proper-15-2019-great-falls.md

Sun, Aug 18, 2019 St. Peter’s, Great Falls

Pentecost 10 – 08/18/2019

Cloud of witnesses

There’s probably something that you enjoy doing just to relax. What is the thing that makes you feel good deep down inside when things haven’t been going great and you just need a break?

The other day we saw something on TV where one of the characters experienced that. He was too overwhelmed with things and he announced that he would be gone for a while to go fishing.

I thought to myself well now that’s a good manly thing to do and I have known people like that.

Now I don’t mind going fishing but it’s never been a relaxing thing for me. There are so many things to think about gathering together just to get out the door; and I don’t really know what I’m doing; and it just becomes a chore.

Mostly facetiously I turned to Mary Pat and asked if she wished that I was the kind of man who would go away fishing for a while just to relax and to get away from the pressures of life. And her response was kind of funny because she looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Of course not.”

There probably are things like that for others. Knitting or needle point might be something like that. Running might be that for some. Woodworking was like that for me at one point. Also sewing. The kind of thing you do that gives you satisfaction and relaxes you and takes you away from pressures that are overbearing.

I thought of these things as a way of getting in touch with who the great cloud of witnesses might be for each of us – the cloud we heard about in today’s second reading. Whoever it was that taught you how to do that thing that gives your life satisfaction and peace – that person would have been a great hero for you.

Chapter 11 in the letter to the Hebrews always gives me chills and resonates deep within me. It causes me to reflect on the people who have made me who I am, the great ones who have passed on wisdom, or talent, or examples of life that have given me peace.

It causes me to reflect and remember who the fathers and mothers are for me. Many young people have told me over the years that the person who passed on their deepest faith was their grandmother. My own grandmother modeled and taught me her Methodist faith when I was still very young. My earliest memory of her was teaching us Sunday school at her little country church. I was eager to learn from her one of her childhood prayers, in German, and at some level I think I probably thought that prayers were originally composed in the German language.

I remember also the priest who taught me that laughter and gaiety could be and perhaps ought to be associated with Christian faith. The bishop who showed us the teething marks on his pectoral cross that had been made by his now ordained son whom I also knew.

I remember hearing about Nicholas Ferrar from my parish priest. Ferrar was a famous lawyer and politician in England in the 1600’s. He gave it all up to live in the country with an extended family, creating a kind of pseudo-monastic religious community. The prayed 24/7 in a restored chapel in the village of Little Gidding. The story of his life inspired me and taught me some important lessons about the most important poem in my life, the Four Quartets by TS Eliot.

I think of the priest who first opened up for me the depth and power of the New Testament. I was taking an adult class and he was the teacher. We spent about three weeks on chapter 5 of Paul’s letter to the Romans. And at that point I knew something of how the Bible can speak to us of the depths of life and faith.

This chapter of the letter to the Hebrews reflects in the same way as I have tried to do briefly here about the great fathers and mothers who have come before us. The great ones who have given us life. Adam and Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac Jacob Esau. Joseph. And that only covers the highlights found in Genesis.

The writer of the letter becomes breathless at the thought of all those who make up the great cloud of witnesses that have come before us. And none of them was able to get to what God had promised them. We might say, none of them got to the promised land. Each of them was walking by faith although they couldn’t see fully where they were going. They walked by faith.

Walk by faith

“39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

They sought the “founder and perfector of our faith.” And so he urges them not to grow weary.

“let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

I believe that there have been many such fathers and mothers of the faith who have brought you, the people of St. Peter’s great Falls, to where you are today. And with you I give great thanks and praise for all that they have done and been for you.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought. (Basho)

It doesn’t take very much looking around the town of Great Falls to see that in many ways the ruins of the past lie around us. We grow old and recognize that better times lay in our past than what seems to be nearing us on the coming horizon.

The great ones of old may seem like heroes who can never come back. Men and women who knew how to live in the fullness of what God intends for us. And in their reflection we may feel discouraged.

Live forward

We gain wisdom by looking back at what has gone before. But we must live going forward, (Kierkegaard:)

Which is always like looking through a glass darkly at best.

Whether we live in a place like Great Falls that shows all the signs of decline that one could want or in a place like Charlotte that is bursting forth with young people and energy and anticipation of what is to come. In either case and in both cases the way forward is for us to be in touch with the passion and vision of those who have made us who we are today.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought. (Basho)

What are the virtues of those heroes who brought us to this place? Hope and perseverance to build what they couldn’t see. The grit and determination to overcome the forces of disintegration that faced them. The peace that allowed them to put one step in front of another even when they could not see where it led. They carried with them a passion for the one that they sought above all, the Lord and creator of the universe.

Ours is not to copy them. Ours is to hold their passion and their delight before us as we step forward into our unknowns.

Liberation of the Gospel

The gospel intends to set us free from any looking back that may trap us in regrets or guilt or second thoughts. It is intended to shake us from the inertia of lethargy and to light a fire.

It is what it literally says in Luke 12.

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”

Jesus asks us about how we can be so numb to what’s right in front of us that we can’t take the step forward that so readily awaits us.

“When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain’; …” Jesus says, but you don’t know how to read the signs of the times.

These words sound harsh and even unforgiving. The way I hear them, though, they are the first part of a two-part plea for the people whom he cares for more than he can possibly say. One the one hand, “Wake up.” That’s today’s passage. On the other hand, “I will be with you unto the end of the age.” That comes at the end of the gospel of Matthew.

The great cloud of witnesses bears witness to the relentless love that the Lord gives to us. On that we can rest no matter what happens.

Step forth in faith. Amen.

Notes

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Color: Green Assigned Readings (Proper 15 )
Track One Lesson 1: Isaiah 5:1-7 Psalm: 80:1-2,8-18
Track Two Lesson 1: Jeremiah 23:23-29 Psalm: 82
Lesson 2: Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Gospel: Luke 12:49-56

lectionary

Isaiah:

• Let me sing for my beloved
  my love-song concerning his vineyard:

  My beloved had a vineyard
  on a very fertile hill.

  [and then]

• And now I will tell you
  what I will do to my vineyard.

  I will remove its hedge,
  and it shall be devoured;

  I will break down its wall,
  and it shall be trampled down.

Hebrews:

• faith … people passed through Red Sea
• “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”
• cf. e.g. the reading last night from Zen re. receiving from the great ones

Luke:

• I came to bring fire to the earth … father against son … but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"
• cf. we are so blind to what’s going on closest to us – what we have the most invested in

Sat, Aug 24, 2019

Saint Bartholomew 08/25/2019

Saint Bartholomew the Apostle Color: Red Assigned Readings Lesson 1: Deuteronomy 18:15-18 Psalm: 91 or 91:1-

proper-14-2019-chapel.md

Sun, Aug 11, 2019 Chapel of Christ the King

Back when I was still in my 20’s in Colorado, my parish priest invited me to a presentation by a monk by the name of William McNamara in the nearby town of Pueblo. He wrote about contemplative prayer and I was interested. We drove to the auditorium of a Catholic parish there and found our seats.

There, sitting on dais was man with a huge beard, almost to his waist, wearing a cassock, carrying himself with a kind of awesome confidence in himself together with a contagious aura of submission to a mighty God.

When he stood up and began to speak, I had the distinct sense that he was one of the Old Testament prophets who had walked right out of the Bible and into this auditorium. He sounded like a prophet.

It was as if he announced, “Pay attention.” And he got my attention.

I hear the words of God himself being spoken by the prophet this morning:

From the opening of Isaiah:

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;

I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.

…

seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,

defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:

though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;

God himself is speaking to us. We need to pay attention.

This past week I felt bombarded with signs of the times that seemed to speak no less loudly as the words of the prophet. Calling us to acts of mercy not solemn pronouncements. Demanding justice when we are too often content with complacency.

Seemingly in rapid succession over the last week we have had powerful events that we have to pay attention to.

August 6^th was the feast of the Transfiguration. A day recalling Jesus’ transformation on a mountain, pointing so powerfully to who he was in the deepest possible sense. It was also the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. A day that marks a new high water mark in humanity’s ability to destroy.

Often I have focused on these events on the Sunday following because the meaning of the solemn days seems powerfully pregnant and poignant.

But the signs of the times didn’t end there.

Mourning:

We had a weekend of mass killings.

• El Paso, Dayton, … (were these addressed last week?)

• the target of the El Paso massacre appears to have been Hispanics – “people of color” for those who identify people by the color of their skin

• the events raise the alarm about the overwhelming presence of guns in our society and not just guns but guns that are designed for use by soldiers.

• After a pro-gun legislative session applauded by the National Rifle Association, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed new laws that eased restrictions on where firearms can be carried, from schools to churches, apartments and foster homes, and barred cities from passing their own gun and ammunition sales limits. API

• Friday was the 5 year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown Jr., … shot by 28-year-old Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the city of Ferguson.

• Tomorrow is the 2^nd anniversary of the Charlottesville violence by white supremacists and the killing of Heather Heyer.

The signs can and ought to set us to weeping. It did in our household. Perhaps it did in yours as well.

There is so much violence. So much injustice. Too often the Church is more interested in solemn assemblies than in justice and defending the orphan.

Into the maelstrom Jesus speaks. It is a little like the setting of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass where the orchestra builds and builds until we can barely stand it, and then with a crash there is stillness. Into the stillness speaks Jesus.

The Gospel

Our gospel reading from Luke 12 this morning reads like a summary of what the Gospel is all about. …

• Do not fear. Fear interferes with your ability to love.

• The kingdom of God is ready for you – get prepared.

• Sell your possessions and do all you can to help the poor and outcast, it’s a part of making yourself fit for the kingdom.

• Be prepared for the holy banquet which is coming for the Son of Man will be here at an unexpected hour.

What are we to do? How to respond and be faithful? There is a temptation to be freeze. But it is times like these that the church must be present. We must not be complacent. To be complacent is to be complicit.

Quote / Refrain

When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it. Boris Pasternak

Discernment requires us to listen to the beating of our heart. We live in challenging times that fight to drown out the stillness where we can hear the beating of our heart.

Our armor as well as our arms are to be found in the gospel. It is there we know what we must do (or not do).

We fight for justice. Our allies are the oppressed. We defend the orphans and the widow. We are not called to make orphans and widows but to defend them.

We may not see the full fruit of our endeavor.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Though may not see it, we shall, to quote Pete Seeger, “… travel with the good people.”
Lori True wrote this prayer for our journey:

May your travels be well. Traveling mercies.

---

Notes

Pentecost 9 08/12/2019

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Color: Green Assigned Readings (Proper 14 )
Track One Lesson 1: Isaiah 1:1,10-20 Psalm: 50:1-8,23-24 T
rack Two Lesson 1: Genesis 15:1-6 Psalm: 33:12-22
Lesson 2:Hebrews 11:1-3,8-16 Gospel: Luke 12:32-40

lectionary

Hebrews: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. …

Thu, Aug 15, 2019: Saint Mary the Virgin 08/16/2019

Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ Color: White Assigned Readings Lesson 1: Isaiah 61:10-11 Psalm: 34 or 34:1-9 Lesson 2: Galatians 4:4-7 Gospel: Luke 1:46-55

proper-12-2019-our-savior.md

Sun, Jul 28, 2019 Our Saviour

Proper 12

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Color: Green Assigned Readings (Proper 12 )
Track One Lesson 1: Hosea 1:2-10 Psalm: 85
Track Two Lesson 1: Genesis 18:20-32 Psalm: 138
Lesson 2: Colossians 2:6-15,(16-19) Gospel: Luke 11:1-13

Introduction

It just seemed to me wonderfully serendipitous when in the space of a week I read today’s gospel and someone who is very dear to me asked, “What are some bible references to help teach me how to pray.” I actually have given some thought to that question over the years, having been asked it, oh, maybe a 100 times or more.

It took me back to when I tried to teach and model prayer to my children. I could remember my own grandmother teaching me prayers, including a German one from her childhood. Sometimes it seemed productive and sometimes not so much.

Children and Lord’s prayer

Take, e.g. these stories about children and the Lord’s Prayer:

I had been teaching my three-year-old daughter, Caitlin, the Lord’s Prayer. For several evenings at bedtime, she would repeat after me the lines from the prayer. Finally, she decided to go solo. I listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer: “Lead us not into temptation,” she prayed, “but deliver us some E-mail. Amen.”

And one particular four-year-old prayed, “And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”

Prayer (xxx’s question the other day)

The person who asked me the question about prayer was not a child. Although when it came to prayer I suspect he thought of himself as a child. Teach us how to pray. What a question!

The answer to such a question has to pay attention to the circumstances of the person asking it. It has to listen to try to discern what it is that the person is asking. I think of the story I heard many years ago:

A child returns from school and asks her mother, “Mommy, where do we come from?” The mother thinks to herself, "Oh my, now is the time that we’re going to have that talk. So she takes the child aside and begins to tell her in age-appropriate ways where babies come from. After a time the child says, “Oh, well, okay. You see today in school I met a new friend and she said that she was from Cleveland. And I was wondering where we’re from.”

ACTS

The answer I gave the person last week was to say that there are many ways to approach “prayer” but one very widely recognized one is think of 4 different aspects of prayer, following the acronym ACTS: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication.

Now part of what’s wrong with the acronym is that it uses words that nobody uses in ordinary language today.

Adoration

It’s really what I call awe. It’s being speechless, so it’s a kind of prayer that is familiar with not using words. I remember myself as a 12 year traveling across the country on a train. I wrote a diary that summer. I was traveling alone with my sister from Colorado to Illinois. I wrote in a little notebook. There was considerable Awe and Amazement as I looked out those train windows. It seemed that I could see God in those corn fields passing me by – or at least God’s handiwork.

Mary Pat looked at pictures from the Hubble telescope this past week. For 30 minutes she kept saying to me, “Oh my!” “It’s so awesome!”

The experience of seeing the familiar with new eyes, in playful splendidness in the glory of how the earth sustains us.

It is experienced in fathomless depths of relationships, love, communication of two souls.

Confession

The prayer of confession is, perhaps, more familiar. In our Sunday liturgies we weekly have a “confession” with forgiveness. We know the words. But it turns out that deep confession is not easy. It comes as one reaches the end of their rope. The prayer of confession, when a person accepts forgiveness that gives new life, is often expressed in wordless gestures. It truly gives life in a manifold of different circumstances.

Thanksgiving

Gratitude, it turns out, is something way beyond a “Thank you” card. It’s really an important courtesy that ought to be a habit that we would send “thank you” cards. And in spite of my mother’s nagging me when I was young and in spite of trying hard to develop the habit, I’m not that good at it.

But what I am convinced of is that the single most important thing I hope for is that I can get to the end of my life and say, “Thank you.” Now that’s a prayer.

Supplication

A, C, T, and we come to S – “Supplication”. Another word that nobody uses in today’s English. Asking God for … (whatever). I think that possibly this kind of prayer is what most people think prayer is. Ask and it shall be given … I first heard these words at a Summer Bible School at Trinity, Wauwatosa that I was in charge of. We compiled a songbook that included this song. It’s one of only a relatively few praise songs that made its way into the 1980 hymnal. I still love to sing it – especially if we can make it a round.

Seek ye first

1. Seek ye first the kingdom of God
   And His righteousness;
   And all these things shall be added unto you.
   Hallelu, Hallelujah!
2. Ask, and it shall be given unto you;
   Seek, and you shall find.
   Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
   Hallelu, Hallelujah!
3. Man shall not live by bread alone,
   But by every word
   That proceeds out from the mouth of God.
   Hallelu, Hallelujah!

Jesus is making a clear case that in fact God the Father provides for us, not just a little bit, but in unbelievable measures. It’s not just here but other places that Jesus makes the case, most notably in the parable known as the Prodigal Son.

Counter examples

I have seen children as well as adults struggle with their faith, learned at a young age, when what is asked for in prayer does not seem to be delivered. My daughter when she was age 11-12, suffered a great disillusionment after praying for months for grandma to be healed of her Cancer. But then she died. My daughter, I think, lost faith in God and her father at that moment.

For adults it’s something of the opposite. There is a deep conviction that everything costs. That life is unfair. Adults want us all to get the lesson that nobody gets – something for nothing.

daddy – “father”

Jesus’ response to the question about prayer is to give us the Lord’s Prayer. The Bible gives it in 2 different forms, in Matthew and in Luke. I have preferred for a long time to call it “The Our Father” after the opening words of the prayer as I learned it as a child.

If we can pray so as to know the father as Jesus knew the father, we shall be changed. I think of a story about a girl and her father. I want all children and adults who don’t know the Father as Jesus knew the Father to hear it:

Once upon a time there was a four year old girl who was lost in the mountains of Tennessee and her parents frantically looked for her. They reported her missing and an all-out search ensued to find the little girl as quickly as possible. As daylight faded into dark and the stars settled into the sky, they feverishly searched every square inch of the area. Meanwhile, the little girl found a soft spot under a tree and fell asleep with her stuffed bear in hand. As the sun rose the next morning, her father rounded a bend after searching all night and found the little girl just awaking. When she saw her father, she ran and jumped in his arms and declared, “oh good, Daddy, I found you!”
blog

What counts is not specific words, or even specific intentions, but a change of heart.

The Our Father

It is not as simple as we might first imagine. As those stories at the opening of this message show, what we learn as children is not always what we come to know as adults. And adults can get bogged down with details. The King James and BCP tradition of the Our Father are different from one another. And Matthew and Luke’s versions differ.

We have dutifully memorized at a young age these words. But I am convinced that the words themselves – in some literal fashion – are not what Jesus was getting at. (cf. “The finger and the moon”)

Not any particular words, but a conversion of heart, a new life, a changed trajectory in what one lives for.

Teaching a child to pray.

When I was in my 20-30s I was convinced that it was just plain important to learn prayers and scripture verses by rote, by memory. An illustration is the powerful testimony that Bp. Waite gave re. his captivity in Lebanon. For those of you who don’t remember:

Terence Hardy “Terry” Waite (born 31 May 1939) is an English humanitarian and author.

Waite was the Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs for the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages, including the journalist John McCarthy. He was himself kidnapped and held captive from 1987 to 1991.

After his release he wrote a book about his experiences and became involved in humanitarian causes and charitable work. wikipedia

I myself was impacted and still am by his accounts of years in solitary, chained to a wall. Like John McCain. Waite befriended a rat. He kept his sanity by repeating over and over the psalms and hymns that he had memorized as a youth.

But I am just as firmly convinced today that we have to learn to pray over and over again, throughout our life. There is a well-known saying about prayer that it is not about changing God, but about changing us.

We must leave off childish ways and put on the full armor of Jesus’ prayer. As children we learned “lead us not into temptation” – and generations of human beings have “learned” that God is the sort of person who relishes leading people into temptation, testing them to see if they are good enough, strong-willed enough. Not the kind of Father that Jesus was introducing us to.

We must continually hear with new ears.

To prayer Lord’s prayer with single-mind focus – Simone Weil

In a collection of letters and essays by Weil, titled Waiting for God, there is an extended reflection on the Lord’s Prayer.

• She starts off with “Our father which art in heaven.” Just that is a ton to take in. “Our” – not mine, but ours. “Father” – not like any father I’ve known.
• And then we might observe that Luke doesn’t say Our father, he just says Father.
• We might continue through the whole prayer. But, as Weil says, that is a daunting task. In the end she concludes – (the last words in the slim volume):

“The Our Father contains all possible petitions; we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained in it. It is to prayer what Christ is to humanity. It is impossible to say it once through, giving the fullest ossible attention to each word, without a change, infinitesimal perhaps but real, taking place in the soul.”

New Zealand prayer

Perhaps it can be enough for us to learn the prayer in many different varieties and variations.

Mary Pat and I achieve that in a tiny way by using a different version of the Our Father to pray in our daily prayer together. I have a few copies of the prayer if you are interested.

It goes like this:

From The New Zealand Prayer Book

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is Heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your Heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on Earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen.