Our Elevator Pitch: Jesus Is Lord

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

September 16, 2018

Year B, Proper 19: The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Proverbs 1:20-33

Psalm 19

James 3:1-12

Mark 8:27-38

Our Elevator Pitch: Jesus Is Lord

            On Thursday night I missed what I’m told was a delicious Stone Soup supper because I needed to be at another meeting of the Hudson County Freeholders.

            In the days leading up to the meeting, the County Executive and the Freeholders had announced that they had come up with a plan – what they call a “path to exit” – to gradually wind down Hudson County’s contract to hold ICE detainees in our county jail.

            But, then, a day or two before the meeting, the Freeholders announced that they weren’t yet ready to discuss and vote on this plan – that it was postponed until October.

            Having been fooled before, there were still a large number of activists and lawyers (and a couple of clergy) present and willing to let the Freeholders know what they think about this important subject.

            It was a long and pretty tedious meeting and looking around I saw how many of us were spending much of our time staring at our phones: texting, scrolling through social media, playing games, whatever – all despite the posted signs warning that “Use of Cellular Phones is Prohibited.”

            Good luck with that – because in this day and age most of us can hardly imagine being separated from our phones even for the few hours of a freeholders meeting – or even for the length of a church service!

            This constant connection and instant communication has all sorts of consequences and effects – and one of them is that trends and fads are able to spread really fast.

            Though, there’s nothing really new about fads.

            I remember as a kid the “pet rock” fad. Remember that?

            Of course, you could just pick up a rock off the ground and make it your pet, but the preferred method was to head down to 440, to Two Guys or Valley Fair, and spend your hard-earned money (or, more likely, your parents’ hard-earned money) on a rock packaged in a box, that was marked “Pet Rock.”
            Over the years there have been the Cabbage Patch Kids, and Beanie Babies.

            I remember when I first started teaching there was the fad of girls wearing a teething ring around their necks as a piece of jewelry – a fad that drove many of the more enlightened teachers absolutely bananas!

            In more recent times, there’s been Pokemon Go and fidget spinners – and now there’s something called Juul – a nicotine delivery system designed to look like a product made by Apple – it looks sort of like a computer flash drive – meant to get another generation hooked on tobacco.

            The church goes through its own fads, too.

            Usually they are mostly well-meaning and creative attempts to make the Church more relevant or appealing to people who are not already churchgoers – well-meaning attempts that, after a few years, sometimes may look a little misguided and dated.

            So, there were Clown Masses (with, yes, the priest and others dressed as clowns) for those who want nightmares after attending church.

            There was The Hip Hop Prayer Book and The Hip Hop Mass, and the U2charist, and just recently Grace Cathedral in San Francisco hosted what it called a “Beyoncé Mass.”

            Now, for the record, if any of this brings Christ to people, I’m all for it!

            There for a while it was kind of a fad in the church that we clergy should think of ourselves as “spiritual entrepreneurs” – that we are not just caretakers of our institutions and our people but we are meant to be self-starters – to build new ministries for a new time.

            The term “entrepreneur” is problematic but there’s something to that, right? In fact, I like to think that our Triangle Park Community Center is an example of spiritual entrepreneurship.

            And, then a couple of years ago in the church, it was kind of a fad to talk a lot about our “elevator pitch.”

            Do you know what this is?

            It’s is a concept that comes from the business world – a way to market yourself or an idea.

            “Elevator pitch” means that we should be able to very quickly summarize a concept so that someone can understand the basics – like if you had just a few moments in an elevator to get your point across.

            I thought of elevator pitches when I began to reflect on the haunting and profound questions that Jesus asks his followers in today’s Gospel lesson.

            Questions that Jesus asks us today.

            “Who do people say that I am?”

            “Who do you say that I am?”

            It’s not surprising that back then it seems that people had lots of different ideas about who Jesus is – maybe not so different from today, I guess.

            It’s not surprising that back then people had lots of different ideas about who Jesus is because the correct answer is so… unlikely.

            Jesus was raised by a couple of nobodies in Nowheresville, far from the political and religious power of his day.

            Jesus was a poor man from the sticks who, as far, as anybody knew didn’t have much of a pedigree – not from a well-known family – didn’t attend a great school or study under one of the wise men of the time.

            Jesus was not particularly successful – his “movement,” if we can call it that, didn’t add up to much in the eyes of the world. And, his shameful death would have convinced most people that he was a total failure. Maybe worse than that, probably most of the people of his time and place had no idea who Jesus was, no idea that he lived and died, and no idea of what happened next.

            And, yet.

            And, yet, maybe surprisingly, it’s the Apostle Peter – who so often messed up and, as we heard today, will in fact mess up in a big way in just a moment – it’s Peter who answers the question best:

            “Who do you say that I am?”

“You are the Messiah.”

            And, for two thousand years the Church has faced the challenge of how best to share this most surprising, most life-changing news with the world.

            In the early days, long before the invention of the elevator, the Church came up with what we might call its first elevator pitch:

            “Jesus is Lord.”

            Of course, the elevator pitch is just the start – but it’s an important start.

            Because, if Jesus is Lord then that changes everything – everything for us and for the world.

If Jesus is Lord, then the Caesars of the past and present are most definitely not lord, definitely not in charge, despite all appearances to the contrary.

            If Jesus is Lord, then we know that God chose to come among us as a poor nobody from Nowheresville – and we are called to love and serve God by loving and serving those the world dismisses as nobodies today.

            If Jesus is Lord, then we should look for signs of the Holy in the most unlikely locations – along Bergen Avenue, at Shop Rite, on the bus, in Dunkin Donuts…

            If Jesus is Lord, then we really are meant to love one another – to love even our enemies – to love even those imprisoned by the state – to love even those lacking the right paperwork, to love even those we are taught to hate and fear.

            If Jesus is Lord, then it’s going to cost us – to cost us our time and our money, our gifts, and even our prejudices and judgments.

            If Jesus is Lord, then fads may come and go, empires may rise and fall, the storms of life may sometimes knock us down, but we can never be separated from God’s love – never, no matter what.

            If Jesus is Lord, then even when things don’t look so good and we’re so afraid, in the end, love defeats death.

            So, whether we’re hip-hopping the Mass or singing with Beyoncé in the cathedral or being spiritual entrepreneurs in Triangle Park or just going to church in the same way and the same place we always have:

            Jesus is Lord.

            Even after everything, that is our elevator pitch.

            Amen.

           

           

           

           

            

In a Strange Land

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

September 9, 2018

Year B, Proper 18: The 16th Sunday after Pentecost

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

Psalm 125

James 2:1-17

Mark 7:24-37

In a Strange Land

            Over the past few of weeks, a couple of events in my family have gotten me thinking about the passage of time and the sometimes surprising shape of our lives, the surprising shape of my life.

            The first event was celebratory: recently, my oldest niece went off to Florida to begin her first year in college.

            I think I can speak for my whole family when I say we can hardly believe that she’s already old enough for this big, momentous step. I know I still think of her as a shy and sweet little girl, but the facts are the facts and she is now a college freshman in a relatively faraway place facing the challenge and excitement of learning and making friends, and making – we hope and believe - good decisions.

            The other event was a sad one: last week, one of my aunts died after suffering with cancer.

            Maybe because I hadn’t seen her much in recent years, I still think of her the way I’m sure she’d like to be remembered: as young and healthy, welcoming me and other relatives to big parties at her family’s suburban home – especially welcoming us to their large backyard, which had what seemed like an almost unimaginable luxury: an in-ground pool!

            When milestones like the first year of college or the death of someone you’ve known your whole life come along, it gets you thinking about your own life – about how much time has already passed and how much is left before God calls us home.

            And, at least for me, it gets me thinking about the shape of my life – the twists and turns – the story that I could not have written, could never have imagined, no matter how hard I tried.

            For example, about seventeen years ago or so, when I began to seriously consider the possibility of becoming an Episcopal priest, when I finally worked up the courage to make an appointment with Fr. Hamilton and say out loud what I had been thinking and praying – back then I was absolutely, one hundred percent sure that God was calling me to be a city priest.

            After all, while other family members had moved to the ‘burbs, I had stayed in the city. This is what I knew. This is where I could really contribute to the building of Christ’s church.

            Although it was certainly a nice place to visit, especially to take a dip in the pool, I had no interest in the suburbs, no desire to minister to and with people living what I imagined as their comfortable lives in big, beautiful homes on tree-lined streets, some even with in-ground pools!

            But, as we know, God has a sense of humor and so when I was ordained a little more than ten years ago and began looking for a full-time job, there were no full-time positions in any of our city churches.

            In fact, there were few full-time positions anywhere, but there was one. It was a particularly plum position, actually: to be the assistant – or, “curate” in church-talk – at Grace Church in leafy, beautiful, affluent Madison.

            Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

I did not want to go there.

            Bishop Beckwith tried to convince me that Madison was actually pretty diverse for a suburb and there might be opportunities to work together with some city churches and clergy.

            I wasn’t really sold.

But the fact was I also really needed a job, so I went out to Madison and met with Grace’s then-rector – Lauren Ackland – and met with some of the parishioners – and drove around the town, and began to think, well, you know, this might be OK, for a while.

            And, so I took the job and Sue and I moved out to the suburbs. We found ourselves living in a strange land.

            The truth is that I went to Madison wanting to do a good job but also with kind of an attitude – or, maybe, a bunch of attitudes.

            I went into that place inclined to not particularly like people who I perceived as having pretty easy, pretty comfortable lives.

            It was kind of the reverse of the bias we’re warned about in today’s passage from the Letter of James. Rather than give them special treatment, I was quick to judge and mistrust, quick to make unkind assumptions, about the people wearing fine clothes.

            I think most of my attitude problem stemmed from the fact that I went to Madison with my insecurities raging: I would be living and serving among many who had attended much more prestigious schools than I had – people who were in some sense “better” than me and my people – or, at least people who I thought would think that they were better than me and my people.

            I’ve never been so wrong about anything in my life.

            Despite all of this negative stuff bubbling in my brain, we fell in love with each other almost immediately.

            In this strange land, I discovered kind and incredibly generous people who loved their families just as much as my people did – people who carried around sorrows and fears and insecurities and bore deep scars – just like we all do.

            But, here’s what cemented my love for the people in the strange land of Madison:

            A month or two after I started working there, an older parishioner pulled me aside and told me that his daughter – a little bit older than me - was in the hospital and he asked if I could stop by and see her.

            He explained that she wasn’t much of a churchgoer but he thought that the two of us would hit it off.

            So, I went to the hospital to visit this woman I had never met – the daughter of parishioners I was just getting to know and love – all in what was still for me a strange land.

            Her name was Elizabeth. And, after having been in remission, unfortunately and tragically, her cancer had returned with a vengeance.

            But, her father had been right. We did hit it off, immediately.

            In fact, in what remains one of the most amazing experiences of my life, as I sat by her bedside, we somehow managed to pack what felt like years of friendship into what turned out to be the last few days of Elizabeth’s life.

            And, as I sat in the hospital room with her grieving parents and husband and children, and as I mourned a close friend that I had just met a few days earlier, I realized that we were truly brothers and sisters – and that I was exactly where God wanted me, exactly where I was supposed to be, at exactly the right time.

            In a strange land.

            At the start of today’s gospel lesson, we were given a little, easy to miss, but quite important detail.

            We’re told that Jesus had gone to the region of Tyre.

            This is an important little detail because Tyre (which is in modern-day Lebanon) was not a Jewish place. No, Jesus has left his homeland, left the people with whom he was most comfortable, and has entered a strange land, filled with people he might not understand and, at least at first, might not even trust.

Jesus enters a strange land, understandably trying

to keep a low profile, perhaps trying to get his bearings. And, at first, Jesus seems not sure that his Good News, his healing power, is for absolutely everybody, Jew and Gentile alike.

            Enter the unnamed but oh-so-persistent and brave and, most of all, loving Syro-Phoenician woman who begs Jesus to heal her daughter.

            In one of the most shocking scenes in the New Testament, in probably the least Jesus-like moment in the Gospels, Jesus at first dismisses this desperate woman, dismisses her in fact with what sounds like an insult:

            “Let the children be fed first for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

            A less persistent – or a less desperate person – would have backed down, but not this this woman. She goes right back at Jesus:

            “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

            It seems that this woman’s persistent faith touches Jesus, opens up something inside of him, helps him to recognize that his gift is for the whole world – and, so, he heals the sick daughter.

            In a strange land.

            Even if you live in the same place you’ve lived your whole life, even if you haven’t just sent a child off to college, even if you haven’t just buried someone you love, today all of us find ourselves living in a strange land.

            Our neighborhoods are changing, with lots of new people – different kinds of people – moving in.

            Our church is changing – with lots of new people – different kinds of people – finding a spiritual home here.

            Our country is changing – with longstanding customs and norms being broken and discarded on a daily basis.

            I don’t need to tell you that living in a strange land can be quite stressful.

            As we see every single day, living in a strange land can provoke our insecurities, can stir up in us less than positive attitudes.

            So, my prayer is that we’ll remember that all of us - no matter where we live, no matter what kind of clothes we wear, no matter how much or how little money we have, no matter the color of our skin, no matter our political views:

All of us love our people.

All of us carry around sorrows and fears and all of us bear deep scars.

All of us need healing.

All of us are hungry for the Good News.

And, most of all, all of us are loved, so deeply loved, by the God we know in and through Jesus Christ.

            Amen.

           

Remembering the Love Story of God and Us

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

September 2, 2018

Year B, Proper 17: The 15th Sunday after Pentecost

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10

James 1:17-27

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Remembering the Love Story of God and Us

            I don’t know if this is because of my advancing age or because the smartphone has destroyed my attention span, but lately I’ve noticed that sometimes I forget the story.

            Maybe you know what I mean.

            With TV shows, especially if there’s been a long gap between episodes or seasons, I really need that recap that they usually do at the start of the show: “Previously on…”

            And the same is true with books.

            I’m always trying to carve out more time for reading but sometimes I’ll put down a book and not get back to it for a few days or even a week or more and then when I pick it up again I almost always need to flip back a few pages to remind me of where I left off - to remind me of the story.

           

Forgetting the story.

           

Unfortunately, we Christians forget our story all the time.

            And, I think that’s one of the big reasons why this is not such a great time for the Church.

            Not so much for our church, which, all things considered, I think is actually doing pretty well. But, it’s not such a great time for the big “Capital C” Church.

            You know, even after all these years of being ordained I’m still a little self-conscious walking the streets in my white priest’s collar.

Sometimes I get very nice greetings, “Hello, Father!” or “What’s up, Rev?” or people will stop me to ask for a prayer or a blessing.

But, my collar also tends to attract people who are a little unbalanced. And, sometimes I get strange looks from people who don’t know what it is, maybe wondering why that man is wearing a turtleneck on such a hot day! And, every once in a while, I get a snicker or an eye roll or even a look of disgust.

 But, recent headlines have made me even more uncomfortable than usual.

Mostly joking, recently I told someone that I’ve been thinking of writing “EPISCOPAL” on my collar so I wouldn’t be mistaken for a Roman Catholic priest.

Now, before go any further, I want to make clear that I’ve known many, many Catholic priests, and nearly all of them have been faithful, decent, and hardworking.

But…as I’m sure you all know, our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters have been rocked once again by another disgusting wave of stories of sexual abuse and cover-ups.

Not a great time for the Church.

           

Meanwhile, many white Evangelical leaders (along with a few black Evangelical leaders) have aligned themselves closely, nearly completely, with one political party, one political leader, overlooking or justifying a whole lot in order to advance their agenda, overlooking or justifying a whole lot for a seat at the table with the most powerful man in the world.

            Not a great time for the Church.

           

And, then there are the Episcopalians with our own stories of abuse which don’t make as much of a splash because we’re kind of a small operation. There are the Episcopalians, who have too often aligned ourselves too closely with the other political party, overlooking a whole lot of stuff. There are the Episcopalians, for so long consumed with our own internal conflicts, so absorbed in the various issues of the day, so in love with our own way of doing things, that we hardly seem to notice how many people have voted with their feet and walked away, emptying our churches.

           

No, this is not such a great time for the Church. The reasons are many, but at the root of our troubles is the fact that we have forgotten our story.

            So, what is this story that we’ve forgotten?

            Well, I’m glad you asked, because today’s lessons give us the answer.

            Today happens to be the only Sunday in our three-year cycle of Bible readings that we hear a passage from the Song of Solomon, also called the Song of Songs.

            The only other time we hear it in church is at some weddings, which is very appropriate because the Song of Songs is love poetry – actually, pretty mushy love poetry – about two people in love.

            The Song of Songs is love poetry that never mentions God, but, amazingly enough, a couple of thousand years ago it was reinterpreted as being all about God’s love for us – and that’s how this rather mushy love poetry ended up in the Bible.

            “The Story” is a love story.

            “The Story” is the love story.

            “The Story” is the story of a God who is Love, a God who created and creates everything out of love, creates all of us out of love, who lives, and dies, and rises again for us, and who calls us – commands us - to spread the love far and wide.

            That’s “The Story.”

            That’s the Love Story of God and Us.

            And, that’s the story that, unfortunately, we forget far too often.

            As Presiding Bishop Michael Curry always says, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”

            You know, I think some people living in Palestine two thousand years ago were first attracted to Jesus of Nazareth because somehow they were able to see in him the love story made flesh.

            In Jesus, they saw a life with no shadow, a life of pure love.

            In Jesus, they saw a man who understood and taught that what’s most important – far more important than any ritual – is what’s going on in our hearts.

            In Jesus, they saw the one who embodied the love story of God and us.

            Unfortunately, there will always be sick and broken people who take advantage of, and do terrible things to, the innocent and vulnerable.

            But, if we remember the love story then we’ll never place the reputation or the finances of an institution over the wellbeing of people, especially children.

            If we remember the love story then we’ll remember that Jesus has a special love for children – calls the children to him - in fact, calls us to have the faith of children – and warns of the dire consequences for those who harm the “little ones.”

            If we remember the love story, then we won’t curry favor from the rich and powerful, and we won’t trade our values for political gain, not even for a seat at the table with the most powerful person in the world.

No, if we remember the love story, we’ll remember that Jesus sat with the outcasts, not with the chief priests and most certainly not with Pilate.

If we remember the love story, we will want to sit with the people Jesus saw as the most important.

If we remember the love story, we’ll sit with the hungry people at the homeless drop-in shelter, or sit with the sick and lonely in hospitals and nursing homes, or sit with our neighbors who don’t know how they’re going to make this month’s rent, pay the electric bill, and buy all those school supplies, or sit with those imprisoned for wrongdoing or just not having the right paperwork.

If we remember the love story, we’ll remember that God has a special love for the poor, and for the mournful, for the prisoners, and, yes, for the foreigner in our midst.

And, if we remember the love story, we can continue to appreciate all that we do and receive here in this beautiful place, but also recognize that while our rituals are important, it’s what’s in our hearts that’s most important.

            If we remember the love story, then as the author of the Epistle of James writes, we will be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.

            If we remember the love story, we’ll welcome everyone who walks through our doors even if they’re not really “our kind of people” or if they have other ideas about how things should be done around here.

            If we remember the love story, we’ll put our beautiful words into action even during coffee hour, on our way home today, and during the seemingly ordinary times of our lives.

            Because here’s the best part of the love story of God and us: it’s not just a story we read in a book, not just some old mushy love poetry, not just a story from long ago.

            The love story continues.

            And, we’re invited to play our part in this great love story, right here, right now.

            If only we remember.

            Amen.