the leash felt on the neck of the dog.
Do you want to go for a walk?…
my spoken question gets a tip of the head…
a wag of the tail…
twitch of the ears.
Two creatures of love…
two creatures in love.
Him and me.
Those of us who have lived with dogs or cats……
or birds or chickens or horses…
or even pigs…
we know this to be true.
Those of us who have held an animal companion……
as it breathed its last breath…
we know this to be true.
These other animals…
the nonhuman ones…
are an integral part of God’s creation.
And Creation is a way for us……
to connect with the Creator…
and with a sense of The Holy.
Holy birds and their songs…
holy snow-capped mountains…
holy rivers and their trout…
holy dogs and cats and birds…
and pigs.
There’s something spiritual to it.
From Genesis, the first book of the Bible:
God created all life in the waters…
every species of flying birds…
to reproduce on Earth.
Humans and animals.
From the book of Ecclesiastes:
“We all breathe the same air.”
It was evening, it was morning—Day Five.
jerry+
Sunday, October 5, 2008

Blessing of the Animals, Francis of Assisi, Oct. 5, 2008

It was bring-your-pet-to-church Sunday in Marlboro. All creatures great and small. Take a look! It was wonderful (although at times it felt a bit like an episode from "The Vicar of Dibley").

Photos of our lunch "cruise" in the Adirondacks

A week ago Tuesday, six of us from our campground in the Adirondacks drove up to Raquette Lake for a lunch cruise on the W.W. Durant. Raquette Lake is famous for its 100+ miles of shoreline (lots of inlets and islands) and because it's the only spring-fed lake in the Adirondacks. No rivers flow in; only out. Before the late 1920s, when the first roads were opened, the only up was via rail, with great connections from metropolitan areas. Several hotels once stood near the rail station. And extremely wealthy Americans built "Great Camps" on the shores of the lake. Hotels are gone. But the Camps remain. Two hours on the boat, lunch prepared by a Culinary Institute chef, and all for $33. I'm uploading a six-minute "movie." Fast-forward if necessary.

jb

ThisWeeksSermon September 28 Pentecost 20

“The Bible is the finger pointing to the moon.”
The 20th Sunday After Pentecost, September 28, 2008

“Some might think that taking scripture apart like this ends up leaving a person with nothing certain, nothing left to cling to. 

But I say it’s just the opposite.
Understanding what Jesus really said and what Jesus really did, and distinguishing it from the story-telling of the writers, frees us from the mind-numbingness of having to accept every word at face value.”

May I speak only the truth, and may only the truth be heard by you, in the name of God our Creator, our redeemer, and our sanctifier.
Amen.

Imagine this scene
Imagine this.
It’s 9:25 on a Sunday morning.
Most of us are here settling in for our celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
Reneé’s working her way through some appropriate pre-service music.
Finally, at 9:30, I make it to the back of the church.
We ring the bell.
And then a stranger dressed in black, wearing a round clerical collar, and maybe even a bishop’s purple shirt, this stranger enters the church, pushes his way past me and the acolytes at the back, rushes up to the lectern, and starts telling us what’s wrong with The Episcopal Church, and what’s wrong with us in particular.
We’d be astonished, then probably incensed.
I’d be right up there, in his face.
“Who are you!”
“Who sent you?”
“Where do you come from?”
And “What right do you have to be here?”

Part 1—It’s about questioning Jesus’ authority
In this morning’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, it’s Jesus who was that stranger.
Jesus is the one who was a “party-crasher” in the temple.
And it was the priests in the temple who confronted Jesus.
“By what right are you doing these things?,” they wanted to know.
“Who gave you this authority.
Jesus answers by challenging them to what amounted to a theological debate.
He opens with a question concerning John’s authority to baptize and preach.
“You answer my question,” Jesus says, and then I’ll answer yours.
“Then I’ll tell you where my authority comes from.”
Jesus traps them with a question about the “authority” of John the Baptist, a question they cannot answer.
“Was John an agent of God or not?”
Well, the priests didn’t think John was sent by God.
What they did think was that John was just a crazy guy off the streets, but they couldn’t say so.
They were trapped.
They knew that John was a popular preacher who drew large crowds.
And they were afraid of the crowd surrounding Jesus.
The priests figured out that the tables had been turned on them.
So they refused to answer.
And Jesus replies in kind.
“You don’t answer me?”
“I won’t answer you.”
“I’m not going to tell you by what authority I do things.”

Part 2—It’s about saying and not doing
And then Jesus lunges into a story about a farmer who has two sons.
One who agrees to work in the vineyard, but doesn’t follow through and do the work, and another son who doesn’t agree to work in the vineyard, but eventually does do some work.
Both brothers say one thing, but do another.
And so Jesus asks the priests this question:
“Which of the two did what the father wanted?”
They choose the son who at least did some work.
But it’s apparently not the right answer.
My guess is that the right answer is that neither son did what the father wanted.
My guess is that Matthew included this vignette as a criticism of the priests who say one thing but do another.
They claim to be faithfully obedient to God, but they are clueless about what God is doing in the world.
They are faithful followers of the scripture, but they’re unable to see God at work in the life of John the Baptist, or in the life of Jesus.

Part 3—It’s now about believing or not believing
In the third piece of today’s reading, that contrast between saying and doing, oddly, becomes a contrast, instead, between believing and not believing.
But it doesn’t make sense.
The tax collectors and prostitutes did not say one thing but do another.
They said “Yes” and they believed.
The Pharisees did not say one thing but do another.
They said “no” and they remained unbelievers.

The more you know about the Bible, the richer it becomes
This incongruity between the story of the two brothers and the description of the tax collectors and prostitutes suggests that the conclusion is probably Matthew’s creation, just an add-on.
In fact, the the whole temple scene is thought to be Matthew’s creation.
If you’re looking for guidance from the lips of Jesus today, you won’t find it in this morning’s reading.
This is Matthew speaking.
Matthew is reflecting the anti-priestly teachings of the church in the first century.

Taking scripture apart
Some might think that taking scripture apart like this ends up leaving a person with nothing certain, nothing left to cling to.
But I say it’s just the opposite.
Understanding what Jesus really said and what Jesus really did, and distinguishing it from the story-telling of the writers, frees us from the mind-numbingness of having to accept every word at face value.
There are other ways to approach the writings bound up in the Bible.

Gospel-based discipleship
A couple of years ago I attended a small-church workshop in the midwest.
One of the things that was introduced to us was a different way of reading the Bible.
It’s called “gospel-based discipleship.”
It’s not Bible study.
It’s more of an “encounter” with the Bible.
It was suggested that when reading the gospel narratives, we listen for three things:
First, listen for any words or ideas that jump out at you.
Second, listen for what God (or Jesus) might be saying to you.
And third, figure out how that insight might affect the way you live our life.
In this morning’s gospel, for example, the words that jump out at me are authority, and the word you.
Jesus is asking, “Where do you think my authority comes from?”
And that question takes me back a few chapters in Matthew’s gospel, to where Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do others say the Son of Man is?”
They answered, John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, etc.
“But what about you,” Jesus asked.
“Who do you say I am.
Jesus doesn’t appear to care what others have said.
This is personal.
“Who do you say I am.
That’s a question that gives me permission think for myself.
You see, I think it’s up to each one of us to answer that question for ourselves, and to trust that answer.
Who do I say Jesus is?
Who do you say Jesus is?
What does each of us know to be True, really really True, about God, about Jesus, and pretty much about anything else beyond this reality?

Spiritual journeys
During the last couple of months, I’ve been on a spiritual journey with two companions.
Neither lives close by.
It’s an “internet journey.”
Terry is a fellow camper I met up in the Adirondacks.
Bradley is a high school kid in South Carolina who’s thinking about a future as an Episcopal priest.
Terry and Bradley ask me questions about God.
Sometimes it seems they want some kind of authority, an authoritative answer.
But I don’t have it.
My comeback is, “What about you?”
“What do you think about God?” They may figure their ideas aren’t good enough.
But they are good enough.

Bradley’s creed
Bradley decided that he would write his own “creed,” expressing what he believes about God, about Christ, about the Bible, etc.
Here’s Bradley’s creed, sharing it with his permission.
You can find it on the internet if you know where to look:
I believe in God, a God who is at once transcendent and immanent, who is both knowable and un-knowable, who is the source of life, Love, and the ground of all being, who is the great comforter in our time of need. 
I believe in Jesus the Christ, who is eternal. 
I believe Jesus points me to who God is.
In Christ I see the image, the Icon of God, the reflection of God; for that reason I believe the Christ is the Incarnation of God.
I believe in the Bible as the Word of God.
God speaks to me through the bible, and In the bible I find God.
I believe that the bible is “the finger pointing to the moon,” that is, it’s the bible that points me to God.
All this from a 16-year-old high-schooler telling us what he thinks about God.
Pretty awesome stuff.
jb+

Prayer
Let us pray.
Eternal God, the Great Mystery that is outside everything and yet at the same time inside, keep alive in each one of us the search for a faith that is real, a faith that helps us to live happier lives, a faith that gives us a fuller meaning to life and the events of life.
Bring us to know the goodness that flows from the heart of the universe and may we be expanded in heart and soul by that goodness.
This is our prayer. Amen.