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)

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