Sunday, July 31, 2016

Consider Well the Mercies of the Lord

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St. Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC; 11th Sunday after Pentecost, 31 July. 2016
Proper 13 Year C RCL: Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9, 43; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21
Once upon a time there were 2 grown children of God who had a cardboard box labeled “Can't part with junk.”. . . .
I thank God that my husband & I don’t still have that box of junk! It made several moves with us. It sat in one of our many storage spaces in our house. We had 4 walk-in closets stuffed full, 2 attics of stuff, & other storage areas stuffed with stuff. Feeling crowded some years ago, we spoke of renting a storage unit. We stunned ourselves into silence.
We started sorting, donating, throwing out, recycling. [This made your volunteer labors a LOT LESS as you helped us unload when we moved here this year!]
We did not consider tearing down the house to build it bigger like the man in our Gospel. I feel embarrassed at how closely we may have fit the mindset of the rich man in Jesus' parable.
I feel sad about the rich man. His greed is so self-focused. He ignores the possibility of sharing some of his crops with family, with neighbors.
Would you be gutsy enough to suggest that he give some to strangers or to God?
He wants to “relax, eat, drink, be merry”. With whom?
How much more satisfying it is to eat, drink & be merry with a house full of family & friends like we experience at our parish suppers.
How enriching for the soul, how merry for the spirit when we are generous to family, neighbors, God, & strangers. [I saw your generosity to strangers yesterday at the Soup Kitchen.]
This poor “rich man” is to be pitied. He is poor. He is sick in his soul. He is not rich toward God or anyone. Greed makes him poor in happiness, poor in relationships.
Like the man who tells Jesus to tell his brother to share with him, the rich man breaks relationships with family, friends & God. This is the kind of brokenness Hosea talks about & Paul enumerates in his list of sins, calling greed idolatry.
Greed & other sins separate us from God rather than our humanness separating us. As humans we are made in God's image. Sin distorts God’s image in us & makes our souls sick.
The rich man in Jesus' parable is sick: He's anemic in spirit. He has limited vision, tunnel vision. His perspective is far from God's. He's like another rich man I read about in Plato & a Platpus Walk into a Bar... by Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein.
This rich man knows he is dying & has a visit from an angel,1 & I paraphrase in parts:
He has worked very hard for his money & is really upset about having to leave it. He has started praying, asking to take some of his wealth with him. The angel appears & says he can't. He begs the angel to talk to God & ask if God will bend the rules. The angel goes, reappears, and – surprisingly – God has agreed to allow him to bring one suitcase. [The man doesn't argue & say, “Please, Sir, give me more!”] The man gets his biggest suitcase, fills it with pure gold bars & sets it beside his bed. [I imagine his hand tightly gripping the handle.]
He dies & arrives at the pearly gates with his suitcase. St. Peters says: “Whoa! You can't bring that in here!”
He says he has permission & asks St. Peter to verify this with God. Pete leaves, returns & says: “You're right. You are allowed one carry-on, but I'm supposed to check its contents here at the gate…”
St. Peter opens the suitcase to inspect the worldly things the rich man finds too precious to leave behind. He looks inside. He looks closer at all those bars of gold & exclaims:

You brought pavement!?”
When your streets are paved in gold, things look different. Things look different to this rich man. Like the rich man in Jesus' parable this rich man is sick, anemic in spirit. He has tunnel vision: his perspective is far from God's. He's rich but not rich toward God.
What does it look like to be rich toward God? I witnessed richness toward God as you worked yesterday at the Soup Kitchen, respecting the dignity of every person.
Richness toward God, is staying the course, “through the good & bad times...It's more than what you put in the offering plate...,”2 as The Hip Hop Prayer Book tells us.
Our scriptures today tell us how generous & loyal God is to us & how humans fail to be generous & loyal to each other & to God. Hosea tells us God won't give up on us as God did with Admah or Zeboiim, cities totally destroyed with their neighbors Sodom & Gomorrah.3  Hosea says: the “difference between God & humans...involves (God's) capacity for radical forgiving love.”4
As Children of God, you & I can grow our capacity for radical, forgiving love through the grace we have from Jesus. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide us, to help us grow this capacity.
Think of these 5 aspects to nurture our capacity for radical, forgiving love: 1. Recognize the blessings we have from God & give thanks for our blessings.
2. Share these blessings.
3. Nurture your relationship with God & the Body of Christ.
4. Nourish your relationship through the sacraments.
5. Stay grounded in the scriptures & in the sacraments. 
God gives us the sacraments & the scriptures for our health – our spiritual & our physical health.
As our Psalm says:
Whoever is wise will ponder these things, &
consider well the mercies of the Lord.”


Bibliography
Cathcart, Thomas. Daniel Klein. Plato and a Platpus Walk into a Bar...:Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes. New York: Books. The Penguin Group. 2007.
Harper’s Bible Dictionary. General Ed.: Paul J. Achetemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1985.
The Hip Hop Prayer Book. Ed.-in-Chief: The Rev. Timothy Holder. New York: HipHopEMass.org. 2006.
Holy Bible with the Apocrypha. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. Eds.: Herbert G. May, Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1977.
Poitier-Young, Anathea. Old Testaments Prophets class notes. The School of Theology, The University of the South Advanced Degrees Program. Summer 2010.


1 Cathcart, Thomas. Daniel Klein. Plato and a Platpus Walk into a Bar... Pp. 177-178.
2 The Hip Hop Prayer Book. Ed.-in-Chief: The Rev. Timothy Holder. P.123.
3 Jewish Study Bible. P. 1161.

4 Harper’s Bible Dictionary. P. 714

Sunday, July 24, 2016

You Are God's Beloved Child

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St. Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC; 10th Sunday after Pentecost, 24 July 2016
Proper 12 Year C RCL: Hosea 1:2-10; Psalm 85; Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19); Luke 11:1-13

The Gardner's Prayer: Oh Lord, grant that my garden may have a little rain every day, say from about 3 o'clock in the morning until 5 A.M...Make it gentle & warm so that it can soak in. Grant that there may be plenty of dew & little wind, enough worms, no plant lice or snails, no mildew...And, that once-a-week thin liquid manure & guano may fall from Heaven! Amen”
What difference do you notice in the focus of the amusing Gardener's Prayer & the prayer Jesus teaches us in our Gospel?
I want to ask the gardener:
What about praying for the garden we have here at St. Francis Church? What about Stan's garden?
What about The Salvation Army's community garden created to build community1?

In the prayer Jesus teaches, he tells us about community, about relationship & concern for others. Intimate family relationship2 is at the heart of our scriptures today. God makes us for holy relationship with God & with each other.
You are God's beloved child.
The tension we hear in our scriptures is people staying true to God & people drifting away from a faithful relationship with God. Our scriptures share the element of hope: the hope of restoring right relationship,3 of living as God’s faithful people, as children of the living God.
Jesus emphasizes this close, holy, family relationship in the words he teaches us to pray. In Luke’s shorter version (& in Matthew’s version we pray each Sunday), Jesus tells us to talk to God like a beloved child, to call God “Daddy” / “Papa”.
The Aramaic word we translate as “Father” is less formal. Jesus tells the disciples to pray: “Abba,” the tender, endearing variation of the word “ab”4 that means “father.” Abba is “Papa5. We are to talk to God on this level of relationship.
This imagery is hard for some of us who have emotional & physical hurts from parents, from people who do give us a snake instead of a fish, a scorpion instead of an egg. You who have this hurt know the brokenness of human relationships. You know the kind of brokenness Hosea talks about.
Whether his story is literal or figurative,6 Hosea tells us about human failings between individuals & our failings in our relationship to God.
God makes Holy Relationship possible.
Paul tells the Colossians & us that God initiates this loving relationship; we respond. God makes you alive through Jesus. God forgives your sins, erases your record, nails it to the cross. Your job – our job – is to accept God’s forgiveness & let go of the past. Let go of our old perspective that trips us up & hinders our loving, holy relationship with God & with each other.
All sin. Each of us has sinned & has been sinned against. We say in our Psalm today: You have forgiven the iniquity of your people & blotted out all their sins...I will listen to what the LORD God is saying, for he is speaking peace to his faithful people…” God is speaking peace.
Know this: “Shalom”, the Hebrew word for “peace”, carries deeper meaning than simply absence of conflict. Shalom is a gift from God, as Harper's Bible Dictionary says7, & encompasses well-being & wholeness.
Notice the broader perspective Jesus gives about how to forgive. The Aramaic words of Jesus go beyond our words “forgive debts / sins / trespasses”. Jesus' words suggest an archer missing the mark,8 & these ideas “for a deeper letting go”:9
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.

Forgive our hidden past, the secret shames,
as we consistently forgive what others hide.

Compost our inner, stolen fruit
as we forgive others the spoils of their trespassing.”10

Jesus expresses deep levels of forgiveness that evoke returning something “to its original state.”11 Our original state is not that we are sinners. Our original state is the image of God.
God, the Holy Trinity, is Holy Community,
Holy Relationship.
God makes us for holy relationship with God
with each other.
Jesus tells us of this in his words about forgiveness that can imply “reciprocally absorb,” “reestablish slender ties”.12 
This is what Hosea demonstrates as he takes into his own life a wayward wife & lives the brokenness of his people. [You know Bible names carry meaning. Hosea means Salvation or Deliverance13.]
For us to forgive everyone indebted to us means sometimes we have to forgive again & again as we process the hurt so that we can let go the chords we hold tightly, binding that hurt to our hearts & our minds.
And we have to forgive ourselves. This can be hard.
If forgiveness is hard for you, what difference might it make at this part of the Lord’s Prayer to release the clinched grip we often use
in prayer & open your hands up to God? “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
It can be hard to remember what we ask God when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, saying the familiar words without thinking.

Jesus’ words in Aramaic resonate on many levels, as we read in this book, Prayers of the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz.  As I say more familiar words from Luke's Gospel, please respond with the words in italics in your bulletin insert: Father, hallowed be your name: Papa, “...In peace (your) Name resides...giving light to all.”14
Your kingdom come: Create your reign of unity now – through our fiery hearts & willing hands...”15
Give us each day our daily bread: Grant what we need each day in bread & insight...16
And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us: Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.”17
And do not bring us to the time of trial: Don't let surface things delude us, but free us from what holds us back...”18

Don't let surface things delude us, but free us from what holds us back...”19

...free us from what holds us back...”
Amen.

Bibliography
Douglas-Klotz, Neil. Prayers of the Cosmos: Reflections on the Original Meaning of Jesus's Words. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. 1990.
Handy Dictionary of the Bible. General Ed.: Merrill C. Tenney. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. 1965.
Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.
Harper’s Bible Dictionary. General Ed.: PaulJ. Achetemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1985.
Holy Bible with the Apocrypha. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. Eds.: Herbert G. May, Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1977.
Poitier-Young, Anathea. Old Testaments Prophets class notes. The School of Theology, The University of the South Advanced Degrees Program. Summer 2010.
PrayAsYouGo. “Meditation for Thursday the 25th of July”. London: Jesuit Media Initiatives. http://pray-as-you-go.org/. Accessed: 25 July 2013.
Wise, Hilary. Barron's Arabic At a Glance. New York: Barron's Educational services, Inc. 1987.
Wortabet, John. Garvey Porter. Hippocrene Standard Dictionary: Arabic-English/English-Arabic. NewYork: The Unger Publishing Co. 1954.
Tarazi, Paul. “The Name of God: Abba.” Accessed: 27 July 2013. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/bible/tarazi_name_of_god.htm
Vick, Thomas. Goldsboro Daily News “Salvation Army “Community Garden: Where Goodness Grows”. http://goldsborodailynews.com/blog/2016/06/08/salvation-army-community-garden-goodness-grows/ Accessed: 23 July 2016.

2 Class notes. Dr. Anathea Poitier-Young's Old Testaments Prophets course. School of Theology. The University of the South. Summer 2010.
3 Note: Inspired by notes re Hosea's implications re restoration. Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. P. 1143.
4 Wise, Hilary. Barron's Arabic At a Glance. P. 233.
5 Wortabet, John. Garvey Porter. Hippocrene Standard Dictionary: Arabic-English/English-Arabic. P. 104.
6 Jewish Study Bible. Pp. 1144-1145.
7 Harper’s Bible Dictionary. General Ed.: Pau lJ. Achetemeier. P. 766.
8 Note: Concept in workshop notes at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Conyers, GA. July 2011.
9 Douglas-Klotz, Neil. Prayers of the Cosmos: Reflections on the Original Meaning of Jesus's Words. Pp. 30-31. Note: I became familiar with this at a retreat on the Lord's Prayer at the Trappist Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Conyers, GA.
10 Ibid. P. 30.
11 Ibid. P. 31.
12 Ibid.
13 New Oxford Annotated Bible. P. 1088.
14 Ibid. Prayers of the Cosmos. P. 16.
15 Ibid. P. 19.
16 Ibid. P. 26.
17 Ibid. P. 30.
18 Ibid. P. 34.

19 Ibid.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Action, Distraction, Focus

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St. Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC; 9th Sunday after Pentecost, 17 July 2016
Proper 11 Year C RCL: Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-4

Martha's busy-ness in our Gospel reminds me of this cookbook 

Being Dead Is No excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral[It would not have surprised me to have Martha listed in the book's credits!]
Some people know how to handle special occasions, how to attend to guests. Some of us work ourselves to death handling what's urgent so that we miss what is important.
Martha is right busy, & rightfully so, stirring up supper for Jesus & her other guests. She follows the laws of hospitality in her culture.1 What else is a hostess to do?
Creatively, in The Magdalene Gospel: Meeting Women Who Followed Jesusauthor Mary Ellen Ashcroft has Martha say these
words about her encounter with Jesus when she complains that she needs help in the kitchen:

When I spoke to Jesus, I expected a quick solution. I thought he would tell (Mary) to help me. I should have known him better. He knew this was no minor issue; in fact, it touched to the heart of who I was, how I was spending my life, what made me feel worthwhile. It touched the center of my relationship with God.2
So surprised at Jesus' response, she sits down, listens & realizes she can take a break from work to listen to Jesus, to learn, asks questions, ponder.3
Martha says: “The world would go on if we had a simple meal...I would learn to survive without compliments to feed me, without frantic efforts to prove myself...I could just be in the presence of (Jesus).”4
The author asks, “How many women have missed God's visitation – have swept (God) out of the kitchen because (God) was distracting them?...(We are) ALL...to put (our) discipleship first.”5
My Sisters & Brothers, we are ALL to put our discipleship first. The Gospel lesson is about ALL of us:
the Marthas & the Marys AND the Marks & the Matthews.

In Luke’s Gospel, we meet Jesus' disciple Matthew in chapter 6. Matthew has a ready will & a ready heart6 (as the Collect in Holy Women, Holy Men says for Sept. 21, the day we remember him). He is at work when Jesus calls him & immediately drops everything to follow Jesus,7 to be with Jesus.
Matthew’s Gospel teaches us about “faith & eternal life,”8 subjects Mary would relish to hear about as she sits at Jesus' feet. Matthew gives us a balance in his Gospel: he writes about “duties toward...neighbors, family, & even enemies.”9 The duties part sounds like Martha.

The disciple Mark is like Martha. He goes working “with Paul & Barnabas on their 1st missionary journey, but (for some reason) turns back,” which breaks their relationship.10  I hear in this echoes of Martha's to-do list, her complaining & irritation with Mary.

The Bible says the damage to the relationship of Mark & Paul does heal.11 Their relationship returns to balance.
Balance is the essence of today's scriptures. 
We hear people are out of balance in Amos' day, so caught up in to-dos to make money that they drift away from God. Paul tells us about the balance between heaven & earth, about the Mystery of God's Love that makes peace through the blood of Jesus on the hard wood of the cross. Paul tells us about heavenly thoughts & harsh realities.
Our news tells us about harsh realities.
We gather here & in private prayer to focus on heavenly thoughts, so that we can put our discipleship first, so that we can make a positive difference in this world's harsh realities.
The Gospel teaches us about balancing our to-do lists
& our contemplative lives.
In our busy lives we can reflect the beauty of God's handiwork, cherish & rely on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which gives us a profound spiritual anchor to stabilize us for joyous service for Jesus' sake.
My Brothers & Sisters, God's Beloved Marks & Matthews, God's Beloved Marthas & Marys, God guides us to balance in our lives.
Balance requires action & stillness. 
Balance is essential to life.
When it seems impossible to achieve balance, we must trust God to guide us.
We must wait upon the Lord.



Bibliography
Ashcroft, Mary Ellen. The Magdalene Gospel: Meeting Women Who followed Jesus. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. 2002.
Focus on Jesus”. http://www.sermons4kids.com/ Accessed: 14 July 2016.
Freeman, Lindsay Hardin. Bible Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter. USA: Forward Movement. 2015.
Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.
Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Holy Bible with the Apocrypha. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.
Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints. New York: Church Publishing. 2010.
Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Partnoy, Frank. Wait: The Art and Science of Delay. New York: Public Affairs (Perseus Book Group). 2012.
Whitley, Katerina Katsarka. Seeing for Ourselves: Biblical Women Who Met Jesus. Harrisburg: Morehouse Publishing. 2001.
New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. Eds.: Herbert G. May, Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1977.




1 Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. P. 1029.
2 Ashcroft, Mary Ellen. The Magdalene Gospel: Meeting Women Who Followed Jesus. P. 63.
3 Ibid. P. 64.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints. New York: Church Publishing. P. 597.
7 Ibid. P. 596.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid. P. 344.
11 Ibid.