The Minority Report (Sermon preached 31 October 2021)

This morning’s first lesson comes from a little book that is easy to miss; tucked, as it is, between two much longer historical narratives, Judges and First Samuel, in the Old Testament. The book of Ruth is like the anecdote you find in a footnote. That bit of backstory having to do with a character who will later become central: in this case, that character is David, Israel’s greatest king.

 

Still, the fact that this small domestic tale about a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law gets preserved at all, is kind of remarkable. Some say that the wise ones who ultimately determined what would be included in the Jewish canon of Scripture - some say they held on to this sweet story to preserve a minority opinion. A dissenting voice that was raised sometime during the fifth century BCE. After the Israelites who had been carried off into captivity in Babylon had come home to Jerusalem. After they had decided that any foreign wives picked up along the way should go back to where they came from.

 

Ruth was a needed reminder that their tribal God was also an inclusive God. So inclusive that the daughter of an enemy people, who worshiped a different one, a different god, that is, could wind up in their royal family tree...(read more)

The Other Side of Relinquishment (Sermon preached 10 October 2021)

Before my recent sojourn to Alaska for a meditation, writing and kayaking retreat, I had not spent much time around Buddhist monks. But along with us for that incredible week off the grid were two support staff, both vowed Buddhist monastics who happen to be married to one another. 

Soten took care of some of the heavier chores, stoking the wood stove, maintaining the pump and filtration system that brought water into the lodge, and hauling kayaks down to the beach. And Shinei was in charge of the kitchen. She had fourteen of us to feed, three times a day, out of a small workspace with few conveniences: a sink, stove and oven, some pots and pans, and a couple of large, well-aged cast iron skillets. The refrigerator was so tiny that most of the fresh stuff had to be stored in cartons on the floor of the large breezeway where our boots and foul weather gear were also kept. 

Shinei told me later that she had been chief cook, for a year, at the monastery in Oregon where she and Soten lived. Which explained in part how magically, it seemed, she was able to produce pots of steaming cooked oatmeal, fragrant soups, luscious home-made breads, salads, rice noodles with roasted vegetables and tofu, and one glorious morning, two skillets full of fresh baked cinnamon rolls...(read more)

Redirecting "First-ness" (Sermon preached 19 September 2021)

For the last several weeks, I’ve been kind of avoiding the news.

None of it is good, it seems. Wildfires are still burning, politics are, well, as usual. People are still trying to get out of Afghanistan, Haiti and other dangerous places. Hospitals are again at capacity with Covid patients. And on Friday the Secretary General of the United Nations said “the world is on a catastrophic pathway” as a result of global warming. Not a whole lot of reasons for optimism out there. Or, at least, not a lot that are getting reported!

 

And though we are absolutely in a safer, better place than we were a year ago, and here at St. Matthew’s we are opening up, thanks be to God, still there is a niggling feeling of dread. I just don’t want to hear more bad news. I want to think about something else.

 

Now this is not exactly the same as the disciples hearing another passion prediction from Jesus in this morning’s Gospel lesson from Mark. After all, we know that the disturbing news that Jesus is reporting, about what his teaching and ministry is going to cost him, and those who are with him, is in service to a much larger narrative of good news. The great news of God’s love, for all of us, and the lengths to which God will go to be with us in every aspect of human existence, including death. Offering joy, and hope, and new life on the other side.

 

Still, if you and I imagine ourselves there with Peter, James, John and the rest, it’s not hard to understand why they might be feeling a bit avoidant...(read more)

An Unending Cycle of Generosity (Sermon preached 29 August 2021)

Just a few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to take part in a meditation/writing/ kayaking retreat in Alaska. There were 14 of us in all, in a small lodge, off the grid, accessible only by boat, for five full days and six nights. On a small channel above the Wrangell Narrows on the Inside Passage – which is that panhandle of Alaska that runs north-south with the Pacific Ocean to the west and British Columbia to the east. 

The Inside Passage is part of the marine ecoregion called the North American Pacific Fjordland. Shaped by massive glaciers millions of years ago, boasting majestic mountains, wildlife-filled waterways, and thousands of islands blanketed by temperate old-growth rainforest, it is home to bald eagles, sea lions, porpoises and whales.

The lodge backed up to towering spruce and hemlocks that shaded a lush world of shrubs, ferns and mosses, in which bright fungi sprang up overnight on decaying stumps and four-inch-long slugs crept across lichen covered logs. When the tide was in, the deck was maybe 100 feet from the water’s edge, the rocky shore buffered by tall grass. When it was out, a graveled carpet of shellfish, anemones and algae was laid bare...(read more)

Low tide on Keene Channel

Resurrection

What first drew me to you? I think it was your pale, creamy green flesh, perhaps once white, when you stood upright, stretching toward the sky. An aspen? No, too far north we are. Some kind of birch? Or is it a trick, the trick of the lichen that now flourishes on your skin as you lie on the tender blanket of earth that once covered you in your infancy?

I bend to take hold of your jagged end, softened by mosses, and pull; a piece of you comes away in my hand. With a muted crack, swollen fibers yield. A mere twelve inches in length, you are an entire landscape of a different world. 

A world of sphagnum forests bordering smooth verdant meadows that, as I run my finger across them, betray the damp of rotting wood. And at one end, darker moss grows tundra-like, home to fungi the size of pin-heads. No wild animals graze here, but microscopic herds, invisible to the naked eye, move across your surface and feast on the riches of your decomposing body. 

You are a world unto yourself and, at the same time, a dying fragment of another one. The miracle - for that is what it is - of death’s seemingly limitless capacity to not only yield to the burgeoning life that presses on it from behind, but to become its host. To feed and nurture it. You are so exquisitely beautiful in your decay. 

You are still tree. And you are more. You are raft, you are banquet, you are mother. You have never been more alive, more vibrant, more fertile than you are in this moment of breaking down and returning. 

What, I wonder, might my aging and failing, my faltering and mortal dying look like, were I to offer my very self to what might be born and nourished as I fall from full upright to recline and eventually rest upon the ground?

Rest in Peace

Laid out on a small rise just behind a shattered trunk, under the watchful eyes of forest sentinels, the skeleton rests on a bed of moss. No funeral wrappings other than the tender hemlock seedlings pushing up between disarranged bones. Hooves, their soft black sheen evidencing recent attempted flight, and a pelvis, set a bit apart, witness to the savage tearing limb from limb.

The trees gather around this fallen one of theirs. Theirs to feed, shade, protect and, after the grisly picking clean, to grieve. Mute mourners, no hint of blame…just acceptance: this is the way of things in the wild. A doe. And on the other side of a slender, moss-covered sapling, hardly further than the length of an umbilical cord, four tiny hooves and three bones; the rest of her baby small and light enough to carry off to be enjoyed elsewhere.

 

Their branches spreading overhead, spruce and hemlock shelter the gravesite that, months hence, will have disappeared under the soft blanket of the forest floor.

Alaskan Passage

It has been a little over a month since I returned from a week-long meditation/writing/kayaking retreat on the Inside Passage in Alaska. There were just fourteen of us at a small lodge that sits on the shore of the Keene Channel, several miles north of the Wrangell Narrows. These past four weeks, I have been planning to write this post as a way of kickstarting a writing practice that has been more intention than reality for too long. Now, finally, it’s time.

 

For seven days, two of them mostly travel, I stepped out of my life. Or, rather, I took an amazingly beautiful alternate route through a world of towering spruce and hemlocks, wildlife-filled waterways and the freshest air on the continent of North America. A scenic byway along which I meditated and noticed details with all five of my senses (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting). A less worn trail with just a few fellow travelers, kayaking, reading, writing and sharing. A pilgrimage during which, as the days passed, my mind, my heart and my spirit opened. My lungs filled. My soul drank.

 

Sometimes you have to just get away, right? You have to be someplace else in order to find your bearings. It just so happened that every one of us, in that little band of ten retreatants and four supporting staff, was contemplating or moving through a transition of one kind or another. All of us were navigating that liminal space between what we had been doing and what we were thinking about doing next. We had all come to listen: to listen to ourselves, to one another, to the breathtaking natural world that surrounded us, to the whatever or whoever was present with us, in us and among us in that energetic field that sustains human existence.

 

For the first couple of days all I could do, in response to the “invitations” offered by the poet who facilitated our writing, was jot down random words and phrases in my “Rite in the Rain” notebook. From the first page, below my name: “tenderness/textures/soft undulating hillocks/bright green tan brown; fleecy covering of moss; harsh edges mute now once sharp”. And below that a sketch of a tree trunk. On the third day, triggered by a discovery on one of the islands, some internal dam gave way. As prose began to flow, I realized that the crafting of language is both nourishing and deeply rewarding for me.

 

So what does that mean in practical terms? I don’t know exactly. But I do know that I have come back from Alaska more committed to my writing. And that this space is the obvious place to begin working that out. I will be sharing a couple of short pieces from my trip here. And then, after that, you who are reading this are my witnesses! I will keep writing for writing’s sake. I will keep writing, just as I keep walking.

View north from the deck of Keene Lodge

Sympathy for Complainers (Sermon preached 8 August 2021)

 “Then the Jews began to complain about Jesus because he said “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41). It’s amazing, isn’t it, how swiftly the joy of the miracle dissipates. How quickly the abundance is forgotten! All those people. All that gorgeous green grass. All that bread! All disappearing in the rear-view mirror as the crowd has chased Jesus across the sea of Galilee to the other side.

 They want more. And Jesus is wondering, is it true understanding they are after? Or do they just want to know how he did it? He’s been trying to explain what is going on, and what it all really means. And they still aren’t getting it...(read more)

Pennies and Barley Loaves (Sermon preached 25 July 2021)

Most of the time, the story we just heard from John 6 is referred to as “The Feeding of the Five Thousand”. But it is sometimes called "The Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes”. Which, in itself, is an interpretive move. Because it shifts our focus from what happened, which is that all these people got fed, to what Jesus actually did to make that happen.

The presenting problem of the story is the problem of not enough – nowhere near enough. The problem is solved when something very small somehow becomes more than enough to meet the need. Remember, twelve baskets of leftovers!

 

Doesn’t it make you wonder what it must that have been like...(read more)

Coming Forward, Coming Clean (Sermon preached 27 June 2021)

Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to be called out of a crowd -- out of the relative safety of a group -- because you’ve been caught at something you would never dream of doing out in the open? And then, in front of all those people have to explain yourself? Honestly, I don’t know how that poor woman that Jesus meets on his way to heal Jairus’s daughter found the courage to be there in the first place.

In the Greek, Mark’s description of her situation is this series of participles piling one on top of another. The literal English translation goes something like "And a woman— having been bleeding for twelve years, and having suffered greatly from many physicians, and having spent all she had, and having benefited not one bit, but rather having gone from bad to worse, having heard about Jesus, having come in the crowd from behind…”

 

It’s like we can feel her, right? We feel her labored breathing... (read more)

A New Brain-Shape (Sermon preached 30 May 2021)

Good morning! It is great to be with you. It is so good, isn’t it? After having to be physically distant for so long, we are beginning to actually share spaces with one another.

 Don’t get me wrong – technology is awesome. In fact, it has saved us. Thanks to Facebook and YouTube and Zoom, and the heroic efforts of some staff here, we have been able to stay connected, irrespective of location and time zone. So much so that even the naysayers among us are now convinced that in some circumstances, being present virtually is truly the way to go!

 

But that energetic exchange that happens when we are physically in one another’s presence; that back and forth, and give and take, with people we know and people we don’t, quite yet – people who we are curious about; who we find ourselves drawn to; who capture our imaginations? That being with, in person, is what we have been deprived of, for the most part, for over a year...(read more)

Keep Praying (Sermon preached 16 May 2021)

You probably already know this, but just in case you don’t, here in this community at St. Matthew’s a whole lot of people are convinced that prayer matters. That it makes a difference. We pray for one another, a lot. Privately. In small groups. And here in church. So many prayer requests find their way to me. Via emails, texts, phone calls, people ask for prayer for themselves, for family members, for friends; people they care about, people they know are struggling.

Sometimes a prayer request comes in from one source, and then later that same day, another person calls to make sure that I am aware, so I can add a name to the Prayers of the People. We have an Intercessory Prayer Group. A small band of prayer warriors who, every day, pray a confidential list of specific needs that gets updated monthly. And, one day in the not-too-far- distant future, I hope, our wonderful prayer ministers will once again, during Communion, pray with, lay hands on and anoint  those feeling a need to pray. 

 

It means a lot, doesn’t it? To have other people pray for us. People who don’t even really believe in the power of prayer still feel blessed by it...(read more)

Breathing God (Sermon preached 11 April 2021)

Happy Easter everyone! Today is an Easter Sunday, you know. In the liturgical year, there are seven Sundays of Easter – not “after” but “of”. The church in its wisdom, and guided by Luke’s chronology of events in the Book of Acts, designates an Easter season of fifty days. Fifty days during which “Alleluias” abound and, as one commentator put it so eloquently, we “live into the reality of what it means to be a community shaped by the dying and rising of Christ, by the expectation-shattering reality of life victorious over death”.

It’s a good thing we have fifty days! Because that sounds like the work of a lifetime to me - and not just of an individual. The lifetime of a parish. The lifetime of the Church, continuing through centuries, through millennia of Sundays. In this morning’s Gospel, though, John directs us back to the very first Easter Sunday...(read more)

What Do You See? (Sermon preached 21 March 2021)

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus”, the Greeks say to Philip in this morning’s reading from the twelfth chapter of John’s Gospel. I’ve heard, and you may have too, that those words can be found etched in wood, or engraved on a brass plate, or just printed on a piece of paper – in this or that church pulpit.

So this past week I googled it: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus - pulpit” and bingo - 7 million hits. And I can now confirm that you will find a “Sir we wish to see Jesus” sign of some kind at the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto, St. John the Divine Episcopal in Houston, Westport Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, the parish church in Donegal, Ireland, and the Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles. Just to name a few...(read more)

Just What We've Signed Up For (Sermon preached 28 February 2021)

Ever since Stefanie’s sermon a couple of weeks ago about the healing of Peter’s mother, when she introduced the idea of six-word memoirs (remember? Because Jesus resurrected her, she served?), a lot of us have been composing pithy summaries of our experiences of God, the pandemic, or just what we are feeling in the moment. For example: Feeling lonesome; have mask; will drive. So many desserts; so little time.

Earlier this week, when I sat down with today’s Gospel reading, I got to imagining what Peter might have come up with, when Jesus started talking about the Son of Man needing to suffer and die, and his followers needing to deny themselves and take up crosses. And the six words that almost immediately came to me were Not what I signed up for... (read more)

An Epiphany of Love (Sermon preached 14 February 2021)

Today is the last Sunday after Epiphany. And every year on the last Sunday after Epiphany, we hear the story of the Transfiguration. All three synoptic Gospels include this mother of all epiphanies, or manifestations (that’s what epiphany means), of God’s presence and purpose in Jesus of Nazareth.

Which means that this epic story gets preached on, over and over again. And therein lies the challenge: how does one, year in and year out, keep coming up with things to say? In the beginning I did what most newly minted seminary grads do...(read more)

The Worst Sermon Ever (Sermon preached 24 January 2021)

Okay everyone, I am about to deliver – well, actually, repeat – probably the worst sermon in the history of sermons. The good news is, it won’t take long. In the original Hebrew, it’s just five words. And in most English translations, only eight. “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown”. That’s it.

Notice – there is no mention of God. No promises of forgiveness. No words of exhortation. And if this very short sermon that actually feels more like a threat sounds familiar, it’s because we all heard it just a few minutes ago in this morning’s Old Testament lesson from the book of Jonah. It just went by really fast! This worst sermon in the history of sermons, that was preached by maybe the most reluctant preachers in the history of preachers. The most reluctant preacher and, without a doubt, one of the most effective. Because, as a result of his preaching, we are told in the next verse, an entire city-full of heathens believe God. So much so that God changes God’s mind, and doesn’t destroy them. (read more)

Magi's Journey, Our Journey (Sermon preached 3 January 2021)

I am pretty sure that it was not during the first week in my systematic theology class that the professor, who also happened to be the academic dean, began his systematic destruction of sacred cows. You know what I mean by sacred cows, right? Those cherished, long held and unquestioned tenets of our faith that we had all brought along with us as we began our seminary studies.

 

But definitely by the end of the second week he had started dismantling beliefs that we had always simply accepted as “true”. “Every point of view is a view from a point,”  he would say as he separated us from what we took to be undisputed aspects of the faith. And showed us how they were, in fact, time-bound and contextual. It didn’t mean they weren’t true, necessarily, Just maybe true in a different way. (read more)

All Mary All the Time (Sermon preached 20 December 2020)

 If I tell you that today, the fourth Sunday of Advent, is Mary Sunday – which means it’s all Mary, all the time; with the Magnificat taking the place of the Psalm, and the Annunciation as the Gospel story… and if I tell you that this sermon is going to be all about what this teen-aged peasant girl has to teach us about spiritual power…and if I tell you that that means taking a deep dive into topics like receptivity and gestation and giving birth to God…

If I tell you all that, you just might start thinking that this is one of those times when a woman preacher is going to make up for all of those sermons about fishermen and tax collectors and prodigal sons and good Samaritans and laborers in vineyards. All of those men who take up most of the space in the Gospel stories we hear...(read more)