Pleading for God to Come (Sermon preached 29 November 2020)

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence…”

How’s that for an opening line on the first Sunday of Advent! (Advent being the season when we watch and wait for God to arrive in the birth of a sweet baby in a manger.) This desperate plea is almost a demand: “God, if you would just get down here; and remind the world of what you can do.” And now I’m paraphrasing a little more: “Come down out of wherever you are in that glorious heavenly dwelling; down into this wasteland where we are all sick, and unclean, and fading, and failing. Come before there’s no one left to remember you.” (read more)

Keeping Our Lamps Burning (Sermon preached 8 November 2020)

I don’t know about you, but as far as I am concerned, if ever there was a week to remind us what running out of oil can feel like, it’s this past one.

 

I sat down on Thursday morning to try to start writing this sermon (yes, I am that slow), and my lamp was just about dry. I kept searching online, riffling through notes, hoping to scare up just a little oil to fuel just a bit of light. Only to wind up staring out the window, or worse, distracting myself by checking the news.

 

And it’s not just this election that has left so many of us exhausted and empty (though Lord knows the whole runup to last Tuesday has been more than enough to do that). It’s months of being on edge, in a constant state of hyperarousal, because of Covid. It’s living in a digital world, bombarded by messages that are, frankly, guaranteed to make us feel anxious or insecure. It’s social unrest. It’s fires. It’s the threat of climate change. It’s this year of 2020 that has just kept on giving. (read more)

 

The Heart is the Fulcrum (Sermon preached 25 October 2020)

My earliest memory of the summary of the law, which is the formal name for Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees in this morning’s Gospel, is embedded in a particular place: St. Augustine-by-the Sea in Santa Monica. Not the cream-colored sixties-style contemporary edifice that now faces out onto Fourth Street, just below Wilshire; but the original church, that burned in 1966. The red brick and wooden frame building, with its rich, dark wainscoting and pews, deep jewel-toned stained-glass windows and red carpet.

 

St. Augustine’s, where I, along with maybe 100 other children, in blue-and white-checked uniforms, would walk, our hands clasped behind our backs, to chapel during the week; where I stood in a choir stall on Sundays: where I first fell in love with what the psalmist calls “the beauty of holiness.” (read more)

Camera Angles

While on vacation recently, I had the opportunity to learn about the brilliant, versatile camera that lives inside my cellphone. We started out inside, socially distanced, of course, being introduced to its many built-in functions (and a few hidden tricks). Then our instructor took us outside so we could practice what we had been shown. 

I discovered that knowing what all those buttons actually do makes a huge difference. And who knew that my phone was capable of such artistry? Exposure, contrast, saturation, tint, all of which can be applied and/or adjusted after the photo is taken – if, that is, I opt out of the “auto edit” function and decide to play with those tools myself. Otherwise my talented camera can determine the optimal combination of those features on its own.

 

But before taking the picture, there is composition. According to the rule of thirds, it is best to imagine the lens as a 3X3 grid, and locate the main subject(s) at either an intersection of the dividing lines or along one of the lines itself. Except, when you have a single brightly colored object or an all-over pattern, it is okay to center it in the photo.

 

And zooming in before snapping a photo is a bad idea. Why? Because when it enlarges the objects on the screen, it also spreads out the pixels, reducing the quality of the image. Better to shoot now, maybe use the “burst” feature so as to capture the optimal moment. And then later, when there is time and space, select, and crop as needed.

 

Not long ago, a wise mentor said to me, “we really can control what we think”. It’s not the first time I had heard this, but honestly, I’d never really bought it. It had always seemed to me that thoughts and feelings simply arrive, and I react to them, selecting from a whole range of responses from amazement to joy to satisfaction to disappointment to rage to grief.

 

But I am learning that just as I can decide to focus my attention on how to best capture a beautiful scene or a memorable moment, I can choose how to frame the reality I experience. I can select what is to be the primary subject(s); I can then decide from which angle I will consider it/them; I can lighten or darken the tone of the image; I can even take multiple shots and spend time later, evaluating which one is best. Which is truest.

 

What’s more, from the outset I can determine selection criteria for the images I want to add to my collection, as it were. Will I search a challenging situation and find the beauty? Will I scan the distant horizon and focus in on the hope? Will I, in the midst of chaos and suffering, refuse to look away, and instead keep watching for hints of divine grace?

 

And once the subject(s) of my seeking rest inside my frame – the individuals, situations, crises, and opportunities that I encounter along the way, I can then focus on those with whom I interact with generosity, and respect. I can frame the scene with open heartedness. I can intensify the contrast between what gives life and what does not; what is about love and what is not.

 

And isn’t that the whole point of capturing and preserving the moments of grace we are given? Isn’t it the reason we take pictures?

Desert Textures

It's About the Vineyard (Sermon preached 4 October 2020)

Last Tuesday morning, as I was scrolling through the news on my phone, I saw this headline from the Sacramento Bee: “It’s like God has no sympathy”: Wine Country Shaken by RelentlessWildfires.Of course, any headline with the word “God” in it is going to catch my eye! Especially during a week when I’m working on a sermon.

 

But this one was particularly striking for a couple of reasons. First, because someone quoted on the Apple News feed was saying out loud what I imagine some have been secretly thinking – it’s like God has no sympathy, and not just about wildfires – over the last several months. Months during which people all over the world have continued to fall ill and die from COVID-19; months during which our economy has been shut down to slow it’s spread, and during which later attempts to reopen have, in some places, led to new surges in infection. Months that have shown that though COVID’s impacts are more keenly felt by the poor and the vulnerable, still this disease knows no favorites, and has no respect for wealth or office. And that’s just the pandemic part... (read more)

 

Vineyard Along the Spanish Camino

Gathering Daily (Sermon preached 20 September 2020)

These days, time has taken on a very strange quality. On the one hand, as we long for this season of pandemic to come to an end, it seems to crawl. And on the other hand, suddenly summer has disappeared completely in the rearview mirror and September is more than half gone.

 

How can we have been living in this weird world for seven whole months? This world that looks the same, and yet it is not. Where the people in our lives are still there, but our means of interacting with them are so different. Where we have gotten used to wearing masks and giving one another wide berths on sidewalks and in parking lots. Where so much that we have always taken for granted is now out beyond our reach. Non-anxious air travel. Working together in an office. Hugging friends when we meet them in a restaurant. Attending big family weddings, birthday parties, graduations. Singing in the choir. (read more)

 

Saying Hello

Ever so occasionally I will share the work of others on this blog. This is from Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama as read in an interview with Krista Tippett:

 

“Neither I nor the poets I love found the keys to the kingdom of prayer and we cannot force God to stumble over us where we sit. But I know that it’s a good idea to sit anyway. So every morning I sit, I kneel, waiting, making friends with the habit of listening, hoping that I’m being listened to. There, I greet God in my own disorder.

 

I say hello to my chaos, my unmade decisions, my unmade bed, my desire and my trouble. I say hello to distraction and privilege, I greet the day and I greet my beloved and bewildering Jesus.

 

I recognize and greet my burdens, my luck, my controlled and uncontrollable story. I greet my untold stories, my unfolding story, my unloved body, my own love, my own body.

 

I greet the things I think will happen and I say hello to everything I do not know about the day.

I greet my own small world and I hope that I can meet the bigger world that day.

 

I greet my story and hope that I can forget my story during the day, and hope that I can hear some stories, and greet some surprising stories during the long day ahead.

 

I greet God, and I greet the God who is more God than the God I greet. Hello to you all, I say, as the sun rises above the chimneys of North Belfast. Hello."

Toward Thin Places (Sermon preached 30 August 2020)

Just two weeks ago today, I think it was probably around 5:30 in the afternoon, I pulled up to the entrance to the Bright Angel Lodge, which sits just west of the famous El Tovar Hotel on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I checked in, then followed the map I was given to the small parking area below a group of cabins. Got out of the car, identified the proper door, pushed my keycard into the slot, and stepped inside.

 

The room was rustic, and charming, and really hot, even with the overhead fan on high. I crossed to the second door on the far side and pushed it open, hoping that would draw in some cooler air. And right there was the Canyon. Just a few steps more, down a path, and I was standing on the trail that runs some 13 miles along the rim; from the South Kaibab Trailhead near Yaki Point west to Hermit's Rest. The view (and that word is just so inadequate) was breathtaking.

This wasn’t my first visit to the Canyon. My parents brought my brothers and me when we were young; there is a photo of the four of us (aged 9, 7, 6 and 4) sitting on the ground at one of the overlooks. I still remember how anxious Mom was about all of us being so close to the edge of that great abyss while Dad took the picture. (read more)

 

From the Rim Trail 

Shade

On a sunny Saturday not long ago, I went hiking with some friends up to San Vicente Mountain. We chose the trail that follows the ridgeline, affording spectacular views in all directions along with really steep dections guaranteed to up all of our heart rates.

Accompanying us was their sweet chocolate Labrador retriever, who raced forward, then back, zigging and zagging her way up the trail. Her owners were carrying water for her, and as the miles ticked by we would periodically stop so that she could lap some and have more poured across her back to cool her down.

By the time we all started back down it was early afternoon; the sun was full strength and she was feeling it. What had been occasional forays into bushes along the way became repeated dives into anything promising darkness and relief from the heat. She would lie there hidden, and panting, until we caught up. And then leap back out to catch up with whoever was in the lead.

Seeking out the shade was so instinctive for her. Gracie does the same thing; when she gets too hot, she drags me over to the nearest patch of dappled grass, flops down and stretches her legs away from her body to luxuriate in the coolness. 

There is nothing like that bit of shade when we need a break. Yet shade is getting a bit of a bad rap these days. At least it is in the Urban Dictionary, which defines “throwing shade” on someone as subtly insulting them.[i] The implication being that out in the sun is where we are admired and affirmed. In the bright light is where it is best to be, where we should want to be, all the time. Anything that gets in the way of it is to our detriment. It reduces us. 

Or maybe not. It occurs to me that the assumption that it is normal to be out in the sunshine all the time, where everyone is watching and where I must be at my best, is actually dangerous. Because it is such a short step from there to thinking that I am doing enough only when I am there. I am okay only when I am there.  So much so that I resist seeking out the shade I need from time to time to protect me from the blazing sun and the searing heat. The shade that invites me to stop. And rest. 

Seen from that perspective, someone who “throws shade” in my direction may, ironically, be doing me a favor. Whether the act is malicious or merely thoughtless, they have done for me what I may not be able to do for myself. For in that moment, I may be delivered from the pressure of striving for more – more affirmation, more kudos, more power, more whatever it is that I have become convinced is necessary for my well-being. The place of thrown shade is where I find respite from the glare of my unrelenting expectations for myself, and the exhausting heat of my imagined grandiosity. It is where I am brought face to face with my limitation and contingency. It is where I realize that true wellness lies not only in shining in the sunlight; it lies also in acceptance of my need for shade. Of knowing the blessed relief, chosen or not, of its sweet darkness, safety and protection. Of finding that even there, especially there, I am met by the One who is ever inviting, ever welcoming me into Presence.

The LORD is your keeper;

    the LORD is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

    nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all evil;

    he will keep your life.

The LORD will keep

    your going out and your coming in

    from this time on and for evermore. Ps. 121:5-8

 

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[i] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Throw%20shade

Called into the Chaos (Sermon preached 9 August 2020)

The Sea of Galilee is actually a freshwater lake, located in the Jordan Rift Valley, which runs north-south in the northeastern part of present-day Israel. It’s 13 miles long and 8 miles across, and is fed primarily by the Jordan River, which flows in at its northern end and then out the southern end. Along with some natural springs.

 

The Galilee is the second lowest body of water in the world; the Dead Sea, which is saltwater, being the lowest. And when the winds rush down off the encircling mountains and hit its surface some 700 feet below sea level, the waves can reach 12 feet in height...(read more)

Tolerating the Gap (Sermon preached 19 July 2020)

A Biblical studies professor of mine once said “beware of gaps in the lectionary”. Beware the places where verses get skipped over. Where stuff gets left out.

 

Okay, so you may be wondering, is this going to be one of those quasi-esoteric sermons that focuses on inconsequential details that only Scripture nerds care about? I mean, how much difference can it make, that in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 13, the North American Consultation on Common Texts, in collaboration with the International English Language Liturgical Consultation, in the final version they released in 1994, after 9 years of trial use, concluded that we need not bother with what sits between Jesus’ parable about the wheat and the weeds and the interpretation that he gives later to his inner circle? (read more)

"Let both of them grow together..."

Breathing

Some three billion years ago, the chemical process to which you and I owe every breath we take first appeared.[i]Photosynthesis began in free-living single cells, fixating carbon from sunlight for food and casting off oxygen. In time, these cells were transformed into chloroplasts inside bigger and more complex cells; in more time (say, two billion years) sufficient oxygen accrued to blanket the earth; and in still more time, that environment made possible the creation and evolution of oxygen breathers.

 

So Genesis has it right.[ii] The plants came first. Later, animal and eventually human life emerged, practitioners of the complementary process of respiration, forming an exquisitely symmetrical cycle. We inhale oxygen, which enables us to metabolize nutrients that fuel our bodies and our minds. And we exhale the carbon that is essential for photosynthesis back into the atmosphere, out of which all green living things make theirs.

 

Each day, when I sit to meditate, I focus on the breath. It’s the way most of us begin; resting the mind on that expanding and releasing, rising and falling. Observing thoughts as they come and go and, over and over again, returning to that ongoing in, then out. As a person of faith, this practice is prayer for me. I draw in the ruah, the Spirit-breath, that gives me life and holds me in existence. And as I return it, I think “here”; I am here, offering myself to this moment, to the Presence in whom I live and move and have my being. I am, simply, here.

 

These days, as I walk the neighborhood and the trail, I have become more mindful of the simple process of breathing, in and out. I’m not sure why that is. But as I pass by manicured lawns and through wild meadows, as the shade of spreading oaks shields me from the sun and the long grasses brush against my legs, I have been waking up to the reality that all of these living things, all these photosynthesizers, are outrageously generous partners in the ongoing dance of life on this earth. These trees, these weeds, these tender blades are keeping me alive. They are providing that without which I would suffocate and die.

 

And I imagine wrapping my arms around the rough trunk of the tall pine that shades my patio, and lying down in the new-mown grass to press my cheek against its green sweetness, and whispering “thank you”.

 

This too is prayer.

Spanish Countryside Morning on Day 3

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[i] I am drawing on Paul R. Fleischman’s elegant descriptions of these processes in his Wonder: When and Why the World Appears Radiant, Small Batch Books, Amherst, MA 2013, pp. 220-225. Any errors in translation are mine.

[ii] Genesis 1:11-12

A Different Kind of Rest (Sermon preached 5 July 2020)

Happy Fourth of July weekend! Usually this is a high point of the summer, with parades, pool parties, sunburn, cold beer and burgers, ice cream with blueberries and strawberries, and to top it all off, fireworks after the sun goes down. July feels like the true heart of the summer season. Thirty-one lazy hazy crazy days of relaxation and fun, knowing we still have August for trips and projects, and eventually getting ready for things to start back up in the fall.

 

But this year, oh, this summer is so different. On this 4^th of July weekend, though the days may be lazy, they follow weeks of anxiety and confusion; though you and I may indeed be trying to relax, the is a lot of scary stuff going on out there; though gatherings with friends and family may still be happening, they are proscribed by social distancing and masks; far cry from the boisterous, backyard barbeques of the good old days. It’s pretty disorienting, isn’t it? (read more)

To be honest...

Asking for help is one of my worst things. I know I am not alone; in fact, I am pretty sure lots of people experience this resistance to what feels like an admission of failure. But if ever I was in any doubt as to whether this is a problem, I am now convinced that not only is being able to ask for help essential for my own well-being; it is the rising tide that floats all boats. It strengthens and heals us all.

 

Why is it so hard to ask for help? Ah, let me count the ways. I’m intelligent and capable. I’ve overcome difficulties and survived losses. I have done the work and developed a solid self. I have raised two kids with whom I have loving and meaningful relationships. And then there is what I do for a living – I’m supposed to be helping other people! Hearing their struggles, offering counsel, providing answers.

 

About six weeks ago, though, I had a “come to Jesus” moment. Yes, I’m hard-headed; it took a pandemic, but now I’m finally paying attention. Now I’m coming out from behind the curtain of my high-functioning, has-it-all-together persona and letting myself be seen.

 

So what went wrong? Well, pretty much everything. At least, that’s how it felt. In the beginning, sheltering in place was actually a relief. I reveled in the freedom of not having to go into the office. Of setting my own schedule and taking long evening walks with Gracie. I loved being in my home (and still do); it is so peaceful, a great place to work. I even returned to playing the beautiful family piano that sits silent in my living room so much of the time.  

 

But as the weeks turned into months, the loss of human contact, the we-are-bodies-in-the-same-space interactions, was grinding me down. I didn’t realize it at first – just kept reminding myself of all that I had to be grateful for (wonderful work, loving friends, safe environment, healthy body) and blamed myself for not being stronger. Until the day when I finally said out loud how much I was struggling to a wise mentor, who told me that it was time to get proactive. To develop some strategies for getting what I needed. To get over myself, and start asking for help.

 

So I did. And the good news is, it worked. I started by figuring out what I needed and imagining how those needs might be met. Then, even though it felt embarrassing, I began asking. It was amazing how kind people were; how willing to be part of my survival plan. What’s more, now that I was open to receiving help, I started noticing unexpected, unsolicited moments of generosity and grace. And recognizing how they were also part of a slow and gentle process of my getting better.

 

As I continue in my recovery from the fear of asking for help, what I have also learned is that when I do take the risk of opening up and being vulnerable to other people I am helping them too. Because, as it turns out, helping others can and does make people healthier and happier. In a recent episode of a podcast called “The Happiness Lab”, researchers discovered that people who are great helpers don’t start out that way. They begin helping in small ways and find joy in it; and over time that positive feedback loop spurs them on to more and greater acts of caring and service to others.

 

So this asking for and giving help to one another becomes the means by which we all are, in ways large and small, visible and invisible, strengthened and blessed. And the more broadly we are able to apply that concept, the wider its impact becomes. Our Jewish sisters and brothers see our participation in this greater project as the holy work of human beings created in the image of God; it is tikkun olam, the repairing or healing of the world.

 

I wish I could say that asking for help is no longer difficult for me. But it’s a process. And so today, and tomorrow too, I (still) need to remember. It is okay; it is more than okay, to ask  for help.         

Learning from Hagar and Sarah (Sermon preached 21 June 2020)

Given all that has been happening in this country in the last few weeks around racism and injustice, it’s pretty amazing, isn’t it, that the reading from the Old Testament for today, two days after Juneteenth, involves Hagar and Sarah, a Black slave-woman and her mistress.

 

Earlier this week, as I was marveling about that fact, I remembered a conversation I had maybe 18 years ago. I was in my early 40s and back in school, commuting from the small town where we lived in north-central Pennsylvania to the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia, which is all the way down in the southeast corner of the state. Driving across Interstate-80 through rolling farmland, up into the Poconos, and then down the northeast extension into Philly’s northern suburbs – Conshohocken, Plymouth Meeting, tony Chestnut Hill; and then under the railroad tracks into sketchy Germantown...(read more)

An Invitation

Nearly two years ago, I walked some ninety miles along the Portuguese route of the Camino de Santiago over seven days. The Camino dates back to medieval times, when pilgrims from all over Europe made their way on foot to the Cathedral of St. James in Compostela, Spain. There, it was believed, lay the remains of the apostle James, called by Jesus along with his brother John at the outset of his ministry. James was martyred in Jerusalem in 44 AD.

 

In an article I later wrote entitled (Learning to) Walk (click here) I shared two realizations from my pilgrimage. One was that walking is as essential to my spiritual journey as breathing. As exercise, as practice, as prayer, as metaphor, hitting the trail or the pavement brings me insight, understanding, and sometimes just plain relief when I can’t figure things out and I don’t understand. And the other was that when I am unsure of where I am going, time and the companionship of fellow travelers tend to work together to show me the way forward.

 

Over the past three months, as COVID-19 has disrupted just about every area of our lives and as, more recently, the deep wounds caused by racism and injustice in our country cry out for long-overdue reckoning and healing, it seems that my pilgrimage experience has yet another thing to teach me.

 

And that is this. Sometimes even with the company of friends and even with the willingness to wait, the route still remains unclear. Sometimes I am just plain clueless as to where and how I am to go. And when that happens, it doesn’t mean that I have lost my way. Not at all. It simply means I must somehow learn to accept and embrace what is: journey as journey; pilgrimage as pilgrimage; not knowing as not knowing. The challenge, and the opportunity for deeper communion with the mysterious Ground of Being that holds your lives and mine in an infinitely intricate cosmic tapestry, is to say yes to that.

 

As I looked back through the photos I took that week on the Camino, the most striking ones captured moments that, had I been more concerned with getting to where I was going, I would have missed. Now, credit where credit is due, my closest friend on the journey is an artist. She made sure that we paused often to notice what was right there in front of us. A heavily laden grape vine. Early morning mist. A silhouette. A doorway. A yellow spray-painted arrow. These images, I now realize, are not only striking. They are sacramental. They reveal a Reality behind and beyond themselves. They invite me into meaning making.

 

I suppose I should not be surprised that these days, when the world feels so frightening and unstable, I find myself tying on a pair of sneakers, snapping the leash onto Gracie’s collar, and heading out my door and down the hill. Allowing the rhythm of my breath, of left-then-right, putting one foot in front of the other, to remind me once more that the living of the days you and I are given on this earth is a matter of accepting what is known and what is not. Of offering myself, in my creatureliness, to that Love that is both beyond me and within me. Of noticing and taking in what is right in front of me in this present moment. Capturing it. Maybe even learning from it.

 

So I’m (still) walking. And I’m inviting you to join me on the way. My hope and dream for this space is that it may be a place where images and insights from the journey are shared. Moments of awareness, of awakening, of noticing. Moments when what is before us is both what it is and more. Moments that usher us into that Presence in whom we live, and move, and have our being.

Photo by Betsey Rice