The Rev. Jennifer Adams – January 29, 2017 at – Epiphany 4, Year A: Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-23

So at this point in the service, if you were here last week, you might be feeling a little de ja vu.  “Didn’t we hear about Simon Peter and his brother Andrew last week?” you’re wondering to yourself.  Did Jen forget to turn the page?  Maybe you’re even feeling a little awkward on my behalf.  Well, I can assure you that the page has been turned; I’m on it guys. But you are also correct in terms of the story itself. In a rare experience of blatant lectionary repetition – I don’t think this happens any other time of the year – we just heard the story of the calling of these two disciples two weeks in a row.  This difference is that we heard it from the gospel of John last week and Matthew this week, and so don’t worry, there’s still a lot to talk about. Last week we even noted that there is more than one way to tell a story – and the means by which the story is told tells us something too.

Last week remember (or to bring you up to speed) it was a totally Johannine experience.  There was a bit of poetry and some mystery woven in to it all.  There was no mention of fisherman or nets or a lakeshore. The guys just sort of “saw Jesus” walking through town.  They began to follow him, which was more like a lurking behind him as he wandered through the streets.  And then at one point Jesus turned around, and asked them a question and offered invitation that was then repeated throughout that gospel, “What are you looking for?” he asked and Jesus invited them to “Come and see.” In that version of the story, the newly called disciples spent the night in a home with Jesus presumably listening, praying, eating, discerning.  And they experienced a conversion of sorts which they then shared with their family and friends, some of whom then followed Jesus too.

And so last week we talked about that spiritual process of allowing the gentle yet direct question and invitation to sink into our own hearts and lives, to do the work of being honest about what it is we’re seeking and allowing the Body of Christ to become that through which we are fed and through whom we “See” the presence of our God. I even gave you homework last week to prayerfully sit with the question and invitation, to see what it is that God reveals to you.

Well this week, the story is the same but so very different. This is the calling of Andrew and Simon told by Matthew and it’s every bit as spiritual, but rather than creating silence for a sort of deep reflection and discernment to take place like we did last week, we’re off and running right from the start of the passage.

According to Matthew, Jesus got word that John the Baptist had been imprisoned which was a sign for him that it was time to get things moving. And so Jesus packed it up, left his hometown, and headed toward the lakeshore. (Now we can relate to the strategy there. It’s never a bad approach to hit the lakeshore.)

But instead of wandering and sort of responding to those who had been attracted to his revelatory presence, Jesus, was far more proactive. There’s an urgency and necessary action woven into this version of the story that were not there last week.

Jesus saw two fishermen, Simon Peter and Andrew and he went up to them.  And then Jesus told them to “Follow me.”  And Peter and Andrew did. According to Matthew they, “Immediately dropped their nets and followed.” Then Jesus kept going. There was no settling down in a home for supper and conversation. Jesus just kept going.  And he saw James and John and “called to them” and they too, “immediately got out of the boat and followed.”

And from there Jesus and the brand new didn’t-even-have-time-to-talk-to-their-friends-about-all-of-this-in-fact-we-left-our Dad-Zebedee- back-in the-boat disciples went throughout Galilee, “teachingin their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curingevery disease and every sickness among the people.”

So last week we sat here in this place.  We took some deep breaths and contemplated our needs, our callings, the revelations we’ve experienced or hope to experience. But THIS WEEK there’s barely time to catch our breath because we have just been told to get out there, heal, teach, proclaim, cure!

And so I am very, very aware that we need both versions of this story.

There is a budding awareness (how’s that for a gentle summary of our times?) – there is a budding awareness that we need to be engaged in the struggles and hurts and pains of this world.  Yesterday in our country and all over the world on all seven continents we experienced what is being called “the largest march” ever held, the largest and probably most peaceful march ever held.  We witnessed and some of us were people claiming power, claiming voice, standing together and offering themselves/ourselves to a larger vision of “good.”

There is a sense of urgency that hasn’t been present on this large of a scale in a very long time, an awareness that we all need to be engaged. Now truth is the world needed us, needed all of us six months ago too. People were hungry six months ago. People were un-equal then too.  There were millions needed shelter and care and home then too.

But maybe we’re waking up.  Maybe a light is dawning on those who sat in darkness  – at least I’m going with that interpretation for now.  Maybe we can even help the story being written now to swing in that direction.  Regardless of where you stand politically, (and my guess is that that in itself is an ongoing discernment for us all) the world, if it is ever to resemble the kingdom God needs each and every one of us now. It always has and until the kingdom comes in full, it always will.

And so Jesus is here down by the Lakeshore today.  And Jesus is calling out to fishermen, teachers, doctors, activists, law enforcement officers, lawyers, priests, students, musicians, truck drivers, nurses, therapists, librarians, accountants, homemakers, programmers, bankers, (who am I missing?  Add your vocation to this list!) And Jesus is saying “The time is now.” I will help you fish for people,” he says, “God’s people. I will help you play for them, teach and learn for them, drive for them, preach for them, deliver for them. I will help you, pray, lead, manage, march, serve, protect for God’s people.”

There is an urgency for us to consider.  The time is now.  The time is always now. “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,” we heard from the prophet Isiaiah. And so, we should act like it.

We are both of these versions of the story of the calling of disciples and we need to be both versions of this story.  I actually think it’s a particular charism of the Episcopal Church to be able to hold and integrate both – the deeply prayerful and discerning with the active and engaged.  We are to listen in ways that invite and actually demand a deep, reflective and spiritual awareness. “What are you looking for, what do you seek?” needs to be a question we ask ourselves on a very regular basis if for no other reason than it keeps us aware of the energies and desires we are acting out of. It also opens us up to have God respond.

And we need be active. The time is an urgent one as it always is.  The Kingdom of God is at hand and it will take everyone from fishermen to teachers to kids to lawyers and doctors and activists and law enforcement officers and even a priest or two to help it break through more and more.  We have all been called to offer our skills, our talents, ourselves in ways that proclaim to this hungry world the love and justice and mercy of our God.   Desmond Tutu said, “It’s those little pieces of good put together that overwhelm the world.” That’s what this is all about.

And so catch your breath when you are here.  Breath deeply here.  And feel empowered through our prayer to become and engaged response, a response that embodies the healing, mercy and hope of a God who loves us all.

Amen

Rev. Jennifer Adams – November 20, 2016

Christ the King Sunday: Luke 23:33-43

Well the passage this morning from the gospel of Luke comes from one of the most difficult scenes in the whole gospel.  We don’t really expect to hear it this time of the year and so it probably also comes as a bit of shock.  As we move through the days of Holy Week leading up to Easter, we expect to hear the story of the crucifixion because this is the gospel of Good Friday. But this is November 20^th, for heavens sakes!  This is Christ the King Sunday and next week is actually the beginning of a new church year, the first Sunday of Advent.

And this doesn’t feel like the kind of story you tell on New Year’s Eve nor is it exactly the kind of image we’d typically ascribe to a King.  This just isn’t the image of a human being, let alone a deity who has power or control or authority over any realm, like we’d assume a King to have.

Because at the point at which we entered the gospel story today, Jesus had been arrested and he’d been presented to the religious authorities who questioned him and then handed him on to Pilate with accusations saying that he was a criminal who deserved to die.  The circumstances were obviously painful and incredibly unjust and the kinds of things being shouted weren’t about a new day coming. . . at least at first they weren’t.

The kinds of things being shouted were horribly mocking kinds of things:  “He saved others, let him save himself!” they said.  “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself!” they teased. “Are you not the Messiah, save yourself and us!”  They weren’t celebrating a King at all.  These weren’t the words of praise or even of prayer.

But who could blame them really?  If they’d had even an ounce of hope that Jesus was the One who could bring salvation to their lives, to their people, to the world, that ounce was being poured out that very day right in front of their eyes. They were shouting because this wasn’t an image of salvation as far as they could tell and they had come to believe it would be.  They were shouting because instead of their hopes being fulfilled in Christ, they were standing before one of the most unfulfilling, un-happiest endings of all.  They were hurt and they were confused.

And if we’re honest we’d have to say that we get just as confused about what salvation looks like as they did. We know how endings should go and what setting the stage for new beginnings looks like.  True confession – I carry a vision of how I think things should be – and that vision is shattered by reality on a regular basis.  No matter how hard I fight it, I pretend to know how plot lines should progress, how stories should end, how protagonists (especially Kings!) should be cast. (Including but not limited to the story of salvation and the timeframes involved with that that entire process.)  And while not always bad or at least, well intentioned, that tendency can get in my way as much as it got in the way of the people in the gospel story.

On Christ the King Sunday we’re reminded that salvation is up to God. Period. It’s in God’s hands as God’s work.  Heear the good news in that.  As we live through the confusion, division, frustrations of this world, salvation is up to God.  Let that be good news and also a bit of a check to keep us in the place that is ours.

Now God chose redemption as the method of salvation which makes for a messier plot line than most of us are comfortable with.  This means that often endings and beginnings get blurred rather than clarified and they often play out over longer periods of time rather than in any one instance; even the resurrection of God’s Son took three days by our clock.  In the ways of God, plot lines that seem to be playing to our visions, often move into plot twists reminding us that while we are integral and vital participants in this story, the author of our salvation is not we ourselves.

Now as we close this year with a gospel story that from all accounts appeared to be the worst ending of all, remember that Jesus spoke some words it too.  There were words of derision and mockery and frustration filling the air, but there was also a conversation happening from the cross.  There was a conversation happening on the cross which, as someone pointed out to me this week, is remarkable in itself.  While the criminals were arguing between themselves about salvation and innocence and guilt, while the people were shouting all around him, Jesus offered this: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  And then into the mess of it all, he promised paradise.

And so as we close out one year and look to the next, we have one of the hardest stories of all to bridge us, but one in which forgiveness and paradise are offered, and I believe they’ve been offered to all. What a way to close out!  What a way to begin. This is the kind of forgiveness that allows us to be us and God to be God, because this forgiveness is on a scale that none of us alone, none of us even collectively could begin to muster. To a world I which nobody can claim innocence as a means forward, God offers forgiveness instead.  This is ending-and-new-beginning not as flashy, royal “grand finale”, but ending and beginning more like a powerfully offered, holy release.  A release that actually commits God to the opening of an eternal paradise which surpasses all that we can ask for or imagine.  This is forgiveness as grace, pure grace offered from a God mysterious enough to work out salvation in the most surprising and ultimately redeeming ways, being present as King through, of all things, a cross, offering himself in ways that mercifully shatters the plotlines of us all.

As we end this year and begin another, may our calls of confusion, our cries of frustration, our shouts of derision be transformed into the liberating song of a people forgiven, a people engaged in the hard yet blessed work of redemption. As we end this year and begin another may we be a people praying for, hoping for, working for a grace-filled paradise offered to all.

Amen.

The Rev. Jennifer Adams – Sunday, October 23, 2016

Proper 26, Year C: Joel 2:23-32, 2Timothy: 4:6-18, Luke 18:9-14

This morning I want to begin with the reading from the prophet Joel, because it’s one of my favorite passages (and preachers have the privilege of running with their favorites when they show up.)  So come on along and hear what Joel had to say.

“O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God, the for he has given the early rain for your vindication,” the prophet spoke.  “The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. ²⁵I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten…You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you…You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other. ..²⁸I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old shall dream dreams, and your young shall see visions. ²⁹Even on the male and female slaves, (meaning therefore, upon everyone) I will pour out my spirit.” 

I love this passage because it’s a beautiful articulation of how the Spirit comes to a community and works through us all – old and young, sons and daughters, free and not so free but soon to be – the Spirit has been poured upon all flesh for the sake of all flesh.  Which that’s a beautiful and profound grace to consider.  And it sort of makes me want to walk around the congregation, and ask everyone here today, “So, what are your dreams?… What are your visions?” Hey all, the Spirit will/has been poured upon us!  We are intergenerationally blessed!

But don’t worry, Episcopalians. We are by nature a little shy about group shares especially during worship, especially using the language of “dreams and visions of God,” so I’m not going to roam right now.  But trust me, trust Joel, and for that matter remember the language we use at Baptism: the Spirit is upon you and you and you and you and me. Everyone here has a dream, everyone who walks through these doors has a dream, and we need the old, the young and everyone in-between to share the visions they have been given in order to be the community we have been called to be.

So part of what we do for each other here at Grace is honor and help shape and nurture those dreams, weaving them into some sort of larger whole that becomes not just individual but a collective “grace for the world.”  Joel is telling us that God is doing something  through us, among us.  And it is our job, our work as people of faith to nurture the gifts that the Spirit sends.

Which is energizing and literally, inspiring.  “I will, with God’s help” is how we respond to the charge at Baptism and the assurance here is that God’s help has come and will continue to be poured out. As we enter into this time of year when we focus in on the gifts we have to share, the time, talent, treasure to use traditional language – remember that it’s all for the sake of engaging the Spirit’s gifts and God’s dreams for this church and this world.

Each and every one of us has something essential to bring to the table, this table and others too.  And so we set goals, we listen, we support, encourage and cheer each other on. And we remember that the Spirit is here and is always calling us to a time of literal abundance – of food, of shelter, of mercy, of peace and spiritual blessings.  Part of what we do together here is dream and work for a re-newed church and world.   And I could say Amen right now and sit down.

But in the spirit of full disclosure, I need to say more. Before we go all vision on ourselves and go way heavy on the dreams, we have to acknowledge that there are challenges to all of this vision stuff.   As coincidence would have it, The Second Letter to Timothy from which came our second passage this morning reminds us of some of those.

The author of this Epistle was Paul who had been up to his ears in visions and dreams for a VERY long time by the time he wrote this letter to his right hand man, Timothy.  Paul had walked miles and miles and miles.  He’d written lots of letters, preached lots of places, encouraged one community of faith after another, and Paul had also been imprisoned for his faith.

By this point in his story, some of Paul’s buddies had left.  We heard that one had gone on to Thessalonica, another to Galatia, and recently yet another had gone off to Ephesus to work on something else.  So the people of Paul’s day were very busy – and distracted – they struggled to live and worship as one Body.  There were theological, ideological conflicts and sometimes just simple human misunderstandings.  And not only that but the local coppersmith was apparently blatantly and publically opposing their message, Paul had left his jacket at his last stop, his books were all over the place (he had to ask Timothy to pick them up,) and his parchments weren’t terribly organized.

And so the challenge is that that’s what they had to work with when it came to a community of people sharing the dreams and visions of God!  Busyness.  Blatant opposition. Differences of opinions and priorities. Distractions!

And all that sounds familiar to me too. Here we are a people who have dreams and visions.  A creative, compassionate, faithful people who also have day jobs, and meals to cook, and baths to give, homework to do, schedules to juggle, struggles to wrestle, and parchments to organize.  So we are challenged to balance holding on to the larger vision of the grand and holy dreams of God with the reality of remembering to pay the electric bill and not bumping up too hard against the local coppersmith.

Our work is hold all of this in one very real place in which God is present: the dreams, the distractions, the visions, the day to day in one big incarnational bundle of being God’s people in this world.  And so we hold up where we are headed while we stubbornly, patiently, passionately, hunker in to a step at a time sort of approach.  (Sometimes we take three steps at a time. Sometimes two steps back, but, like Paul and probably even Joel, we keep walking.)

Remember the visions are for threshing floors full of grain where no one hungers and so the step we take is to we welcome all to this table every Sunday and everyone gets fed.  And we fling wide the doors for our mobile food pantry and we come together for Holy Chow shared meals – all signs that we are committed to that way of being in this world.  The vision is for dreams being poured upon all flesh and so the step we take is to welcome a refugee family and other outcasts too – one family or person at a time – one person or family whose dream it is to be safe, to be welcomed, to be home.  We do that.  The vision is for reconciliation and healing of all kinds and so the step we take is to visit, listen to and pray with someone who is hurting and we work to break down one very real barrier at a time today.  The vision is for prophets to sing among us and so we teach the kids, the language and hopes of God.

The day will come, God promises when the Kingdom is here in full – and God will make it so.  And the day is now Paul and others remind us when we are called to give what we have of ourselves, providing glimpses and experiences of mercy, of peace, of abundance, of shelter, of love, of home.  And we offer it all as a people whose gifts abound.

Amen

.

The Rev. Jennifer Adams – Grace Church, Holland on October 2, 2016 – Proper 22, Year C: 2Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10

“Lord, increase our faith,” the disciples said to Jesus.

Now I know that request well because I’ve prayed it, and I’ve heard it prayed by others. Maybe you have been known to pray it once or twice along the way. And the thinking goes something like, “If only I had just a little more then …”  Then what?  This phase of life would be easier?  Or that part would be more bearable? Or what is it that you seek?  Increase my faith, Lord so that I can be stronger?  Wiser?  More hopeful?  Depending on the day it can be any or all of those things and more.

And so as people regularly long for more faith I hear them/us wonder aloud about how faith happens.  Just how do these increases take place?  Often the stories we hear about faith beginning or faith growing lean toward the lightening bolt types of experiences like Paul’s where he was blinded on the road to Damascus by a bright light.  And in one day’s time he turned from persecutor of Christians to disciple of Jesus – proclaiming Christ crucified and risen to the entire region of early Christendom.  There’s an increase for ya!  And so we almost expect that if faith is going to catch and really grow it must happen through the type of divine intervention that stops us on the road, opens our eyes, and puts us on the right path – dramatically, quickly, and preferably without any doubts, questions or contradictions woven in there too.  Paul became a person of deep and profound faith in the literal blink of an eye.  Faith happened for him and happens for a few others whose stories are apparently worth telling almost instantaneously.   And there’s something sort of attractive about that.

But then there were and are people like Timothy. Timothy was one of Paul’s closest companions.  They became like family and as they served together as evangelists and missionaries in the early church. Timothy was featured in several Epistles (letters) of the New Testament.  Paul wrote letters to Timothy as is the case with the passage we heard today. He also wrote some Epistles with Timothy by his side, letters like 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians.  He’s actually venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Episcopal churches and commemorated in other traditions such as ELCA and Missouri Synod Lutherans. Timothy was huge in the early church, supporting Paul but also traveling on his own throughout Macedonia, preaching, teaching, sharing the gospel doing faithful sorts of missionary, apostolic sorts of things.  So like Paul, Timothy was also a person of deep and profound faith.

And so how did faith happen for him?  For Timothy. Bright lights?  Major crisis? Road-stopping intervention? Voice of God breaking through the clouds?  Maybe a burning bush?

Nope.  None of that.  Are you ready for this?  Timothy “got faith” from his Mother, Eunice and his grandmother, Lois.  That’s it.  That’s Timothy’s story.  Nothing burning or flashing or even very dramatic about it.  The stars of the show were a mother and grandmother for heaven’s sakes.  Timothy wasn’t a persecutor turned apostle.  He was apparently your basic Sunday School kid, maybe an acolyte, perhaps as he got older he read on occasion. Maybe he sang in the choir. Or maybe Timothy sat in the back pews with his arms crossed because he didn’t want to be there but Eunice made him.  And Eunice probably wondered if it was worth it at the time.  (And just for the record you all need to know that Eunice and Lois made it into the Epistle too.  And I love that.  They were the seed planters who faithfully, stubbornly, lovingly made sure that Timothy was a part of the community of faith.  And it mattered.)

Over the years, Eunice and Lois and their community told Timothy stories from Scripture which for them included the Hebrew Scriptures, Torah and the prophets – and these for them these “new letters” and very early forms of the Christian gospels.  They told the stories and so Timothy knew about the goodness of Creation, the liberation and wandering of the Israelites.  He knew the promises of Ruth, the comfort of the Shepherd, and the vision of Isaiah.  He knew about healing.  And every Sunday Timothy heard about resurrection.

Timothy’s faith happened very simply because he was a part of the Church.  He knew about the hopes of his people, the prayers of his people, the hurts, the dreams, the losses and graces of his people and the presence of God among them.  Over time Timothy learned about breaking and sharing bread.  He learned that people break too and also that there is a larger wholeness to which we have been invited.  He learned about the needs of the orphans and the widows, about feeding the hungry and sheltering those without homes.  Timothy learned the faith, saw, touched, tasted, experienced the faith in ongoing, steady, at times boringly predictable, at times blessedly predictable week after week sorts of ways.  Essentially, Timothy got faith by being with others who shared the faith with him.

That’s how faith happened for Timothy and I’m guessing that’s how faith happens for most of us. If you have burning bush stories by all means we want to hear them.  And I know and believe they are out there.  But it wasn’t so much a light that blinded Timothy on his road.  It was simply that there were a whole lot of people on the road with him the whole way.  Faith happened because of that older guy who came to church every Sunday not matter what.  Timothy knew that that guy whose name he only learned after watching him for years, he knew that guy would be in the pews, or vested up front every Sunday, and there was something wonderfully predictable and comforting about that.  Timothy sort of loved the way the guy looked up and said, “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.”  Faith happened because those other kids who robed up with him or giggled with him in class, or sat in the pew next to him singing (and occasionally whispering, giggling more together.  Faith increased because of those adults who read Timothy stories even when his head was down or he was coloring and “not listening”, those adults who refused to stop offering their time, their faith even when they could tell that a part of Timothy was nearly desperate for his earphones.  Faith happened because of that day when Timothy got up to read, or he showed up to feed, or he walked lots and lots of miles with a pack on his back, a trip that revealed that there was a people and maybe even a God who had his back all the time, no matter what road he was on. It was all of those moments that made faith happen for Timothy.

And so perhaps this is what we need to hear:  Faith is something we can give to one another.  It’s that simple and I think it’s also that beautiful.  And not only that  but such faith is often something we give without our even knowing it. Faith is the result of those (rare here at Grace, I’m sure) but those very occasional Sunday morning battles to just everyone get in the car. Faith happens because we are simply here, praying, singing, passing the peace, breaking and sharing the bread because not matter our particular faith-quantity-level- we all need to see, to experience – to touch, to taste, to know that kind of here-ness.

Faith increases because we tell the stories and refuse to stop, making plenty of room for doubts and questions and contradictions that deepen us. We tell the stories about the goodness of Creation, the promise of Ruth, the vision of Isaiah – the setting free of captives, the giving of sight to the blind, the feeding the five thousand, stories about being set free even as we grow in love of our neighbors. Faith happens because we stubbornly, faithfully offer ourselves and proclaim resurrection week after week after week.  Because we work hard to receive and embody that for which we hope. We are those people on the road with the Timothys we are.  So, thank you Eunices of Grace. Thank you Loises of Grace.  Hang in there, Timothys – all it takes is a seed and the seeds have undoubtedly, lovingly been planted among us.  Seeds enough to move trees, and perhaps even mountains.

The Rev. Jennifer L. Adams – September 18 -Proper 18, Year C:  Luke 14:25-33

This morning I want to try something out on you.  We’ll call this a “floater” sermon where I have an idea that I’m working out right here in front of all of you.  Now it’s a theological idea, appropriate for the context, and it could eventually become a teaching or a belief, but for now, I’m sorta testing it out, and I need a safe place to do that.  Could be that by the end of this sermon after I hear it, I have to say, “never mind” and take it back to the drawing board.  But, I value your input and I’d like you to be a part of this process. So are you game?   Looks like enough nodding heads (the Episcopal version of YES! WE’RE IN!)  Here we go.

I think you are my cross to bear.   That’s it.  That’s my floater idea.  I think that you, all of you her today and more, are my cross to bear.  Now before you worry too much about that, or perhaps even feel slightly offended, let me explain.

First let me clarify that I don’t mean this in the purely traditional sense where “cross to bear” is a put down of sorts, meaning extreme burden or trial that one has to put up with, the kind of description one would offer with a big, defeated sort of sigh.  That’s not where I’m headed here.  It’s not who you are for me.   Just so you know.  OK- we good?

Which isn’t to say that a cross is easy or light or without pain.  It’s to say that perhaps a cross is a relational sort of thing.  It was for Jesus, right?  The theological language of “he died for us,” implies that much.  While I am careful with the theologies of the cross that are out there, I will absolutely agree that the cross was a relational act on Jesus’ part. It was and is an offering of self through which comes struggle and pain and eventually death or a death of sorts.  However, it’s also a means of salvation.

And so maybe you are my cross to bear- meaning you are that through which I experience pain and struggle, you are those who demand various levels of sacrifice but you are also those who bring out more love than I could bring out myself, and I would go so far as to call it salvific at times. Through you I glimpse something of God and I am more aware of my presence with God, and God’s presence with me.  All of that because of you.

And crosses work like that. They aren’t easy, but they open us to new life.

So, what if our cross to bear is the love we share?

Let’s unpack it a little more. You lay things down when you walk through these doors, we all do.  Hopefully you find a place to rest here, if that’s what you need.  You have a place and a people among whom you can lay down your burdens, even some of your defenses, and offer your praise, your lament, your joys and your thanksgivings.  This is a place in which we are invited to experience prayer and to come to know deep peace.

But we also pick something up when we walk through these doors, especially if you keep walking through these doors, which I hope that all of you – week after week, year after year and I’ve heard many of you talk about this as one of the reasons why you call Grace “home.”

You pick something up, because when you look around the sanctuary you see very real people, and as you begin to connect, you share some of yourself with at least some of them.  You also begin to know the pains, the needs, the struggles of others. And so you pray for them and maybe you even care for them, you bring them food or just take time to listen and wrestle with their ways of approaching life or approaching faith.  Being here among – is a relational act – there is God and there is all of us.

One of you out words on this recently. In what I considered a beautiful, even holy conversation you shared that you had stayed awake one night shedding genuinely compassionate tears for the struggle you knew another person here was going through.  You separated (as the gospel says) from your own life, sacrificing if nothing else some sleep, but also some energy, some room in your brain and heart.

And in your tears there was struggle, there was burden, but there were also seeds of what I believe to be our greatest hope.  Because in those moments there is a discovery, a discovery and an acknowledgement that we are bound to each other with a love that passes our understanding.  And crosses work like that.

And so what if we are cross for one another?  What if take up your cross and love your neighbor are actually the same act of faith?

The good news is that we can practice it all here, not just for the sake of here but for the sake of every day of our lives.  We practice here when we walk through the doors into a community of faith.  We do it at the tables –  when we feed one another and when we feed our neighbors who happen to also be strangers.   We pick up our cross on pilgrimage when we discover how closely we are bound in love, and even when we open our hearts and our lives to those who are “in the news.”

Take up your cross, Jesus said, for the sake of nothing more and nothing less then the love we have to give, and the love we have to receive from one another and from God.

It’s an idea anyway. . .Thanks for letting me try it out.

Amen.

The Rev. Jennifer L. Adams- August 14, 2016 – Proper 16, Year C: Luke 12: 49-56

Luke 12:49-56:  “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! ⁵¹Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ⁵²From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;⁵³they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

⁵⁴He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. ⁵⁵And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. ⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? 

And so I hear this gospel passage and while there is a large part of me that cringes at those rather harsh sounding words of Jesus, there is also a significant part of me that recognizes the scene.  Maybe you do too, perhaps all to well: “Five in one household will be divided,” Jesus said, “three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”   Now there is there is a part of me that longs this very minute for the gentleness of the Good Shepherd, the shalom of the Prince of Peace, but I also have to acknowledge that I know well the situation being described in this passage. The image of families, of communities divided isn’t fun, but neither, if we’re honest, is it unfamiliar.

In fact, just the opposite is probably true.  If we were judging life by this passage alone, one might conclude that we are living in incredibly gospel-based times. Just watching the news will tell you that we’re practically mastering the skill of being “at odds” with each other, offering swords instead of peace on a very regular basis.  We’re getting division down pretty well, thank you.

Even within our usually predictable and harmonious means of grouping ourselves there are now divisions – households at odds, parties divided, congregations battling it out, neighborhoods trying to live together well, communities struggling often among themselves. Some of the surprises this season, and not only politically, are that it’s not those who have been traditionally on “the other side” of one issue or another who “stand against” us to use the words of this passage, but the person who has been sitting right next to us all along.  So one conclusion to draw is that perhaps, our work here is done, people!  We’re getting this division thing down!  Based on this passage alone, we’re doing the work of the gospel.

But, (and this is a big BUT and you knew it was coming) there is more to the gospel and there is more to us.  Part of the good news today is that Luke 12 is not the end of the story.  None of us want it to end here and neither does God.  The challenging news is that chapter 12 is a part of the gospel and we have to go through it in order to get to that more. Simply denying the tensions or ignoring the divisions won’t get us where we need to be.

And there is a different kind of thing that happens, and in some ways a different potential present when the one with whom we disagree happens to be someone who is already close.  And maybe that’s part of what this passage is getting at.  It’s easy to disagree with a stranger, easy in many ways to expect, even accept those divisions.  It’s not so easy with someone you already love.  And those kinds of divisions that run right down the center of the relationships we value most aren’t the kinds of divisions that we ourselves would ever initiate at least purposefully.  So, maybe we need Jesus to do it for us.  I don’t have it in me to divide my own household, my own people, there’s too much brokenness here already.  And so maybe when it happens there is a deeper, perhaps more profound grace hoping to be had.

When the person who surprises you by their difference is close to you, when a divide is exposed in that kind of context, we are invited into a deeper level of soul searching, listening and if possible, genuine reconciliation.  And in some ways that’s even harder work than when the divide has some safe distance built into it. I expect to have to read a book, or attend a conference, or watch a program, or reach out far in order to learn from those who are really distant from me, but among my own “kin”?  My own kin who know my own buttons?  My own kin whom I trust like no other, who know my strengths, my weaknesses, and all of my yesterdays?  My own kin among whom I have been my own version of real? Now that’s a different game.  And I need help with that. I don’t have it in me to divide my own household, my own people, there’s too much brokenness here already.

But oh, the places we can go if we have courage enough to allow the sword to occasionally hit.  Remember that sword wasn’t introduced by humans; this story isn’t a call to arms; it’s a call to awareness and honesty.  Oh the gospel we will embody if we allow a deeper peace to be born among us.

Which makes this phase we are walking through as a people, one that has incredible potential.  The gospel passage ended with this verse “You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” … “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” Jesus asked them, Jesus asks us.  What if this phase is God doing something among us, revealing what needs to be revealed, surfacing the divisions we need to see, exposing that which we ourselves don’t always have the courage to acknowledge?  What if besides a dose of human weakness, this is God doing something of redemption in our midst, trying so very hard to create a more holy unity among the family that is God’s which is us all?  What if we as a people invested in that interpretation of these present times and leaned heavily into redemptive means, things like mercy, forgiveness, even basic human kindness?

Just beneath the surface of the headlines our headlines too, very important things are being said, genuine hurts are being shared, divisions that don’t need to be the end of the story are being exposed. Having the courage to live for a while in Luke chapter 12, while trusting and working towards that gospel “more” might be just what God is asking of us.

The good and critical news is that even in chapter 12 there is love.  That’s why it’s so hard; it’s also why chapters like this one in the gospel and in life are so very hopeful. The tendency is to hole up, to defend, to pick up the sword rather than let it be Christ’s alone. The tendency is to defend, but the calling is to love, sometimes fiercely, sometimes tenderly, always with mercy.

There is love here, in here, out there, and everywhere we go. Love is infused among us as the very reason that Jesus was born into this world, the very essence of God’s purpose and vision for us. And so we reach out, and we listen, and we name where the sword has it, because it is in those places that redemption is working its way in, creating not a shallow peace, but the shalom that is of God, the peace that passes all understanding and comes as grace.

Amen