Responding in Love

Sometimes… no... Oftentimes, the most difficult thing we are called to do as Christians is to respond in love. When we are met with anger, we are asked to respond in love. Greif? Respond in love. Hatred? Respond in love. What if I just want to be human sometimes? What if I want to respond with anger, sadness, frustration, or indifference? What then?

Then it’s time to take it into the stillness that is the heart of God. It’s time to ask God to remind us what is ours, what is theirs, and what is God’s. We can only do our best. We can only be ourselves. But when we consider that we are children of God, that God walked among us to share this crazy world with us, and that, at the end of the day, we are just a bunch of imperfect people trying our best to emulate the example of our Divine brother – it might not make it easier, but it reminds us it is possible and that we are all in this together.

All things are possible through Christ… even and especially, responding in love.

Thank You

A thank you letter to my parish - that really applies to my Facebook family as well:

How do you say ‘thank you’ for a greater act of kindness than you could have ever imagined? That is a question I’ve been blessed to meditate on for the past month. After emerging from the ocean of grief I swam in following my father’s sudden passing, I opened my eyes to see the life rafts all around me. I saw the care and love and prayers of an entire community enveloping me as I learned to move forward into a new frontier. Through this experience, I’ve come to understand that the Parish of the Epiphany is not simply a community: we are a family.

I’ve received literally hundreds of cards from members of the parish I know well, members who I only see once in a while, and members I’ve never met and who live far away but remain on our mailing lists because even when you are far away – you are still part of the family. Acts of kindness have surrounded me since I joined this family two years ago. From a rousing welcome as I moved from DC, to hugs in passing “just because,” to cards and meals and love these past few months of illness, grief, and recovery – I have been enfolded into a new and loving family by coming to the Parish of the Epiphany.

That question, how to say ‘thank you’ for an unimaginable act of kindness, is truly an Easter question. How do we thank our God for coming to Earth to live among us, die for us, and come back to lead us into a new frontier? The answer is: just say it. Our culture tells us we are supposed to repay the favor but we can’t pay it back nor is God asking us to do so. When someone does something that big for us all we can do is be grateful, say thank you, and continue on. The greatest way to demonstrate our gratitude and to say thanks is by living fully and well.

I know the family that is the Parish of the Epiphany is grateful. We live well and try to do better each day. I am grateful. I am grateful for the love with which you’ve buoyed me in this time. And now, I hope we are all ready to dive into the life of God and build up our programs so we can continue to welcome more people into our family. We have an opportunity everyday to say ‘thank you’ to God and to one another for the gift of this wild and beautiful life.

So, thank you. Thank you from the depth of my being. Thank you for being part of this family. Let’s be grateful and let’s make it great.

Move past the fear

Click for audio for my sermon for Good Shepherd Sunday - the one in which I yelled at my congregation a little. Ok, Miss Holy Spirit, let's go there.

Based on John 10:1-10

50 Days of Hallelujah

My favorite part of Easter each year is the phone call I make to my grandma on the way to church. I call my grandmother Easter morning and she always answers the phone with a song instead of saying hello. The thing that makes this especially comical is because she does not care who is calling: regardless of who you are, you can expect a serenade of an old Salvation Army hymn if you call my grandmother on Easter morning.

Up from the grave he arose;

with a mighty triumph o'er his foes;

He arose a victor from the dark domain,

and He lives forever, with His saints to reign.

He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

It isn’t really Easter until Grandma sings me that song. I love the gusto she puts into the performance. I love that the word “Hallelujah!” in the last line really sounds like a joy-filled expression. Hallelujah is supposed to be an exclamation of praise and joy and gratitude and celebration.  Hallelujah is a word to be shouted from the rooftops. But oftentimes, when we use it in church, it sounds like we are reading a word that doesn’t belong to us out of a book. We need to take ownership over our Hallelujahs.

Hallelujah, when encountered in worship or scripture, is always written with an exclamation point. So why is it that that we say it like it is some ordinary word? We’ve just given up our hallelujahs for 40 days – let’s use this season of Eastertide to reclaim the exuberance of our faith! Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose to new life again. If that doesn’t warrant a hallelujah (!) than I don’t know what does! We are members of an amazing community of love and fellowship. The Parish of the Epiphany is an amazing family full of talent and fun, worship and learning, friendships and mission. We are blessed to call this vibrant church our parish home; let’s shout it from the rooftops!

In Lent we take on a discipline to remind us of Christ’s trials in the wilderness and to turn our focus back to God. How about we do the same in Eastertide – but instead of an inward journey, how about we take an outward one? There is a trend on social media right now from the folks at 100happydays.com. The goal is for folks to post pictures each day of the things that make them happy to see if they can find joy 100 days in a row. I have a similar goal I hope many of us can try: 50 days of Hallelujah! Let’s see if we can find a reason everyday of Eastertide to shout HALLELUJAH! Look for the Risen Christ in your everyday life. See where the Spirit leads you are look for Christ in your midst. Shout your hallelujahs, post them to facebook, email them to me, write them in a letter, etc… On Pentecost, I will post a bulletin board near Hadley Hall with the results of our 50 Days of Hallelujah experiment. Let’s see where Jesus is waiting to meet us on the road.

Hallelujah! Christ is risen!

It's not fair

A Sermon for Good Friday

It’s not fair.

We have plans for the present and the future. We know how life is supposed to go and then, in the blink of an eye, it all gets taken away – death arrives, ready or not, and it simply isn't fair. Sometimes it doesn't go that way. When you work in a hospital you have the unique privilege and opportunity to walk through life’s final steps with families. A “good” death, if you can even wrap your mind around that phrase, is one when the family has an opportunity to say goodbye, they know and have accepted what is happening, they are all gathered together, and their loved one slips away peacefully. Unfortunately, a “good” death is not often what we see. Usually, death just happens. It’s not fair. We don't plan for it, it sneaks up, and it disrupts the life we were planning for ourselves.

Jesus’ death was far from this notion of a “good” death. His death was not fair. He was tortured and brutalized for crimes he did not commit. But for which he went willingly, obediently, to the cross. His death was, however, preceded by many of the markers we see in some of those hospice-type death experiences. The night before he died, Jesus gathered his friends together for a meal. He washed their feet and gave them ways to remember him. Jesus instituted the Last Supper in a ceremony of leave taking: he was saying ‘good bye.’ However, despite the many verses of warning and foreshadowing we read in our scripture, Jesus’ family and friends are taken by surprise when Judas arrives with his kiss and waiting soldiers. Denial plays a large role in the story we walk this week.

Good Friday is the horrible day when reality dawns. Peter has denied Jesus three times, the disciples have scattered, and Jesus is left to face Pilot – and ultimately his own death. The people he came to save scream vile, hateful things at him as he drags his own implement of torture up the hill to the spot where his life will end.

It’s not fair.

In Kate Braestrup’s autobiography, “Here if You Need Me,” she details her experiences as a chaplain for the Maine Warden’s Service – serving almost exclusively in search and rescue missions in the Maine woods. She introduces the tale by sharing the moment in her life when everything changed. Rev. Braestup’s husband, Drew, was a Maine State Trooper. Early one morning, shortly after leaving the house for work and just a few miles from home, his cruiser was broadsided by a box truck, killing him instantly. Braestrup recalls with poignancy the ordinariness of the day when she received the call that forever changed her life: his white cereal bowl, half full with milk was still in their stainless steel kitchen sink, the covers on their bed were still twisted, and you could see the outline of where he lay the night before.

Braestrup writes that “love begins with a body.” Whether romantic or otherwise, we encounter people physically and it is our senses that first form opinions and feelings towards another. Hearing someone’s voice for the first time – seeing the light in their eyes – or the quirkiness of their smile… those are the things that draw us in. Death, like love, begins as a clinically physical thing. The heart stops, the organs shut down, and the cells begin to deteriorate. But in instances of both love and death, the physical nature is overshadowed by the emotion and soul connection shared with the individual housed in the physical body before us.

Having read extensively about what a body goes through after death, Braestrup instructed the funeral director that she wanted no embalming to take place – no makeup to be put on, she would wash and dress her husband’s lifeless body herself, and she would be the one to close the casket for the final time. She also asked to witness his cremation. The physical accompaniment of her husband’s body would be her final act of physical love for him and she would not walk away, no matter how painful. After all, “Drew would do this for me” she thought. She describes the act of gently washing his cold form with a soft cloth, of straightening his State Police dress uniform, and of leaving the room where his empty body lay for the final time. “I am his remains,” she thought.

It’s not fair.

Tonight we wait with John, the beloved disciple, Mary the mother of Jesus and the other Marys at the foot of the cross. We watch, in agony, as the body we love is tortured and as the curtain of heaven is torn in two as the soul of our beloved is released back into the embrace of God. It isn’t fair, but that is what makes is so painfully beautiful. Innocent though he was, Jesus drank from the cup he was given. He sacrificed himself on the cross and he did it for us. So tonight we wait and we cry. We breathe and we despair. We take his lifeless body down from the cross and gently clean it and lay it in the tomb. It isn’t fair, but it is our present reality. We are his remains and how we walk forward from this place is a physical statement about the love we shared.