Eighteenth after Pentecost

A "Five Talents Sunday" at St. Andrew's . . . .

Click Here for More about the Park Family in Peru!






Click Here for More about Five Talents!

This Sunday at St. Andrew's our Guest Preacher at both the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. will be Sonia Patterson, new Executive Director of our Mission Partner, Five Talents International.  Following the services, at 9:45 and 12:15 p.m., we enjoy the annual Harvest Brunch, which serves as a Fundraiser for the Five Talents Peru Project and for our good friends, missionaries in Lima, John and Susan Park.  Hope to see you there!

Seventeenth after Pentecost

 Wis. 1:16-2:1; 2:12-22.  Mark 9:30-37 (Proper 20B2)

Welcome again, this morning, first Sunday of the fall, and grace and peace.  

My grandmother used to say of some of the managers she used to work for when she was in administrative work at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica back in the 1950’s, “how can someone who is so smart be so dumb?”  And even when we were kids we knew exactly what she meant.  There is a certain kind of knowledge that appears to be quite impressive.  Perhaps reflected in advanced degrees or high professional status, the ability to use a certain kind of technical vocabulary, a sense of social understanding, sometimes what we would call “worldliness.”  Sophisticated.  Well-read.  Well-travelled.  The corner office.  Suit and tie.  But for all that, there can be missing something essential.  

For all the advanced degrees in the world, you can still be essentially clueless about what’s really important.  She may have had only a two-year certificate from the State Normal School in Mayville, North Dakota, finishing that in 1918 or 1919 and then going on to teach in a rural one-room school until she had to resign when she married my grandfather a couple of years later.  Nothing too impressive for the CPA’s and the MBA’s and the executives and engineers she worked for all those years at Douglas.  But she knew “dumb” when she saw it.  And she did see it.

Thought about her this week, as I read this wonderful passage from the Wisdom of Solomon, and then from Mark 9.  (Which I believe I’ve told you before was the reading appointed for the first time I ever preached a Sunday morning sermon.  The key line in that sermon, now 30-plus years ago, was, “It doesn’t say so in the text, but I have a feeling that that baby Jesus picks up and shows the disciples is a baby with a dirty diaper.”)

In any event, this book from the Apocrypha (which means it is from the part of the traditional Old Testament that is found in the Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible but not in the classic Hebrew texts) is a part of a significant thread in the tradition of the wider Old Testament that is called often “Wisdom Literature.”  This book, the Wisdom of Solomon, has the word in its title, but we would also think about the Proverbs, some of the Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, some parts of the some of the prophets.  Other parts of the Old Testament speak in the form of historical narrative—the patriarchs, Moses, kings, and so on.  Other parts are poetic.  Others the Word of God spoken through the Prophets.  But the Wisdom sections of the Old Testament speak in a somewhat different way about ethics, good behavior, how to live a good life, a holy life.  How to be the kind of people, individuals, nations, that God created us and calls us to be.  And very often, as here, the message is given in contrast—in terms of a negative.  To show the difference between those who seem to be wise, and those who really are. 

In a way, not that different from the point Jesus makes in this passage in Mark.  Jesus and his disciples back home, after their long journey.  Perhaps we use here not the word Wisdom, but something that is really pretty close in meaning.  “Success.”  What is true Wisdom?  What is true Success?  The ungodly in the Wisdom of Solomon think it’s all about seeing through the naïve and simplistic belief of the godly.  The disciples in Mark seem to think it has something to do with status, being first, the head of the class, the top of the ladder, the king of the hill.  But in the end the moral of the story is that true Wisdom, true Success, lies elsewhere.

In our Bible Study this past Wednesday Jenifer Johnson really highlighted for us the very last line of the reading from James.  (Not a part of our 11 a.m. readings, but printed on page 2 of the leaflet for our 9 a.m. service.)  “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”  We talked about this as one of those lines that would make a good “memory verse,” something to repeat and meditate on and internalize.

Certainly we live in a world of credentials and degrees.  Social status and often some deep element of our own self-esteem related to the rung we’ve managed to climb to on the ladder of life’s accomplishments.  And yet there do come these moments for us, in the jumble of our lives, when we find ourselves staring at the face in the bathroom mirror and asking my grandmother’s question.  “How can someone so smart be so dumb?”  Knowledge, wisdom, success, achievement, status. 

And then: Jesus picking up that child—dirty diaper and all—and setting him in our midst.  Which certainly shakes things up.  Gets our attention.

Have we taken that class yet?  Earned that degree?  The question these readings as us this morning.  Questioning our assumptions about ourselves, about the world.  About what’s important, what’s real, what’s true. 

About being in relationship with Jesus.  Which may not look all that smart from the world’s point of view.  Which may not advance our social standing, our place in the pecking order.  But which in the end is the one thing necessary.  To know the one who is the Wisdom from on high, the Word of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Walk in love, as Christ loved us, and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.

Bernadette Joan Tengowski and Frederick Heiskell Rogan

September 22, 2012  Holy Matrimony

Bernadette and Heiskell, what I want to say first to you, is thank you.  What a great day this is!  It is for us all, and for me personally, a privilege and a joy to be sharing this moment with you, to be with you as witnesses and as supporters, family and friends, as you exchange the vows and promises, the words, and the commitments of the heart, that will make you one in Jesus Christ, as husband and wife.  It has been a special privilege and great joy for me to get to know you through this time of preparation and anticipation. 

The author of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes says that for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.  You are two mature people with the richness of life both before you met and now in the story of your life together, and the foundation and blessing of family, and the blessing of children.  You’ve both known in life the kinds of ups and downs that are a part of life for pretty much all of us, and today there is this turning of a page, the beginning of a new chapter.  I know you come to this evening with love and with sincerity of heart and intention, and it certainly is my prayer that this new beginning will begin a season of hope and fulfillment for you and those you love.

The first lesson that you selected, from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, was a word that Pastor Paul wrote back in those very early days of the life of the church to a congregation that was experiencing some real growing pains.  The small group he had founded years before had become larger, and with that change came differences and disagreements and sometimes arguments and fights and the danger of division.  And certainly in this 13^th Chapter, which is so familiar, he offers what we might call a recipe for healing, for reconciliation.  Patience, kindness, gentleness, a forgiving spirit, sensitivity to the needs of others.  A good word for the Church of course in any time or place. 

But over the centuries Christians have heard a deeper word here about how we live our lives all the time.  Not just in the church, but also in our homes, and in our families, in our neighborhoods, among our friends, in the places where we work. 

I’m thankful that you chose this reading for us to hear this evening, and I would indeed hope and pray that the recipe of Love that Paul writes out for us here will be something that you will come back to again and again all the days of your life.

You know, in the Old Testament Book of Exodus, chapter 3, there is one of my favorite stories, about a moment of life-changing experience, a “vocational” moment, a moment of transformation, about a calling to a new way of life-- in a way kind of like this moment.  In that story Moses is working for his father in law, tending his sheep out in the wilderness, and one day he sees something off in the distance that looks strange to him.  He moves closer and finally comes to this great big tree or bush that is on fire, fully engulfed in flames, burning and burning—but no matter how long it burns, it doesn’t burn out.  He watches for a while, amazed at the sight, and then all at once a great, deep voice comes from the flame.  (I like to think it was the voice of James Earl Jones.) 

“Take off your shoes, Moses, for the ground on which you are standing is holy ground.”  Holy Ground.  That’s my point.

This is the moment when God tells Moses about his plan for his life, how from the day of his birth he has been shaped and prepared for the mission to lead God’s people out of slavery in Egypt and across the Wilderness and into the Promised Land.  God speaks into this world, into our lives, and what was an ordinary place is now made sacred by that holy word.  And Bernadette and Heiskell: in the vows and promises you make today, in God’s sight and in the presence of these friends and family members, the ground under our feet is consecrated, and made holy.  Not because of what you are saying, but because we believe, and certainly why in our tradition of the Christian family we call marriage a sacrament, that God’s word is being spoken to you now. 

We can imagine that burning bush, right here, right now.  That God’s holy presence is with you, surrounding you, above you, and beneath your feet, with richness and blessing and purpose.  The prayers and blessings of this day don’t just happen in this one moment of your wedding, but they go out with you into your marriage and life together, from this day forward, and will be around you and under you and with you all the days of your life.   He has great plans for you, for each of you individually, and for you together as husband and wife as you will live in you family and in the circles of your friends—all the lives you touch.  That’s the great and wonderful thing we celebrate.  I don’t know what those plans are, exactly.  None of us do.  But he is beginning to reveal them to you now in a new season of life, in this evening.

Again, thank you both.  May God bless and keep you with joy all the days of your life together.  It’s going to be, and already is, a great story.  And now: friends, as Bernadette and Heiskell prepare to exchange the vows that will make them husband and wife, I would ask that we would all bow our heads for a moment and in our own words ask God’s care and blessing for them.

Bruce Robison

Sixteenth after Pentecost

(Proper 19B2) Is. 50: 4-9, Mark 8: 27-38

Good morning, and grace and peace to you as we are here at least technically speaking at the last Sunday of the summer.  The autumnal equinox next Friday.  The promise of cooler air this weekend, and I imagine that by next Sunday the leaves will be down and there will be morning frost on the lawn.  Susy and I had dinner last Sunday afternoon with friends over at the Union Grill in Oakland, before attending Compline at the Heinz Chapel, and the restaurant was decorated for Halloween, so I guess the Trick-or-Treat season is well along.  Merry Christmas, also, by the way, and Happy New Year! And it will be Shrove Tuesday before we know it.

Not that we don’t get into the spirit of these things, of course.  The Grinch that Stole Christmas was clearly not an Episcopalian. I remember in High School reading about our Massachusetts Bay Colony  ancestors and how they would put people in “gaol” for celebrating Christmas or decorating a spring Maypole.  Not an Episcopalian in the bunch of them either, I guess.  We enjoy our parties, festivals, celebrations, holidays, whenever they happen to fall on the calendar.  As you know, it almost seems a hobby of mine to excavate ancient liturgical occasions for some long-lost seasonal custom or solemn observance.  Any excuse for a gala reception in Brooks Hall . . . . 

So sometimes maybe it seems a little odd to see Jack o’Lanterns in August or Christmas decorations in September, but we most of the time will roll with the flow and enjoy.  The world we live in, and welcome to it!  Here come Santa and his Reindeer now!  

Back in the middle of the last century the theologican H. Richard Neibuhr wrote a wonderful little book called “Christ and Culture,” charting out how over the centuries and in different corners of the Christian world there seem to be certain recurring patterns of relationship between the Christian community and the surrounding society.  He begins with what he calls the pattern “Christ against Culture.”  Think Baptist Youth Groups in Arkansas having big rallies to throw Elvis Presley records onto a bonfire; or Amish families in Central Pennsylvania.  On the other end of the spectrum, there is “Christ of Culture.”  Where Christians simply assume that there is no difference at all between the two.  Sometimes expressed as what is called “civil religion.”  Perhaps the deep down belief that God is an American, or that there really is no difference of meaning between the Cross and the Flag.  Just a banner to mark identity.  

On one hand, Santa comes down the chimney to visit the Bethlehem crèche, with Bing Crosby and Alvin and the Chipmunks rolling along all mushed together in the background.  Or to assume that what being a Christian is really all about is the promotion of a social or political agenda.  The "Church of What's Happening Now," as someone has said.  Left side of the aisle or right side.  Read some Facebook postings these days and you might think the whole point of the Last Judgment scene of Matthew 25 might have something to do with Voter I.D. or Immigration reform.  The sheep and the goats.  On the other hand, close the curtains, turn off the lights, try not to notice what's going on outside.  Resist.

And there are “Christ and Culture” types in the middle.  Christ and Culture in Paradox.  Christ as Transformer of Culture. 

Of course the reality is that we Anglicans and Episcopalians have indeed more often found ourselves at least drifing into the “Christ of Culture” section of the Neibuhr typology.  Plenty of nuance, no question about it, but in broad brushstrokes.  To find Christian identity we might say in “Englishness.”  Or in the patterns of life and the social and moral values of the old White Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment.  Downton Abbey Churchmanship.  The spirituality of Jane Austen.  Or in modern times sometimes the social and moral values of the Birkenstock and latte crowds of college towns and upscale metropolitan neighborhoods on the East and West Coasts.  A comfortable congruence with the world around us.  Comfortable congruence.  Fitting in.  The nice thing about Episcopalians being that we’re unlikely to rock the boat, whatever boat there is that might be rocked, or do or say anything on television that would embarrass you in front of your friends.  Or so we hope, anyway.  We’re surprised when that sort of thing happens.

Again, that’s with a broad brush, and it doesn’t capture the picture perfectly at all.  It misses the Evangelical heroes of the 18^th century and the Anglo-Catholic heroes of the 19^th century, for one thing.  We have our monks and our t.v. evangelists.  But some truth to it.  A comfortable kind of Christianity, we might say, anyway.  Respectable.  A new friend hears with some surprise that you attend Church on Sunday morning and suddenly has a kind of worried look.  Then you say, “I’m an Episcopalian,” and she is visibly relieved.  

That’s fine.  I was worried for a minute that you might be involved in something weird.

So anyway, these readings this morning fall over us with some strangeness.  Maybe just a little.  This bit from the Prophet Isaiah, sometimes called one of the “Servant Songs.”  The prophet speaks as the personification of Israel, in the midst of exile and oppression, deep estrangement, in the midst of suffering and an almost unbearable loss of home and identity.  Grief and pain.  “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard.  I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.”  This Prophet’s song about standing firm, holding on, giving witness, even when everyone is against you, about clinging fast to your faith and identity and loyalty to God when everyone around you is doing all they can to rip it away.  About finding yourself not by getting along but by standing apart.  All a little strange.  Everyone against you, mocking you.  I stick out like a sore thumb, and everyone around me mocks me and insults me.  Not the sort of thing we would any of us expect to experience, anyway, while loading our groceries into the car down at Whole Foods.

And then Jesus, with all this about the Cross.  His and ours.    Perhaps I told you of the a young girl who lived across the street from Susy’s parents in California.  Susy had taken care of her several times when she was young.  Now a teenager.  Nice kid, great family.  She saw what Susy was wearing around her neck, and she said, “O look, I have one of those too.  My ‘T’.”  My “T.”  A little peculiar, even in a the more secular Bay area.  But perhaps not really too far from the mainstream.  All the pretty jewelry, with none of the gruesome backstory.

There’s a phrase that Biblical scholars anyway occasionally use, when they talk about the importance of a “hermeneutic of suspicion.”  Probably all scientists and researchers have the same principle in play: if the evidence seems to confirm your expectations, makes you feel more comfortable, that’s a good sign that you may be misreading it.  At least, be very, very careful. 

Not that the call of our Lord can’t from time to time lead us to fresh meadows and along pleasant paths, with the gentle and comforting assurance that the life we would choose for ourselves, the work we would choose for ourselves, our values and principles and major life decisions—that these are all indeed exactly what he would choose for us as well.  But if it seems to be so, the scriptures would say to us this morning, we’d better be careful.  A hermeneutic of suspicion.

So all that.  Where this all took me this week.  We’ve talked before about the story of Deitrich Bonhoeffer.  That’s who came to my mind this week as I read and prayed over these readings.  A few years ago in fact our Adult Programs Committee sponsored an evening with a film about his life.  The German scholar and theologian who had landed a nice post teaching in the U.S. in the late ‘30’s, and who left behind tenure and the comforts of academic life on a leafy campus to return to Hitler’s Germany and undertake secret work in the life of the underground Church.  Work which would lead him eventually to be arrested and then executed as a part of a resistance plot that might have resulted in the assassination of the Nazi leadership, including Hitler himself.  One of the books he wrote that has meant the most to me over the years, and that I would highly recommend for our reading and prayerful reflection, “The Cost of Discipleship.”  Can’t help thinking about this book and about Bonhoeffer, and can’t help giving my own life a once-over with all that in mind, as I read these lines from Mark 8.  Not to push any particular reading on anyone else, but to see what questions it makes me ask myself.  Here’s a bit from that book:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.” 

Nine Eleven

September 11, 2012

Prayers on the Anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon, and United Flight 93. [Adapted from a litany composed by the Rev. Joseph Howard, St. Joseph of Arimathea Episcopal Church, Hendersonville, Tennessee.]

O God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth; O God the Son, Redeemer of the world; O God the Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the faithful: have mercy and hear the prayers and supplications of thy people.

For all who died in the attacks of September 11, 2001; and for all victims everywhere of terror and war in the years that followed:

Remember thy servants, O Lord, according to the favor which thou bearest unto thy people; and grant that, increasing in knowledge and love of thee, they may go from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in thy heavenly kingdom.

For the families and loved ones of those who have died, and for all who mourn:

Almighty God, Father of mercies and giver of all comfort: Deal graciously, we pray thee, with all those who mourn, that casting every care on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love.

For all who have given their lives since that day. For all those who answered the call of their country, venturing much for the cause of freedom and defense, giving of themselves for the benefit of their neighbors:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the living and the dead: We give thee thanks for all thy servants who have laid down their lives in the service of our country. Grant to them thy mercy and the light of thy presence; and give us such a lively sense of thy righteous will, that the work which thou has begun in them may be perfected; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord.

For those who on September 11th were injured, in body, mind, and spirit; for firefighters, police officers, first responders, and for all those who were injured, or who gave their lives, that others might be rescued; for those who since September 11th have served as peacemakers, diplomats, and governmental leaders, for scholars, journalists, and teachers, for religious leaders, and for all who have sought to overcome hatreds and prejudice and to contribute to deeper understanding and healthful relationships, for peace and justice among the nations and peoples of the world.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Fifteenth after Pentecost: "Round Up" Sunday

 (Proper 18B2) Isaiah 35: 4-7; Mark 7: 24-37

Grace and peace and good morning on this festive day.  Doesn’t appear as a major observance on any ecclesiastical calendar that I’ve ever seen, yet perhaps one of the most universally celebrated, at least in the American Church, and across all denominations and with all shades of churchmanship.  Rally Day, Start-up Sunday, and here at St. Andrew’s for a number of years the “Round Up.”  A nice image as we move on into the fall and gather in the flock, or I guess the herd, to go with the cowboy-wild west vocabulary, after a long summer of grazing in the high country and in the mountains and at the shore and even on the sunny banks of the Highland Park Pool. 

We’ve had “back to school” pretty much everywhere by now, and so this morning too, and with thanks to Pete Luley for gathering in the strays of the choir and to Liz Buchanan and all for the work of getting a new year up to speed and to the starting line for our families and children and youth.  Should be a great picnic this afternoon, and as I look over the calendar for the fall of 2012 at St. Andrew’s I can say it will be a great year around here for all of us.  Thanks to all of you, and with prayers that God will receive and bless all the gifts and creative energies that are offered here at St. Andrew’s always to his honor and glory.

So good!  A short sermon, so we can get to the picnic.  And just to pause over these two readings this morning as background music for this Round Up day.  From Isaiah, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.  For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.”  How beautiful is that?  Isaiah sees the calamity that is to befall the nation and people, destruction, loss.  The harsh consequence of infidelity, failures of godly leadership, greed and corruption.  From the Covenant and marriage feast at Sinai, now the Chosen People forgetting, even choosing to forget, who they truly are.  Losing sight of the one thing necessary.  But Isaiah sees past that as well, to the long loving purposes of God, whose will and nature it is to love, forgive, restore, to heal and to bless.  God remains God.  Loving and true.  As present now as he ever was.  No life a wasteland too far gone, not for the Chosen People, nor for any of us. 

And so the New Israel is born in Christ Jesus, as this ancient vision of Isaiah is made manifest as Jesus in St. Mark moves in this stately procession, crossing ancient boundaries of custom and law to the Gentile Lebanese coastlands of Tyre and Sidon and then past the great new cities of Roman Palestine toward his home in the Galilee.  And you see what happens.  The unclean spirit haunting and inhabiting the daughter of the SyroPhoenician woman is cast out, the deaf and dumb man is healed as he is touched by the Savior.  “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”  How beautiful is that?

Every December our Hampton Street neighbors down at St. Raphael’s in Morningside put up a big sign that asks us to remember that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.”  Of course true for Advent and Christmas, which can for many of us get to be such a time of distraction, in the whirl of holiday festivities and shopping and gifts and travel and special events.  But if it’s true for Advent and Christmas, it’s true for Round Up Sunday too, and the fall, for today and tomorrow and for every day.  For every day.  

Mark must have had Isaiah in the back of his mind as he shared these stories, and we would have Isaiah in mind too, and then as fulfillment these moments in Mark, as we gather here with our family and friends and then as we go forth into all the unfolding story of our lives this afternoon and in the days to come.

The call to remember that Jesus is the Reason.  His life, his death, his resurrection.  And what is he doing in the world right now?  What is he doing in your life, in mine?  Reflecting as our Choir has sung for us that wonderful setting of the ancient hymn.  He sitteth at the Right Hand of the Father.  We believe that he shall come and be our judge.  We therefore pray thee, help thy people, whom thou has redeemed with thy precious blood.  Make them to be numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting.

The eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame leap like a deer, the speechless sing for joy.  Streams in the desert, and the burning ground shall become a pool.  In him the impure spirits are cast out, and there is healing and forgiveness, blessing and peace.

So picnics in the Churchyard, songs in the Choir.  Round Up Sunday.  The kids upstairs learning new ways to tell the old stories.  How beautiful is that?  If they ask us why, we can say we read it on a sign down at St. Raphael’s, or we can invite them to read the message for themselves as it is written all around us in lives that are dedicated to him.  “Jesus is the Reason.”

Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.

Tanisha Danielle Williams and Darius Teron Fluker

Holy Matrimony

September 8, 2012

Tanisha and Darius, what I want to say first to you, is thank you.  What a great day this is!  It is for us all, and for me personally, a privilege and a joy to be sharing this moment with you, to be with you as witnesses and as supporters and cheering fans, family and friends, as you exchange the vows and promises, the words, and the commitments of the heart, that will make you one in Jesus Christ, as husband and wife.  It has been a special privilege and great joy for me to get to know you through all this time of preparation and anticipation. 

You already have a long story of your life together, and the foundation of a family, and the blessing of children.  You’ve known the kinds of ups and downs that are a part of life for pretty much all of us, and today there is this turning of a page, the beginning of a new chapter.  I know you will work hard, and move forward together, and it certainly is my prayer that this new beginning will begin a season of hope and fulfillment for you and those you love.

The first lesson that you selected, from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, was a word that Pastor Paul wrote back in those very early days of the life of the church to a congregation that was experiencing some real growing pains.  The small group had become larger, and with that change came differences and disagreements and sometimes arguments and fights and the danger of division.  And certainly in this 13^th Chapter, which is so familiar, he offers what we might call a recipe for healing, for reconciliation.  Patience, kindness, gentleness, a forgiving spirit, sensitivity to the needs of others.  A good word for the Church of course in any time or place. 

But over the centuries Christians have heard a deeper word here about how we live our lives all the time.  Not just in the church, but also in our homes, and in our families, in our neighborhoods, among our friends, in the places where we work.  I’m thankful that you chose this reading for us to hear this afternoon, and I would indeed hope and pray that the recipe of Love that Paul writes out for us here will be something that you will come back to again and again all the days of your life.

The second lesson you chose, from the tenth chapter of  St. Mark, is I think a wonderful word about marriage and family.  The story is the basis for the great window here at St. Andrew’s behind the high altar.  Jesus blessing the children and their families.  And I pray that you will feel and know his presence and his blessing on you and your marriage, and your family.

You know, in the Old Testament Book of Exodus, chapter 3, there is one of my favorite stories, about a moment of life-changing experience, a “vocational” moment, a moment of transformation, about a calling to a new way of life-- in a way kind of like this moment here today.  In that story Moses is working for his father in law, tending his sheep out in the wilderness, and one day he sees something off in the distance that looks strange to him.  He moves closer and finally comes to this great big tree or bush that is on fire, fully engulfed in flames, burning and burning—but no matter how long it burns, it doesn’t burn out.  He watches for a while, amazed at the sight, and then all at once a great, deep voice comes from the flame.  (I like to think it was the voice of James Earl Jones.)  “Take off your shoes, Moses, for the ground on which you are standing is holy ground.”  Holy Ground.  That’s my point.

This is the moment when God tells Moses about his plan for his life, how from the day of his birth he has been shaped and prepared for the mission to lead God’s people out of slavery in Egypt and across the Wilderness and into the Promised Land.  God speaks into this world, into our lives, and what was an ordinary place is now made sacred by that holy word.  And Darius and Tanisha: in the vows and promises you make today, in God’s sight and in the presence of these friends and family members, the ground under our feet is consecrated, and made holy.  Not because of what you are saying, but because we believe, and certainly why in our tradition of the Christian family we call marriage a sacrament, that God’s word is being spoken to you now.  We can imagine that burning bush, right here, right now.  That God’s holy presence is with you, surrounding you, above you, and beneath your feet, with richness and blessing and purpose.  The prayers and blessings of this day don’t just happen in this one moment of your wedding, but they go out with you into your marriage and life together, from this day forward, and will be around you and under you and with you all the days of your life.   He has great plans for you, for each of you, and for you together as husband and wife and family.  That’s the great and wonderful thing we celebrate.  I don’t know what they are.  None of us do.  But he is beginning to reveal them to you now, in this moment this afternoon.

Again, thank you both.  May God bless and keep you with joy all the days of your life together.  It’s going to be, and already is, a great story.  And now: friends, as Darius and Tanisha come forward to exchange the vows that will make them husband and wife, I would ask that we would all bow our heads for a moment and in our own words ask God’s care and blessing for them.

Bruce Robison

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

(Proper 17B2)
Dt 4: 1-2, 6-9; James 1: 17-27; Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Grace and peace this morning, Sunday in the Labor Day Weekend holiday, and as we all around us have the themes of “Back to School,” and in the Church Office as we have begun with some seriousness to be reviewing the calendars around Advent and Christmas, I do pray that you will have an enjoyable last bit of summer relaxation and refreshment, even as remnants of Hurricane Isaac may make it something of a rainy day.

Many of us I’m sure are familiar with a saying attributed to St. Francis—probably not something he actually said, but perhaps something that many have found to be “in the spirit of St. Francis,” anyway—“preach always, when necessary use words.”  St. Francis was of course known as a dynamic and effective and more-or-less relentless preacher and teacher, and someone who used words all the time and as skillfully and as intensively as any of his era or of any time and place, so we shouldn’t think that a saying like this is intended to take us off the hook when it comes to giving a clear and careful and even persuasive account of our faith.  At the same time, the wisdom shines through, in the “Spirit of St. Francis,” that words are only powerful and effective and meaningful when they reflect with integrity and, to borrow a word we hear a lot, with authenticity, the life and character of the one who is speaking them.

We know it deep down and we demand it, explicitly or intuitively, from our preachers and politicians and from our teachers and neighbors, from our husbands and wives, from our parents and our children.  Authenticity.  Put your money where your mouth is.  If you’re going to talk the talk, walk the walk.  When I was a teenager I read the J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye, and so much at the center of that fascinating mid-century American novel young Holden Caulfield’s piercing judgment on the world around him, “phonies” everywhere.

And all three lessons this morning center on exactly this.

Moses addressing the people at Sinai at this great moment of Covenant, calling the people into relationship with God and into the fullness of their identity as his Chosen People as they accept his Law and agree to walk in his paths.  Some of the later prophets described this as a kind of marriage ceremony.  The promises of faithfulness not as an end in themselves, and they had to be more than words alone--the essential equipment for their purpose and vocation and identity as His people: to be a sign to the nations, a living sermon, we might say: “You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people,” for what other great nation has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call to him.”

And so Jesus, distinguishing for his disciples between the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in their assiduous keeping of the external ceremonial law, in their harsh judgment of any who slip in even the slightest matter, while at the same time there is evidence every day of what comes from a defiled heart, “fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.”  Great list.  Sounds like a sermon series in the making. This is of course why so many come near the Church and then turn and run once they’ve had a good look at us.  “What phonies,” they say with Holden.  “They talk a good game, but who needs talk?”  In the words of the old t.v. commercial and campaign slogan, “where’s the beef?”

“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” And so James: “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger . . . .  Rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.  Be ye doers of the word, and not merely hearers, who deceive themselves . . . .”

This is not about a cosmic game of gotcha.  It is absolutely serious.  But not some kind of celestial score-keeping.  St. Peter standing at the Gate and announcing to you whether you scored high enough to make the grade.  But it is about repentance and regeneration, transformation, the power of God to bless us not just in external and superficial ways but through and through, to the essential core of our character and our identity. 

One of the things I know that happens when I begin to move into a new friendship is that in a sincere way I find myself engaging in the world from a different perspective.  Perhaps my new friend is an avid bird-watcher, and I find really without any great effort on my part and often almost without conscious intention I begin to take an interest in knowing what birds are building their nests in our backyard.  My new friend likes to listen to opera, and though I wasn’t all that interested in opera before, again, I find myself drawn to it in a new way.  Sometimes I pick up a new expression or a way of talking.  So that when  I visit my sister in LA I notice her eyebrows raising a bit when I offer to drive “dahntan.”  I’ve known our Bishop-elect, Dorsey McConnell, for some time, and I discover recently that he has become much more attuned to the beginning of the football season and the prospects of our Steelers than he ever was when he was service parishes in Boston or Seattle.  Amazing how your wardrobe begins to drift into the basics of black and gold after a while.

So just to say this: to come into relationship with Jesus Christ is not about being oppressed by some great weight of complicated rules and ordinances.  No more than friendship, marriage, parenthood.  It is rather to find ourselves drawn in our hearts toward a greater enjoyment.  In friendship, in love.

Thinking of that great movie with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt a number of years ago.  “As Good as it Gets.”  The love story between this deeply neurotic, troubled, angry man, and a beautiful and generous but fragile, wounded, scarred, defensive woman, both of them traveling on into the cynicism of middle age.  This key moment in what I guess you could call their courtship, as she says “why are you doing this?  What is this relationship about for you?”  And he says to her, this great line, “You make me want to be a better man.”  That is something to say about friendship, love, marriage.  Perhaps what a new dad or mom discovers when the reality of this new situation begins to settle in.  Not because I have to, not because I’m supposed to, but because I want to.  It can become the deepest of longings.  To be—to be, for lack of a better word, to be better.

Again James.  This not about wagging fingers or keeping score.  “Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome—welcome!-- with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.”

These Christians.  Not perfect by a long shot.  But you can see it all over the place, can’t you, that they’re in love?  Listen to the songs they sing.  Look what happens when that name is even mentioned, Jesus, when they sense that he is nearby.  Watch them for a while.  You don’t really need to hear them say a thing.  Words are unnecessary.  You can just tell.