Saint Mark's Episcopal Church Website

Announcements fill our lives, demanding our attention. There's junk mail that insists "OPEN IMMEDIATELY," and banners running across the bottom of the TV news as if the information conveyed by the reporter couldn't possibly be comprehensive and rapid enough; sirens warning us to beware and loudspeakers blaring in stores; even billboards soliciting from the sky. More personal announcements come to us as well: a tearful phone call, a jubilant e-mail, a pleading text message, a sick or scared family member crying out in the night. The more our media sources proliferate, the more announcements come our way…and, possibly, the less attention we pay to any of them.

I'm guessing that, in the absence of electronic devices, Mary was less assaulted by announcements than we are. However, then or now, I am pretty sure no one would anticipate a message being delivered by an angel, right there in front of you, apparently speaking clear as day. It's to Mary's credit if the extent of her reaction was "perplexed" as described in Luke's gospel; I doubt mine would be anything nearly that collected.

Have you ever wondered if God tried out this announcement on anyone before Mary, someone who brushed off Gabriel as a hallucination or fainted in shock or immediately concluded that the whole idea was so bizarre as to be impossible? Perhaps, by some gift of her personality, Mary was simply the sort of person who was predisposed toward listening, was really good at paying attention. Moses seems to have been like that; he noticed the bush burning but not consumed, and hung in there for all the commandments not just once but twice, and regularly chatted with God. So maybe, in part, God picked Mary because God knew Mary would at least listen to the announcement before making up her mind. Because if God could get her to hear, truly hear, this message that was part request and part proclamation, then how could she refuse her calling? This child was to be great, the Son of the Most High, on the throne of his ancestor David, reigning over a kingdom that would have no end. Really, how could you say no to that??

So Mary listened, and she said yes, and the world was changed, just like that.

If it could happen to Mary, why couldn't it happen to us? Oh, not another Messiah, but an announcement that calls us to an undertaking that changes the world, just like that, but in a new way. Can we trust that each one of us is every bit as beloved and essential and highly-favored as Mary, and with an equally important role to play in the work of the Spirit? I'm almost hesitant to suggest the idea, because it feels so weighty, so improbable, so…BIG. But if I don't say it, then I'm allowing myself to doubt that it could happen, to question whether the kingdom of God really is breaking into our midst, with us—the children of God—as part of that amazing process. So I'm going with saying it, and believing it, and maybe even daring to expect it.

I won't rule out the angel thing, but I think God has a lot of choices for making announcements to us, for calling us to participate in God's purposes. We might have someone speak to us, with an earnest plea or a casual remark, causing us to stop and think, or we may read something that has the same effect, the feeling that those words were meant specifically for us. A dream, an insight or intuition, a voice or vision that comes to us privately…all are ways that God calls us, if we're paying attention. It's worth asking ourselves also for whom we might be the messenger, the one God is using to give voice to a call for that person. No, the difficulty is not in the means of delivery, but in getting us to listen and to sort out the important messages in the midst of so many mindless ones.

Of course, there's a part 2 to this: will we, like Mary, assent to God's call? Ponder what God's favor meant for the rest of Mary's life; I'm sure she didn't anticipate the high cost, the heartbreak, of being chosen. Will we take the chance of offering our whole selves to God? Are we brave enough and foolish enough to allow ourselves to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Because I don't think God assaults us like a commando, compelling us to cooperate, I figure it's not enough simply to hear the call. We need to respond willingly, even if we're not quite clear on the details, which is probably the rule rather than the exception when it comes to God's business. God seeks our active participation in the creative process, and I can almost picture all the angels holding their breath while God waits patiently to see what we'll say.

The call may not seem nearly as dramatic as having Gabriel suddenly land in front of you, but the choice is still ours:

• There's someone hungry…here am I, a servant of God, with a bag of rice or a box of cereal.
• There's someone lonely…here am I, a servant of God, with an invitation to lunch or a phone call.
• There's someone grieving…here am I, a servant of God, with kleenex and a listening ear.
• There's someone being bullied or intimidated…here am I, a servant of a servant of God, with a protective arm of friendship.
• There's someone suffering from injustice… here am I, a servant of God, with a voice and a vote.
• There's someone whose life feels empty…here am I, a servant of God, with a gently-told story of the difference God’s love makes in my life.
• There's someone who is too young, too old, too awkward, too poor, too different, too challenging to be noticed and included…here am I, a servant of God, to treat her as a beloved, essential, highly-favored child of God.

What if we all were to listen, and all say yes? The world might be changed, just like that.

Labels: Advent, Christian practice, Mary, sermon

It doesn’t get much better than this. For couch-potato, remote control addicted, sports junkies like myself, this time of year is the “perfect storm” of sorts, as so many activities are flashing on the television screen, where other people are working hard while I’m passively observing it all, that I hardly know where to focus my attention.

College football is at the mid-point of its season already, with USC and UCLA still making an effort to look respectable. Professional football is giving countless people legitimate excuses for missing church and staying home on Sunday mornings to catch the early game. The National Hockey League started its new season this past week (although most folks here in southern California can’t even name the two professional teams in the area). NASCAR devotees will know that their season is in the final stretch, with only 6 more races to go before the end of the year – and there is nothing more fascinating than watching cars drive around in circles for hours on end at 200 miles per hour. Golf enthusiasts are getting to see whether Tiger Woods will perform another meltdown routine at a tournament up in San Jose this weekend. The National Basketball Association, on the other hand, is currently experiencing what labor negotiators like to call a “lock out” while all of the grossly overpaid players argue with the grossly over-rich owners about who is going to get a bigger share of the revenue pie. But the best show in town, at least in my book, is the final countdown of the Major League Baseball season. After a week of thrilling games, we are down to the final four teams still in the hunt for the World Series title.

I was watching a game this past week where a rookie fielder on one team made several blunders in a short span of time. One of the commentators remarked: “He just doesn’t have his head in the game yet.” Apparently, this aspiring young athlete had showed up physically to play, but mentally he was still in the locker room. “He just doesn’t have his head in the game yet.”

Woody Allen, that great American actor, director, and playwright, is purported to have once said that 80 percent of life is showing up. I think that there is a lot of truth in that idea… but I also think that it’s about showing up 100 percent… that is to say, having your head in the game. It’s not about showing up 80% of the way, but being fully present, fully engaged, fully in the moment.

This morning’s gospel lesson recounts what I can only describe as a rather unsettling and, at times, confusing allegory about a king hosting a wedding feast for his son. For many of us, we may have listened to this story today… not quite the way we remember it. You see, we heard Matthew’s version of this story, while Luke’s version is the more popular one. It was, in fact, Luke’s telling of this story that inspired that old church camp song:
I cannot come… I cannot come to the banquet,
Don’t trouble me now.
I have married a wife, I have bought me a cow.
I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum.
Pray hold me excused… I cannot come.
That’s the story that many of us know ... the “G-rated” version, appropriate for all audiences. But that’s not the one we heard today.

Today we heard the PG-version… or maybe it ought to have been rated “R”. You see, in this version, the people flat-out refused to come when asked not once, but twice. And the king was so enraged that he sent in his army, killed all the people, and burned down their houses. But wait, now who was going to come to the party? So the king sent his servants back out to gather in everybody who was left… all the folks who didn’t make the original guest list, as Matthew says, “both good and bad.” It’s more important, apparently, for the king to have a full house than to have the “right” kind of people in the room. But then there’s that one last uncomfortable twist to the story. It appears that some poor schmuck showed up without his party clothes on. He didn’t have his head in the game. And how did the king react when he saw him? Well, in the words of Eugene Peterson’s translation of this text: Then the king told his servants, 'Get him out of here—fast. Tie him up and ship him to hell. And make sure he doesn't get back in.'

I’m not going to stand up here this morning and try to soften the edges of this harsh story. And I’m not going to second-guess either Matthew or Jesus by saying something like, “You know, what Jesus really meant to say was…” And I most certainly am not going to tell you that I understand exactly what Matthew’s point was in having Jesus relate the story just this way. Maybe there should just be a margin note in the Bible identifying this as a “cautionary tale” – a story meant to caution us against being like any of the characters in the story.

What I can say is – despite all of the violence, and the seemingly capricious actions of the king in the story – that all God wants to do is to throw a party… and all God wants of us is that we show up… 100% show up… with our head in the game, and our party clothes on. God is constantly setting before us new opportunities… new possibilities… new potentials… new prospects… new alternatives – all of which can draw us closer to God and closer to one another… all of which can help us to be more the person – and more the community – that God is calling us to become. And all God asks of us is that we believe that is what God wants… and then act accordingly.

This past week, one of the most influential people of our day died at the far-too-young age of 56. Frankly, for people over the age of 56, the death of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer, may have held their interest for a news cycle or two. But especially for people under the age of 56, Steve Jobs changed the world. It wasn’t just the endless array of electronic gizmos and gadgets that rolled off the assembly line – from the Mac computer, to the I-family (you know, the I-Pod, the I-Phone, the I-Pad), to Pixar Film Studios (which revolutionized the movie industry), to I-Tunes (which revolutionized the music industry). All of those things were important, and made investors a whole lot of money along the way. But it was because of Steve Jobs’ vision of new possibilities that no one else could even envision that we, as a culture have re-imagined what it means to be connected to each other. All of those products which came out of Apple were just that – products, products of the underlying vision that life is about showing up… and showing up in ways that people never even imagined 30 years earlier.

For the last 7 years of his life, Steve Jobs battled a particularly virulent form of pancreatic cancer. Not long after his original diagnosis, he offered the 2005 commencement address at Stanford University. In that speech, he offered the graduates – and us – some of the most profound thoughts for living life with one another to the fullest, living life as though it was a banquet. “Remembering,” Jobs told the class that day, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

My friends, we have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by embracing the banquet that God has set before us. So seize the moment… grab the brass ring… join the party… and your life will be changed… and God will break in… and you will be a new creation.

Amen.

Labels: Bob Honeychurch, sermon

In the Episcopal Church, we like to name things. Every season gets a name, every object and aspect of architecture gets a name—a special ecclesiastical one—and every Sunday gets a name: 17th Sunday in Pentecost, 4th Sunday after Easter, All Saints' Sunday. Because we like doing this so much, we even give some Sundays nicknames. There's Low Sunday, the one after Easter Sunday, and Rose Sunday, the 3rd Sunday in Advent when we light the pink candle on the Advent wreath. There used to be Stir-up Sunday, on which the collect began "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord…" and which was a reminder that one had better stir up one's fruitcake if it was to have time to age before Christmas…but then the prayer book planners moved the collect much too close to Christmas for it to serve that purpose anymore. Here at Saint Mark's, we have Consecration Sunday coming up in November, and Graduation Sunday in the spring, and Homecoming Sunday today. And then, of course, there's that national feast, Super Bowl Sunday!

However, based on today's lessons, I'd like to suggest today be granted yet another nickname: Whiner's Sunday. Honestly, the Israelites in the desert and the all-day workers in the parable rival a 6 year old in their ability to lay it on: "Are we there yet?????" "Do I have to?" "It's not faaaaaaaiiiiirrrrr." They clearly have not learned one of the mantras of life in the preschool here at Saint Mark's: You get what you get and you don't have a fit!

Not that they don't have some basis for whining in both cases. The Israelites are exercising a big bit of selective memory in forgetting about how miserable they were in Egypt, but still, life wandering around in the desert is no picnic…especially given the lack of food, and—in the previous chapter—decent water. In our problematic parable, sure, the first-hired were paid what they'd been told they'd receive, but it doesn't seem right that the last-hired got paid just as much. It would, in both cases, be disingenuous for me to suggest that what's going on is, in fact, fair…because it's not, not by our standards at least. As our mothers told us when we complained about having an earlier bedtime than a sibling, or ending up with the smaller serving of ice cream, or not getting to ride in the front seat: life isn't fair.

However, the lack of fairness doesn't really merit the whining. There are all sorts of people for whom life isn't fair who aren't whining about it. Which leaves me wondering what's really behind our complaints? Sometimes it's boredom, as on a long car trip, kind of a "There's nothing else to do so I might as well whine" attitude; by day 45 wandering around in the middle of nowhere, one certainly can imagine that kicking in. There's also an inflated sense of entitlement sort of whining that arises from believing that I am the center of the universe and the world owes me exactly what I think I deserve.

I think the most common, though, is whining that comes out of a mindset of scarcity. If I believe that resources—time, money, food & shelter, attention, love—are limited, then I'm going to worry. Will I get my share? Will I be secure? Will I have enough? Pretty soon that worry is going to express itself as whining; if we keep it up, eventually it'll become a habit, a way of looking at life that makes us anxious, angry, and acquisitive, as we wonder both whether we'll have enough and whether someone else is getting our share, leaving us lacking.

That's a burdensome way to go through life. It's quite a weight always to be trying to take care of ourselves, to be in control of getting enough…because we're not always going to succeed, and that'll only raise our anxiety levels, leading to more worry, more resentment, and more whining. That seed of concern has been around since the serpent planted it in Adam and Eve's mind with the idea that maybe they'd be best off being able to take care of themselves without relying on God.

Contrast that with the alternative perspective in today's readings, one that represents God's mindset, so different from human worries. "You don't trust me for what you need? I delivered you from all those plagues and brought you safely out of Egypt and led you across the Red Sea, but if what you need now is food, no problem; I'll give you food, too, and then maybe you'll remember the other stuff as well and believe that I'm going to take care of you." And, as the abundantly generous landowner, "I have so much that I can give everyone enough—enough to buy that day's bread, enough to take care of the family, enough that for this day no one has to worry—and it will be my delight to do so." Fairness has nothing to do with this; it's about God giving us enough. This applies to us individually, but just as much so as a community. On this Homecoming Sunday, as we celebrate the relationships and the ministries which make us uniquely Saint Mark's, we do well to trust that, by God's grace and generosity, our resources are enough, our skills are enough, we are enough for whatever it is to which God calls us.

Worrying doesn't sit well with an attitude of abundance. When we're busy whining, it's hard to be grateful and content. When we're trying to act as if we're in charge, it's impossible to rest in the confidence that God is control and that that's a good thing. If your hand is closed tightly around something, you can't receive another gift—even a better one—until you let go of the first. If we're holding on tight to our worries and sense of scarcity, we can't open our hearts to accept the wondrous blessings God has for us.

[index cards…on one, write a whine, a resentment, a grudge that's burdening you down; on the other, write a blessing, a gift, a thanksgiving. Hold them, face down, one in each palm.] The physical weight is the same, but the spiritual and emotional weight is very different. Choose which you want to keep, which you want to nurture and have grow in you—because you can't feed both of them—and give away the other one; let it go. [pass baskets]

That's our choice, again and again, to follow the path that was shown to us by Jesus when he answered the fears and anger and sense of scarcity of those who were threatened by him, not by responding in kind, but by offering abundant love and abundant life. With open hands and open hearts, may we receive that blessing.

Labels: Homecoming, sermon, worry

Pr. 17, Yr A; 8/28/11

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

We're on the cusp of an annual ritual, one repeated in hundreds of thousands of households as students return to school. The content may vary with the grade of the child, but the basic tenor is the same. As the child heads out the door, or in the car on the drive to school, or at the threshold of the classroom, parents begin a litany: "Do you have your lunch? Don't forget your jacket. Remember to wait your turn. Say please and thank you. Raise your hand and wait to be called on. Your snack money is in the outside pocket of your backpack. Don't wait too long to ask to go to the bathroom. Tell an adult if someone bullies you. Don't pass notes or text during class. Call me when you get home. Make sure you cover your mouth with your elbow if you sneeze. Did you wear clean underwear? I love you!" It's a last, frantic shot at making sure our kids know what it means to be a good citizen at school…and even as the words tumble out of the mouths of parents, we know it's too much, too fast, a flood of instructions dumped over minds already filled with wonders and worries about the new year's adventures.

It looks to me like Paul is doing much the same in the selection we read today from his letter to the believers in Rome. His laundry list of practical advice for living as a Christian is more than a little overwhelming; even though every individual instruction is useful, half way through the passage I can't even remember what was at the start, and I'm tempted to tune it all out. Maybe it would work better if we parceled them out one or two sentences at a time throughout the year!

But we don't, and there it is…and it's not the only part of the Bible like this. In fact, the Bible as a whole can have this same effect. How can I possibly live faithfully with so much to remember? If I fall short—and I know I'm going to—should I just throw in the towel before even beginning?

Obviously, the answer is no! I'd like to think that Paul, like our parents, was using small strokes to paint a big picture, one that's instructive up close but gains its fullest impact when taken as a whole. Up close: 26 commands in 13 verses. Take one step back, and he's talking about being a person of principle, persistence, and compassion…well, except for the little twist at the end where he points out you can kill a person with kindness! A few more paces back, and we step right into the gospel: in losing your life—all those human bits that want revenge on those who hurt us, to distrust strangers and look out for #1, to be in control and get what we want right this minute—in allowing all that to die, we gain a new life as followers of Christ Jesus and the way of his cross and resurrection. And then, with that bigger aim in mind, we continue in a circle, moving in to see once again what the specifics of that kind of life look like.

It's a cycle, and I really think that's what it's intended to be; I don't believe there's anything wrong or inadequate about our faith when we establish this back and forth rhythm. The problem comes if we get stuck in one spot or the other. Focus solely on the details and we turn into the worst kind of fundamentalists, people without vision who can only take a rule and apply it, then take another rule and apply it, then take yet another rule and apply it, with little sense of why we're doing what we're doing. But go the other way—stay back so far that we lose sight of the particulars of our faith—and we become clanging cymbals, proclaiming God's love and justice without taking tangible action to make it real.

Just as parents understand that kids aren't actually going to remember every detail of the last-minute reminders, Paul couldn't have imagined we would either. But his words draw a picture for us, one that can be revisited and reviewed, holding out the possibility that a little more will sink in every time and that in due course we'll reflect more and more of those values and behaviors of faith. Then we ourselves, in imitation of Jesus, will be the picture; people who watch us will begin to see, whether they know it or not, what it looks like to be his follower.

That's a pretty tall order, though, so here's the best news: God will do fine even when we're struggling. Jesus has already done the losing his life in order to save it part, more perfectly than any of us can, and for all of us, so we're going to be okay too. When Jesus rebuked Peter, he was reminding Peter that this was God's work, not a human endeavor. We do our best and sometimes we get it right, being patient and peaceable and welcoming and conciliatory. Or we do our best and sometimes we get it wrong, acting vengeful and proud and lazy and resentful. And then we get another chance, another reminder, another opportunity to step aside from the grip of this world's priorities and onto holy ground, from losing our life to finding it.

Labels: Bible, Christian practice, Jesus, sermon

Be a good steward of God's creation--and clear some space in your cabinets and garage--by taking your household and electronic waste to an L.A. County waste round-up in Sierra Madre or Arcadia (Santa Anita racetrack) this Saturday, August 20th. Batteries, light bulbs, paint & solvents, expired or unused medicines, sharps containers, lawn & garden products, drain cleaner, used motor oil and filters, cell phones, TVs, DVD and video players, and many more items accepted; if in doubt, take it and ask! You don't even need to get out of your car...just drive up and they do the rest.

Click here for more information.

Labels: stewardship