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!