Saint Mark's Blog

Rejoicing in the Commandments

2014-10-05T10:01:00.001-07:00

Pr. 22, Yr. A

Exodus 20:1-20; Psalm 19

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

10/5/14

Friday night, Roberta Goodman and I went to Temple Kol Ami's Kol Nidre service for the start of Yom Kippur, at the invitation of Lisa Sylvester, who, in addition to being our music director, serves as the High Holy Days music director for the synagogue. At one point in our worship, a number of members of the congregation were invited forward to reverently hold the Torah scrolls while a long prayer was sung, primarily by the cantor. These scrolls are large, and beautifully covered in rich fabrics, some with lovely embroidery, some adorned with intricately worked silver plates; I have to assume they are also fairly heavy. Although I didn’t understand the Hebrew words, I was overwhelmed by the looks of joy and love on the faces of those entrusted with holding the scrolls, by the notes of longing and faithfulness in the cantor’s voice, by the yearning in both the music and expression of the cellist accompanying the prayer. These scrolls, and by association the ancient words on them, represented not a burden but an honor, an intimate connection to Adonai, the creator and ruler of the vastness of all creation who also bends down to draw near to every human being.
In that moment, I was powerfully reminded that the commandments I so often reduce to a list that has all the thrill of a section of civil code are in fact the expression of God’s deep and abiding love for us and God’s desire for us to remain in this covenant as an intimate, dynamic, reciprocal relationship. These are not first of all a list of rules, some sort of deified cattle prod to keep us within the boundaries of civilized behavior..which is how a lot of us look at them. These are the result of engagement between no less than Almighty God and humans. Campaigns to post the 10 Commandments in courthouses and classrooms abound, but those miss the whole point: it's not that abiding by them creates people who will be good--and therefore somehow worthy of that relationship or poster children for the benefits of faith--but rather that the true value of the commandments is they reflect the covenantal bonds of an established relationship, a relationship in which our actions mirror those of the God who loves us.
Listen to this from the psalm: "The statutes of the Lord are just and rejoice the heart; * the commandment of the Lord is clear and gives light to the eyes." This isn't based in fear or intimidation, but in hope and delight with the expectation of blessing. I think that overall, that's an attitude that is a breath of fresh air in our culture. God's words--in these commandments and in the whole story we've been hearing for many weeks, from Abraham to Moses--God's words to the people of Israel release them from captivity and death, and lead them into life and freedom...and they can do the same for us.
We don't have to be prisoners to our calendars and technology that keeps us going 24/7; we have permission to take time for sabbath rest and renewal, to reconnect with the One who refreshes us. We can invite each other to let go of distorted cravings for the coolest car or biggest bank account or greatest travel destination; we're called instead to focus our attention on the constancy of the One who truly sustains us. We can offer up that which distorts meaning and falsely fills our voids; we have an invitation to draw near to the One who loves us most faithfully. I'm not suggesting that this is all easy, just that it's probably a more deeply satisfying, joyous way to live. Being in relationship with God is worth the effort!

Let us pray:
"With an eternal love You have loved the house of Israel Your people. You have taught us Torah and mitzvot, statutes that have ruled our lives since ancient days, judgments that form our sentences today. Lying down and rising up, Adonay our God, we shall strive to make your laws the substance of our speech, to exult forever in each word of Torah we can learn, in each commanded deed we can fulfill. By meditating on them we shall find the purpose of our days; by acting on them we shall learn how to lengthen life. In darkness and in light, may these words of Your love ever be upon our lips. Whatever our merit in our own eyes, may we never be deprived of your love. Help us to reciprocate Your love, Adonay, through our praise."
On Wings of Awe: A Fully Transliterated Machzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur , p. 255, revised edition, edited by Rabbi Richard Levy, Ktav Publishing.

New creation

2014-09-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

Pr. 14, Yr. A

Exodus 14:19-31

9/14/14

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

I want to be an Israelite. Not one of the whiny ones looking longingly back at slavery under Pharaoh as some sort of golden time--I'm gonna assume they were a vocal minority--but one of the rest of the host who were so grateful to have shed the shackles of their oppressors, those plagues a set of miracles if there ever was one. I want a pillar of fire to lead me by night and a pillar of cloud to have my back at day. I want the waters that threaten to engulf me to part down the middle and leave me with a comfortingly straight, dry path to traverse. I want to know I'm on the way to freedom, leaving behind all that enslaves me. I want someone to follow to the promised land.
By contrast, I don't want to be an Egyptian. I don't want the horror and heartbreak of plagues and the death of those I love. I don't want to feel like I have to be in pursuit of others, and I don't want to feel like I'm on the wrong side of what's right. I don't want to have my wheels clogged by mud and debris, and I most certainly don't want to drown in chaos and wash up on the shore while my enemies exult.
If only it was so clear, the good guys and the bad guys, and we all got to pick whose side we'd be on. That would be so easy. But we all know it doesn't happen that way. Sometimes good people become ensnared by chaos--of violence or poverty, disease or abuse, disaster or addiction, or simply because they were born in one place and time and not another--and they drown. And some people who act heinously, who show wanton disregard for the life and dignity of others, who think only of themselves and their own craven desires, sometimes they walk away unscathed. And almost all the time, the more closely we look, the harder it is to tell the good guys from the bad guys anyway. Some of the Israelites were probably gangsters and thieves, and some of the Egyptian soldiers men who just wanted to go home to quiet and peaceful lives with their families, every bit as far from Pharaoh's reach as the Israelites hoped to be.
Amazingly, out of this chaos and confusion, God brings a new creation. Light once again appears in the darkness; the same ruach--the Hebrew for spirit or wind--that stirred over the waters of the deep in Genesis blows mightily again here; and God separates the waters from the dry land. Exodus is no less than a new creation; the power that once brought something out of nothing now brings the new life of freedom out of the darkness of oppression. God has saved the Israelites and, by virtue of this miraculous crossing, transformed them into a new people on their way to the promised land.
It's not neat and tidy, though; new beginnings in scripture rarely are. As the wind blows and waters ebb and surge, as the cloud obscures vision, as the mud begins to entangle the chariots and their riders, we can feel how dangerous this passage is. The enormous magnitude of repression, of an old order, of sinfulness, requires an equally great force to break it. Though scripture is biased, for understandable reasons, toward the perspective of the "good" Israelites, the amount of violence and death in this whole Exodus saga is disturbing, and I can't justify it...but it does reflect the tumult and upheaval of complete change.
It's the same struggle we have with the crucifixion and resurrection. Couldn't Jesus have died nicely in old age surrounded by predictably faithful and highly competent disciples, then shown up alive again a few days later to send them forth? We know--deep in our bones we know--that the power of the defeat of death and of the destruction of the oppression of sin, of all that separates us from God, wouldn't be adequately represented if God had taken that route. Our longing for new life comes out of the reality of what we know of life before resurrection, that it's not neat and tidy, that the good guys and the bad guys aren't easy to distinguish and don't get what they deserve, that sometimes chaos and darkness disorient us and mud and debris confound our every move. Jesus's victory has to overcome the weight of that version of life to truly be new life, the start of a new creation. We are both the children of Israel led out of bondage into the land of promise and the offspring of Pharaoh whose greed and brutality and thirst for domination get drowned in the Red Sea.
As you come up for communion, lay your hand on this font, claim again this sign of the Red Sea through which we have passed. The Spirit moves over the water of baptism, and we're brought through death--not around, not over, but through death--to the new creation of the resurrection, following Jesus to God's promised land.

Partners

2014-09-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Pr. 17, Yr. A

Exodus 3:1-15; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

8/31/14

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

Seriously, what does God expect from humans? Peter, despite his best efforts, keeps getting it all wrong, and here Jesus is really taking him to task for his shortcomings and then going on with ridiculous demands about denying oneself and taking up a cross and losing one's life. Paul trots out a list of 30+ items detailing right behavior from wrong--anyone want the Cliff Notes version?--and yet this pillar of the faith elsewhere confesses he can't seem to do what's right and refrain from what's wrong, even when he wants to. Moses, by his own description in the next chapter of Exodus, says he's slow of speech and slow of tongue, and he certainly lacks confidence when God tags him. Plus what made God think that a good way to find a new leader was this weird burning bush trick? And that's just today's lessons; the bible has falls and floods, screw ups and sinners, denial and despair, and a whole lot of incompetent behavior. In our own lives, we have much the same experience, with our pain and sense of inadequacy or just plain insensitivity, our confusion and capacity to complicate things, our pride and our prejudices, our U-turns and wrong turns. Compared to God, we don't even live more than the blink of an eye. What on earth makes God think that humans are a wise choice for partners?
Sure, we have our good days. Mary and Joseph say yes, Noah and Daniel remain faithful, midwives outwit a power hungry pharaoh, the beloved disciple stays nearby, and the Good Samaritan stops to help a person who reviles him. We befriend the lonely, care for the needy, support the bereaved, speak up for those who have been silenced, and strive to be peace-makers and justice-bearers. Those are all very good, but when I weigh them next to the aforementioned shortcomings, I'm still left wondering: why has God chosen us as partners in creation?
Maybe it's because God is I Am Who I Am. God just is, and has been, and will be, and thus has the presence and patience to hang out with us. God doesn't need us to be good so that God will feel better or have a sense of personal fulfillment or for endorsement of the success of creation; God already contains all that and more within Godself. But God obviously wants interaction, wants relationship, wants reciprocal love; and, dare I suggest, also wants discovery? I imagine God saying, "I Am...and who are you?" with the same joyous wonder that we might experience looking at a young person and watching who she or he grows up to be. At the very heart of God's love shown to us in Jesus is an unconditional acceptance that also longs for us to be more ourselves, and encourages us to set down the parts of ourselves that separate us from God and to embrace who we are as God calls forth our being.
God is still God whether we do well or totally goof up, whether we come through the fire or go up in flames. God has chosen to participate in a creation that has an element of unpredictability and that's messy...and humans are exhibit #1. When Moses says that he doesn't think God's plan to involve him is such a great idea, God doesn't try to convince Moses that he actually is qualified or that he shouldn't worry; instead, God tells Moses, "I will be with you." Not a vague presence in a vague way, but I--the God of your particular patriarchs and matriarchs--will be with you in the specific world you inhabit. I, the God of Peter and Paul, the God of Desmond and Rosa, the God of Michael and James, I will be with you…in Altadena and Ferguson and Montgomery and Soweto and Israel and Palestine and everywhere you go. Because I Am, you also shall be.
When we're at our best--loving and prayerful and peaceful and hospitable and humble and all those good ways of being that Paul suggests--we may not need that assurance, but the very fact we're at our best suggests that somewhere deep within us we remember it. When we're at our worst or at our lowest, maybe knowing that I Am is with us, that God has chosen to delight in our company, that God is inviting us to be partners in the unfolding creation of the world, maybe knowing all that will help us get through to the next day or month or year. Maybe knowing all that will remind us of the holy ground on which we stand, all the time, because God is with us, all the time, and we will find ourselves able to respond with a calling to a holy life: “Here I am.”

Reckless, ridiculous love

2014-08-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

Proper 13, Yr A

Genesis 32:22-31, Matthew 14:13-21

8/3/14

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

I don't know if there's one in each family, but there's likely to be one in every group: the person who packs for every eventuality. Just ask those who have been to our parish community camp on Catalina with me, and you'll know that I fall into that category. Need clothespins or sewing kit? Check with me. Need practically any kind of non-prescription medicine or first aid supply? I'm likely to have it. Spare shoelaces, extra hat, more batteries--AA, AAA, C, or D?--an extension cord, emergency mirror, matches, water purification tabs, duct tape, or rain poncho? Most likely in my duffel, which is very neatly packed so that I don't exceed my baggage limit.
So, given this inclination, I'm absolutely mystified as to how 5000 men plus women and children could possibly go to a deserted place far from town without at least snacks. Just the parents alone...that's like Parenting 101, that you never go anywhere without food. How could they be so irresponsible? And isn't Jesus enabling their careless behavior by making sure there's dinner even for those who rushed headlong out the door to follow him, without a thought for what they might need? He's robbed them and the disciples of the opportunity to learn an uncomfortable but important lesson about planning ahead! What have they done to deserve God's blessing?
Then there's Jacob. Cheater, liar, scoundrel...those are the stories we've heard about him this past month. At least last week he got his comeuppance when his uncle Laban outsmarted him and got not just 7 but 14 years of labor out of Jacob in order for him to get to marry Rachel, the woman of his dreams. Now he's going back home to face his brother Esau, the one he tricked out of both birthright and their father's blessing, and he's terrified because word has it that Esau is heading toward him with 400 of his own men. Improved, maybe, but still not quite an honorable man, he sends his wives, his maids, his kids, and all his goods across the river so that Esau will run into them first, and he plans to spend the night camping in the rear. Then along comes this mysterious stranger, and Jacob has the gall to try to wrestle a blessing out of him, too. After all he's done, shouldn't God make an example of him and teach him a lesson about the consequences of bad behavior? What has he done to deserve God's blessing?
I've said this before and I'll confess it again: I am far too quick to decide who is deserving and who isn't, who acted rightly and who screwed up, who ought to get a blessing and who...well, who shouldn't. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this tendency and in its corollary: being confident that I am on the right side of the equation most of the time. I wish it weren't so. I long to see others with a more charitable heart and mind. I try hard to do better, and over time maybe I even have made a little progress in that direction. But I find that part of my human nature is to imagine that God needs my help separating the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the weeds, the truth from the scams, the properly prepared from the woefully remiss. After all, what have they done to deserve God's blessings?
Maybe some of those parents were so busy rounding up their children for a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear Jesus that they forgot to grab the diaper bag. Maybe some of those men and women had their hands full already because they were assisting a person who no longer walked easily, or a friend who needed encouragement, or someone who might wander off the road along the way. Maybe some were skeptical that Jesus was going to have anything to say that was worth hearing and they figured they'd be back home before lunch...and then they allowed their minds to be changed and their hearts opened by his words and they stayed to hear more. Maybe others, in their absolutely completely over-the-top excitement at getting to see this miracle man they'd been hearing about, just didn't think beyond the moment of following him.
Fortunately, none of that mattered. The ones who were empty handed and the ones who had duffel bags full of supplies were equally fed. The skeptics and the super-excited all received more than enough. No one had to prove anything, show any documents, pass any tests. The only thing Jesus was enabling was a demonstration of God's reckless, ridiculous love, of God's desire for everyone to be fed and filled.
Likewise, God wasn't checking Jacob's credentials. Jacob wrestled 'til dawn, and we can believe that was a reflection of decades’ worth of wrestling. Are there any among us who haven't spent long nights struggling with the troubles of family or work, relationships, mental health, physical ailments, financial worries, fears of the future or regrets about the past? The price Jacob paid was forevermore manifested in his limp, but I think that was the cost of wrestling with life, not of the blessing. In that blessing, he was given a new identity, one that echoed all his past and offered hope for not only his future, but for generations to come. Like the rest of us, Jacob probably wanted that blessing on his own terms; what he got, after much struggle, was a blessing on God's terms, which I would guess are ultimately far different and better than any we might propose on our own. He didn't deserve it, and God indeed made an example of him, in God's reckless, ridiculous way of wanting everyone to be blessed.
We shouldn't mistake our inclination to draw boundaries and borders, to evaluate who's deserving and who's not, to put ourselves on the right side of every opinion, with God's way of being. God desires to feed everyone. God longs to bless each of us. God holds arms wide open to include all the world. That means Jacob, limping from his struggles but walking away with a new name and a renewed future. That means the disciples and 5000 men plus women and children, who didn't know what to do when dinner time rolled around and in less time than pizza delivery had leftovers to spare. That means the woman wearing the business suit sitting in the corner office and the guy with a hat in his hand standing at the freeway off ramp, both of them hungry and hurting. That means me and you. None of us deserve it, and that doesn't matter a bit: come, be fed, receive the blessing, and embrace the reckless, ridiculous love of God.

They Are Children

2014-07-21T09:29:00.002-07:00

Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139
Proper 11, Year A
7/20/14
The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

Dreams come in so many forms: Good ones, nightmares, realistic or ridiculous, some that seem so vivid we aren't sure when we awake if they were dreams or not.

Jacob is on the run. He'd connived with his mother, cheated his brother, and tricked his father. He won the family birthright and blessing, yet he seems to have lost out on life. No wonder he's dreaming. But it's not a nightmare--that would have been understandable under the circumstances--nor a vision grounded in his past experiences. Instead, in this thin place, this house of God and gate of heaven, God steps through the gate to speak to Jacob of the future. There's no rebuke for unsavory behavior or stipulations for earning the right to carry forward God's plan; God simply reassures Jacob that through him the promise will be continued and the families of the earth will be blessed in him and his offspring.

As is so often the case in scripture, God chooses to act in an ordinary, and unlikely, person, in this case a refugee fleeing for his life. Even the description of the blessing--"You and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth"--is so mundane; no longer is a comparison made to sparkling stars in the sky, as Abraham was promised, but only to plain old dirt. But stars or sand, the words are clear: "I am with you and will keep you wherever you go." Consider the power of that dream to sustain Jacob and his descendants as time went by; imagine the confidence and strength inspired by those words. Remembering that God is with you can change everything.

In recent weeks and months, our news has been full of stories of young refugee children, journeying without their parents, fleeing for their lives from places of violence and the constant threat of death, circumstances created by powers and events far beyond their control. No matter your thoughts about how they got here or where they should go next, these children and youth have arrived in our midst...in the case of Southern California, nearly 600 at Port Hueneme...and they are in need of hearing God's promise: "I am with you and will keep you wherever you go." As they face all the fears and challenges of being far from home, remembering that God is with them can change everything.

This weekend, Bishop Bruno, along with a broad interfaith coalition of religious leaders, has called upon us to pray for these young people and to open our hearts in compassion for them. They are ordinary kids, and right this moment they need our love. Their past isn't the issue, they don't have to earn the right, they just need us to be a sign of God's presence with them.

So, right now, we're going to take the opportunity to write letters reminding these children of God that they are precious in God's sight and ours. In so doing, we're joining with thousands of people of every faith. If you have a smartphone or tablet with you, I invite you to take it out now and go to www.theyarechildren.com . You'll see on the right side of the website how you can submit a letter online. If you don't have one, or you're like me and your thumbs stumble over the tiny keys, take one of the papers and pens that are being handed out and use that, and we'll pass them along for delivery.

You don't have to write anything fancy; simply express, in a couple of lines, love and and reassurance. I've put up a few phrases in Spanish if you want to use those; feel free to get up and look at them. Or draw a picture if you prefer! Just think about what it might help you to hear, what would remind you that God is with you always, wherever you go. If you need more inspiration, take a look at our psalm today, Psalm 139, and use some of those words to help you speak of security and hope. Let's offer these beloved children of God a dream to give them courage and strength for their future, and show them that God is in this place.

Here I Am

2014-06-30T10:05:00.001-07:00

Pr 8, Yr A

Genesis 22:1-14, Matthew 10:40-42

6/29/14

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

As a young child, my godmother regularly gave me Arch Books, short bible story books written in verse. I still have most of them, from King Solomon's Dream to The Lame Man Who Walked Again. Among these are such child-friendly favorites as "Stephen, the First Martyr," who as you'll remember was stoned to death, "Jeremiah and the Fall of Jerusalem," and "Two Cities that Burned"...a re-telling of Sodom and Gomorrah. So it's saying a lot when I tell you that even Arch Books didn't try to tackle today's story of Abraham and Isaac, which truly is one of the most disturbing in the whole bible. What on earth is it doing in Holy Scripture?
Abraham—who who has been promised by God that he'll be the father of a great nation—seems to have issues with endangering the very sons who will promote that future. Last week we heard the story of his sending his servant Hagar and Ishmael, the son he fathered with her, out into the wilderness to die after the birth of Isaac to his wife Sarah. Bam!...his chances at that great nation seemingly cut in half, although there's ultimately a promising outcome to that story. And here he is today, acquiescing to what seems to be the final blow to that promise: the command to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. The author of the passage really drives it home, too, with all those "your son, your only son," "his son," "my son" refrains. Abraham has shown his proclivity for arguing with God—he was the one who fought tooth and nail trying to save Sodom and Gomorrah, for example—so why doesn't he fight this time? Why doesn't he refuse? Instead, he struggles onward, side by side with his son, each step drawing him closer to a horrible conclusion.
One interpretation of this story is to frame it as a "just so" story to explain the transition from child sacrifice to animals—a prohibition indicated in several other places in the Hebrew Scriptures—in contrast to the tradition of surrounding cultures. But while that may be part of the reason it's here, and there's no doubt that the God of Abraham and Sarah abhors the death of any precious child, that seems too easy; it fails to weigh the troubling theological implications of the passage.
Another way to view this is as a story of faithfulness: Abraham's to God and, ultimately, God's to Abraham. Given that when God has called, Abraham's life has generally been turned upside down--you're going to a new land, you're going to be the father of a great nation, your elderly wife is going to have a baby--given that, Abraham might be excused for not answering enthusiastically when he hears God's voice. We really have nothing to tell us whether this was an all in "Here I am!" or a reluctant "Here I am...," but he does speak up. Despite it all, he continues to be in relationship with God, which really is what faithfulness is about. You don't have to like it or be submissive; it's simply that you don't turn away...and Abraham doesn't. Somehow, from somewhere deep inside himself, he trusts that God has his back. It's interesting that when Isaac calls out to query his dad about where the lamb is, Abraham also responds to him with "Here I am," though we can imagine with far more pain and panic in his voice. The connection between his relationship with God and his relationship with his son, his future, is solidified in that common answer. And finally, the deepest sense of relief flooding over him at the very. last. minute. when the angel of the Lord calls out his name again, not just once but twice to make sure he hears, and Abraham, his heart pounding and stomach churning and body shaking cries out in desperate hope, "Here I am."
It's the culmination of an entire lifetime of faithfulness, turning on the highest stakes possible for Abraham and for God. Abraham, obviously, wants Isaac alive...because he is the love of his life. God wants Isaac alive too...because Isaac is the life of his love for the people of Israel for generations yet to come. When God stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, God says, "Now I know." God has placed all hope, all trust, all the future in the hands of Abraham, and now God knows that confidence wasn't misplaced. God's trust isn't that Abraham will blindly obey or that God can coerce Abraham into an unthinkable action; God is confirming the solidity of the very foundation of the relationship upon which the future relies. There is not one iota of doubt about their mutual faithfulness.
That's about the best I can do with this passage. Even with that generous interpretation, I'm still troubled by the idea of God even asking Abraham, whom God loves, to be willing to sacrifice everything, though full disclosure requires I admit that I'm more matter of fact about it when God does the same with God's own son. Maybe because I think it's not too much to ask of God but I'm pretty certain that it would be impossible for me, so I'm left to wonder if there's any hope for me if I can't be as faithful as Abraham. Perhaps that's another aspect of the discomfort of this story: is it meant to be the measure by which the rest of us are judged?
Thanks be to God, then, for the good news in the gospel reading. Where the first reading seems to ask of me far, far more than I can imagine myself capable of, the gospel gives me hope again: "Jesus said...'Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing.'" [The Message] I can do that! I can get a drink, offer a bite, share a seat, give a hug, lend an ear, send a note, bring a can, make a call, say a word. It turns out that in God's longing for our faithfulness, our smallest acts and our biggest sacrifices are equally significant when done with love and trust. In our struggles and confusion, in our hurts and disappointments, in our joys and contentment, give us faith, O God, always to answer, "Here I am, Lord."

Staying Connected

2014-06-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

Trinity Sunday, Yr. A

Genesis 1

6/15/14

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

Both my sisters from out of town were visiting my mom last week, so I slept at her house on Tuesday night, on the sofa in the living room. When I awoke the next morning, I was looking up the wall beside me into a piece of artwork with a large swarm of butterflies seemingly captured in mid-flight. In the moment between sleeping and waking, that dreamy state in which the mind is set free from the constraints of reason, I envisioned myself in their midst, not a butterfly myself but floating through the air right along with them. This might sound a little weird, but it was a lovely way to start the day, to feel myself fully part of creation, rather than an observer looking at it from a step back.

Since then, I've been mulling over what our lives and our spirituality would be like if we could more often live that way, immersing ourselves in creation as was, I think, God's intention from the beginning, one of the truths reflected in the story of the Garden of Eden. How would our perspective and behaviors change, and how would we see our relationship with God in a broader way? How much more expansively would we see God? Setting ourselves within creation re-connects us...to everything.

If we understand ourselves to be connected, we perceive the world from within. When I do the opposite, distinguishing myself from all that's around me, I'm aware mostly of it's otherness, and as soon as I do that, I start judging: good/bad, beautiful/ugly, worthwhile/useless. But God says again and again that the world is good, so not only is categorizing like that pointless, but it blinds us to that intrinsic beauty. We make a quick evaluation, rather than taking time to find what's already been declared precious and amazing. Perhaps you've seen some of the astounding photographs, taken through high powered microscopes, of seemingly ordinary objects, both living and inanimate; they turn out to be breathtaking and often surprisingly familiar in their composition and structure. I'm pretty sure it's much the same when we take time to see one another up close too, and to allow ourselves to be seen that way...it's so much harder to dismiss each other when we see beyond our behaviors and outward appearances to our breathtaking inner loveliness.

If we understand ourselves to be connected, we're less likely to insulate ourselves from the consequences of our actions. When we acknowledge our inter-relatedness to the world around us, then that piece of litter on the ground, that bottle carelessly tossed in the garbage, that light left on, that wasted food all become our concern. Such little things individually, but our response to each gives us a chance to accept the responsibility of stepping more lightly and wisely. Think what you will about the ban on plastic grocery bags, but for me, it tipped the scales to get me to carry more permanent bags and to open my eyes to all the bread and cereal bags, previously thrown away, that now I'm re-using. Trace that back in the chain, and I'm leaving behind less trash and using less of everything that's required to get that plastic grocery bag into my hands...both of which I believe are good for the earth. God has set us as stewards of creation, not from outside the system but as part of it, and every one of us has many chances and choices to participate productively in the renewal and restoration of creation.

If we understand ourselves to be connected, we immerse ourselves in the joy of the Spirit permeating the world. You know that feeling when a piece of music, a painting or photograph or sculpture, a poem or a novel, an architectural design or an elegant piece of math or computer code--to each his own!--delights and transports you beyond yourself? That's a moment of entering into the dance of the Spirit who gives each of us creative gifts to share and to be appreciated. We can't force those experiences, but we can open ourselves to their possibility and rejoice in our discoveries.

Most especially, if we understand ourselves to be connected to God revealing Godself in creation, then we're deepening our relationship of love with the Creator. In opening our eyes to all that's around us, we more fully open our eyes to God; as we value all that God treasures, we allow ourselves to be part of that wondrous embrace.

That creating Love, continuously expressed by the Spirit, and perfectly revealed in the Son, is not something or someone we can confine to reason or wholly describe. We have 66 books of the Bible, three creeds, and hundreds of thousands of scholarly pages which try to communicate the essence and nature of God, as well as a long list of heresies sorting out what God isn't...and all those words still only provide glimpses of One who is so much more. They help, because we want to be able to share our experience of God, but they only partially express the fullness of God. God is magnificently larger and intricately more detailed, fabulously fluid and yet absolutely permanent, existing before all time and throughout all time. Believing in God isn't an intellectual exercise; it's our act of connectedness, of trust, of wholeheartedly taking flight with God who loves us.

On this Trinity Sunday, as we celebrate God known to us as the Creator, Restorer, and Sustainer of all life, as the One who invites us into life as full and passionate participants, may we join the song of creation in proclaiming with all love, with all trust, with all joy, "That's good!"

What Were You Expecting?

2014-06-03T12:49:00.002-07:00

Easter 7, Yr. A

Acts 1:6-14

6/1/14

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

"While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?'" (Acts 1:10) …Well, gosh, let's think:
Because they've never seen anyone be lifted up into a cloud and out of sight before?
Because the man they loved and who loved them was brutally killed, then showed up alive (something else they'd never seen before!), and now was slipping beyond their grasp again?
Because up toward heaven was the last place they'd seen him and it seemed as good a place as any to be watching in the hope that he'd return once more?
The Ascension is a tricky story. Taking it at absolute face value--perhaps you've seen some of the multitude of artworks that depict a cloud with just a pair of feet hanging down below--stretches the imagination but does provide a tidy explanation for what happened to Jesus, who was already in a resurrection body. On the other hand, dismissing the description as simply a classical literary technique for noting the exaltation of a hero fails to acknowledge the profound transformation into the Church that took place among the believers once Jesus was no longer bodily present.
A number of years ago, in one of those discussions that suddenly seems far more challenging than when it innocently starts, I found myself trying to explain the Ascension to a class of kindergarten students. They, reasonably enough, wanted to know what happened to Jesus after he was alive again. And where we ended up, with the gift of 6 year old creativity and a bit of Star Trek, was that he had been transported from this earth and even though how it happened was a mystery, what mattered was that now we would look for God anywhere, not just in Jesus. That works for me!
So back to those disciples staring up into the sky. This isn't the first time an angel has shown up in Luke's writings asking people what they're doing; when the women go to Jesus's tomb early in the morning, two men in dazzling clothes ask them why they're looking for the living among the dead. In both cases, those who loved Jesus are looking back to where they last saw him and are challenged by angels to move beyond what's past.
A week ago, Bob Honeychurch and I were talking about preaching today, and he mentioned he'd discovered it's sometimes called Expectation Sunday. That was news to me--and it's only a 36 word entry in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church!--but I really like the idea. "Expectation Sunday" holds forth the promise Jesus made to the apostles that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit had come upon them. Once they got past looking up toward heaven, between what we in retrospect call Ascension and Pentecost, they waited in expectation and prayer for this Spirit who would empower them to bear witness to all the world of God's love in Jesus Christ.
It's hard to uproot our feet and heads and hearts, to move away from the past. We know the past, whether we liked it or not; the future and even the present can seem fearful. Oftentimes we're still trying to recollect and make sense of what's behind us, sorting through and adding to our memories. You can imagine the conversations among the apostles in the upper room: "Remember the time..." "And how he then..." and "Did you see...?" and "What if we had...?" I'd guess all that was even flashing through their minds as they stared upward. And often staying put simply takes less energy than moving on.
THAT is why we wait in expectation for the Holy Spirit, each day, each year. Going forth as God's witnesses is more than we can do on our own, and God doesn't ask us to. I think that what God does ask of us is that we shift our gaze from up or down or those were the days or the way it used to be, and start looking around us with expectancy. Where is the Holy Spirit going to meet me today? Through whom will God send the Spirit's power? What will I do today, not on my own but with the help of the Spirit? How, in a time when it seems like I'm not able to do anything, is the Spirit's presence growing in me to empower me for the future?
The cool thing about expectation is that it doesn't presume already having the answers. It doesn't assume that how life worked out in the past is how it will turn out in the future. Expectation allows hope and vision and creativity and excitement. Sure, it can carry with it some anxiety or fear or dread...usually if we're anticipating the past negatively repeating itself...but we can hold that side by side with the positive feelings, offering them all to God as part of ourselves, as the package that makes each one of us in a wonderful way uniquely suited to be a witness to God's love.
I offer you a challenge for this week: wait with an attitude of intentional expectation. When you wake up in the morning, take time to ask God to open your heart and mind to receive the Spirit, and your eyes and ears to see and hear the Spirit in others. Invite the power of the Spirit to come into your life to strengthen and embolden you as a witness. Instead of standing still looking up, move forward looking around, even if only a step or two. In all of this, don't worry about results, about feeling like something's happening; simply wait with the expectation that in God's time the power of the Holy Spirit will come upon us, will continue to come upon us, and in ways big and small, we will change the world with our witness to God's mercy, justice, and love.

Free Our Bonds, Open Our Eyes

2014-05-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

Easter 3, Yr A

Ps. 116, Luke 24:13-35

5/4/14

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

"You have freed me from my bonds..." Psalm 116
I thought a lot about freeing bonds this week, because I borrowed Reynolds Cafferata's power steamer and started stripping the wallpaper in one bedroom. Let me tell you, nothing makes you think about bonds that need loosing like trying to get securely glued wallpaper off drywall! It's a painstaking process: steam too little and you only get tiny pieces and half layers; too much and you have a drippy mess that may take off the top of the drywall...and what's too little or too much in one area may not be in another. Once over doesn't do it; a lot of spots require repeat applications to get the last little bits. The spiky roll around thing and a scraper are essential tools, but use them with care because they too have the potential to create holes and gouges that will later have to be patched up. The steamer itself is a force to be reckoned with; at least 10 parts, each for a particular type of job, which must be securely connected lest scalding water shoot out everywhere. When motivation strikes, you first have to wait for the water to heat up, and after using it for 45 minutes, just when you're getting the hang of it, it runs out of water and you have to stop regardless of whether you want to or not.
On the other hand...once the process is completed, the results are a beauty to behold. Broad expanses of smooth, clean wall awaiting a new coat of paint, a new beginning for the room. In this case, the shift from childhood to maturity.
Not so different, really, from God freeing us from our bonds, helping us separate from that which entangles us or keeps us in pain, on our way to a more mature faith. It's messy, we can get burned, once through often doesn't do the job, the tools that help can also cause harm, and the timing isn't always convenient. Change is hard! But as we progress, what wonderful possibilities are revealed.
Because using a steamer is pretty mindless work, I had quite a bit of time to think about just what we might need God to free us from. If Facebook memes are an indicator, among the top ones would be lack of respect for oneself, holding on to the past, willing acceptance of mediocrity, and a negative attitude. Looking at Amazon's top sellers, we can add to the list bad habits of many sorts, addictions, toxic relationships, and letting our history determine our future.
Those actually make a pretty good starting point, and I'll add a few more. One is fear. Sometimes I think I hold onto fear because at least it's familiar and gives me something to grasp. Ironically, it somehow feels safe, even if not pleasant. Remember in last week's gospel, the disciples were behind locked doors in the upper room out of fear; in the shock and confusion of Jesus's crucifixion, they hunkered down. Fear gives the appearance of being about the future, but it's very short-sighted; in its grip, we can't see new possibilities or hope.
Another is idolatry, a word you don't hear often these days but which dominates our world. Idolatry is clinging to anything other than God to give us security and a sense of identity. Our false gods may be money or appearances, power or possessions; they can be believing that if we get "it" just right--whatever "it" may be--all will be well. Idolatry may be one of the dynamics in unhealthy relationships, or even in an excessive pride in rugged individualism where we act as if we are entirely on our own, rather than being interdependent with the community. If we orient ourselves to false gods, we don't have the breadth of vision to see the living and true God.
All those are just a handful of what entangles human beings; no doubt you can think up your own personal list. Really, they all fall under the categories of sin and death, those things which whether by our own choices or as part of being humans in a broken world separate us from God.
Today's gospel reading, about two disciples on the road to Emmaus, is a tale of bonds being loosed. They were trying to make sense of all that had happened with respect to Jesus and of the reports of his being alive again. When he joined them in their walk, they couldn't see him. Nothing suggests that they were anything other than two people of faith and good will, but their frame of reference was restricted by the old ways, and nothing in that past could prepare them--or anyone!--for this new Jesus. In interpreting scripture for them, Jesus began to give them a different understanding, to release them from the limitations of what they knew before, to free them from those bonds…and their hearts burned within them with the power of this process. Then, in a familiar action imbued with new meaning, in taking bread, blessing and breaking it, and giving it to them, he opened their eyes to new life. In love and relationship and nurture, he revealed himself as the preeminent sign of God's perfectly restored kingdom.
Last week, Carri challenged us to live as Easter people, to take our Easter discipline of living as disciples of the resurrected Lord as seriously as we took our Lenten discipline. I want to suggest a practical way to do that, to allow the possibility that God will free some of the bonds that hold us and open our eyes to new ways of being. Starting today, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho are beginning a 30 day forgiveness challenge. This is a daily email, with exercises to think and write about in private at your own pace, along with stories and interviews to inspire us. Their belief is that in taking steps to forgive ourselves and people who have hurt us, and in being freed from the bonds of anger and hurt and the desire for revenge, our eyes will be opened to see new connections and to participate in God's healing for the world. It could be messy, we could get burned, it might not seem like the timing is right, and 30 days once through won't change everything, but it's a start. If this sounds like something you want to try, go to the website at forgivenesschallenge.com to check it out and sign up. This is designed for people to do online, but if you'd like to participate and don't have a computer connection, let me know and we’ll figure something out.
So, whether by means of this challenge or any other way we allow God to be at work in us, what might we see when we’re freed from our bonds and our are eyes opened by God who calls us into God’s renewed and restored kingdom?

*Open our eyes, Lord, to the healing power of forgiveness.
*Open our eyes, Lord, to deep beauty, especially in the faces of those who have been deemed unattractive--of body, mind, or heart--by a judging world.
*Open our eyes, Lord, to talents and gifts, for sharing the Good News in collaborative, creative, and surprising ways.
*Open our eyes, Lord, to hope for the future in lives that have been circumscribed by despair or defeat.
*Open our eyes, Lord, to freedom, to be fully the unique child God has created each of us to be.
*Open our eyes, Lord, to your blessing and breaking, your love bursting forth in our lives.

I Believe...

2014-04-07T10:49:00.001-07:00

Lent 5, Yr. A

4/6/14

John 11:1-45, Ezekiel 37:1-14

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

Seventy-five years ago, Reb Azriel-David Festig was famous throughout Warsaw for his gifts as a singer and composer. On High Holy Days, people filled the synagogue where he and his brothers worshipped, Reb Azriel-David leading the prayers with his brothers as a choir. His strong, clear notes stirred the hearts and souls of all who heard him raising his voice to God.
He supported himself as a shopkeeper, but music was his true joy and calling, and his compositions made their way to synagogues across Poland. However, like millions of other Jews in Europe, Reb Azriel-David was caught in the horrors of Nazi persecution. Forced first to wear the yellow Star of David, then subjected to extreme discrimination and segregated in ghettos, in the summer and fall of 1942, thousands of Jewish people were removed from the Warsaw ghetto by train to the Treblinka extermination camp, Reb Azriel-David among them. Young and old were brutally packed into the suffocating confines of cattle cars, with no water and little air, and transported to Treblinka. During the several hour journey, the passengers sobbed and moaned, despairing of what awaited them.
Reb Azriel-David, however, was lost in prayer and contemplation when the words of the twelfth "principle of Jewish faith," from the medieval scholar Maimonides, suddenly came to mind: "I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and although he may tarry, nevertheless, I wait every day for him to come." As he meditated on the words and their meaning, he knew that his faith was being tested to the limit...at such a time as this, he told himself, when all appears lost, when there is no basis for hope, is when our people are called to hold most tightly to what we believe.
And then, from somewhere deep inside him, a quiet melody began to arise, blending perfectly with the words. Ignoring the press of people around him, eyes closed to look more clearly inward, he sang, oblivious to the silence that had descended upon the cattle car and to the hundreds of ears listening in amazement. He didn't even stir as voices began to join his, first in almost a whisper, and then with growing passion.
And so it was that the whole cattle-car, and then the entire train, crammed to overflowing with people who had every reason to give up hope, rolled along the tracks to death at Treblinka, their voices swelling as one: "I believe… in the coming of the Messiah…and although he may tarry…I wait every day"
By the time he became aware of the spirit that had come over those in the train car with him, Reb Azriel-David's face was stained with tears. He was convinced that the melody was the most perfect expression of the Jewish soul, reflecting a faith that even millennia of suffering and persecution couldn't extinguish. He was determined this song would not die here. And so he found two young men, strong enough and willing to risk jumping from the train in an attempt to carry it to his rabbi, who had escaped to America. With the help of others, they ripped off the boards covering a small window near the top of the train car, then pulled themselves through the opening and hurled themselves to the ground.
One of the young men died in the escape, but the other survived, and after the war's end, he made his way as instructed to the Rebbe of Modzitch, now in New York. He shared the story of the train and sang the melody that he'd brought with him from Reb Azriel-David. This song of faith, the Ani Ma'amin/"I Believe," is sung to this day, in times of joy, of repentance, and of sadness, a testament to the faith of those in the midst of suffering and a sign of the hope of a people: "I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and although he may tarry, nevertheless, I wait every day for him to come."
(adapted from http://vbm-torah.org/archive/shoah/27shoah.htm)
Like the Lord speaking through Ezekiel to those dusty, dry bones, Reb Azriel-David proclaimed hope. Like Martha meeting Jesus after the death of her brother, those grieving, battered souls on the train raised their voices to declare belief in the God who gives life. There is, and always has been, so much in our world that could cause us to doubt, to despair, to deny God; so much that can make us cynical or hard-hearted; so much that might cause us to lose our breath to speak up and speak out, to find our communities dis-membered. But there have been, and continue to be among us, those whose longing and passion and faith isn't extinguished. Some, like Desmond Tutu, speak to and for a nation and the world. Some, like our friends singing on a mountaintop in Haiti, don't know if they'll even be heard beyond their village. But they believe and proclaim this truth: the love and life of God cannot be contained. Bound up or nailed down, silenced or entombed, tarrying...but not destroyed, not defeated, not forever.
In the face of the power of death, of its sadness and stench, Jesus's voice called out for Lazarus and for us. He entered into our pain as he wept, grieving for his friend, for Martha and Mary, and for every life that's been torn apart by loss. And then, even as he was turning toward Jerusalem and his own agony, he called upon the God of redemption who had sent him into this world, and claimed God's power to release the dead. In his very being, he began to reconcile death and new life, despair and new hope, emptiness and new love. May we claim his example as our way, and with Ezekiel, Martha, and Azriel-David, may we believe.
[play Ani Ma’amin from Shekhina album, Congregation Bet Haverim, available on iTunes]

Beloved

2014-03-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

Lent 3, Yr A

John 4:5-42

3/23/14

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

They've called me:
Unclean
Samaritan
Married 5 times
Outsider
Worthless woman
Outcast
A burden
Cursed

I wish someone had called me by name.
Scripture's longest conversation with Jesus, and they couldn't even name me. No one knew who I really was, just The Woman at the Well.

Jesus didn't see you as
Unclean
A Samaritan
An outsider
Worthless
The wife of 5 men
An outcast
A burden
Cursed

Jesus saw you as
Thirsty and Longing
He saw you as Beloved, Child of God, the name each of us bears in his eyes.

She came to the well in the midday heat and sun, not in the cool of the morning with all the other women; just that tells us something about the difficulty of her life on the very fringe of the community. She'd had 5 husbands and now was living with a man who wasn't her husband; given her culture, it's a reasonable guess that she'd been widowed repeatedly and passed along to a succession of male relatives, probably with no children, seen as an obligation rather than an individual. She lived in the shadow of the conflict between the Jews and the Samaritans. She was, in the eyes of so many, a nobody.
This man at the well was the very last person she expected to draw her into conversation. But once he did, once she realized that somehow he knew all about her, all her longing to be seen as somebody welled up and spilled over into amazement, into a deep satisfaction that couldn't be contained. She left behind the empty, heavy jars of her past and rushed forth to tell others of this man who knew her, who quenched her thirst with living water.
Oh, what longing we have to be known. Truly, deeply, completely known. Not by the simple labels and assumptions that others put on us, or even by the ones we put on ourselves, but in all the complexity and contradictions of who we fully are, in the mix of our history and our hopes, in our greatest strengths and our greatest weaknesses...and, in that knowing, to be loved. But it's complicated. Who can we trust, and with whom will our truth not be safe? Who honestly wants to see beyond my surface, and if they do, how will they react? Do we even really believe that we are worth knowing, that we are beloved?
Although we long to be known and loved, our fears of being so vulnerable to hurt and of being misunderstood cause us to hide our selves, to create all sorts of barriers and facades, to live with the anxiety of being "found out" or unmasked. What if, when the layers are peeled back, we aren't good enough, or worse still, all that's seen is...nobody? Better perhaps, we might imagine, not to take that chance and instead keep the labels, keep the mask, let others think what they will, for better or worse. Even if, like the woman at the well, those labels isolate or denigrate us, even if they cause us to act as if we are less than beloved, even if they diminish the image of God within us. It can feel safer to hold onto our jars that are so quickly emptied, to stick with the way of being in the world that we already know.
Today's gospel offers us the good news that no matter how we appear to the rest of the world, how we put up a front, how we've been labeled, Jesus always sees through and knows us fully...and he never, ever finds nobody inside, because God has created each of us as a uniquely beloved child of God. He sees the deep truth of our life and satisfies our longing as nothing and no one else can. And in so doing, he reveals the truth about himself, that he has come to love us for who we have been and as we are now, with a holy vision of what we're becoming.
What a relief! This experience of being fully known, fully accepted, fully loved is so rare in our lives that I think most of us have to pause to imagine the gift it is. It's not part of our everyday experience...and yet it could be, because Jesus holds this understanding and love out to us all the time, inviting us to stand in his presence and drink deeply of his living water. All our labels are peeled away, all our pretenses dropped, all our past accepted, all our uniqueness lovingly revealed as we come to the One who alone can quench our thirst.
But of course, the gospel never stops there; the good news is never just for any one of us. Imagine the courage, the excitement, the passion it took for this woman to leave behind at the well the old jugs that could only provide momentary satisfaction, and to run back refreshed to the very people who for so long had discounted her, to tell them what he had done for her, to invite them into the same experience.
We're called to no less. As you leave today and pass by the font, I invite you to imagine leaving behind the jars of your past, the labels and masks and mistakes which have contained your life, and then to dip your fingers in the water that is the symbol of the new life we have in Jesus, of our being named and claimed as God's beloved. Let those waters quench your thirst, fill your longing, and refresh you to invite the world to come and see, to hear the voice of the one who knows each and every one of us, Beloved, Children of God.

Feast of the Presentation

2014-03-17T10:50:00.001-07:00

The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord Year A

Luke 2:22-40

Feb 2 2014

The Rev. Pete Berry

Almighty and ever-living God, we thank you for the coming of Christ’s light into the darkness that surrounds and sometimes seems to threaten it. Give us confidence and strength to boldly rekindle the fire of your love and carry it into the world. Amen.

One of the most remarkable books to come down to us from the early days of the Church was rediscovered in 1887 by an Italian scholar who found the manuscript in a monastic library in Arrezzo, Italy. It was missing the beginning and end but the middle that remains has proven essential in discovering the state of the liturgy in Palestine in the years 381-4. The Travels of Egeria, or sometimes called the Pilgrimage of Aetheria, is a firsthand account of her experiences as a religious tourist, her travels from Sinai to Constantinople and all over the Holy Land and Jerusalem. Many scholars think she was from Galicia in the northwest corner of Spain and alternatively she was often called Sylvia. The best guess was that she was one of the so-called “wandering monastics,” and her journal was written for the folks in her community back home. She sent it to them in the form of letters to invite them to share in her wondrous experience. It provides details of the incipient liturgical calendar and its cycle of feasts, at a time when the date of Christmas had not yet been universally accepted. This was very early in the history of the church, just 55 years since Christianity became the religion of the empire. She also specifically describes the celebration of the feast that WE celebrate today, the Feast of the Presentation. All the people gathered together in procession into the church, bearing candles to be blessed and carried out to bring the light of Christ into the world. Early on it was therefore also called Candlemas. Jesus is presented in the Temple and we encounter him there and then we present him to the world, bearing the light of Christ. That liturgy has remained basically unchanged since the 4th century and in fact was specifically re-affirmed during liturgical reclamation and renaissance and reform after Vatican 2.

Now what about the gospel for today? Those of us who have had children know that the experience unleashes a complex web of powerful emotions that impact all dimensions of our lives. In my own case, for example, it led me to return to the journey of faith that I had abandoned almost 2 decades earlier. And a little child shall lead them although nobody thinks of my son Matthew as little. In the story as it unfolds in Luke, the birth of the child Jesus is an occasion that evokes family, religious, and social traditions in many ways. Now -as I said a couple of weeks ago about the infancy stories, specifically in relationship to Matthew, these stories serve a definite purpose of framing the entire Gospel narrative, and setting the terms which will be revealed in the ministry of Jesus. They in a sense are prophetic foretastes and need to be dealt with much less as history, and much more as the transmitters of meaning – myth in the most positive sense of the word – the framework of what I called “Capital T Truth.” So what’s going on for Luke in this story?

In a very real sense this day marks the end of Christmastide – 40 days after the birth of a child a woman was expected to appear at the temple to offer post-partum sacrifice – a year-old lamb and a turtle dove – or if she was from the poor, two pigeons or doves were sufficient. So this tells us something about the Holy Family, I think, of their special affinity – and God’s, for those who are powerless on the edges. As you know, contact with anyone who had brushed against mystery—and there is certainly no greater mystery than birth or death—that encounter excluded a person from Jewish worship. So this custom was a way of making the mother ritually pure and welcoming her back into community. The practice was known as the qorban yoledet. The day was really about Mary, about her purification.

But Luke goes further. There was another tradition among the people of God at that time, known as pidyon ha-ben the redemption of a son. Incidentally there is no evidence anywhere except in Luke that these two rituals were celebrated together so we have to assume he conflated them to make a theological point, not that it actually happened as he describes. But what was this custom? We read in Exodus 13:1-2: "The LORD said to Moses, consecrate to me all the first-born; whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and beast, is mine." In Numbers 3:47-48 we read that the price of redeeming the first born was set at 5 shekels. So here we see Jesus and his family fully engaged in the traditions of the people of God as they fulfil the requirements of Mosaic Law. It is representative of the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Covenant.

There is another interesting fact about Candlemas Day as it has subsequently evolved. This day, Feb 2nd, Candlemas Day, was the day when some cultures predicted weather patterns. Farmers believed that the remainder of winter would be the opposite of whatever the weather was like on Candlemas Day. There is an old English song which goes like this:
If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Come winter, have another flight;
If Candlemas bring clouds and rain,
Go winter, and come not again.
So if the sun cast a shadow on Candlemas Day, more winter was on the way; if there was no shadow, winter was thought to be ending soon. Sound familiar? Has anybody heard what Punxsutawney Phil did today – or for that matter whether Bill Murray ever found February 3?

There are other ways that today’s gospel is the culmination of the Christmas season – we see it in the progression of the canticles of the season. We've heard the Song of Mary – The Magnificat. Mary, who for Luke is the personification of Israel, hears the fulfillment of prophecy to Abraham. God reverses human status and perception – he scatters the proud and sends the rich away empty. God exalts the lowly, fills the hungry, and walks hand-in hand with God’s people. We hear those exact themes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in the Beatitudes – which some have called the “State of the Union Address of the Kingdom.” And we see it lived out in Jesus ministry. But for Luke the words are as much for Mary personally. The second canticle – the Song of Zechariah – explicitly ties the fulfillment of the prophecy to the House of David. It broadens the target of God’s redeeming action, if you will, and extends salvation to the whole people of God. When Zechariah who had been struck dumb, is obedient to God’s instruction about naming John, his tongue is freed and the first words he utters a powerful song of praise to God just simply explodes. Then today the Song of Simeon, is the culmination of the progression. Each begins where the other ends. Mary sings her own born Messiah; Zechariah celebrates the triumph of Israel, and Simeon announces the hopes of the Gentiles. The three songs personify the same progression that Luke reveals in his entire 2-volume work that we call Luke-Acts.

Zechariah is an interesting character in the drama. Devout and righteous, filled by the spirit he knows that this infant is the awaited consolation of Israel nobody has to tell him. All the others in the infancy narratives are associated with celestial displays and angelic messengers and heavenly choirs, great signs and portents, but not Simeon. Without so much as a wave from a passing seraph, Simeon looks at this tiny scrap of baby and sees the salvation of the world – the first one to truly appreciate the enormity of it all. There’s one final touch because there is not just Simeon, there is the elderly widow Anna – she too began to praise God and speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Israel. Have you ever noticed that throughout Luke-Acts, men and women stand side-by-side before God, equal in God’s eyes and love, endowed by grace with the same gifts, and trusted with the same responsibilities? What a difference between this and the understandings of the traditional patriarchal society from which it sprang. Jesus indeed came to transform not just you, or me, but all society and all creation.

So what are we to make of this today and moving forward? First --the same spirit that rested on Simeon and provided support for his hope provided for its fulfillment in joy. Simeon encountered Jesus
In the worship of the Temple and religious custom and I think the same can be true for us. Of course we can come to know Jesus in many ways and I certainly would not want to limit God. But among the most powerful and reliable paths is through being a part of the community of faith, and its worship. If we would see Christ we must go to his Temple. More –we must be a part of the community that shares love with one another and thereby experiences the love of God.

Throughout this part of the Gospel, the two themes of prophesy and redemption are inextricably intertwined. In our spiritual journey we too experience the foreshadowing of things to come. Things seen only darkly now, and remaining to be more fully revealed. And as they are, they transform all that HAS been and prepare us for all that is yet to come. Transformation -- and redemption go hand in hand. Our mistakes, our fears, our sins of omissions and commission are embraced by Jesus and we are redeemed. The promise is fulfilled.

But -- invitation, understanding and ultimately the acceptance are a process. Sometimes I wish I had clarity of vision to see more of God’s redeeming work in the world around me, and that I could cultivate the courage and faith to proclaim it – to respond with Simeon’s words and truly know peace. The questions this story raises -- what can I do and what can the community do to see the light of Christ, to know redemption in Jesus, and make it known to all people.

I will resist the temptation of outlining what shape that might take, what it might look like for any of us. There is no programmed set of steps to lead us there. In preparing this sermon, I found a helpful reflection that speaks to this point. I’m a recovering pastor who has given up on formulas, methods, reading lists, conferences, priorities, action statements, discipleship plans, and participating in “call to action” mandates.
I’m learning a sweet contentment in the brief moments of epiphany in my own life…knowing they are real and praying for their continued unfolding in the world. I will serve quietly, love as best I can, and trust God with the rest.
AMEN.

Show Up, Stand Up, and Shine!

2014-02-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

Epiphany 5, Yr A

2/9/14

Matthew 5:13-20

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

I've always been a fan of the Olympics, and though at times the politics have tarnished their luster a bit, I hold on to my delight for a gathering of athletes who have worked so hard to arrive at that moment, who have dared to dream big and have the joy of seeing their dream realized. Friday night I sat down in front of the TV and settled in to watch the opening ceremonies. I'm a sucker for the "against all odds" stories, I'm fascinated by the different sports, and those darn Proctor & Gamble commercials can get me to tear up every time.
My favorite part, though, is the stories in the parade of the athletes: the Nepalese bricklayer who does cross-country skiing and admits he'll probably finish last, the Norwegian biathlete who has been competing in Olympics for 16 years and is vying to set the record for total medals, and, of course, the Jamaican bobsled team.
How can you not cheer for a couple of guys from the Caribbean whose uniforms and sled blades were late arriving, who funded their trip by Internet donations and then asked fans to stop contributing when they had enough, whose country hasn't been represented for the past 3 Winter Olympics...and who still radiate joy? I imagine that deep in their hearts they harbor fantasies of being on the medal stand, listening to the strains of their national anthem...but their delight isn't dependent on a medal; it's simply competing in Sochi that matters, showing up and embracing the moment. Winston Watts, one of the two bobsledders, was quoted "All the guys in here, we are a family. All people love Jamaica. When Jamaica is not around, they're not happy because we are a fun-loving, caring group. We make people smile all the time even when they are having a bad day. We just keep them going." And why? "We are from the sunshine!"…“We are from the sunshine!”
So are we! "You are the light of the world," Jesus said. Not "You are the light of the world when you win the gold medal," not "When everybody knows your name," not "When everything goes exactly according to plan," and not "When you are as rich as you can possibly be." Just "You are the light of the world." Period. You—and I—are the light of the world, because we are from the Light.
You don't have to go to get an advanced degree, take up a new sport, or build an estate-sized bank account. All that's not the point. We're commissioned as bearers of the light exactly the way we are with what's already been given to us. Show up, stand up, and shine. This isn't to say that we shouldn't learn new skills, work hard, and push ourselves, but rather that those are tools for the job, not credentials for living as a light in the world.
It's a challenge, too, though. We've been blessed so that we can be a blessing. The purpose of light is to brighten. To help people see more clearly. To reveal new paths. To allay fears. To be warmth in cold and darkness. If we're the light of the world, we ought to be acting like light. And Jesus adds a point of clarification: that includes not hiding under bushel baskets! Perhaps we're afraid that "shining" might be mistaken for "showing off." Maybe, on the flip side, we're worried that our wattage isn't high enough, in one respect or another. Or it could be that we're self absorbed, so busy shining our light inwardly that we don't share it with the world around us. Back to that quote from Winston Watts: "We make people smile all the time even when they are having a bad day." He didn't say that they make people smile when they themselves are having a good day, or not when the two of them are having a bad day; he's looking outward to bringing light into the lives of others. No climbing under baskets for him!
This isn't just an individual challenge; it applies to churches, too, and we do well always to be asking if we're lights in our community or in some way putting a bushel over ourselves: of doubt and hesitancy, of comparing ourselves to other churches or "the way it used to be," of engaging in lots of dreaming without moving forward to doing. I don't think those are problems here, but I mention it because I don't want us ever to fall into those traps that hide the light God has shares with us and through us.
In a few minutes we'll bless the team members going to Haiti this week along with our partners from Saint Mark's School in Southborough. It doesn't matter if they're fluent in Creole or know all the history of Haiti or have amazing skills in rural development; they'll bring themselves, they'll show up and shine, and their light will be magnified by the light of our friends at Ste. Marguerite's.
We don't have to go to Haiti or be Olympians to do the same. Opportunities abound every day to reflect the brilliance of God's love, compassion, justice, healing, and consolation. We already are the light of the world because we are from the Light; we just need to show up, stand up, and shine!

Extreme Love

2014-01-19T13:51:00.001-08:00

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

MLK propers
Exodus 3:7-12, Luke 6:27-36, Psalm 40:1-12
1/19/14

     I tend to picture myself as moderate in most things. On the whole, I'm a middle of the road, even keel sort of person. There are some areas in which I definitely underperform and others in which I probably overindulge--get to know me and you'll figure those out pretty quickly--so my moderation isn't a matter of principle, more of habit. I'm aware of my inclinations in part because of my negative reaction to things that strike me as extreme...extreme being a very relative judgment in any case. But it's just kind of who I am.
     So I was taken aback this week when I was preparing for preaching today, with readings commemorating the witness of Martin Luther King Jr., and I read Dr. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail. In this letter, penned in 1963 in response to a group of 8 clergymen who criticized Dr. King for coming to Birmingham to help organize and participate in peaceful demonstrations protesting segregation, he writes, "But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label."
     That would be me, I suspect: disappointed, probably even distressed, at being categorized as an extremist. Were others dismissing my words and actions as those of a lunatic or zealot? Had I lost my sense of decorum, or calm judgment, or perspective? I'd wonder where I had stepped over the line. So if Dr. King started with that reaction, then how did he shift to "a measure of satisfaction from the label"?
     Here's how: He continues, "Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." ...So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?"
     Well, when he puts it that way! And looking back at today's lessons, there it is, not only the quotes from Jesus's words that Dr. King used, but also the passage from Exodus; God calling Moses to go to Pharaoh and lead the people out of slavery in Egypt...extreme action. For his part, Moses was probably thinking, "Couldn't I start by just talking to one of the foremen about our getting a few Monday holidays? Isn't this out of Egypt stuff a little over the top?" But we all know how that turned out--the plagues, the Red Sea, the 10 commandments--extreme almost seems an understatement.
     I suspect that extreme may go hand in hand with scary, and probably that scariness is a big part of why I lean toward moderate so often. It comes from different places in my soul, all of them about me: What if I look foolish? What if I get hurt? What if I'm wrong? What if I don't know what I'm doing? Maybe I need to come to terms with there being times when extreme is what's called for because of others, to push myself or open myself or submit myself to a bigger vision, freed from the blinders of moderation and the bridle of fear.
     Besides fear, there's complacency; near the end of the letter, Dr. King writes of the leaders in white churches, "All too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows." That hits close to home; just last Monday I was looking at our MLK and Rosa Parks windows with our preschoolers and talking about being people who speak up for what's fair. But do I carry that out those doors? It's easy for my attention to telling the stories of the windows, which are intended to remind us of our call, to lull me into thinking I've fulfilled my responsibility. That barely even falls in the category of moderate, and it certainly isn't extreme. We all too easily can give ourselves a pat on the back for sincere words and good intentions, neglecting the part where we actually put heart and hands to work.
     I need to do better, to do more, to speak out and step forth with reckless passion for that which God is passionate about. We're the beneficiaries of God's extreme nature: in love, in grace and generosity, in the abundance of creation, in forgiveness, in the dignity granted to every person. I long for an awareness of those gifts great enough to push me beyond my fear and complacency into renewed boldness.
     The dilemma, for me and for all of us, is figuring out what extreme love and justice look like in our lives today in any given moment. There are plenty of times when a quiet word, calm negotiation, a gentle touch or restrained action beautifully reflect the abundance of God's care for each of us. My comfortable moderate style often is a good fit with my faith. However, each of us is confronted at times with blatant injustice, with cruelty and prejudice, with words or actions or the absence of actions that make another child of God feel diminished, less than. Maybe it's momentary, in the form of a joke or a slur, a sideways glance or a turned back. Or perhaps it's systemic: the continuing presence in our society of those who don't have homes, food, health care, education, or security; the persistent denial of rights to those who are deemed different by virtue of race, ethnicity, economic status, sexual orientation, or faith; or individuals who for reasons of age, gender, or disability are particularly vulnerable to abuse.
     Unfortunately, these are so numerous that any one of us would be exhausted responding in a big way to all of them, but each of us can certainly speak up and act in the little moments--not letting them pass with a shrug, which is what my moderate self wants to do--and I can pick one or two of the larger issues to address consistently and boldly, in ways that by their extreme nature might make me uncomfortable but which reflect my understanding of the extravagance of God's presence in our life and world.
     When each of us begins to do that, speaking up rather than remaining silent, acting now instead of waiting for someone else to go first, going extreme, we stand in the great tradition of answering God's call, joining with Moses, with Jesus, with Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, with generations of faithful men and women, in the confidence that, in the words of the psalmist:
I have declared your righteousness in the great congregation;
behold, I did not restrain my lips,
and that, O Lord, you know. [Psalm 40:10]

Reading the Signs

2014-01-19T13:45:00.000-08:00

The Rev. Pete Berry
Christmas 2 -- Year A
Sunday Jan 5, 2014
Matthew 2:1-12

Let us pray
Lord Jesus may your light shine our way, as once it guided the steps of the magi:
that we too may be led into your presence and worship you, the Child of Mary, the Word of the Father, the King of nations, the Savior of mankind; to whom be glory forever. Amen

I hope you all have been having a wonderful Christmas season – remember that today is still part of it – it is the 2nd Sunday of Christmas – 12th night – at least I think it is, although I’m never sure whether we count it from sundown on Christmas Eve or end at sundown on Epiphany Eve. Just to confuse things more, the lessons are definitely for Epiphany – so I guess all we can say is we stand at the cusp of the two seasons. Please remember to come tonight to St Mark’s Epiphany Party and experience more of that seasonal transition—it promises to be great fun.

Those of you who happen to have been here on Christmas Day had the opportunity to hear Colin Brown preach on the Infancy Narratives in the only two gospels that contain them – Matthew and Luke. More precisely you heard him preach about a book by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the now retired Pope Benedict the 16th. That book was a surprisingly honest assessment of one of the most significant issues in Scriptural research – historicity versus truth with a capital T. The important question is much less whether these Biblical events happened exactly in the way Matthew gave them to us; the real question is what is the purpose of including the two stories in their gospels – what did Matthew and Luke intend by setting them almost as a Prologue to the rest of their work. If you think about it, they are not really necessary to the proclamation of Jesus – Mark didn’t include such a narrative, and John’s prologue is of a very much more philosophical and theological nature. John is concerned with the cosmic pre-existent logos not with the way in which that Word became flesh to dwell among us. So an Infancy Narrative wasn’t really needed by Matthew or Luke -- but we would be so much poorer in art and literature, and understanding of God’s “capital T truth” without them. Extending this a bit, many modern scholars find them to have likely been literary constructions of the two evangelists with little historical veracity within them – Benedict did not go quite that far but others certainly have. The issues for that school of thought -- what did the evangelists hope their communities would understand about these stories which were written in the 70’s or 80’s -- a very long time after the events described. I won’t talk about Luke, but instead I will focus on Matthew today – this is Year A of our lectionary, after all. But the issues are quite similar for both stories.

Matthew’s story was written for a mixed community at a time when the increasingly harsh debate between the Jewish faction and those who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, had them on the verge of a total split. There is a set of prayers dating from roughly this period – the so-called “Eighteen Benedictions” which railed against Jewish heretics and prayed thusly -- “[We ask] God to destroy the malshinim ("slanderers" or "informers"), all His enemies, and to shatter the ‘kingdom of arrogance’.” At the putative Council of Jabneh or Jamnia in 90AD, these benedictions were made a mandatory part of Jewish worship. These guys didn’t mess around – with a blessing like that being thrown at you you’d better be able to duck and cover! Matthew’s over-arching purpose in the face of the growing split was to portray Jesus as the fulfillment of the Jewish prophets. The infancy story of the Magi is loaded with many references to the Hebrew Scriptures in order to hammer home that point, over and over. It’s difficult to find them all because in part there are differences between the Hebrew Scripture and the Greek Septuagint versions of them. But just a few include the following

Psalm 72: 10 – “May the kings of Sheba and Saba bring gifts”
Psalm 72: 11 -- "May all kings fall down before him"
Numbers 24:17 – this is part of the narrative about Balaam, a seer from the east who saw the Davidic star rising in Old Testament times
Isaiah 60: 1 – “Be enlightened, O Jerusalem for your light has come; and the Glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”
And then when taken together Micah 5:1 and 2 Sam 5: 2 describe a Davidic king who will rule over Israel

So leaving issues like textual accuracy and Greek versus Hebrew to the scholars –and to Colin Brown, I hope you get the feel of this understanding.

So if that was Matthew’s purpose, what has the church made of the story down the ages?

The Visitation of the Magi is one of the most-beloved events in Christian art and history. We all know it well – or think we do -- from the annual Christmas pageants we have experienced, the ones that jam Luke’s account up against Matthew’s as one long continuous story with the shepherds and sheep and the angels and the Wise Guys and the lowing cattle all crammed together in a stable. And that is not only fun, it’s perfectly acceptable and maybe the only way we fully experience the riches of the Christmas season. But we really should look at Matthew in its own terms and disentangle it from the Lucan narrative to understand what Matthew is all about. The biblical account in Matthew simply presents an event at an unspecified point after Christ's birth in which an unnumbered party of unnamed "wise men" visit him in a house, not a stable, with only "his mother" mentioned as being present.

So -- some unknown number of eastern astrologers at some unspecified time after the birth of Jesus, possibly influenced by a Zoroastrian perspective made a journey westward to see what was going on in Bethlehem – or maybe by then it was Nazareth, because Matthew tells us that having been warned in a dream the Holy Family had journeyed there by way of Egypt, thereby re-creating the Mosaic tradition, reliving the Exodus, reprising the entry into the land of freedom, and recalling the prophecy about Jesus being called a Nazorean. Most modern scholars in fact say that this juxtaposition was quite intentional—Jesus is the new Moses – they both were born in strange circumstances – they both had to escape from hostile and dangerous political enemies who were seeking their lives – they both save their people. They both enter the promised land from Egypt.

I’m sure you all know the game of “telephone”—you stand in a line and whisper something in the ear of the person next to you, and see just how garbled it comes out at the end. Gradually as with the game of “telephone” or the artistic embellishment which is part of the so-called technique of midrash, the Magi or Wise Men were promoted to kings. The kings eventually were determined to have been exactly 3 in number – perhaps because there were 3 gifts mentioned by Matthew. Still later piety identified them with specificity as the old man Caspar of Tarsus, bringing gifts of gold; and Melchior -- the middle-aged man from Arabia bringing frankincense; and the young man Balthazaar, increasingly described as black-skinned and coming from Ethiopia or some other part of Africa, bringing myrrh. By the 5th or 6th century their ages had been exactly determined as 60, 40, and 20 respectively. Obviously not much of this is really dependent on historical accuracy but is spiritual speculation, a love story that just grows in the hearts of the churches people. The “capital T truth” is that the revelation or manifestation or epiphany to the gentiles was being treated by Matthew as the inevitable and unavoidable and undeniable fulfillment of scripture, in hopes of tying the gentile mission tightly to its prophetic Jewish roots. Maybe he was also hoping to heal the rift – or maybe it was early apologetics -- we simply don’t know.

Similarly the meaning of the gifts has been hotly debated when in fact they were ordinary offerings and gifts given to a king. There was just such a presentation of gifts to Emperor Nero by the Armenian king Tiradates in 66AD. Maybe the memory of that actual event was part of the back-story for Matthew’s Infancy Narrative. Lots of differing spiritual meanings have been assigned to the gifts – myrrh as foreshadowing the death and burial of Jesus since it was used in embalming; frankincense as symbolizing prayer or an offering of praise to a ruler; gold as a valuable gift fit for a king. Whatever analogies have been used over the centuries, the real importance is that these gentile representatives brought items from the everyday stuff of their lives – the things of Magic and astrology –and laid them at the feet of the king of peace. The gifts to Jesus became a symbol of God’s gift to us in Jesus. The story invites us all to make offerings of the stuff of OUR lives and bring them to Jesus, who is God’s great gift.

Why did I say astrology instead of magi or wise men or kings? It’s pretty clear, I think, and it is the explanation which makes the most sense out of the text – and this brings us to the Star of Bethlehem. What was it and when was it? Some suggestions that have been put forward – a comet, a supernova, a triple planetary conjunction. None of these is adequate for a whole variety of reasons but in 1999 Michael Molnar wrote a book entitled “The Star of Bethlehem” which I find quite convincing on the matter. And here I need to delve a bit into the “double conjunction” of Science and History. Some of you know that I’ve been taking a course on the fundamentals of astronomy -- 96 half hour lectures on a set of 16 DVD’s. I really enjoy stuff like this on NatGEO, and Science, and the Discovery channel and wanted more details. So far I’ve learned a lot, including about Molnar’s theory.

Planets as we now know, revolve around the sun and apparently move from east to west from the perspective of Earth. The point of their rising which crosses the horizon steadily moves westward. But sometimes planets seem to go backwards making a strange reversal from their normal forward path through a reversal or retrograde phase and then back to the normal direction. So they seem to carve out a Looping or S-shaped pattern against the backdrop of the celestial stars and their associated zodiacal signs in the firmament beyond. It turns out that on April 17th in the year 6 BCE, Jupiter the “Regal Star” was temporarily blocked from view by the moon. That would certainly have been significant in the eyes of eastern astrologers. Jupiter then continued its forward motion until August 23rd when it began one of these crazy loop-to -loops in the constellation of Aries the Ram, which itself was a symbolic of the Jews. It remained visible in Aries on the eastern horizon just before sunrise as it then in the words of the text “went before” going through that constellation until it apparently stood still on Dec 19th before returning to normal path. Molnar figured all this out from a Roman coin that clearly shows the event was real – he even got an award from the Numismatic Society for his analysis. So his theory – and I do find it compelling -- is that these astrologers believed they had observed a sign that heralded the birth of a divine, immortal, and omnipotent person born under the sign of the Jews, the constellation Aries the Ram. Their observations sent them off to find out just what this could be all about. The story says nothing about their expectations or motives other than that. That is all subsequent enrichment.

What does all this suggest to us? Certainly it is NOT God inviting us to get hooked on horoscopes and astrology. But like these Wise Guys from the East, with the best of OUR experience and OUR clearest understanding of the world and ourselves, WE are to become increasingly aware of the signs of God at work in creation, in our lives, and in our times. And we should expect to be challenged and changed by them. Be open – be vigilant – be curious – be available - be willing to reflect to adapt and adopt and to change. Prepare to grab hold of the possible because with God nothing will be impossible.

Now...TS Eliot was one of the great writers and poets of the 20th century. Born in St Louis on September 26, 1888 he died on Jan 4, 1965 – he was still alive when I studied him in college and I really came to love his work and his psychological realism. He is probably best remembered for his play about Thomas A’Becket – “Murder in the Cathedral”, his epic poems including “The Wasteland” and “Four Quartets” among several others, the whimsical poem “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” -- and his book and score for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats which is based upon it. He was a man of faith and his body of work includes essays on a variety of spiritual matters and Anglican Saints such as George Herbert. In 1927 he also wrote a much shorter poem called “The Journey of the Magi” as I was reminded by Zachary Abbott when I told him I would be preaching today. I think there is nothing better to illustrate that long-ago spiritual invitation and challenge and its impact on that particular group of travelers. I would invite you now to close your eyes and immerse yourselves in their experience. Just listen -- feel what they felt – see the sights, hear the sounds, smell the animals and the wet vegetation -- touch the hot dusty road – embrace their fears and frustrations. Make them your own.

Journey of the Magi (read by T.S. Eliot)

Thanks be to God – Amen.

All the World Changed Forever, For Better

2013-12-25T12:03:00.001-08:00

Christmas Eve 2013
The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

I've probably mentioned before that when it comes to change, I'm the poster child for a non-early adopter. I happily had the same microwave oven for 25 years, we drive our cars until they no longer function, and a couple of items in my closet are from my college years simply because they aren't worn out.

So a few days ago, when I tried to download some new apps on my iPad, I was not pleased when iTunes informed me I'd need to upgrade from my current iOS 5 to iOS 7 in order to use them. I don't even know when iOS 6 passed me by, and since I'm perfectly happy with the operating system I currently have, I see no reason why I should be pushed into changing. I assume I'll have to mess around redoing many of the settings, then rearrange apps and folders, then learn what the differences are and how to deal with them, and all along take the chance of crashes and incompatibilities...I simply question whether it's worth the time and effort.

Except, of course, for the fact that the upgrade might offer improvements I'd miss out on otherwise, and maybe glitches that currently frustrate me have been resolved, and obviously there are new apps that might be fun or useful or both. If my iPad could work better for me with an upgrade, maybe I should go for it. I will say, however, that since I write sermons on my iPad, there was zero chance this was going to happen until after tonight!

I wonder if this is how God felt about humankind?: "All the apps and systems I've been using--from the apple in the Garden of Eden to the re-boot with Noah, from Commandments on tablets to the Prophets posting comments about what everyone's doing—they all seem to have glitches, or don't work as well as they used to, or could benefit from some tweaking. The world needs an upgrade!" From one way of looking at scripture, this was God's intent all along, but I wonder. Didn't God hope that the first version, or the second, or at least the third, would be all that was needed? How hard was it for God to keep changing plans, not to throw in the towel, to come up with new ways of getting us to understand God's intent for us, that is, that we are loved beyond measure, no matter what, and our calling is to share that love with the world?

So God went for the ultimate upgrade, the game changer, and came among us…became us. Not as an apparition or angel, not as one who coerces change, not as a tycoon or even a benevolent dictator. God came as a flesh and blood, helpless baby born in the middle of nowhere. That's love: to be the God of everything, of all creation and all time...and to bring yourself vulnerably into one tiny slice of that in order to make your heart more fully known. And that's trust: to believe that in so doing, the world will be changed forever, for better.

And what about us? Some folks are eager to get the latest gadget or to clean out the closet to make room for another fashion or to try the next new thing—nothing wrong with that—but when it comes to matters of the heart and soul, I think most of humanity is agonizingly slow to turn in a new direction. We tend to believe that we're doing just fine with what we have--even sometimes despite evidence to the contrary--and in our deepest self, we resist making changes in what seems to be our instinctual way of being. How hard it is for us to believe that power isn't about control of people or property; for us to treasure wealth measured in ways far more significant than dollars; for us to accept that love can be freely given without our having to earn it. We may know these things in our heads, but our hearts are so much slower to change, to open to the joy and freedom of God’s gifts.

Yet the longing is in us. There's a reason we come back to this night, to this story, to this baby, year after year. Of course, tradition and memories and the beauty of this worship. But even more because, in the midst of whatever may be happening around or within us—health or illness, joy or grief, satisfaction or emptiness, confidence or fear—we have a desire for still greater truths, for deeper meaning, for profound peace, for more abundant love...and God desires the very same for us. All of that longing is perfectly fulfilled in the birth we celebrate tonight.

This isn't to say that the change is easy. Accepting Jesus—not only the sweet baby with the miraculous birth, celebrated by meek and mighty alike, but the crucified and resurrected Lord he becomes—accepting this Jesus into our lives means learning new ways, and redoing some of our set habits of thought and action, and rearranging our very selves. It requires time and effort. We'll have crashes and encounter incompatibilities and question why we made the choice. But remember that trust and love shown to us in this babe, and offer the same to God in return, that your heart may be more fully known and your world, all the world, changed forever, for better.

God's Promises

2013-10-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Proper 21, Year C

Psalm 91

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

Two weeks ago, as I sat here on Sunday morning at the 10:30 service, after being away most of the summer recovering from two surgeries, I glanced ahead to the collect for today, the prayer we use near the beginning of the service. One phrase jumped out at me: "running to obtain your promises." What grabbed me was simply the contrast to how I'd been feeling: I wasn't running to obtain anything! My last several months have been a slow motion approach to life. Stumbling to obtain your promises? Sitting around to obtain your promises? Napping to obtain your promises?...maybe!

I didn't linger there, though, because I started thinking about the second half of that phrase, about God's promises. One way or another, I realize I've spent a lot of time doing that lately. There's the version of them that we see in today's Psalm 91. It's so reassuring in its statement of God's promises: everything's gonna be alright. God will deliver us, rescue us from danger, answer us, be with us in trouble, satisfy us with long life. Our reading only uses part of the psalm, skipping some verses in the middle, and I looked those up (p. 719 in the BCP); they're just as great: God will clear away our enemies, defend us from all illness and injury, guard us even from lions and snakes, surround us with angels to protect our every step. Wow!

However, much as I'd like an ironclad guarantee of good health, happiness & contentment, and security in its many forms, I don't actually believe God promises those sorts of things. I'm pretty sure the committee that designed the lectionary didn't either, and that's why they omitted those middle verses. The psalmist probably suggests them because they're poetic and beautiful as a metaphor. But many Christians make statements that suggest they believe, or want to believe, that every bit of this is literally true; simply commit yourself to the Lord and all will be well, now, sort of like Lake Wobegon where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

It's easy, then, to fall into the trap of blaming God if and when we get up one morning, or one year, and realize that we're coming up short on one count or another, maybe several. "Wait just a minute, God! I've prayed, I've given, I've served, I've loved, at the very least I've tried to be a good person. Why do I have cancer? Why have I lost my job or my house or my savings or my status? Why did my beloved die or a relationship fall apart? Why aren't I happier? Why is my life so hard? Why, God?" Once again, the issue is thinking that God has promised us health or good luck or wealth or happiness or ease of life or protection from danger. Wish as we might, that's just not how God works.

So then what does God promise us? Look back at those verses we did include in the psalm:
+ To deliver us. Not deliver us from all problems and annoyances, but to deliver us, period. Jesus took care of that one. Because we are bound to God in love, Jesus, in his death and resurrection once and forever delivered us from the power of the sin and death that might separate us from God. That pretty much covers being protected, rescued, and given refuge as well, which are a few of the other promises.
+ To answer us when we call. We talk, God listens. Maybe God's answer will be clear and fast, or it might be indirect, indecipherable, or slow in coming. Might be in silence. Might be on our own or through the wisdom and insight of others. But God will answer us if we talk, and then stop talking to listen.
+ To be with us in trouble. Right now, this is my favorite. This one, I'm coming to understand, often occurs in the form of community. This is a promise from God that's aided by help from us, on both sides of the equation. A community of people who care can't be there for us if we don't let them know we need them, if we aren't willing to be vulnerable in that way. I'll tell you, though, as I sat there that morning two weeks ago, and last week, and stand here today, it's worth risking, because the feeling of love and care that comes to us through community in times of trouble is awesome and is intimately connected to a sense of God's promised presence.

There's another side to this. We're called to be that community, the presence of Christ in the world in times of trouble, not just for the folks we know and like, for friends and family, but for all sorts and conditions of people. For the worn and weary woman standing at the intersection with her sign. For the friend of a friend whose Facebook posts drive us nuts. For the quirky and the cranky, the one who can't remember us from one moment to the next and the one who can't forget a wrong we committed years ago. How we do that is another sermon, but that God uses us to fulfill that promise is pretty clear to me.

These promises aren't half of a contract God signs with us when we're baptized; they're the gifts God gives us so that we may be, in more words from the collect, "partakers of your heavenly treasure," so that we may be living the life of God's kingdom and extending God's reign in all the world, to all the world, now and forevermore. Through the fullness of God's grace, each of us is doing the best we can--running or walking or sitting still or dreaming--with the gift of God's promises. Thanks be to God!

Just imagine...

2013-08-12T10:08:00.001-07:00

Pr 14, Yr C
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
8/11/13
The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

      One of my activities this summer has been sorting through our giant under-bed tub of Lego Bionicle pieces and trying to put them back together into the 25 or so sets from which they originally came. With help from the instructions and Andrew--who at 15 still has darned good recollection of how the feet and heads and bodies go with which character--I've been making steady progress, and the piles of pieces are becoming satisfyingly smaller. As I've sorted and searched and snapped parts together, I've had a wonderful trip down memory lane, remembering the fun and fervor of battles waged and adventures undertaken by the boys with their Bionicles. These were their imaginary alter-egos, more powerful and brave, more wise and cunning than any little child can be on his or her own.
      Maybe you remember having your own imaginary friends or identities; we may joke about them, but they're one of the great gifts of childhood. When we become grown-ups, though, we tend to put these away as childish things, and adults who truly believe in imaginary beings are seen, justifiably or not, as having mental health issues.
      In mulling over our second lesson, from the letter to the Hebrews, I found myself wondering if Abraham was seen by his contemporaries as having an imaginary God. He did crazy stuff and held onto crazy dreams--far more than the handful detailed in this letter--based on the word of this God no one could see. Was this simply his imaginary alter-ego, a superhero God more powerful and brave, more wise and cunning, or possibly more foolish, than Abraham himself could possibly be?
      Here's where I think it's helpful to make a distinction between the imaginary and the imagination. Imaginary means not real; whatever it is exists only in our own minds. Imagination, however, is that quality which allows us to see beyond the limitations and boundaries of our current circumstances or culture or environment...to perceive the possibility of a reality that's bigger, or beyond, or more meaningful than what's right before us at the moment, and to see ourselves in that picture. Abraham didn't have faith in an imaginary God; he had faith in a God who called upon his imagination, who asked Abraham and Sarah to hold onto the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. It must have taken a huge amount of imagination on their part to envision any of this, to step outside not just their comfort zone but everything they knew to enter into this bigger reality of God's.
      The amazing thing is that with each step they took, they gathered evidence that this world of their imagination, their dreams and visions, was not imaginary. God led and provided for them, from a land to call home to a son who represented a future. In this week's Episcopal News Weekly Update, Bishop Mary Glasspool makes another distinction between words that I find helpful, differentiating between proof and evidence. Proving something to a skeptic is practically impossible; there's always another conceivable explanation, and the whole notion of proof seems at least a little bit coercive. Evidence, though...that's a different matter. Offering evidence is sharing my story, sharing what I've seen, sharing how my life has been changed, how my faith in God has sustained me. You get to weigh my evidence for yourself. Abraham and Sarah, by the story of their life, both in their trusting steps and their missteps, offer a lot of evidence for God and the breadth of God's creative imagination...enough to still be told thousands of years later, to encourage us in that same faith.
      Too often we think of sharing the Good News as being a process of trying to prove to others that God is not imaginary...and that's a kind of evangelism that gives Christians a bad reputation. What if instead we speak of where our imagination takes us, of faith in the dream of God's country being revealed even in our own time? What if we look for the evidence we've found of God in our life and share that story, of both our steps and missteps? What if we strive to live in such a way that we are evidence of God's love and care for every child of God? Just imagine...
      Let us pray: Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you, and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Stripped down

2013-08-05T11:46:00.002-07:00

Pr. 13, Yr. C

Luke 12:13-21

8/4/13

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

     On Friday, July 12th, I got up, appreciatively sipped a carefully measured 8 oz. glass of sparkling water that I was allowed before 7:00 a.m. because my surgery was after noon, and turned my back on all the other foods in the kitchen. When we got ready to head out to the hospital, I took off my rings and the necklace I almost always wear, and tucked away my purse, items it feels odd to leave the house without. After checking in for surgery, I gave Tom my insurance card, driver's license, and phone. Once the nurse escorted me into pre-op, I was relieved of my clothes in exchange for a hospital gown. Finally, after being poked, prodded, questioned, and labeled, I was rolled off to surgery where I had to let go of even my consciousness in the sleep of anesthesia.
     If you've had surgery, then you're familiar with this process of stripping away everything that seems to keep you safe and separate from...well, from everything. It has a purpose, but that doesn't change the sense of vulnerability it creates.
     We all surround ourselves, insulate ourselves, in a variety of ways. The guy in Jesus' story had his grain and barns. We've got clothing and cars, books and bank accounts, jobs and memberships, homes and hair, food and photos. Lots of these things, in and of themselves, are very good; they help us function better, enjoy life, keep safe, recall times and people past, and engage others in the present. However, there's a risk to them too: we can begin to imagine that they are what really matters, and that bigger/better/more will help us function even better, make life even more fun, keep us even safer, give us more in control. We may get to go along for quite a long time imagining that, and in the process, some of us (probably most of us) get pretty far off track, becoming greedy in at least the sense of continuing to believe that more--and more, and more--is preferable.
     And then something happens. We have surgery, we become old, we lose a job or lose our health, we face a calamity or crisis. Whether all at once or bit by bit, all those external supports begin to fall away, and eventually we're stripped of the things that once seemed so valuable, so important, so strong and enduring. All we have left is God...or maybe, put more accurately, that would be phrased, "All we have left is that God has us."
     Eat, drink, and be merry indeed; celebration, bread broken together, and rejoicing in our blessings are among our greatest pleasures. But remember who satisfies our thirst and who fills our hunger--for love, for life--with good things; who takes us up in Her arms and heals us; whose mercy endures forever. Ponder these things, as the psalmist advises us, and make the choice to invest your best riches in the God who always has you.

Claiming God's Love

2013-07-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

Pr. 8, Yr. C

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

6/30/13

At our Tuesday staff meetings, we sometimes find ourselves discussing the readings for the coming Sunday, often in terms of "Well, I bet I won't be preaching on..." That's what happened last week when I noticed the lengthy if not exhaustive list of sins in the epistle. Really, who wants to hear about all that? We joked that we could put up signs around the church and invite people to gather around and discuss the one that gives them trouble. We agreed that would be an epic fail in preaching, and then went on with our business.

A day or two later, I was reading a Homeboy Facebook post. Each morning at Homeboy, someone gives a Thought of the Day, and a summary of these short talks often makes its way onto Facebook. It was on one such post that I came across this quote by author and speaker Marianne Williamson: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?'"

Suddenly I thought again about the reading from Galatians. Because here's the thing: take out your bulletin insert and look again at that list of what Paul calls works of the flesh. As long as I don't ask you to do it out loud, I'm willing to bet that most of us can look at those and without much hesitation pick out a couple that apply to us...and if not, there's always the broad "things like these" at the end to cover all other possibilities.

Now, move down a couple of lines to the fruit of the Spirit. Which of those will you claim for yourself? I'm not going to ask you to speak up about it, but in theory there should be no embarrassment if I did; after all, these are all great traits. And yet I'm also guessing that it's much more difficult for any of us to say that one or more of them apply to us.

In other words, as Marianne Williamson suggested, it's not our inadequacies, the places where we sin and fall short, that we fear the most; we have a much harder time acknowledging our light, those wondrous qualities of a relationship with God that manifest themselves in unique ways in each of us. I think it goes much deeper than not wanting to appear too proud or boastful, because it's really challenging to do even on our own or with a trusted friend. Why should it be so difficult for us to name the ways that the power of God is at work within us?

Here's my idea about this: Take the standard evangelical Christian line "Jesus died for my sins." There are some aspects of emphasis in that which I might want to qualify or explain, but I don't balk at the general idea because I know I do sin and that sin gets in the way of my relationship with God. Much harder for me—and, I think for many of us—is the proposition behind it: that God—the God of whom we said in the psalm, "Who is so great a god as our God?"—that God finds me, finds you, so precious, so beloved, as to be worth doing anything at all for.

Perhaps a good bit of freedom in Christ comes from accepting this premise: that God so loves the world--that's you and me--that God sent God’s only son, Jesus Christ, to give us everlasting life. We are so completely loved by God…and your world and your life are bigger when you know you're loved. The fruits of the Spirit are not why God loves me; they're the sign of that bigger life, they're the result of my being open to the love God has for me simply because I am, because I exist as a child of God. When I'm open to God's love, I'm free to share it with others, to manifest the fruits of the Spirit in ways that serve others just as Jesus did. I can love my neighbor as myself because I know I am beloved.

Marianne Williamson continues, "We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world...We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. ”

There's the caveat in the epistle, of course. We have to understand that the freedom to be fully ourselves, the freedom that comes to us through God's love shown to us in Christ, is for everyone. Not just about me letting my light shine, but about my rejoicing in that light within every person, even—perhaps especially—when it's hidden under a bushel. Those fruits of the Spirit aren't about my reveling in my own belovedness, because if that's all I ever do, I really haven't stepped beyond that list of sinful stuff in which I put myself first.

The fruits of the Spirit are about our shaping a community that reflects God's love, one which is inclusive of every single child of God, in which we all serve one another, respect and defend the dignity of one another, celebrate with and console one another. Will we get it right every time? Of course not! But when we allow ourselves to claim and rejoice in God's love in our life, we'll move closer, and we'll live into the freedom for which God has created us and Christ has redeemed us and toward which the Spirit guides us.

I love to tell the story...

2013-05-14T14:25:00.002-07:00

Easter 7C

Acts 16:16-34

5/12/13

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

Let's review:
*Paul and Silas preach the good news of Jesus. Good.
*Paul gets ticked off with annoying slave girl. Bad.
*Paul casts possessing spirit out of girl. Good.
*Owners of girl get mad, have Paul and Silas arrested, flogged, and thrown in jail. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.
*Paul and Silas praise God anyway. Good, if surprising.
*Earthquake. Bad.
*Opportunity for Paul and Silas to escape. Good.
*Jailer starts to kill himself to avoid dishonor. Bad.
*Paul and Silas and prisoners don't leave. Ummm...foolish, but good, I guess.
*Jailer and family become believers in Jesus's saving love, are baptized, and fix a great dinner for Paul and Silas. Definitely good.
      I'm not quite sure why, except in the interests of time, our lectionary cuts this short of the biggest plot twist in the saga, in which the police and magistrates discover that Paul and company are Roman citizens who've been unjustly imprisoned, thus leaving the authorities apologizing profusely and scrambling for a quiet cover-up!
      All that in half a chapter from the Book of Acts; it's like watching a ping pong game on fast forward! So I want to look at it instead in slow-mo, and pause at a few select points.
First of all, the slave girl. Another woman, in last week's reading from Acts, just a few verses earlier...Lydia gets named, maybe because she has some resources of her own, or maybe because she eagerly receives Paul and his companions rather than being annoying, or maybe because Lydia welcomes them back at the end of this chapter. But like so many others around whom the story of faith is told, the slave girl remains anonymous. We know, when we call upon the communion of saints, that the foundation on which we stand was built, piece by piece, by countless numbers of people we'll never be able to name.
      In fact, as far as we can tell this young woman remains a slave; she may have been freed from the spirit that possessed her, but she's still a captive. We so often want "happily ever after," but we're reminded right here that that's not how the gospel plays out in the midst of this world; until God renews all of creation on the last day, the liberation of humanity will be incomplete. We're called to that vision of freedom for every one of God's beloved children, for all who are enslaved by poverty, hunger, mental and physical illness, and lack of education; by judgments about gender, race, sexual orientation, capabilities, or physical beauty; by politics or tradition. However, as we go about our baptismal work of restoring the dignity of every person, we need to remember that not succeeding every time is not a reflection of our efforts being pointless, but of the world’s brokenness.
      Next, the earthquake. I'm not sure if living in California makes this story from Acts seem more real or less. Certainly if you've lived through a good-sized one, you have some recollection of what it is to feel the supposedly solid earth moving. It always takes me a few moments to even figure out what's happening, because it so doesn't fit with my experience of how ground is supposed to behave. We understand, though, that big earthquakes shake things up, permanently alter the landscape, and create a distinct "before and after." We shouldn't be surprised, then, that it's an earthquake that brings down the walls and opens the doors in this story...no midnight angel unlocking cells here, as occurs elsewhere in the Book of Acts...because this is a story of complete upheaval for the jailer (another unnamed character) and, by extension, the political and social powers. One moment, he knows how his world works, what's stable and secure, and a few minutes later that life is in pieces around him. Turning his sword on himself in shame is a last remnant of the old order, and then that bit collapses too, as Paul shouts to him that all the prisoners are still there, a crazy twisting of the story's landscape. No gradual conversion here; this is before and after with the cataclysm of God's power as the tipping point.
      And there's the next pause: this is an escape story without an escape. Paul and Silas don’t leave. Imagine watching The Great Escape and everyone staying in the camp after the tunnel was completed; it makes no sense. It makes no sense except, of course, in a story about lives in which Jesus is the model and forerunner. Christians aren't called to rescue themselves by escaping from danger, any more than Jesus walked away from the cross. I'm not talking about being foolish or subjecting ourselves to abuse; Jesus did the dying to save us and he wants us to be around and healthy to share his love. I mean not running away from opportunities to be the voice and the hands of Christ simply because a situation feels awkward, or we don't know what to say or do, or we're fearful of embarrassment, or we might get dirty and sweaty in our labor. I can picture Paul standing there, every bit as surprised as the next person about the quake, weighing his options...then seeing the jailer about to kill himself and suddenly resisting the urge to do all the sensible things, and instead responding with selfless love. Talk about permanently altering the landscape!
      A lot of people, both Christians and others, suppose that we believe everything will be fine and dandy once we have Jesus...like we can really "have" him anyway, since I think it's more like he has us. Faith, of any kind, is no bulletproof suit to protect us from life's challenges and pain, nor does it make sense out of that which is beyond our comprehension. It just doesn't work that way. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles is a testament, however, to the power of sharing our experience, whatever it may be, no matter how up and down it is, good or bad, as the best way to witness to God working in our life. We, like so many before us, can tell the story of how we've found freedom in the unconditional love of a God who knows us each by name, how our lives have been shaken up and rebuilt on a new foundation in Christ, how we've created meaning by staying to share God's peace and justice rather than running away in uncertainty or fear. We can tell how the one who is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end of Paul’s story, the slave girl and the jailer’s story, our story and every story, has given us the water of life and the grace to live that life to its fullest.

Raise me up, Jesus

2013-04-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

Easter 4, Yr. C

John 10:22-30, Revelation 7:9-17, Psalm 23

4/21/13

Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

I am weary of crying over lives of promise that won't be fulfilled.
•    Raise me up, Jesus!
I am weary of mourning the devastation caused by the power of a creation I believe to be good.
•    Raise me up, Jesus!
I am weary of trying to forgive people who have lost sight of the preciousness of every life and of trying to cope with my own anger.
•    Raise me up, Jesus!
I am weary of reassuring children that they will be secure even as I fear for their safety.
•    Raise me up, Jesus!
I am weary of reading stories of heroism that make me wonder if I would have the courage to run toward danger, rather than away.
•    Raise me up, Jesus!
I am weary of seeing flags at half mast.
•    Raise me up, Jesus!
I am weary of trying to call upon a loving God in the midst of a world that seems to be meting out so much brutality.
•    Raise me up, Jesus!
You too? Are you weary?
•    Raise us up, Jesus!

I don't know that any year is easy, but this one has seemed harder than most. I long for a peaceful, gentle interlude that, quite honestly, makes no challenging demands upon me as a pastor and preacher, as a parent, as a person...a green pasture where I can safely graze and rest without anxiety about the past or fear for the future. I suspect I'm not alone in this. And you know what? I don't think there's anything wrong with wishing for that; our hearts and minds are shaped with a longing for the Garden, for a renewal of the time when we lived in perfect connection with creation, with each other, and with God.

Raise us up, Jesus, to that day when your new creation is perfectly revealed.

I suppose one alternative is to shut down our emotions, to try walling ourselves off from the pain and anger and sense of impotence. There are mornings when the alarm goes off and I know from the radio announcer's tone, even before comprehending the actual words, that yet another tragedy has struck...and I want to stick my head under the pillow. Another preacher I know posted this quote: "I don't know which is worse. The terror you feel the first time you witness such things, or the numbness that comes after it starts to become ordinary.”* Making the horribly extraordinary ordinary is certainly a way of defending ourselves against the pain, but that's not who I want to be.

Raise us up, Jesus, when our hearts start to turn to stone.

Every year in the church's calendar, the 4th Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday. We hear passages that for many of us are among our most familiar and favored. Even if there's a wee bit of suggestion that we might be like not-so-clever sheep, we love the idea of One who will guard us, guide us, feed us, lead us. But when people suffer, when people die, when we're walking through the valley of the shadow of death and that good shepherd is hard to find--in Newtown and New Jersey, in Boston and Afghanistan, in Texas and in China, on the riverbanks of the Mississippi and even the hillsides of Altadena--I wonder where the goodness and mercy are. Aren't they supposed to be following us all the days of our life?
It turns out that we've tamed those words far too much; what we translate "follow" might more accurately be read as "pursue." A whole different image, isn’t it, of goodness and mercy pursuing us?! Perhaps I'm not giving God enough credit; could it be that humanity is moving fast and erratically, and God is doing God's best to keep up with us? Maybe those heroes running toward danger, not away, are angels in God's pursuit. Maybe the individuals who walk in here with cans & coins in hand, who lift up their hearts in prayer or their voices in song, who speak on behalf of those who have been silenced, who sit with those who are in darkness are the incarnation of goodness and mercy. Maybe one of the ways the Good Shepherd catches up with us is when we embody his love.

Raise us up, Jesus, when others need us.

Of course we pray to be saved from the time of trial…no one sidesteps it completely. I've said before and will say many times more that I believe God cries with us when these ordeals come to us. God isn't oblivious to the world's pain, nor unmoved by our tragedies, nor absent from human suffering; one look at that cross tells us very much the opposite. And so I hold fast to the promise that no one can snatch us from God's loving hands. We profess our faith by continuing, as best as we can manage, to act out of our belief in God's constant presence. We may not always hear God, but God can be there in the silence. We entrust ourselves to God who, by prodding and poking and calling and sometimes carrying us, guides our feet along the pathways of the kingdom. We're on a journey with a shepherd who brings us to the springs of the waters of life, toward that time when there's no more hunger, no more thirst, no more sun striking us, no more scorching heat, when weariness weighs us down no longer and our hearts are healed.

Raise us up, Jesus…raise us up, Jesus…restore our souls, pursue us with goodness and mercy, and wipe away every tear from our eyes.

*The Fatal Waltz

Peace & Doubt

2013-04-15T11:06:00.001-07:00

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook

Easter 2, Year C

John 21:1-31

4/7/13

    I saw a cartoon earlier in the week that seemed to make a fair point. In it, Thomas--most commonly known as Doubting Thomas--is lamenting, "All I'm saying is we don't call Peter 'Denying Peter' or Mark 'Ran away naked Mark.' Why should I be saddled with this title?"
    Good question, and one that has had me mulling over the possibilities. Sure, Thomas doesn't believe the witness of the other disciples when they told him they'd seen the Lord...but consider that those other disciples hadn't believed the women who came to them with news that the Lord was risen either. There was plenty of doubting going on, and with good reason; honestly, if someone came to you with a story like this, would you believe it? So why does Thomas get the bad rap?
    I wonder if in part it's because his questioning is something that mirrors our own, and by naming it, we acknowledge that his struggle is also our own. Who among us hasn't had questions, wondered what this resurrection and Jesus's wounds and sin & forgiveness stuff is all about? Who among us hasn't looked life's horrors and wondered if God has abandoned us? Who among us hasn't thought that the incarnation is a pretty crazy, risky way to get your point across if you're God? Who among us, even if not seeing and yet believing, wouldn't give quite a lot to get to see, too? Thomas--the twin--is our double in his honest questioning and doubt.
    Thomas is struggling with believing. Well, welcome to the human race. One of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner, wrote "Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep." Question marks are all around us, and sometimes it seems like the more we discover and "know for sure," the more questions we uncover. I don't see that as a bad thing, and I'm not reading this passage to mean that Jesus does either. It's simply where Thomas is at that point, and then he has an experience of the risen Lord that shifts him to belief...at least for the moment. I find it interesting that in some combination of his being flexible enough--never say, "Never"--and Jesus being, well, Jesus, Thomas is able to be transformed by the Spirit to become a believer. And not a believer "again" but a new believer, because it was one thing to follow Jesus the first time around and quite a different matter to be his disciple after the resurrection. His life and death took on huge new meanings when set in the context of his new life, and any of the disciples can be excused for not being on board, not really getting it, immediately.
    Thomas's disbelief also doesn't stop him from being part of the community of disciples, which is obviously a good thing because if he'd said, "You all are full of it...I'm outta here," then he wouldn't have been there when Jesus showed up again the next week,   though I kind of like to think Jesus would have tracked him down wherever he was. Nor did his friends send him packing for his doubt. They all kept moving forward, each in the best way he or she knew how, but together, in support of one another and perhaps with a shared hope, even if where they were on the road toward that vision differed for each one. That's a pretty good model for the church, I think. What if we could understand the doubters and questioners in our midst to have particular gifts to help all of us on the journey, and we invited the open sharing of questions for that very reason?
    The gospel writer very much wants us to believe also, to be ones who have not seen and yet believe, and yet he doesn't want to argue us into it. By his own admission, he gives us evidence, but not every last piece, maybe because in the end he knows that the witness of others can't do the whole job. One way or another, each of us is going to have to encounter the risen Christ on our own terms, in a way that speaks to our heart. Whether it's in the transcendence of feeling the breath of the Holy Spirit or in the depths of touching Christ's wounds and connecting them with our own and the world’s, it ultimately needs to be our experience, not someone else's, though they may point the way.
    Perhaps that's why Jesus starts out these appearances with a blessing of peace. To those who are fearful about the consequences of belief, to those who are worried about not believing, to those who are challenged by others who don't believe or who believe differently, Jesus offers the gift of peace. His peace unites us in the face of all the closed doors that threaten to separate us. Peace, that it is okay to doubt. Peace, that it is fine to ask questions and to come to different conclusions. Peace, that it is normal to want to see for ourselves. Peace, that we are human...because it is for our sake that Jesus became human and brought us abundant life, here and forever, in God's resurrection kingdom.

Loved to the end

2013-04-15T11:00:00.002-07:00

The Very Rev. Sylvia Sweeney

Maundy Thursday, 3/28/13

     Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. To the end of time. To the end of the rainbow. To the ends of the earth. To the end of the road. It’s not really our way you know? To love someone all the way to the end. The world many of us grew up in and know all too well is a world where love is not a gift, but something you have to work for and earn…and some of us have never quite figured out how to earn that love from the people who seem to matter to us most.
     But think about it. That couldn’t have been what was going on that day in that oh so private moment between Jesus and his closest friends. If Jesus’ love had been saved for those who had earned it, who deserved it…who would have deserved it that day? Who would have been good enough or strong enough or smart enough or anything enough to have earned and deserved that amazing, astounding, extraordinary, wise, sweet, humble, poignant… love?
     Have you ever wondered why that night when Jesus poured out his love to his friends in the most vivid and intimate way he could find to share it…Why would he wash their feet? Why wash Judas’ feet? Even that night I don’t think it mattered if Judas was able to accept and receive Jesus’ love and devotion…at that point it didn’t matter to Jesus what others did with his love so much as it mattered what he did with it. It mattered that having loved his own who were in the world he would want to, need to, have to…love them to the end. To the end of time.   To the end of the rainbow. To the ends of the earth. To the end of the road.
     If Christianity is about anything…if having our sins washed away is about anything…if having a savior is about anything…it is about stumbling during some desperate moment in our lives upon that one almost hidden unlocked door that leads from seeing ourselves as hideous and unloveable to knowing ourselves to be loved with a love that stretches and reaches and touches us in our most vulnerable and alone, unloved and forsaken selves.
     If this week is about anything, it is about remembering what it is like to find out for the very first time that as implausible, inconceivable, and impossible as it may seem to be to us…we are not alone in this life. We are far from alone. We are loved! We are loved and always will be loved…loved with a love that can’t be earned, loved with a love that can’t be shaken, loved with a love that has no end. Just like that band of disciples secreted away in that upstairs room, we are loved as his own, loved to the end.

Practicing for life

2013-03-26T09:52:00.001-07:00

The Rev. Betsy Hooper-Rosebrook
Palm Sunday
3/24/13

     I'm ready for Lent to be over. I think I probably am most years, but this year I'm feeling it a bit more. I want celebration and joy and a return to lightness, none of which are immediately evident in Lent. I long for hymns in major keys with upbeat tempos, for flowers at the altar, and for uncovered crosses. I'd like to think a little less about my sins, both individual and corporate. In short, I want a break!
     Our brief Palm Sunday reprieve outside, with its tale of excited crowds cheering Jesus on his way, seems a little like a tease. We do want Jesus to come, to make things right, to be the king who finally gets the world back on track. We long for Jesus to be the remedy for our sadness, for the world's brokenness, for all that we ourselves can't control. But as the parade ends and the rest of the week's events begin, as we immediately plunge back, not just into Lent, but into the most disturbing depths of our humanity, it's pretty obvious that's not going to happen, at least not the way those cheering crowds imagine. The shadow of the cross that has been lengthening throughout the last 40+ days now envelops us fully...and we still have to wait another 6 days to see the fullness of the light of Christ.
     Isn't this how life is? We cannot rush its unfolding. There are times when everything is going so well, when we're full of rejoicing, and we'd give much to prolong those experiences; those days are gifts to be treasured indeed. Then there are the other sorts of seasons, ones that are full of despair or anguish, or which simply drag along in a haze...and we can't do any more to speed them than we can to extend the wonderful ones. Although I imagine Jesus was aware of the transient nature of the parade-watchers welcoming him, surely he must've also longed to stretch it out a little more, to settle into an atmosphere of good cheer, even if those who welcomed him didn't really understand what he was about. And those agonizingly long hours in Gethsemane, in preparation for even more agonizingly long hours on the cross...even the Son of God couldn't speed them up. All he could do was give himself to the moment and to God, which, I will freely admit, is far easier said than done.
     Maybe that's one of the lessons of this Lent for me: that this season is practice for all of life. As much as I long for the hard times to be past or the great ones to last, I don't get to change the timing or the pace or the content. No one, not even Jesus, does, and Holy Week makes that ever so evident. Jesus didn't come to make it all better, but to be with us when it isn't...and when it is. He didn't come to grab power from those who had it, but to give us a vision of a stronger, more enduring power. He didn't come to lift us out of life's challenges, but to blaze a path we can follow for walking through them. He didn't come for adulation and glory, but to serve in all humility. He didn't come to banish time, but to make all time holy. May the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus.