Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

"Brooklyn Museum - Nathaniel Under the Fig Tree (Nathanaël sous le figuier) - James Tissot - overall" by James Tissot - Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2008, 00.159.59_PS2.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-

Christ Church, Gardiner

Second Sunday after Epiphany

1Samuel 3:1-10

Psalm 139:1-5

John 1:43-51

In our Old Testament reading this morning we learn how God called Samuel as a young boy.  His words, “Speak, for your servant is listening”, and Samuel’s trust in his teacher, Eli, show us a heart and mind open to God’s calling. If we read the whole of the passage, we would learn that Samuel was reluctant to tell Eli what God had said because it involved Eli’s sons, who blasphemed God and Eli did nothing about it.  Eli insisted on knowing what was said and after hearing, responded “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him”  Samuel grew up “And all of Israel from Dan to Beer-sheeba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.”

We are so very used to hearing that Jesus called people that we have no idea how unusual it is for a Rabbi, a teacher, to call someone to be his disciple. The usual way was for a student to pick his teacher. But that is what Jesus does at the start of his ministry. He calls Andrew and Peter and James and John away from their livelihoods as fishermen, and called them to become fishers of people. He called Philip, who in turn, found Nathanael.  When Jesus saw Nathanael coming he said “He is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” 

It can be pretty risky for us to live without deceit. I know I can remember times when I didn’t correct someone about myself, because what they said sounded so much nicer than reality. Even though we like to think of ourselves as honest people, we fool ourselves into thinking that our white lies, or silences or evasions are needed either to soothe our egos or our self-esteem or to protect our positions in the community or sometimes to protect others. But mostly it’s about us.

If you go on-line and read about news of the Episcopal Church, you might know that an instance of this living with deceit has come to a head these past two weeks for the Assisting Bishop of Maryland.  She was driving and texting while intoxicated and killed a bicyclist.  To make matters worse, she left the scene of the accident only to return within the hour.  She had a DUI before she was considered for bishop, and although the search committee knew of it, the bishop, herself, did not make that known to the people of the diocese during her walkabouts.  So it is not known whether at the time she was elected she was working her program and really was in recovery.  Of course the internet has been buzzing with speculation about her and some very nasty things are said.   She was arrested and is out on bail and in a recovery program while awaiting civil trial. She has been put on leave and Ecclesiastical Court proceedings loom in the horizon.  Not coming clean has its consequences.

Maine, on the other hand, called a bishop who openly acknowledged that she had an alcohol problem; had been sober for years and worked in the Diocese of Chicago. She talked about it openly, wrote a book about alcoholism and never in her ten years with us was this an issue.  She is so well respected in the church that three dioceses have asked her to step in either as interim bishop or assisting bishop since her retirement.

Now drinking in the Episcopal Church is an issue. It affects seminarians, deacons, priests and bishops as well as lay people. It does not mean that everyone who has a drink is an alcoholic, far from it.  But our church does tolerate a culture of drinking. We all know the jokes about “Whiskeypalians” or “whenever four Episcopalians get together, there’s always a fifth.” I mentioned these two bishops to help us understand how hiding our flaws and blinding ourselves to who we really are, get in the way of our hearing God’s call to us. In our psalm God knows our innermost selves and calls us to wholeness and to mission.

The Iona Community has a hymn called The Summons, it goes:

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,

will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?

Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?

Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?

Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?

Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?

Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,

and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?

Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?

Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?

Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,

through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?

Lord your summons echoes true when you but call my name.

Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.

In Your company I'll go where Your love and footsteps show.

Thus I'll move and live and grow in you and you in me.

The fourth stanza is so apt for today.  “Will you love the “you” you hide if I but call your name?” Hiding our dark secrets from ourselves, from our neighbors and from God are the result of fear.  One of the real problems with any addiction is our denial that we are addicted.  We fear that people will not love us if they find out who we really are and sometimes that does happen.  There is so much fear that people do tend to lash out at someone they thought was so wonderful, has feet of lead.  It is faith that helps us, flawed humans to reshape the world around us. It is opening up our dark spaces to God’s light and living in truth that helps us turn and follow our Lord. It is following our unique calls in the company of the one who calls us that helps us to “move and live and grow” and never be the same.

Second Advent 2014

I want to thank Jay Jay E. Johnson for the ideas in this very brief homily. Christ Curch, Gardiner decided to do an Advent Lessons and Carols yesterday, and I struggled to find a short message to move us from the lessons and gospel of the day into Eucharist. This is what I came up with:

Prophets tell us the truth about the present. They are not predicting some distant future. John the Baptist, whom the Orthodox call the Forerunner, is speaking truth to people who are coming to him for baptism and it is this speaking truth that infuriates so many. That is what cost him his head. But truth telling is one of Advent's invitations. An invitation to listen to prophetic truth tellers. But it is about more than just listening. It is about action. Prophets insist that we choose where and to what we give our allegiance. We can choose to stay with the things we know; the things that are familiar and comfortable. Or we can choose to turn to the things that God is bringing about; turn toward the things we don't know. And that can be scary. This choice, what John calls repentance, means risking the comfortable and safe we know, for an unknown future. A future where we who have been baptized with water and the Holy Spirit will find God waiting. 

Let us pray: "Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins,that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen."

The service went well and it took just an hour and 10 minutes. One of their goals is to NOT have the service last and hour and a half.

Blogging Again

I can't believe it's been over two years since I've posted anything, but now that I will be preaching regularly, I intend (as a minimum) to post my sermons.  I will be serving Christ Church, Gardiner as half-time priest-in-charge, probably for about a year.  I expect that Neo will post as well.  He had such a great time his first Sunday there.  He sat in the pews with parishioners and really enjoyed the coffee hour.  He had two laps to choose from in the vestry meeting.

First Sunday in Advent, Year B

November 20, 2014

Christ Church Gardiner

The sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light,

and the stars will be falling from heaven,

and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
- Mark 13.24

It is the start of a new church year. The first Sunday in Advent.  A time of waiting in the darkness for the birth of the one who is called the light of the world.  A time of anticipation.  So why at this time of year when we are so looking forward to Christmas, do we get such gloom and doom about the end of the world. And what is this about staying awake. It seems as though our lectionary gives us readings about endings when we are talking about beginnings. The beginning of a new church year, the beginning of the life of Jesus, the beginning a relationship between you and me.

The beginning of the universe,according to scientists, was with a big bang and the release of huge amounts of energy.  Then quarks and all kinds of strange sub-atomic particles formed from this energy and joined together and coalesced to form stars and then galaxies all moving out from that center bang and some many billions of years later we humans stand here on this earth and on a cold winter night look up and marvel at the night sky and maybe even marvel at the One who created it all.  Who used stardust to create us. 

In a small, recent part of those billions of years, we humans, made-in-the-image-of-God people,  are reminded that it will all end.  Sometimes this reminder is called a little Apocalypse or sometimes, the Second Coming. Jesus tells this to his disciples at the Mount of Olives.  He is telling about the time when he will return again; a time he thinks might be within their lifetimes, but he doesn’t really know. It’s about the end of the world. It could be tomorrow, or after our star, the sun, dies out and our earthly home turns cold and can no longer sustain life, but Jesus says to stay awake for whenever it is.

Some people talk about three comings.  The first is the one we celebrate on Christmas day when God took human form and lived among us and there’s the one in our gospel that speaks of the end when: “…in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” But there is a middle coming,  that Jesus also speaks of, not in today’s gospel, but when he speaks of God’s kingdom.  He tells us the kingdom is already here, not fully, but it is here. There is a beginning and an end, but there is also a now. In fact, for us, it is all “now.” Yes, we know, our world is broken.  It is full of endings, a loved one dies, people get divorced, a young black man gets shot, people fight over television sets in Black Friday sales, a young man runs over his mother and kills her, terrorists kill innocent people, people struggle to put food on the table or heat their homes and sometimes their dreams for their children die, people give up trying and turn to drugs including alcohol. But “now” is also full of beginnings. Children are born, more people get healthcare, people of different faiths struggle to work together; people who love each other, no matter their gender, marry;  We are called to keep awake and look for Christ in the darkness, to look for Christ in all we meet.

I discovered an artist and poet this week.  Her name is Jan Richardson. 

Blessing When the World is Ending

Look, the world

is always ending

somewhere.

Somewhere

the sun has come

crashing down.

Somewhere

it has gone

completely dark.

Somewhere

it has ended

with the gun

the knife

the fist.

Somewhere

it has ended

with the slammed door

the shattered hope.

Somewhere

it has ended

with the utter quiet

that follows the news

from the phone

the television

the hospital room.

Somewhere

it has ended

with a tenderness

that will break

your heart.

But, listen,

this blessing means

to be anything

but morose.

It has not come

to cause despair.

It is simply here

because there is nothing

a blessing

is better suited for

than an ending,

nothing that cries out more

for a blessing

than when a world

is falling apart.

This blessing

will not fix you

will not mend you

will not give you

false comfort;

it will not talk to you

about one door opening

when another one closes.

It will simply

sit itself beside you

among the shards

and gently turn your face

toward the direction

from which the light

will come,

gathering itself

about you

as the world begins

again.

– Jan Richardson © Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com

We are called to keep awake to the blessings of this life: to the beginnings. The hope and light of Jesus is present in God’s church, this church: Christ Church, Gardiner.  Christ Church has been gathered up in prayer by all the people, who throughout the years, have lifted up to God,  their hopes, their fears, their conflicts and their faith.  This church is a place of expectation, of waiting for the kingdom that is now. Waiting for blessings that are now.  Waiting for healing that is now; for forgiveness that is now, for reconciliation that is now.  The urgency in the gospel is not that the world is about to end, but the urgency is to keep awake in the now to bring about the kingdom beginning now.

Climate Change Video: Can We Really Do It?

I didn't wake up grumpy this morning.  The air is clear and cool.  Perfect for a Fall day.  I didn't watch more than 5 minutes of Morning Joe: I just cannot deal with politics today.  However, this video made me both happy and grumpy.  I love the Symphony of Science stuff.  This new one is on climate change threw me into a bit of despair, though.  It isn't science that can "do it," it is political will and there isn't much of that around these days.  See what you think.

If we as Christians are to care for creation, then people of faith and people of science need to find common cause to make the "we can do it" possible.

Happy Fourth

Jean Leon Gerome Ferris [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

While in seminary I did an intern year at Christ Church, the Anglican Church in Vienna, Austria. Fourth of July was on a Sunday that year and I got to plan the music for the service, which was from the BCP. One of the hymns was this one, sung to the tune Finlandia. I first heard it at an ANZAC day service where the ambassadors from Australia, New Zealand and Turkey placed wreaths at the foot of the altar. It was appropriate for an international community and an important reminder for all of us here in the United States on this very special holiday.

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations, 
A song of peace for lands afar and mine. 
This is my home, the country where my heart is; 
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine. 
But other hearts in other lands are beating, 
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine. 

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean, 
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine. 
But other lands have sunlight too and clover, 
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine. 
Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations, 
A song of peace for their land and for mine. 

May truth and freedom come to every nation; 
May peace abound where strife has raged so long;
That each may seek to love and build together, 
A world united, righting every wrong; 
A world united in its love for freedom, 
Proclaiming peace together in one song. 

This is my prayer, O Lord of all earth's kingdoms: 
Thy kingdom come; on earth thy will be done. 
Let Christ be lifted up till all shall serve him, 
And hearts united learn to live as one. 
O hear my prayer, thou God of all the nations; 
Myself I give thee, let thy will be done.

Abiding Love

Yesterday I drove the 75 miles to Skowhegan, Maine to celebrate the Eucharist with a small but lively congregation.  In honor of Mother's Day, I used Robert Munch's "Love You Forever" as part of my sermon.  Sheila McGraw's illustrations are quite wonderful with the cover showing a two-year-old with a very satisfied smile on his face, sitting next to a toilet strewing toilet paper everywhere. For those who do not know the book, it's about a mother who sings as she rocks her son back and forth:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always;
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be.

We hear how the boy grows and grows and still the mother manages to rock him and sing the song to him (she always makes sure he is asleep by peeking up over the side of his bed).  It is not all sweetness and light—the boy drives her "CRAZY;" she wants "to sell him to the zoo;" and feels like she "is in a zoo."  But she continues to find ways to rock him and sing to him until at the end of her life he does the same for her and then to his new born daughter.

I used the story to talk about God's abiding love for us and how God is a Mothering-Father.  It is important to acknowledge all those in our lives who have mothered us: some of whom were men and others women; some were related to us by blood and others by love. God's abiding love is always there, even when we are not aware of it.  We, who are nurtured by such love, are to pass it on. I ended by saying it is this abiding love that we, as Christians, have to offer to the world.

Beautiful Bar Harbor

I had the privilege yesterday of presiding at St. Saviour's in Bar Harbor.  They are a gracious group and it is wonderful to drive up US 1 through Camden and Searsport and across the Penobscot Narrows through Ellsworth and on to Mount Desert Island.  The skies were a pale blue and the ocean deep blue.

Reading the Jewish Study Bible last week gave me new perspectives on the Ten Commandments in Exodus.  Putting some of those together with Godly Play's "The Ten Best Things" and a mild rant on the incivility and greed running rampant in our country these days were the gist of my sermon.  One of the things that struck me was that the attribute for God translated in the NRSV as "jealous" is translated as "impassioned" in the Jewish Study Bible.  Much more understandable to my post-modern mind.

It really was hard to get up to do the early service since I was so concerned I wouldn't wake up and Miss Isabelle was restless until midnight, but we both did just fine.  Coming back I stopped at the Whale's Tooth Pub on Linconville Beach for lunch.  The parking lot was pretty empty when I was finished and Izzie was sound asleep in the car.  It was a much needed break as I was beginning to get sleepy. We got home safe and sound.  I took a nap only to be awakened by the sun in my eyes in the late afternoon.  Izzie  slept quietly through the night.

Sermon-All Saint's San Francisco

There is some recycled material here, but it was wonderful to be able to preach at the church that sponsored me for the diaconate and then the priesthood and to see familiar and new faces.  I also got to accomplish one of the aims of the Society of Ordained Scientists, that is, "To offer to God in our ordained role the work of science and technology in the exploration and stewardship of creation."  The quotations are from Swimme and Tucker's book.

 "Wherever the interstellar clouds of the two galaxies collide, they do not freely move past each other without interruption but, rather, suffer a damaging collision. High relative velocities cause ram pressures at the surface of contact between the interacting interstellar clouds. This pressure, in turn, produces material densities sufficiently extreme as to trigger star formation through gravitational collapse. The hot blue stars in this image are evidence of this star formation."

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Photo ID: GL-2002-001105

Sermon:

There are three reasons I am in California:  first to inter my friend David's ashes in the columbarium, which we did yesterday; second to see my children and some friends; and thirdly to go to Tucson on my home to Maine for a retreat/meeting of the North American Chapter of the Society of Ordained Scientists.  I've watched a lot of news programs and commentators in motels on my stops across the country with Izzie.  The voices get pretty strident and I find myself driving long distances with no radio or iPod music, so I can enjoy the silence and listen to the memories in my head.

Today’s readings made me pay attention to the use of the word “voice” and the presence of the Holy Spirit:  God’s voice as power and God’s Holy Spirit as life giver or the one who spurs us to action. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth” is such a simple statement for some very complex processes. Scientists sometimes refer to this beginning of space-time as the “Big Bang.” In the book "Journey of the Universe" by Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker, the authors instead the start of our universe as “the great exhalation.” That’s another way to describe the forces of expansion (from the big bang) and attraction (gravity), to remind us that the universe is "shaped by these two opposing and creative dynamics" and that we who are alive are also shaped by processes of expansion and contraction such as breathing and the beating of our hearts.

Just like in our Psalm, the voice of God is powerful and majestic, controlling all of nature but I can't help but  wonder what the "great exhalation" sounded like.  Big Bang doesn't really have the elegance or the awe or the wonder that the term "great exhalation" does.  Could it really be a great shout of joy and love and unimaginable power that started all that we know and began time and space? And if the Holy Spirit is inspiration, then we have the breathing in and out of the universe in both exhalation and inspiration.

Thinking about God breathing out the universe is reflected in the prolog to John’s Gospel "In the beginning was the Word." as well as the beginning of Genesis that we heard today “God said let there be....”  And God didn't just separate the light from darkness there was much more creating going on. After the initial "bang" particles began to collide and interact; sometimes bonding, sometimes separating.  The formation of increasingly complex communities, started with elementary particles and seems to be the way of the universe. In order for bonding to occur, the particles have to give up part of their mass and release it as energy.  "Even from the first moments, our universe moved toward creating relationships.....This bonding is at the heart of matter."

Forming a complex community is what churches are all about. Becoming part of a complex community is what baptism is all about. It’s not just this one place, All Saints’, but it is about becoming a part of the whole Body of Christ. In Maine, I’ve spent time trying to help some small parishes figure out new ways of being church. Part of that is helping them think about what it would mean when churches are willing to give up something, and what kind of energy could be released that will benefit both the churches and the communities in which they exist.  What kind of new relationships can be formed?

Because there is the relationship part of bonding too. It seems as though God created the whole universe, not just us, in God's image.  If bonding is at the heart of matter, then bonding or relationship has a lot to do with how we related to God and how God relates to us. I would like to think that relationships or bonding are as critical to the nature of God as to the nature of the universe God created and giving up a bit of mass to create energy is part of this.

So far I’ve used images to describe the universe and ourselves as breathing lung, an expanding heart, and a system that becomes increasingly complex. There is another image that can apply and that is of a developing seed. The process is complex, but orderly: first roots, then leaves. The universe started out focusing on building nuclei, then it stopped and other processes began. “The astonishing fact is that if the universe had continued building nuclei all the way up to iron, for example, iron nuclei would have predominated for all time.” But what happened instead was when all the light nuclei were formed the conditions for building the nuclei changed. And this stopping and changing happened again and again over the fourteen billion years it took to get to us. As with seeds developing one process stopped so something new could take over. Something that would eventually become living, breathing creatures to could contemplate the awesome complexity that the mind of God is holding in existence.

God’s power is manifest in the Holy Spirit received after Paul laid his hands on some disciples in Ephesus. And we see God’s power in our gospel when we again hear the voice and see the action of the Holy Spirit. “And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

How many times have we said of a baby “he or she is the spitting image of .....” Well we are the spitting image of the voice that said “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” God is not just well pleased with his Son with a capital S, he is well pleased with all his sons and daughters. Just as God proclaimed the first day good, he proclaimed the creating of humankind good as well.

As think about the renewal of our baptismal covenant this morning, I challenge you to remember that it is our voices bonding with voices of Christians around the globe, that allows for the creative work of the Holy Spirit to start something new. The Holy Spirit, the Creator and the Son are all bound together in a relationship dance and because of their relationship, we are bound in our baptism to God and to each other.

Hallelujah Corporations: Or I Can't Resist a Hallelujah Chorus

With all the anger about corporate excess and the brave actions of the OCW people across the US I recommend this YouTube video for those who love Handel as well as the Capital Steps.

Wade sent the link this morning.

Hallelujah was conceived, rehearsed and filmed in Tamworth, NH, a small town with a population of 2556 that has as its backdrop Mt Chocorua, the most photographed mountain in America. Tamworth is part of Occupy The Mt Washington Valley. Tamworth was the summer home of President Grover Cleveland

Nicely done. Clever writing too.

Moses and the Northwoods Park

Mt. Katahdin, Maine
Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Next Sunday will be my last one at  two lovely churches, one in the shadow of Mt. Katahdin and the other near the lovely Lincoln Lakes. I have decided that with everything else going on in my life, I do not, physically or emotionally, have the strength to do this for a year. The bishop supports me in this.

Last Thursday I attended a somewhat contentious meeting at the local high school. Proponents and opponents of a feasibility study for a Northern Woods National Park met with Secretary of the interior Salazar. He was a generous listener and I hope opened up some hearts to listen to the possibility and to decide on information rather than fear and emotion.

Sermon

What a difficult time it was for the descendants of Joseph and his family when there was a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph. They had really grown in numbers and were probably viewed as a threat to the Egyptians. What if, they became so numerous they would took over the place? Not something any self-respecting dictator would put up with. So they were put to work as slaves making bricks for Pharaoh's projects.

That didn't stop the Israelites from finding ways around this oppressive system. When Moses was born, his mother had him hidden in the reeds of the Nile near where Pharaoh's daughter bathed and had his sister watch the whole scene so she could recommend a wet-nurse, who was really Mose's mother. Moses was fortunate enough to be raised in Pharaoh's household. God was watching over his people, silently providing for a leader.

Watching the evening news about the struggle the Libyans and Syrians are having trying to overthrow their dictators can't help but make me think of Moses and the Israelites. And then this past spring we watched as Egyptians freed themselves from their dictator. It is no longer a group of strangers kept captive in a foreign land struggling to be free, but people native to a country oppressed by their own brutal leaders. There is something in the human spirit that yearns to be free. My home state tells it well: "Live Free or Die." Now I know some wags say that slogan is a threat, but there is something about not being free that can kill bits of your soul.

I wonder what it is like to overcome the fear of being beaten or killed or having your family members put at risk to fight for freedom. Fear is a powerful emotion--one of our most basic and primitive ones. It gets the adrenalin going so we can fight or flee. I think I am the type who would flee, but I don't really know. When we are fearful, or have any other powerful negative emotion all we seem to be able to do is act instinctively: creative solutions go out the window.

I remember telling a fractious Vestry some years ago, that I was going to show episodes of The Vicar of Dibley (a British comedy) to them for the first half hour of our meetings so they could do problem solving instead of bickering.

God must have given the Israelites a sense of humor so they could come up with creative solutions to Pharaoh's edicts. Like the midwives saying the women were so healthy they gave birth before the midwives arrived.

I was thinking of the need for a sense of humor at the meeting on the Northwoods Park last Thursday. I know there is a lot of fear in the town over the mill closing and the lack of good paying jobs, or jobs of any kind. An unemployment rate of over 20% is frightening. I wonder if that fear is keeping some people from being able to look at possibilities other than a mill. In situations like this, it is hard to view any change as having the potential to be positive. And I know there is a lot of history that complicates matters.

If we look a bit forward into Moses' story after he gets Pharaoh to "let my people go"--what happens--they complain bitterly that things were better in Egypt. God had a plan for these stiff-necked people, but it was in the future and neither Moses, nor that first generation would get to see the promised land. That is a bit like doing interim ministry, you can lead people for a bit, but the future is in their hands. Someone else will lead them into the future with God's help. We never do any of this alone.

Our Epistle this morning tells us "For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function,so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness." What a great image of a church or any community of people!

Each one of you has a special gift that this church and this community needs to form a strong body. Each one of you is different and special in the eyes of God, and, I hope, in the eyes of each other. Imagine the power of a smile to a stranger. Imagine the power of a hand of friendship to someone who has no family or whose family is far away. Imagine the power of a gentle sense of humor when there is a tense situation. Imagine the strength of shared experiences to build bonds between people. Imagine the satisfaction of guiding someone else's child find the security that comes in learning that God is love. Imagine the gratefulness of finding other people who share your love of this church and this area and joining with them to serve.

In Matthew, this morning, we hear Jesus say to his disciples, "But who do you say that I am?" And "Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven."

If we believe that Jesus is the anointed one of God -- the one sent to show us the way, then like the Israelites of old, we may grumble and complain, but as long as we keep struggling to break free from whatever bonds keep us as slaves to our Pharaohs, God will be there. As the psalmist tells us: "Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth."

It's No Fun Without David

I love doing interim or transition work, at least I used to.  I did not realize, though, that my ability to speak with David nearly every day, helped make this exhausting work fun.  I know it may become fun again, but I'm concerned that right now I cannot do the work these two congregations need for me to do.

Yesterday I was in a real blue funk.  I kept wanting to reach for the phone to speak with him.  It's not that we often spoke of what was on my plate, but after patiently listening to his latest ideas on medicine or (his latest) how he could contribute to the issue of overpopulation in the world, he usually had some uplifting things to say about me or us or nothing in particular.

Resurrection of a Galaxy

Sermon 

July 24, 2011 Millinocket and Winn

NASA Hubble
Spiral Galaxy

The second chapter of Journey of the Universe by Swimme and Tucker, is about the formation of galaxies.  When the universe was about a half a million years old, it was like a huge cumulus cloud growing ever larger.  You know, the big puffy kind of cloud we’ve seen in the summer sky over the last week. But, instead of just continuing to grow and expand, the gigantic single cloud split into many smaller clouds.  Each of these clouds collapsed into itself and formed a galaxy of stars.  After each galaxy “jelled,” it started on its own unique journey: moving farther and farther apart from the other galaxies.  

In some ways you could also say this is the story of St. Thomas’ and St. Andrews’.  Years ago there was only St. Thomas’, but as the Magic City rose out of the woods in the early 1900s, St. Andrews’ started its life joined to St. Thomas.  I wonder if you could look at this phase as the marriage of Jacob to Leah.  Maybe not exactly what was wanted, but necessary at the time.  It wasn’t long though, before Jacob was able to marry Rebecca.  Jacob was then able to separate his family from his father-in-law’s.

But in to the story of the universe: we might well ask the question: “What broke this initial cloud so it could form galaxies”?  Scientists have discovered that there are waves that were present from the initial exhalation at the birth of the universe:  waves that are fluctuations in the density of matter that also grew as the universe expanded and eventually got large enough to break the cloud apart so smaller clouds could form.  We can think of these waves as something like the  sound waves we create when we speak or when we make music, or when we jackhammer concrete.  These waves go from our mouths or our instruments and disturb the air around us so that the waves hit our eardrums making them vibrate and so we hear.  Sometimes these sounds can be disturbing, grating or loud.  Sometimes we hear the vibrations as music, sometimes as a whisper.  Some people have called these waves in the universe the “music of the spheres.” Try to imagine this cosmic music as what “moved the universe into the next phase of its journey.”  The phase of galaxies forming.  The natural next phase of St. Andrew’s and St. Thomas’ was as separate parishes with separate identities in separate communities.  And that has brought your two parishes to where they now are.  This brings up the question of a center.  Where can the center of these two parishes be?  I know it is not in the middle of the Penobscot River or in Medway.

Let’s answer this by looking at where the center of the universe lies?  In  times past we humans believed it to be here on our lovely blue planet: in Jerusalem, or Mecca or on a special mountain in Tibet or Africa.  Each culture has its own explanation of where the center was, but over time, we realized this was not literally true.  The center of the universe was not a city, nor the earth itself, nor our sun, nor our galaxy the Milky Way.  In fact, we have learned that the Milky Way is just one galaxy in an universe that has millions of galaxies and the Milky Way is part of a supercluster of galaxies that revolve around each other.  This is a concept that is very difficult to grasp: each supercluster of galaxies is at the center of the expanding universe.  In other words, there are millions of centers in our universe.  Not only is that concept a hard one to understand it goes against all the logic we’ve been brought up with.  How can there be multiple centers, yet one expanding universe.  All we can do is say with the psalmist (Psalm 105:5a) “Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, ... “  The more I learn about the wonders of God’s creation, the more I am awestruck by the complexity and creativity that is present in all of God’s creation.  

What might be useful for us is to consider today is what it means to have multiple centers. For St. Thomas’ and St. Andrew’s it is a fact of who you have become.  The communities in which you exist are different centers, yet there are lots of things in common.  Multiple centers seems to be a way of being in the universe.

But going back to our own galaxy, the Milky Way: we know it has spiral arms, and those spiral arms turned out to be important. Density waves pulsing through our Milky Way causes the cloud to condense in certain places.  This condensing forms stars: stars which burn brightly for millions of years then either explode or die out.  Spiral galaxies are the birthing places for new stars.  On the other hand, elliptical galaxies are doomed to die out because they cannot produce new stars:  it takes those spiral arms like those in our Milky Way, reaching out, to form new stars. Creativity in our universe is not uniform, but it is there.

NASA Hubble Photo
Large Magellanic Cloud—Star-birthing Area

But don’t think that is all there is to the creativity of our universe.  We have a satellite of our Milky Way, called the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).  Some think it was once a spiral galaxy that experienced a major calamity.  What that calamity was we don’t really know, but whatever happened, the LMC could not produce new stars and was dying.  But then, something truly amazing happened. After billions of years it came within reach of the gravitational pull of our Milky Way and the two galaxies interacted: the LMC was able to produce new stars again.  Both the Milky Way and the LMC  were changed by the interaction.  The creativity present in one led to creativity in the other. It wasn’t just the creativity either, there was a generosity in sharing.

All of Jesus’ parables this morning about the kingdom of heaven speak of God’s incredible generosity.  Generosity in the smallest of seeds growing to the size of a tree.  Generosity in a huge amount of leavened flour that would make enough bread to feed a small army.  Generosity in a treasure found in an unexpected place or a pearl of great price and even generosity in fish from the sea, even though some will not serve as food.  The story of universe is also one of incredible generosity, creativity and awe.  A galaxy has come to life again.  The story of God’s people is always one of coming to life again. The story of Jesus’ resurrection is pre-eminent among them.  Jacob didn’t give up on marrying Rebecca, even though he was tricked by Laban.  Although, I must admit I do hear a common refrain in Laban’s words “this is not done in our country--giving the younger before the older.” makes me think of the frequently used: “that’s not how we’ve always done it.” And yet there is always the possibility of resurrection.  God doesn’t give up on any of us.

Matthew reports Jesus as saying” “And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’”  All of you here at St. Andrew’s and St. Thomas’ are scribes being trained for the kingdom of heaven and I challenge you both to look at your treasures of time, talent and money to bring something new out of the old  Like mustard seeds, new leaven, new treasures in unexpected place this is also resurrection.

I say with Paul: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor the present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

David W. Gregg, Ph.D., RIP

My friend David died on July 6.  He had open heart surgery and was in the hospital for a week. They agreed to his request to go home,  although they recommended he go to a skilled nursing facility to get stronger. David was insistent.  He loved watching the deer and foxes and turkeys and quail that came on his patio and the majestic views of the hills beyond his home. We had decided to get him at-home help after I left, but it was clear over the course of the day that he really needed to go to a facility and he said he would do it in the morning.  Morning never came.  He dropped dead in front of me as he was getting back to his chair for the night.  The paramedics couldn't revive him. I'm still processing my loss.  I already miss our nearly daily phone conversations.

Let me tell you a bit about our relationship.  I met him in 1974 when he was working on Underground Coal Gasification at Lawrence Livermore National Lab and at a meeting on that topic at Fallen Leaf Lake, we went sailing together and got drenched from a sudden rainstorm that appeared over the Sierra Nevada, but he insisted on sailing the small boat back to shore in spite of wind and rain and the offer of a tow.  We dated briefly, but I moved on to Denver, then Washington, DC then Vienna.  David needed to have someone in his life every day.  He couldn't be alone after dusk and he did not want to marry again after two failed marriages and a failed live-in relationship, but he really needed someone to be present with him at that time of day.

When I returned from Vienna he had just started going with a lovely woman.  They each had their own homes, but he had someone to spend the evenings with, to go out to dinner with and  to travel with.  He even rented a room in her home so he had a place to stay overnight. Since her health began to seriously deteriorate a few years ago, he found other ways to fill this need like taking friends from his church to dinner and/or dancing.

David and I began our weekly brunches after my return from Vienna.  On Saturday, after he played tennis, we would meet for food and conversation, and what conversations they were.  David was interested in researching health issues and I designed a web site for him to put his findings.  It turned out I also had to upload his files for him as well, although I could manage to get him through the process over the phone as well.  He had quite a following and was active in holistic health circles.

David came to my graduation from Seminary and to my ordinations and when I moved around to do my interim ministry we started what became daily phone calls to continue our conversations.  Since I've been in Maine he has talked about moving here, but he really didn't want to leave his beautiful home.  We spoke about traveling together after he recovered from his surgery and I finally retire from ministry, but alas that is not to be.

Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum 
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

David was a unique character:  full of enthusiasm and boundless energy.  He was constantly thinking outside the box and when he decided something was right, you couldn't get him to change his mind.  The world has lost a very good and very creative man.  Did I love him?  Yes.

Heaven has gained another saint.  David was generous with his friends and unlike Auden, I do believe that love lasts forever and that good can come from the most difficult and trying times.  The stars and sun and moon and ocean and wood will come to good.  To quote Julian of Norwich "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."  It will just take time.

Farewell my good and faithful friend.  Let light perpetual shine on you and there be no more fear of the night.

Bonding and Creativity

Sermon for Sunday, July 16

St. Andrew's and St. Thomas'

These four images are among the first observations made by the new Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the upgraded NASA Hubble Space Telescope.

The image at top left shows NGC 6302, a butterfly-shaped nebula surrounding a dying star. At top right is a picture of a clash among members of a galactic grouping called Stephan's Quintet. The image at bottom left gives viewers a panoramic portrait of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of Omega Centauri, a giant globular cluster. At bottom right, an eerie pillar of star birth in the Carina Nebula rises from a sea of greenish-colored clouds.

My summer reading includes Journey of the Universe, by Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker.  I was struck in reading it the parallels between the story of the universe and the story of ourselves as created beings. In fact, that is one of the points of the book. and maybe as the summer goes along those parallels might strike you as well.  

Since the Pentecost season has begun we’ve been hearing some of the foundational stories of our faith, especially if you’ve been reading the Genesis option for the Old Testament.  If this is so, you have heard the story of the near sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham.  The story of how Isaac married Rebecca. The story of the birth of Esau and Jacob and how Jacob stole Esau’s birthright.  Now we have Jacob at the beginning of his adulthood and his encounter with God in a dream.  Stories are important, they help ground us and remind us of who we are.

So I think if we look at the story (or the journey) of the Universe and use it as a springing off point for the stories of St. Andrew’s and St. Thomas’, we might be able to find ideas and ways that will help us in what the authors call “The challenge of creating a shared future.”  

At the start of the book the authors describe the beginnings of the universe, with the forces of expansion (from the big bang) and forces of attraction (gravity), reminding us that the universe is "shaped by these two opposing and creative dynamics" and that we who are alive are also shaped by processes of expansion and contraction such as breathing or the beating of our hearts. To quote them: "At the very least we can say that because of the great exhalation at the start of the universe, life and humanity have emerged and are breathing within it now."

After the initial "bang", or exhalation, particles began to collide and interact; sometimes bonding, sometimes separating.  This bonding, which resulted in the formation of increasingly complex communities, started with elementary particles and bonding seems to be the way of the universe. In order for bonding to occur, the particles have to give up part of their mass and release it as energy.  "Even from the first moments, our universe moved toward creating relationships.....This bonding is at the heart of matter."  

Forming a complex community is what we will be about over the next year.  I’ve been pondering what it would mean in terms of giving up some mass, but more than that, what kind of energy will be released that will benefit both churches and the communities in which you exist. 

And then there is the relationship part of bonding, as well. Did God create the whole universe, not just us, in God's image?  If bonding is at the heart of matter, then bonding or relationship has a lot to do with God. I would like to think that relationships or bonding are as critical to the nature of God as to the nature of the universe God created. 

This bonding and separation are not without cost. In Romans we hear Paul saying:  “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  Patience doesn’t seem to be a characteristic that is much in use in our culture.  But look at the patience of a God who waits for his universe to unfold and display its glory. We tend to want things now.  We want to know what the outcome will be and go for it.  Yes, we are looking to be set free from bondage to decay, but the more we learn about the creativity involved in our universe, the more we need to look at the creativity within ourselves and to recognized the need for relationship to help that creativity along.

In today’s story, the promise that God made to Abraham is repeated to Isaac in a dream: "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.”   And we are blessed as part of God’s family as inheritors of the tradition starting with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and a long-long line of faithful followers of that tradition of which Jesus was a part and so are we.  

In the morning we are told that Jacob was afraid: “and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’  With the vision of angels going up and down a ladder I guess we would all think of that place was the gate of heaven.  But what of our new perspective of the universe.  We can say of the universe God created too, “How awesome is this place.”  This is a universe that has created stars and galaxies and a world that can support we human beings.  It is an awesome place with fiery deaths and exploding life continuing to be created.  It is an even more awesome place that  Jacob could have ever imagined.  He, like you and me, was made of stardust.  Imagine that!

So far the images used to describe the universe were a breathing lung, an expanding heart, and a system that becomes increasingly complex.  The authors give us a fourth image: that of a developing seed.  The process is complex, but orderly:  first roots, then leaves.  The universe started out focusing on building nuclei, then it stopped and other processes began.  “The astonishing fact is that if the universe had continued building nuclei all the way up to iron, for example, iron nuclei would have predominated for all time.”  But what happened instead was when all the light nuclei were formed the conditions for building the nuclei changed.  And this stopping and changing happened again and again over the fourteen billion years it took to get to us.  As with seeds developing one process stopped so something new could take over.  Something that would eventually become living, breathing creatures.

In Matthew’s gospel we hear:  Let both of them (wheat and weeds) grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'  Now Matthew goes to great length to explain what this means, but we could also interpret it to include not just people, but what it is a church or a community does.  Every place has weeds and wheat and telling the difference isn’t always easy, but when the time for harvest comes it will become clear.  There are dead ends in God’s creation.

I think what is important for the coming year is summarized in this quote: “We can begin to contemplate an idea that is remarkable: perhaps the nature of the universe as a whole is shaped by the creativity of its parts.”  I think the one thing a parish needs, especially in transition times, is creativity and I pray that together we will be able to contemplate and tap into the creativity that is already in these two places.  Maybe this is one of those stopping points where something new begins to happen.  Where with Jacob we can say a year from now: “How awesome is this place.”

"Journey of the Universe" and Trinity Sunday

A Rose Made of Galaxies
NASA Hubble Telescope
Wikimedia Commons

I have started to read "Journey of the Universe" by Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker.  I've been waiting to see the film they made of this, but haven't been near a showing.  The prose is striking and poetic and for a "geek" like me, the story of the universe is compelling reading.

In the first chapter while describing the forces of expansion (from the big bang) and attraction (gravity), they remind us that the universe is "shaped by these two opposing and creative dynamics" and that we who are alive are also shaped by processes of expansion and contraction such as breathing and the beating of our hearts. "At the very least we can say that because of the great exhalation of the universe, life and humanity have emerged and are breathing within it now."

After the initial "bang" particles began to collide and interact; sometimes bonding, sometimes separating.  The formation of increasingly complex communities, started with elementary particles and seems to be the way of the universe. In order for bonding to occur, the particles have to give up part of their mass and release it as energy.  "Even from the first moments, our universe moved toward creating relationships.....This bonding is at the heart of matter."

The words above had me pondering once again The Trinity.  Thinking about God breathing out the universe makes me contemplate 1John "In the beginning was the Word."  I wonder what the "great exhalation" sounded like.  Big Bang doesn't really have the elegance or the awe or the wonder that the term "great exhalation" does.  A great shout of joy and love and unimaginable power that started all that we know and began time and space. And if the Holy Spirit is inspiration, then we have the breathing in and out of the universe in both exhalation and inspiration.

But there is the relationship bit too. Did God create the whole universe in God's image?  If bonding is at the heart of matter, then bonding or relationship has a lot to do with God.  I wouldn't dare try to explain The Trinity, but I would like to think that relationships or bonding are as critical to the nature of God as to the nature of the universe God created.

I know I'm only on the first chapter of this book, but I needed to stop and think a little about the relationship between the faith I profess and the science I love.