You Are God's Beloved Child

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC; 10^th 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 “Papa”⁵. 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 25^th 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.

1 Note: For more about the community garden, see http://goldsborodailynews.com/blog/2016/06/08/salvation-army-community-garden-goodness-grows/

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.

Action, Distraction, Focus

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC; 9^th 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 Jesus, author 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 1^st 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.

How Do You Respond to Change?

Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC; 8^th Sunday after Pentecost, 10 July 2016

Proper 10 Year C RCL: Amos 7:7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37

Remember the scene in The Titanic when they first see the iceberg? Recall the utter horror of their realization? Think of the desperate efforts of the Titanic’s crew to stop that ship, to change course. It is too late.

Human pride to show off how this ship can reach New York faster than anyone ever has brings on this disaster. Many wealthy passengers ignore the situation, refuse to wear life vests, refuse to get into lifeboats. They are sure they can keep doing what they do, not change their course of action & all will be well.

We see Amos face this challenge in our 1^st reading. Using a plumb line, God shows Amos the problem: God has built this wall – this people – designed to live aligned with God's love, God's justice, God's mercy. 

The people live totally out of line.

God sends Amos to tell the power structure what it does not want to hear. We hear Jesus challenge the lawyer to change, to live aligned with God’s will.

Change is difficult. Bestselling author & college professor Rhoda Janzen talks about changes she experiences through cancer & through leaving her Mennonite roots to worship in a Pentecostal church.

In her book, Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?, she says she thought changes in her life automatically changed her.¹ 

“But change doesn't work like that. Altered circumstances give us only the opportunity to change. We actually have to do the work. We have to make the decision to get things moving, & then we actually have to move them. We can't sit around & wait for other people to do our work for us. We can't even sit around waiting for God to do our work for us.”²

She says: “Change means I have to do something different!”³

Doing something different is the problem for people in Amos' day. Like the people on the Titanic, they do not stay the course to live as God calls them to live. Amos lives in a time of “military might, security, & economic & national prosperity”⁴.

Not a professional prophet,⁵ Amos shines the light of truth to show that the country lives with wide disparity, social injustice, cheating in the market place, & “shallow, meaningless piety⁶.”

We hear this shallow, meaningless piety when the king’s priest, Amaziah, says Bethel “is the king's sanctuary...it is a temple of the kingdom."  The king's sanctuary? A temple of the kingdom?

It is supposed to be God’s sanctuary, God’s temple.

It is supposed to be like this beautiful place where we worship: This beautiful Body of Christ that we call St. Francis is God's sanctuary, not mine, not one particular family's or special insider group's.

It's God's place where all are welcome.

When we reach out in love, open to God’s grace, we live aligned with God's Love.

This is the problem Amos must address to the power structure. As a paid professional in the power structure, Amaziah knows it is safer to tell leaders what they want to hear.

Amos is free to speak for the forgotten people, to speak truth to those who oppress the powerless⁷ & deny justice to the poor.

Amos makes it clear the power brokers neglect what we ask in our Collect today: that God let us know & understand what we ought to do & have the grace & power faithfully to accomplish it.

This is what Paul commends to the Colossians as he encourages them to hold to the truth & new life they have through Jesus, to stay the course. What they do matters.

What we do matters: within these walls, in our individual lives & beyond. This is what Jesus helps the lawyer see in today's Gospel:

God's love is for all people, all nations.

“...(A)cts of love are the final requirement of the law.”⁸

The law keeps the lawyer stuck. Jesus works to shift his perspective so that he can change course. The former Mennonite Rhoda Janzen speaks to this kind of change.

She says her core beliefs about church & people's role in church (are) “based on many years of scholarship, (and)...unlikely to change.⁹

“But,” she says, “I could assign them a different level of importance...God works through imperfect people,...imperfect churches,...imperfect faith.”¹⁰

She says: “I still (believe) that the idea of divine calling transcends the very barriers we use...categories of ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual orientation.” She asks: “How (can) we call it a divine calling if it (doesn't) supersede our own human categories?”¹¹

Jesus helps the lawyer & us see beyond our human categories, to see that God's love, mercy & justice supersede our categories of who are acceptable people we will help & who are outcasts we can convince ourselves to ignore.

Sometimes change is uncomfortable, as Janzen says. It can be

 hard to let another perspective supersede ours, as we hear in this erudite book on philosophy, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar. It says:

   The lookout on a battleship spies a light ahead off the starboard bow. The captain tells him to signal the other vessel, "Advise you change course 20 degrees immediately!"

   The answer comes back, “Advise you change course 20 degrees immediately!"

   The captain is furious. He signals, "I am a captain. We are on a collision course. Alter your course 20 degrees now!"

   The answer comes back, "I am a seaman second class, and I strongly urge you to alter your course 20 degrees."

   Now the captain is beside himself with rage. He signals, "I am a battleship!"

   The answer comes back, "I am a lighthouse." ¹²

Lighthouses withstand storms, rough waves, strong winds.

Lighthouse have to stay aligned.

Lighthouses have to be tended* to keep shining light, to keep others safe in the winds of change.

Jesus is our lighthouse*, shining forth God’s love to guide us. Jesus calls you & me together & as individuals to shine the light of God’s love.

Like Amos, we are to shine the light of truth on the disconnect between the power structure & people, the disconnect between what God says to do & what we do.

We are change agents. Like Jesus, like Amos, we are to (proclaim that) “the world can be organized differently.”¹³

The world can be organized differently.

* We must tend our relationship with Jesus, our Lighthouse.

Bibliography

Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. New York: Paulist Press. 1984.

Book of Common Prayer. New York: The Church Hymnal Corp., and The Seabury Press. 1979.

Brueggemann, Walter. Journey to the Common Good. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 2010.

Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination. 2^nd Ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2001.

Cathcart, Thomas. Daniel Klein. Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes. New York: The Penguin Group. 2007.

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.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plumb%20line Accessed: 6 July 2016.

Janzen, Rhoda. Does This Church Make Me Look Fat? A Mennonite Finds Faith, Meets Mr. Right, and Solves Her Lady Problems. New York: Grand Central Publishing. 2012.

Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.

Levenson, Jon D. Sinai & Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible. Minneapolis: A Seabury Book. Winston Press. 1985.

Matthews, Victor H. Social World of the Hebrew Prophets. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. 2001.

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 Janzen, Rhoda. Does This Church Make Me Look Fat? A Mennonite Finds Faith, Meets Mr. Right, and Solves Her Lady Problems. P. 125.

2 Ibid. Pp. 125-126.

3 Ibid. P. 126.

4 Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. P. 1107.

5 Class notes by Dr. Anathea Poitier-Young for Old Testaments Prophets class. School of Theology, The University of the South. Summer 2010.

6 New Oxford Annotated Bible. P. 1107.

7 Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. P. 1180.

8 New Oxford Annotated Bible. P. 1260.

9 Janzen. Does This Church. P. 128.

10 Ibid. 128-129.

11 Ibid.

12 Cathcart, Thomas. Daniel Klein. Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes. P. 179.

13 Brueggemann, Walter. Journey to the Common Good. P. 55.