The First Sunday in Lent, 9 March 2014

“Entry”

The First Sunday in Lent

9 March 2014

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church

Santa Clara, California

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7


Psalm 32

Romans 5:12-19


St. Matthew 4:1-11

INI

Baptismal Entry

A few days ago, at my first meeting at Saint Mark’s with the search committee, your Senior Warden, Kim, graciously took me on a tour of the campus.  As we entered the parish hall, a group of women was doing something in the kitchen, when I heard, “Are you the new guy?”  A pause hovered in the air.  “I don’t know yet!” I quickly replied.  Well, I guess that I am the “new guy”, and together we will be beginning a journey not only into Lent but also into a sojourn, of some together, while I help you discern what it is that you want to be during this interim period, where it is that you would like to go, and with whom you would like to take the subsequent journey.  That will be some hard work, and it will take sufficient time for the Spirit to work within us as well.  So let us walk together.  Next Sunday, we will do some praying over this, to enable our common journey.

I asked the altar guild to put the Baptismal Font at the entry to the church.  Are we having a baptism?  No.  But it will serve as a useful touchstone for us as we try to remember what we are all about here.  This is good for our interim status, as we ground ourselves into our on-going status as God’s baptized and redeemed people, and it is good for our Lenten journey that ends at the Great Vigil of Easter where we will renew our baptismal vows and take on the baptismal reality.  So, when you greet the font, remember your forgiven and redeemed self, full of God’s goodness and grace.

What follows Baptism?

Jesus had an extraordinary baptism.  First he had to convince John the Baptism that he even needed to do it.  In Matthew it is a deeply interior experience that Jesus has.  The voice from the heavens is only known to him, and the dove that descends upon him is only seen by him.  How much easier it might have been had the crowd seen and understood these actions, but they are known only to Jesus.  In the center of his being, he has to confront the ministry that is now thrust upon him.  This deeply personal wrestling which Jesus does reminds me of a passage from Nikos Kazantzakis’ book The Last Temptation of Jesus.

“’Someone came last night in my sleep,’ he murmured under his breath, as though he feared the visitor were still there and might overhear him.  ‘Someone came.  Surely it was God, God…or was it the devil?  Who can tell them apart?  They exchange faces; God sometimes become all darkness, the devil all light, and the mind of man is left in a muddle.”[2]

The muddle, as Kazantzakis calls it is discerning who is calling us to do what.  We live in a world of constant temptation.  Our culture is based on it.  Open a magazine or turn on your television and you will be tempted to consume all sorts of things.  This is a template for our life after baptism – what to do next, what to taken on, what to leave behind.

Jesus’ intentions, especially in the Gospel of Matthew, are to follow the example of Israel.  Thus, like Israel, he is driven into the wilderness.  Israel walked through the waters of the Red Sea (please get the baptismal inference), and then had all kinds of new realizations as they navigated the wilderness.  They grew hungry, they depended on God’s protection, and at the end, they inherited a new land.  These distinctions will become important for us as we struggle to understand the Jesus who is tempted in the wilderness by the Devil.  It is the devil, you see, who takes Jesus’ intentions and turns them into an invitation to turn away from God.  Israel was hungry, and Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread.  Israel was protected by God, and Jesus is tempted to do extreme things to test God’s desire to protect.  Israel was promised a land of “milk and honey” and Jesus is promised “all the kingdoms of the earth.” 

All of this Jesus puts aside, but in it he understands the human dilemma.  In a desire to “know good and evil”, both Adam and Eve test God’s intentions about the tree.  They soon learn both good and evil within their very own bodies.  It becomes a question of what to do next.  (A very similar question to our own situation here at St. Mark’s).

Enabling a Baptismal Life

I’d like to get back to that “new guy” idea.  Whoever it was that asked that of me was onto something really quite important.  In his explanation to the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, Martin Luther has this to say in his Small Catechism,

What does such baptizing with water signify?

It signifies that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts, and, again, a new man or woman daily come forth and arise; who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

Saint Paul has a similar notion in the sixth chapter of his letter to the Romans:

“We are buried with Christ by Baptism into death, that, like as He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

There’s that new guy and gal thing again.  It is what we are called to be first and foremost.

As we discern together, and as we think about what God is calling this parish to both be and do, the foundation of baptism will serve us well.  It is that fountain from which so much understanding springs.  We need to begin with ourselves, and then look beyond to the other.  If we can have certainty about our own righteousness through Jesus, then we can have an equal certainty about what we might be called to do.  Psalm 32 says it well:

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go; *

I will guide you with my eye.”

If we follow the logic of the psalm we will arrive at a status of blessedness, or put more accurately, a status of happiness.

So, while were here together, I promise to do some things for you.  I will always remind you of your baptismal status.  I will always feed you with the Eucharist.  I will always be about the business of forgiveness and grace.  I will listen to your story and I will share my own.  I will challenge and I will be challenged.  I will pray for you, as I hope you will pray for me.  Most importantly I will gather with you as a common family around Word and Sacraments as together we await the Spirit who wishes to breathe new life into us.

Life after baptism can be a hard business.  It is, however, never done alone.  It is done accompanied by the prayers of the saints and the faithful.  That will be our business together.  The new guy.  The new people.  A new life!

SDG

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, 23 February 2014

“Balancing”

The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

23 February 2014

Saint Francis Lutheran Church

San Francisco, California

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18

Psalm 119:33-40

I Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23

St. Matthew 5:38-48

INI

Hatred given for hatred

I presided at a wedding last evening – a marvelous affair at which I represented the Christian tradition and a Cantor represented the Jewish tradition.  Afterwards seated at the sit down dinner, I was speaking with an Episcopal Deacon seated next to me.  “Have you been watching the Olympics?” she asked, opening a break from what we had been talking about.  (And here I had sort of an Out-of-the-Body experience as I watched and listened to my words behaviors in a somewhat surprised mode)  “No!” I exclaimed.  “No, I don’t watch the Olympics.”  (There was a pause, and I went on to explain with no small bit of passion.) “I moved here in 1981, right around the time of the first gay Olympics, and I saw what the U.S. Olympic Committee did to the men and women who had organized the games, specifically the suit that involved Dr. Tom Waddell, who lost his house, and I think his life as a result.”  As a lesbian she understood and the topic was dropped.  I, for one, was stunned at my on-going emotions about this.

So, I won’t be going to Arizona any time soon, unless the governor of that state sees the light.  I won’t eat at Chik-fil-a, nor order a Domino’s Pizza.  I won’t shop at Lowe’s, or was it Home Depot, nor at Target (what did they do again)?  I do this with the same fervor with which I refused Shell gasoline over apartheid, and Denny’s over racism.  I once convinced a national board that I chaired not to have a major convention in Virginia, and I’d do it again.  I wonder if my anger has turned into madness?  Into the heart of my anger and my frustration about the world in which we live – into that heart God speaks:

“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

My kin?  My neighbor?  My people?  It is quite explicit isn’t it – my kin, my neighbor, my people.  Where is the “they” that I like to rail against so much.  For Leviticus (how ironic) there is no “they”, no “them”, only kin, neighbor, and people.  In an ancient world of blood vengeance and feuds, we still live with the results of these ancient insults and responses and an unending hatred.

At the root of things

In the Gospel for today, Jesus is a true radical.  He wants to get at the root, the radix, of things.  He tells old stories of hatred and reprisal.  “You have heard it said,” he reports and then goes on to completely radicalize the Law upon which ancient hatreds were based.  This was a world of the lex talionis, of an “eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.”  And we need to understand that even in this harsh environment there was an attempt at balance.  It was an eye, only an eye for an eye, not a death, or a life of slavery.  It was a world of enemies and friends, and you hated the enemy.  But Jesus says something different.  “Love your enemies.”  Again, ironically, Leviticus weighs in again noting how we are to actually treat those that are different from us.  They are not to be driven outside of our communities, but rather invited in.  They, the poor, the alien, the “not one of us”, the people different from us, the outside – these are invited to the same field from which draw our sustenance and invited to share the gleanings, the parts left over, for them.

And here, based on these biblical examples, my angry heart wants to deliver a blistering attack about the bankruptcy of our national policy on immigration, or how the poor are treated, or how I ignore the homeless, oh, the list goes on.  However, it is I who need to hear Jesus’ words.  “Love your enemies.” 

Recall the rhetoric, which we often used to describe those who were against us as we fought discrimination in the Church.  They were benighted, they were not fully involved with what the Gospel required, they were missing the point, they were wrong. 

In Jesus’ demand, “turn the other cheek”, he does not ask us to walk away from the fray and to assume a disinterested stance.  No, he would have us meet the situation with love, unreserved love.  Nor is it a love that cannot speak, not only its name but its objections as well.  Jesus calls us to reprove those who do our society a great wrong, “with justice you shall judge your neighbor.”

It calls for a balancing, doesn’t it?  It calls for some wisdom, some understanding.  It calls for something outside of our selves.

Holiness

In the third century, Tertullian observed something that pagans were saying about Christians.  “See how they love one another,” he reported.  On Maundy Thursday, at the Last Supper, Jesus models a different kind of rabbinic behavior when he teaches by getting on his knees and washing the feet of his students, and then he says something about what he has just modeled,

“I give you a new commandment:  love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

If there is a behavior that describes the Christian it is this behavior of loving the other.  It is a love that is not limited by the belief or the behavior of the other.  It is love given as once given first to us, and it is given to any and all.  So then the question becomes, how do I balance my reproof of my neighbor when he or she is doing wrong, with my love of them?  Hard, isn’t it?  Perhaps Leviticus has another answer for us.

Leviticus calls us to live in holiness.  The author unequivocally states, “God is holy – therefore you must be holy as well.”  Holiness talk always sets Lutherans on edge.  It smacks of the semi-Pelagian attitude that allows that we might participate in our own salvation.  Holiness is a gift of God, not something that we might obtain on our own, yet.  Here the Bible clearly calls us to holiness. 

And what is God’s holiness?  Recall with me the young lawyer who wonders, “What must I do to be saved?”  Jesus quickly responds with the Great Shema of Israel:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength and might, and you shall love your neighbor, as you love yourself.

There’s that pesky neighbor again, requiring our attention and our prayer.  And there is that pesky “self” as well, requiring an equal amount of love and respect.  Ah, people of the reformation, understand the forgiveness that you once released to the world, and understand the forgiveness that is (as Saint Paul calls it in the second reading) a foundation in Christ.

Will I travel to Arizona?  Maybe.  Will I eat a Chick-fil-a?  Probably not.  I am reminded of a story that keeps coming into my mind.  I was walking down the street in Berkeley, when I noticed that the ACLU was doing some street work, asking people to donate money for work on LGBTQ issues.  I had my collar on, and as I caught the eye of one of the woman polling the street, she quickly looked away.  I walked on, but quickly realized that I had to go back.  “You don’t want to talk to me, do you?”  I asked her.  “No,” she said, “I’ve had enough hatred for one day.”  And then she related how another clergyman had derided her for the work she was doing that day and consigning her to hell.  So I talked with her, shared my story, and asked her to give any other people who might give her trouble a second chance - a chance to tell her story.  I had to turn around and go back.  I couldn’t avoid.  I had to speak to the situation.

Some questions:  Can you accept the forgiveness that allows you to appear in holiness before the God who loves you?  Can you accept the holiness and forgiveness that is given by God to those who don’t agree with you?  Hard, isn’t it?  Let us forgive ourselves, as Christ has forgiven us, and let us keep up the words that make for Good News telling.  Those words may not always be heard, but someday they will.  Those words of grace are the cheek that we turn, our response to an ungracious world.  Remember, my kin, my neighbor, my people.

SDG

The Presentation of Our Lord (Candlemass), 2 February 2014

“The Story Beneath”

The Presentation of Our Lord

(Candlemass)

2 February 2014

Saint Francis Lutheran Church

San Francisco, California

Malachi 3:1-4

Psalm 84, Psalm 24:7-10

Hebrews 2:14-18

St. Luke 2:22-40

INI

The Story Beneath

You will have to forgive me as I have recently returned from my doctoral studies at Bexley Hall – Seabury Western Seminary in Chicago.  There, for a week, we studied Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory, and it has influenced heavily my reading of the Gospel text for this morning.  Bowen understands, unlike Freud who did most of his psychiatric inquiry with the individual, that such a study is really found in the story and context of families, and of generations.  It is that generation’s part, and the story part, that leads me to the character of Simeon, and indeed Anna, this morning.  Simeon represents a story that goes back for generations in the biblical text, and yet in Luke, it is a story that is told in the presence with anticipations of the future.  This, Dr. Bowen says, is how we begin to know ourselves.

Robert Bellah, in his outstanding book called Religion and Human Evolution, makes this poignant comment, “The self is a telling.”  Right in line with Bowen theory, this sociologist understands that the history of humankind is a narrative a story – a story that needs to be told, spoken, and shared.  The Church is a telling.  As we move through the events of the liturgical year, we struggle to understand both the story and teaching beneath the actions, and deeds.  Thus it is a good time to ask ourselves whether or not we have forgotten the story?  Certainly our time has.  Go outside onto the street and ask anyone who Jesus was and you will hear some pretty amazing stuff.  Have you forgotten the story as well?

Nunc Dimittis

Just moments ago we sang the story.  It is possible that we have sung this story so long and on so many occasions that we may have forgotten its truth and meaning.  Here it is:

"Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."

Simeon, like Zechariah, the Angels, and Mary in Luke’s Birth Narrative, sings the story.  That is what ancient story tellers did – Homer, Australian Aborigines, Scheherazade, Vyassa, and the Chanticleers.  That is what Pete Seeger did.  Simeon remembers the ancient promises and hopes and weaves them into a communication for Joseph and Mary.  Simeon not only knows the prophets, but also indeed is a prophet, speaking God’s word for the here and the now.  Simeon’s reality and his story is one of waiting and hoping.  It is a story and destiny that has been assigned to us by the one who promised to come again, and asked to live in an Advent of hope.

Now you are dismissing your servant in peace.

Simeon’s song does not avoid the difficult.  Indeed it is the difficulty of death that serves as an impetus for his song.  Simeon recognizes that he will soon die, and he indicates in aside to the Virgin, that he understands Jesus’ fate as well.  Jesus will be the one who will be upsetting a peoples’ story with his own story and his own actions.  Salvation in Simeon’s song is seen in the context of death.  Death becomes a moment for truly knowing God’s will, and for hoping and trusting in the promises.  It is in the context of promise and peace that Simeon dies, and it is in that same context that all of us will die.  The question is how will we make it a part of our story, of God’s story, of the Church’s story?  Simeon calls to mind the “favored ones” who had a peaceful death before him.  He recalls for us those who died in God’s bosom, who rested in peace.  He participates with them in this peaceful passing.  Simeon realizes that this is a gift for all, but more about that later.

My eyes have seen your salvation

What is your story?  What is your story in the context of the promise of salvation and redemption?  How have you seen salvation?  How has it been an Epiphany (a manifestation) to you?  We have an example in the person of Mary who took all the elements of her on-going story and “pondered them in her heart.”  After the shepherds and the angels, this is what she did – reflected.  After Jesus stays behind in the temple, seemingly disobeying his parents, and noting to them that he “must be about his father’s business”, Mary ponders and reflects.  Simeon, however, goes beyond Mary’s interior practice.  Simeon sings the story of his experience.  His self is in the telling. 

Anna has a similar reaction.  She, a prophet as well, in a long line of women who were prophets, does not keep the story to herself, but rather tells it.  Luke says, “she spoke of the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem”.  I wonder what she said?  I wonder what I might say so that I might understand “redemption” in such a way – so that others might know what it is for which I hope.

A light for revelation to the Gentiles.

Who are the gentiles now?  Have we moved beyond the traditional understanding of the gentiles, people outside of the nation of Israel?  Perhaps the gentiles of our own time are people who are outside of our understanding of the family, of the redeemed.  To tell the story leads to self-understanding, but it also leads to a sense of understanding amongst others.  Again, Robert Bellah,

“If personal identity resides in the telling, then so does social identity.  Families, nations, religions, (but also corporations, universities, departments of sociology) know who they are by the stories they tell.” I assume that Christians are included as well.  So as we tell our story, is Simeon’s story there?  Is Jesus’ story included?  The question becomes one of connection and inclusion.  How does my light enlighten your story, and visa versa?

The Theme of Light

We have a simple but beautiful candelabrum in our dining room.  It was made in Sweden with delicate wrought iron.  We don’t use it.  Arthur thinks that it makes a mess – and it does.  As we prepared for the liturgy this morning there was an extended conversation about whether or not you were going to light your candles.  The sacristan was right in warning us about the mess, the risk, and the trouble.  Then there is a fond memory I have of an annual argument that Pr. DeLange and I had each and every Easter Vigil.  “The stair lights need to be on!” he would declaim.  To which I would respond, “Jim, its about darkness, then the light.”  I always won. 

There is an importance to light, because light is the symbol of Jesus’ presence in our lives and in our stories.  We light lights regularly here – do we know their story.  The light at the Jesus’ statue – do you know its story?  The lights that surround the reading desk – what are they?  Why the lights at the altar, and why the ever-burning light in the chancel?

These light are a sign of our common story, and like lights everywhere they can be messy and difficult.  We see the messiness of Simeon’s story in his aside to Mary, “and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”  The reading from Hebrews makes this messiness in the story abundantly clear.  Jesus’ story is intimately linked with our own.  The author comments on Jesus’ story, much like Simeon comments on Mary’s.  “Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, he himself was tested by what he suffered.” Messy indeed.  In the light we will see sometimes more, and sometimes less, but we will see, we will understand and wonder, and then we must tell.  Remember, “the self is a telling.”

Take your light home with you, even if we gave it to you.  Take your light home but don’t put it into a drawer or in a box.  “Hide it under a basket no! I’m goin’ to let it shine,” as Pete Seeger would sing.  Take it home and put it by an icon, or stand it by itself – a singular light – your story in Jesus.  You can reflect, and you can ponder.  And when all of that is over, tell the story.

SDG

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent - Saint Francis Lutheran Church, 15 December 2013

“Expectations”

The Third Sunday in Advent

15 December 2013

Saint Francis Lutheran Church

San Francisco, CA

Isaiah 35:1-10

Psalm 146:4-9, or Canticle 15

James 5:7-10

Saint Matthew 11:2-11

INI

The Question

It’s good to be standing here again, and a lot has happened in the decade since I stood here last.  A lot has happened for the both of us, but more about that later.  I especially like the readings for this day because they make us think.  They pose questions, and provide answers – the trick is to match them up.  John’s question that he sends via his faithful disciples reminds me of another question, one that Jesus asks, “Who do men say that I am?” which is followed by another, “Who do you say that I am?”  These are both questions that are asked in the Gospel of Matthew, and before we look at this inverse of the question of the Baptist, we need to put it in context. I had a professor in college who loved this particular text, and who told it like this:

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi^* he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

They replied, “Some say that you are the Ground of All Being, the Ultimate Concern, the Omega Point. “And Jesus said to them, “Huh?

This was my professor’s not too hidden dig at the theologians Paul Tillich, and Theilard de Chardin.  And before we dismiss their answers out of hand, we need to realize that the question is asked of us as well.  “Who do you say that Jesus was?”  That there have been brave men and women who have endeavored to answer the question is God’s gift to us.  Often the answers seem evasive or not congruent with our own way of thinking.  They are, however, an attempt to connect with Jesus, and to understand.

For the Matthew the questions, the one asked of the disciples by Jesus, and the one asked of Jesus by the disciples of John, are important ones.  The communities out of which the Matthew traditions were flowing were wracked with division amongst families, communities, and the religious.  Those who saw Jesus as leading Israel to something new, to something not supported by the Hebrew Scriptures, were at odds with those who saw Jesus as the Messiah, as Emmanuel, God-with-us.  And then there were those Gentiles, who, with the encouragement of Paul, were bringing a totally new flavor to those who followed Jesus.  So the questions are proper.  We might well join in the Baptist’s advent prayer, “Are you the one, or should we look for someone else?”

The Answers

We shouldn’t concern ourselves so much with the questions as we should explore the answers.  Jesus’ question is answered by St. Peter, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”  That’s quite a leap, isn’t it, and I think that the Matthean community intended it as a final answer to the question of the Baptist.  The answers that Jesus gives to John’s question, however, are much more intriguing and helpful.  To see them for what they are we need to go back to Isaiah, and his answer. 

The question for Isaiah was not about the nature of God or the aspects of the Messiah.  It was more about how God was loving and protecting Israel.  The history didn’t look too good.  The northern tribes had been deported by the Assyrians, and now in the midst of a war with Babylon and Edom (Judah’s not so nice neighbor) or perhaps later when Babylon had conquered Jerusalem there were hopes of returning from the Babylonian exile.  God seemed to be absent, silent in Israel’s ears.  Isaiah sounds a note of hope.  He has a vision of a verdant wasteland that stands in sharp distinction from the wastelands of Babylon and Edom.  Here there are flowers, and flowing springs, and a holy highway (something quite different than the Holy Way of Marduk that made its way into Babylon).  This was a way reserved for the righteous, the chosen of God. 

The blooming desert and the Holy Way, is just a setting.  The righteous who actually walk this way are distinguished from the rest of us in a manner of speaking.  These are the blind.  These are the deaf.  These are the lame.  These are the dumb.  Each of these, by virtue of their disability were evidence of some ritual impurity among the people of Israel = and yet Isaiah sees them as the righteous ones.  The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap, and the dumb speak; the sign and evidence that God protects and cares for Israel.

Isaiah’s answers inform Jesus’ response to John. 

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Jesus’ answer goes well beyond that of Isaiah, including the dead and the poor.  Nor is it only Isaiah’s dreaming.  The psalm for today closes with similar expectations, posed as both question and answer:

“Who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them; *

who keeps his promise for ever;

Who gives justice to those who are oppressed, *

and food to those who hunger.

The LORD sets the prisoners free;

the LORD opens the eyes of the blind; *

the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;

The LORD loves the righteous;

the LORD cares for the stranger; *

he sustains the orphan and widow.”

Likewise in the alternate response to the readings, the Magnificat, sung by the Blessed Virgin Mary in Luke.  Mary highlights other answers to John’s question:

“He has lifted up the lowly, he has filled the hungry, he has come to the help of Israel.”

These are the answers for the church and the world to ponder.  These are the answers that our society needs to take seriously for they are beyond politics, and they are beyond economic ideology and policy.  These are the expectations that God seeks to meet through our following Jesus.

The Waiting

Whoever wrote the Epistle of James seems to have had an experience with agricultural life.  Perhaps he sat at the side of the road, or in the courtyard of a rural home, and observed what was going on all about him.  The comings and goings of urban life, and the immediacy of society have been hushed for him – and in this silence he teaches us to wait.  Yes, to wait. 

“Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

You know about waiting here, and it may be for you a discipline that you thought was not helpful.  James calls us to wait for the coming Lord, and in earlier chapters of his letter, to be active in our waiting.  You know the part, the helping the blind, the lame, the leper, the poor, the dumb, and the widow, the orphan.  Waiting gives us time to hear and see the need, to awaken to the call. 

When I left this place you were on the cusp of a huge victory for justice and the church.  It was only a matter of a little time until the church could begin to see the righteousness of LGBT people.  It would only be a matter of months until the church was filled not only with ministry to the disenfranchised but also with deacons, priests, pastors, and bishops, who had walked with us and who knew our life, our sorrow, and our subsequent joy.  Congratulations.  Your waiting has been a time of celebration.  Now it needs to be a time of Advent, of expectation.

In a short time you will call a new pastor, and what will you do?  Or to paraphrase a couple of questions, “Who do people say that you are – that you are all about?”  “Are you the ones who bring new ministry to the church, or should we look for another?”  Only a portion of those who need to hear Good News have been reached by your ministry, and already you have reached out in concert with others to feed, to heal, and to lift up.  So then, what will your Advent expectations be?  How will you form the image of Christ in your midst, and in your ministry to those who hunger for good news? 

Isaiah countered the wisdom of his time when he urged the Jews in exile to “build homes” and “to plant fig trees” where they were – in Babylon, in exile.  Ministry was best placed where both people and need were. The young woman Mary was called to be something she never dreamed of.  Now is the time.  Now the questions are for you. What are your dreams here at Saint Francis?  What shall you become in Christ?

I’ll be waiting, and watching.

SDG