Author: All Saints Episcopal Church SF

A Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20, September 22, 2019

A Sermon preached by the Reverend Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20, September 22, 2019

What WAS that passage that we just heard? The Parable of the Dishonest Steward is a very strange Parable.  You may wonder, is it even a Parable? Why does Jesus make this crooked guy the hero of the story?

When Jesus tells us a story, we expect certain things to happen.  But this is one of those Parables where Jesus, the master storyteller, does something different.  He confuses us.

Confusion makes us stop in our tracks. Confusion can shift us out of auto-pilot and open our eyes to reality. So let’s look for a moment at the confusing Parable before us today. 

In Luke’s Gospel, The Parable of the Dishonest Steward comes shortly after the Prodigal Son, and I think the two stories play off of each other.  The Manager and the Prodigal Son are both untrustworthy. They have both been given wealth to manage and they both squander it. The Prodigal Son blows his inheritance on dissolute living.  The Dishonest Steward gets caught mismanaging the Rich man’s wealth.  And once they both  “hit bottom,” both of them are forced to pivot in some new direction to survive. 

The Prodigal Son has an internal dialogue saying he will work as a hired hand on his father’s farm, and turns towards home.  We hear the Dishonest Steward’s internal dialogue as well, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me?  I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.  I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.”  Both of them have the realization that life is deeply relational. 

They act upon that in different ways.  The Prodigal Son throws himself on his father’s mercy, and the story becomes all about reconciliation and forgiveness, and unconditional love.

The Dishonest Steward is more worldly, and the Parable reveals an uncomfortable truth about the way the world works. The economic system we live in has an enormous hold on all of us.  The Dishonest Steward knows that if he cuts the debts of the rich man’s debtors, they will take him in. He becomes a sort of Robin Hood rather than a bill collector.  The social contract is suddenly changed in his favor even though, to our eyes, it seems to make him even more dishonest.  The rich man applauds what he does.  Jesus’ listeners probably did, too.

In Jesus’ time there was enormous income inequality.  A few people were rich, like the steward’s boss, and it was way less than 1%, and most of the populace lived in desperate poverty.

That was the reality that Jesus’ listeners lived in.  It’s important for us to remember that as we hear the Gospel read in a 21st century context. They lived in a broken system and they knew it. People felt their own brokenness on a daily basis.

Ironically, in the Bay Area of 2019, with income equality becoming more extreme, we may understand the broken world of the Dishonest Steward more than we did in the past.

For most of my life, there was a belief in the American Dream and the promise of the middle class.  If you worked hard you could go to college, maybe own a home, and you certainly could rent somewhere to live. Our 20th Century economic assumptions gave us a sense of safety that has wasted away for many of us. As we’ve seen this week with the massive climate strikes around the world, people are concerned that the earth itself will survive.  This is the source of enormous unspoken anxiety in our lives.

I don’t want to depress you this morning, but our world is a broken world. We are broken human beings in a broken world.  Are you depressed yet?

Jake Owensby, the Bishop of Western Louisiana, writes a blog called, “Looking for God in messy places” on the lectionary readings. His approach to scripture is always illuminating and close to the bone.

Bishop Owensby writes about our passage today:

“For centuries others have been shaping the world’s economies, political systems, social structures, and climate. Apparently, those people never considered consulting us, but we’re left to muddle through the world that they’ve left for us. It is what it is. What remains for us is, “So what are you willing to do?”

Observing the success, prestige, and comfort achieved by the world’s most cunning people, it can be tempting to be what some call realistic. To play the world’s game by the rules of the shadiest and most ruthless among us.

And yet, Jesus urges a different course. Don’t be naive, he says. Acknowledge how this world so often works. But don’t merely accept it. On the contrary, resist it. Resist it with love.“

“It is what it is.”  There’s brokenness all around us, and within us. In our disposable society, we reject and throw away anything that is broken. We’ve forgotten that brokenness is an invitation to for mending, healing, and renewal. 

I like what Bishop Owensby says, “It is what it is.  What remains for us is, “So what are we willing to do about it?”

In this Parable Jesus acknowledges “It is what it is” and says God is even in that messy and anxiety ridden place that we inhabit on a daily basis.

Last Sunday we had our first history day of our interim time together.  We put ourselves on the timeline of All Saints’ history, and we had some good conversations at our tables.  We asked how you came to All Saints’ and what at All Saints’ has brought you joy.

Today we gather again after the 10:00 Mass for another history day.  If you weren’t here last Sunday I’d like you to put yourself on the timeline and address that question about what has brought you joy at All Saints’ with your table mates.

In the email newsletter I asked you all to bring a photo from the past to share.  If you brought a photo, I’d like you to share write down what it means to you and who was in the photo.  Then share it with your table mates and share what it means to you.  I’m going to come around and snap a digital photo of your photos and get prints made so we can put them on the timeline.

We have a rich history together here at All Saints’.  There’s joy, and also I’m aware that our history includes deep loss and brokenness. I wonder if some of you today feel safe enough in our loving community to share what that was like here at All Saints’? 

I’ve been wondering how that sense of loss has affected our parish?  Today I will prayerfully invite you to share some of that history of our brokenness. 

The Good News is that Christ has been here with us through all of it. Christ knows our deepest hurts and longings for healing. As we will here in our hymn today, there is a Balm in Gilead.  Amen.

A Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19, September 15, 2019

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19, September 15, 2019

Recently, I went to Perry’s, the restaurant on Union Street, and I had a flashback.  Not a bad PTSD flashback, but a pleasant flashback. The walls of Perry’s are covered with posters from the presidential campaigns of old, and photos of people like John Kennedy and the Beatles, and famous San Franciscans like Joe Montana, Joe Alioto, and Joe DiMaggio. My flashback was to the 20th Century.  I realized that I felt very comfortable surrounded by all those familiar faces with so many associations. I am a “Mid-Century” baby, formed by the culture of the late 20th Century.

Our history at All Saints’ is also deeply rooted in the 20th century.

Today and next Sunday we’ll gather after Mass to spend some time in the 20th Century to talk with each other about our history.

Since All Saints’ hasn’t had an Interim in 30 years, you may have never participated in a history day before.  History days are a standard part of the Interim time when we get together and talk with each other and gather some information about where we’ve been, and also share memories with each other.  Some of that information will be captured so that when we get to the Search Process, we’ll have narrative data to work with. Because we have a rich history, we’re going to have two history days.  And we may have more discussions down the line.

At today’s meeting we’ll look at the big picture.  We’re going to place ourselves on a giant timeline, and have some small group table discussion.  

Next Sunday we will spend more focused time in small group discussion talking about the last 50 years. I hope that you can stay for a light lunch and discussion for about an hour today and next Sunday. It will be interactive and fun.  Don’t worry, I’m going to give you specific instructions.

Today’s readings both tell us something about the history of God’s relationship with us.  One ends on a wrathful note, and the Gospel ends on a joyful note.  What do they teach us about the nature of God, and who God wants us to be?

In Jeremiah we hear about God’s anger with God’s people.  “The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end…for I have spoken, I have purpose; I have not relented nor will I turn back.”  Jeremiah grieves, and is shocked by the prophecies YHWH presents to him.

Contemporary commentators say that Jeremiah spoke of a shift from the original Covenant of Moses to a covenant based on a new paradigm.  The existing worldview had to collapse before a new one could be constructed, which sounds strangely familiar given current events these days.

This passage spoke to me in its desolation of the earth. Today, the earth is hurting from our wasteful way of life. We need a new paradigm for the earth to survive.

Last week Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old Swedish climate activist sailed across the Atlantic for a U.N. conference to avoid the carbon footprint involved in flying. I have great hope in the younger generation of activists like Greta who are standing up and saying this is a crisis, our house is on fire.  The Parkland students are in the same new wave of activists who are saying enough is enough.  A new paradigm is fighting to be constructed.  They have a righteous anger, much like God’s righteous anger in Jeremiah.

In our reading from Luke Jesus tells us two familiar parables:  the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.  What do they tell us about God’s covenant relationship with us?

I love how Jesus starts off with “which of you does not?”  In fact, I bet not many of us would leave 99 of our sheep to find the 1 who wandered off.  Especially in our time of late capitalism, the loss of 1 sheep would be written off as a business loss, and expected as a cost of doing business.  If you left the herd unsupervised while you went on a search, the rest of the herd might wander off.  Part of the surprising nature of Jesus’ parables is in these unlikely twists.  He calls us to a look at things differently.

In the Parable of the Lost Coin Jesus shows us a woman with ten coins (which was a lot of $) who searches just as diligently for the lost coin as the shepherd does for his lost sheep. She does a clean sweep of her house under expensive lamp light to find it.  What does this mean?

These parables show us a different kind of relationship with God than in the Old Testament. They show us the same God, but the Gospels show us God in a new way.  God is loving and seeks us out, and never gives up looking for us.  And when God finds us, God calls together the angels and they rejoice together.

Notice the joy in both parables.  There’s the joy of finding the lost sheep, and the lost coin.  And there’s the joy of gathering together and celebrating in community.  Each sheep has value and is treasured; this idea of inherent value is even more pronounced in the story of the lost coin. 

Today at our gathering after church one of the things I want you to think about is: How did God bring you to All Saints’?  And, where do you find joy at All Saints’?

On Friday and Saturday I attended a Diocesan training called “Healing Racism.” I learned a lot. 

One of the activities was a Lection Divina session on our Gospel passage today.  The passage really spoke to us as a group about the idea of inclusion.  For me, If God is always seeking us out, God is also modeling a way of being in the world. We need to seek out those who are lost or hidden from our sight. In light of the healing racism training, we asked, who is missing from our flock? 

I don’t think it means “saving” people as much as being in relationship with people. Saving is about power, and welcoming is about intimacy. Saving is primarily about individuals, welcoming is primarily about community. I wonder what that would look like here at All Saints?

As we move farther into the 21st Century, we’ve entered a challenging time for the Episcopal Church as a whole.  We are increasingly older and whiter than the neighborhoods around us.

The commentator G. Penny Nixon writes, “True repentance happens when our minds are changed to such a degree that we cannot see a community as whole until all are included and none are “lost.”  This is 21st century work for parishes all over the country right now.  It resonates with our ministry context at All Saints’.  The Good News is that we are not alone, and that Christ is there leading us into a more inclusive way of being.

What stands out for me in the passage is the joy that comes from finding the lost sheep and the lost coin. There is “Joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner who repents.”  It sounds like it’s definitely worth the search, worth the work of repentance, worth the work of our interim time together.  Amen.

A Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17, September 1, 2019

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector on the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17, September 1, 2019

It’s wedding season for my family. Our children are in their late 20’s early 30’s, and so are their friends. Last weekend went to a family friends’ wedding at St. Dorothy’s Rest, and we are now on the countdown to our son’s wedding in October.  Some of the preparation has been fun, like tasting10 flavors of gourmet cupcakes, and some of it has been challenging, like the decisions around the guest list. All of these social decisions reminded me of our readings this week, and made me ponder the many kinds of hospitality.

Most common in our society is “the hospitality industry,” a transactional kind of hospitality.  We make a reservation at a restaurant or a hotel. We show up on time, we pay our money.  It’s kind of neutral in tone. But it’s important to remember that it wasn’t so long ago that “the hospitality industry” discriminated against people of color.  This kind of hospitality is not so neutral after all.

Private events offer another kind of hospitality.  Jesus talks about this kind of hospitality a lot because basically there was no hospitality industry in his time. And so, the image of the Banquet figures large in scripture.  Consider the Wedding at Cana, the gatherings at Mary and Martha’s house, and his meals with the Pharisee’s, like in today’s reading. 

What is Jesus trying to teach us this morning about hospitality?

Whenever we enter a social event, we ask ourselves “where do I fit in?  Where do I sit?” which is why seating charts are so popular.   Jesus knows that some people jockey for the best seat, and want to see and be seen close to the host. But they also don’t want to be shamed and demoted.  Jesus offers some basic lessons in manners:  Sit towards the back and you might get upgraded.  He suggests humility.

What makes this passage a parable is Jesus’ turning common sense advice into a theological teaching.  He says, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  Jesus shows us how God evens out social status.

Whatever our social position in human society, God looks at us with eyes of love.  In God’s eyes, we are all the same social status, we are all loved as God’s own.  At God’s table we are all at the “head table” next to the host.  When we see through the eyes of Jesus, the guest lists and social hierarchies melt away to reveal holy hospitality for all.

Jesus knows how hard it is to offer holy hospitality in the real world.  And so he challenges his host.  He tells them: don’t invite the usual crowd, expecting reciprocation within your own social circle.  But expand the circle to include even the most vulnerable. He says, ”you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Jesus says true hospitality is not about expecting payment, or reciprocity, but extending God’s love out to all.  That is holy hospitality.

In our reading from Hebrews this morning we hear Paul say, “Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”  This is another example of holy hospitality.

Long ago, I had a memorable experience of receiving Holy Hospitality. I was 19, and my college roommate and I were traveling by train through Europe the summer of our sophomore year. We stopped in Canterbury, England for the day, and left our backpacks in the “left luggage” area in the railway station while we went sightseeing.  When we went back to retrieve them, the station locked.  It was closed for the night. We had nowhere to stay, and as it got dark, we began to knock on the doors of hotels and bed and breakfasts.  It was high tourist season.  Everyplace was full.  Just as we were about to panic, an innkeeper invited us in.  He said we could sleep in the living room if we set all the tables for breakfast the next day.  He would not accept our money; he only asked us to share the favor to someone else in the future.  To me, he was an angel of hospitality, and I will never forget him.  Over the years, I’ve tried to practice holy hospitality, too.

Here in the church, we’re called to offer holy hospitality, and to offer a community of God’s love on earth.  It is not always easy because it stands in tension with our social training and the society around us.

I think it comes down to baking hospitality into our Sunday morning routine. Ushers and greeters are important ministries because they offer holy hospitality.  How do people know where to sit? We need to make it less threatening to walk through that iron gate on Waller, come up the stairs and through those double doors. That walk from the street to the sanctuary is more of a barrier than insiders like us realize. How do newcomers learn our names? Interims are supposed to raise these questions. 

In the meantime, All Saints’ quietly serves people in need a home-cooked meal at the neighborhood brunch program every Saturday morning. We do not expect anyone to reciprocate, although guests have become servers.  As our Interim, I see this as one of All Saints’ strengths that we can support.  It’s an offering of holy hospitality, where sometimes angels come to break bread with us.

It’s an expression of God’s love that echoes the sacrament we gather every week to celebrate at God’s table. 

You may have noticed that throughout the Gospels, Jesus is always the guest at other people’s tables. But here, at this table, the altar, Jesus is the host.  Jesus offers us a foretaste of the great banquet waiting for us from before the foundation of the world, where all sit at the table with Christ, in holy hospitality.   Come, a place is set for you. Come to receive nourishment for your ministry of holy hospitality in the world.  Amen.

A Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, August 25, 2019

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Michael Hiller, Pastoral Associate, on the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, August 25, 2019

As I looked at the readings for this Sunday, and thought of All Saints’ Church in its current situation, looking into the future, asking the Spirit to lead it into mission in this part of the city, and looking for that individual who will serve as mentor and guide, I was drawn to address the whole idea of “true worship.” The idea is addressed in some manner in each of the readings for today. I couldn’t remember whether or not you use Track One or Track Two from the lectionary, so I will use the resources of both readings in forming my remarks this morning.

In Track One, the reading is the Call of Jeremiah in the first chapter of his book. We become aware of his work as a priest in the tradition of Anathoth, and then of his call to be prophet – a messenger to his present time of the Word of the Lord. Jeremiah objects to the call. He says he is too young, not given to good speech, too fearful. God thinks otherwise, however, allowing that God has known Jeremiah from the womb. He touches Jeremiah’s mouth and says, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.”

The Track Two first reading is from Third Isaiah, in which he contrasts the behaviors and actions of the wicked and the righteous. God puts up a series of “If, then” statements to challenge the righteous. “If you remove the yoke from among you. If you offer your food to the hungry, then your light shall rise in the darkness. This is the typical message of the prophets – the honoring and caring for the widow and the orphan, the lifting up of the oppressed. Even though this is addressed to those returning from exile, in difficult circumstances themselves, the prophet none-the-less enjoins them in this work of charity. True worship is, after all, formed of the love we have for God with all our heart, soul and mind, and the love we have for our neighbor that equals the love we have for ourselves.

So from these two readings we understand our obligations on this holy day – to speak God’s word no matter how difficult that word might be, and to serve both God and neighbor. Third Isaiah contributes a second set of “If, then” statements that deal specifically with the Sabbath Day and worship. “If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight,…if you honor it; then you shall take delight in the Lord. Delight in the Lord! What an expectation for us as we come to do our worship and make our prayers. Delight in the Lord, and concern for our neighbor, so Jeremiah and Third Isaiah would have us think and act.

Second Reading

The author of Hebrews has a different set of comparisons. Here we scenes of the holy mountain Sinai, and of the holy wilderness in which Israel wandered for forty years. In this reading, the author addresses us as pilgrims. “You have come not to something that can be touched,” and then lists ineffable things that speak of mystery – blazing fire, darkness, gloom, a tempest, the sound of a trumpet, and a voice of power and awe. This places us at Sinai and awaiting the giving of the Law, the announcement of God’s intentions for us. Is that where we worship, or is that where we wait to worship?

Later in the passage, the author sees pilgrims coming to another destination. “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Don’t you find it fascinating that when people are asked about the places that inspire worship, they usually refer to something in nature – a lake, an ocean, a mountain, a forest. This, however, is different. We are bound to come to the city. In our day and age, the city is often thought of as a place of sin and the absence of God, and yet that is the symbol of God’s presence. Perhaps, going back to the prophetic message about God and neighbor, we realize that the city is the place in which we see most clearly the need of our neighbor, that our true worship can begin here as we aid and care for our neighbor. That is why we worship in assembly – that we gather on a frequent basis around the table and the water and become a community – a city of righteousness.

The Holy Gospel

This image is seen with a great deal of clarity in the Gospel for this morning. Here we meet a woman who has been burdened with illness for eighteen years. She meets Jesus on a significant day, a time in which his actions over against her redefine what it means to worship on the Sabbath Day. I can remember a time, when I lived in Massachusetts, where stores either would not open on Sunday, or would cover up all manner of goods that could not be sold on the Sabbath Day. Or I remember the elevator in the King’s Hotel in Jerusalem which went up and down all day long – stopping at each floor, so that one did not have to push a button to indicate which floor was your destination.

Jesus cuts through all this to enable us to see human need. It is here that we need to recall the deep connection between worship and human need. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, just as you love your neighbor as you love yourself.” It is all bound together in a package that defines and refines our sense of worship. Here, as in the other readings, there is also a contrast. Luke contrasts the disbelief and offense taken by the synagogue leaders with the rejoicing of the people who witnessed the same actions. “And the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. They worshipped – and their worship was not only praise but thanksgiving as well.

Worship is freedom. The woman was freed from her satanic burden or pain and disease. Likewise, we are freed from whatever it is the binds us to unhappiness and distress. That is why confession is so important. It is liberation, and perhaps its words of forgiveness pass us by too quickly. Here is what ought to make us sit up and rejoice if we have in the silence that preceded our confession deeply thought about what separates us from both God and neighbor. It is this pronouncement that out to bring both joy and freedom. “Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.” With these words the rest of the Mass becomes a prayer of thanksgiving – a Eucharist.

Where are you going as a parish? Where are you going as a People of God? Where will you want your new Rector to take you? How will you be pilgrims? What will you true worship be like as you wait for new leadership, and then when you are given it? I hope these words will help you in your prayers as you await that time.

A Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15, August 18, 2019

A Sermon preached by The Reverend Christopher L. Webber on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15, August 18, 2019.

I meet every week with a small Bible study group where I live and we’ve been making our way through the so-called history books: 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. And the Bible is unlike the sacred scriptures of any other faith because of books like those, books of history. Much of the Bible is history, history, not teaching, or, rather, teaching with history. If you’re into comparative religion you can look at the Muslim Koran and the Hindu Bhagavadgita or the Buddhist Pali Canon and Agama and you will find wisdom but you will not find anything like the history books of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Even the Old Testament this morning provides history indirectly as a parable.

Today we have to look at the first New Testament reading to get the Old Testament history summarized. It has to be summarized here, the author says,

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets– who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight… Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; . . . (They were) destitute, persecuted, tormented– of whom the world was not worthy.

The passage ends by saying:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us . . .looking to Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith

One modern translation puts it: Jesus “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” I like that: “pioneer and perfecter.” I like that because Americans know about pioneers: people who range out ahead, exploring new land, settling, finally, even places like California and maybe the moon and Mars. Human beings are pioneers by nature. Think of the very first Americans crossing the Bering Strait – long before Jamestown or Plymouth – and moving down the west coast of the continent and spreading out across America first from west to east: first California, then New York, – that’s not the sequence they taught me in school but that’s what those first Americans did and not stopping in California either but moving also further south, crossing the border into Mexico without a wall to stop them. And all of that is part of the larger chronicle of which the Bible gives us only snippets, bits and pieces, but significant bits and pieces in which we can see more clearly the things we need to know about human society and human nature, things God wants us to learn and knows that we can learn by experience better than books. Our sacred book, our Bible, does have teaching, yes, of course, but grounded always in human experience, in history. We know because we’ve been there, we’ve done that, we’ve learned from events.

We’ve had some history lessons in recent weeks, haven’t we? Not for the first time. How many times do we need to be taught the same lesson before we act? Take chapter 4 of the Bible, for example: the story of Cain and Abel? In the larger picture – this is a personalized summary of what happens when shepherds and farmers, ranchers and farmers, have their eyes on the same land. But Abel was a keeper of sheep And Cain was a tiller of the soil. It’s condensed history: the Jews come on the scene as keepers of sheep moving into farm land in Canaan and fighting with the native farmers for that land. You can’t grow lettuce if the cattle aren’t fenced out and you can’t raise cattle if somebody fenced off the grazing land. So Cain and Abel happened, and it happened again as the west was settled, first by ranchers until human beings recognize that God made human beings for a purpose, that God made them to live together in peace and they need to learn the art of compromise and find ways to settle disputes before it comes to blows.

There came a time, long ago, when human beings understood that well enough to sum it up in four words: Thou shalt not kill. And later they learned an even better way to say it: love your neighbor as yourself. We learned that out of history by sad experience – or started to learn it because we’re not there yet, are we? Columbine, Parkland, Sandy Hook, Gilroy, Dayton, El Paso – the list gets longer and longer. How long, O Lord, how long?

Martin Luther King, Jr. confronted that question again and again. If you are black in America, you’re bound to ask. In one of his greatest sermons, King said,

I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” Somebody’s asking, “How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, . . . Somebody’s asking, “When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?” Somebody’s asking, . .. . How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?” I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because “truth crushed to earth will rise again.”
How long? Not long, because “no lie can live forever.” How long? Not long, because “you shall reap what you sow.” How long? Not long: How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. How long? Not long, because: Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord . . .

And our eyes have seen the glory in the battles raging now in the streets of Charlottesville and El Paso and still in Ferguson, Missouri, where American citizens are still stopped for driving while black as a good friends of mine have been even on Long Island and in northwestern Connecticut just a few years ago. It happens. It’s happening right now. But what we see when these dreadful things take place – what we’ve seen when people come together in a common grief – what we’ve seen is always a renewed determination to work and pray for something better. Not thoughts and prayers, Not hope and pray. No, but work and pray. Make a commitment to change, make a commitment to work and give to the city that has foundations. a commitment to the kingdom of God. A commitment to work together in faith remembering, remembering what God’s people have accomplished in faith, what we read about this morning:

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, By faith the walls of Jericho fell . . .

By faith we will move on. And we read last week in this same passage from Hebrews about those others:

who confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way (we read) make it clear that they are seeking a homeland, that they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Yes, and some people are willing to wait, but I think God gives us the vision of that heavenly city to make us less patient with this one. I think we wouldn’t mind so much what’s happening if we didn’t have a vision of a different world, a better community. But we do and that’s why we’re not willing to settle for things as they are.

Dorothy L Sayers once said, “The best kept inns are on the through roads.” That was a hundred years ago. The best kept inns today are likelier to be at the airports than the train stations. We’re people in a hurry and now we know what’s possible and we’re not willing to wait. It’s because we have that vision that the patterns of life are being challenged and that’s frightening to some people who don’t share the vision, who think they can turn the clock back and build walls and deny travel documents to stop change from happening. It can’t be done. God is at work. Mine eyes have seen the glory – the glory of the vision of a nation where color no longer matters and ethnicity no longer matters but love matters and justice matters and peace matters and the faith that we can get there is the faith proclaimed in the readings last week and this: the faith that is shaking the foundations to tear down the city of human pride and build up the city of God

A Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 14, August 11, 2019

A Sermon preached by The Reverend Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 14, August 11, 2019

I recently had a few days outside the Bay Area bubble, in Cincinnati OH, where our oldest daughter ran the Episcopal Camp in the Diocese of Southern OH. She asked us to come to her last Family Camp session. We had a fun time at camp and met about 100 fellow Episcopalians. We also tie-dyed t-shirts in the cornfields, confirming that Haight-Ashbury has had a long-lasting cultural effect.

While we were at camp, President Trump held a rally in Cincinnati.  It was troubling to me being that close to it.  I was able to focus on my novel as I relaxed in a hammock for a few hours, but it was difficult for me to let go of all the trouble in the world. On our way home, we flew out of Columbus, OH. The interstate took us by the city of Dayton, and we know what happened there late last Saturday night, right after the shooting in El Paso.

These are troubling times, and it’s times like these when I find that I need my faith. I don’t take it for granted anymore.

What does faith mean to you?  What do our readings teach us about faith this morning?  How can we support each other’s faith during this Interim time, and time of great upheaval in our world?

According to classic Christian orthodoxy, faith is a gift initiated by God.  Later, the theologian, Martin Luther had a spiritual awakening as he read the Letter to the Romans, and led the Reformation with his assertion that we are justified with God by faith alone rather than by good works. 

When I served in Menlo Park, I learned to introduce the Nicene Creed with the words, “Let us affirm our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed,” which I think frames it well. The Creed affirms what the church came to believe in the 4th century, and when we say it together, we enter into a centuries long tradition of naming ancient articles of faith. As an Episcopal priest, I feel compelled to say, you don’t have to believe all of it all the time to be an Episcopalian.  But saying it together brings us into a common experience where we hear the faith of the church proclaimed yet again, and it always brings me to a place of wonder.

This week I was struck by the words near the beginning that say, “We believe in one God…maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.”

Faith rests on there on  “all that is, seen and unseen.”  We are familiar with the things we can see, and understand; and our faith leads us to look below the surface and over time our faith leads us to trust in things unseen.

At camp we had something called FOB, or “Flat on Back” time during the middle of the day, (basically nap time) and that’s when I read my novel in the hammock. The novel was a bestseller called, “The Overstory” by Richard Powers.  It’s a novel about the wisdom of trees, how people’s lives are intertwined with trees, how we’re destroying trees, and creation. The plot weaves together a cast of characters who become environmental advocates, some of them extremists, for the cause of defending trees.

The “Overstory” in the title refers to the unseen intelligence of trees, and the natural world.  Where humans see nature as something to be exploited, and used up, the novel shows us nature as valuable for its own sake, a very Anglican view of creation.

As I finished the book on the flight home, I found a redemptive message in the “unseen” intelligence of creation that is beyond our understanding. Things unseen are moving below the surface, beyond our control, and that gave me hope.

A growing Faith is hopeful like that, too.  Our faith consists of those “articles of faith” in the Creed, and also the unseen becoming ever more real to us. Faith is an ever-growing trust in God’s unseen action and love in the world.

In today’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, we hear the classic verse, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. “ which fits with the opening words of the Creed.  Paul uses the words “assurance,” and “conviction” to describe faith.

Paul also uses the story of Abraham following God’s call to explain what faith is.  Paul writes, “By faith, Abraham OBEYED when he was called to set out.” Faith is an invitation by God  to step out beyond our comfort zone, like Abraham did.  Faith is ever-changing; God continually calls us out into a deeper faith, and to face the unknown without fear.  Or at least to understand that fear is part of life, and to trust God and move ahead anyway, with courage.

James Fowler’s classic work on the different stages of faith talks about a spiral upward movement of disintegration and reintegration as our faith matures.  I believe that in an interim time there’s a similar process going on.  There’s a process of disintegration and reintegration as we move farther along the Interim journey.  It can feel uncomfortable. We can feel anxiety and fear.  But through that process of spiritual growth we grow stronger as a community.

In our Gospel passage, Jesus offers his disciples and us, an alternative view of living a life of faith, beyond fear.  He offers a life of faith based on the God’s pleasure to give us the kingdom. It affirms God’s faith in us as God’s beloved.  When I experience that aspect of faith, the world becomes lighter. It’s not all up to us to hold it all together.  God is holding us in a relationship of faith.  God is unseen, yet God is there.  God is the “Overstory” if you will, behind the scenes. 

Jesus says, “Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

This is Good News for us as Christians, because when we remember that it is God’s pleasure to give us the kingdom, we can see all that we have as God’s gift.  We become stewards of what God has given us, rather than hoarders.  We can loosen our grip on life a bit and notice our faith is carrying us along, something like the mystery of riding a bike.

There is so much that we are holding onto right now.  We legitimately have a lot to worry about in our country. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something else bad happens.  As I mentioned, it was hard for me to relax on my vacation.

But perhaps the world is going through one of those spirals of disintegration and reintegration, too.  Maybe society is spiraling up towards a new consciousness, and we have to go through this period of disintegration and we can’t see the big picture because we are too close to it.  Maybe confronting white nationalism, racism, and the NRA out in the open is what needs to happen to bring us to a new day.  I pray that we may all work towards a more equitable and moral society.

Jesus also says, “do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  In this Interim time we may have fears about how we are doing at All Saints’ and what our future will be, along with our concerns about the world around us.  Let’s surround those concerns with intentional prayer.  Let’s ask God for what we need specifically on our journey of faith.  God is listening, it is God’s pleasure to give us the kingdom.  But we must we must ask for it, we must participate in the work of bringing it about.

Take courage, little flock.  Christ is with us, and he asks us to trust and to be ready for action, be ready to grow in faith, be ready to receive joy.  Amen.

A Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, July 28, 2019

A Sermon preached by The Reverend Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 12,, July 28, 2019

For some reason, I love Sutro Tower. From Alameda, I see it standing like a Calder sculpture. When I come into the City, it’s like a fog-0-meter that shows me the weather will be like in the Haight. 

In the midst of our sunny (today) and foggy (most of the time) summer, we have our Gospel reading about Prayer that has both sunny clear parts, and some that’s foggy in meaning.  What is Prayer?  How do we do it?  What does Jesus say about our prayer relationship to God?

Prayer is at the center of Jesus’ life.  He goes up to a mountain by himself to pray, he prays all night by the Sea of Galilee, he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he even prays on the Cross. 

In today’s passage, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray like John taught his disciples, and he teaches them what we know as the Lord’s Prayer.

Our familiarity with the Lord’s Prayer, the repetition of it, plants it deep in our souls. Advanced Alzheimer’s patients often can remember the Lord’s Prayer if it was part of their earlier life.  I found in my summer of hospital chaplaincy, that praying the Lord’s Prayer united people of many Christian denominations.  Jesus gives us a framework of prayer focused on simple human needs.

Jesus’ teaching of the Lord’s Prayer is as clear as a “regular” summer’s day outside the Bay Area.  We know these lines; they are written on our hearts.  The second half of our passage is also about prayer, but it’s meaning is foggy and is worth exploring in more depth. 

Jesus tells a Parable about a man knocking on his neighbor’s door at night in need of bread to serve someone who’s come to his house.  From what I have read this week, some of its meaning is lost in translation. 

We recently hosted a neighborhood watch meeting here at All Saints’, and I went door to door on our block of Waller to deliver the flyers. I realized that I was being electronically recorded on camera at many front doors. In our world, someone knocking at the front door at night is threatening. So, when we hear this story we don’t quite know what to make of the relationship between the guy at the door and the guy in bed for the night.

The people of Jesus world would have not been confused. They lived in tight communities and they lived a hand-to-mouth existence, where they shared what food they had with each other, no matter what. Hospitality was a means of survival. Those who did not share were subject to shame, and not bringing shame on the community was a huge motivating force in their society.

Jesus begins his parable with the phrase, “who among you,” which in Greek is an idiom for “imagine the unthinkable.”  That really gives a different spin on the story. It would have been unthinkable for the guy not to answer the late night call for hospitality. One commentator writes:

What is translated as “persistence” actually means “shamelessness”. There is no persistence in the story. There is no nagging. The person in the story only asks once. So the story is unimaginable to Jesus’ hearers – even if he didn’t get up because he was a friend, he would at least get up because of the shame to him and his village if he didn’t. So this friend inside, who is struggling economically with the rest of the village is going to share and risk that he too has nothing to eat.”

Once the fogginess of the translation is cleared up, Jesus’ meaning is clear:  God is waiting for our prayers as a dear friend waits to hear from us any time day or night. God waits to give extravagantly, even sacrificially. 

My enchantment with Sutro Tower has something with the rhythms of the fog in San Francisco.  The fog moves mysteriously in and out through the City in a daily rhythm that frames our days.

I think our Prayer is like the fog, there’s a rhythm to our prayer that surrounds us with sacred intention at different times of the day, depending on when we feel we need to reach out to God, or more regularly if we have a disciplined prayer practice. And like the fog, prayer can be mysterious, beautiful, and sometimes grey and challenging. Sometimes our world seems just too grey, cold and foggy to pray.  What difference does it make, we ask ourselves. Our prayer life withers.

Our popular American view of prayer has corrupted it into something transactional; God’s a gumball machine, and prayer is the coin that will give us our shiny wish. We know prayer is not like that, but we live in a transactional society that doesn’t understand grace.

We know that prayer is deeply mysterious and beyond words.  Yet we want words to express our needs and longings to God.  The comforting rhythms of the liturgy and their familiar words help express our prayers in community.  I know that for some it is challenging to hear the new Mass setting we’ve been using, but I think it’s a good experience during an Interim time to learn something new. Thank you for being open to this new worship experience.

In the Anglican tradition, we say that our prayers shape believing.  We have little official doctrine, but much beautiful language. That language frames our sacramental focus in the Eucharist, which may actually come closer to revealing what prayer is. The act of celebrating Communion is a mysterious ritual that takes us away from words, into sacrament, into a place of transcendent prayer.

I believe prayer is a relationship with God that we build over time in our hearts, our minds, and actions, ideally, within a community of prayer.  And The Lord’s Prayer is central to our tradition.  It is imbedded in the heart of our Eucharistic Liturgy, right before the breaking of the bread. It connects us to Jesus’ words as we prepare to connect with Jesus in the Eucharist.

Here at All Saints’ we continue with our daily weekday liturgies of the Mass and Evening Prayer, and it is one of the strengths of our parish.  I invite you to come whenever possible. It is an intimate and faithful ministry of prayer. I’ve entered into the rhythm of leading 6:00 Mass and Evening Prayer three days a week, and it has become one of the heartfelt joys of being here as Interim.

What I take from our readings today is that God actively wants a prayer relationship with us. 

Our reading from Hosea, though disturbing in its mention of whoredom, shows how in ancient days, God turned away from the people of Israel because like an unfaithful spouse, they turned away from God.  But, as we know, God did not turn away for good.  That is part of the Good News.

Our image of God can remain childish like the gumball machine, or as a judgmental figure, but the prophets show us an active God who wants to be in relationship with us, and waits for us to knock at all times of our lives, the sunny days, and those that are the most foggy and cold.  God presence is with us in all that is good, and loving, and self-giving.  We see the face of God in Christ’s self-giving on the Cross, in the Eucharist and in the face of each other in community.

In our passage from Luke, Jesus teaches us that we are always learning to pray.  Prayer is not a one-time lesson, it’s a lifelong process of learning to knock, to listen, to be available to God in relationship.

The disciples’ question, teach us to pray, is itself a prayer we can take with us this morning, Lord, teach us to pray as you would like us to right now, for who we are now, and what our needs are today.  Help us to open ourselves to your presence.  Help us to pray.  Amen.

A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, July 21, 2019

A Sermon preached by the Reverend Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 11, July 21, 2019

Back in March, shortly after my Mom passed away, I was driving home from San Francisco, through the Tube, into Alameda, when I was pulled over by the Alameda police for looking at my iphone. My infraction was “distracted driving.” After that ticket, I think I’ve learned my lesson. But from glancing over at my fellow drivers on my commute, and seeing people walking into the street looking down at their phones, I know that I’m not alone in living a distracted existence. 

We are a distracted people these days, multi-tasking, following GPS directions, answering emails, texting, trying to get three things done at once in real time. And, as I reflected on why I was so distracted that day I got the ticket, I realized part of it was probably looking for ways to distract myself from the growing reality of my Mom’s death.  I just wanted to keep moving.

Martha and Mary lived in a much simpler world, but as we see here in our Gospel reading today, distraction is not just a 21st century thing. 

This is the only appearance of Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke. They show up again in the Gospel of John when Jesus raises their brother Lazarus from the dead. And later, towards the end of John, we see Jesus at table with them again, and it is Mary who kneels again at Jesus’ feet and anoints them with the precious ointment.

Hospitality was a central value in the Jewish home.  Think of Abraham and Sarah preparing a meal t for the three young angels who came to visit; think of that other story unique to Luke, of the Prodigal Son.  The Father slaughters the fatted calf for the prodigal son to welcome him home. 

In today’s passage we see Jesus enter “Martha’s home.”  This was unusual because men were considered the head of the household.  It was also unusual for a man (Jesus) to enter into a house headed by a woman.  Jesus as the guest sits down and Mary sits at his feet and listens.  This is unusual behavior for a woman of that time; she was acting like a man to interact on same social level as a man.  So when Martha reacts as she does, this would seem totally reasonable to a first century audience. Isn’t Mary supposed to be in the kitchen?

It’s also unusual for a text of this time to refer to women by name.  Luke is careful to say, “a woman named Martha, and a woman named Mary.”  They are not anonymous sisters, but real people with real names.  We can read the passage as Jesus’ affirmation of women’s humanity.

These six little verses speak to our human proclivity for distracting ourselves while ignoring the deeper, more important issues, including faith and spiritual growth.

The Good Samaritan and The Prodigal Son, and today’s story are unique to Luke. In the Prodigal Son and today’s story we see contentious sibling interaction.  The older son in the Prodigal Son says, “Don’t you care that I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do? and you go and kill the fatted calf for that no-good younger brother.  The Father says, “yes, but he’s returned, and I love him.  That’s the most important thing.” The older son sounds a lot like Martha when she says to Jesus, “Don’t you care that my sister is making me do all the work?” Like the older son in the Prodigal Son she’s missing the point because she’s focusing on herself and fulfilling the societal role that she’s supposed to fill. It distracts her from what’s important:  welcoming Jesus, as a guest into her heart, and his call to grow closer to God, and to love.

The Church has interpreted this story many different ways, often contrasting Martha’s active ministry of hospitality with Mary’s more contemplative approach, and sometimes saying that one was better than the other.  In popular culture women, especially, say they’re either a Martha or a Mary.  It’s tempting to set up a dualistic viewpoint.

Being a preacher of the Anglican tradition, I’m going to say it’s a “both/and” situation.  We need both Martha and Mary’s kind of energy in the church. 

The Martha and Mary story also intrigues me as a student of the Enneagram.  The Enneagram is a framework for looking at personality and spiritual growth. You take the Enneagram test, much like the Myers-Briggs test, and receive a “type” but the Enneagram expects that you will grow over time towards the healthier qualities of another. As a Six on the Enneagram, I’m prone to worry and anxiety, but my Sixes aim to grow towards a Nine, which is more serene and confident. I see Martha being challenged to grow towards Mary’s strengths.

I see some of the Six in the older son and in Martha. They show a resentment that others are not conforming to societal rules as well as they do.  And the Father in the Prodigal Son, and Jesus in our story today, challenge them to see what is important:  love.

Jesus says to Martha, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

The word “distracted” has a special meaning here in Greek.   It means “to pull away.”  It’s the same Greek word used in the Good Samaritan, when the priest and the Levite walk on by.  They’re “distracted” or “pulled away” by their duties. 

In our lives, it’s not just our smartphone, that’s causing us to be distracted and pulled away, and worried.  It’s the state of our country, which we see echoed in the reading from Amos about a society corrupted.  Then there’s the cost of living in the Bay Area, and perhaps the health of the church?  These are just my own worries and distractions, I’m sure you have your own. 

Jesus tells Martha to chill out.  “There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”  He challenges Martha to raise her eyes above her distractions and worries, and move closer to him, and to love.

This week, I hear Jesus saying, “chill out” to us at All Saints’. This is especially important during an Interim time.  We need to slow down, put aside our worries and distractions, and sit at Jesus’ feet for awhile. We have important work to do this fall as we begin the self-study process. 

On Tuesday I met via Zoom with Canon Abbott and Leslie Nipps who were here last year at this time working with the Vestry and with the parish.  Both of them were complimentary of the work you all did last summer, and the mature conversations they heard in the small group meetings.  They encouraged us to take the time to “go deep” and do more conversational work together in the coming months before starting the new traditional Rector Search Process. 

There are some of us who are worried about moving forward as quickly as possible on the new rector search, and I understand that concern. But we have some time built in because we must renovate the Rectory before calling a new Rector. This is a great opportunity to take our time.

When you plant something new, the ground must be dug up and turned over.  Not to dig up muck for muck’s sake at all.  But to prepare the groundwork for new life, and new growth for the future.  And we have great buried treasure here to uncover as well.

The Good News is I hear Jesus calling us to choose the better part along this journey of transition.  We are called to spiritual growth from where we were a year ago, to a new place of maturity and openness. 

After the 10:00 Mass we will talk more about the overall Interim process with Denise Obando. It’s going to be a very positive time because you all are attentive and care deeply about this community of faith.  In the coming months, we will continue our usual liturgical cycle, and we will do the important work of moving many administrative pieces forward.  Most of all, we need your participation. And we need to tune out the worries and distractions that so easily “pull us away,” from “the better part.” I’m looking forward to sitting at the feet of Jesus for the next few months with you all.  Amen.

A Sermon for the 5th Sunday after Pentecost, July 14, 2019

A Sermon preached by The Reverend Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10, July 14, 2019

We know this story of the Good Samaritan.  Hospitals are named after the Good Samaritan, and there’s even a Roadside Assistance service for Recreational Vehicles called Good Sam. But do we know it?  What is Jesus the storyteller telling us today, in 2019? Two themes stand out for me this time around:  Borders and Brokenness.

Borders have been in the news a lot lately. Chris Webber preached about borders last Sunday, and it’s worth continuing. The Southern Border of the US with Mexico, the border between North Korea and South Korea, the border between truth and falsehood, the border between the rule of law and authoritarianism, the border between love and hate. 

In our passage from Luke, Jesus is talking about a kind of border that was important to Jews of his time:  the line that marked whether you were being a good Jew and following the Law of Moses, or not.

In today’s passage, Jesus meets a lawyer who asks him, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Lawyer in this context means an expert in the religious law, sometimes known as a scribe, rather than what we think of as an attorney.

Jesus knows his Scriptures.  He asks the Lawyer, the scriptural expert, “what is written in the Law?” Both of them are thinking of the Shema, the verse from Deuteronomy that’s foundational to Judaism, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself,” and Jesus says, “you have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

The lawyer shoots back a clarifying question for the ages: “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ response is the story of the Good Samaritan.

There was a clearcut border in Jesus’ society:  Samaritans and Jews didn’t mix.  To Jews, Samaritans were the “other,” branch of Judaism who did not worship in the Temple, and they were all considered “unclean.”  So when we call our hero, “The Good Samaritan,” it’s ironic because to Jews, Samaritans were not considered “good,” and so this particular one was called out as “The GOOD Samaritan.”

Jesus says the Samaritan passing by, “was moved with pity.” The Samaritan walking to Jericho crosses the border into human kindness.

This morning I’ll ask the lawyer’s question, “who is my neighbor,” in our world.  Our neighbors to the south of us in Central America are fleeing for our lives, and we are not being Good Samaritans.  These people are refugees, not criminals. The lawyer in our passage today would not even question the necessity of treating refugees well; hospitality to foreigners was a well-settled precedent in the Law of Moses.

Yesterday I saw a video clip of our VP looking with distain at hundreds of young men behind chain link fences who’ve been detained for 40 days without showers or other humane conditions, in an overcrowded U.S. detention facility. He turned his head, and offered no sense of compassion or kindness.

If we learn anything from today’s story it’s that Jesus calls us to compassion, and to care for other people, not put them in cages, not turn away from their pain, especially if we call ourselves Christians.

My colleague at Grace Cathedral, Rev. Ellen Clarke-King wrote a petition that asked fellow clergy and other mandated reporters to report the Border Control’s treatment of children as child abuse.  I was happy to sign along with 1,400 other Episcopal clergy and mandated reporters.  As Christians, we are all mandated reporters called to witness as the lawyer in the story, and keep asking, “who are our neighbors?”  Jesus teaches us that we’re all neighbors to each other, we’re all on this earth together.

Another border in Jesus’ time was the border of brokenness. Illness, disability, mental illness, all made someone broken and “unclean” under the Law of Moses.  This was a reason why the priest and the Levite pass by the injured man in the story, they are observing the border between themselves and a man made unclean by injury.  Corpses were especially unclean.  He could have been dead, so they look the other way.

It’s important to remember that throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus healing everyone, even the most “unclean” people around: lepers, people possessed by demons, the blind, the deaf, and the lame.  I think we take it for granted because that’s what Jesus does.  But he crossed a very big border in his own culture by touching these people let alone healing them.  Once you were unclean you were “broken.”  Jesus healing ministry shows us that the “broken,” like the man lying in the ditch at the side of the road to Jericho are our neighbors. 

Here at All Saints’ we have continued to serve our neighbors in need through the HACS brunch program on Saturday mornings.  This is a real strength of All Saints’, and we need to support it and work towards renewing its ministry for the long-term.

Let’s pivot for a moment to our reading this morning from Amos.  The prophet Amos calls out the kingdom of Israel because they were headed in the wrong direction. In a vision, Amos saw a plumb line, a measurement of sound construction, that was crooked.

To my mind the plumb line, or measurement of sound government in the United States– that we can expect a level of more governance— is out of whack.  This week I’ve been dismayed by the Trump Administration’s attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, yet again.  There’s a disturbing undercurrent in our country right now that sick people deserve to be sick because it’s their own fault.  In other words, they’re “broken” and do not deserve healthcare.

It’s dangerous because it ignores the traditional understanding that insurance that benefits everyone who participates, and the more people who participate the better because it spreads the risk. 

I think this has something to say about the Good Samaritan story.  We see a story about attending to and caring about others.  We’re supposed to emulate the Good Samaritan and extend ourselves to care for others, and see ourselves as members of a society who values the decency of caring for each other.

And, I think the story is also about confronting our own “brokenness” and mortality, and our need for healing.  The story creates a vision of greater mutuality

Sometime during our lifetime we will be the man at the side of the road, beaten up by something:  a pre-existing condition, cancer, an accident, divorce, mental illness, grief, or plain old aging.  We will all need help from others, through medical care, through the personal care and love of other people.  

We also see a foreshadowing of Jesus’ brokenness in the Good Samaritan story. Jesus will shortly be the one who’s stripped, beaten, and crucified.  Jesus dies a young man on the Cross, not in comfortable surroundings as an old man.  He becomes one of us in his brokenness on the Cross.

In the words of the Eucharistic Prayer we hear the words, “This is my Body, which is broken for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus offers himself to be broken for us, and affirms the holiness of brokenness as part of the human condition.

The Good News is that Jesus is there for us.  In a sense, He is the Good Samaritan, crossing borders to enter into our lives, and offer us healing.  Perhaps the Good News is that the church is the Inn, where we can accept that healing and receive Christ’s body and blood broken and offered for us, and share it with others.  The Resurrection is the Good News that our brokenness leads to new life in Christ.

The Good News is that Jesus cares that we care about each other, like a parent who cares about how their children care for each other. We are all children of God and we are all broken members of the human family in need to healing, and we are all called to love in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

A Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, July 7, 2019

A Sermon preached by The Reverend Christopher L. Webber for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 9, July 7, 2019

I woke up last Sunday to pictures of the President stepping across a raised line in Korea and I’ve been trying all week to understand why the same man would want to ignore a border in Korea and build one up in Texas. I’ve been wondering whether today’s Old Testament reading can help us understand. It’s all about borders: the walls we build and the walls we tear down.

Naaman was a Syrian: commander of the armies of Aram Aram or Syria – same thing – a major power in those days stretching from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates It took in modern Syria and most of Iraq. Some borders mattered to Naaman and some didn’t. He ignored borders when he wanted to plunder his Hebrew neighbors. He was raiding south of the border one day and captured a young Hebrew woman and brought her north as a slave to serve his wife. Borders couldn’t stand in the way of personal gain.

Naaman’s behavior is similar, I think, to the way American corporations have plundered Central America for generations, exploited resources, overthrown governments, enriched a few and impoverished many. The American novelist, O Henry, invented the term “Banana Republic” to describe the governments created by the United Fruit Company and others to enrich American investors and impoverish Hondurans and Guatemalans. Borders don’t matter when we’re looking for plunder.

Israel had been a plunderer in the time of David and Solomon but now Israel was the plunderee, now it was a banana republic, ravaged by Egypt to the south and Syria to the north. Naaman would have understood our politics today. You might bring a few Central Americans north as servants and to work in the fields, you would certainly plunder the wealth, but you would build walls to keep most of the people you impoverished from coming north themselves. You build borders to protect yourself from that.

But the situation was complicated because Naaman was a leper. Well, it looked like leprosy. They couldn’t much tell different skin diseases apart in those days, but it looked like leprosy and that was scary. Leprosy ate away at your body and slowly destroyed you, and it was contagious so you exiled lepers, you made them stay outside the towns and cities, wander the countryside, but not get close. Lepers had to stay outside an invisible border ringing a bell to warn you and calling out “Unclean, unclean.”

But Naaman was the commanding general of the Syrian armies, so he wouldn’t be exiled quickly, but if that patch on his arm began to spread and he couldn’t hide it that was the end: no more palace, no more servants, no more luxuries, but a slow, painful, miserable death away from everything he valued and everything he cared about. But the Hebrew servant girl knew something, and she told Naaman’s wife and Naaman’s wife told him. The servant girl said, “There’s a prophet in Israel who does healings. Some say he even raised the dead. Maybe he can solve your problem.” So Naaman told the king and the king gave consent and Naaman headed south with a small army of servants and soldiers and went straight to the king’s palace in Israel.

The king of Israel at the time was probably King Jehoram, son of Ahaz, but this minor king was so unimportant we’re never told his name. So Naaman showed up at the door with a small army and said, “Cure my leprosy.” Well, the maid never said the king could do it, but Naaman just started at the top and scared Jehoram to death. “Me cure leprosy? Is he looking for another war?” But they got things straightened out and General Naaman went to see Elisha. And Elisha couldn’t be bothered even to go to the door. “Leprosy? No problem. Tell him to go wash in the Jordan and he’ll be fine.”

But Naaman was outraged. “Wash in the Jordan? That muddy creek?” We’ve got better rivers in Syria. Well, they did. Yjey had the Euphrates. He could have washed in the mighty Euphrates. Why bother to come all the way down south to wash in some muddy brook in Israel? Naaman flew into a rage and it took a while for his servants to calm him down. “Look,” they said, “if he’d asked you to do a hundred pushups or wash all over with Chanel #5 – wouldn’t you have done it? So why not the simple thing? What’s to lose?” So, grudgingly, he did. And it worked. And he was thrilled And that’s the end of today’s reading. It’s supposed to parallel or connect with the Gospel reading about Jesus sending the disciples out on a healing mission, but I’d rather make the connection to the headlines and borders.

So let me just finish off the story that the reading left hanging, unfinished. Here’s what we didn’t hear. Naaman was thrilled. He went back to Elisha and offered to pay him. But Elisha waved him off. “No problem. Go on home. Don’t worry. Forget about it.” So then – here’s the part I like – Naaman said, “Well, OK, but at least let me take back to Syria two mule loads of earth.”

Why? What’s that about? Naaman wants the dirt because now he knows there’s a God in Israel who answers prayer and he wants a chunk of Israel to stand on from now on when he prays so the God of Israel will hear him.

Do you see what’s happening? We’re at a stage of human development, religious development, when different people had different gods and the gods were connected with certain areas, certain lands. When in Israel, pray to Jehovah. When in Syria, pray to Baal. Gods have borders too. But Baal didn’t help my leprosy and Yahweh did. So if I have to go back to Syria maybe I can take some of Israel with me and stand on it when I pray and this powerful Israelite God will still hear my prayers

Here’s the point: this is a story of events that took place almost 3000 years ago and they were at a very early stage in the story of the human understanding of God. Move down a few centuries and you find Isaiah, another prophet for another time, and Isaiah knew something Naaman didn’t know and maybe Elishah didn’t either. Isaiah knew that God is a God who rules all nations. Isaiah knew that God could take King Cyrus of Babylon and use him as a tool in God’s hand. Isaiah knew that the God of Israel is the only God and there is no other. Isaiah knew that from the rising of the sun to it’s setting there is no other God. “I am the Lord,”“ says the God of Isaiah, “and there is no other.”

Think again about borders. We have a president who can step across one border and build walls on another. But what’s the big picture here? Where is God in all this? What does God care about borders? Here we are on the weekend celebrating American Independence and I learned something about that last week that I hadn’t known before. We have a prayer in the Prayer Book for Independence Day and we have assigned readings from the Bible, and I thought we always had. But No. No, the committee that created the first American Prayer Book in 1789 wrote a prayer for Independence Day and chose readings from the Bible, but the Bishop of Pennsylvania said, “Wait a minute. A lot of the clergy were not on board with this business. They had been loyal to their ordination oath to the King of England and some have gone back to England and some to Canada and we don’t want to embarrass the ones who remain by making them give thanks for something they aren’t thankful for.” So there was no prayer for Independence Day in the Episcopal Prayer Book until 1928 when most people had gotten over it. So in 1928 they put back the readings that are more relevant today than ever. They called on Episcopalians down to our own day to read these verses: Deuteronomy 10:17-21:

“The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”If that’s not clear enough, there’s a newer translation, almost ten years old, but more relevant than ever, that puts it this way: “The Lord your God is the God of all gods and the Lord of all lords . . . He enacts justice for orphans and widows, and he loves immigrants giving them food and clothing. That means that you must also love immigrants because you were immigrants in Egypt.” (Common English Bible)

Argue the politics however you want and do what you want about walls and borders but our instructions

are clear. I took a certain pride in the presence of the one openly Episcopalian candidate on stage lastweek and the fact that he alone acknowledged that Christians are under orders. He said: “we should call out hypocrisy when we see it. . . a party that associates itself with Christianity . . . (and) suggests that. . . God would condone putting children in cages has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.”

And, yes, is it really so good a thing that there’s another set of borders in the world, another division between human beings? Is it a good thing that Korea is divided North and South? Is it a good thing that North America is divided three ways? Is it a good thing that Central American terrorists can control tiny countries and that we respect their right to rape and pillage as they like because, hey, there’s a border we have to respect?

What is it about borders? How is it that capitalists can ravage tiny countries with no one to hinder them, but when their victims flee for their lives we turn them away? What’s wrong with this picture? The wall is not the whole picture. The picture includes small countries destroyed by our corporations, but we’re not responsible and I don’t understand why.

Now I’m a priest, not a politician. I get to ask questions, not give answers. Except this: our God is the God of Isaiah, who knows no borders. Except this: we have a vision given us and a mandate to fulfill and the same God who loves us and calls us will also be our judge.

We will end the service today with the singing of that great hymn, “America the beautiful,” that puts into words and music something of what I’ve been trying to say:

“O beautiful for patriot dream
that sees beyond the years
thine alabaster cities gleam
undimmed by human tears . . .”

Few things, I think, cause more tears than borders, but we are given a vision that sees beyond the politics, beyond the borders, beyond the years; a vision that calls us and questions us: Must it indeed be always “beyond the years”?
Why not in our own day?
Why not now?