When Everything Goes Sideways (Sermon Preached 11 December 2022)

The John the Baptist who appears in the Gospel we just heard from the eleventh chapter of Matthew is far cry from the John we are used to hearing about in Advent. The John we are used to hearing about is out in the wilderness, wearing strange clothes and eating weird things. Attracting crowds of people, calling out their hypocrisy, and baptizing them left and right in the Jordan.

The John we are used to hearing about is bold, and confident, and so clear about who he is and what he is about. He is the forerunner who prepares the way for the one who is more powerful than he; who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Who will harvest wheat, winnow out chaff, and burn it with unquenchable fire. The John we are used to hearing about recognizes Jesus instantly when he shows up for baptism. This is the one that they have all been waiting for! They being God’s long-suffering, brokenhearted, defeated people, whose prophets have promised that a Messiah will come and restore them to greatness and make them a light to the nations.

The John we are used to hearing about was center stage in last week’s Gospel. But a lot can happen in a week, right? (read more)

A Rising Tide of Gratitude (Sermon Preached 23 October 2022)

Last Sunday morning, as I stood out there at the door after the 8 o’clock service, a parishioner stopped, greeted me, and then said “you know those questions? They are wonderful!!” It took me a second to get what she was talking about – it’s the list on the back of the half-sheet of paper in the stewardship mailing that we all received.

On the front is a description of the 2023 St. Matthew’s Gratitude Chain project, and on the back is a list of prompts – questions designed to help us come up with things to write on these colored strips of paper that we are dropping off at the Stewardship table out on the patio or mailing back in with our pledge cards. Strips that become links in an ever-lengthening chain that will be part of the Christmas Faire decorations.

 

So the Gratitude Chain Project is WONDERFUL! It’s simple and it has a real physical component: we hand write something, rather than text, type, dictate, or just think it. And the chain that is being created is this amazing metaphor of how, in community, gratitude links us together. We are all connected. What made you smile today and why? What is your favorite thing to do with your friends? What is something that makes your life easier today? What do you like most about your family? What is something you’re good at? 

Science tells us that if we can get better at noticing, and being grateful for, the countless gifts we receive every single day, we’ll be healthier, happier, and more in relationship with other people. Gratitude is that good for us...(read more)

Thoughts on Faith (Sermon Preached 2 October 2022)

This morning I’m going to share a couple of thoughts with you all about faith, based on two of the readings we just heard: the Gospel from Luke 17 and the Epistle from Paul’s second letter to Timothy. And I want to start out by just being honest.

 It’s really easy to get overwhelmed by all that God seems to ask of us.I think one time or another we’ve all felt that way. I know I have. When things are hard at home – too many demands and not enough resources – time or energy or money, to meet them all. Or when we find ourselves in a situation at work or at school, trying to figure out the Christian way to handle it – knowing that if we stand up or stand out, it is going to cost us something. 

Or when we’re caught in a personal struggle that goes on and on. And it looks like our call may be to simply live with it. Or when we are having a tough time getting our heads around something Jesus said. I mean - he expects so much, and who can really do all that?

 

Well, the good news is that when these times come, and we feel like it is all just too hard, you and I are in good company...(read more)

God's Umbilical Love (Sermon Preached 11 September 2022)

This past Tuesday, our Palisades clergy group got back together for lunch after our summer hiatus. I ended up sitting next to Matt, the pastor at Pali Pres who arrived in January of 2021. It was the first time we’d had a chance to really chat, and in swapping stories we discovered we graduated from seminary the same year (2004), both from schools in the East: General in New York, for me; he from Columbia, in Decatur, GA. Sidebar – Matt was lucky enough to have Walter Brueggemann for Old Testament and Anna Carter Florence, who wrote Preaching as Testimony, which changed my life, for homiletics!!!

 Not surprisingly, our conversation eventually turned to 9/11; we were both seminarians on that awful day in 2001. Matt recalled that at Columbia classes were NOT canceled - the terrorist attacks must have seemed pretty far away. At the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia, which is where I actually began seminary studies, there wasn’t a choice. The whole northeast corridor shut down.

 

I bet we all  remember where we were when we first heard what was happening in New York. I was home in Williamsport, in central Pennsylvania, getting ready to drive down to Philly for three days of classes, when the phone rang... (read more)

The Grace of Community (September 2022)

What a joy it is to be back with you all! After some eleven weeks of a sabbatical, which included hiking in Yosemite and the Northern Cascades, cruising the Greek Islands, touring the northern California coast connecting with family and dear friends, and yes, some quiet days of rest and reflection in between, I am back home in this beloved community of St. Matthew’s. How sweet it is.

 When I last wrote, I told you that the final stop on my sabbatical “tour” would be two weeks at Holden Village, a year-round retreat center just west of Lake Chelan, WA. Originally built for workers of the Holden mine, the largest source of copper in the US in the first half of the twentieth century, the Village’s first chapter lasted twenty years (1937-1957). In the early 1960’s Holden was sold to the Lutheran Bible Institute (now Trinity Lutheran College) in Everett, WA for $1. A short while later brigades of volunteers began to work tirelessly to restore and refurbish its buildings - lodges, chalets, a community center and a hotel/dining hall. It wasn’t long before word got out, and guests began to arrive.

 

Today, with a minimal paid executive staff, Holden continues to rely heavily on volunteers for day-to-day services. Some come for a year and receive nominal stipends; others, like me, come for just a couple of weeks to help out in the kitchen or housekeeping (read more)

Holden Village (File Photo)

Mid-Sabbatical Update (July 2022)

Greetings to you all, dear friends! As July draws to a close, so does the first half of my sabbatical time, and I’m checking in just to let you know that all is well and I am thinking of you.

The last five weeks have been a wonderful combination of quiet time at the beach, gatherings with special friends, and traveling adventures. I spent a weekend hiking in Yosemite (I hadn’t been there since I was in high school) and attended the small, intimate wedding of a close friend’s daughter at her mother’s home. Fred and I went to Greece, where we visited several of its islands and marveled at their beauty and history. This coming week, my daughter will fly out from Washington, DC and join me for a few days of rest and relaxation in Arizona. To say that I’ve been having a blessed time is an understatement!

 

But though all of this has been wonderful and absorbing, you have still been very much in my thoughts and prayers. Perhaps the greatest gift of parish ministry, for me, is the privilege of sharing our journeys, with all of their gifts, challenges, and opportunities to grow in the knowledge and love of God, with fellow pilgrims. This is the work of yours and my lives; for I believe that in all that comes to us we are being called to keep waking up to what is real and true. And it is in individual relationships and in community we find the strength, support and wisdom to do this. Thanks be to God!

 

The remainder of my time away will be largely taken up with a trip up the coast to Washington and the Northern Cascades. I will stop in and see more family and a dear friend outside Seattle on my way up to Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center on Lake Chelan. Once there, I will join the housekeeping staff for two weeks in exchange for the opportunity to soak in the spirit and rugged beauty of this very special place, where “people of goodwill of all ages…come and experience its rhythms, which inspire and equip travelers for a sustainable life of faith outside the Village” (that’s from the website). I am anticipating a deeply meaningful time there. Upon my return to southern CA, I will still have a few days to catch up before rejoining you all on September 6. 

 

Once again, I want to thank you all for this time away. What a gift - to be able to rest, recreate, and renew! And come fall, I will be so glad to be back for the startup of another program year, and our continuing journey into God’s future.

 

Blessings and love to you all!

See You in the Fall! (May 2022)

Dear Ones,

 

For your clergy, the blessings of serving the Parish of St. Matthew are legion. A warm and committed community, a fabulous team of staff and a gorgeous setting, for starters; and then there are the incredible ministries, the deep traditions, and the amazing elders who show us all what lives of loving service look like. For me, the call to come and join you all as your Associate Rector in July 2016 was, and still is, simply an extraordinary gift.

 

And now, hard as it is to believe, I am at the six-year mark. With that comes another blessing – the offering of a sabbatical. This parish understands that rest and renewal are an essential part of ongoing pastoral ministry, and so provides a sabbatical time benefit that accrues at the rate of two weeks each year, to be available at the sixth year. So starting June 20, I will be taking some time away, to be with dear ones and also to be just with myself. I have a list of hopes (not requirements!) for the time and a stack of reading that is absolutely unrealistic. I have trips planned and also places to be still. Most importantly, I have an open mind and heart, knowing that whatever agenda I bring to this time, the Spirit will be speaking into and shaping it.

 

So thank you, to all of you, for this wonderful and much needed opportunity to reflect and recharge. I will absolutely miss you, and look forward to returning after Labor Day.

 

Bless you all!

New Believers, New Stories (Sermon preached 15 May 2022)

Today we are going to baptize these three gorgeous little ones into the Body of Christ. We are going to welcome them into a living community that takes its name from the Greek word, Christos, the title that was bestowed, nearly two thousand years ago, on Jesus of Nazareth, a Palestinian Jew.

  

Christos means “anointed one”; specifically, “God’s anointed”, as in, the long-awaited Messiah (which is “God’s anointed” in Hebrew) who is foretold in the Jewish Scriptures. And Christianity is the name that was given to the religious movement that, after his death and resurrection, spread from that tiny corner of the Roman empire throughout the world. Taking root in places that Jesus’ earliest followers could never have imagined; shaping, and being shaped by the peoples it encountered and the times of which it became a part.

One scholar called this process “indigenization”...(read more)

No Idle Tale (Easter Sermon 4 April 2022)

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! Hallelujah, we are here! We are here, together, on this bright, beautiful Easter morning. We are here with flowers and brass and the choir. We are here seeing one another’s faces. We are here, knowing that Easter joy is bouncing across wifi networks to beloved in Christ, far and near. We are here, offshoots on that great sprawling vine that is the body of the resurrected Christ, all over the world, ALIVE!

 

This Easter, we are here maybe even daring to believe that resurrection really is more than whistling in the dark. Resurrection really is more than a momentary escape from that unrelenting news feed. Resurrection really is more than a story we tell ourselves so that we can keep on keeping on. Resurrection really is more than just “an idle tale”.

 

Luke alone, of the four Gospel writers who describe the events of that long-ago morning, the first day of the week following Jesus' crucifixion, is the one blunt enough to use that term...(read more)

Idle: Not by Susan Springer Anderson

Acrylic on paper, 8"x10"

2022

For the last several years, the Parish of St. Matthew has had the privilege of featuring the work of Susan Springer Anderson, artist, teacher, mother, business owner, and member of the Parish, on our seasonal bulletin covers. Her Eastertide design was titled in response to this sermon.

Let's Just Do It (Sermon preached 20 March 2022)

Last week, our wonderful guest preacher Kathy Wilder said that one of the distinguishing marks of Jesus’ leadership was his willingness to have tough conversations. And this morning’s Gospel reading certainly bears that out!

 

Jesus has been talking to his followers about how incredibly important it is that they be awake, and prepared, for the unexpected moment when God’s call becomes suddenly, abundantly clear. That moment, he warns, requires an immediate, faithful response.

 

He’s just called them hypocrites, for ignoring the signs that are right in front of them, when some of the people in his audience bring up the brutal killing, ordered by Pilate, of some pilgrims who had come from Galilee to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem. As if, maybe, to suggest that those people might have screwed up; those people must not have been paying attention...(read more)

Misplaced Resurrection Stories (Sermon preached 27 February 2022)

Today is the last Sunday of Epiphany –  Epiphany being that season that sits between the arrival of the Magi to worship the Christ child, twelve days after Christmas, and the beginning of Lent. The season where we focus on ways in which the reign of God was manifest in Jesus. The ways he showed us and told us what that reign looks like.

Today we get one last “hit” of disclosure before entering the wilderness three days from now on Ash Wednesday. And the hit is a really big one – it’s the Transfiguration – an event recorded in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke).

 

Yes, there are small differences between the three accounts, but on the essentials of this extraordinary episode they agree: Jesus takes his three closest friends up onto a mountain; while they are there, Jesus’ face changes, his clothes become radiant, and he is joined in conversation by two long dead prophets; Peter blurts out something silly about a building project...(read more)

Will You Do Me a Favor? (Sermon preached 6 February 2022)

“Will you do me a favor?” When someone asks me that question, I like to think, for a minute, before I answer! I have a friend who, when she is asked “will you do me a favor”, always replies “If I can…” which is brilliant, right? Because it sounds willing, but still, there’s lots of wiggle room. “If I can…” can mean “if I can…think it makes sense”; “if I can…find the time”; “if I can…decide it’s worth my while”; “If I can…live with the consequences.”

 “Will you do me a favor?”Jesus asks Simon Peter in the Gospel story we just heard. They’re standing at the water’s edge on the shore of Lake Gennesaret, which is another name for the Sea of Galilee. Jesus has been looking up at a huge crowd of people, already gathered, with more still coming. He’s seen the two fishing boats down on the beach, and the fishermen who’ve pulled them in, taking care of their nets - and has just climbed into one of the boats.

“Will you do me a favor? Can we put out a bit, so that I can teach from out there? Then everyone will be able to hear me.” It seems like no big deal, to Peter. It’s not as if he has plans for the boat. He fishes at night, so he’s done! All he’ll have to do is sit there ...(read more)

The Epiphany That is Us (Sermon preached 16 January 2022)

Happy Second Sunday of Epiphany! It’s great to be with you, albeit virtually. What a gift technology continues to be, right, as we move through this challenging time.

 Last week in his sermon, Bruce suggested that the Adoration of the Magi, the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, and the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine - the story we just heard from John’s Gospel - these three together form a kind of opening triptych for this Epiphany season, this season of unveiling. Each of these events reveals a dimension of who Jesus is: God’s son, given for all the world; God’s beloved, sent to proclaim good news; and God’s incarnate word, source of life abundant.

 

As we continue on through Epiphany, which will last another six weeks, each Sunday Gospel reading will tell of more revelations. From the synagogue in Nazareth to the shores of the sea of Galilee to the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus will be manifesting who he is and what he has come to do. It is all great stuff...(read more)

The Holy Work of Portrait Restoration (Sermon preached 26 December 2021)

Good morning! And merry day-after-Christmas! We’ve gathered, we’ve celebrated, we have feasted, we’ve exchanged gifts. And we have heard the story, once more, of the birth of a child, some two thousand years ago, in a stable. Attended by animals, adored by shepherds and glorified by angels. And now it’s the first Sunday after Christmas. And the first really clear day in a while.

 Which may bode well for doing a little wondering about what difference Christmas really makes, after all is said and done. No worries – I can’t imagine ever being able to fully answer that question! Let alone in a Sunday sermon that I promise will be on the short side. It just seems to me that especially since, in a few minutes, we are going to be baptizing three new members into the body of Christ – and welcoming them into this local expression of it, this Parish of St. Matthew’s – maybe we can come up with just a small nugget. Something helpful for all of us to take away...(read more)

Blue Christmas (Sermon preached 19 December 2021)

A few days ago, when I sat down to begin working on this homily, the rain was falling pretty steadily on the patio outside. I turned up the heat, and tried not to worry about whether the wet weather might dampen our already fragile enthusiasm, as another possible Covid surge looms,for coming together this Christmas.

 

And then I remembered hearing, a few years ago, that in California December is generally the greenest month of the year. And thinking how strange it is that even as the earth nears the point in its annual orbit where its axis is tipped furthest away from the sun; when the sun’s light is actually heating the ground the least efficiently, and when the nights are nearing their longest, tender shoots begin to push up through the soil.

 

The rain has been late in arriving this year, this year that has already been, in some ways, so very long. It’s been less than a week since the first shower...(read more)

 

JBap Onstage, Right Now (Sermon preached 5 December 2021)

Friends, he’s back! That prophet, that forerunner who emerges from the wilderness every year on the second Sunday of Advent, talking about getting ready for the coming of the one more powerful than he. John the Baptist has arrived, right on time.

JBap, as he is known affectionately to Scripture nerds, appears in all four Gospels, and each contributes to the fleshing out of this unique character. Mark supplies the costume: the camel hair skins and leather belt (Mk 1:6); Matthew records some of JBap’s more scorching lines, as in, “you brood of vipers, who warned you of the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance!” (Mt 3:7-8)

John, in his Gospel, gives us JBap as witness, who says, early on, when he sees Jesus walking by, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; this is he of whom I said,  after me is one who ranks ahead of me” (Jn 1:29-30). And Luke, who happens to be directing Advent this year, Luke turns our attention to the setting: the particular historical moment when JBap appears. Luke wants us to know who was supposedly running things...(read more)