Remember

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

Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

August 6, 2017

The Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Exodus 34:29-35

Psalm 99

2 Peter 1:13-21

Luke 9:28-36

Remember

            It’s a little hard for me to believe, but, I’ve been a priest for almost ten years and so, by now, after having celebrated the Eucharist many hundreds of times, quite a few of the words of the service are etched pretty deeply in my memory.

            Like, for example, the words of absolution I say after we make our confession of sin.

            “Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ…”

            But, a couple of months ago at our 10:00 service, something unusual and a little unnerving happened.

            Maybe some of you who were here noticed it.

            After we had knelt and made our confession, I stood up as I always do and began to say those familiar words, “Almighty God…”

            But then my memory failed me and I completely forgot the rest of the words. It all just flew out of my head.

            In my confusion, I managed to string together a few sort of similar words that I trust got the job done – God’s going to forgive us no matter what I say or don’t say – but, it really bothered me that I had forgotten something that I thought I had known so well.

            I think I was probably just tired or distracted and, fortunately, I haven’t noticed any other memory problems, but in that moment I had just a small, confusing taste of what it’s like to really forget, to lose one’s memory.

Of course, like probably all of us, I’ve known people, including some people I’ve loved very much, who as they aged grew forgetful or confused, and some who developed full-blown dementia.

            It’s a terrifying and deeply sad thing, right?

            It’s terrifying and sad for lots of reasons but one of the big ones is that, to a large extent, it’s our memory that makes us who we are.

            Thanks to our memory, we know who we are and whose we are.

            Thanks to our memory, we know who we love and who loves us.         

            But, the truth is, even if we’re in perfect health, it’s sometimes hard to remember these most important things, especially when the going gets tough, especially when there are so many distractions, so many pressures, and so many fears, especially during times of (as today’s collect says), “disquietude.”

            Today we celebrate, we remember, the Feast of the Transfiguration.

We remember this mysterious mountaintop experience - a preview of Easter, a glimpse of heaven - when Peter, James, and John see Jesus transformed before their eyes, and witness the appearance of two of the greatest biblical figures, Moses and Elijah.

These three disciples get to overhear a conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah – a conversation about Jesus’ “departure.”

            Even the often-dense Peter realizes that he has witnessed something remarkable, so he wants to memorialize this experience by building three shrines, one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.

            No sooner does Peter get this perfectly reasonable suggestion out of his mouth, than the experience becomes even more awesome when they – and we – get to hear the voice of God say:

            “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

            And, then… it’s over.

            This powerful, mysterious, literally awesome experience - a preview of Easter, a glimpse of heaven - lives on only in memory.

            Jesus and his disciples came down from the mountain, and continued the ministry of teaching and healing, this holy work that will be so very threatening to the religious and political leaders that they’ll plot against Jesus, arrest him, torture him, and finally kill him.

            Jesus will “depart.”

            During those hard days it must have been so difficult to remember the preview of Easter that Jesus and his friends had glimpsed on the mountain – hard for his disciples to remember and maybe even hard for Jesus himself to remember.

            And even after the empty tomb, even after Easter, even after the Ascension when Jesus “departed” again, back when the Church was so small and struggling for survival, during those days of “disquietude,” it must have been hard for the first followers of Jesus to remember all of those amazing experiences, all of the puzzling sayings and miraculous healings, even hard to remember the mountaintop experience with Moses and Elijah and even the voice of God.

            But, they did remember – just like the Jews, they remembered by coming together to tell their stories over and over again and eventually writing them down and reading them and copying them and spreading them around so that even when individual memories faded and failed, the stories – the Story – would never be forgotten.

            As an example, today’s second lesson comes from what we call the Second Letter of Peter, and was probably written around the year 100, maybe even later than that, written long after the Apostle Peter was dead, written by a faithful Christian who heard, remembered and wrote down the story of the Transfiguration, which has been passed down to us.

            Thanks to our memory, we know who we are and whose we are.

            Thanks to our memory, we know whom we love and who loves us.

            The Church is a community of memory.

            And, I don’t know about you, but in our time with all of its distractions, pressures, and fears – in our time of so much fast-paced change and so much noise and oh so big challenges, in the midst of all this “disquietude,” sometimes I feel like I’m in danger of forgetting more than just the words of absolution.

            Sometimes, even as a “professional Christian,” I feel like I’m in danger of forgetting the big stuff, forgetting the stories, forgetting the Story.

            So, we gather here in church week after to week is to have our own little mountaintop experience, to get a preview of Easter, a glimpse of heaven.

We come here as a community of memory to remember – to remember the old but somehow always new stories – and, especially, to remember who we are and whose we are – to remember who we love and who loves us.

            Amen.

The Tree

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

July 30, 2017

Year A, Proper 12: The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

1 Kings 3:5-12

Psalm 119:129-136

Romans 8:26-39

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The Tree

            I’ve mentioned to you before that one of my most favorite things is to show off St. Paul’s to people who are here for the first time.

            As you may remember from when you first walked through our front doors, people almost invariably ooh and ah when they first walk in here, marveling at the magnificent woodwork and how beautiful and well-preserved it all is.

            And, it’s not just the church building.

            This year especially we’ve been getting a lot of compliments on the garden, and a few neighbors have even been so inspired that they’ve offered help with planting, and tilling, and watering.

            As you know, last week we were joined by the wonderful choristers from Trinity Church in Los Alamos, who were last here four summers ago – a lot of water under the bridge for them, and for us here at St. Paul’s.

            In fact, their visit got me thinking of all the changes that have happened here since their last visit.

            First of all, we were a lot smaller back then – many of you weren’t even part of our community the last time they were here.

            And, yes, at the same time, there were people here then who are gone now – people who have died, or become too frail, or moved away, or decided this wasn’t the place for them, or who just drifted away from the church.

            Four years ago, there was no choir and there was no Gail (at least not here at St. Paul’s!).

            There was no Sunday School and no air conditioning in the church (the choristers, not used to our humidity, were particularly happy about that improvement!).

            We still had the old, worn red carpet and the dangerously broken front stairs.

            It’s a lot of growth and change in a small time.

            We’ve been blessed.

            At one point during the choir’s visit last weekend, after having been out walking the streets for a while, their director, John Singleton, observed that St. Paul’s is a wonderful oasis in the city.

            And so it is, right?

            That having been said, these old buildings and the grounds require a lot of effort, a lot of sweat and, yes, a lot of money, to keep them looking good and serving our parish and the community so well.

            And, sometimes things go wrong.

            For example, on Wednesday afternoon I went downstairs into the rectory basement and discovered a pond covering about a quarter of the floor: water was spurting from a leaky pipe.

            The plumber arrived and painted a bleak picture, saying it might be necessary to dig up the yard in front of the rectory as well as part of the sidewalk and even the street, which would then need to be re-paved.

            My heart sank, but we had no choice to proceed.

            But, sometimes things work out and by Thursday afternoon the plumber announced that he had been able to solve the problem and that he had saved us “ten thousand dollars.”

            I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll take it!

            Let the people say, “Amen.”

            And then there were the raccoons.

            As some of you know, a while back a group of raccoons (a group of raccoons is called “a gaze,” by the way. I looked it up!), a gaze of raccoons managed to gnaw their way into the crawlspace at the top of our church tower, where they settled into their own private Duncan Avenue condo, making themselves at home, and making a very big mess.

            And, as you might guess, it turns out that it’s no so easy to dislodge a gaze of raccoons from such prime real estate.

            In fact, because raccoons are not only cute but really smart and clever, it requires experts and a lot of time and effort and, yes, money to get them out and keep them out – and to clean up after them.

            You know, in a natural environment, raccoons often live in the hollows of trees – and so, to the raccoons, our beautiful, old, and wooden, St. Paul’s was just another tree – bigger than some but certainly not the biggest.

            To the raccoons, St. Paul’s was simply a tree, standing ready to offer them shelter from the hard life of the city.

            Well, of course, we’re not raccoons or birds, for that matter, but our church, with all of its many branches, offers us shelter, too – offers us a safe place to make our spiritual nest – a safe place to discover and cherish and nurture the treasure that is God’s kingdom.

            Yes, like a gaze of raccoons, some of us will sometimes make a mess here in our tree – sometimes a literal mess like what the kitchen occasionally looks like after coffee hour or some other event, but more often a spiritual mess caused by us not being as welcoming or as loving or as forgiving as we ought to be, as we know we should be.

            But, unlike how we had to deal with the adorable but destructive raccoons, we don’t drive away our brothers and sisters from our tree – no matter how much of a mess they – or we – make.

            Just the opposite, actually.

            No, we’re called to slide over a bit, to make a little more room in our tree, to even make a little more room on our own individual branch, to make a little more room for whoever shows up, messy or not.

            We’re called to make a little more room for the people out there who are still looking for a beautiful oasis in an often hard city, the people who still seek the treasure that is God’s kingdom, the treasure that can be found right here, in our tree.

            Amen.

Bad Farmer

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

July 23, 2017

Year A, Proper 11: The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 44:6-8

Psalm 86:11-17

Romans 8:12-25

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

 Bad Farmer

            Two Sundays in a row now we’ve heard agricultural parables from Jesus – and in both cases Jesus describes practices that would drive any self-respecting farmer or gardener absolutely bananas.

            I read one commentator who pointed out the bad farming practices in these parables and joked that maybe Jesus should stick to carpentry and leave farming to the experts!

            Anyway, if you were here last week, you may remember we heard what’s usually called the “Parable of the Sower,” where Jesus describes a sower dropping precious seeds all over the place – on good soil, yes, but also on rocky soil and even among the thorns.

            We said anyone who wasted all those seeds would be fired from any farm – and would even be encouraged, gently, to step down from our own gardening committee here at St. Paul’s.

            And now, today, we heard another agricultural parable with even more bad farming practices.

            We’re told that a sower sowed good wheat but an “enemy” came along at night and sowed weeds in the same field.

            The slaves notice the weeds growing up and suggest to the master a wise course of action: gather up the weeds.

            This would be the way to go because as any farmer or gardener knows, weeds can choke the “good” plants – and, on top of that, if the weeds aren’t rooted out they will spread even more “bad” seeds and in the end you’ll be left with a field of weeds.

            But, the master doesn’t go along with this wise course of action – and for an interesting reason – pulling up the weeds would also involve pulling up the wheat – it’s not always so easy to separate wheat and weeds – and, maybe, as a lot of gardeners know, sometimes it’s not even easy to tell them apart.

            No, instead, the master chooses to wait until the harvest, when the wheat and the weeds can be separated and, we’re told, the weeds will be burned.

            Bad farming.

            Now, this may sound strange to you, but as I thought about this parable, I was reminded of my teaching days – especially the first few days of the school year.

            In September, as each class would file into my room, I’ll admit it, I would size up my students.

            I hesitate to mention this, because I know most of our teachers and kids aren’t quite ready to think about school, yet, but…

            In those first few classes of the new school year, I’d be looking out at their faces and their body language, trying to get a sense of who’s going to be a pleasure to teach – and who’s going to be a pain in the...

            Some kids looked very alert, very sharp, seeming to hang on every word, nodding along with me, furrowing their brows as they pondered the “profound wisdom” I was offering them, and, of course, laughing at my jokes.

            Wheat!

            And, then, there were others who, right from the start, looked bored out of their minds, staring out the window, or horsing around with the kids next to them, and, not only not laughing at my jokes, but rolling their eyes at what seemed to them the stupidest stuff they had ever heard in their life.

            Weeds!

            In some ways, I – and maybe you, too – do the same thing here in church.

            New people arrive and we try to size them up. Do they seem into it? Does it seem like they’ll fit in with the rest of us? Are they attentive in worship? Do they laugh at the priest’s jokes?

            Wheat!

            Others seem to pay no attention at all, seem to be here only because someone is making them be here, don’t seem like they would fit in with the rest of us, and don’t even crack a smile at the priest’s jokes!

            Weeds!

            Well, the lesson I’ve learned over and over first as a teacher and now as a priest, is that I’m terrible at telling wheat from weeds.

            Some of those kids nodding along with me and laughing at my jokes turned out to be not paying much attention at all, and some turned out to be royal pains in the…neck.

            And others who seemed checked out and un-amused turned out to be listening to every word and thinking and learning, and turned out to be wonderful students.

            And, the same thing at church.

            Quite a few times, new people have arrived and I’m sure that they’re going to love it here and fit right in and become longtime members of our community – and then we see them maybe once or twice but never again.

            And, others come who don’t seem into it, who don’t seem like they’ll fit in, and it turns out they enrich our community in ways that we could have never predicted.

            So, it turns out, we’re not so good at distinguishing wheat from weeds.

            Which is just as well, because that’s not our job.

            It’s God’s job to distinguish the wheat from the weeds – not ours.

            And, now, since we’re among friends, I’m going out on a limb a little, and you don’t have to agree with me on this, but here goes:

             I think maybe in God’s eyes there are, in fact, no weeds at all.

            For farmers and gardeners, “weeds” are just plants that we don’t want or we think don’t serve any real purpose – and, yet, often enough we discover that these “weeds” have surprising and beneficial gifts for us.

            And, one thing I’ve learned first as a teacher and now as a priest, is that often the even the “weediest” people have surprisingly good gifts for us, or, at the very least, are carrying around very heavy burdens that should make us feel compassion for them, should make us love them.

            And, of course, and I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but it’s entirely possible that there are people out there, or even in here, who see us, not as wheat but as weeds!

            So, it seems to me that if we are able to see goodness even in some pretty weedy people, then God is certainly able to see it, too.

            And, yes, like in the parable, maybe some day in the future, God really will separate the weeds from the wheat.

            But, for now anyway, the God who wastes all of those seeds and the God who lets the weeds grow up with the wheat – this God has chosen to be a pretty bad farmer.

            And, that, my friends, is very good news for us all.

            Amen.

           

           

           

The Sweet Wine of God's Love

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

July 16, 2017

Year A, Proper 10: The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 55:10-13

Psalm 65:9-14

Romans 8:1-11

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

The Sweet Wine of God’s Love (Or, Lessons Learned on a Summer Vacation)

            As many of you know, for most of the past two weeks, Sue and I were away on vacation out West.

            It was the longest trip we’ve taken in quite a while, and, in fact, even a little longer than we had planned since our return flight was first delayed and finally canceled, forcing us to spend one more night in a hotel, courtesy of United Airlines.

            Aside from that mishap, it was a pretty good and restful trip.

            One of the highlights was the day we spent on a bus tour of wineries in Sonoma and Napa Counties, just outside San Francisco.

            Much of California’s wine is produced in these almost indescribably beautiful places – so beautiful that, truthfully, I would have been perfectly happy just riding around on the bus just looking at the scenery, at the rolling hills covered with row after row of grape vines.

            But, we did get off the bus and toured three of the wineries, listening to the wine growers describe their work – and, yes, getting to sample a little bit of their work, too.

            Our favorite winery was the first one we visited, a relatively small “boutique” winery that doesn’t even sell its wine in stores, just to people who subscribe to their club or who, like us, stop by for a tour and tasting.

            I always enjoy meeting people who take their work – their craft - so seriously, who are excited (or, at least, seem excited) by what they do, even if they’ve been at it for a long time.

            So, it was fun to listen to these craftspeople enthusiastically share with us all the care that goes into growing the vines and producing their wines.

            Most interesting of all, at this first winery we visited we had the chance to actually walk into the vineyard, to see for ourselves the vines, all planted by hand and yet perfectly spaced and so straight, to hear how this particular winery doesn’t use any pesticides or artificial fertilizers, that they care for the plants and cultivate the soil the old fashioned way, producing grapes so fine and tiny they looked more like peas than the grapes we buy at Shop Rite.

            It was a fascinating and kind of moving experience to hear about – and to actually see - the care taken to plant all of those seeds, row after row after row, and the care given to nurture them into strong vines.

            Now, at this point, if you’re still with me, you may be thinking that you see where this is going: that God is like those vineyard workers, carefully planting seeds in good soil.

            But, actually, the parable we heard today from Jesus, tells us otherwise – and, I think, our own experience tells us otherwise, too.

            It turns out that God is not careful with God’s seeds at all – God is almost, we might say, wasteful – dropping seeds all over the place, planting God’s Word in good soil and not so good soil.

            God would get fired from any self-respecting winery – and might even be gently and respectfully asked to step away from our own garden committee here at St. Paul’s!

            It turns out that God doesn’t really discriminate. God hopes for the best, generously offering God’s Word all over the place, offering the Word where it is likely to be well-received and offering God’s Word where it is likely to be rejected and wither away.

            So, since God has chosen to be this kind of sower, it’s most important for us to cultivate our own soil – and to cultivate the soil around us – so that God’s Word can really take root and, in our lives, we can truly produce the sweet wine of God’s love.

            With God’s help, we cultivate our own soil by carving out even just a few minutes for prayer and, especially, by coming here, week after week, even when we don’t feel like it, especially when we don’t feel like it.

            And, with God’s help, we cultivate our own soil and the soil around us by welcoming and loving and giving and, maybe most and hardest of all these days, appreciating and sharing the beauty and goodness that’s all around us.

            And, in fact, when you really do look around, you see there really is a whole lot of cultivating going on!

            Here at St. Paul’s, we’ve grown ever more welcoming and loving and generous – and we’ve just plain grown, with more people coming here more regularly, enriching us all as we pray and serve together, as we love God and one another.

            And, even out in our broken world, there’s a lot of cultivating going on out there, too.

            Being a bit of a news junkie, I kept up with current events even while on vacation. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that!

            For the past couple of weeks and, really, for many months now, most of us, no matter where we stand politically, have been engrossed by the doings of the President and his family.

            But, this week, a former President managed to make the news.

            Now, Jimmy Carter may not have been a great President, but he has certainly been our greatest former president ever, devoting the four decades of his long post-presidency not to enriching himself but to doing many good works, very much including Habitat for Humanity, cultivating soil for people by building new homes, creating a chance at a new and better life.

            So, there he was the other day, 92 year-old Jimmy Carter, recently recovered from brain cancer, hard at work building houses in Winnipeg, Canada, when, as you may have heard, he was overcome by dehydration and hospitalized.

            All the usual expressions of concern and hopes for a speedy recovery were issued and I’m sure newspapers and cable news dusted off their Carter obituaries, just in case this was the end of the road for the peanut farmer with the toothy grin from Plains, Georgia.

            But, no, as you may have seen, the next day, presumably pumped full of fluids, Jimmy Carter was back at work, cultivating soil by building a house for those in need and offering a powerful example, once again, of what it looks like to produce the sweet wine of God’s love.

            Speaking of wine, one last thing about our winery tour.

            Our bus driver was an older gentleman, an Irishman named Tom McDonough. He drove the bus and also along the way he offered running commentary over the P.A., telling us in his lilting brogue about the history and geography and economy of the wine country.

            Aside from the pleasant Irish accent, that’s all very standard for this kind of tour but what struck both Sue and me was how, after leading this tour probably many, many times, he still took such delight in what he and all of us were seeing and experiencing that day, admiring the rolling hills covered with row after row of vines, wondering at the beauty of the sunlight hitting San Francisco Bay as we drove over the magnificent Golden Gate, insisting that he really wanted us all to have just the most wonderful time.

            Mr. McDonough made such an impression on us that we referred back to him for the rest of the trip, imagining what Tom McDonough would say, especially when things didn’t go quite as we had planned.

            So, as we waited and waited for our delayed flight we imagined Tom saying something like, “Look at all these beautiful people here at the airport, so many eager to get to their destinations and reunite with their loved ones.”

            Or, “This long delay has given us an unexpected opportunity to explore the airport and discover all it has to offer!”

            And when our delayed flight became a canceled flight, we thought of Mr. McDonough expressing delight, “Isn’t it marvelous that we’ve been given a little more vacation?”

            Or, “What a treat that we get to experience another hotel, courtesy of United Airlines!”

            It may seem weird, but in his own seemingly small but actually very powerful way, Tom McDonough the bus driver cultivated the soil of our hearts, helping us to better appreciate the goodness and wonder of life even when things don’t go quite as planned.

            So, you know, maybe surprisingly this God of ours doesn’t really discriminate. God hopes for the best, generously offering God’s Word all over the place, offering the Word where it is likely to be well-received and offering God’s Word where it is likely to be rejected and wither away.

            Since God has chosen to be this kind of sower, it’s most important for us, with God’s help, to cultivate our own soil – and to cultivate the soil around us – so that God’s Word can really take root and, in and through our lives, we can truly produce the sweet wine of God’s love.

            Amen.

The Ongoing Redemption of the World

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

July 2, 2017

Year A, Proper 8: The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 28:5-9

Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18

Romans 6:12-23

Matthew 10:40-42

The Ongoing Redemption of the World

            It’s funny the things you remember, right?

            Years ago I happened to read an article written by an atheist. I don’t remember exactly what the piece was about but I remember that in it he declared that, of course, he didn’t believe in God, but that even if there were a God, this God would have long ago gotten bored by our predictability and disgusted by our bad behavior, and gone off somewhere and left us on our own.

            And you can kind of understand why he felt this way, right?

            I can almost imagine God getting fed up with us, particularly these days when our old and persistent sins of hatred and greed and cruelty and bigotry all seem to be very much on the loose.            

            Especially if you watch the news a lot, it can all seem quite depressing and hopeless.

            But, our faith and, I’d argue, our own experience, teach us that God has not given up on us, but that instead God continues to be at work in large ways and especially in seemingly small and easy to miss ways, doing what God always does, transforming hate into love, turning death into new life.

            In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus points to the infinite value of even small acts of generosity, even the simple act of offering a cup of cold water.

            And, so God invites us to be part of the great work of transforming hate into love and turning death into new life, one cup of cold water at a time.

            It’s funny, the things you remember.

            Back in the early to mid-1990’s I taught History at St. Vincent Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school right in the middle of the Central Ward of Newark.

            I remember very well when I went there for my interview.

            I remember riding the bus from Penn Station up Market Street, looking out the window at block after block of rubble-strewn lots, a city that had barely begun to recover from the 1967 riots and economic collapse.

            It all looked as hopeless as could be.

            What was I getting myself into, I wondered.

            Well, anyway, my interview that day was the longest and still the best of my life.

            I spent much of the day talking with Sister June who was - and still is - the head of the school.

            She told me the story of St. Vincent’s - the story of how back in the late ‘60s, when pretty much everyone who could get out of Newark was getting out of Newark, when schools and other institutions were closing or fleeing to the suburbs, the Sisters of Charity and their coworkers made the brave and faithful commitment to stay in the city and offer a quality education to the girls of Newark and the surrounding towns, girls, who, let’s just say it, the world dismissed as really not worth much effort at all.

            But, through the grim days of the 1970s and 1980s and into the 1990s, the faculty and administration of St. Vincent’s offered love and respect and, maybe most important of all, high expectations, to hundreds and hundreds of girls.

            One cup of cold water, at a time.

            It was an honor to play a small part in that holy and noble effort and, now, thanks the miracle of Facebook, I’ve been able to catch up with quite a few of the girls I taught back then.            

            To be honest, it’s a little shocking that they’ve begun to enter their forties!

             But, it is deeply moving to see many of them doing so well, now raising their own beautiful families and, most of all, it is gratifying that so many of them are involved in work that makes the world a better place: teachers, doctors, nurses, scientists, lawyers committed to social justice, one after the other, so many of them, each in her own way, handing out cups of cold water to the so very thirsty people of their communities.

            And, look what’s happened to Newark!

            Today, if you take that same bus up Market Street that I took twenty-five plus years ago, the rubble-strewn lots have been replaced with rows of townhouses and new businesses and schools. It’s not perfect by any means but where there was hopelessness and death, there is now new life.

            Now, I’m not saying that this is because of St. Vincent’s, but I’m not saying it’s not because of St. Vincent’s, either.

            One more memory from my long-ago interview:

            Amid all the discussion of history and teaching, Sister June slipped in a little Theology, as well.

            She said that she saw her work and the mission of the school as part of “the ongoing redemption of the world.”

            “The ongoing redemption of the world.”

            As Christians, we believe that through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus redeemed the world, freed the world from sin and death.

            This work is already done, but it is not yet completed, since, as the atheist writer pointed out, and as we can all see with our own eyes, things are still pretty bad, sin and death are still very much on the loose in the world.

            And, that “not yet completed” part is where we come in.

            We’re called to live like we really believe what we say we believe.

            We called to live like sin and death are really defeated and that, ultimately, thanks be to the God who doesn’t give up on us, love and life win.

            And, that’s the way of life that beautiful little Isabell is about to get signed up for in the water of Baptism, that’s the way of Jesus that we all signed up for, or got signed up for, in our Baptism.

            When we share the Good News, when we forgive and ask forgiveness, when we love and respect one another especially the hard to love and the hard to respect, when we give away our lives in service to others, then love and life really do win.

            Like those brave and faithful nuns and the other teachers at St. Vincent’s back in the seemingly God-forsaken Newark of the late ‘60s, with God’s help, Isabell and all of us can decide to play our own seemingly small but oh-so-important part in the ongoing redemption of the world, right here, offering one cup of cold water at a time.

            Amen.

            

Rooted in Jesus

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

June 25, 2017

Year A, Proper 7: The Third Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 20:7-13

Psalm 69:8-20

Romans 6:1b-11

Matthew 10:24-39

Rooted in Jesus

            Some of you know that this past week my Dad and I took a trip to Baltimore.

            Because we were there primarily to see a couple of baseball games, we stayed in a hotel just a block away from Camden Yards, the beautiful ballpark home of the Orioles.

            Despite the fact that the Orioles aren’t playing very well, we still had a great time, though there was one scare.

            On our second evening there, we had just settled into our seats at the ballpark when suddenly a police helicopter began hovering over us, soon joined by a couple of TV news helicopters.

            You can imagine the noise as they circled around us.

            At first I didn’t know what was going on, but then I noticed over behind left field what looked like smoke coming from the area of our hotel.

            Being just a bit of a worrier, sure enough I began to worry.

            With everything going on in the world and in our country, my thoughts quickly turned to possible terrorism, since a big crowd of people heading to a ballpark might be a tempting target.

            Then I overheard a couple of people behind us say that, yeah, they had trouble getting to the ballpark because there was, “a big fire at the hotel over there.”

            I don’t think my dad heard that and I didn’t say anything to him, but I felt that dreadful drop in my stomach, as my imagination ran wild with visions of fire consuming our hotel and all of our stuff, including my car keys that I had left behind in the room!

            Trying with mixed success to keep calm, I used my phone to search for news on what was happening.

            After a few nervous minutes, I found it: there had been a steam explosion under the street outside our hotel.

            Almost immediately after I figured out what was going on, my sister texted me, frightened because she had received a notice at work about an explosion near Camden Yards in Baltimore.

            Later we’d see that the explosion had left a wide crater right in the middle of the street and spewed debris up onto our hotel and the surrounding buildings, with chunks of asphalt and concrete smashing several car windows.

            The steam was so hot that the fire department had to hose down our hotel to prevent its façade from melting.

            Amazingly and fortunately, there were only five minor injuries.
            And, one other thing that I noticed: the trees along that street were all kind of small and ordinary, kind of scraggly, and yet they all did just fine, with just a layer of dust covering their leaves and branches.

            Apparently, their strong roots got them through the powerful blast.

            The next day, when we were both interviewed by the local media (I don’t want to say that we became minor celebrities, but…), we reflected on the randomness of the whole experience. We had walked by that very spot just an hour or so before the explosion.

            And, in the days since, I’ve thought back to those moments of fear, when I didn’t know what was going on, what was going to happen, when I feared the worst.

            And, you know, those few fearful moments gave me just a taste of the fear that so many people experience so much of the time.

            There’s a lot of fear going around, right?

            There’s certainly a lot of fear all around the world, fear of war and terrorism, fear of environmental catastrophe, of climate change tipping past the point of no return, dooming our children and their children to a much hotter and stormy world.

            There’s certainly a lot of fear here in our country, fear of losing a job or not being able to find a job, fear of being priced out of our home and our neighborhood, fear of sickness, fear especially these days of losing health insurance and not being able to get covered because we don’t have enough money or because we have a preexisting condition – and, let’s face it, if they look hard enough, they’ll find a preexisting condition in each and every one of us.

            There may even be fear here in church, fear of the changes that have already occurred – new people and new ways of doing things – and fear of the very big news that we first learned last weekend – that our brothers and sisters at Church of the Incarnation have voted to begin conversations about uniting with us.

            Now, things may not be quite so bad as the days of the Prophet Jeremiah when he heard people whispering, “Terror is all around!” but there’s no doubt there is a lot of fear going around.

            In today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew gives us kind of a mixed bag of Jesus sayings, and some of them are a little hard for us to hear or understand.

            But, the core of today’s lesson is the simple but oh-so-important and timely message from Jesus: “Do not be afraid.”

            Do not be afraid when the world around us seems to be going to hell.

            Do not be afraid when the street explodes and helicopters hover.

            Do not be afraid when we’re in danger of losing home or job.

            Do not be afraid when two churches start on the road to becoming one.

            Do not be afraid even when it looks like we might lose our very lives.

            Do not be afraid, because we are loved, so very loved, and of more value than many sparrows (with all due respect to the sparrows), and God will never, ever, let go of us, no matter what.

            That’s always a good message, right? But, let’s be honest. Being not afraid is easier said than done, right?
            I don’t know about you, but when someone says to me, “Don’t be afraid,” I get afraid.

            When someone says, “Don’t panic,” I panic!

            So, how? How can we be not afraid and face the future with confidence?

            Well, I think of those scraggly trees in Baltimore with roots strong enough to survive the powerful blast.

            We’re not trees, of course, but we can be rooted in Jesus, giving us the strength to stand tall together and get through the storms and explosions of life.

            And, that’s what we’re about here at St. Paul’s.

            Here in this safe and holy place, behind the protection of these four walls, we become rooted in Jesus.

            We’re rooted in Jesus through our Baptism.

            We’re rooted in Jesus when we really read - really listen to - Scripture.

            We’re rooted in Jesus when we pray for those in need, when we pray for at least some of the frightened people beside us and out in our broken world.

            We’re rooted in Jesus when we extend a hand of peace not just to the people we know or like but especially to those we don’t know and maybe don’t like one bit.

            We’re rooted in Jesus when we eat the Bread and drink the Wine, uniting with Jesus and with one another.

            We’re rooted in Jesus when we take up our cross,  not waiting to be asked to help out but  offering ourselves and our skills and our work and out time in loving service to our community.

            We’re rooted in Jesus when we at least try to love the people who drive us up the wall.

            When we’re rooted in Jesus, although bad stuff will still happen, there is nothing to fear.

            Yes, there will be real challenges when we walk out through the church doors – sometimes even just into coffee hour.

            Yes, there will be real challenges when we go out into the world which is often not so holy or safe – out into the world with all of its uncertainties and dangers, when sometimes steam pipes blow up and health insurance is lost, the world where people get hurt and things get broken and not everything can be put back together the same as before.

            So, that’s why it’s so important to be here, not just once in a while, but as often as we can, because it’s especially here in this holy and safe place that we put down deep roots in Jesus.

            And then, like those scraggly trees in Baltimore, in the eyes of the world we may not look like much, but rooted in Jesus – loved by the God who will never, ever, let go of us - there is nothing, nothing, to fear.

            Amen.