Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Year B Lent 2 WED A Servant's Heart

Year B Lent 2 Wednesday, 28 February 2018 
St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA 
“A Servant’s Heart”  
Collect: O God, you so loved the world that you gave your only- begotten Son to reconcile earth with heaven: Grant that we, loving you above all things, may love our friends in you, and our enemies for your sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 
Matthew 20:17–28 
While Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them on the way, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified; and on the third day he will be raised.” 
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” 
When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” 

Today’s reading is interesting. It fits hand and glove in what I said Sunday. I try really hard not to do sequels, but I cannot resist today. If you missed Sunday, I talked about how in our world, too often our interactions are more Transactions. Do this for me, I do that for you. Often, we use money as the brokering tool for these. Jesus invites us to a different model. One based on Abundance in God’s Kingdom, and on Grace, that unexpected and undeserved gift free of strings and impossible to repay. 

Today, we another example of Jesus’ disciples missing the point. They are still caught up, listening to WII-FM (What’s In It For Me.) 

James and John, and in this account, their mother, come to Jesus asking for seats of authority when he comes into power. Notice they are still thinking it is an earthly kingdom, and that when he talks about his death, burial, and resurrection that must be metaphorical. (How often do we take Jesus literal statements metaphorically and vice versa?) 

In Jesus’ kingdom, he paints a different picture from the world. “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.” This model of Servant Leadership and Sacrificial Love goes against most everything the world teaches us. Still. 

Not only does the reading for today match with Sunday, it also coincides with one of my favorite American saints. Anna Julia Haywood Cooper. I taught at a school named for her, and love what she stood for, and how her name and legacy live on in Richmond. A short bio from Holy Women, Holy Men: 

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was born about 1859 in Raleigh, North Carolina, to an enslaved woman and a white man, presumably her mother’s master. She attended St. Augustine Normal School and Collegiate Institute, founded by the Episcopal Church to educate African American teachers and clergy. There she became an Episcopalian and married George Cooper, one of her instructors, who was the second African American ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in North Carolina. Widowed in 1879, Cooper received degrees from Oberlin College, and was made principal of the African American high school in Washington, D.C. Denied reappointment in 1906 because she refused to lower her educational standards. Cooper emphasized the importance of equal education for African Americans. An advocate for African American women, Cooper assisted in organizing the Colored Women’s League and the first Colored Settlement House in Washington, D.C. At the age of 65, in 1925, Cooper became the fourth African American woman to complete a doctorate, granted by the Sorbonne in Paris. From 1930-1942, she served as President of Freylinghuysen University. She died at the age of 104.  

Born into slavery, and lived to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. give the “I Have A Dream” speech. Demanding that African-Americans were just as intelligent and capable as anyone else, and willing to be fired for it. Receiving her doctorate when most are slowing down, and then president of a University. She loved. She taught. She served. She followed Christ all the days of her life. That is what Jesus was talking about. And today, we remember her in the Episcopal Church. Thanks be to God! 

With that model, more than WII-FM, let us continue in this holy Lent, following closely to Christ wherever he may lead. 

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Year B Lent 2 I Choose You


Year B Lent 2, 25 February 2018
St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA
“I Choose You”
Collect: O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”

Romans 4:13-25
For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Mark 8:31-38
Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

I got my hair cut this week. If I get it cut often enough it does not show. The same lady has been cutting my hair for about 12 years. This last week we were joking about how we are in the same business, helping people look their best. She does it for the outside, while I try to do it for the inside. Both jobs are all about people, and we both also joked about how we could not do either job well if we did not like people.

In fact, Margaret ( our Parish Administrator) and I were commenting this last week how we are in the people business.

And being in the “people business,” there is a price for that. Like getting my hair cut. I have to make an appointment WELL IN ADVANCE, and then I have to show up ON TIME. Then, when all is said and done, I have to PAY THE BILL. And TIP, too. All of these exact a toll, whether monetary, time, or inconvenience, there is a cost for services rendered.

In fact, having any relationship takes a toll. For most relationships, we do not count the cost. It is more than worth it.

I think of the days when my wife Stephanie had been home with the kids, long days, hard days. I think of how much she gave out of love for them. It humbled me, and it honored them. We have all been there, an end of a long day when we are soul-weary from caring for others. And would we do it again? In a second. Because of Love.

In our Genesis reading, God chooses to be in relationship. Noah’s promised covenant was more generic, Never Again will I flood the whole earth. But this one, this one gets personal. God picks out a family to be a blessing to the whole earth. In a parallel to today’s reading, God shares the intent of this personal relationship…
Genesis 12 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

Abraham was called by God to follow him. And in it, we see a specific promise to a specific man, and through him all the world will be blessed. God is weaving a chain of righteousness that will follow down all the succeeding years. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, through Moses, Joshua, and Samson, and Deborah, Ruth and Boaz, and David, and Solomon, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Jonah, and Joel. Down throughout history through Mary and Joseph, Jesus and the disciples, even to you and me. We all hearken back to Father Abraham, including our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters. We all point to  the faith of Father Abraham as being the beginning of a line that leads to us, and hopefully through us.

It cost God and Abraham to decide to be in relationship with one another. Heartache and heartbreak, time, energy, and effort, often blood, sweat, and tears. It adds up over the millenia. And it was worth every penny and every second.

Jesus reminds us very clearly of the cost of discipleship. And remember how he put it today…
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”

We follow, and there is a sacrifice to follow. But what is the price of your soul?

Folk singer Tracy Chapman, sang it this way almost 30 years ago...
And all that you have is your soul
Don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul

So far we have looked at the costs of relationships, but I hope that none of us view relationships solely from an economic model. Transactional relationships, might be clean, but they are not relationships. They are more like brokerings, or deals. How many of us want to be a deal?

It has been shown repeatedly, though, that too often we break down our interactions into these brokerings. It can help society function and flow. And there is a science to it. When you go to a restaurant and the offer you a “free sample,” it has been shown that that will create an obligation in your mind. You did this, so I should do that. Olive Garden knows what they are doing when they want you to “sample” the wine that goes with your meal. Statistics have shown how many times over they sell a glass of wine for every “free sample” they give out. It makes it more than worth it, economically.

Because of these interactions, these brokered exchanges, we often move that over into the spiritual context as well. WE ONLY KNOW WHAT WE KNOW, and we live in a tit-for-tat world. And part of growing in faith is moving from a model of economic brokering, this-for-that thinking, and moving to a model of abundance, a model based on Grace.

Even people who have been followers of Christ for years seem not to get it. Grace and forgiveness is at our core. In all 4 gospels, it is recorded that Peter took a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane and struck the servant of the high priest, Malchus. After years with Jesus, he thought that violence was okay. And even then, in the most divisive but also the most teachable of moments, Jesus stops, heals one of those coming out to seize and KILL HIM. If this is not a model of different way of being, I do not know what is.

Jesus moves us from the transactional model of relationship, do unto you like you did unto me, to one of Grace. I do for you what I would want from you. It is the model God shows. It is a model that most of us understand.

There is nothing my children could do that could make me love them any more. But also, there is nothing my children could do that would make me love them any less. I love them not for what they do and or do not do. I love them for WHO THEY ARE. I love them because they are mine. I love them for who I see them becoming. I love them because they are pretty darn cool. There will be times when they break my heart, by choices made, but my heart aches out of love; the choice could never take the love for them out of me. Now they cost a fortune, if I stop and think about it. But love does not count the cost. If they had a need, a real need, I would not consider the cost. Done. Period. I will work it out. No matter what it is. That is the nature of love.

And that is the nature of God. God modeled it for us long before we modeled it for others. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus put it this way for us:
Matthew 7 7 “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10 Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

In this relationship with God, God does not love us for what we do. And think about it, what could any of us possibly do that would help God? Ridiculous. Abraham was loved and chosen for who he was, and when he entered willingly into this new way of being, he was loved for WHOSE he was. This is what St. Paul was getting at in his regular, convoluted way. From today’s reading, Romans 4:
[Abraham] grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.
Like Abraham, we can elect to enter into this relationship. We do it because of who God is, his Glory and Grace come into the picture as we grow in that faith.

For Love we will do anything, and from those outside it just does not make sense, S-E-N-S-E, and for those woefully stuck in a transactional approach to life, it certainly does not make cents, C-E-N-T-S.

My mind has been going back to some of my favorite stories from childhood lately as we have been reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Margery Williams Bianco perfectly described the cost of discipleship, the cost of loving, really loving in her classic The Velveteen Rabbit. (If you have never read it, you owe it to yourself to do so.)

In my favorite scene, the young Velveteen Rabbit is speaking with they Skin Horse, a very old, worn, and well-loved toy in the nursery. In the quiet of the night, the share truth about the nature of real love. The Velveteen Rabbit asks what it means to be Real:

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”

Brothers and Sisters, as we look at our relationship with God this Lent, know that our acts of devotion are not appeasing or shifting how God views or thinks of us. We do this acts of devotion to change us for God, not God for us. We do these things to draw us deeper into this relationship of faith, where God is working it out for our best. Little do we realize the machinations at work RIGHT NOW for our best and highest selves. The little fasts and pieties we do are to remind us of that almighty loving God who actually cares about little ol’ you, and me, and him, and her. God loves us for who we are, meager, finite, images of Godself, “work[ing] out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” [Philippians 2:12-13]

As we continue to delve into these covenants with God through God’s mighty acts, remember, God does not want to smite us, and God chooses to be in relationship with each and every one of us. What a thought. What a God! When God thinks of each and every one of us, God says, “I choose you!” Amen.


Sunday, February 18, 2018

Year B Lent 1 A Covenant For All

Year B Lent 1, 18 February 2018 
St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA 
“A Covenant for All” 
Collect: Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for everAmen. 

Genesis 9:8-17 God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” 

1 Peter 3:18-22 Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him. 

Mark 1:9-15 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 

Richard Rohr, Franciscan priest and spiritual leader, says, “All healthy religion shows you what to do with your pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If your religion is not showing you how to transform your pain, it is junk religion. It is no surprise that a crucified man became the central symbol of Christianity.” 

If you think about it, we are surrounded by interesting symbols. They can be confusing and shocking, if you have not become numb to what is at face value.  
The Cross is one of the most cruel torture devices ever created. Let us hang you up, stretching your body out, till you diaphragm cramps and you suffocate in horrible pain.  
Here let us take bread and wine, but call it flesh and blood. Bizarre names for a symbol we partake in weekly. 

Today I want to give us pause and look deeply at some of the things we take for granted to our detriment. And in this holy Lent, where we strip away the niceties, and focus on what is most important, there could not be a better time.  
Symbols of death surround us. The Cross. The Eucharist. The baptismal font, where we bury ourselves with Christ, to rise up again in new life in him. As Presiding Bishop Michael Curry says, “I agree with the Baptists in total immersion, I just disagree with how much water we need to use.” We are immersed into Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, oh, and let us do that to babies. 

Today, in our readings, we tie the Flood of Noah to Baptism. And the absolute cleansing of the earth is so important and pivotal, and this will begin a series for us, looking at the Covenants of God and with God throughout Scripture.  
The reading from Genesis assumes that we already know of the story which it just related, and it repeats itself repeatedly, redundantly redundant for emphasis to show the importance. But the key element is the first Covenant of God in Scripture.   
Now a Covenant is more than a contract. A contract is something we still use, and we still need. Can I get an Amen from at least the lawyers in the room? Contracts in a pre-literate age were done in community, with the elders and leaders as witnesses. Covenants were something more. They were between often unequal parties, and included punishments if conditions were not met. Lastly, there is some touchstone, often a big pile of rocks that marked a covenant. 

Here we see the Covenant conversation between Noah and God. Pay attention to who does the speaking… 
God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  
This Covenant is entirely one sided. God promises to us, all of us, Noah and his descendants, all the animals, too, that never again will he flood the whole earth. And what is the touchstone here? The mark that we can point to if there ever is a breech of this promise? The Rain Bow. The Bow in the clouds. 

We started today looking at the symbols of death we surround ourselves with in our faith, transforming these symbols of destruction into signs of God. The Rain Bow is no different. Now I was a child in the 70s, and I was surrounded by rainbow junk in my foundational years. I think that is one of the reasons Noah’s Ark was such a popular Nursery theme amongst my generation when we started having kids. But the Bow is not a bow on a package. The homonym trips us up. Bow, not ribbon, but Bow as in weapon, Bow and Arrow Bow. God hangs his Rain Bow in the Clouds promising that he will not aim it at us ever again. Look how God hangs it. It points up, not down.  
God is promising that never again will rain destroy all of the earth. And symbolically, and we will get into this on Wednesday when we have our Lenten Dinner and Book Study, Creation was about bringing in the order and abolishing the Chaos. The Flood let the Chaos back in and God stepped away, for a while. God is promising to all of Creation that Order will be re-established, and this weapon of mass destruction will be put away. Thanks be to God! 

This is the first frame, the Noahic Covenant, where God promises rule and assurance to all Creation. And in the coming weeks we will step it in. Moving from the Universal to the Personal.   
And in 1 Peter, we have him speaking of the Flood, Chaos Incarnate, as a prefigure of our baptism: God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…  
Baptism does not wash away the dirt, but it is a stepping out of Chaos into the order and certainty of life in Christ. It is an assurance of a bond with the one who is the “Author and Finisher of our Faith.”  
In our Gospel, we have the very abbreviated account of Christ’s baptism, and his immediate driving out into the Wilderness. (And note that the Wilderness with the wild animals is another symbol of that Chaos.) And Jesus in his post-baptismal state brings fasting and prayer into that Chaos, for even in the worst, God and God’s Rule is alive and present.  
This past week I have been blessed to be with some folks who are going through Chaos. God does not cause it, and God does not bring it. But even in our worst, the Wilderness of our lives, God is present and Angels, often unaware to us, minister to us in the Depths and the Darkness. 

I come back to the Rohr quote I started with today. “All healthy religion shows you what to do with your pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If your religion is not showing you how to transform your pain, it is junk religion.” We preach a Christ Crucified; we preach a Jesus that weeps. We look to a symbol of death, the mockery of the Roman world, and from it we will be saved. (More to come on that one in a few weeks…) Life brings the best and the worst, and the Promise of God we read of today is a recognition that we need to remember in this holy Lent. “Yea, even though we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death the Lord is with us.” Even when it feels we have hit bottom, we find two things. The bottom is solid, and God is even here. Thanks be to God. 

We surround ourselves of the signs of death. Many of us even marked ourselves this week with Ash, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” A mark of death upon our very brows. We have had four deaths of immediate family members in the last week amongst those in the St. James the Less family.  It is heartbreaking, and one of the inevitable parts of life. Yet even here, ‘Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” (Erasmus) 

In this week where we were reminded of our own mortality, and in deep sadness on the day we dedicate to love, we had another tragedy. Those of us who are parents were reminded that we are not promised another day. I missed the reports on the radio because of a busy day, and did not hear the news till I was on my way home. While I was marking many of you with the sign of the cross in ashes, reports were coming in of 17 dead in another school shooting. Do we need help throwing off this mortal coil? It is heartbreaking that we have had any of these tragedies over and over and over again. Yesterday I was thinking on this hard and deep. Both sides were entrenched. One claiming rights, afraid of losing something. One claiming the senseless killing has to stop, afraid that this will happen again, and again, and again. One statistic jumps off the page. We are the only country in the world where we have this repeatedly. And we are the only country in the world there are more guns than people. It is more than a gun problem, or a heart problem, or a sin problem, or a mental illness problem, or a fear problem. It is all of these. And more.  
Somewhere along the way many of my friends began to idolize, and I mean that term in a biblical sense, they began to idolize the Constitution, specifically the Second Amendment. And anything we put before God is idolatry, plain and simple. Some of you may have already checked out because I have gotten into politics, but this is from a pastor’s heart which is broken, broken from the senseless loss, broken from the inability of loving and reasonable people to work together for the common good. I have always seen personal liberty in this country to be about doing what one should, instead of whatever one wants.  
As we are in Lent, maybe we should give up arguing and get busy working toward sanity. How is it easier to buy an AR-15 than to get a license to cut hair? Something, many things, are just not right. And even here, when we are our own worst enemies, I find that God is present, and weeping with us. God does not want to smite us. God is working to have us be our best, fullest selves, and wants us all to come home to him.  

Again, “All healthy religion shows you what to do with your pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If your religion is not showing you how to transform your pain, it is junk religion.” 

As we continue during these somber days, look closely, delve deeply, and know you are not alone. We walk this path together. And we follow the one who knows the way. Amen.