Join us this Sunday, September 10th as we kick off a new program year. Services of Holy Eucharist will be at 8:15 and 10:00 with the first Sunday of Choir and Blessing of the BackPacks and a kids’ sermon at the 10:00 service. The Annual Parish Photo will be taken on the parish lawn at 11:15 and the Parish Picnic (lunch provided by Fellowship Commission) complete with Kick Off Kick Ball will begin at about 11:30 at Moran Park. Dress comfortably, bring your backpack to be blessed, have a lawn chair or picnic blanket handy and come join the fun! All are welcome.
Memorial Service for Stafford Keegin
On Thursday, September 7 at 11:00am we will come together at Grace to give thanks for the life and celebrate the new life of Stafford Keegin. The service will be preceded by a visitation in the parish Commons at 10:00am. Following the service there will be a reception in the church undercroft. Join us as we remember this man who was husband, brother, father, grandfather and friend. “O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day our brother, Stafford. We thank you for giving him to us, his family and friends, to know and to love as a companion on our earthly pilgrimage. In your boundless compassion, console us who mourn. Give us faith to see in death the gate of eternal life, so that in quiet confidence we may continue our course on earth, until, by your call, we are reunited with those who have gone before; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For
The Rev. Jennifer Adams- August 23, 2017
Proper 11A: Psalm 139: 1-12, 23-24, Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43
For a couple of weeks now, we’ve been hearing from this section in the Gospel of Matthew that has Jesus speaking parables about the kingdom of God. And in several of these parables, he talks about seeds. Last week we heard that seed has been sown on all kinds of ground – on paths, rocky on ground, on thorn filled ground, and in good soil too. So even if you missed last week, you can probably figure out in that whole scenario which seeds have the best odds of making it.
Now this week we hear that not only has good seed been sown but that “while they were sleeping the enemy came in and sowed weeds among the wheat.” Next week (spoiler alert) we’ll hear about the mighty mustard seed that contains within its tiny self the power to change the world. All have something to do with growth and taking hold, being rained on and receiving sunshine; they are about tending and nurturing and producing in ways that are a reflection of or even a manifestation of the kingdom of God.
And I could preach in that direction forever. In fact I really like to preach in that direction. And last week I did – I talked about making good soil and growing good seeds. I shared the music of John Denver and the wise humor of the Muppets and talked about how “inch by inch and row by row, we’re gonna make this garden grow!” We focused on gentle harmonies and fertile ground and the blessing of seeds. And we need time here and in our own lives to focus in on such things.
But there is another dimension to these parables too, and I don’t just want to skip over it as Episcopalians can be known to do. We’re hearing about growth in these passages, but we’re also hearing about judgement and I think we need to sit with those pieces too.
Matthew works a vision of “udgement day or at least a “judgement process” into many of these parables and when he does that, it’s in pretty dramatic ways – not wanting us to miss it apparently. Today we heard that the wheat and the weeds will be separated from each other, the weeds collected, and then the weeds will be thrown into “the furnace of fire.” “Let those who have ears listen,” Jesus said.
Now I was reminded as I studied up this week that Matthew is the only one who, as Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “waxes eloquent on the end of the world.” Granted, Mark can weave a bit of an apocalyptic in and out of his message, but Matthew is “the only one who mentions a furnace of fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. His is the only Gospel that contains the wise and foolish virgins, the division of the sheep from the goats, and today’s parable about the wheat and the weeds.” It is Matthew who, more than any of the other gospel writers, goes right at the very human tendency to want clarity. Even we who in very sophisticated form tend to lean away from the whole concept of strict and certain divisions want to know (or we at least wonder on rare occasion while driving in our cars by ourselves) about where and how lines get drawn between “between good and bad, faithful or wicked, blessed or cursed.” And we want that for good reason; we want to know, because bad hurts. We experience or witness unfairness or worse, violence or any other version of what one would consider “the bad” on an all too regular basis in this world. We see what seems like unnecessary pain and hurt, and we want it to end.
And so in some ways his message is a very kind and reassuring one meant to bring some relief to anyone who suffers and or witnesses suffering, and that’s all of us and some in much more extreme ways than any of is will ever know: “Don’t worry,” is what Matthew is essentially telling the followers of Jesus through the words of Jesus. In another passage he actually uses that very phrase. That which is bad in this world will not be a part of the kingdom of God when it comes into its fullness. The weeds will be gone. Evil will be defeated. That which chokes out wholeness or health or life or love will be eradicated once and for all this gospel tells us. And that is good news! For everyone.
God will ultimately usher in an entirely new day which is what these moments of “waxing on end times” tell us. God will usher in a kingdom in which “the righteous will shine like the sun,” Jesus said at the end of this parable. There will be a time a place in which the righteous can finally, completely, entirely shine like the sun and not be afraid, or inhibited, or limited in their blessedness. The righteous will one day be free, the gospel tells us.
And that is good news. There will be a day, there will be a time when as Julian of Norwich put it, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
The catch of course, the critical piece of this and the reason why it can remain good news is that all of these parables are also very clear about whose role it is to be judge and whose it’s not. This is absolutely key. It’s one of the differences between “gospel” and “not gospel.” Jesus is providing comfort in these parables, but he’s also communicating unequivocally that it’s not our job to do the sorting.
Notice that none of these parables say “now go back to your congregations, go out into your communities and decide who is a sheep and who is a goat. Put the sheep over there and the goats over there and don’t ever mingle.” These parables don’t say, “Go weed your gardens and the gardens of the church and those of the world now! Hack’m right up!” In fact, they say just the opposite: “Let the weeds grow,” Jesus says, “because one of the worst things you can do, is try to sort it all out yourselves.”
We know all too well where sorting gets us. It gets us to the Holocaust and genocides at our worst and most extreme. It gets us to denominational battles, to segregation, to apartheid. It gets us into who deserves care and who doesn’t, who should have rights and who shouldn’t, who is worthy of sacrament and who is not. Sorting leads to the question of who is most deserving rather than into the work of sharing abundant, grace-filled gifts. Separating into “righteous and unrighteous” leads us in small insidious ways and in larger, horrific ways into doing the identifying, gathering, and building of fires none none of which is ours do.
That work if it is to be done at all, (and according to Matthew it is, according to others not) that work if it is to be done at all is God’s. And so tucked inside of these lovely parables about gardens and growth, there’s a very important warning to us all. Stay away from the sorting, this Gospel tells us because we aren’t wise enough, and I would add, we aren’t merciful enough to pull it off in any semblance of what it means to “be well.”
So this week while we were praying through the Eucharist on Wednesday morning, I heard the confession and absolution with different meaning than I have before. I heard it as one version of a mini judgement day:
There we are before God, having fully lived our lives and with God in that moment, we’re sharing our joys, confessing our sins, perhaps being reminded of those joys and sins we’ve forgotten or buried. There we are on judgement day, (whatever that means) in all of our goatness and all of our sheepness, in all of our our wheatiness and all of our weediness – all of it fully exposed, and there is God. God with us. Us with God. There we are with the one whom the psalmist said so beautifully, “has searched me out and known me, you know my lying down and my rising up.” The one who is “acquainted with all of my ways.”
And it’s that moment we’ve been waiting for, right? Even if you’ve been raised a relatively even-keeled, no-fire-and-brimstone Episcopal type you’ve at least wondered about it, haven’t you. And so it’s that moment that maybe we’ve also been deep-down, secretly been dreading. Are we sheep or are we goat? Are we wheat or are we weed? Foolish or wise? And in that moment we are hoping against hope that at the very least percentages matter! Because when it comes right down to it, for heaven’s sake we at least lean good and it will weigh in our favor! And so in that moment maybe it’s a little hard to breath, if breathing is still necessary that is.
And into that quiet, at that moment when our greatest hopes meet our greatest fears, God looks at us and says, “Yes. You are all of it. And, you are blessed, and forgiven, and loved.”
Our sins are stripped away, gathered and tossed into a fire that consumes them once and for all. Whatever it is that has inhibited our own growth and whatever it is that has choked out the growth of others, is removed for eternity. Our “dones” and our “un-dones” released forever. They’re tossed into the fire that perhaps we gather around to share stories or have reunions. Or maybe as Barbara Brown Taylor suggests, the fire provides the heat that bakes the bread that is part of the eternal feast shared.
In that moment, we are, in the words of our prayer of absolution, “strengthened in all goodness.” Through an amazing grace offered us and offered all, we are welcomed in to eternal life.
May it be so.
Amen.
* Barbara Brown Taylor quotes are from The Seeds of Heaven, and her sermon “Learning to Live with Weeds,” Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.
The Mess of Us
Rev. Jennifer L. Adams – July 9, 2017 – Proper 9, Year A: Romans 7:15-25a, Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Well, my goodness, Paul, (Apostle Paul that is) who in that letter to the Romans, the second lesson today, was working so very hard, which was not atypical for Paul. It’s just that it’s so easy, reading his letter over two thousand years later to get lost in his circles. So the first thing I want to say is, Great job with that, Logan Schmidt, who on your first Sunday as a Lay Eucharistic Minister got this very complicated passage to read with us. And you did it, like a pro. In fact, nobody out there would have known this was your first Sunday if I hadn’t just announced it, but now they know. When I train LEMs I often joke about how one of the benefits of ordination is that I don’t usually have to read the Old Testament Lesson or the Epistle out loud during the service, meaning that I avoid almost all of the hard to pronounce names and places (Cherie) and all of the letters of Paul, Logan. So as an important aside today thank you, all of you who read here at Grace and among many other things, make my job that much easier.
That being said let’s see what we can do here with Paul, because as tempting as it is to let it roll by us this morning, I do want to dive into Romans and unpack it a bit. Let’s see what these Pauline circles might be saying to us today. In case you missed any of it, here it is again in part, because I’m not as brave as Logan:
“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it…. if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me…For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Now first I resonate with Paul on a very deep level, and my guess is that as resistant as we can be to Paul (I know that resistance is out there) most of us resonate with his struggles to some extent, anyway. Paul is among other things very upfront with his personal struggles: “I do not understand my own actions,” he tells the people of Rome. Well, I do not understand my own actions sometimes, either, people of Grace. And so there it is: me and Paul. Maybe you and me and Paul. I don’t always do what I want myself to do or what I think I should do. Like Paul, as hard as a try, and like Paul, I try very hard, I can not claim that my actions are in alignment with my beliefs, my vision for myself and this world, or even my own intentions, 100% of the time. I occasionally hit 90%-ish perhaps or that rare, fleeting glimpse of 95%. But then it slips, something slips.
And so just like Paul, I find myself out of sinc with myself on an all too regular basis.
Now what I think Paul is trying to do in this passage is explain how and why that very thing happens. “How can I be out of alignment with me,” is the question he’s working out in this passage. It’s hard enough to wrestle with how I can be out of sinc with someone else, and usually that’s what we talk about here – the distance and tensions between and among people and neighbors. But this is different. Paul is taking just Paul. I am taking just me. And you are looking at just you. How can we be divided even with ourselves?
So at this point, Paul and I take different tacks. We have the same struggle. But (not a big surprise to you) I’m sure, we have different explanations for why and how the struggle happens. Paul’s approach is to say that his mind is good, and his body is bad. (That’s a slight oversimplification, but I’ve only got a total of about 12 minutes here so I encourage you to read more about this from some good Biblical scholars.) For the sake of this sermon, however, I want us to see that Paul, given the frameworks that existed in the time and place in which he lived, maintained strict boundaries and distinctions between the mind and spirit, and the body. And Paul used those frameworks for explaining himself and to help him communicate his new faith to the people of Rome and other cities and regions. And we do that too and we should – we use the tools that exist in our own day to seek understanding of the world, ourselves and our faith, to communicate, to explain, to explore.
And so Paul as circular as he sounded, and as very painfully hard as he worked at it, actually used a rather simple explanation for his out of sinc-ness. His mind was good and the physical reality that was his body was bad, actually in his words, his body was “wretched.”
And unfortunately, that particular explanation made it into Scripture, or maybe not unfortunate that it made it into Scripture but that it became the dominant explanation rather than one among many.
Unfortunate because I think that while the struggle for personal alignment is itself so very human, the explanation of mind is good and body is bad at times anyway hurt rather than helped us align as well as we might. We’ve set minds and souls against bodies, seeing the physical dimensions of our very God-created selves as “the enemy” and I just don’t see how that approach can possibly get us to the wholeness we seek and that I and Paul believe God wishes for us.
That being said, I don’t have an explanation that offers any more clarity than Paul’s does. In fact my approach is much messier than what he offered. The sin that Paul talks about residing in one dimension of himself is everywhere, in my theological opinion. It’s in me, all of me and my mind has as much to do with it as my body, probably more given what we now know now about the connections between mind and body, brain and body, given the frameworks we have at our disposal now.
The bad that I do or the lack of good that I do isn’t because my mind is saying all sorts of righteous things 100% of the time and my body disobeys it. Sometimes it’s my mind that says, “you don’t have to recycle that,” or “someone else will stand up for that person,” or “eat all of that now” or “you don’t need that much sleep” or “that bit of forgiveness can wait, you’ve got other things on your to-do list that need to get done today.”
Dang that mind. Sometimes as much as my body would like to be doing good, my mind lets it off the hook!
Which is why I lean toward the explanation of personal, holistic mess, or the “all of me is responsible for both the good and bad that I do,” rather than the body-mind divide. Bodies do good, bodies do bad. Minds do good, minds do bad. And most of the time, they’re in it together.
Perhaps I shouldn’t knock Paul for his circles, given that in the end he has some clean lines and my approach leaves us with one heap of messy person. (But I do promise Logan, not to ask you to read any of this out loud.)
So where I lean is into the acknowledgement that given that mess, the many challenges that are “me,” 100% is not achievable by me, Jen Adams, or any of us for that matter, in this life. It will take more than me to iron me out eternally.
Now I play a crucial role in helping that happen on a daily basis, but I need help. I need room to confess when and how I am out of sinc. This means that I need time to still my body and my mind so that I can listen to myself and reflect on my actions and re-align as best I can on a very regular basis. I also need people who will be honest with me, when they see my words and my actions, my intentions and my behaviors, my calling and my doing out of sinc with other. I need all of you and relationships of mutuality, honesty, and trust.
And I, like Paul, simply need to keep working at this alignment, internal reconciliation we could call it, which I believe comes through a combination of my participation in that process and pure grace. It will take more than me to iron me out, I’m sure of it. Alignment, individually, communally, globally ultimately is in part, perhaps in large part gift.
And so people of Grace, be both gentle to yourself and challenge yourself and help us be a community that practices both of those things with each other. Know that we aren’t seeking perfection, but we have been offered goodness and we have been granted abundant and unconditional divine love. The flute is playing” the gospel says, and the dance of faith, the holy life is open to all. We can all do better than we do, with our bodies and our minds, with ourselves And through grace, that growth, that healing, that forgiveness, those glimpses of wholeness are being offered to us every day.
May we make room to receive such gifts.
Amen.
The Martin Pasi Organ
Since April 24th, organ builder, Martin Pasi has been with us at Grace installing and voicing the new organ. The organ will be complete soon and Martin’s final Sunday with us will be May 28th. We will thank him at the 10:00 service that day as he prepares to head home to Roy, Washington. Our first Sunday with the full organ will be on Pentecost Sunday, June 4th. That morning we will welcome the Spirit, celebrate baptisms and Holy Eucharist and bless the new Pasi organ as it supports our prayer and song. That afternoon, June 4 at 3:00pm the Grace Chamber Choir, Grace musicians and Music Director Steve Jenkins will host the first of many recitals. This recital will feature anthems that the choir has sung through the year and special pieces by Steve, the Grace String Trio and other musicians. Join us!
Summer Service Schedule
Remember that this Sunday, May 28th we shift to our summer schedule with services at 8:15am and 10:00am. Nursery is provided at the 10:00 service. See you Sunday!
Revealing Silence
The Rev. Jennifer Adams – April 30, 2017 – Easter 3, Year A: Luke 24:13-25
I knew at some point last week that it was going to be silly for me to try to preach from up front this morning. I didn’t want to spend the whole time saying “Hey, you hoo…up here?” while you all tried to sneak in looks at this astoundingly beautiful organ that we’re beginning to welcome into our sanctuary. And so rather than ask you to turn away from it, I’m going to ask you to turn toward it, and I’ll make it easy on you and talk from back here this morning.
I also realized that this is probably the last Sunday for what could in all reality be hundreds of years that this organ is silent. There are a few pipes that have been installed as you can see, but there are hundreds, maybe still over a thousand that are yet to go in. Hence the wooden crates out in the commons. They’re full of the pieces of this organ that will make each note and each tone that each of the about 1200 pipes was created to make. By next Sunday, the organ will be able to make a few sounds and over about five weeks, it will grow into its fullness before our very own eyes and ears.
And so this is the last Sunday that this organ is a beautiful but silent presence among us. More on that in a couple minutes.
Now there have been many wonderful dimensions of this past week. And one of the big ones has been welcoming Martin Pasi and his team, Marcus and Grant to Grace Church. And Martin is here with us this morning. I’ll have questions for you later this morning, Martin, but I want to say first that you are an incredibly skilled and gracious team. And so, we’re learning not only about organs as this plays out, but about how genuine artisans go about their work.
You’re bringing this organ to life in a way that very genuinely invites us into the process, and I’m sure that’s not always the case. We actually helped carry the pieces of this organ into our church. It was hands on for any of us who wanted to and could be a part of that day. And we didn’t drop anything. Although there few of us who didn’t breathe much as we carried pipes and beautiful wooden pieces from the massive moving truck into our sanctuary. Thank you, Martin, for the trust communication in that. It was meaningful to us.
I’ve also seen you, while very focused in on and hopefully enjoying the process of building this organ, take moments here and there to interact with varieties of people as they come to observe this installation. And so we are grateful not only for what you have brought to us in this instrument, but also for the way in which you are present with us these days.
Now another significant piece that happened this week is that the donor of this gift became comfortable sharing who she is probably to some extent out of the pure celebration and relief of it all. We, it made it to this moment! And so this morning and at various points along the way, I will share with you that this organ was given by Melinda Heiberg in memory of her husband Eric. And actually, Melinda has said that “Eric gave us this gift,” but I’m going to give you both credit as we go along here.
Some of you knew Eric. He died several years ago now but was a gracious and wise presence among us. Melinda describes Eric as a “not highly musical person” certainly not a trained musician. But Eric loved music and he sang for years and years in the Grace Church choir alongside of professionals and lay musicians alike. Eric appreciated the nature of Grace’s music – the fine musical tradition of the Episcopal Church held closely with the practice of including and actually encouraging anyone who wanted to sing. Now I’ll tell more of Eric’s story here and there over the next many weeks, but today I want to say that one of the most beautiful things about Eric Heiberg was his ability to listen. Eric was kind and wise in a way that allowed whoever was in front of him to be present too.
And so I’d like to circle back to the silence of this instrument, because soon when the outward build is complete later this week, the organ will begin to be brought into voice. It will as I understand it be “listened into voice.” Martin, you talk about your role as “facilitating that process,” which is probably on the humble side of explanations, but we’ll take it.
This whole process started with its creation in Roy, Washington but this organ’s music will come into being here via the facilitation, the invitation to sing. Each pipe has a sound to make, and so the voicing process involves attention to each pipe on its own, but also to the music that it will make with other pipes. You can see why this instrument will be a fit for us here at Grace! (And why I’m basically set with sermons for weeks to come.) The voicing process itself will take about four weeks.
And so something is being slowly but surely revealed to us these weeks. Grace is on a road of sorts, to tie in with this morning’s gospel story. And we begin in the silence of what becomes revelation. Like Jesus did with the disciples, we begin by listening. Like Eric Heiberg did too and like Martin does in his work we begin by listening. We begin in the kind of silence that carries the stories we bring to this day – including Eric’s and Melinda’s. Including Martin’s, and Marcus’, and Grant’s, including the disciples’, and the story that is Grace Church.
And over this walk we’ll be given glimpses of something of God’s grace. Now I don’t expect you to “open up all of the Scriptures” for us, Martin, like happened in the gospel today. But I do expect (because it’s already happening!) that Christ will be present through this process reminding us in surprising moments that new life comes, that redemption happens – through gift, through silence, through art, through song, through memories, through, vision, through welcome, through grace.
And so I do have to move back up front this morning, but please take time after the service to see what’s happening back here. This organ is meant to be ours, shared gift, and it will teach us things even as we welcome it into being among us.
In the meantime, we’ll pray and we’ll bless and we’ll break some bread and we’ll share it. And given the gospel passage we just heard, something is bound to happen in the midst of all of that too.
Amen.
Healing Beyond Answers
The Rev. Jennifer L. Adams – April 23, 2017 – Easter 2, Year C: John 20:19-31
Usually when I hear this gospel story, I allow it to connect with my inner Thomas, or my at times, not so inner Thomas. In this story there is permission granted for doubts and questions and being “that one” who just isn’t sure about various proclamations of faith that surround them. And I need that. Maybe you do too.
I’ve told you before that I consider Thomas one of the patron saints of the Episcopal Church, because I know that many of us found our way here, or stayed here in this church because there’s room for us to question and to continue searching even as we adopt a budding and a changing, evolving faith. We make room in this place for doubt, for questions and we actually believe that such things strengthen faith rather than threaten it. And so today, and any time here at Grace I invite you to let your inner Thomas flow. Share your doubts, your fears, your wonderings, your questions – and know that you’re not alone.
Now I also have to add that even given my love of a good search, I do think that that last bit might be the heart of this gospel story. Thomas wasn’t just “the one who had his doubts put to ease.” He was the one who was alone and then he wasn’t. That’s the good news here. Like the prodigal Son, or lost sheep, or like Nicodemus, or the Samaritan woman whom we met in this gospel of John a few weeks ago, Thomas had experienced something that had separated him from his people. Remember that when this story opened, Thomas was the one who had been “away.”
Now the story doesn’t say where Thomas had been when Jesus appeared to them the first time. In all likelihood Thomas was just off doing something else. Maybe he was working, or running errands, or maybe Thomas was off by himself grieving the loss of the one whom we had come to hope was the Messiah. The one who had become his friend and his hope. Regardless, it’s safe to say that Thomas probably wasn’t off trying to conjure up a good heavy dose of doubt in order to exclude himself from the faith of the community. Thomas’ questions hadn’t separated him, life had.
And so Jesus came back again. That’s what’s so amazing about this story. No judgement, No punishment. No questions asked of Thomas, initially anyway. Jesus simply appeared again and invited Thomas to place his hands in his side. It was a simple moment, really. “Be here,” Thomas the invitation said. “Connect with us, Thomas. Place your hand. Touch and heal and rise, with us Thomas.”
And so the healing offered in this story wasn’t really about “questions answered.” This was person received, person forgiven, person embraced, person loved.
And that all starts to sound a little mushy for us sophisticated types. It’s easier, safer in many ways to talk about the cool edginess of questions and doubt, to be pushing and learning and growing all the time. In fact I think it can ironically be safer to immerse ourselves in the doubts we carry than it can be to risk being forgiven, embraced, and loved through them. It can be safer to immerse ourselves in our doubts and our questions than it can be to belong to a people. There’s a vulnerability to Thomas’ story – that moment when he lets go and places his hand in Jesus side changes his life forever. Not because his doubts were eased, but because he was received and he was among. Peace was offered Thomas too.
And so the gospel has a bit of holy mush to it, it has a lot of love to it, and as a people who honor our doubts we should let the love sink in too. Deep down, I think that’s the real reason why many of us are here. We come here to think, and to wrestle, and to push the envelope at times. We come here to stretch ourselves and our faith, to give it the work out that is a healthy, ongoing and lifelong exploration around the edges. But that’s not all that it’s about for us, for any of us.
Remember that Jesus opened this gospel with a question. I find that so very wonderful as today’s story at the end of the same gospel offers a beautiful, grace-filled echo. The first time Jesus met those who would be disciples he opened the encounter with a question of them, “What are you looking for?” he asked. And he and they spent the entire gospel allowing that question to shape them and the ways in which they interacted with Christ and all who came their way.
One of our core human answers to “What is it you’re looking for?” is “to be received, to be forgiven, to be embraced, to be loved.” And I think receiving those gifts is how conversion happens, over and over again. And I think that’s what the gospel is all about. A little mushier perhaps than a traditionally catechetical approach to faith (not that I’m against it) but I do think that a simple, loving reception is the most important gift we have to give one another, our neighbors, and the people of this world.
Because odds are good (that is if Thomas really is a good Patron Saint for Episcopalians) that he had some more questions a few days after that moment with Jesus, perhaps a few hours after. What exactly did you mean by Body and Blood? Will I be risen? When? You told me to love my neighbor and my enemy, are you really sure about that? How come we fight so much? What should I think and believe about other faiths? Why don’t dogs live longer than they do? How about people? Will there ever be a cure for cancer? How did God think to make birds sing? What should I do with my life? How can I protect my kids? How can I help this world heal, Jesus? And what exactly is transubstantiation? And so on… for Thomas and for us.
But maybe Thomas’ questions weren’t the point. Neither was his doubt. Place your hands here, Thomas. Connect here, Thomas. Touch and heal and rise with us, Thomas. Jesus received Thomas just like Jesus had received everyone who had come to him – by night, by day, at the well, at the cross, in the garden, by the sea. And in through those embraces came the healing Thomas and others needed, a healing that went far beyond what answers could ever provide.
And so maybe our calling is this – to be those who aren’t afraid to doubt, who are energized by questions and even more importantly, to be those who aren’t afraid to receive, who aren’t afraid to belong.
Amen.
Surprised by Grace
The Rev. Jennifer Adams – April 16, 2017 – Easter Day
So one of the amazing things about that first Easter morning as told by Matthew was how suddenly and how joyfully it all happened. The women had come to the tomb after a long many days, a painful many days of confusion, suffering, and loss. These women were likely very, very weary, exhausted even, as grief has a way of making you so. They were probably full of questions having witnessed denials, betrayals, and injustices to the point of devastation. And it was all even harder because Jesus, the One at the center of it all, was the one whom they had hoped to be the Messiah. And so over the past many days, their hopes had been shattered too.
And so, as was their custom in grief, the women came to the tomb that first Easter morning. And they came fully expecting and prepared to mourn.
But before they could shed another tear it happened! Hear that! Before they could shed another tear, it happened: The earth shook and an angel descended from heaven. The angel then rolled the stone away from the tomb, sat on the stone (wonderful image there), told the women not to be afraid (given that this was all a bit shocking) and the angel then proclaimed to them that Christ was risen!
Just like that. These women had come fully prepared and expecting to mourn but instead there was an angel. And the angel was announcing new life.
And then the angel told the women to go and share the news and on their way to do that, Christ himself appeared to the women, fully, newly alive and indeed risen from the dead. That first Easter morning the women came fully expecting and prepared to grieve and instead there was resurrection. Right in front of their eyes – undeniable. And life and faith were renewed.
And that’s how it happens. Resurrection is always a surprise because no matter how many Easters we celebrate, no matter how many times we sing these hymns, or proclaim this Creed, or renew our baptismal vows… no matter how many times we ourselves experience some form of life coming from death, resurrection still comes as a surprise. Because like it was with the women that first Easter morning, resurrection runs counter to what we are prepared for and expecting to encounter. Even the most faithful among us gets sucked in to believing this isn’t so, because resurrection is not how the world works.
Resurrection, unlike almost anything else, always comes by grace.
Notice that in this gospel story, new life wasn’t earned by anyone. In fact over the past few days in these gospel stories we’ve heard about the horrendous and nearly unanimous failure of the human beings involved in the story – from the main characters like Peter who denied the Christ and Judas who betrayed the Christ and his friends too. We heard about the systems that failed all around them; an innocent man was put on trial as one who proclaimed to “not be from here” was arrested and sentenced to death. In this gospel story, religious and government leaders acted out of fear rather than courage or wisdom and even the very, very good people in this story could not stop the wreck that they had become.
And yet, resurrection still happened to and for and among them and counter to the ways of this world, the grace and forgiveness and mercy at the heart of new life was offered them all. It was and is pure gift which runs counter to how we are taught things happen. “Go tell people,” Jesus told the women and a few verses later he told his disciples, “Go tell the world that new life has come!”
And so the promise and grace of new life came through Christ not to a select few who had gotten it right, not to the ones who had won the battle. Resurrection came not just to those who had proven themselves worthy or most faithful or right, presumably because there wasn’t anyone like that. They were all to various degrees a part of the wreck. And yet (the yet that is grace,) new life was offered them all. And that moment of new life came as a surprise. Which is how resurrection works.
Resurrection is God’s doing, not our own. And really we should expect it or at least trust that it will be. We can’t time it, or force it, or will it. Resurrection is bigger than that. Thank God. (Literally.) But it comes. Resurrection always comes. It shakes the earth and appears like an angel who descends out of nowhere when you’ve come expecting to and are prepared to mourn. That’s how resurrection happens. Very simply, by grace.
So, don’t be afraid, people of Grace, people of this world, new life is always on its way. New life is always being offered us all.
Amen.
Heartbroken for Good
The Rev. Jennifer Adams – April 14, 2017 – Good Friday
One of the things I love about Grace Church is that the members of this congregation very genuinely want to help make the world a better place. Now we don’t always agree on how that should happen, but I believe that that intent to “do good,” to do “faithful good” in and for this world is practically (if not absolutely) unanimous in this place.
We want healing to come to individuals, to nations, to humanity writ large. We want reconciliation where there is division and forgiveness where grudges hold. We want freedom, liberation for others and for ourselves seeing all people as “created in the image of God.” Here at Grace, we call pull each other out from different “sides” and meet in places of compassion and generosity. And that is a gift we should do everything we can to maintain. The world needs us!
This is a congregation that does not by any means agree on everything, yet the people of Grace very genuinely want to believe that in the end as the saying goes, love wins. And not only that, but we make efforts from varieties of directions, including outreach and prayer, toward helping that happen in our own lives and as a community of faith.
And so I would safely bet that today breaks whatever heart you have brought with you into this space. This story contains all the “stuff” we hope not to promote, yet alone embody. This part of the gospel in many ways contains all that we fight against and so it is so very hard to hear. This is betrayal, injustice, abandonment, and fear all taking hold on a level that was nothing short of devastating. This is human failure and blatant sin. “Created in the image of God” seems to have been the furthest thing from just about everyone’s mind in this gospel story. Jesus was utterly alone. There was mocking and lying and struggles for power and more grief and confusion than even the strongest among them could manage to behold for long.
And so this is not who we want to be. This is not who we have been called to be.
And yet this is also who we are. And maybe that’s what’s breaking our hearts today. We are a good people here who together make each other better people, and I remain absolutely committed to that project and I hope you are too. But today calls us into a different kind of space, not the kind of space in which we usually come together at Grace.
Today makes room not for who we hope to be or are called to be, but for the parts of each of us and this world that are more broken than they are whole, more fearful than they are strong, more untrue than they are honest, more unjust than they are just. And as hard and painful as it is today, this is our story today. And to deny it would be to miss part of the point.
Today we are given space to weep for the Christ and to weep for this world, because “image of God” just isn’t always in the front of our minds all the time either. This is the day of failing to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the day of “things done and left undone.” We aren’t here today as the people with the white hats shocked at that of which others are capable; we’re here as a people who when taken in our entirety, run grey. Just like pretty much everyone else.
Jesus was alone on Good Friday and maybe we need to let him be. While just yesterday we became Body of Christ through service and feast, today we are Judas and Peter and Pilate and the crowds. Today we are Nicodemus and the women and Joseph of Arimethea. We are a complicated people and we are part of the mess. And it’s OK to be in that space, not for the purpose of instilling guilt, but for the sake of acknowledging our own truths. And ultimately to receive our own healing, our own redeeming.
What’s so amazing about this story is that Jesus stayed present through it all. Even though alone, he stayed present to them and to us all. Jesus didn’t leave the garden when the disciples fell asleep or forever abandon the ones in the courtyard when they denied him. He didn’t leave the courtroom when truth was denied this world. Jesus didn’t even leave the cross when he was, at the hands of some very horrible versions of what it means to be human, sentenced to death.
And that is the good news today. It’s not the kind of good news that says “Here’s who you can be!” or Here’s who we can be.” It’s the kind of good news that says, “Here’s who God is.”
And it is so very hard, but it is also grace. It is profoundly and utterly grace for us and for this world.
Today we need God because we are blatantly, humanly, and at times terribly disappointingly, not God. We fail to honor that image in one another and in ourselves” on an all too regular basis. No matter how genuine our intentions or how passionate our desires for goodness, we can’t redeem ourselves or this world by ourselves. Even together, we can’t fill a cross with glory; we can’t make this human mess into a glorious battle, nor should we ever try to.
But what we learn these three days is that God can and God will. In some ways God already has because God is here through it all, being God. In ways that we can’t. And so part of the very real goodness of this day is that we are invited to jump into the gospel story whole, heartbreakingly, yet gracefully, whole.
Healing comes, people of Grace. Reconciliation happens people of this world! Liberation breaks through, children of God one and all.
And love wins. Not ours alone, but God’s.
Amen.
Bless. Break. Eat. Share. Repeat.
The Rev. Jennifer Adams – April 13, 2017 –Maundy Thursday
We began this season about forty days and forty nights ago right down here in the church undercroft on the evening of Ash Wednesday. We had supper together over there and then moved over there and entered into a time of Eucharistic readings and prayers to begin this season of Lent. And so in many ways this is sort of a full circle for us – as unusual as tonight has been there is a very familiar pattern at its heart. We bless. We break. We eat. We share.
Now on Ash Wednesday, I talked to you about that sort of sappy yet meaningful song I’d learned growing up in youth group called, “They’ll know we are Christians.” Remember that? Either the sermon or the song itself or both? “They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know-ow we are Christians by our love.”
And here we are seven weeks later and the call to love is not only a song, not even just a “theme” for the season, it’s a mandate given by the Christ. This isn’t love as an idea being tossed out, or a suggestion being made, it’s an actual, non-optional command from the Messiah: “I give you a new commandment,” he told the disciples, “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” And then (as if he’d learned the song in youth group too) he added, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And as a sign of this love, he washed the disciples’ feet, caring for the ones who had followed and had walked with him. And then Jesus blessed and broke and shared bread as he offered his very own body and blood to his friends.
Grace Church, you have just spent the past three hours blessing, breaking, sharing. You gave food to over one hundred fifty families and shared a warm meal with over two hundred fifty people. You helped tired feet get back to their cars with loads of food. You carried empty boxes and rolled empty carts back to the church. And you do this sort of thing, through this ministry and others, a lot.
And one of the things that happens when such ministry is done with love is that usual and expected lines of division become blurred: Messiah is suddenly servant. The last is unexpectedly first. The foolish, surprisingly wise. The servant is also served. Ordinary becomes sacramental. “Needy” and “gifted” become terms that apply to us all. And I think that’s how love works; by blurring or upending common divisions, love offers an often surprising and all too uncommon unity that there is no other way to achieve.
Sara Miles who wrote the book, Take This Bread, which was a Grace read years ago that helped inspire us to begin Feeding America and also helped us open our Communion table to all (notice how those two things are related in this place,) Sara miles put it like this:
“At the heart of Christianity is a power that continues to speak to and transform us…It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new. It offers food without exception to the worthy and unworthy, the screwed up and pious, and then commands everyone to do the same. It doesn’t promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers, the despised or frightening or unintelligible other, we will see more and more of the holy, since, without exception, all people are one body: God’s.”
It’s simple really. We bless. We break. We eat. We share. And we do it all in remembrance of a God who blesses and breaks and shares himself with us all. And so now this night, allow your tired feet to be cared for, receive the bread broken for us, share it with one another, and know that as we head into the greatest mystery of all, the transformation that is resurrection comes.
Amen.
Palm Sunday 2017
The Rev. Jennifer Adams -April 9, 2017 – Palm Sunday, Year A
This week is different than others, which is some case goes without saying. The story is more dramatic – there are no light parables being told this week. And the services happen almost every day – I expect to see you all again before Sunday! And the extremes happen more quickly than they usually do – we just moved from “Hosanna in the highest!” to “Crucify Him” in a matter of minutes. The drama is high, the schedule full, the pace fast.
And actually that’s sort of how we tend to approach life in general these days and so it would be easy to see this week as any other, allowing the drama to simply land on the massive pile of other dramas, to basically see the services of Holy Week as just being “one more thing” on the calendars of our busy lives, to race through the week like we do other weeks so that by the end we are exhausted rather than resurrected. But that “same as any other week” is really not the effect we’re hoping for here. We want and need this week to be different for us.
It is set apart to be very intentionally something else.
Notice that we began this service outside, aware of Creation, surrounded by that which God made, in the world which God so loves.” There were trees and grass and sunshine and birds which is different than our gathering on most Sundays. And then we walked together, we processed all of us not just a symbolic few. And we didn’t run or ride or drive or fly. We walked. Slowly. Making sure that the youngest and oldest among us were a part of us. Nobody was left behind in his procession and while we walked we sang a single chant over and over again. (Thank you choir and musicians for helping that happen.)
Our pace was slow, our music gently repetitive and by the time we reached the doors, our bodies, minds and souls had been invited to be present, and to actually be participants in this sacred story.
And then we read the gospel – and it wasn’t just me reading and you listening – not that that’s bad – but this week is not like other weeks. We are very intentionally doing something else. There were voices from all over the sanctuary who brought this story to life, one character at a time, a whole congregation at a time. It took a little longer than usual but every voice was heard – the one who followed, the one who denied, the one who betrayed, the ones who exposed, the one who discovered, the one who sacrificed, the ones who wept.
You sat during part of the narrative and then the bodies that walked into this place stood up when we reached the place of crucifixion – bodies, minds and souls invited to be present through the telling and living of this sacred story.
Thursday this will happen too. It won’t be an hour-long experience where you sit in the pews and a bulletin guides you through “the normal” experience of prayer because this week we are about helping something else happen. Thursday will be all hands on and eventually socks off.
There will be hundreds of people who come here hungry on Thursday for Feeding America and it will be our bodies that empty the truck and our hands that distribute over eight-thousand pounds of food to all who come –It will be our hands that cook and share a meal and lots of mouths, ours included that enjoy the feast because it will be Maundy Thursday too. After some guests have left, and maybe some have stayed and the food outside has all been distributed and the truck has left, we will wash another’s feet, celebrate Communion in remembrance of Jesus’ Last Supper and process upstairs to strip the altar in preparation for Good Friday. It will take time. And it will take all of us. But this week we are helping something else happen. Bodies and minds and souls participating in this sacred story which on Maundy Thursday commands us to “love one another.”
On Friday we’ll pray the Stations which the kids will hang today in the windows during the Offertory. On Friday all through the day Grace members and guests will walk again, around this sanctuary in silence, still hearing the voices and perhaps the shouts and the tears that this story speaks. All day the sanctuary will be open for anyone who wishes to come and pray, again walking, moving through the story bodies, minds and souls. And at night we will stand and sit and kneel and listen and sing and pray as the light of this morning, the joy of Hosanna! turns to darkness.
Which will last until we light a fire late Saturday night. And we will light a fire late Saturday night in the side yard. And we will process again, together, slowly following the same route we did this morning but this time each of us holding a candle. We won’t see the trees or the sun or even one another very easily that night. But as we process we will proclaim Christ’s light and that light will carry us not only to the next day but into the bell-ringing, darkness ending proclamation of Alleluia, He is Risen! It will take time. And it will take all of us. Bodies, minds and souls invited into the hope and promise of this sacred story.
And so today we begin a week that is not like any other, a week in which we are very intentionally doing something else. And yet by its very difference Holy Week offers to teach us what any other week in this world that God so loves can be. A time of walking with. A time of loving one another. A time of sharing food. A time of weeping together. And a time of rising together with the light of this world, the world that God so loves.
Welcome everyone to a Holy Week that begs to be different. May it be so in order that we too can be transformed bodies, minds and souls into the story, and by a God that loves every step of the way.
Amen.