April 2008; July 2008; September 2008; November 2008

Feb 2009, Ash Wed 2009, August 2009 written, April 27,2009, June 28,2009, August 23,2009, October 18,09,

Betty Nelson Funeral Sermon, Christmas Eve 2009

June 28,2009

April 27, 2008
The Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 14:15-21
1 Peter 3:13-22
Psalm 66:7-18
Acts 17:22-31

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always pleasing in your sight, O LORD, our Strength and our Redeemer. AMEN.

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Going all the way back to the beginning, the very beginning, God created - from absolutely nothing - all that is, everything that exists. He saw that it was good, very good. And yet, God longed for something more. He loved His creation but he wanted a relationship, he wanted someone to love him back. And so God created humans.

Throughout the ages, God and humankind have had a relationship. God loved his people, made in his image, and he provided for them, everything they needed. Yet, humans behaved badly and they suffered consequences. Many a time God was very grieved by their behavior. Yet he loved them, he loved them so much that God sent his Son to live a life on earth, to experience life as a human being. Jesus came to tell us about God and His great love for us. Jesus also taught his disciples about heaven, about life everlasting.

Our gospel today is from the final discourse, the final conversation of Jesus with his disciples. He is finishing his teaching. They are on their way to Gethsemane, following the Last Supper. Earlier in this Gospel, Jesus has told his disciples that he will go ahead of them to prepare a place for them (and all of us) in heaven. Now in the reading we heard today, He is telling them, that although he will be leaving them in his human form shortly, they should not worry. He will send another Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, to be with them forever. He will not leave them abandoned. Even though, in just a short time, his physical being will be gone from Earth, Jesus will send his Holy Spirit who will abide with them, and be in them, and us, forever. The Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives is made manifest by a deep sense of joy, assurance, and peace. It transcends circumstances, the ups and downs of life.

As most of you know, both my mother and my father passed away last summer. On May 31st, everything in our lives was normal; we were all making our plans for the summer. But, with a phone call on June 1st, our lives were irrevocably changed. Mom had cancer, cancer of the worst kind, and it didn’t feel at all like there was much hope. And dad, how would he ever manage? They each were terribly worried about the other, and the three of us children were shocked and apprehensive, trying very hard to put a positive spin on a prognosis of “a year or less.” In retrospect, living for another year sounds pretty good considering mom was gone in six short weeks. In what was a big step for me, I made a leap of faith and called on God to just take care of mom and dad. I knew this situation was out of my hands and I acknowledged to God that He loved them so much more than even I did, “Please take care of them.” The reason why this was such a big step for me is that I generally tend to give directions to God, to tell him what I think he should do. Can you hear his chuckle? It was so hard for me to just turn this over to God.

In the midst of all of these wrenching worries and emotions, I had an experience of the very real presence of our Holy Spirit. On a very warm, quiet June evening, I was leading our weekly Evening Prayer service here at church. There were a few worshipers here with me, my very dear friends. And I was struggling with all my sadness, fears, and feelings of helplessness. And during one of the prayers, I suddenly felt a cool, soothing breeze on the back of my bare neck. I was startled and I actually stopped momentarily and looked around. The windows were closed and the ceiling fans were off. Where did that breeze come from? And as I resumed leading the prayer, I felt the breeze yet again. I am ever so grateful to have experienced this encounter with the Holy Spirit, who, with his gentle caress, was assuring me that it was going to be OK. And in that moment, I caught a glimpse of the peace that passes all understanding.

This next part has been said before, in one form or another, but, today, I would like to frame it in the context of the influence of the Holy Spirit. I think that you will agree with me that we here at Christ Church have also experienced the very real presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit over the last two years. We went through some very difficult, painful circumstances, which shook us to our very core. But as we moved forward and started healing, the very hand of the Holy Spirit touched us as a congregation. We were blessed by the prayers and support of many who cared about us; we had a revitalization and a renewal of spirit. We were calm and trusting as we sailed into uncharted territory, on our own without a rector. Our needs were met in a remarkable way by our wonderful supply priests and our faithful musicians. For me, the most amazing manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s touch was the return of Father Ken and Pam Toven to Grand Rapids and to Christ Church. Circumstances in their lives prompted their move back to their hometown at just the precise moment of our greatest need. We had begun our journey toward becoming a Total Ministry congregation and we needed a mentor, a teacher to guide us through this journey. We are so blessed by Ken’s experience, knowledge, sensitivity and love. He is a gift to us from above.

In our reading today from First Peter, Peter is writing to Jewish Christians who have been driven out of Jerusalem and were being persecuted, tortured and killed under the Emperor Nero. Indeed, his message is for believers everywhere. He encourages the faithful to do what is right and good, to live in compassion and love, even in the face of ridicule or persecution. Our good example is Jesus Christ who himself was perfect goodness, yet suffered death for our sake and won for us eternal life. We can be assured of Christ’s presence with us in the midst of suffering and trouble.

In this passage, Peter also encourages believers to always be prepared with an answer for those who ask what our reason is for the hope that we have. We are to be ready to share our witness, our reason for faith and to do it with respect and gentleness. I submit that this is a tough one for many of us to articulate. I know it is for me, not for a lack of faith, but because it is hard for me to convert my thoughts into the spoken word at times. I don’t feel like I have the right words.

I want to share with you a visit that I had last fall with a gentleman named Jim, just a few short weeks after my dad passed away. For those of you who might not know, I work as a registered nurse in a nursing home and part of my job is to interview residents and assess the condition of their health. I walked into Jim’s room shortly before lunch and found him sitting quietly in his easy chair, no TV, no reading, just gazing out the window. I greeted him and proceeded with my questions. He was so sweet and smiling, his eyes clear and dancing. I wrapped up my short interview and said goodbye. He was so appreciative for my short visit. As I started to leave, there was that “kick in the butt,” which was the Holy Spirit telling me, “Not so fast! Sit down!” I sat back down on the edge of the bed and smiled at him. I had noticed a portrait on his bedside table of him and his wife, whom I knew had recently died. I looked at that photo, which reminded me of my mom and dad, and I felt the tears rising. I said to myself, “I gotta get out of here before I start crying.” Instead, I asked him how he was doing today. He replied with a sad smile, “Today is my anniversary.” Well, that pushed me over the edge and I started crying. I apologized to him and explained my sorrow. And here we were, comforting each other. He said to me then, “You are the first person who has talked to me today. You are an angel.” He went on to tell me that he believes God makes things happen for a reason and he just knew that God had sent me to him that day to comfort him. And this is what really got me; Jim started praising God right then and there, thanking God for sending him an angel and for being so good to him. He exclaimed, “I love you so much, God!” His joy and complete trust in the goodness of God was so touching. Maybe I can learn from him.

Will you join me in prayer as I pray today’s collect again?

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.




July 20, 2008

Pentecost 10
Proper 11

Genesis 28:10-19a
Psalm 139: 1-11, 23-24
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43


May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable to you, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. AMEN.
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Lord, you know me so well.
You know when I sit down and when I stand up.
You know exactly how I’m thinking and feeling.
You know what I’m going to say, even before I say it.
You really care about me. You go behind me and before me and your loving hand protects me and guides me.
Your individual love for me is so wonderful I can hardly believe it.
No matter where I go you are there, too.
If I am in the land of happiness, you are there.
When I go down into the land of sadness, you are there.
When I accomplish great things, even then your hand will hold me steady.
It is you I depend on.
In the darkness, you are my light.
You created me and you knew me even before I was born.
I praise you because I am wonderfully made.
All your works are wonderful. I know that perfectly well.


These wonderful words are a paraphrase of Psalm 139. They are recited at the beginning of the children’s cassette tape entitled “Lands Where I Live” by Dorothy Zerbe. Some of you may remember this fantastically creative production featuring the Christ Episcopal Church Youth Choir back in 1991 and some of your children participated in the creation of this musical tape. I love this psalm and when I read it, I immediately start singing the songs from Dorothy’s tape in my head.

Psalm 139 is considered one of the grandest psalms in the entire Psalter. It is about the ever-abiding presence of God. He cares about us, you and me. He cares for us personally; he knows our soul. This psalm is meant to be a source of comfort and to assure us that we are never beyond God’s reach.

“You know what I am going to say, even before I say it!” Have you ever had the experience, say with your spouse or a close friend, where one of you can finish the other’s sentence, or you start nodding in agreement as the other is talking, even before they finish their thought? God knows what we are thinking, hoping for, longing for, praying for even before we say it out loud, even before we form our words. Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount that, while it is true that God knows our needs before we ask, we should still ask.

A few weeks ago, Gary and I were returning his mother Gloria’s car to her garage at her apartment building. Gary arrived ahead of me and was settling the car in the garage. As I drove slowly by the front door of Gloria’s building, headed toward the garage, I noticed a very frail elderly gentleman trudging very slowly up the stairs to the front door. He was carrying a small package and had to stop halfway up to catch his breath. I could see that this trek up the steps was challenging his thin body. When I see this kind of struggle, it makes me feel so sad. Gary and I met at the garage and he said he’d go in the back door of the apartment building to return his mom’s key and we’d meet at the other end of the building. I turned around and headed back toward the front entrance. As I approached I started thinking about the old gentleman and I was just beginning to form a prayer for him in my head. Some fragments of that prayer were something like, “take care of him”, and “send some kind person to help him when he needs it.” As I drove by the front door, traveling toward the far end of the building, I was very dismayed to see that in the last five minutes, the fellow had only gotten as far as the locked security door and was now struggling with the lock and the key. I quickly put the car in reverse, intending to go help. And whose smiling face shows up at that moment on the inside of the security door but Gary’s! I had not even finished forming my prayer for that guy, in the few seconds of these events, and God had already answered my prayer. There was the kind person I had prayed for, opening the door for the feeble old fellow.

I love it when this happens. God is so cool. Some might say, “Coincidence.” I say, “‘God’-incidence.” The words of our processional hymn today proclaim, “To God be the Glory!” Why not give God the glory and the credit for this immediately answered prayer? I truly believe it came from Him.

About 15 years ago, I was in the very early stages of my faith journey. I have always believed in God, but I just never gave it much thought. And I never understood that God could be a personal God, that we could have a personal relationship with him. Even though that is, after all, why he created us. At a house group that I attended, one of the ladies was telling about her trip out west. She had traveled alone, yet she told us she had gone with her “best friend, Jesus.” My silent reaction was Hmmmm… weird. But this woman was living and breathing the words of Psalm 139. She was in a relationship with Jesus Christ, talking to Him, sharing with Him, praying to Him, trusting Him and basking in His glory. I am glad to say that a seed was planted that night, even if I didn’t quite get it at the time. That seed has flourished in my life and God is now my constant companion.

Back in 1989, a good friend of mine was murdered, stabbed to death in her own home in Bloomington. This was an absolutely senseless crime, committed by a teenager who was in the clutches of the evil one. We all struggled with the horror of this, the “why did this happen”, the “how could God let this happen?” To this day, I don’t have those answers, but I remember the minister saying that God was the first one to hear Terri’s screams. He was there. She was His child and He was there. She was immediately ushered into his eternal loving arms. As today’s psalm says, we are never beyond God’s reach.

Our gospel from Matthew today is a parable about the kingdom of God. Jesus knew that even though the Gospel, the Good News, would spread throughout the world, evil would persist until the end of the age, side by side with goodness. Jesus tells how the farmer sowed some seeds of wheat and, in the night, his enemy came and spread weeds among the wheat. The servants were told not to try to pull up the young weeds, which looked like the young wheat, for fear of uprooting the wheat and damaging that crop. The weeds were allowed to grow along with the wheat, even though the presence of the weeds competed for the nutrition and moisture necessary to grow a good crop of wheat. At the harvest, the full-grown weeds were then pulled and discarded and the wheat could then be safely harvested. Jesus explained to the disciples that the farmer in this story represented the Son of Man, the field is the world and the wheat are the children of the kingdom who act in a way that is commendable and decent. The weeds are the children of the evil one and the enemy is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age and this is when we will see God’s judgment.

The kingdom of heaven is not a physical place as much as a spiritual realm where God rules and we experience eternal life. When we become believers of Christ, we begin to live in this kingdom. While we are living in God’s kingdom on earth, there are characteristics that we can exhibit to share the kingdom with others, such as forgiveness, mercy, peace, putting others first and love. Tim Russert, the great NBC political journalist who died this past June, is remembered for saying that the best exercise for the human heart is to bend down and pick someone else up.

One of my study guides called New Proclamation suggests that we remember that God sends sun and rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. We are reminded that if God shows such a generous spirit, perhaps we should do the same. If the seeds in the parable represent real children, then we worry about them rubbing shoulders with evil. But this is reality. We can’t protect them from every bad thing that might influence them. We are better off to equip them with ways to deal with unfairness and danger and immorality and dishonesty. And while doing this, we can teach them to be kind and to be honorable thus modeling God’s principles of mercy and justice. Who knows? In doing so, they may change the heart of a soul wrapped in evil and bring another human to the kingdom of God.

Some scholars feel that this parable was Matthew’s way of dealing with a mixed church; while the church may have many faithful followers, the world is full of those who fail to understand and don’t believe. This is an apocalyptic parable that talks about the end of time when evil will be vanquished. We are meant to concentrate on our own fidelity, our faithfulness, truthfulness and devotion to Christ. Good and evil will be sorted out at the judgment day, at the end of time. That is God’s job.

The closing verses of Psalm 139 are felt to be one of the most needed prayers in the Bible. In reading these lines as a prayer, we are asking God to search our hearts and point out our sins and wrong-headedness. When we recognize our wrong ways, we can repent, turn away from them and be forgiven. Then we can allow God to lead us in the way everlasting – the way to life and peace.

Will you pray with me?

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. AMEN.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 21


Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Psalm 25: 1-8
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32

I first looked at the Gospel reading for today back in June, when I volunteered to preach on September 28th. And my first reaction was, Uh,Oh! I'm in trouble. I don't get it! So, I put it away for a couple months hoping desperately that the Holy Spirit would be available for advice and direction when I finally sat down to write this sermon. Last weekend I parked at my computer, put a card table up and laid out my materials. At last count, I had fifteen books on the table. Three different translations of the Bible, three Bible handbooks, four commentaries, two books on the Old Testament and the New Testament, two hymnals and a copy of the Forward Day by Day meditations. As you can imagine, I became hopelessly overloaded and confused. So I talked with Father Ken and asked him to help me understand what this passage meant. And I prayed. So here goes.

In the verses preceding today's gospel in the 21st chapter of Matthew, Jesus has triumphantly entered Jerusalem on a donkey's colt. The crowds acclaim him and shout Hosannas. Jesus goes directly to the temple and is greatly upset to see the moneychangers and the merchants set up there and doing business in the court of the Gentiles. He was angry because their methods of money-changing were deceptive to the foreigners who had traveled long distances to get to the temple. The merchants' actions frustrated the people's attempts at worship and so Jesus drove them all out of the temple, creating quite a ruckus as you can imagine. After the brouhaha, Jesus began to see and comfort and heal the blind and the lame who were brought to him.

This account leads us to the next verses that make up today's Gospel lesson. The chief priests and elders confront Jesus and demand to know by what authority he does these things and who gave him permission.




These Pharisees didn't like Jesus and were only interested in making him look bad. So they tried to trick him with this question about his authority. They figured if he said his authority came from God, they could accuse him of blasphemy. And if Jesus said he was acting on his own authority, they figured the crowd would realize that the Pharisees themselves had greater authority. But Jesus would have none of it. His question about the origin of John the Baptist’s baptism exposed their real motives; they weren't interested in the truth, they only wanted to trap him.

Jesus then launched into a parable, as he often does. He told the story of the two sons and their father. My studies have taught me that in the ancient Mediterranean culture, it was absolutely expected that sons honor and obey their parents, especially while they are still living with them. Upon being asked to go work in the vineyard, the first son said no, then he later thought better of it and went to do his work. But the second son said he would go to the fields, and then he didn't show up.

Jesus equates the tax collectors and the prostitutes, who were the biblical bad people, with the first son. These folks were not socially acceptable and upright citizens. They generally didn't follow all of society's rules. And yet, they have heeded the message of John the Baptist and Jesus. They repented of their sinful ways and many of them led changed lives.

Jesus equates the second son, the one who said he would go do the work in the vineyard and then didn't go, with the chief priests and elders. The religious elite claim to be God's obedient servants but their hypocrisy is exposed when they don't consider John and Jesus as representing the moral authority of God. Their hearts were hardened to the truth about Jesus.

The point of this parable is that the social outcasts listened as John taught them the right road and their lives were changed by their genuine responses. The religious leaders are all wrapped up in rules and appearances. They turned up their noses at John's teaching. Even when they saw the transformed lives of the outcasts, they did not care enough to believe and change.

What does this mean for us? It would seem to tell us that how we live and behave and the things we do are what is really important. Our works are what is important. We can have all the knowledge in the world and try to follow all the rules, but something is missing if we don't "walk the walk and talk the talk."



As I was struggling with how to wrap up this Gospel discussion, I was led to the well-known verses in First Corinthians, chapter 13 about love. Love is the greatest of all human qualities and it is an attribute of God himself. After all, it is love that gives our works meaning and validity. So, in paraphrasing these verses from First Corinthians, even if we have the ability to speak in tongues, the ability to prophesy, if we have extensive knowledge, even if we follow all the rules, even if we give all we have to the poor, if we don't have love, we have nothing. All of these spiritual gifts will produce very little without love. Love involves unselfish service to others and it shows that we care. It is directed outward toward others, not inward toward ourselves. We need God's help to love in this way, to love without expecting anything in return. God knows our hearts. The more we try to live and love like Christ, the more we become his hands and feet on earth.

And, of course, Jesus is the perfect example of unselfish love and, in his life on earth, perfect humility.

Philippi, in northern Greece, was a very cosmopolitan and diverse city back in the first century. There were people from many backgrounds and walks of life. This was the first church established by Paul in Europe. He loved them and his letter to them was full of joy and thankfulness. In this letter written while he was in prison, Paul tells them that he wants the very best for them and so he encourages them to put aside ambition and conceit and to be of one spirit and purpose, to live together in love and unity.



If you will indulge me, I would like to read again for you Phillipians verses 1-11, but I will be reading from the Message, which is a paraphrase version of the Bible, written in everyday contemporary language. I find these words so inspiring. Listen carefully.

"If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care- then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
"Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death-and the worst kind of death at that-a crucifixion.

"Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth-even those long ago dead and buried-will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father."

I am so in awe of this Jesus Christ, Son of God, who voluntarily assumed a human body and human nature. He did not cease to be God when he took on his human form. But he set aside the right to his power and glory. He gave up his status. He was subject to all the human limitations that you and I experience. Except that he was sinless. And in taking on his humanity, He showed us everything about God's character that can be conveyed in human terms. Love, mercy, kindness, pity, humility to name some examples.

There is so much more that can be said about this passage from Paul's letter to the Philippians, but to me, the message is humility and servanthood. Both our Gospel and this letter to the Philippians emphasize our actions, how we live our lives. Humility doesn't mean putting ourselves down but that we lay aside selfishness and treat others with respect and courtesy, considering their needs as more important than our own. By having a servant's attitude, we will find that we are serving out of love for God and in doing so we bring glory to Him.




At the end of this reading, Paul urges the Philippians to work out their own salvation with trembling and fear. We need to remember that our own good works do not earn us our salvation - God's grace does. But it is pleasing to God to see us love like a servant, putting others before ourselves. This is a call to obedient living, to be of like mind with Jesus. To be more like Christ, we need to try to think like Christ. We need the presence of the Holy Spirit within us, the influence of other Christians, obedience to God's word and service to others. And Paul tells the Philippians and us that God is at work in us to act according to his purpose.

Another way to look at the phrase, "Work out your own salvation" would be to show the works of salvation to others. God has a plan for each of our lives, just as he had for Jesus. Thirty-one years ago this week, I was broadsided by a drunk driver who was traveling at highway speed. I was thrown from my vehicle and suffered a significant head injury, which caused a hearing loss classified as profound deafness. Statistically, I probably should not have survived being ejected from the car, many don't. But this experience has made me acutely aware of God's ongoing presence in my life. As Saint Paul said, God is at work in me. My life has been a process; I am a work in progress, ever growing. I am answering a call to the priesthood with humility. With God's help, I hope I can show the way to Christ and to salvation with my works and with my love.

Our final hymn today will be a song called "Our God Reigns." Brenda Dowling and I chose this hymn because the words nicely paraphrase the "Christ Hymn" in Philippians verses 5-11. It is a wonderful hymn of praise for our Lord Jesus Christ, who took on our humanity, bore our sin, died and rose again to assure our salvation. Our God Reigns indeed!!

Will you pray with me?

Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with your most gracious favor, and further us with your continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy Name, and finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

November 23,2008
Christ the King Sunday

Readings:
Ezekial 34:11-16,20-24 Psalm 95:l-7a
Ephesians 1:15-23 Matthew 25:31-46

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. AMEN.

Today is Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the church year, the last Sunday after Pentecost, the last Sunday before Advent It has been 28 weeks since that warm, early summer day when we celebrated God's gift of the Holy Spirit to His people. We call the weeks between Pentecost and the first Sunday of Advent "Ordinary Time." These months represent the time between the first Pentecost and the second coming of Christ. This is the "in-between" time where we are still awaiting the fulfillment of Christ's second coming.

Christ the King Sunday is a relatively recent feast day for the church. Pope Pius XI added it to the Roman Catholic Church calendar in 1925 as a way to celebrate the sovereignty of Christ in the midst of today's troubled world. However, as we know throughout human history, there has been a "mixed bag" of images when we think of a "King." There are images of unjust rule and tyranny under dictators and patriarchal male domination. On the other hand, there are the positive attributes of kingship, where there is the ability to have justice and to care for the well-being of the people under a king's authority.

This feast day reminds us that Christ must reign in our hearts, minds, and souls. Jesus radically redefined and transformed the nature of "kingship." In Mark, chapter 10, Jesus said this to his disciples: (and I quote from the Message translation of the Bible) "You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must be a servant Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: he came to serve, not to be served - and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage."

Christ's kingship is one of humility and service, not oppressive authority. He defined his role as king to be a role of humble service and commanded his disciples, and followers - that includes us - to do the same. Jesus Christ will be returning to judge the world at some future date. His teachings tell us about a kingdom of justice balanced with mercy, peace, forgiveness and radical love. In celebrating Christ as King, we are not honoring an oppressive ruler but the one who was willing to die for all of humanity and whose loving-kindness endures forever.

As I reviewed the readings for today, a theme that I picked up from reading the passage from Ezekial is that of God's faithfulness. I know that Ezekial is telling us that God will follow us wherever we are and bring us back into his loving care. If we have strayed, or if we are feeling particularly hopeless, helpless, lost or alone, the Lord will find us and tuck us back into his fold. Boy, isn't this reassuring? The Lord has told us that he will be our God and will follow us to the ends of the earth.



Another one of the themes that seemed to tie the Old Testament reading from the prophet Ezekial to the Gospel reading from Matthew was that of Judgment. In Ezekial, we are told that God will seek out and save those who are exploited, bullied, muscled out of the way by those who are in power. And God, in his justice, will hold the oppressors accountable. It is never God's will that his people would injure others, exploit others or push and shove their way to the top at the expense of others. God requires his believers to act with mercy, tolerance and patience. Oh, if only this was the way things were, there would be a lot Jess strife across our struggling globe!

As we move to the Gospel, the theme of judgment continues. Jesus tells a parable about judgment in the end times. Much like God separated the fat, strong sheep from the lean, weak sheep in the reading from Ezekial, here Jesus gives them a metaphor about separating the sheep from the goats at the end of time. As we can imagine, the sheep are the righteous and the goats are the unrighteous. Jesus lays out the parameters. When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was thirsty, did you give me something to drink? When I was a stranger, did you welcome me? When I was naked and shivering, did you give me clothes? When I was sick, did you take care of me? When I was in prison, did you visit me? Whenever you did these tilings to someone overlooked or ignored, you did it for me. Conversely, if you didn't do these things when the opportunity presented itself, you didn't do it to me. Jesus then says that those who didn't help would go to eternal doom but the others would go into eternal life.

Whoa! I don't know about you, but according to these guidelines, I am in deep trouble. As hard as I might try to do good and to be compassionate and helpful, I don't do it all the time. I know this is the standard and I also know I'll never attain perfection. I have a really hard time understanding the idea that all who fail to meet these criteria are condemned. I do believe that at the last day, our omnipotent God in all his mercy will make all things right. I believe that human brokenness and suffering cannot outlast God's love. And so, because my current level of knowledge could be best described as Theology 101, and because this is a much-advanced discussion and fodder for a whole sermon by itself, I would like to focus instead on righteousness.

To be righteous is to be moral, honorable, virtuous, honest, ethical, respectable. Look for the face of Christ in everyone. Jesus wants his followers to internalize righteousness so that it permeates our actions. There is joy in the doing, there is blessing in the doing. There is a lesson here in discipleship.

How do we at Christ Church pass on the love of God to others? Let me tell you some of the ways. We have a woman who has opened her heart and home to a troubled family. She has provided respite for a stressed mother and has provided a wonderful, Christian model of love to this whole family. We have a woman who takes time out of her busy daily life to go read to elementary school children, giving the kids some extra attention and love. We have member who visits prisoners in jail, lending them encouragement and a listening ear. We have a member whose passion it is to work with people who have addictions, supporting their recoveries and helping them learn to be accountable. We have a member who spent years working with middle school children, listening to them, helping them sort out problems and always making sure that our own kids from church knew they were always welcome to stop by the office to visit. We have a member whose attitude is that if someone is asking for money, she will give from the heart. In spite of the usual cautions and worries that someone like that may use money to buy cigarettes or booze, her attitude is that she gives from her heart to model Christian love and what they do with the money is between them and God, not her concern. We have a member whose heart goes out to members of the military service and to their families. She searches for ways to help. We have a member whose heart goes out to the lonely and makes a point to visit. We have a member who is a champion for the homeless in this area, providing shelter and food while enabling them to access resources to help them emerge from their difficult situations. All this is done with the utmost respect, preserving the dignity of her clients. I know that I have barely scratched the surface of the Christian love that springs forth from this congregation.

How do we help the "least of these, the forgotten, the ignored"? In my work at the nursing home, I see people everyday who could use more attention. That is not to say their care is not excellent, just that life is busy at the nursing home. I have one resident who has wiggled her way into my heart. I will call her Hilda. She is stone deaf and misses out on all sorts of stimulation because of this. So I go out of my way to interact with her and I am richly blessed. It is a delight to watch her face. When she spots me, her face becomes a ray of sunshine. I come close and squat down eye-to-eye and I smile. We gaze at each other, our souls touching. She seems to be drinking in my attention. We hold hands and a deep need is met

I am reminded of a story that Bishop Swenson told us during a visit to our parish some years ago. He told of traveling back to Minneapolis from a visitation in western Minnesota. He was in his collar and his purple bishop shirt when he stopped to get gas. As he paid for his purchase, he got to talking to the young man behind the counter. The fellow had numerous facial piercings and some wild hair. He had questions about the Bishop's peculiar garb and what it was all about I don't remember the particulars that the Bishop shared with us, but he was able to sense the young man's searching, inquiring heart. He encouraged the young man to give church a try, that God loved him. But what I really remember, the point of the story, is that the Bishop pointedly asked us, how would we react if someone who looked like that young man walked into our worship one day? Would we welcome him? Would we reach out to him? Would we ignore him? Good questions to think about.

Remember that our baptismal vows give us an outline for our servanthood and our responsibilities to our fellow man. "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?"

I have a poem to share that I think it may be familiar to some of you, the author is unknown. The pronouns are masculine but obviously, the words speak to all of us.

Did you give him a lift? He's a brother of man, and bearing about all the burden he can.
Did you give him a smile? He was downcast and blue and a smile would have helped him to
battle it through.
Did you give him your hand? He was slipping down hill and the world so he fancied, was using
him ill.
Did you give him a word? Did you show him the road?
Or did you just let him go on with his load?
Did you help him along? He's a sinner like you but the grasp of your hand might have carried
him through.
Did you bid him good cheer? Just a word and a smile were what he most needed that last weary
mile.
Did you know what he bore in that burden of cares, that every man's load and that sympathy
shares?
Did you try to find out what he needed from you? Or did you just leave him to battle it through?
Do you know what it means to be losing a fight, when a lift just in time might set everything
right?
Do you know what it means -just a clasp of a hand, when a man's borne about all a man ought
to stand?
Did you ask what it was - why the quivering lip, and the glistening tears down the pale cheek
that slip?
Were you a brother of his when the time came to be?
Did you offer to help him, or didn't you see?
Don't you know it's the part of the brother of man to find out what the grief is and help when
you can?
Did you stop when he asked you to give him a lift? Or were you so busy you left him to shift?
Oh, I know what you meant - what you say may be true - but the test of your manhood is, What
did you do?
Did you reach out a hand? Did you find him the road? Or did you just let him go by with his
load?

It is easy to use our God-given gifts to help others. I challenge all of us to step outside our comfort zones. Look for the face of Christ in others. What you do for the least of these, you do for Christ. Christian kindness is to know no limits of race or class but is to flow out unceasingly and naturally from a heart in harmony with the will of God.

Will you pray with me?

Send us, O God, as your messengers, to hearts without a home, to lives without love, to wanderers without a guide. Send us to the children whom none have blessed, to the hungry whom none have fed, to the fallen whom none have lifted, to the bereaved whom none have comforted. Kindle your flame in our hearts, that others may be warmed thereby. Cause your light to shine in our souls, that others may see the way. Keep our sympathies and insight ready, our wills keen, our hands quick to help our sisters and brothers in their need. We pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Feb. 8, 2009
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
 
Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147: 1-12, 21c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39
 
May the words of my mouth and the mediation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.  AMEN.
 
“In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”
 
He prayed? Why did Jesus need to pray? He’s God! Why would he need to pray? This is the question that came to my mind when I started studying for this sermon.
 
Today is the fifth Sunday after Epiphany and we have only gotten as far as verse 29 of the first chapter of Mark’s gospel. There sure has been a lot packed into this first chapter. In the past few weeks, we have heard about John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus and about the calling of the first disciples: Simon, Andrew, James and John. And last week we heard the story of how Jesus drives out an evil spirit from a man in the synagogue. The people were astonished and news about this new teacher who does such amazing deeds spread like wildfire throughout Galilee. There is no time for Jesus to rest. The word “immediately” is used repeatedly in Mark’s gospel and there is a sense of urgency. This gospel reminds us that Jesus is always on the move.
 
 Today’s gospel tells us that Jesus arrives with his four disciples at the home of Simon and Peter. Simon’s mother-in-law is sick in bed with a fever. Jesus went to see her, took her hand and helped her up. With his touch, her fever leaves her and she is made well. She jumps up and starts serving a meal to her guests. After sunset, Jesus spends the evening healing the sick and those possessed by demons. In fact, Mark tells us that the whole city is there! Just imagine! All this takes place after sundown on that Sabbath day and before retiring for the night. It is no wonder that Jesus needed to disappear for a while and commune with God to become refreshed. Everyone wanted a piece of Jesus!
 
Remember, Jesus, who is God, gave up his power and privileges as God. He set them aside for his time on earth as he assumed a human body and human nature. He emptied himself out to become man. He became subject to time, place, emotions and human limitations including, perhaps, lack of knowledge. So it is conceivable that Jesus felt exhausted physically, emotionally and/or spiritually at times. Why did he need to pray? Although he was God, he still submitted to the Father, he was in a relationship with the Father and, I believe, he was leaving us an example to follow.
 
What does this mean for us? More than any other present day religious group, Episcopalians are people of a prayer book, The Book of Common Prayer. Our liturgy is comprised of a series of prayers. Remember that liturgy means “the work of the people.” So we gather on Sunday to pray together. What is prayer? Our catechism tells us that prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words. It is a conversation with God, in which we open our hearts and minds to God, and God hears and answers and guides us. Prayer is part of living in a relationship with God.
 
 There are several types of prayer, as you all know.
  God, wanting nothing more than to enjoy God’s presence.
There are prayers of praise. When we praise God, our thoughts turn to God’s greatness and love and all that He has done for us in creation, in our life and in our redemption through Jesus Christ.
In thanksgiving prayers, we realize that everything we have and do is a blessing from God. We recognize this and say Thanks.
In prayers of penitence, we are confessing our sins of thought, word, deed, and also our sins of omission. We express our sorrow and our intention to amend our lives. We askfor God’s forgiveness and mercy. And if we hope for forgiveness, we must also forgive others.
Prayers of oblation are an offering of ourselves, our lives and labors, in conjunction with Christ, for the purposes of God.
 Intercessory prayers are our prayers for the well-being and needs of others while prayers of petition are prayers for ourselves. Intercessory prayers are a natural extension of our love for others. You will find all these types of prayers in our weekly liturgy.
 
Why should we pray? Our communal prayer each Sunday is a fitting response to the proclamation of God’s Word in Scripture. And personal prayer reflects our dependence on God. Though God knows our needs and desires, he wants us to ask. God seeks to have a relationship with each and every one of us and prayer is an avenue to nurture that relationship. Scripture tells us to pray at all times and on all occasions. Unceasing prayer doesn’t need to be complicated. Think of prayer as being conscious of God presence, not just an activity. Seek to live in constant awareness of God. Acknowledge God everywhere. “Thank you for the beautiful sunset”,  “Thanks for the green light!”, “Thanks for a good night’s sleep”, or “I know you are here with me and I love you.”   
 
How should we pray? We should pray with confidence in God’s grace. We should pray with sincerity and with honesty. It is OK to rage and be mad at God. It is OK to come to God with our questions and our doubts and our worries. We cannot find a place where God is not present. God knows our entire story and still he says, “You are mine, I love you.” Jesus also gave us the perfect model for prayer in the Lord’s Prayer. And there is no need to worry about praying with the right words. Jesus said in Matthew Chapter 6 not to babble like pagans who think they’ll be heard because of their many fancy words. Just say it. Don’t fret about saying the right thing or using the right formula. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. If the Son of God needed to pray before he undertook the work he came to do, how much more we should pray! We should follow Christ’s example and make time for prayer. Finding time to pray is not always easy but this is our vital link to God.
 
Today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah talks about God’s majesty, strength and omniscience, his infinite awareness, understanding and insight into his creation. He created the stars and calls them each by name. The second part of this passage tells of the strength we can draw from God and of the ongoing renewal we receive from Him.
 
Our God is the Creator, incomparable, eternal, and yet he never stops caring for each of us personally. Even the strongest people get tired at times, but God’s power and strength never diminish. He is never too tired or too busy to help or to listen. His strength is our source of spiritual and emotional strength. When life feels crushing or out of control and you feel like you can’t endure another step, call upon God to renew your strength.
 
We have a finite understanding of the infinite reality of God’s ability to answer prayer. The same God who decorated the heavens with stars and sculpted the majestic mountains will caress your soul, banish your fears and wipe away your tears.
 
Draw near to God and God will draw near to you.
 
Will you pray with me?
 
Lord, amid the noise and stress of daily life help us to preserve a silence within. In moments of crisis, may we turn to you, the center of our being, to find you awaiting us. Bless us with the vision of your changelessness and grant us peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord, AMEN.

Ash Wednesday
February 25,2009

Joel 2:1-2,12-17 Psalm 103
2 Corinthians 5:20b - 6:10 Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. AMEN.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

           Lent is a time to be still before God, to reflect on our sins and shortcomings and to acknowledge our need for a Savior. It is a time for reflection on our own fallen state and an opportunity for true, heartfelt repentance.

           On Ash Wednesday, we gather to commemorate the beginning of Lent with the imposition of ashes to remind us of our own mortality, of our transgressions and of our need for forgiveness. This is a starting point for us on our journey of self-examination and repentance. It is necessary for us to know our need for God's mercy and forgiveness before we can fully receive God's freely given gift of salvation.

           Historically, Ash Wednesday seems to have originated in the early church when those who had committed notorious sins were excommunicated. There was then a period of penitence, which included sackcloth and ashes, fasting and prayer before these persons were welcomed back to the church. This tradition evolved over ensuing centuries into a day for public penance as a means of discipline.

           Ashes were used by ancient people in times of great distress, mourning, national calamity and for repentance. There are numerous Scriptural references to sprinkling ashes or dust over oneself, or lying in ashes and dust as an expression of anguish. As an aside, the earlier mention of sackcloth describes a material made of goat or camel hair used in the making of garments and bags. It was very uncomfortable and therefore worn as a sign of sorrow and repentance.

            Ash Wednesday is a call to repentance and seeks to assure us of God's readiness to pardon our sins.
            In our Ash Wednesday liturgy, some of the appointed readings have been used from the time of the earliest Roman lectionaries. Not surprisingly, some of the themes of these readings are repentance, fasting, mourning, and mercy.

            Ash Wednesday is a call to repentance and seeks to assure us of God's readiness to pardon our sins.

            In our Ash Wednesday liturgy, some of the appointed readings have been used from the time of the earliest Roman lectionaries. Not surprisingly, some of the themes of these readings are repentance, fasting, mourning, and mercy.

            The psalmist, David, focuses his praise on Godfs glorious deeds. What God does for us tells us what he is really like. Our God forgives sins, heals diseases, and he redeems our lives from eternal darkness. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. When God forgives our sins, he separates it from us and forgets it.
          
           Today's gospel talks to us about our motives. We are encouraged to keep our acts God-centered, not self-centered. When we do good deeds for appearances only, that is our only reward. Jesus wants us to do our good deeds quietly, with no thought of reward. Our giving and good deeds should bring God glory, done not to make us look good but to make God look good. When we pray, our intent should not be to have others see how pious we are. Prayer is meant to be a means of private communication with God.

           Jesus teaches us a bit about the spiritual discipline of fasting. Fasting teaches us self-discipline by reminding us that we can do with a lot less and it helps us to be thankful for God's gifts. But fasting is difficult. Jesus doesn't want us to fast in order to get public attention to how 'holy' we are. Acts of self-sacrifice should be done quietly and sincerely.

           In a few minutes, you will be invited to come forward to receive a cross of ashes on your forehead. The ash cross is an outward sign of our sorrow, our mortality and our penitence for our sins. God will forgive the sins of all who are penitent, all who are sorry and who promise to turn around and to try again. God is pleased with a humble heart that looks to him when troubles are crushing, a heart that pleads for mercy with regret for sins committed. God has the ability to create in us new and contrite hearts. He will renew our spirits.

            The psalmist, David, focuses his praise on Godfs glorious deeds. What God does for us tells us what he is really like. Our God forgives sins, heals diseases, and he redeems our lives from eternal darkness. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. When God forgives our sins, he separates it from us and forgets it.

           Today's gospel talks to us about our motives. We are encouraged to keep our acts God-centered, not self-centered. When we do good deeds for appearances only, that is our only reward. Jesus wants us to do our good deeds quietly, with no thought of reward. Our giving and good deeds should bring God glory, done not to make us look good but to make God look good. When we pray, our intent should not be to have others see how pious we are. Prayer is meant to be a means of private communication with God.

           Jesus teaches us a bit about the spiritual discipline of fasting. Fasting teaches us self-discipline by reminding us that we can do with a lot less and it helps us to be thankful for God's gifts. But fasting is difficult. Jesus doesn't want us to fast in order to get public attention to how 'holy' we are. Acts of self-sacrifice should be done quietly and sincerely.

           In a few minutes, you will be invited to come forward to receive a cross of ashes on your forehead. The ash cross is an outward sign of our sorrow, our mortality and our penitence for our sins. God will forgive the sins of all who are penitent, all who are sorry and who promise to turn around and to try again. God is pleased with a humble heart that looks to him when troubles are crushing, a heart that pleads for mercy with regret for sins committed. God has the ability to create in us new and contrite hearts. He will renew our spirits.

            We will end our service today with the Litany of Penitence. The Litany of Penitence is an explicit form of general confession for us, very clearly and concisely expressed. I have to tell you that it was only just a few short years ago that I really listened to the statements of this prayer for the first time with my heart and with my soul. I was actually kind of shocked. I thought, "Whoa, they're talking about me!" The words strike so very close to home and I believe this Litany of Penitence very accurately describes the human condition. The petitions provide a good basis for self-examination and perhaps it might be a good exercise to meditate on these petitions during our own private prayer time this Lenten season. Listen now to the list of sins and shortcomings that we will be confessing shortly:
We have not loved God. We have not loved our neighbor. We have not forgiven others, and We have been deaf to the call to serve.
We will plead guilty to our:
pride, hypocrisy, impatience, self-indulgence, anger, envy, dishonesty, negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend our faith to others.
We will tell God that we intend to change our ways and that we will try not to be blind to human need. We will try to respond to injustice and cruelty. We will express sorrow for our uncharitable thoughts toward others and the prejudice and contempt we show for those who are different. We will state our regret for our lack of concern for God's creation.
           We will sincerely ask for God's forgiveness and, as we state in our Creeds, the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed, we will believe in Godfs forgiveness of our sins. God is in relentless pursuit of us and his mercy is everlasting.
           As the message on our marquee out front proclaims, "Our sin is great, but God's grace is greater"
AMEN.

April 26,2009
The Third Sunday of Easter
Acts 3:12-19 Psalm 4 1 John 3:1-7 Luke 24:36b-48
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts, be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. AMEN.
One year ago on this last Sunday of April, I stood before you and preached my first sermon. It's hard to believe a year has passed. All of us on the Total Ministry team have learned a lot this year. When those of us who will preach set out to write a sermon, we are taught to spend some time with the Scripture readings and see if there is a word or an idea from the readings that strikes us or resonates with us or brings up an interesting topic. Today, I am going to attempt to tackle a little bit about our resurrection bodies and I will talk a bit about resurrection appearpnces.
Reading about the risen Jesus, whose body still bore the wounds from the nails of crucifixion, my first thought was "hey, wait a minute!" I thought we were given flawless bodies after we die and go to heaven. And here the resurrected Jesus stands, displaying his wounds. When I started thinking about this aspect of the gospel reading, I started wondering about my situation. I am pretty much profoundly deaf without my hearing aides and I guess I have been kind of looking forward to being able to hear well in heaven. What does this mean, seeing the resurrected Jesus with his wounds still apparent? Do I need to worry about it? Does it mean I will still have my physical flaws? Will it matter?
We are told what we can expect of our heavenly, resurrected bodies in several places in Scripture. In First Corinthians, Paul teaches that in the resurrection of the dead, God will take our weak, perishable bodies and make them into a glorious, powerful body fit to live eternally with God. Paul instructs the Philippians that Christ will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body at the Resurrection.

Back in the early 90's, my husband Gary's dad was going through a course of chemotherapy to treat his cancer. After receiving three rounds of treatment, Brian's x-rays showed a very promising response to the chemotherapy. Gary and I told his dad's oncologist that we had been praying that Brian would be healed. The oncologist very thoughtfully replied, "He will be healed, in the Resurrection."
The truth is, I don't know for sure what my body will be like after I die and go to heaven. It does remain a mystery. As today's reading from 1st John tells us, what we will be has not yet been revealed. There is much that has not yet been revealed. No one has died and reported back to us what the heavenly body is like. I can only imagine what will be. But I do believe that when I die, I will be ushered immediately into the presence of our Lord and Savior. I do trust that the God who created the vast expanse of stars in the heavens and who set the planets in their courses will provide me with just the right resurrection body and God will have it all under control.
Now back to the Gospel reading from Luke:
Jesus appears to the disciples where they had gathered in the upper room in the evening on that day of the resurrection and he says, "Peace be with you." Peace was hardly their first reaction. They were terrified. Afraid for their lives, they had gone to their hiding place. In spite of all that Jesus had taught them, they didn't anticipate the Resurrection. They never grasped what Jesus was promising during his Scripture lessons while he was alive. They were the first "skeptics" and they needed to be convinced.
The disciples needed to see Jesus in a way they could understand and believe so they did not think he was just a ghost. Jesus knew they needed to experience him in this way so they could touch his wounds and watch him eat. This was no apparition; it was Jesus raised from the dead, pure and simple.
Jesus appeared to his disciples, over the forty days between his Resurrection and his Ascension, in different ways and in different locales. He appeared in ways they could understand and that was meaningful to them. I believe that Jesus still makes "resurrection appearances" today. To say that Jesus is risen is to say that Jesus is with us.
I would like to share with you some ways in which I believe Jesus has made "Resurrection appearances" to me. Some of you know this first story but I think it is OK to repeat it here.
Two years ago, my family was reeling from the reality that my mom was suffering from a cancer that would end up taking her life in just six short weeks. We were stunned, in shock and very worried. During this dark, sad time, I found myself leading a service of Evening Prayer here at Christ Church. It was a warm, still, quiet evening and I was struggling with the prayers. And as I read from the Prayer Book, I suddenly felt a cool breeze on the back of my bare neck. I was so surprised, I actually paused and looked around. All the windows were closed and the fans were off. Where did that breeze come from? When I resumed the service, I felt the breeze again and I had a sure sense of Christ's presence with me, assuring me that it was going to be OK.
Another time, just recently, I was sitting at my desk at work. I have a wonderful photo displayed of my mom and dad, both of whom are gone now. I was just missing them so much and I was indulging myself in a few quiet tears. As that moment passed, I turned the page on my perpetual calendar to the reading for the day. And what do you suppose it said? It was a verse from Isaiah 53, which said very simply, "Surely He hath borne our griefs and sorrows." In that moment, I certainly felt a sense of calm and assurance from this particular encounter with the Holy One.
And I have one more very light hearted experience of Christ's presence. One afternoon not long ago, I was just pacing around the house, not really doing anything. And I became aware of something stuck in between a couple of my teeth. I thought, "Well, I need to get some dental floss." So as I headed to the bathroom, I was leafing through a magazine when something fell out of the pages and drifted to the floor. I looked down and I was utterly amazed to see that a sample of dental floss wrapped in paper had fluttered to the floor! I just cracked up! I think God has such a sense of humor. Have you ever seen samples of dental floss in magazines? I haven't. In having an ongoing relationship with the Lord, it is not such a stretch for me to believe that this was a sign of His presence with me.
Now, I want to contrast the difference between experiencing God in a church, addressing my deepest spiritual needs, and finding some commercially wrapped dental floss from a magazine ad.
I don't believe that God usually conjures up objects or things out of the blue. He doesn't magically change the physical world. But he can make us aware of something that might help a situation. In this case, it was not an earth-shattering miracle but perhaps a way that the spirit says, "Pm aware of your circumstance and here's some help." God moves in ways that can make us aware of some need or some situation that we would have no way of being aware of otherwise. God sometimes provides a fresh way of looking at things.
Experiences of the Divine take on more significance because we are not consciously looking for them. They happen to us when we least expect it. Looking back on these events could cause us to say, "Oh! That was You!" These appearances are spiritually persuasive to me, not necessarily logically proven. I believe them; I believe I have experienced the presence of the Lord.
WHAT ARE YOUR RESURRECTION EXPERIENCES?
Be open to wonder about your dreams, coincidences, inklings you may have about something, a sense of presence with you. Ask yourself, "How has Christ appeared to me?" We may experience the presence of Christ by seeing kindness in a stranger's eyes, by seeing a good deed being performed, by hearing an encouraging word, by feeling the soothing touch of a friend. Maybe you have experienced the Lord in a glorious sunset, in clouds illuminated from within by lightning, or in the continuous cycle of the pounding surf of the ocean. Look for signs of His presence, like the comforting words on my perpetual calendar at just the right moment. Another type of resurrection experience might be to recognize how Jesus might be working in our lives to change a situation, or maybe what he changes is us, our response. There may be "happenings" in our lives, some event that might have us finding ourselves aware of a need or a situation. Listen. Pay attention. There might be something there worth looking into.
If we keep our "spiritual" eyes open, we will slowly begin to sense the grace that we have experienced in Christ's presence all along. No longer limited by space and time, the resurrected Christ sets out on his conquest of the world. He will continue to be with us as we share him with others.
Jesus is the resurrection of believers who die and he is the life of believers who live. Let's each look for our own resurrection appearances and rejoice as we experience the presence of our living Savior.
In Jesus' name, AMEN.

June 28.2009
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15; 2:23-24
Psalm 30
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5: 21-43
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. AMEN.
Today's gospel lesson is full of drama. It has elements of despair and hopelessness, which inspire faithful responses from the main players and miraculous healings. There is also the big issue of ritual impurity, uncleanliness and social isolation in the story of the woman suffering from hemorrhaging for twelve years.
I did a lot of studying about ritual impurity in preparation for this sermon. I would like to share with you some of what I learned. The matter of purity is an Old Testament issue and the laws of impurity are found mainly in the books of Leviticus and Numbers. It makes for some interesting reading! Purity refers to being free from physical or moral contamination. Impurity was contracted by contact with a corpse, certain dead animals, or a person with leprosy, contact with the involuntary flow of fluids from the sexual organs or by contact with contaminated clothing or linen.
There are varying degrees of uncleanness and varying lengths of time a person is deemed unclean. The process of purification from a state of ritual impurity consists of a waiting period beginning from the time the pollution ends. A person would be considered impure after having contact with something or someone contaminated. He must then wash his clothing and body and he would be considered impure only until evening. Sometimes the impurity lasts for seven days, such as at the end of a woman's monthly bleeding cycle. Ritual washing was required and at the end of the seven days, there was often a requirement of offering a sacrifice, such as doves or pigeons. The birds would be brought to the priest who sacrificed one as a sin offering and one as a burnt offering. In this way the priest would make atonement for the woman before the Lord. This would restore her and make her right before the Lord once again.
The Pharisees of Jesus5 time observed very similar practices as these Old Testament laws. While a person was considered impure, he was kept from contact with the Temple and its religious practices and was kept from contact with people.

So we have the hemorrhaging woman in the Gospel. Stop for a moment and imagine, if you will, what her existence must have been like. Simply being a woman makes her a "second class" citizen in this first century after Christ's birth. In addition to this, she has been bleeding for twelve years! She must have been exhausted, anemic. We are told she spent all of her money on doctors, had endured many treatments and ended up worse than ever. I can only imagine what some of the archaic treatments entailed! She managed her situation without any modem feminine hygiene supplies, any running water or any Ibuprofen to treat the pain that she certainly might have endured with her condition. To top it off, her hemorrhaging puts her in this 'ritually impure' category. This was serious stuff! This meant that, while she was hemorrhaging, which we are told was all the time for the past twelve years, she was shunned because anyone who came in contact with her would be considered ceremoniously unclean. Her existence must have been wretched. People avoided her, avoided eye contact. She couldn't go to the temple or to religious services. Can you imagine not being touched for twelve years? Honestly, how did she survive? I don't imagine she was able to hide her condition.
Now she had heard about Jesus and had the opportunity to see him. She must be discreet about her presence due to her impure state. But she is desperate, beyond human help; Jesus is her only hope. She knew, she had faith, that if she could just touch the hem of his cloak, she would be healed. Imagine the rough jostling of the pressing crowd. And yet, Jesus was able to sense her soft, faith-filled touch and he felt some of his healing power go forth from him as she was instantly healed of her affliction. In the midst of all this hubbub, he stopped and wanted to know who had touched him. The disciples stared at him, and in a moment of comic relief, asked what he was talking about? Who touched you? Only everyone! What do you mean? The woman knew that Jesus knew what had happened and she came forth in fearful trembling and fell down before him. She had risked so much by coming into the crowd in her condition. She told him her story. She was desperate and Jesus was her only hope. She could have slipped away but she stayed and told the truth. Jesus didn't want her to disappear without publicly commending her faith. He called her "Daughter" which was a very tender term for him to use. He tells her that her faith has saved her. God's healing power, through Christ, had caused her healing but it was her faith that led her to action to seek this healing. Jesus bids her to go in peace, spiritually healed as well as physically.
In Christian doctrine, the blood of Jesus Christ is the agent that has purified all people, once and for all. Jesus Christ has acted as the last sacrifice ever necessary, so with advent of Christianity, the elaborate Old Testament system of biblical purity and its various rules and need for ritual sacrifice have been revoked.

Now Jairus has been alongside Jesus this whole time. Jairus is an important man in this community. He is a synagogue official, much like a vestry member or a warden. He is responsible for looking after the building and supervising worship. His presence in this story shows that not all religious officials were against Jesus. Jairus trusted that Jesus could cure his dying daughter. After being waylaid for awhile by the commotion with the hemorrhaging woman, they are informed that the leader's daughter had died and that Jesus was no longer needed. Jesus assured Jairus with the words, "Do not fear, only believe." When they arrived at Jairus' house, they confronted all the people crying and wailing who had gathered outside. It was customary for professional mourners to be brought in at the time of death to show respect for the dead. The crowd was dismissed; Jesus assured them the child was not dead, just sleeping- The crowd scoffed at him. Inside the house, with just Jairus, his wife, and the three disciples as witnesses, Jesus touched the dead girl's hand and said, "Talitha coum!" which means, Little girl, get up! And she did just that! Jesus was not afraid to touch the dead girl. And as he frequently did after performing miracles, he warned the people not to tell what they had seen. His great popularity with the local people along with the growing opposition of the religious leaders could have precipitated a crisis before Jesus' ministry was completed.
This gospel is a lesson about two people whose situation would seem utterly hopeless, yet their faith led them to seek out Jesus Christ for a cure. When we have easy times, it is easy to become self-reliant. But when the going gets tough, this is when we tend to turn back to the Lord. We need to remember that Jesus is the source of all hope and promise. Jesus' healings in this gospel show not only his tremendous power but also his great compassion. He healed two '"untouchables" without a second thought. There is definitely a pattern in the Gospels that shows how Jesus' grace tended to focus on the least socially acceptable people in his society. He had a soft spot for the outcasts, the poor, and the sick. I think we should pay attention to those in our culture in similar situations and model our compassion on Jesus' example.
Our Psalm today, Psalm 30, is a psalm of thanksgiving for delivery from a serious situation. It could have been a grave illness or grim circumstances. The psalmist cried out to God for help and God delivered him. I bet many of us can remember a situation where we feared for our health, our safety, or worried about a loved one. Remember the utter terror of the possibility of a life cut short or changed in a negative way? And remember the sheer relief of good news? In the Message translation of the Bible, the psalmist exclaims in verses 11 and 12, "You did it! You changed wild lament into whirling dance; you ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers. I'm about to burst with song; I can't keep quiet about you. God, my God, I can't thank you enough!" I bet this is how our healed woman and the resurrected child and her family felt after their miraculous healings.

I believe it is good spiritual practice to give thanks to the Lord for all that the Lord does for us. In a few minutes we will be closing our Morning Prayer service with the General Thanksgiving. Right now, I would invite you to turn to the second to last page of your service booklet on the right side and follow along with me as I share my reflections on this prayer of thanksgiving.
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, (MERCY: This is kindness beyond what can be expected)
We your unworthy servants give you humble thanks (Though we're not always deserving of God's love and mercy, we still bow our hearts to him in thanksgiving.)
For all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made*
(God's mercy and love extends to all not just to an exclusive few.)
We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; (That about covers it, don 'tyou think?)
But above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. (For God so loved the world that he sent his only son to die for our sinsf so that you and I find the rest of humanity can have the hope of life everlasting with our Lord.)
And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, (Keepyour eyes open; God's blessings abound!)
That with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, (Remember, our words and actions may be the only Gospel that others may ever experience.)
By giving up our selves to your Service, (I have found that my service to God and to our church isn 't tiring at all How about you?)
And by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; (We sure can give it our best shot.)
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, (Jesus is our constant companion in life, whether we consciously share our journey with him, or not.)
To whom with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages.
AMEN. (SO BE IT!)
(The Rev. Sally Cummings)

Sally Cummings
August 23,2009
12th Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 8: [1,6,10-11], 22-30, 41-43 Psalm 84
Ephesians6:10-20 John 6:56-69
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. AMEN.
I don't know if you have noticed but we have been hearing about the "Bread of Life" in our Gospel readings from John for the last five weeks. I have been hoping there would be something left for me to say when the fifth week came around and, not surprisingly, there is. For me, the focus on partaking of the body and blood of Christ has obvious Eucharistic significance. And so, even though this is a Morning Prayer Sunday, we are going to have a sermon on the meaning of the Eucharist in our lives as Christians.
The manna from heaven that God gave to sustain the Israelites wandering in the desert was a foreshadowing of God's gift of Jesus, given for our soul's true nourishment. He is the Bread of Life. Those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will abide in him and he will abide in us. This concept expresses the intimate relationship Jesus has with those who believe in him. In this graphic description of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, Jesus makes one of his boldest and most shocking statements. The disciples were scandalized by such talk. In their culture, blood is a symbol of life, which belongs to God alone, and their rules called for draining all blood from the meat they ate. The disciples declared that this was a very difficult teaching.
What is the Bread of Life? It is the revelation of God given in Jesus. It's a way for God to make himself known to
people. Jesus did not come to fill stomachs with food but to fill lives with the very presence of God. These first century folks had to scrabble and scrounge for their daily bread. They found talk of this miracle bread good news. They were concerned with earthly food but what Jesus had to offer them was food that nourishes eternal life. And Jesus would provide this food by giving his own life and providing a way that we can share in that life. It is through union with Jesus that believers receive his salvation. The communion meal is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet to come. We see and partake of the risen Christ in the form of bread and wine. In doing this, we anticipate seeing Christ face to face in the presence of all the saints who have completed their final journey.
Earlier in John's Gospel, the disciples were eager to get on board with Jesus' teaching and wanted to know what the "work of God" entailed. Jesus tells the disciples that the "work of God" is to believe in the one God has sent. God doesn't require many works, just the one. We are to believe, to trust, that Jesus is the one sent from God to reveal God's grace. Our work is to accept this and align our lives with him.

In the early church, everyone stayed connected by sharing meals. Jesus' command to eat my body and drink my blood illustrates for us that we must do this to participate in the life of the church. We become the body of Christ when we partake in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is an outward, visible sign, a sacrament that is part of our tradition*
The pattern of our celebration of the Holy Eucharist has had similar details since the 2nd century. Simply said, we all
gather, listen to scripture, hear a sermon, say prayers, present our offerings of bread and wine, give thanks to God, eat and depart. Just like it has been done for 1900 years.
The word Eucharist means thanksgiving in Greek. It is the principal act of Christian worship. The Great Thanksgiving is our Eucharistic liturgy. It always begins with the Offertory. If you listen carefully to the offertory sentence stated by the worship leader, you will hear an invitation to offer our lives in love and worship, to become Christ's body in this world.
In the early days of the church, members brought their own bread and wine to the meal. The gathering used what was needed for the service and it was placed on the altar. The rest was set aside for the needy. In modern times, it is more practical for us to offer money, which then can be used to buy the bread and wine and to support the needs of the church and those less fortunate. A neat way to look at this is that the bread and wine on our altar is bought with the money we give and we offer it to the God who made us. In turn, that bread and wine is given to us as the life of Christ. In this Eucharist service, our lives and Christ's life are united and we are renewed in his name.
The Sursum Corda is an ancient dialogue between the priest and the people and can be traced back to the second
century. "The Lord be with you. And also with you." This responsive prayer signifies that what is about to happen does not belong to the priest alone. The congregation joins in the interaction.
The words at the end of the Eucharistic preface declare how we, the church on earth, join our voices with the heavenly host of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. We join the "cloud of witnesses" in praising God with our unending hymn of Holy, Holy, Holy Lord. This is a moment where we believe this meal joins us with those beloved souls who have gone before us. We get a glimpse of eternity. This is a gift of God's grace.
Our Great Thanksgiving moves on to giving thanks to God for our redemption through Christ's atoning death. Christ offered this perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It is once-for-all. As Leonel Mitchell says in his book, "Praying Shapes Believing", Christ's sacrifice is unique, unrepeatable and all that need be done for our redemption.
In our Eucharistic Prayers we pray for God to send the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine and upon the congregation that they and we may be transformed by the Spirit's presence.
At the completion of the Great Thanksgiving, there is a triumphant congregational acclamation of AMEN! Capital letters! SO BE IT! This is our prayer of thanksgiving and needs our endorsement.
Following the Lord's Prayer, you will see the priest breaking the wafer or loaf of bread. This is a practical matter of breaking up the host for distribution. But it is symbolic of the breaking of Christ's body on the cross for our sake and of our own need to be broken so we can both share in the life of Christ and share that life with others.
For receiving communion, the 4th century bishop Cyril of Jerusalem taught to "make your left hand be a throne for the right which is to receive a king."
What is it that we receive? In the bread and wine, we receive the gift of life - the life of Christ poured into our lives. It is communion, a coming into union with God through Christ Our lives      joined with our Creator. We also come into God's kingdom here on earth. It is at that moment when we know that unity for which we all long. God's life is available in the Eucharist because he promises to be present. And we receive this gift of life through faith in God's grace. At the Eucharist, we receive into our bodies and souls the life-giving gift of God.
In ancient times, the Eucharist ended with Latin words that translate to, "Go! You are sent." The whole service leads up to this point and what comes afterward. We are sent forth on a mission to serve and to bear witness. We all will do this in different ways, using our God-given gifts - to love, to serve, to pray. We are all part of the body of Christ.
AMEN.