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)

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