Tag: Interim Time

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 29, 2020

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 29, 2020

Hello everyone.  I’m recording my sermon and posting to YouTube from my home in Alameda. We are doing well.  My 90 year old Dad remains in the nursing home at St. Paul’s Towers in Oakland after breaking his hip, and we can’t visit.

But yesterday we had a Zoom call with him. It was really good to see him on the screen and talk face to face. 

Seeing people’s faces on Zoom is a powerful thing.  On Wednesday night we had our first All Saints’ zoom meeting. About 12 people came, and it warmed my heart to see everyone’s faces.  It made me realize how much I miss you all and celebrating the Eucharist with you on Sunday morning.  Later this morning we’ll try our first Sunday morning zoom service.

The Coronavirus is changing life as we know it, and as a priest it’s challenging me to learn technology that I’ve never used before, like YouTube, and Zoom. 

Before now, the Episcopal Church has not really embraced the broadcasting of services.  The National Cathedral and other cathedrals have done it, but not many churches.  Why is that?

I think that overall, we are traditionalists at heart.

We also have an incarnational theology of worship that invites us to actively participate in the liturgy.  We stand for the Gospel, and for the prayers; we greet each other with the Peace.  And then, of course, we participate in the Great Thanksgiving, and we come forth to receive the blessed bread and wine.

All Saints’ Anglo-Catholicism heightens this incarnational approach.  We cross ourselves, we bow, we kneel. We sprinkle the people with holy water, we take in the sweet scent of incense. We chant, and our voices respond with hymns. We create the liturgy together as the gathered people. 

We do it all to create the beauty of holiness, and if you go to YouTube and watch the Mass we recorded on March 15, you can see most of the familiar aspects of our worship.

I know that you all miss our Anglo-Catholic liturgy, and our beautiful church. I do, too.

I realized this week that what I’m feeling is grief. I am grieving for the loss of our face-to-face community, and I am grieving for the familiar way we have always done things at church, and I’m grieving for many other things, too. 

Accepting the uncomfortable feelings of grief (because there are many aspects to grief) has helped me find new footing this week. It’s important to be realistic about where we are in the midst of this strange situation. 

At the same time, I am thankful for technology. It brings us closer in such a stressful time when we cannot be together.  With zoom, especially, we can be face-to-face in real time.  And for that I’m thankful.

I’m also thankful for the many conversations I’ve had on the phone with parishioners.  I spoke with Rod Dugliss early in the week and he said, “we have a larger story that encompasses hope.”  And that has stuck with me through all the bad news this week.

We have a larger story that encompasses hope.  Certainly, our readings today speak to that larger story, that larger hope.

Our reading from Ezekiel is known as The Valley of the Dry Bones, and is one of the traditional readings for the Great Vigil of Easter.  God shows the prophet Ezekiel a valley strewn with dry bones, which represent the people of Israel. When Ezekiel prophesies to the bones, God causes them to rattle up from the ground, coming together into skeletons, and flesh and skin covers them. God breathes upon the bones and they live, a great multitude are brought back to life.

In the midst of this Lent, when we have given up so much; in the midst of this serious pandemic, I find hope in this story of the dry bones. It reminds us we have a larger story.

The Dry Bones story also speaks to the resurrection of the body. The ancient gnostic Christians valued spirit above the body, and argued that the separation of the spirit from the body after death was a triumph. Early Orthodox Christians disagreed.  They affirmed that the spirit and the body were one, and they argued that the body good and holy, and that a body was needed for resurrection to happen. The argument between the two camps came to a head during the Christian persecutions when the Romans deliberately destroyed the bodies of Christian martyrs to prove the Christians wrong about resurrection.   

Ultimately, the orthodox Church Fathers went back to the story of the dry bones, and the creation story when God breathes life into Adam to affirm that God doesn’t need a complete body to bring us to resurrection. Our resurrection is totally up to God. This also gives me hope. We have a larger story, a story that encompasses hope.

In our reading from the Gospel of John we see Jesus raise Lazarus’ body from the dead. The text makes it clear that Lazarus is truly dead.  When Jesus says, “Take away the stone,” Mary says, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”

So we have a pretty stark scene of death, in our Gospel passage and in our world today. Yesterday I saw that in Madrid they’re using an ice rink as a makeshift morgue for victims of COVID-19.

I’m lingering here in front of the tomb for a moment because I feel like that’s where we are right now in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The scene in Bethany when Jesus arrives and everyone is in mourning feels strangely familiar right now.  If we look at Italy, and Spain, and now New York City, and other parts of the U.S., we see people in shock at what’s happening, we see people mourning the dead, and other things, too. 

I’ve been mourning the poor response by our government, and the way our health care system is set up.  Why aren’t we better prepared?

I think we are mourning the disruption of our regular lives.  Our freedom. We take so much for granted.  The pandemic has thrown all of us into a place of uncertainty about the future. 

In terms of us at All Saints’, I am mourning the loss of momentum in our interim time.

I acknowledge that at this moment in Lent we are Lazarus in the tomb, we are Mary and Martha in mourning, and we are Jesus, who weeps for his friend, and who is deeply disturbed by death. We are human, we are mortal.  We may be contemplating our own mortality in a new way.

And yet we have Jesus out in front of us.  He says “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, wil live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  Like Martha and Mary, we can affirm our faith in Jesus, the Christ.  That gives me hope.  We have a larger story, a story that encompasses hope.

Jesus says “take away the stone,” and cries out, “Lazarus, come out!” When Lazarus emerges from the tomb, Jesus told the people, “Unbind him, and let him go.”  What do we need unbound in us?  How can we help unbind each other?

In the last couple of days I’m starting to see this shelter-in-place as an interim time within an interim time, like a play within the play in Shakespeare. 

Where is God in this time of quarantine?  What is God calling to us to learn at All Saints’ that we’ve not learned so far in the interim time?

As we mark the last Sunday in Lent, let’s remember that God is with us through this difficult time, and Jesus is calling us out of the tomb into newness of life.  As Rod Dugliss said, “we have a larger story, a story that encompasses hope.”  Amen.

A Sermon for the Last Sunday of Epiphany, the Annual Meeting, February 23, 2020

A sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, February 23, 2020, the Annual Meeting.

This Last Sunday of Epiphany, Jesus leads his disciples up a high mountain.  Peter, James, and John have no idea what’s about to happen, or what they’re going to see up there.  It turns out to be a turning point for them, and a true “mountaintop” experience, where they see Jesus transfigured before them, dazzling white.  They see Jesus talking to Moses, just as we read about Moses on the mountaintop in our reading from Exodus today, with Elijah. Then are overshadowed by a cloud and they hear God’s voice say, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well-pleased; listen to him!”  Of course they are afraid, and, of course Jesus tells them, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 

As I looked back on 2019, I realized that we’ve been on a journey together for a little over a year.  Some of it’s been uphill like Jesus’ field trip up the mountain, and there have been numerous high points.  And some times when we probably have felt some fear, both you and I.  Where are we going?  Are we going to make it as a parish?  You may have wondered, who is this new person?  But overall, I think it’s been a rich mutual learning experience for both of us. 

Last year at this time I was on a liturgical learning curve, learning how to preside as an Anglo-Catholic priest. I am grateful to everyone in the parish who supported me along that journey which was rather steep in the beginning, especially during Holy Week, which began two weeks after my Mom passed away.

Perhaps the parish also experienced a liturgical learning curve this year. Presiding is incarnational, and simply having a female priest at the altar most weeks has been a different experience for you.

And having an Interim Rector with a different leadership style is a core experience of the Interim time, especially following a Rector who was in place for thirty years. That’s an element of the learning curve for both of us, too, and I am grateful to the Wardens, the Vestry, staff, and all of you for the support you’ve shown me, and your openness to collaboration and change.

I often marvel at the sheer beauty of leading worship at All Saints’. The incense, holy water, chanting, vestments, music, and liturgical action are all Anglo-Catholic expressions that for many of us, create a portal to the Holy.  This transcendent experience is a signature strength of All Saints’.

I’d like to revisit some of the high points of last year and some of the new things we’ve tried.

A weekly parish email newsletter.   Every Friday there’s a message from the Interim Rector, photos, links, Vestry news, and a list of upcoming events.  Healthy internal communication within the parish is a key sign of a healthy parish.  The email newsletter helps keep everyone on the same page, and it is also a way to introduce ourselves to newcomers.

A refreshed All Saints’ website.  Where do we go to find out about a church in 2020?  Websites.  It’s vital that All Saints’ website be accurate and attractive, with the service times on the home page. 

Our social media presence. Our Facebook page has 140 followers, and I’ve been running a Facebook ad promoting our website targeted at people living in a one mile radius around the church.  If you’re a Facebook user, please like All Saints’ page and comment on the posts.  Every week I post the weekly email and usually the text of Sunday’s sermon, and photos from parish life.

Wednesday night Lenten Series. We brought people together around a shared meal of soup, fellowship, and spiritual formation.

Holy Week and Easter.  On Palm Sunday we processed out the to the sidewalk and then up the stairs to the front door. I hope we can process a little farther along Waller Street this year.

In June, the Vestry had a daylong retreat at St. Gregory of Nyssa church.  We met beneath the rotunda painted with dancing saints.  The extended time allowed us to get to know each other and explore several topics with more depth. 

During the summer we used a Eucharistic Prayer from “Enriching Our Worship” that was new to All Saints’, and once we figured out when the Sanctus Bells were rung, all went smoothly.  We also experienced the crowds of Bay to Breakers, and the San Francisco Marathon, a first for me. 

In September we had two all parish meetings after the 10:00 Mass to look at our history and talk about our own history with All Saints’. Using a timeline, we invited people to place a sticky note on the year that they came to All Saints’ and we had discussion about what brought them to All Saints’, and what brought them joy. 

We had a third session that offered a time and place to talk about loss and grief.  The conversations around the tables and our larger group conversation made a space for consolation and healing.

On St. Michael and All Angels we held a Healing Service that offered up our sense of grief and loss to Christ’s healing grace.

The Vestry created a HACS Subcommittee with Brenda Nelson as Chair, and the Vestry appointed Myron Chapman Acting Director of the HACS Saturday morning food program.  The HACS Subcommittee is meeting on a regular basis to plan how the food program can be sustainable into the future, and draw volunteers from the community.

Bishop Marc visited us on All Saints’ Day on his first day back after his stroke in October. It was a joyous morning, and we celebrated the baptism of Calvin Quick.

The 1300 Block Neighborhood Watch group started meeting at All Saints’ once a month in the parish hall. Many of our immediate neighbors had never been through the All Saints’ gates. This is a way we can serve our immediate neighborhood.  We’ve discussed being a resource for the neighborhood after a disaster.  

On December 15 we celebrated the 100th Birthday of our beloved Willard Harris.  Willard invited many of her sorority sisters to All Saints’ that morning, we blessed a paten engraved with her name, and her family sponsored a festive reception. 

Christmas Intergenerational Pageant. We had an interactive Pageant where people of all ages built the Creche as we heard the Christmas story and sang carols.  Afterwards, we gathered in the parish hall and sang more carols. It was an opportunity to experience a different kind of liturgy and include children in it.

The Rectory Renovation was a priority throughout the year.  The Vestry decided that with the cost of living in San Francisco, we needed to have a place for the new priest to live before we could begin the search.

Larry Rosenfeld, our Jr. Warden, has done a stellar job taking the lead on the project:  analyzing the scope of the work, researching the costs, finding contractors, kitchen designers, and putting out bids. Margaret Taylor was also instrumental in this process. At our last Vestry meeting we awarded the construction contract to Guilfoyle Construction.

Larry has also been instrumental in analyzing how we can pay for the renovation, and coordinated meetings with the Finance Committee and the Trustees of the Endowment to create a plan.  When construction began in January, we had a blessing of the renovation project.

Now that the rectory renovation project is underway, we can continue on our discernment process and begin the steps towards our search. 

In the coming months we will examine these questions together:  “Who are we,”  “Who are our neighbors?” and “What is God calling us to do?” 

This isan exciting period of the Interim time, and I look forward to discerning who we are in 2020, and where God is calling us to go in the future, and who will be our next priest.

As we move into 2020, we say Thank-you to some very important parish leaders.  Vestry members Jeff Russell, Lindsey Crittenden, and Margaret Taylor, who finished Stewart Krengel’s term.  They  have served three demanding years on the Vestry, and we are deeply grateful for their service.

Jean McMaster is finishing her service as Senior Warden after staying on an extra year into the Interim period.  Jean has served All Saints’ as Senior Warden with strength and grace, sensitivity and integrity.  The Vestry is fortunate that she has another year left on her Vestry term.

Later, the annual meeting we will vote on a slate of three new vestry people: Susan St. Martin, Colby Roberts, and Margaret Taylor, who is running for a full three year term, and for our deanery and convention delegates.

The season of Epiphany began with the shining star in the East guiding the Wise Ones to Bethlehem.  Like them, we’ve been on a journey together this past year, learning as we go, and walking in faith. 

As we enter Lent, Jesus continues to lead us on our up hill Interim journey. I think it’s important to pause and see that we have come a long ways, and today I feel deeply grateful for all that we have done together. 

I want to acknowledge again that it is easy to become afraid on our Interim journey. It may feel overwhelming at times.  But I noticed in our passage today that Jesus touches his disciples, and then tells his disciples, “Get up and do not be afraid.” In the Eucharist Jesus also touches us and gently tells us “Get up and do not be afraid.”

I believe that if we listen to Jesus, as the mysterious voice in the cloud commanded us to do, Christ’s radiance will illuminate our path, and guide us into the future.

It’s been an honor and a joy for me to be your Interim Rector this past year and I look forward to continuing our collaboration together. May the light of Christ continue to shine through us and transfigure us into the parish Christ calls us to become.   Amen.

A Sermon for The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 9, 2020

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 9, 2020

Today we heard the famous gospel passage, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can saltiness be restored?” from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. 

I had some hands on experience with salt this week. I’ve been doing some Spring Cleaning at home, and I found a box dated 2008 that my parents left in our garage when they downsized to senior living.  It was filled with bottles of spices wrapped carefully in newspaper. 

My Mom collected a lot of spices over the years but she really didn’t use them much in her meat and potatoes style of cooking, so there was a lot left in each bottle. All the herbs had lost their flavor, so I emptied out them out.

There was also a carton of Morton’s salt in the box. Of all the seasonings wrapped up the garage for ten years, the salt was the only one that still had flavor. 

It made me think as I studied today’s text, can salt lose its flavor?  What does it mean to be the “salt of the earth?”

It helps to examine salt for a few moments.

“Salt, A World History” by Mark Kurlansky, is one of my favorite non-fiction books. It looks at the history of civilization through the lens of salt.

Among many things, salt is a natural preservative.  Salting fish, meat, and preserving vegetables by pickling them with salt was one of the only ways to preserve food before refrigeration or the canning process.  The Latin word for salt is sal, and so common English words like salad and salary have their origins in salt.  The Romans salted their vegetables, which gave us the word Salad.  Roman soldiers were paid partly in salt, which brought us the word salary.

Salt is elemental to life.  A human body contains about 250 grams of salt, which would fill about three or four salt shakers, but we are constantly losing it through bodily functions, so everyday we need to replace this lost salt in the right balance.

Salt shows up time and again in the Bible.  Remember how Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at the destruction of Sodom; Sodom was near the Dead Sea, famous for its black salt.

Salt is a symbol of the eternal nature of God’s covenant with Israel.  In the Book of Numbers, it’s written, “It is a covenant of salt forever, before the Lord.”  As a preservative, salt symbolizes the eternal agreement between God and God’s people.  On Shabbat, Jews dip the bread in salt, which symbolizes the keeping of the covenant. We can see how Jesus’ uses salt as a symbol of constancy and covenant to teach faithful discipleship in our passage today.

Salt is constant, and at the same time, it’s capable of change. It can move from crystal to brine and back to crystal; and when it’s used to preserve food, it transforms the food into a self-stable product. Perhaps Jesus also sees salt as a transformational agent as well as a symbol of constancy.

Jesus pairs the image of salt with the image of light to talk about discipleship and how to share the knowledge and love of God.

Like salt, light also changes.  It shines, it dims, it reveals. Like salt, light has an eternal quality. 

Kurlansky writes in “Salt, A World History, that “from the beginning of civilization until about one hundred years ago, salt was one of the most sought after commodities in human history.”  I think this is important to remember as we consider what Jesus says to us today.

In a world where we salt is just another kitchen staple we occasionally buy at Safeway, we can easily miss Jesus’ point that salt is valuable.  If we are salt, and salt is precious, we are precious, we are valuable.  We do not need to become a better person to be salt, to prove ourselves in some way.  We ARE the salt of the earth. 

Think of the people Jesus spoke to originally.  They were downtrodden, they were poor, they were people who needed hope.  And Jesus says that they are the salt of the earth, that God loves them. He sends them out as bearers of the Gospel, and bearers of God’s light in the world.  He.’s speaking to us, too.

As I mentioned earlier, the carton of salt in the box of faded spices earlier this week was still salty after ten years.  I ended up putting it on my kitchen shelf with my collection of spices because salt is salt, and doesn’t go bad.  And I expect we’ll sprinkle it on food as we cook, and it will enhance and bring out the good flavor of whatever we make. 

The old-fashioned label on Morton’s salt has the motto, “When it rains it pours,” which reminded me that salt needs to be poured out, it needs to be used to do its flavorful work.

By calling us salt, Jesus tells us that our saltiness is meant to be poured out in the world.  Here’s our passage in the modern translation called “The Message”:

 “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavor of this earth.  If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness…You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.  God is not a secret to be kept. 

Today’s passage also made me think about who we are as a parish in transition, and it made me thankful that we at All Saints’ are a salty, well-seasoned! We’re really flavorful, even spicy.  That’s going to bode well for us as we move into the next faze of our interim period. That is Good News!

This morning I want to acknowledge that this has been a difficult week for those of us invested in the health and wholeness of our country.  It is tempting to retreat and hide from the news; it’s understandably tempting to be weary and jaded, and to check out.  But I think our passage about salt is timely in several ways.

For me this week, remembering my own God-given saltiness gives me courage to stay engaged, to mourn, and also to hope. With God’s help I will continue to live into my saltiness, my values as a liberal Christian.  Our saltiness, our Gospel values and standards of behavior and ethics are needed more than ever. Please do not despair.

It’s Good News that our ancient story that we tell over and over is one of brokenness and healing, death and resurrection.  In our passage from the Isaiah this morning we heard God calling God’s people to listen to the Lord, and promise that when they do, “they will be like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.  You shall be called the repairer of the breach.”  And in the reading from First Corinthians, we hear Paul speak of God’s wisdom which we have and the rulers of this world do not have.  Paul ends profoundly with, “We have the mind of Christ.”

We’re called to be the salt, the light, the mind of Christ.  The world needs us. Amen.

A Sermon for The Presentation of our Lord & Candlemas

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector, on The Presentation of our Lord & Candlemas, February 2, 2020

My kids grew up in a tight group of neighborhood friends who were all about the same age. Now they’re all in their late 20’s, early 30’s. The girl who grew up across the street from us just had the first baby of the group. She lives in Denver, and when we were in Colorado a couple of weeks ago, we got together to meet their new son, Finn.  Finn was a month old, very tiny, and in just a few minutes he wrapped us of us in the Foote family around his tiny little finger.

One thing I noticed that day was: when baby Finn came into the room, he rearranged the generations.  Suddenly, our kids were no longer the kids.  Finn was now the child, the 25-30 year olds were the adults, and Hale and I became…elders! 

It made me remember how babies are change agents. They’re change agents in their families and their communities; the world is always being renewed because human life is continually being renewed with new little humans like Finn.

One of the mysteries of the Christian faith known as the Incarnation, is that God became one of us by being born as a baby into the human family.

In our gospel passage today we see the baby Jesus already making waves in the world.  Mary and Joseph take him to be presented in the Temple. It was probably a perfunctory thing to do—buy your turtledoves and move on—but that day it turns out differently.

Simeon, an aged holy man, was guided by the Holy Spirit to come to the temple that day to meet the baby Jesus.  He recognized the baby Jesus and took him into his arms. Simeon blessed the holy family and spoke to Mary,  “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed –and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” 

Then Anna, a female prophet of great age, came up to them.  “and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” 

Today on the Presentation of our Lord, we witness an Epiphany.  Simeon and Anna recognize the Christ child for who he is, the Christ child who is destined to reveal truth, and God’s love in the world.

Whenever people encountered Jesus, they recognized him, and truth was revealed. We see this over and over in the Gospels. Last week we saw Jesus meet four fishermen, ordinary people, whom, like Simeon, recognized Jesus’ truth and power and they immediately follow Jesus.

Jesus emerges in the midst of Judaism of his time, and he comes to change the wider world by revealing truth, and love.  He is a great teacher, and he is something more.  He embodies the holy, as an infant, a youth, a man who gave his life for the love of all. As Christians, we believe that Christ lives in each one of us, the mystical body of God.

Here at All Saints’, we’ve been blessed to have two baptisms recently. At the end of the baptismal liturgy we give each person a baptismal candle and say, “Receive the light of Christ.” 

Today with our tradition of Candlemas, we celebrate the light of Christ coming into the world, by blessing candles and holding them aloft during our procession.  These candles remind us of our baptism, and of the light of Christ that we hold within us.  Please take them home with you as a reminder of the light that you carry into the world.

The tradition of Candlemas began in medieval times, when candles were the only source of light, especially in the dark days of winter.  Medieval symbolism saw in the Candle wax, wick and flame an analogy to Christ’s body, soul, and divinity.

February 2 is 40 days after Christmas and the winter solstice. Candlemas was the final feast of the Christmas season. By February 2, nature was stirring.  It was the day bears were supposed to come out of hibernation.  And by February 2, we recognize, like our ancestors, that the sun is setting a little later each day.  In folk tradition, Candlemas was the day when people made predictions on the weather similar to our Groundhog day. “If Candlemas Day is clear and bright, / winter will have another bite. / If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain, / winter is gone and will not come again.

Candlemas celebrates the kindling of the light, and the renewal of life come into the world. 

Each one of us was once a baby, like Jesus, like tiny baby Finn I held in Colorado. And like Jesus, each of us is a kind of change agent, because God created us unique individuals called into the world to embody truth and love. Through our birth we brought renewal to our families and to humanity; through our baptism we are lit with the light of Christ, and we are called to rekindle it throughout our lives.

As a parish, we are a constellation of people and light that comes together on Sunday morning, and today our light was made visible in the light of the candles held high. One of our tasks in the coming months is “how can we shine our constellation of light more effectively as a parish, in our neighborhood?”

We know that the truth needs to be revealed in our world right now.  Our country is in the midst of a great struggle for truth. We are thirsty for truth and for those who will stand up for it.  As followers of Jesus, we are invited to embody what Jesus stands for:  truth, and the power of love. 

How can we embody the light of Christ? How do we open ourselves to renewal and new life? How do we shine our light of Christ in the wider world? 

A Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, January 26, 2020

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany. I finished my pilgrimage walking the Camino de Santiago on a rainy October day. When I reached the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, I paid my respect to the bones of St. James in a crypt beneath the altar. Like so many pilgrims before me, I was moved to be so close to the relics of St. James, who was so close to Jesus’ in his earthly life. 

Who was St. James?  Once he was simply James, the fisherman, one of the first people to follow Jesus.

In our Gospel today we hear the calling of James along with his brother John, and another set of brothers Peter and Andrew. What can we learn from this passage in the season of Epiphany, and in our season of Interim time? 

In the Episcopal Church we call these weeks between Christmas and Lent the Season of Epiphany. Today, we heard a few lines of Isaiah read both in our Old Testament lesson and in the Gospel:

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.”

These lines from Isaiah, also quoted in Matthew, give us our themes for Epiphany Season.  A great light has come and illuminated our world.  Christ has come in the person of Jesus and made everything new.  We see Christ’s light manifest in the world around us, and we are called to share it.

The Roman Catholics call this season, “ordinary time,” rather than give it another name.  And there’s something attractive about that, too.  If Epiphany focuses on the light of Christ, ordinary time reminds us that we are ordinary people who Christ calls in love to share that light with the world around us in our time.

And ordinary people can do extraordinary things out of love. 

These days, I admire Greta Thunberg, a teenager who speaks truth to power about climate change.  She is not intimidated by the condemnation of certain world leaders. She’s an ordinary person doing extraordinary things out of love for the earth.

This past week we celebrated Martin Luther King Day. By mobilizing ordinary people to uphold the dignity of every human being, MLK did extraordinary things out of love for justice and human rights.

In our Gospel passage today we see Jesus call four ordinary people to be his first disciples:  Peter and Andrew, James and John.  We may be so used to the story that we don’t see how unusual it is.  The Son of God does not call the powerful people of his day, rather, he calls ordinary people:  fishermen. 

Somehow in the middle of their workday by the Sea of Galilee those fishermen responded to Jesus’ powerful authentic love. They leave everything they know and follow him in faith.  They end up traveling far outside their comfort zone; they go from Galilee to Golgotha with Jesus, and after Pentecost they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which transforms them into apostles and martyrs.  You never know where love will take you.  It always causes us to stretch and go deeper, to give of ourselves, to receive joy, and to share it.

As I experienced on my Camino, James traveled to Spain to preach the gospel, went back to Jerusalem where he was martyred, and his body was returned to Spain. Peter became the first bishop of Rome, was martyred there, and his bones reside beneath the Vatican.  Andrew went to the eastern part of the empire, founded the church in Constantinople, and was martyred in Greece. Only John, the beloved disciple, and the youngest, lived into old age. Tradition says he wrote the Gospel of John.

Not bad for fishermen casting their nets in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire.  They said yes to Jesus’ invitation, and spread the Gospel of love throughout the Mediterranean world.  Ordinary people can do extraordinary things out of love.

I wonder what this means for us here in our Interim time? 

We, too, are ordinary people. And we are living in extraordinary times.  Christ invites us to share the gospel of love where we are in 2020.

We live in extraordinary times of economic change here in San Francisco, and the larger Bay Area.  The tech boom has rewritten the economic landscape, and that affects each one of us, our neighborhood and our parish. This is our context for ministry now.

As we know, All Saints’ has met extraordinary times before.  Father Harris opened our parish to a diverse population living in the Haight in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and ministered to the hippies of the late 1960’s and 1970’s.  We were a haven of God’s love during the AIDS Crisis in the late 80’s and 90’s.  We continue to feed hungry people every Saturday morning.  We have a legacy of love that can offer us direction into the future.  In the coming months, we’ll meet to talk about who we are as a parish today, and where we see Jesus calling us.

The good news is we have a jewel of a rectory next door that is a great investment in the future of our parish. Our Jr. Warden, Larry Rosenfeld has carefully stewarded the front end of the project with a lot of love.  Please offer Larry your thanks for all he has done so far, and for what he will continue to do as the project unfolds in the next few months. 

With the housing crisis, the renovation of our rectory has become more than a nice thing to do; it is essential to the health of our parish going forward.  It’s difficult for Episcopal priests to live in San Francisco or most of the Bay Area on their salary and given the probable age of our new priest to come, someone in their 30’s-40’s, they will probably have debt from college and seminary to pay off. With our rectory in good working order, we can attract a wider pool of applicants to be our next priest.

At the end of the service, we will process directly out the front door to the rectory steps.  Please follow the altar party and gather there with us. We will bless the beginning of the renovation project and our contractors.

In our Gospel today, Jesus invites the fishermen by saying, “follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”  

Notice he’s not inviting them to become better, more prosperous fishermen.  The invitation to “fish for people” is ambiguous and intriguing.  It’s outward-facing. 

Jesus uses what they know—fishing—to characterize the work of ministry that he will teach them over time.

He’s inviting them onto a path of change and growth in love.  He invites us onto a path of change and growth, too. 

What does it mean to “fish for people” in 2020, in San Francisco?  You never know where love will lead you, usually places you would never imagine.  But we know that Jesus will be there with us in love.  Amen.

A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2019

A Sermon preached on the Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2019, by The Rev. Beth Lind Foote, Interim Rector on the occasion of Willard Harris’ 100th Birthday

 “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John the Baptist, a prophet, experiences doubt.  Doubt. And Expectations.  What doubts and expectations do you experience this Advent season?

I am thankful that John the Baptist has some doubts and some expectations because I always have a few this time of year.  This is the week when I experience a lot of doubt:  about getting everything done for the church and for my family; doubts about finishing the Christmas shopping, and doubts about celebrating Christmas without family members who have passed away this year.  These are my doubts.  I’m sure you have yours. 

And we always have our expectations for the season that are often high, and they often go deep. Mixed together these doubts and expectations are a recipe for anxiety.  So let’s leave them here in front of the altar for a few moments while we look at our text more closely.  Where is the Good News in the middle of Advent?

John the Baptist and many of his time expected a Messiah who would drive out the Romans and rule as a new King David.  Last week we saw John the Baptist in all his glory out in the Wilderness baptizing in the river Jordan.  This week we see the vulnerable side of John the Baptist as a prisoner.  He suffers for his faith.  And he wonders if he got it right?  Is Jesus the one?

Notice what Jesus tells John’s disciples.  “Go and tell John what you hear and see:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.  And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

Jesus does not try to meet John’s expectations of a Messiah king. Instead, he goes way beyond what John expected. 

This week I saw a National Geographic story online about a 3,300 year old Sequoia tree in Sequoia National Park. It’s so large that until now there’s never been a complete photograph of it. And this giant in the forest is still growing and getting taller every year.

I was reminded of that tree when I read this passage.  John has expectations for who the Messiah should be, a powerful king who saves the Jewish people, but the reality of Jesus is different than what he expected, and ultimately so much larger and more profound than what he expected that he can’t imagine the whole meaning of it. 

Jesus tells John that his ministry is about healing people, lifting up the poor, and about wholeness and newness of life, even after death.  Jesus ministry is about love.

Jesus is so much bigger than any of our expectations.  Like the giant Sequoia, we can’t see him in his entirety. Often we’d like to downsize him into our own image, make him fit our own boxes, our preconceived expectations of who he is. This is a dangerous thing to do that we see happening in other Christian churches these days.  It’s dangerous because it diminishes Jesus, and makes him serve our small, selfish purposes. 

Jesus is larger than we can comprehend, he is the Christ, the mystery who offers himself for us on the Cross and in the Eucharist. As we contemplate Jesus, I find my doubts recede and my expectations being blown away.  As John the Baptist says in the Gospel of John, “I must decrease and He must increase.”

In our passage from Isaiah we see a vision of God’s healing of the earth. Water bubbles up out of the dry ground and waters the desert into a flowering garden.  We can take courage in the line, “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, be strong, do not fear!” I’m sure both John and Jesus knew this passage from Isaiah.

Isaiah says, “A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way…it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.”  (I am especially glad to see that line, “not even fools shall go astray.)  Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall fade away.”

The Good News is that Jesus is coming into our hearts and he is so much bigger and more profound than we expect. 

Today we lit the third candle on the Advent Wreath, the candle of joy. The third Sunday of Advent is often called Rose Sunday or Gaudate in Latin, which means rejoice. At the halfway point in Advent we pause to rejoice.  The third candle is pink.  There are many theories about the meaning of why the candle is pink, and some point to the divine feminine found in Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Today I think we also light the pink candle as a birthday candle to celebrate our beloved Willard Harris who turns 100 years old next week and embodies many qualities we find in Mary: tenderness and love; resilience, and strength.

One of my jobs as Interim Rector is to help the parish look at the past and find patterns and strengths.  This fall we had several all parish meetings with a timeline where people could mark when they arrived at All Saints’.  Of course, Willard arrived in the late 1950’s, and so she put her sticky note way over here and almost everyone else put their sticky note way over on the other side of the timeline.

It occurred to me that Willard has seen it all at All Saints’; she has served faithfully, and she continues to serve.  Last Sunday she was with us in the Altar Party, and she held the Altar Book as I proclaimed the Gospel. I thought in the moment, how wonderful this is to be holding the Gospel Book with her, and serving side by side with her in the liturgy. Like the mighty Sequoia, she is still growing, still putting out new shoots of friendship and lifelong learning, still connecting all of us in the All Saints’ community with her roots .

As part of my research about the parish, I found the 1964 photo directory.  What a treasure.  Inside, there’s a photo of Willard and her family! It was a very different time in San Francisco and in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Before the Summer of Love, before the era of hard drugs in the 70’s and 80’s, before the AIDS crisis, before condos for $1,000,000. 

In some ways it was a more innocent time.  It was also a time when there were many expectations that people would conform to societal rules. People dressed up, families were larger, women had a certain role, and it was an expectation that people went to church.

But one expectation—that an Episcopal church would be all white—was blown away.  All Saints’ was really diverse for 1964, maybe one of the most diverse churches in the country.  There were Black families, Chinese families, Japanese families, single people, and many different ages represented in the directory.  That was Father Harris’ vision for an Anglo-Catholic parish in the Haight, with the emphasis on the broad meaning of catholic, which means universal and for everyone. It was a true neighborhood church.

1964 was the height of the Civil Rights Movement and it’s moving to hold that 1964 directory and imagine what was going on in the rest of the country. In a way, All Saints’ embodied something of Dr. King’s vision of the Beloved Community.  And Willard is our beloved of our beloved community here in 2019. 

The Good News this morning is that Jesus is here with us, ready to exceed our expectations, and meet our doubts with love and healing. 

The Good News this morning is that God has blessed us with Willard.  And God has blessed Willard with a long life of healing as a nurse, and a life of love and service, as a mother and as a beloved member of All Saints’.  We are blessed to have her with us today, and to celebrate the Good News with joy!  Amen!