February 2012 Sermons


Sermon,  Feb 19, 2012 -  Epiphany – Last

Grace Episcopal Church - The Rev’d Vern Hill

Many years ago and many pounds fewer, while serving as a pastor in the United Methodist Church, I spent about 15 or so summers directing camps for senior and junior high youth.  Some were adventures canoeing the Russian River and others were in church owned camp facilities.  My favorite location was Wesleyan Woods, 7200 feet up in our southern Sierra above Porterville and across from Ponderosa.  There was a lodge for meeting and meals, but sleeping was outside under the stars or clouds.  We slept in groups of 12 or so around a fire ring for warmth and protection from those things that go bump in the night.  There were two working purposes for the camp curriculum – to create an environment for Christian community to emerge, and to strengthen individual competency and self-worth while engaging in new challenges and experiences.  There were lots of arts, crafts, film, music making and sitting in meadows.  During the week, kids often changed in rather remarkable ways. So did adults.   A major contributor to this change came from a three day-two night backpack trip into the Golden Trout Wilderness.  For most kids this was their first experience at backpacking – no electric plugs for hair dryers.    

One route I enjoyed was a twenty mile round trip north from Quaking Aspen through Alpine Meadow and on to Maggie Lake, one of the few fishing lakes in the southern Sierra.  It was on a late August morning walking this trail that I had one of those encounters, not four footed, but the kind that helps you understand the admonition – be still and know that I am God. 

Much of the trail literally follows the crest of the Western Divide.  Dropping far below to the west in the morning haze was Porterville.  To the east, the Kern River drainage.  As a discipline we often practiced silent hiking for periods of time and this was one such occasion.  As I walked along I began to become aware that clouds were being born all around me.  I was in a nursery.  Clear cold air swirled up from below and “puff”, a cloud was born.  Walking through this metamorphosis from the unseen to the seen was a lengthy engagement in awe.

Hiking those mountains and others since has made me understand why our Hebrew ancestors in faith often fled to the “holy” mountains to encounter the divine, to engage in divine-human conversation, to experience theophany – to get closer to the heavens. 

Stories of such places punctuate our holy writings.  Moses and the burning bush on Mount Sinai where he is ordained to lead the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt,  the presence of God in the Pillar of Cloud by day and Fire by Night leading the Hebrew Exodus across the wilderness mountains, the gift of the Ten Commandments also on Mount Sinai,  the story of Elijah’s bodily ascension this morning in our first reading, as well as the transfiguration story from Mark – These are some of the many direct and immediate encounters with Godly presence and the activity of the holy.   In today’s Gospel, story teller Mark writes that Jesus, with only Peter, James and John, hike to a mountain top.  Here in their presence Jesus is transfigured.  He becomes a glowing, brilliant white light.  He is engulfed in God.  And accompanying Jesus appears Elijah and Moses.  Peter who is understandably speechless offers to build tabernacles, holy places, for them to gather.  Contrary to many sermons, this was a proper suggestion.  It was a gesture of honor.  Still, we need to remember, most of these details are Mark’s attempt to place Jesus and this mountain story within the Hebrew experience by its holy leaders - of God.  This is  Mark’s proof for who Jesus is.  Jesus is part of the Moses-Elijah story of redemption.  As a side bar, my own belief is that this particular mountain incident belongs to one of the resurrection appearances of Jesus which Mark and the other gospel writers backdated to an earlier time in Jesus’ life so it might serve as a forewarning of what was to come, Jesus’ death.  As it is, this story serves as an introit to the passion.

But, let’s stay with the place and encounter and what it may mean to us.  Some call such places as this mountain top a thin place.  The phrase appears in much writing today about spirituality.  What is a thin place meant to describe?  It is where the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin. It’s a place where we can sense the divine more readily.  I think I first heard this descriptor when someone whose name I have long forgotten was speaking of spirituality and Celtic Christianity - that early expression of Christianity in Scotland and Ireland from the 5th Century.  In both Scotland and Ireland there were places where pilgrims gathered, thin places where God and the sacred seemed more accessible and embracing.

I am intrigued by this phrase.  The backpacker hiker on the ridge of the Sierra likes it.  In quiet moments among the mountains, I like it a lot.  It fits my experience.  But for some reason, at the same time, something about thin places makes me nervous both theologically and metaphorically.  I have not removed the phrase from my vocabulary.   I have in fact come to an understanding for my nervousness as well as a solution.

My problem flows from the word boundary – a thin place is the boundary between heaven and earth.  Bingo – it’s the two storied universe, the heaven and earth thing again.  The up there, the down here, the things of the ether and the things of the soil.  What troubles me is the fundamental heresy lurking in the shadows among the creatures of the earth, separated by their matter from heavenly divinity and the Creator.  What troubles me is how easily our earthly creation is relegated to second class, dismissed as a disaster, as fallen, as hopelessly broken.  So much of human religious rites speak to this.  Our very Ash Wednesday Liturgy reminds us that we are but dust, and that to dust is what we shall return.  That is not meant to be an affirmation or compliment.  It is a conviction of mortality and sin.  It seems to be more a tragic reminder of where our place is in the great scheme of things.

What troubles me is that much that we take into our inner beings is a vision of being defective to the core, a view that oddly enough turns God into a liar.  Yes, a liar – if you take the words of Genesis seriously.  God creates and each element is punctuated with the acclamation, “and it was good.”  The Garden was not a set-up so we could show off our true character and suffer by it for the rest of time.  Humans – better yet earthlings - were made in the image of the creating God. 

As the offspring of God, God is a role model for our behavior. We are made to be imitators of God, to create goodness, to cultivate and nurture life.  This moral ordination is our call to holy humanness, to be truly human after the likeness of Christ.

This is why the full Transfiguration story continues beyond what we heard today – As they come down the mountain, Jesus intervenes, healing a young boy.  To be truly human is about how we treat other people, how we engage in the transforming, transfiguring power of love.  Everything about Jesus points to this human vocation.

For me, it would make more sense on Ash Wednesday if we marked our foreheads with the words – “earth you are and to earth you shall return”.  Dust is cleaned up and thrown away.  The Earthly is planted, cared for, grown and harvested and reseeded.  Earth is Godly made and good.  I can wrap my mind around that.

What would happen if for a moment we were to consider the divine and earthy, not existing in a two story universe, not up there and down here, but as one galaxy, swirling together?  A great cosmic dance of energies, light and being.  In this vision, transfiguration and resurrection and transformation make sense.      

So am I suggesting that we abandon Lent?   Not at all.  Lent makes even more sense.  It is fixed in the reality that each of us looses our way in this journey.  There are times we don’t get ourselves.  The vision of what we were created to be becomes hazy and vague.  We become distracted, even lost.  In the worst cases, we nearly move completely away from the light which created us.  Evil is real.  Hitler lived;  hunger, suffering and abuse thrive all too well.  Too many believe greed is good.  But we are dealing with powerful things in Lent’s discipline we call confession and redemption. 

Confession affirms redemption.  Confession is the earthquaking of our conscience; we remember who we are.  The Holy Spirit comes not as a dove, but as a bird of prey, screeching at us, seeking to bring us back.  Remembrance is the core theme of our sacred writings.  Torah, the prophets and “Jesus the Word made flesh” – all represent God’s persistent will that creation and history are “very good.”  As the father in last week’s story of the Prodigal waits to receive the son who has “gone to a far land” – what an amazing image, God seeks in word and act to heal our sight and understanding, to welcome us home.   The progressive writer and theologian, Bruce Epperly, describes the quaking moment as the lifting of a veil – “The veil is lifted and we see the world for what it is – lively, transformative, energetic, and spiritually-charged. Could it be that there is subtle divine movement, quietly moving in every cell, emerging in every nanosecond, and providing guidance for our being?”  

Yes, everything about us cries out to remember.  We are surrounded by divinity’s call.  Thin places are everywhere – not just on mountain tops.  They are in your kitchen with a cup of coffee, when you lovingly put a child to bed, when you engage in compassion and speak for justice among the least, and when you come to this Table and sit in this room.  The veil of separation lifts and we see who we truly are to be as divinely created children, as the offspring of God. Amen.


Prodigal Sons and Daughters  -  Six Epiphany -  February 12, 2012

Isaiah 1:16-20      Psalm 15    1 John 2:7-17           Luke 15:11-32

Lately it’s been feeling like Spring.[1]

Our readings today certainly sound Lentish.

In the passage from Isaiah today the prophet warns, chastises, and begs us, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil. . . .”

First John declares, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world.”

And then in Luke we have the story of the Jewish swineherd. Jewish + swineherd. That’s like organized religion. Did Monty Python write this?

Let’s get this straight: a Jew of Jesus’ day tending ambulatory bacon and pork chops. This would be like me working for the Republican National Committee or Vic working for the Democratic National Committee.

The parable of the Prodigal Son is actually misnamed. It should be the Parable of the Prodigal Sons, plural—which means all of us. So really it should be titled the Parable of the Prodigal Sons and Daughters.

One of the most certain things about Jesus is that in his teaching he uses

parables; these are open-ended stories that invite us to sit down, turn off our

cellphones, and really listen.

But not just listen. Jesus invites us into the parables, which means he invites us both into God, and into ourselves. The brilliance of the parables is that we’re not merely audience—those who hear; we’re actors—those who create. We take on the roles of the characters within the parables.

But before we get too excited about getting acting roles in parables with Jesus as the writer-director and Steven Spielberg as the producer, there’s one small problem: most of us have been typecast.

And not without reason.

We represent conventional wisdom. You’ve heard of the method school of acting. Most of us are summa cum laude graduates from the school of conventional wisdom.

Conventional wisdom is the supposed wisdom that we’ve all convinced ourselves is correct. It’s wise because our culture says it’s wise: like segregation was once wise, like no female priests was wise once, like astronauts drinking Tang© was once wise.

Most of you have probably heard the joke about conventional wisdom and Episcopalians.

How many Episcopalians does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Ten. One to actually change the bulb, and nine to say how much they liked the old one.

In the Episcopal Church we often gussy up tired old conventional wisdom with the

euphemism “tradition”: “But we’ve always done it this way!”[2]

The opposite of conventional wisdom is subversive wisdom. As Marcus Borg has shown, this is the wisdom that Jesus teaches. [3] This is the wisdom that Jesus not only teaches, but incarnates.

And because he incarnates it, so can we.

So can we.

The deeply-seated hope of Jesus’ parables is that we can break out of our safe, typecast, conventional selves and embrace new roles, unconventional roles, surprising roles. Perhaps even shocking roles.

A second certain thing about Jesus is that in many of his parables he’s teaching about the Kingdom of God. The phrase “Kingdom of God” is difficult for us: kings and kingdoms are no longer part of our vocabulary and experience. Except for Elvis-worshippers genuflecting at Graceland.

For two thousand years many Christians have misunderstood the Kingdom as only a future event, even something that takes place only in heaven. This, I would suggest, is conventional wisdom. It’s also lazy wisdom: if God’s Kingdom is only future, then we don’t have to do anything about creating it right here, right now.

One of the best—that is, most subversive—of the Kingdom parables is the one about the workers in the vineyard.[4]

In this story Jesus tells about the vineyard owner who pays all his workers the

same amount, no matter how many hours they’ve worked. Some work twelve hours, some nine; others work six hours, and some one.

When evening comes and with it the time for the workers to get paid, the ones who worked the longest think, quite naturally, that they’ll receive more. But—to their great surprise—all of them, however many hours they worked, or didn’t work, receive the usual daily wage.*

When those who worked the longest receive their pay, they grumble against the landowner, saying, “These guys who worked the least worked for only one lousy hour, and you’ve treated them the same as us—and we slaved the whole day and endured the scorching heat!”

The workers who complain are the voice of conventional wisdom--our world and our wisdom. But the owner replies, “Friends, I’m not abusing you. Didn’t we agree on the usual daily wage?* Take what’s yours and go. I’ve chosen to give these folks who worked the least the same as I gave you. Can’t I do what I want with what’s mine? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”

Ouch.

This parable rates two “Ouch”es out of four on the Ouchometer.

The Parable of the Prodigal Sons gets four.

In the Parable of the Workers, we’re the guys who grumble. But in the parable of the Prodigal Sons we’re both the Prodigal Son and his resentful, pissy brother. To make matters even worse, we’re also passive-aggressive.

The character of the father in the parable is like God—compassionate, yearning for his child lost in self-imposed exile, rejoicing at his return. Unlike us, he doesn’t judge, he doesn’t yell, he doesn’t condemn. The image of God at the center of Jesus’ teaching, therefore, subverts the requirements and rewards of conventional wisdom.

In contrast to conventional wisdom, subversive wisdom envisions God not as some dictatorial lawgiver and judge but rather as loving and compassionate—and totally off the charts of what we expect. [5]

I haven’t been a big fan of giving up something for Lent. I prefer that I, and we at Grace, take on something. Like the socks project.

But I can see now that giving up something is a first step. I can also see that giving up grumbling like the workers and whining like the prodigal older brother would be a really good thing.

Perhaps this Lent we can think of giving up things as being like digging a hole in the ground. The dirt we remove is what’s cruddy about us that we want to give up. And it takes work to do that. Sometimes backbreaking work.

What we take on is the fruit tree that we now plant in the hole. Our tree will take care and nurturing.

But our planting is not all or nothing, just as very few things in life are black and white, this or that, all or nothing.

When we plant a tree, we take some of the excavated dirt and mix it with mulch and compost. We then put this admixture back into the hole and plant the tree.

When the tree bears fruit, the fruit we eat will be part what we’ve given up and part the new creation we’ve become.

Amen.

[1] Late 14th c., short for Lenten (n.), from Old English lencten, “springtime, spring,” the season also for “the fast of Lent, from Old High German lengizin manoth, referring to increasing daylight. See “long,” “lengthen.” http:// www. etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=lent&searchmode=term

[2] As dear beloved Tevye says:  “A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask 'Why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous?' Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition!” For the film clip see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw.

[3] See Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.

[4] Mt 20:1-16: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+20&version=NIV. See Borg, 83.

[5] See Borg, 84-85.

Sermon,  Feb 5, 2012  -  Grace Episcopal Church

The Rev’d Vern Hill

This last Thursday was the Feast of St. Groundhog.  A wonderful day given over to the ponderous issue of whether this animal coming out of hiding will see his shadow and provide us with six more weeks of winter.  

For the truly pure at heart among us, (such as Aaron Conner’s post on Facebook), you know the real importance of last Thursday.  It’s called Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple.  If you count forward from December 25 as Day One, Day Forty is February 2, last Thursday.  On that day, according to the Gospel writer Luke, Mary, a young Jewish girl, having been in semi-seclusion for 40 days as the law required, comes with her husband Joseph to the Temple in Jerusalem to undergo the postpartum rites of cleansing and to offer a sacrifice both on behalf of herself and on behalf of her first-born male child.  She was expected to offer a lamb along with a turtledove or a pigeon, but as they were part of the inconsequential poor, two turtledoves or pigeons would have been enough.   [http://www.missionstclare.com/english/people/feb2.html

Luke’s Gospel also tells us that a resident prophet of the Temple named Anna and a elderly man named Simeon mysteriously recognize and welcome the child.  Simeon praises God for the “light” that has been given to the world.  His song is familiar –

Lord God, you have set your servant free, to depart in peace according to your word.  For my eyes have seen your salvation, Which you have prepared before the face of all people; To be a light to lighten the world and to be the glory of your people Israel.

Simeon’s words – “you have set your servant free . . . for my eyes have seen” – represent a summary of Epiphany, a celebration of sight and recognition -- seeing clearly the light shining in the darkness and recognition of the Word become flesh.   Just a reminder, the word epiphany comes from the Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia which means appearance or to make something known.  

What did Simeon recognize when he looked at the infant? 

Here’s what I think – Epiphany stories like Simeon toss us into a divine-human dance of sight and recognition.  It brings the divine up-there and the created down-here and reunites them as they truly are meant to be understood.  Epiphany is not just about God making his home among us – that once-a-year visit to the relatives.  Epiphany is about what we see of ourselves in the child.  Simeon sees justice and hope, peace but with confrontation of great human evil.  And he sees new and transforming birth.

Sight and recognition are perfect words to lead us toward Lent in three weeks.  These words belong to the total vocabulary of redemption.  Simeon’s joy reminds us that Biblical redemption is not just about Good Friday things.  The story of redemption and reconciliation with our true creation and creator, begins at the manger in Bethlehem and passes through every parable and every healing of Jesus, and through the days of cross and resurrection.  Redemption is Recovery, the returning to what we were created to be. 

This recognition story of Simeon and what he sees in this infant, easily brings us to today’s special parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. 

Why special?

I think it’s a Jesus “epiphany” parable.  It is about the human struggle from darkness into light.  It is about how lost we can become and the recovery journey to our divinely created  humanness.  It is about redemption.  

How do I get to that from what is written in Luke?  Honestly, I think that Luke the writer seriously gets in the way of Jesus’ teaching.  For Luke sets this story in terms of polar opposites, the struggle between good and bad religion.  To make sure the reader jumps on this band wagon, Luke introduces the parable with this defining preface – “He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt. . .” 

So we have the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  Luke makes the Tax Collector something of a faith hero, so he doesn’t bother to really explain how despicable tax collectors were.  It’s not just a moral issue of cheating people, which was normal behavior; it is a matter of treasonous behavior committed by a Jew against his own.  Tax collectors worked for the temple authorities who in turn shared a common bed with the Roman governing class, a quid pro quo for maintaining social and economic order.

On the other hand, Luke has no such problem characterizing the Pharisee as pretentious, hypocritical, ‘holier than thou’, and self-righteous.  Truth to tell, from what we really know of the Pharisees when Jesus lived and taught, this is an unfortunate and unfair characterization.  Luke’s dislike may have been motivated by events at the end of the first century when he was writing.  By then there were only two groups vying for Jewish legitimacy, two groups locked in a struggle for the hearts and minds – Pharisaic Judaism and Jesus the Messiah Judaism. 

By now the relationship between them was no longer friendly or tolerant.  Each group thought of the other as “religious prostitutes.”   Onto this contentious stage Luke takes a Jesus parable and turns it into a morality play, counseling the reader to “Do as the tax collector.  Not the Pharisee.”

This is the simple meaning of the story and it carries some real truth, but remember, this is parable.  Parables had twists; they challenged the listener’s simple assumptions; they worked outside the box.  And, of course, much of this parable is missing.  Remember, a parable could take an hour or more to develop.  Jesus would engage in on-going conversation.    Listeners would have heard the set-up - the Pharisee’s pretentious prayer which marked him as the ideal pious villain with contempt for those beneath him, and the tax collector’s admission that he is a sinner making him a humble faith hero.  Looking from the bottom up, the gathered would have accepted this as obvious truth (a bit like a political sound-bite today is accepted).  And Jesus would bring them all along – a kind of lesson in trout fishing.  After some time playing with them, Jesus would begin the twist to the parable.  Jesus announced “This one (tax collector), I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not.”  This  – “they went home again at rights with God” is vintage Jesus, pure Jesus.  This is not Luke speaking as Jesus.  How come?  Because this sounds like Jesus in other places as he turns the powers of the world and their worldly order upside down.  Samaritans, not Judeans, offer help.  Leaven, the unholy, is a symbol for the kingdom of God.  Camels pass through the narrow gate easier than a rich man; the worthless weed of mustard represents faith.  And sinful tax collectors are ‘in’ while religious Pharisees are ‘out’. 

Before the crowd can offer their cheers for humble tax collectors and Samaritans and camels and leaven, Jesus continues the twisting and playing.  True, those who are “in” see themselves for what they are.  This is exactly the same epiphany moment we will find in next week’s parable of the two sons, the inheritance and that moment when the one son, the Prodigal who is far off and left with nothing “comes to himself and rises up to return home.”   All of these people joyfully join with Simeon – “my eyes have now seen”. 

But now pay close attention to what was NOT said in this parable. The silence is the real epiphany -  Jesus never says to the Pharisee you cannot be right with God.  Jesus never says to anyone that you cannot be right with God, that you cannot come home to what you were created to be, to your moral self, to a heart of justice and fairness and compassion and peace.  There is no permanent exclusion; no one outside welcome.  Jesus never excludes the rich, the powerful, or the self-centered, the bullying, the greedy, or even the violent.  It’s all about redemption, redemption from having become lost in the dark places and the redemption of “coming to ourselves” and returning home.  Can you imagine going through life filled with hatred, jealousy, and contempt for others and driven by greed, your entitlements?  Can you imagine the darkness of what you have become when you no longer care for the least of these? 

I believe in “interrupting moments”.  I believe that every moment of life is potentially didactic – we are always in school.  Stuff is being taught to us and about us.  Pictures are held up to us.  Pay attention.  It can be a “coming to self” moment. 

By this parable Jesus is saying, with great compassion - for many with much wealth driven greed, hatred, contempt, or lacking in love and compassion, it may be a much longer, difficult journey of letting go and coming to the truth of being human, of finding light and a moral center.  The arrogant Pharisee, the rich young man, and all the others of Jesus’ stories – all  broken from what they were created to be - all these may not be unlike a whole Hebrew slave population who had to be schooled in the desert wilderness for 40 years before letting go of “slave thinking.”   Coming to the epiphany of what God willed for them in their creation, those former slaves finally crossed over the Jordan into the Promised Land.

Our reality, where are lives live out, is that we move back and forth between Pharisee and tax collector;  we are always finding our way back in one way or another.  This is the ways of grace.

Be clear, all are welcome at Jesus’ table gatherings, those broken and lost, the mending and the newly born.  It is God’s prayer for every one of us to find our way home to what we were created to be.  Pray for the safe arrival of all.  Amen.