Raising Lazarus

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A

by the Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

It’s the Fifth Sunday of Lent, and the Easter Vigil, the most sacred night of the church year, is not far off. It's time to get ready to stir once again the baptismal waters. It's time to practice resurrection.

To help us do this, we’re given this story about Lazarus of Bethany. It’s a warm-up exercise for practicing resurrection.

Lazarus of Bethany. The name “Lazarus” means “God helps,” and the name “Bethany” means “house of the afflicted.” So this is a story about how God helps those in the house of the afflicted, which could be just about any of us at any given moment--when we lose a job, or our good health, or the person we love the most.

If we can pay attention to what happens in this story, and find our place in it, we might get a glimpse of how resurrection works, not only for Lazarus, but for us as well.

In this story, a man falls sick, then dies, then lies in a tomb. Those who love him wonder how this can be happening. They weep. They lose hope.

And Jesus arrives at Lazarus' tomb--but on the fourth day, the day beyond all hope.  Through many stories in Scripture, the pattern repeats itself: first come three days of crisis and struggle, and then comes the third day, when God acts victoriously. It is on the third day that God acts.

But now, in the Lazarus story, it’s too late for that. It is now the fourth day. Jesus arrives on the hopeless day.

He bears the wrath of Martha, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Do you hear a silent sub-text from Martha here, “Where the hell were you?”

Up to this point in the story, death, tears, and sadness are in control. But when Jesus appears that begins to change.

What happens next is a collaboration, a dance if you will, between Jesus and Lazarus and the community.

Jesus, through his own tears of grief at the loss of his friend, bellows out three commands: one to Lazarus himself, and two to his community.

The first command is to the community. “Take away the stone.”

Sometimes the stone that entombs a person is so huge, so seemingly unmovable, that the individual can’t budge it by themselves. If they are ever to escape their tomb, they need a community of people working shoulder-to-shoulder to roll away the stone.

Moms and dads losing their kids to gang and police violence, refugees fleeing the violence and poverty of Central America, little kids losing their parents to deportation, elders like Iris Canada living in isolation and fear of eviction, addicts wanting to become clean, victims of collateral damage in war.

People become trapped in tombs like these. They can’t escape these tombs by themselves. It takes a community to roll back the stones.

Communities have done this, have rolled back huge stones. Like the village in southern France, an entire town that, at great risk, sheltered 5,000 Jews during the Holocaust. Or the wonderfully diverse community that surrounded Dr. King at Selma, or Cesar Chavez in his pilgrimage from Delano to Sacramento. Communities of people working shoulder-to-shoulder to remove the heavy stones from the tombs of their brothers and sisters.

“Take away the stone,” Jesus says to the community gathered at Lazarus’ tomb.

Then Jesus gives a second command, and this one is to Lazarus. “Lazarus, come out!”

Now it is Lazarus who must act.

Jesus calls him by name, calls to his friend in all his uniqueness, knowing what makes him laugh, what makes him cry, his favorite recipes, and songs, and hiding places. Loving all these things about him, he calls his friend by name--to come out of the death and darkness that surrounds him; out of the despair, the lack of joy, the loss of purpose.

Lazarus must make a choice here. He must pry himself loose from the darkness of the tomb, his old ways of thinking, his old ruts, and imagine new possibilities, gently turning a new way, toward life.

It’s true, as philosophers say, that one of the fears that can cripple us is our fear of death. But there is another fear that can cripple us even more: the fear of life--life with all its risks and rewards, its pleasures and pains, its loves and losses. It’s this fear of life that Lazarus must now come to terms with as he hears Jesus cry out to him, “Lazarus, come out of that tomb!”

Lazarus must choose to live.

Slowly, courageously, Lazarus takes his first steps out of the tomb. But as he moves into the sunlight, he still wears his burial clothes. His hands and nose and eyes and mouth and ears are bound. His feet are bound, too, so he can’t walk easily.

So Jesus utters one final command. As with the first command, this one is to the community: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

It’s as though the community is needed to complete the action of resurrection. Jesus has called Lazarus forth to new life--“Lazarus, come out!"--and Lazarus has responded to that call. But now that Lazarus is back among them, it is up to the community to unbind him so that he can once again take his rightful place. He can't do this by himself.

Yazmin Liliana Elias Obregon (detainee number A: 076-373-569). Yazmin is a single mother of three U.S. citizen children all born in the US. She's is now detained at West County Detention Center in Richmond which houses undocumented immigrants apprehended by ICE..

Yazmin came to the U.S. at the age of 4 and lived in Santa Rosa. When she was 14 years old, Yazmin entered an abusive relationship with a man who would become the father of her children. He abused her for nearly 10 years, beat her, sexually abused her, and forced her to use drugs so she would abort her pregnancies. This ex-partner, now in Mexico, has continued to threaten Yazmin. If she is deported to Mexico, Yazmin fears for her life.

As a long-time survivor of severe physical violence, Yazmin coped by self-medicating her trauma with alcohol. She later completed a 3-month inpatient program to treat her alcohol and trauma. She entered rehab for the sake of her kids; she wants to be a stronger mother to provide for them.

Yazmin had completed rehab and was continuing an outpatient 6-month program when ICE detained her. The reason they gave was an old DUI conviction that she has long since resolved

Prior to being detained, Yazmin had paid her debt to society and was well on the way to a new life for herself and her kids. The dry bones of her life were slowly knitting themselves together.

She was working two jobs to support her kids. They, too, have been through a lot. They suffer from PTSD, ADHD, and depression. They were making great strides after the treatment they received, but now that their mother has been taken from them, they are regressing.

As her youngest son, Elijah says: “Since my mom got detained, I have been feeling sad and it’s hard for me to focus on school. I really need for my mom to come back. Adults think I need medicine, counselors, social workers, but all I need right now is my mom.”

The question is whether our society will unbind her, give her a second, well-deserved, chance. Over 25 organizations have rallied to her side now, but under the current administration, the appeals have gone nowhere.

If the community is not there for Yazmin, does not unbind her from past mistakes and from all the ways the world has conspired against her, then her chances of returning to her kids and starting a new life are slim.

The question as she struggles to put her life back together--as she struggles out of the tomb--is whether we, like the community around her, will help unbind her.

We'll know tomorrow afternoon. Her hearing before the immigration judge is tomorrow afternoon.

So where are you in this story of Lazarus?

Maybe you identify with Jesus in this story. Maybe you know someone or some group of people who are slowly emerging from their tombs. What do you now want to say to them? Is there anything you want to do to help unbind them?

Or maybe you identify with Lazarus. Maybe you find yourself in a tomb at this time in your life. What is it like to hear Jesus call you by your name, call you out of that tomb, invite you back to life? What would it require for you to respond to that call? Are there any resistances you would you need to overcome?

In short, how do you, in these final days of Lent, intend to practice resurrection?

They Did Not Know That We Are Seeds

Sara Warfield

March 19, 2017

Second Sunday in Lent, Year A

At the center of our faith is a man who was mocked, stripped, flogged, and eventually tortured to his death. Jesus begged his Father to take the cup of suffering from him. He cried to God, “why have you forsaken me?” He died an enemy of the state after being unjustly condemned during a sham of a trial. Jesus, the word made flesh, God incarnate walking with us on this ground, breathing this air. Jesus suffered and was buried.

It is this story that carries us through this season of Lent, and it is powerful. It is powerful because we know that to be human means to experience suffering, and we know that Jesus knows what it means to suffer. We know that he cried out to his Father in the worst of his pain, just as so many of us have called for our mother or father when we have despaired. Our God is not a remote God who watches our pain and fear and loss dispassionately from above. Our God has suffered with us.

So at first it struck me as a little odd, if not a bit insulting, that Paul wrote to the Church in Rome that they should boast of their sufferings. Is this a contest? Is the person who suffers the most the most faithful? But just as I was about to step up on my soapbox to rail against how some Christians emphasize, if not glamorize, suffering, I remembered who exactly Paul was writing to.

His letter is addressed to a small group of Christ-followers living in the capital of a huge and powerful empire. They worshiped a God no one around them believed in. Indeed, the coins in their pockets declared that the Roman Emperor Nero was Deus et Dominus, God and Lord.

The authorities were getting suspicious, and more and more hostile. In ten years, the emperor’s formal persecution of the Christian community would begin. Some sources say that Nero had Paul beheaded in that time. The threats to this community’s safety were real and growing. So I don’t think that Paul was congratulating them. No, Paul was trying to make meaning of the suffering that they were already experiencing. They weren’t seeking it. They didn’t deserve it. But the suffering was there and real and difficult. So Paul challenged Christ’s followers in Rome: what would your faith have you do?

But we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.

Paul’s words of encouragement remind me of a saying that’s been popping up in the past few years as a rallying cry for the oppressed. It says, They tried to bury us, but they did not know that we are seeds.

So often suffering feels like being shoved deeply, inescapably into the darkness, surrounded on all sides, stuck, paralyzed. We don’t know what the Church in Rome had written to Paul before he sent that response, but I imagine it might have been something like, “We are so scared. They are closing in on us.”

We all know this feeling. When your mother died, and you had no idea how you would go on without her. When you lost everything, and not even your family would take you in for fear of your addiction. When ICE agents were circling your block in a van. When you were sleeping on the streets, your wallet shoved into your underwear so that no one would steal it while you slept. When your partner said he was leaving. The darkness becomes thick, the fear paralyzing. The temptation is to give up.

The seed often looks dried out, like there’s not another drop of life in it. Like it will remain lifeless forever. The grief is so heavy, almost impenetrable. But in the midst of that darkness. Paul tells us, “God’s love has been poured into our heart through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” This is good news. A strength that is not your own starts to stir within you.

You don’t have to do anything. The Spirit is already there, infusing you with what you need. And you feel a crack in the darkness, the hard shell of the seed giving way to a spark of new life within. It’s still dark, and you are still closed in on all sides, but a tiny sprout reaches out, pushes into the hard-packed dirt. It’s not easy. It requires endurance—the trust that the Spirit will continue to send you strength through God’s love. Sometimes it’s a fight against your own hopelessness. But that tiny ounce of trust in the Spirit propels you. Your little sprout continues to push through the darkness. Against all odds. It feels like it takes forever. It’s exhausting. Grief is exhausting. Change is exhausting.

Until the dirt around you starts to feel warmer. And tiny drops of light start to drip down towards you. Until, quite suddenly, you break through. Suddenly, you feel a breeze on your face. You’re a tiny sprout in the sun. As you slowly grow towards the light, you start to figure yourself out. This is a leaf. This is a stem. This is a tendril. You start to notice new, beautiful things about yourself. Strengths that you didn’t know you had before. Endurance produces character.

And before you know it, you’re in full blossom, radiant in color and dancing in the breeze. Hope blooming out of the hard dirt. Suddenly, you are the one we write stories about. You are the inspiration, the breath of God’s hope we can take in when something buries us. You who were buried only to be reborn with new strength. Illness tried to bury you…Addiction tried to bury you…Loss tried to bury you, but they did not know that you are a seed.

But maybe you feel like the lifeless seed right now, buried impossibly deep in the hard-packed dirt, surrounded by darkness. I know that this message might feel hard to hear. That’s okay. You don’t have to hear it. You don’t have to agree or try to do anything. Those of us who can will hold the hope of God’s love for you. We will trust on your behalf. We will have faith in your stead. That’s what this community, this Body of Christ, is for.

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Even as he says it, Jesus knows there is suffering to come. And yet he speaks of hope, which is our spring of water when we are buried. This is the story of the Lenten season. We intentionally practice suffering in small ways by giving something up. We reflect somberly on our mortality, how we will eventually be literally buried in the ground. But then, after 40 days and crying out with joy and light and singing, we proclaim together that:

They tried to bury Jesus, but they did not know that he was a seed.

Being Beloved

First Sunday of Lent, Year A, 2017

The Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

There’s a pretty basic question at play in today’s gospel. It’s about our identity, about who we are, and, more specifically, what it means concretely to be God's beloved daughters and sons.

If you listen to the prosperity gospel preachers, the ones most welcomed these days at the White House, you’ll get one set of answers: that being God’s beloved child means God will bless you not just with eternal salvation but with material wealth here on earth.

Today’s gospel passage suggests otherwise. Take a look.

This passage comes immediately after Jesus has been baptized by John in the Jordan River. You remember that scene when the heavens opened, Jesus saw a dove rest on him, and heard the voice from heaven, "This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased."

Awesome words, but what does it mean concretely to be the Beloved Son in whom God is well pleased?

Jesus needs to find out, so the Spirit leads him into the desert for a retreat. He fasts for forty days and nights, and, at the end, he is starving and exhausted--which is when the tempter arrives, and throws three temptations at him.

Each temptation begins by calling into question whether Jesus really is the beloved child of God.

For example, in the first temptation, notice the "IF": “IF you are the Son of God”, and IF God really does love you, then command these stones to become loaves of bread.

The implication is that being God's beloved son means never going hungry, means always being full. This fullness will be supplied by supernatural means. The laws of planting and harvesting will be suspended. It’s a prosperity gospel message.

But Jesus rejects this idea that being loved by God means you will always be filled. Instead, he remembers the word he heard that day in the Jordan. That word was "Beloved". Nothing can change the reality and power of that word.

At times he may be full and at other times hungry, but the word remains true in either case. Hungry or not, Jesus will still be the Beloved Child of God.

In the second temptation, the tempter implies that IF you really are God's beloved child, you will always be physically safe. You can leap from the very top of the temple. The laws of gravity will be suspended for you. Angels will break your fall. You won't even injure your foot.

But Jesus doesn’t buy this understanding of God's loving care. You do not show that you are God’s beloved child by remaining physically safe.

In the course of Jesus' life, there will be times when he is not safe. He will get hurt--emotially, physically, spiritually--but even then the word he heard on the day of his baptism will still be true: He will still be God’s beloved child.

And in the third temptation, the tempter tells Jesus that if he worships the evil one and adopts his ways, he will have control over all the kingdoms of this world.

But Jesus is a Jew of the first commandment. He worships only "the Lord your God". He refuses to worship the evil one and live according to the those values. That means he will not have political power.

But although, from a political point of view, Jesus will be powerless, the word he heard that day in the Jordan will remain true: He will still be God's beloved child.

So Jesus is very clear about who he is. "I am God's beloved child, and there will be moments when I am hungry; moments of physical, emotional, spiritual pain; moments when I am powerless and helpless.

But through it all, I will still be God's beloved child.

There’s a story you may remember from school about one of the West’s other great teachers who lived many years ago in Greece, a man named Socrates.* One day, his fellow citizens accused him of heresy and of corrupting the youth of Athens. They gave him the death sentence--he would be executed by drinking a cup of hemlock.

Socrates accepted the judgment of the court, gave an impressive speech about the meaning of life and death, found no cause for fear; drank the poison and died.

Jesus‐‐‐how different his story was, how different his way of being human! When Jesus came to his own death, he was almost hysterical with terror and fear; looked for comfort from friends and an escape from death and found neither; finally got control over himself and accepted his death in silence and lonely isolation.

The difference between Socrates and Jesus could not be more clear.

Jesus was a more profoundly weak and vulnerable man than Socrates. Socrates never wept over Athens as Jesus once did over Jerusalem. Socrates never expressed sorrow and pain at the betrayal of friends. He was never over‐extended, he was convinced that the just man could never suffer genuine hurt. Socrates was calm, poised, and aloof--a philosopher.

By contrast, Jesus took his place among the poor, the outcasts, those whose lives do not follow the script of the prosperity gospel--like those in today’s homeless encampments, like the children in our neighborhood who go to sleep each night in fear that their parents will be snatched from them in the middle of the night by Immigration.

Jesus was, you might say, a more profoundly weak and vulnerable man than Socrates. This allowed him to feel with us the human condition, including the human struggle and darkness and anguish that calls out for justice, redemption, salvation.

Jesus is very clear about who he is, and in today’s gospel this clarity governs his response to each of the temptations the devil throws at him.

I remember the story of Martin Luther, the great reformer. Whenever he was feeling discouraged or confused or lacking confidence, he would do some self-talk, he would say: “Martin, Martin, you are baptized!” This remembrance of his own deepest identity--that he was a beloved child of God--gave him a renewed strength and clarity to move through the confusion and to discern the path he needed to take.

While Jesus may have been conscious of his true identity in a clear and immediate way, most of us need a little spiritual work to reach this clarity. Which is why we do Lent. It’s why we take on the ancient practices of extra prayer, some fasting, and giving alms.

So now, at the beginning of our Lenten journey, a blessing for you. It’s one I included in this week’s parish email. I like it so much, I want to use it to conclude this sermon.

Beloved Is Where We Begin-- by Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace 

If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.

* Grateful to Michael J. Buckley for his discussion of the contrast between Jesus and Socrates.

The Salt People

Sermon by the Rev'd Robert Cromey

February 5, 2017

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

You are the salt of the earth. You give flavor, richness and vitality to the whole of life.

Can you imagine an Indian meal without salt? A Chinese or Mexican meal without salt? Bland and Boring.

The people who are the salt of the earth are the creative, tasty, marching to a different drummer, the unusual and risk taker.

Jesus is telling his followers the go beyond the law, to the deeper meaning of the law, to fulfill the law.

What does he mean fulfill the law?

The Salt March:

The British ruled India for many years. They had put a tax on salt, which angered many residents of the country especially the poor. Mohandas Gandhi organized an act of non-violent civil disobedience to reclaim the salt from the British monopoly. 78 people began the march and intended to march 240 miles protesting the salt tax. The march sparked millions of Indians to protest the salt laws. Gandhi was arrested by the British. This produced worldwide news coverage. 85,000 Indians were arrested during the civil disobedience protesting the salt tax.  This march sparked even more India’s desire to be free of the British. It also inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. during the movement for civil rights in this country.

Jesus reminds us of who are the salt people.

Our job is to savor our friends, families, work places and the country with love, gentleness, forgiveness and powerful work against injustice.

Alice came to Trinity Church with a son who called Alice Dad.

Alice a former reporter for the NY Times was born a male. He later made the transition too become a woman. While a male he married and had children.

Alice changed her his hair, clothes and had a surgical sex change. He is a brave person and has lived to see the day when sex transitions are openly talked about.

Our transgender neighbors are some more salt to make our city and society interesting, exciting and creative.

Transition is a move toward wholeness

We help others be the salt of the earth.

Many of us will show our salt when we confront being a sanctuary church and city. We may use non-violent civil disobedience to protect, feed and house our neighbors who are on the run from our stupid immigration rules.

This is the work of God the Holy Spirit working in our lives. We are not alone. We are IN-SPIRED to do the work of God
in our lives.

Beatitude

Sermon by the Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, San Francisco

January 29, 2017

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

[Watch a video of this sermon.]

When Harry Potter is about to turn eleven, he’s living with his aunt and uncle, who treat him like an outsider, favoring their own son Dudley. Harry sleeps in a cramped closet under the stairs. His story, as he understands it, is he’s an orphan whose parents had died in a senseless car crash when he was a baby. At least that's what he understands, until one night when everything changes.

A half-giant named Hagrid appears and reveals to Harry that he is not simply an orphan with a tragic story, but rather a wizard slated for wizarding school in the fall.

Later, Harry is talking with a wise old teacher named Dumbledore. Harry wants to know more of his own story, of what had happened, and who he really is.

It’s then Harry learns that his parents did not die senselessly in a car crash after all. Rather, they died trying to save him from the evil wizard Voldemort who had tried to kill him when he was a baby.

Dumbledore explains, “Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin.”

This is a transformative moment. Suddenly, Harry is longer an unwanted orphan, an unwelcome outsider. He has a new identity now. He is someone who, from his earliest days, has been deeply loved, protected, cherished, even though he’d known nothing about it. This new sense of himself changes how he lives and acts in the world.

Today’s gospel follows a similar dynamic. Jesus goes up on a mountain to be closer to God. From this higher perspective he looks at the crowd and at his disciples. This higher perspective enables him to see more than what meets the physical eye: that they are blessed.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice.

He’s referring to the ones caught up in a corrupt system, who get ground up by it, whose poverty goes so deep it crushes their spirits--makes them poor in spirit, and reduces them to a constant state of mourning.

He understands the terrible toll this social reality takes on their bodies and families and souls.

But he also spies, at the center of their struggle, a blessedness. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice.

The rhythm is striking: blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed.

This blessedness is given by God, so it is more powerful that the social-political system that overwhelms them.

This blessedness enables them to lean into life, to withstand whatever the world throws at them.

This blessedness is constantly at work, moving mourning toward comfort, meekness toward inheritance, hunger and thirst toward satisfaction.

And this blessedness has your name on it. This reading is your Harry Potter moment that, if you let it, redefines and transforms you--this dawning realization of who you really are, that you are more than meets the eye, that you are blessed, made in the image of God with an infinite beauty and dignity, a power and strength no one can take from you.

This blessedness is yours in every moment, but especially when things fall apart--when coming up short in trying to pay the bills, or when you get bad news from the doctor, or lose a job, or grieve the loss of the one you love the most.

Blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed. Can you get into this gospel’s rhythm, let it seep into the marrow of your bones, especially into those corners of your life where God seems most absent?

Can you pick up the refrain, announcing this blessedness not only to yourself, but to your fellow parishioners in their struggles, and to the larger community we’re part of?

Can you let yourself get caught up in this great work of blessing?

Because it’s not just you and I who could use a little blessedness right now, but so does our world. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to.

This is no ordinary time. Since the Inauguration, the President has signed a cascade of executive orders that threaten the safety and lives of hundreds of thousands of people--refugees, immigrants in this neighborhood, Muslims, indigenous people, Black people, and working people in need of healthcare.

He has directed our government to construct a wall on our southern border, punish Sanctuary cities like ours, facilitate the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and construct pipelines despite the protests of indigenous people. And he has signaled more to come, including rolling back voting rights.

Because of his order on Friday, people fleeing Syria and other war-torn Muslim countries are being turned away in their moment of greatest need--even despite yesterday’s powerful protests at major airports and a partial stay of the president’s order by a federal judge.

This is a time of great cruelty and fear.

I think of the fear that now runs through the entire immigrant community here and around the world. I think of my friend Eva, a domestic worker who fled here from Guatemala 25 years ago for her life and those of her kids. She works sixty-hours a week cleaning homes and looking after children. She’s raised her own kids here, and now helps with her own grandkids. And she’s afraid. Even before the election she sent many of her clothes to family in Guatemala, asking them to keep them for her so that when President Trump deports her, she’ll have what she needs to begin looking for a job and get her life up and running.

The fear among our immigrant brothers and sisters right now is immense.

Whether we like it or not, this is our context. It is in this moment that we must be a blessing, both in what we say and in what we do.

This context gives a whole new meaning to the work we do here at St. John’s every day.

With a historic level of inequality likely to increase in the next four years, we continue to offer a quiet, dry, safe place for homeless people to sleep.

Many people in this neighborhood are running short of food.

You may remember the encampment we had here on 15th Street recently. Each evening, the campers would share whatever food they had with anyone who needed it, inviting passersby to join them. Sometimes there were as many as 30 people lined up to get the food. Many of the people in line were not homeless; they came from the various SROs in the neighborhood, but they had run short on food.

Our food ministries, including the Julian Pantry and a twice monthly free community dinner, are becoming all the more essential in these days of struggle for so many.

• With a law-and-order administration now in office, many understandably predict more police brutality against people of color. Our weekly vigils for Amilcar in front of Mission Police Station and our Nightwalks calling for an end to violence, including violence by the police, now take on a whole new urgency.
• As white nationalism and cries of America First increase, several of us are planning next year’s trip to Nicaragua to join people in rural villages in the simple tasks of building latrines and providing clean, safe water.
• Many experts say the world is much less safe now. The war drums are once more growing louder. Robert Cromey’s vigils outside the Federal Building now become all the more necessary.
• And as people continue to flee the historic levels of gang and police violence in Central America, we are providing Sanctuary for Mirza and Isrrael, helping them with practical needs like housing, food, and clothing, and committing ourselves to stand with them to resist any efforts by Immigration to deport them back to the life-threatening situations they fled. 
• And each week this sacred space, with its noble and faded elegance, remains a home to so many others--from Native Americans celebrating their powerful festivals, to meditating Buddhists; from survivors of HIV to our friends at Mission Graduates.

These are just some of the ways we try to be a blessing at this critical and perilous moment. And I haven’t even alluded to the work so many individuals in this parish do in their professional and volunteer lives--in scholarship, and the arts; in political leadership and social work.

And what makes sense of it all, helps us keep our eye on the ball, is our weekly gathering at this table. Without this moment, none of it makes sense. It’s here at this table that we come to see and understand with the eyes and the heart of Jesus.

Because at the end of these tumultuous days, this one question will remain: Through it all--through all the political upheavals, the protests, the conversations with friends, the victories, the disappointments--have our hearts become more like the heart of Jesus? Have we become more like Jesus--full of more love, more compassion, more joy, more life?

Let me close with this Epiphany blessing from Jan Richardson.

There is so much I want to say, as if the saying could prepare you for this path, as if there were anything I could offer that would make your way less circuitous, more smooth.

There is so much I want to say, as if the saying could prepare you for this path, as if there were anything I could offer that would make your way less circuitous, more smooth.Once you step out, you will see for yourself
how nothing could have made you ready for this road
that will take you from what you know
to what you cannot perceive
except, perhaps, in your dreaming
or as it gives a glimpse in prayer.
But I can tell you this journey is not about miles.
It is not about how far you can walk or how fast.
It is about what you will do with this moment,
this star that blazes in your sky
though no one else might see.
So open your heart to these shimmering hours
by which your path is made.
Open your eyes to the light
that shines on what you will need to see.
Open your hands to those who go with you,
those seen and those known only by their blessing,
their benediction of the road that is your own.

The Gentle Whisper

Sermon by the Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, San Francisco

January 22, 2017

Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

The last several days have been a whirlwind for so many of us--from the inauguration to the Women’s March. From the President’s threat to deport millions of undocumented people and deprive many more of their healthcare to passionate calls to resist those cruel policies.

A whirlwind. How do we find our bearings in such a moment? How do we find a way forward?

Can we take our cues from something deeper than the cliches and labels--Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, progressive--and from something deeper than knee-jerk reactions to the latest headlines and presidential tweets and posts on Facebook?

How to get our bearings in this whirlwind?

Maybe you remember the old story about Elijah... It was a dark moment in Israel, a time of great upheaval in the land. Elijah had spoken out against all the corruption and murder in Israel, the ways Israel had abandoned its own deepest values and dreams.

Many great prophets had been killed, and now many in Israel were coming after Elijah, wanting to kill him as well.

He’s hiding in a cave. One day God tells him to go outside and stand on the mountainside where God will pass by.

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind.
And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

And that’s where God’s voice was to be found, in that gentle whisper. There, in that gentle whisper, Elijah finds the energy and the guidance for his next steps.

I love the story, and I’m hoping that same grace, that same gentle whisper, will come to me and to each of us in this crazy time, to help us get our bearings and find a way forward.

I hope that we can find that gentle whisper deep in our own hearts, deeper than all the roles we play, the hats we wear--spouse, parent, friend, professional, priest. Deeper than all the fear and anger and the need to be right. Deeper than all the labels--Hillary voter, Trump voter. Deeper than our skin color or sexual orientation.

I hope we can reach deep into our own hearts to hear that gentle whisper, the voice of God.

Which is a long way of saying I hope in these days we can be people of deep prayer.

Because even with all the other noise going on around us, we can still hear that gentle whisper if we want to, can still live out the joy, the passion and compassion, the love it stirs in us.

I recall the story of the teenager from rural Iowa who was visiting Manhattan with her mom. It was high noon, and there were taxis and trucks zooming by, horns blaring, people pouring out of the office buildings racing off to lunch. In the midst of it all, the young woman stops and says, “Wait, mom! I hear a grasshopper!” This annoys her mom who says, “Honey, we’re right in the middle of Manhattan. They don’t even have grasshoppers here! And even if they did, you’d never hear them because of all this racket.

At that, the girl went over to a small bush next to a light post and pulled back the branches to reveal a grasshopper happily chirping away.

Her mom was astonished and said, “How did you manage to hear that grasshopper in the midst of all this craziness?” The girl got very philosophical and said, “Well, we hear what we want to hear.”

Which is true not only of grasshoppers but also of that gentle whisper God placed in our hearts.

I see that same gentle whisper, that voice of God, playing itself out in Jesus' life.

For example, in today’s gospel Jesus has had an Elijah moment. Jesus’ time, like Elijah’s, like ours, was dark and turbulent. The Romans occupying Palestine had slaughtered many innocent men, women, and children; they had inflicted much poverty and cultural genocide on Jesus’ own people.

And in today’s reading, things take an even sharper turn for the worse. Herod has just incarcerated John the Baptist. The darkness is closing in.

And in that moment, Jesus immediately moves to Galilee, into Herod’s own territory and jurisdiction. This is a bold and dangerous move on Jesus’ part. It brings him onto Herod’s radar.

And when he gets back to Galilee, he goes even further, he does three things:

• He begins proclaiming the exact same message that got John into trouble: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The kingdom of heaven--so completely different from the kingdom of Herod and the empire, a subversive alternative to the world as we know it. Jesus takes up this message knowing full well it is likely to bring down Herod’s wrath on his own head just as it had on the Baptist's.
• And he begins to gather a community of disciples who can support each other in proclaiming that same message, be a light in the closing darkness, defy every effort to crush the human spirit.
• And he reaches out in compassion to heal the sick of diseases, many of which had resulted from what the Romans had inflicted on the Jews: the economic hardships, the lack of clean water, the shortage of good, nutritious food.

Proclamation, community, compassion--ah! God is here!

Where does Jesus get this boldness and courage, this deliberateness and clarity of vision in such a perilous time as his?

My guess is that, as with Elijah, it springs from that gentle whisper deep in his own heart. That whisper is what drives Jesus--more than fear or anger or dread, more than any expectations others may have of him, more than his own need to be right or recognized or successful or in control. He stays attentive to that small gentle whisper, trusts it, follows it, regardless of the consequences, with a deliberateness, a fierce determination.

Jesus, in other words, prays.

May it be that way for us as we get our bearings, find our way forward, together, in the dark and challenging days ahead.

Pray any way you like. Meditate here on Tuesday nights with the Buddhists in Mission Dharma, or take up a mindful form of yoga. Try some of the ancient Christian practices: centering prayer, the rosary, the Daily Office, Ignatian contemplation of the Scriptures. Or if music’s your thing, spend time listening attentively to Bach or John Coltrane or the other great composers.

Do it in your own inimitable way. But do it! Pray!

However we do it in these stormy times, may we, like Elijah, like Jesus, listen attentively to that small gentle whisper of God, trust it, and follow it--together--with deliberateness and courage, determination and joy--through the coming dark days of struggle.

Come and See

A “Come to Jesus" moment

Richard Smith

Second Sunday after Epiphany

Year A

The term “Come to Jesus moment” has seeped into everyday conversation. Back in my days in Silicon Valley, whenever a manager faced a rapidly approaching deadline and wanted to be sure the product would be ready for delivery on time, they’d gather the team for a “Come to Jesus meeting”. It was a moment of reckoning; each team member would have to report on the status of their deliverables; would they pass Quality Assurance; would everything be ready to ship on time. A Come to Jesus moment.

I’ve heard the phrase used in other contexts, like when friends and family need to confront a loved one who is abusing drugs or alcohol or engaging in some other destructive behavior. They sometimes call that intervention a “Come to Jesus moment.”

As I understand it, the phrase originated in the evangelical revival camp meetings of the 1920s when evangelists exhorted people to “come to Jesus.”  Sinners would walk down the aisle and come to the altar to repent of their sins, and ask Jesus to come into their heart.

In its purest form, it’s the kind of moment you realize what’s most important in your life--an Aha! moment--in which you reconnect with those basic values you may have lost sight of in the daily grind of making a living, deciding what to have for dinner, folding the laundry. It’s the clarifying of priorities that can come with a brush with death, say a car accident or a sudden health problem. In its purest form, a Come to Jesus moment brings you back to what you know is true and beautiful and good.

Welcome to today’s gospel. Two of John the Baptist’s disciples follow Jesus. Jesus asks them, “What are you looking for?” It’s not a question about finding lost car keys or a misplaced cell phone. It’s rather about their deepest desires, what they most want from life, what they most cherish and long for. “What are you looking for?”

Because our deepest desires have something to do with what God is calling us to. To paraphrase a popular theologian, “The place God calls you to is where your deepest desire meets the world’s deepest need.”

What are you looking for? Underneath all the surface wants to be billionaires, with looks like George Clooney or JLo--underneath those surface wants, what is your own deepest desire?

The disciples reply they want to know where Jesus staying, where he lives. This is code, a way of asking not only where he lives physically, but more: what drives him, what is he about, why does he do what he does? We might say colloquially today, “Where are you at?” or “Where’s your head at?” It’s the right question to ask of Jesus, the right thing to be looking for.

That’s when Jesus turns their following him into a calling. “Come and see,” he tells them. They came and saw and stayed. It was a come to Jesus moment. A calling.

Sometimes, as for these disciples, a calling can be a bit dramatic, involving an actual displacement, physically moving from one place to another.

But more likely it’s a matter of recognizing and embracing the displacements that have already occurred in the ordinary course of our lives: a discouraging report from the lab, the loss of a job or a loved one, the birth of a child, or taking up new and exciting responsibilities. Or maybe as the years go by, we realize ways of thinking or rituals or family traditions that once helped us understand our lives are no longer appreciated, leaving us lost and alone.

The task is to allow these actual displacements to become places where we can hear God’s call.

The fact is, God is always active in our lives, calling us, asking us to follow. And usually that call comes not in some dramatic moment, but much more subtly in the ordinary stuff of our lives.

But do we see, feel, and recognize God’s call, or do we keep waiting for that illusory, dramatic moment when it will “really” happen? Can we embrace the displacements that have already occurred in our lives and discern the callings they hold for us?

This weekend, we’re celebrating Martin Luther King. Like us, he had to navigate a time of great polarization in the country. At a time when the Civil Rights movement was struggling to make gains, the Vietnam War was also in full swing. Although it was very controversial among his followers, he discerned a calling, a vocation, to speak against the war even as he continued his struggle for civil rights.

Here is how he put it at the time, in words that could have been written just last week:

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

In the chaos and polarization that history had bequeathed to his generation, King discerned a vocation. It was for him a Come to Jesus moment, to reach deep into his heart and his faith tradition and speak a prophetic word.

Perhaps the coming week with its inaugural celebration, is our Come to Jesus moment. Perhaps in this moment, we, like Dr. King, need to reconnect with our own deepest values and desires and discern our own vocation. Whether we join a march, or call our representatives, or hold a sign for Amilcar at Mission Police Station, the questions that Dr. King wrestled with are ours as well. How will we speak? How will we break the silence of the darkness that seems so close around us?