"Help Me"

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ

September 24, 2017

Year A, Proper 20: The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Jonah 3:10-4:11

Psalm 145:1-8

Philippians 1:21-30

Matthew 20:1-16

“Help Me”

            Today’s collect, or opening prayer, really captures the spirit of these days, doesn’t it?

            “Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure…”

            With hurricanes and earthquakes and wildfires, with the threat of nuclear war as the leaders of two hostile nuclear powers trade insults like schoolyard bullies, with so many of us struggling to hold on to what we’ve got or trying to get our lives back on track, with all of that and more, it’s hard not to be anxious about earthly things.

            So, in today’s opening prayer we give God a pretty tall order: God, ease our anxiety in a most anxious time.

            Yes, we give God a tall order: God, help us to remember and hold onto what’s most important – God’s love, which can never be destroyed no matter how strong the storm, now matter how violent the earthquake, no matter how many wars and rumors of war we must endure.

            We give God a tall order.

            Fortunately, God is up to the job.

            Amen? Amen.

            But, in return, God gives us a tall order, too.

            I suppose God could have set up everything so that we didn’t have to do much, that God, like an over-functioning helicopter parent would simply take care of our every need and want.

            But, that’s not the way God has set up the world.

            No, instead - and, considering our track record, maybe unwisely - God invites us to be coworkers with God, to work with God, to allow God to work through us.

            What an honor, to work together to build God’s kingdom!

            One time I had the privilege and blessing to hear Desmond Tutu preach. Tutu, of course, is the great South African archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner, one of God’s best coworkers.

            He had come to visit my seminary and I remember all of us just absolutely silent and still in the chapel as the great man, a living saint, shared his wisdom with us.

            His message was simple and challenging: God asks for our help. 

            All these years later, I don’t remember much of what he said, exactly, but I remember how he ended the sermon.

            He allowed the voice of God to speak through him, repeating the same words over and over, gradually fading into a whisper…

            “Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me…”

            It gave me chills – and I’m sure I wasn’t alone.

            God asks me – asks us – for help.

            Wow, right?

            Of course, there’s nothing new about this. The Bible is filled with stories of God calling people, usually the most unlikely and seemingly least prepared or even completely inappropriate people, to do God’s work.

            And, often enough, maybe like us, they just don’t want to do it.

            Maybe they’ve got other plans, other things going on. Or, maybe they don’t feel qualified enough. Or, maybe, they don’t think the people they’re asked to serve or save really deserve to be served or saved.

            For example, in today’s first lesson, we heard most of the second half of the story of Jonah.

            If people remember Jonah, usually they remember the time that he spent in the belly of the whale, or, actually, what the Bible calls a “big fish.”

            Either way, pretty gross, right?

            But, often people forget why Jonah ended up in that fishy stomach.

            It turns out that God asked Jonah for some help, to go to the great city of Nineveh and warn them that if they don’t change their ways, God will destroy their city.

            Jonah really doesn’t want to do this. It was a long way to go. Nineveh was a foreign city, capital of an empire often hostile to the people of Israel.

            It would be a little like God asking us today to go to Pyongyang and call for repentance. Who’s going to say yes to that?

            So, Jonah’s attitude was basically, “Let them die.”

            And, instead of accepting God’s request for help, Jonah literally travels in the opposite direction of Nineveh, getting on a boat, which God then batters with a big storm, leading Jonah’s shipmates to reluctantly throw him off the boat, into the waters, where he ends up in the fishy stomach.

            After Jonah was released, God gives him a second chance to help out, which he does, but still reluctantly.

            Maybe surprisingly, the people of Nineveh, from the king on down, really do accept Jonah’s warning and really do repent and change their ways.

            And, as we heard today, Jonah the reluctant prophet was none too happy about any of this, none too happy that God would show such love and mercy to people that Jonah didn’t like, not one bit.

            So, yes, Jonah was a very imperfect prophet, a very imperfect helper of God, but God was still able to take his help and do something wonderful with it.

            And, now, today, God says to us, “Help me.”

            And, we don’t have to look far to find ways that we can help God build God’s kingdom right here and right now.

            Maybe it’s taking on the discipline of simply praying for all of the many names on our prayer list, the people we know and don’t know, the people we love, like, or maybe even don’t like, not one bit. Maybe we pray for the people of North Korea and their leader and the people of our country and our leader.

            God says to us, “Help me.”

            Maybe it’s really giving generously to the work of the church, giving to Episcopal Relief and Development, giving to St. Paul’s even more than we wrote down on our pledge card, giving of our time to attend the Jersey City Together action, giving of ourselves to help with Family Promise or Triangle Park or some other ministry we’re up to here in Jersey City. Maybe it’s bringing even just one item for the food pantry, one little can, each time we come to church.

            God says to us, “Help me.”

            Now, some of us here have been answering God’s call for a long time, but maybe others of us have been like Jonah trying to run away from God, and maybe some of us have been like the workers in today’s parable from Jesus, the workers who were just hanging out until noon or even three o’clock.

            This is one of my favorite parables because it challenges our sense of fairness. Of course, the workers who’ve been toiling away all day should receive more pay than those who were just hanging out and didn’t start working until noon, three o’clock, or even five o’clock! Right?

            But, that’s not God’s way. God is generous to all, no matter how long we’ve been answering the call for help.

            So, if we’ve been helping God for a while, keep going!

            If we’ve been helping God for just a little while, keep going!

            And, if we’ve just been hanging out in the marketplace, waiting for an invitation, well, consider yourself invited. There’s still time!

            Finally, there’s nothing magic about this, but it’s been my experience that when we answer God’s call for help, when we give of ourselves to others, our anxiety about earthly things is eased a bit and we really are able to focus on things heavenly and eternal.

            It’s strange but true:

            We give God a tall order.

And, somehow, God fulfills that order by giving us a tall order in return:

            “Help me.”

            Amen.

Forgiveness Is Power

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ

September 17, 2017

Year A, Proper 19: The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 50:15-21

Psalm 103:1-13

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

Forgiveness Is Power

            So, by now many of you know that I’ve got a few little jokes that I use all the time – and maybe by now some of you are wishing I’d knock it off – or at least come up with some new material!

For example, sometimes when people ask me how I’m doing or kindly express concern that I’m not getting enough rest, I’ll smile and say, “I’m OK because, you know, I only work on Sundays!”

At that, people usually either laugh a little, or roll their eyes, or look at me with confusion – not sure if I’m serious or not.

Well, of course I don’t just work on Sundays but maybe some of you wonder what exactly it is I do during the week.

Well, we have our weekday services, and I attend a ton of meetings, and I make pastoral visits, and take care of the business of the church, but most of all, I spend a lot of time simply listening to people.

Sometimes they make an appointment to see me or they’ll just come by or call the office. Sometimes people will stop me on the street and just start talking.

Often they’ll share some challenge or struggle in their life and hope that I’ll know a way to fix whatever is wrong.

It took me a while to realize that I must have been absent the day they gave out magic wands at seminary, a long time to accept that I can’t really “fix” anybody’s situation – that all I can do is listen, and offer a shoulder to cry on, and pray, of course – all I can do is offer my companionship on this road of faith that we’re all walking.

Sometimes, people will come and see me because they’re having a crisis of faith. And, that’s no surprise since, you know, it’s hard to be a Christian – it’s hard to trust God when the world seems to be going to hell, it’s hard to love your neighbor as yourself, even harder to love our enemies.

It’s hard to give generously when we have so many responsibilities and there’s that tall pile of bills waiting for us on the kitchen table, it’s hard to be faithful in worship when we’re so tired from the week or we’re suffering from aches and pains, and it’s hard to pray for someone we don’t like one bit, or maybe even fear.

It’s all very hard and only possible with God’s help, God’s grace – which, fortunately, is always offered to us.

Amen? Amen.

            And, maybe there’s nothing harder about Christianity than what we heard today in the exchange between Jesus and Peter.

            Peter approaches Jesus and asks a really good question:

            “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”

            Wouldn’t you like to know the backstory behind that question?

            Something not so good must have happened, right? It seems that Peter has been wronged and he wants to know just how far he has to go with this forgiveness business that I’m sure he’s heard Jesus talk about a ton of times.

            Maybe to cover himself and show he’s not stingy with forgiveness, or maybe just to show Jesus that he’s been paying attention, Peter picks a big number: seven.

            Even today, forgiving someone seven times for the same offense would seem pretty generous to most of us, right? But for first century Jews, seven was more than seven: it was the number that represented infinity.

            So, that’s a lot of forgiveness.

            But, Jesus, in his usual Jesus way, takes it even further, replying,

            “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

            An infinite infinity of forgiveness.

            Christianity is hard, right?

            The truth is that even the most forgiving of us are probably not quite up to speed in the forgiveness department – oh, we may be good at forgiving little things, maybe, but the big stuff, that’s hard.

            That’s why we marvel at examples of extraordinary forgiveness.

            For example, in today’s first lesson from Genesis, we heard the tail end of the story of Joseph and his brothers.

            You may remember how out of jealousy the brothers had sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt – ah, family – where he rose to become a powerful official in the Pharoah’s government.

            It’s a long and wonderful story but the bottom line is that when Joseph has the opportunity to get his revenge, he instead offers bighearted forgiveness.

            As we heard him say to his brothers:

            “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.”

            Pretty amazing, right?

            And, of course, we marvel at modern-day examples of extraordinary forgiveness, too.

            I’ve mentioned it before, and I’m sure many of you remember the story of Charles Roberts, who it seems was unable to forgive himself for his own past misdeeds and who blamed God for the death of his young daughter, and one day back in 2006 walked into an Amish one-room schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, opened fire, shot eight of the ten young girls present, killing five of them before killing himself.

            This would have been just another tragic mass murder in a country that loves its arms so much, except for what happened next:

            The Amish immediately offered forgiveness.

            That same afternoon, the grandfather of one of the girls publicly offered forgiveness.

            The same day, some Amish visited the Roberts family to console them in their loss.

Later, one the Amish families invited the Roberts family to the funeral of their little girl – and, finally, the Amish outnumbered the non-Amish at the funeral of Charles Roberts, the man who had inflicted so much pain on them – had taken away their children, their greatest treasures.

And, even more recently, just a little more than two years ago now, I’m sure many of you remember the senseless massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, when Dylann Roof, a young white man horribly twisted by racism, walked into a Bible study and after sitting for a while opened fire, killing nine people, including the church’s pastor.

At Dylann Roof’s bond hearing, Nadine Collier, whose mother was among those killed, said to the young murderer:

“I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk with her again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you, and have mercy on your soul… You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. If God forgives you, I forgive you.”

            A year later, Nadine Collier shared an insight she gained from this horrific experience. She said,

            “Forgiveness is power. It means you can fight everything and anything head on.”

            Forgiveness is power.

            She’s right – and we see that power in Joseph forgiving his brothers, the Amish and the people of “Mother Emanuel” forgiving those who had taken so much from them – and we see that power in Jesus himself, hanging on the cross, praying to the Father to forgive those who had wronged him so terribly.

            Now, at this point we might be thinking that these are all kind of extreme situations, the stuff that makes the news, and so doesn’t really apply to us or the people we know, the people we’re sitting with right now.

            But, we’d be wrong.

            After listening to so many people, one thing I’ve learned is that many of us, maybe all of us, carry some deep wounds or, if we’re fortunate and have healed a bit, maybe now they’re just scars – and, unfortunately, most of that hurt comes at the hands of other people – maybe physical or emotional abuse, or some kind of betrayal, or, perhaps, profound disappointment.

            And, sometimes those wounds and scars are self-inflicted.

            There’s so much pain, right here.

            And yet, Jesus calls us, commands us, to be like God and forgive – which, as I believe we mentioned, is hard – and, I want to be absolutely clear about this, depending on what’s going on, especially in an abusive or some other dangerous situation, forgiveness isn’t necessarily the first thing we need to deal with.

            But, eventually, we’ll need to face the command - and maybe even the need - to forgive – to forgive someone who’s hurt or wronged us and, maybe, we might even need to forgive ourselves.

            So, just how can we be like God and forgive?

Just how can we be like Jesus and Joseph and the Amish and the people of Mother Emanuel?

            Just how can we tap into the power of forgiveness?

            Well, I don’t know exactly. But, I’m pretty sure the key is community – community just like this.

            When we’re all alone, alone with our wounds and our scars, alone with our fears, hurts, and grievances, forgiveness may seem nearly impossible.

            But, when we’re part of something larger, when we listen to each other and offer a shoulder to cry on, when we pray together and walk beside each other - when we come here each week and listen to these old, old stories and say these prayers and sing our songs – well, I know that God works with and through all of that, uses all of that and more to give us an ever-stronger sense of who we are and whose we are and what we’re about, so that, like those heartbroken Amish and the grieving people of Mother Emanuel, like Jesus himself, we too can have the confidence and courage to tap into the power of forgiveness, not just once but  maybe seven times, or even seventy-seven times.

            Hard? You bet. But, with God’s help, we can do it.

            Amen.

Our Special Vocation

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen & Church of the Incarnation

September 10, 2017

Year A, Proper 18: The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Ezekiel 33:7-11

Psalm 119:33-40

Romans 13:8-14

Matthew 18:15-20

Our Special Vocation

            Well, there are way more than two or three of us gathered here today so we know that the Lord is most definitely here among us!

            Amen? Amen!

            But, although the Lord is most definitely here among us, let’s face it: there are shadows hanging over today’s celebration.

            In the last week, Houston and the surrounding area had barely begun to dry off and assess the enormous damage and loss when our attention turned to another, even more powerful and destructive storm.

            As you all know, Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc in the Caribbean, inflicting almost unimaginable damage and loss, wounds and fears that are so personal for many of us here in church, since we have such deep connections to the West Indies.

            Obviously, our fundraiser for Texas and Louisiana has now become an effort to help the people of the islands, as well.

            And now, as Hurricane Jose is menacing many of those same islands, the still-powerful Irma is churning and blowing its way through Florida, leaving us anxious about the safety of people in another place where many of us have connections…

            Including my wife Sue and me.

            As some of you know, we lived in Florida for a year when I served as the Episcopal chaplain at the University of Florida and rector of a small church called St. Michael’s, in suburban Gainesville.

            To be honest, it was uncharacteristically bold for us to up and move from New Jersey to a strange new place and, although we didn’t stay very long, I learned a lot about myself during that Florida year, learned that it’s important for me to be close to family and friends even if I don’t see them as often as I should, learned that I’m not really a college chaplain, learned that my ministry is in the parish.   

            And, I learned about the deep and lasting pain of division and disunity.

            Where two or three are gathered, the Lord is there.

            And, unfortunately, where two or three are gathered there’s likely to be conflict and division, too.

            St. Michael’s, the small parish where I served, had a lot going for it. Our committed and faithful members worshipped in an architecturally interesting church with some of the best acoustics I’ve ever heard, located at a major intersection and with a big parking lot that makes my mouth water just thinking of it.

            And, it hadn’t always been a small church.

            In fact, it had been one of the bigger churches in the Diocese of Florida until a split took place a few years before I got there.

            Now, I only heard one side of the story, but it seems that the election of the first openly gay bishop in the church drove the priest at the time to lead nearly the entire congregation out of the Episcopal Church.

            They started a new “Anglican” church just a few blocks away. Where there had been one church, now there were two.

            The first Sunday after the split there were exactly four parishioners at St. Michael’s for worship.

            Although that was a few years before I got there, the pain was still very raw.

            There was pain for those who remained, who were left with the enormous challenge of keeping a church going with just a handful of people.

            And, there was pain for those who left, who abandoned the place where all of those baptisms, weddings, and funerals had taken place, where all of those potluck suppers had been eaten and all of those vestry meetings had been endured.

            Part of what made the split so hard was that both “sides” would run into each other all the time, in the supermarket or the bank, at their kids’ soccer games, sitting a table or two away at restaurants.

            It was like a really bad divorce, but one involving several hundred people.

            Occasionally, especially when I first arrived, some of the people who had left stopped by St. Michael’s (probably to check out the new priest), and I would see them look longingly at their former spiritual home, abandoned because of conflict and disunity.

            Well, those of us who’ve been around for a while know that Episcopal churches of Jersey City have had more than our fair share of conflict and division, too, right?

            Incarnation itself was born because, tragically, a century ago, African-Americans were not welcome at the other Episcopal churches, including this one – an unpleasant history that we will need to face and acknowledge and in some way repent for in the months ahead.

            And, I don’t know, but perhaps there are things in Incarnation’s past that might require some reflection and repentance, too.

            Certainly, for far too long our churches basically ignored each other. I know I had been a parishioner here at St. Paul’s for about two years before I learned that Incarnation was just a few blocks away. In fact, I know the exact date. It was September 11, 2002 when the first anniversary service was held there. I remember people being amused when I asked if I needed to drive there!

And, when we didn’t ignore each other we competed with each other – I’m not sure which is worse – in any event, less than Christian behavior that, in the end, left us all in pretty bad shape.
We've come a long way, right?

            Where two or three are gathered, the Lord is there.

            And, unfortunately, where two or three are gathered there’s likely to be conflict and division, too.

            As we heard in today’s Gospel lesson, there’s nothing new about this – conflict and division seem to have been present in the Church from nearly the beginning (depending on your personality, this is either reassuring or depressing!).

            And, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus lays out a detailed procedure for how to deal with conflict and division in the community, one that, if all else fails, would mean the exclusion of one or more from the community.

            But, we are meant to understand that when that happens it’s a terrible failure – a failure to be what God dreams we will be, a failure to be who we really are: the Body of Christ, the community where, as St. Paul writes, all we owe one another is love, nothing but love.

            Unlike my church in Florida, we at St. Paul’s and Incarnation aren’t embarking on a split but something maybe even more challenging, a union – more challenging but more faithful, an answer to the prayer of Jesus that we be one as he and the Father are one.

            During this process, two or three will be gathered so we know the Lord will be there, will be here, but we also know that when two or three are gathered there’s likely to be at least some conflict and disagreement.

            So, we all need to pray – I’m not kidding, seriously pray – for the guidance and grace of the Holy Spirit.

            Because here’s the thing, and something I believe with all my heart:

            Since I’ve been back in Jersey City, I’ve become convinced that our beautifully diverse and yet, for the most part, remarkably harmonious congregations, we have a special vocation.

            Because, of course it’s not just a couple of churches in Florida that have been broken by conflict and division.

            No, our world and our country and even our rapidly changing city with its stark division of haves and have-nots, all of it is so clearly and often bitterly divided.

            We don’t talk to each other, don’t understand each other, don’t give each other the benefit of the doubt, don’t much like each other, and we certainly don’t love each other.

            Now, you and I, Incarnation and St. Paul’s, we’re not going to fix all of that, but I really believe that we have a special vocation to show at least Jersey City that there is another way – that even with all of our bad history, even with our diversity in so many ways, even with our occasional disagreements and misunderstandings, we really can be a united community of love – we can show the world that when two or three or, hopefully, way more than that, gather together, the Lord is indeed right here and right now.

            Amen.