The Sower

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, Proper 10

The Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

When the disciples ask Jesus to explain the story in today’s gospel, he begins by giving that story a title. He calls it “the parable of the sower”, which I take to mean this story is not so much about the seed that is sown nor about the soil it’s sown in. Rather, it’s more about the one who does the sowing. This is a parable about a sower.

What can we say about this sower except that he is reckless and extravagant--scattering seeds everywhere, regardless of whether they land

• among rocks where they are unlikely to take root, 
• or along the footpath where the birds will likely eat them, 
• or among thorns where they can get choked. 

None of this seems to matter to this unlikely sower who seems so careless and inefficient.

Which is exactly how Jesus went about sowing his message--carelessly, recklessly, inefficiently, extravagantly--giving himself, his message, his works of healing to those least likely to yield a harvest. This was the irony in his ministry--that he had come not for the righteous, whom you’d reasonably expect to yield a rich harvest, but for the lost sheep: the whores and scarecrows and misfits of his day.

But, ironically, this inefficient strategy seemed to work. As he explained to the religious leaders, “the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of heaven ahead of you.” Those you’d least expect understood him more than did the righteous. Clearly, there was a method to this reckless sower’s madness.

This has implications. For example, if you’re ever looking for God in your own life, don’t forget to look in the places you’d least expect to find him--perhaps in moments of darkness, disappointment, pain, and yes, sinfulness--the rocky, thorny soil of your own heart.

One day, the great spiritual writer, Thomas Merton, was reading through the pages of his own journal. He prayed: “I am content that these pages show me to be what I am--noisy, full of the racket of my imperfections and passions, and the wide open wounds left by my sins. Full of my own emptiness. Yet, ruined as my house is, You live there!”

This was his confidence, that even in the darkness and noise and racket of his own heart, the seeds of God’s presence were there. His life may have been rocky and full of thorns, but Merton knew God was there.

Sometimes it can take awhile for that seed that God has planted to become visible.

This is a dark time for our country. The drums of war are beating more loudly now, more immigrant families are being torn apart, the wealthy are getting increasingly wealthy while more and more people are left homeless, and the earth is not as safe now.

If we are to believe today’s gospel, then we know that even in these rocky, thorny times the reckless sower has planted seeds. It may take time for those seeds to become apparent, for the presence and the work of God to be clearly seen.

Yet even in the darkness of the world and the darkness and racket of our own hearts, the reckless sower has already planted seeds. Although still unseen, those seeds are already growing. Do you see them yet?

Keep your eyes open for glimpses of grace; it is the hour of the unexpected.

Mission Accomplished?

May 28, 2017

The Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

By the way our patron John the Evangelist tells today’s gospel story, you’d think it was “mission accomplished”.

It’s the night before Jesus dies, and he’s summarizing his whole life and its meaning. Jesus is praying, and he says to his Father, “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had in your presence before the world existed.”

You’d think Jesus had lived his life from one glory to another, and if that’s what St. John is trying to say here, then I'd like to know what he was smoking when he wrote this story.

Because by most accounts, Jesus’ life was not what you’d call a glorious success. The religious elite did not accept his message. One of his disciples betrayed him, another denied him, the rest fled. He was executed with criminals, mocked by both soldiers and priests, abandoned and alone, his body writhing in pain. This is the social truth of Jesus’ life, and it’s not a pretty picture, certainly not one of glorious accomplishment.

It might have been different had he died pain-free, in the fullness of years, with trophies lining the fireplace mantle, applauded by his contemporaries, with family and friends all gathered around, and leaving an abundant inheritance. That would be an accomplished life. But that is hardly the story of Jesus.

So this passage opens the question of how to measure a life. Deep down, what does a successful life look like?

My guess is John in this gospel is pushing us to measure our lives not in the social and economic terms we generally use, but in spiritual terms. Measuring life in such spiritual terms requires some radical rethinking about life and what counts as success.

Because life is not about the length of days or the magnitude of accomplishments or money. There’s the story of Alexander the Great who, after conquering all the known world, sat atop his horse and wept, because there was nothig left to conquer. At our deepest level, we are spiritual creatures, and our hearts can’t be fully satisfied by the number of our accomplishments or toys or kudos.

Our mission in this life is to release divine love into the world. This is the criterion by which we measure a successful life: by how we love.

Perhaps you saw the Facebook photo of 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, a recent graduate of Reed College. The photo shows a smiling young man with flowing red hair, mortar board on his head, and wearing his graduation gown, just setting out on his adult life. Next to the photo, his mother posted these words: “My dear baby boy passed on yesterday while protecting two young Muslim girls from a racist man on the train in Portland. He was a hero and will remain a hero on the other side of the veil. Shining bright star I love you forever.”

Taliesin, along with two other men, had come to the defense of two teenage girls--one black, the other Muslim wearing a hijab. The assailant pulled out a knife and stabbed the three defenders, killing Taliesin and one other man.

Taliesin’s considerable potential for contributing to the world was only partially realized. How can we say of such a life, “It is finished, it is complete”?
 
I know almost nothing about Taliesin, the young man in Portland, but from a spiritual perspective, his death was an hour of revelation, a moment when God’s love was released into the world. That young man’s life, like that of Jesus, was so short, with so many dreams left undone. And yet, on the deepest level his life was a complete success, because, like Jesus, Taliesin loved. He accomplished what he was sent here for. He loved.

Each of us is a beloved child close to the heart of God. This is our deepest identity, who we are at the core, beloved children of God. The adventure of life is to live out this identity.

This identity may shine out once or many times. Whenever we live out this identity, whenever we release this love in the world, whether at the hour of death like Taliesin or at any hour, it is a divine revelation; we have in that moment accomplished the work we were sent here to do.

As strange as the words of Jesus’ prayer may sound at first, they are words our hearts eagerly await. They reflect something more than the usual measures of success our culture offers.

The prayer of Jesus in today’s gospel shows a hidden spiritual reality difficult to see amid the rat race and noise of our social lives: that each of us, every person, is a mission of love meant to stir love in others. When this happens, God is glorified, the mission is accomplished, life is complete.

Can we believe this?

An Appeal to Womanhood

A sermon by the Rev. Jacqueline Cherry


The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco

May 14, 2017 – Mother’s Day, Easter 5, Yr. A

I don’t like Donald Trump, I don’t like Kellyanne Conway, and I don’t like Mother’s Day.
For so many reasons, I don’t like Mother’s Day. And every year, Richard puts me on the rota to preach on Mother’s Day. Last night, I was looking over my previous Mother’s Day sermons, and I have to say they were pretty good. I suggested that all of us, male and female, have the capacity to mother in a sermon I called The Motherhood of all Believers. I’ve talked about The Mommy Hierarchy, the pervasive tendency by both individuals and systems to value biological parents above adoptive or foster parents – this is especially problematic for lesbian couples. I’ve woven in Dame Julian of Norwich who wrote such things as – Just as God is truly our Father, so also is God truly our Mother. And I always wrapped it up with Jesus. But, I’ve never been completely honest … I don’t like Mother’s Day, and I know I’m the only one.

My mom wanted desperately to have children, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t until after my dad died in 2012 that I learned it was he who was sterile, not my mom. An engineer specializing in underwater acoustics, my dad was on the Enewetak Atoll in the 1950’s – a chain of coral reefs and beautiful lagoons between Hawaii and Australia, the site our government chose to test nuclear weapons -- when he was exposed to untold amounts of radiation. I learned this by reading a letter I found in his safe box from the United States government offering medical help and compensation to veterans and civilians who participated in atomic research. I also found a commemorative Zippo lighter with an enamel seal of the US Defense Nuclear Agency on one side and an engraved map of the Marshall Islands on the other. Radiation from these experiments ravaged the ocean, the islands, the islanders, and my dad’s body; the government issued cigarette lighters.

In the Cold War era, nuclear testing was top-secret, therefore servicemen and women couldn’t get outside medical help because they were forbidden to tell doctors of their radiation exposure. I honestly don’t think my dad knew he was sterile. Researchers had just begun to study the effects of radiation exposure, and unlike today, sperm analysis wasn’t routinely done. For her entire life my mom bore the burden, and the guilt, of not being able to bear children.

Mother’s Day reminded me I was adopted. I wasn’t longing after my birth mother. Rather, I sensed my mom’s despair, and there was no card I could make, or gift I could buy that would alleviate the loss that had occupied the center of her being since the day she learned she would never have kids. Even with the usual presents and kind gestures, every year Mother’s Day was fraught. And every year the florists and candy makers, phone companies and cosmetic counters figured out new ways to exploit the idea of honoring mothers.

This morning, in one quick paragraph, we heard about the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr and, according to the Acts of the Apostles, the first deacon of the early church. A martyr is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate a belief that is required by an external party.  Stephen was skilled at speaking his truth, and even more skilled at irritating the authorities. Relentlessly he proclaimed that Jesus was the messiah; so relentlessly he was stoned to death.

I’ve had an eye-opening experience on the social media site OK Cupid. It’s essentially a dating site where you answer hundreds of questions on lifestyle, politics, ethics, and so on. For example: It’s Friday night, would you rather stay home and play scrabble, chill at a dive bar, or have dinner at a fancy restaurant? And, Would you consider having sex in a church? The mysterious OK Cupid algorithm crunches the answers then calculates compatibility. I scored a 99% match with an attractive woman. After a few fun emails, I mentioned something about church. She replied, You’re a Christian! Sorry, that’s a deal breaker!  Then she attempted to reassure me with Pascal's Wager that posits most rational people will bet that God exists because they stand to receive infinite gains – heaven, and avoid infinite loss – hell. However, she explained, his probability theory didn’t apply to her. (I have to admit I was impressed when she cited Blaise Pascal –
the genius mathematician/physicist turned theologian/philosopher.)

After two more highly compatible women cited my Christianity as the “deal breaker”, I developed Jac’s Wager:

Educated, progressive lesbians who believe they are open-minded will not want to appear
narrow-minded especially when interacting with someone they find attractive.

So right off the bat, in the first email, I say something like, “I’m okay having coffee with an atheist, are you okay having coffee with a Christian?” I am happy to report that I have a coffee date on May 24th.

I realize now that I must give credit where credit is due – I was a Christian when I met Beth in 2004, nevertheless, she was willing to go out with me.

Jesus said,

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

Well, the disciples do in fact have every reason to be troubled. And for the record, so do we. Jesus is saying good bye, without telling them where he is going. Thomas is not satisfied, he needs more information, perhaps a map or GPS, to show him the way. Jesus doesn’t have anything that practical to offer, he responds, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. In my opinion, this attempt to give his disciples more information was a failure. This passage is routinely misinterpreted, or perhaps intentionally used, to argue that Christianity is the only one true path to God. What we should be focusing on instead, is what Jesus tells his disciples next -- if you don’t believe in me because of my words, believe in me because of my works.  That I can get behind. The truth is, it doesn’t matter what we believe, what matters are the things we do.

• It matters that you feed the hungry, it doesn’t matter that you’re Jewish;
• I care that you fight against our country’s heinous immigration and deportation laws, I don’t care that you’re an atheist;
• I respect you for standing in silent vigil in front of the police station to protest the abuse and killing of black and brown people by the SFPD whether or not you sit next to me in church.

In this vein, I could continue on and on.

Today we are witnessing an insecure, uninformed, mentally precarious president with the power to destroy humanity, and the natural world.  Of course I’m speaking of Trump, but this is also true of North Korea’s young president who doesn’t seem to know the difference between a bottle rocket and a warhead missile. Which brings us back to the nuclear weapons my dad helped refine in the Marshall Islands, the weapons that left the islands uninhabitable, and caused his sterility.

We have every reason for our hearts to be troubled. And this my friends, this propensity for war, this insecure posturing with military might, the unnecessary bloodshed, and the death of our children, these are the reasons we have Mother’s Day. Stephen, the first martyr and deacon of the church, set a bold example of standing firm in his belief that Jesus was the messiah – he spoke (his) truth to power. However, instead of relentlessly proclaiming our beliefs, I want to inspire you to boldly live out the values of your beliefs, following the example of Julia Ward Howe. You could say that Howe is the mother of Mother’s Day. In 1870, with power and grace, she gave life to her Christian values when she wrote, and please bear with me as I read her

APPEAL TO WOMANHOOD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battle field. 

Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before. 

Arise, then, Christian women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. 

Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council. 

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Cæsar, but of God. 

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
(Amen.)

JULIA WARD HOWE

Boston, September, 1870.

Appeal to womanhood throughout the world, ... Julia Ward Howe. Boston, September, 1870. https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.07400300/?st=text

The Tomb and the Womb

A sermon by the Rev. Jacqueline Cherry


The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco

April 15, 2017 – The Great Vigil of Easter

Look down, O God, from your heavenly throne, and illumine this night with your celestial brightness; that by night as by day your people may glorify your whole Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Anyone who has worked with me on this service, tonight and on vigils past, knows that I am relentless beyond annoyance about the lighting. Well, this year, I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Daniel, Endersnight’s director, who either has the patience of at saint, or is equally neurotic. Either way, I have found a partner in precision of which you are all beneficiaries.

The Easter Vigil is the liturgical consummation of our Christian calendar. For a preacher, that’s especially challenging because words ring hollow against the aesthetics of this awesome ritual. And tonight the music has lifted the beauty of this liturgy to an even higher plane. And I stand here before you, humbled.

Look, follow these columns up to the clerestory, and out into the heavens; the very architecture of this church serves to transport us to a higher place. And that’s what we desire, isn’t it? No, tonight my job is to ground you; this is the night we come face-to- face with God, on earth. Tonight, like a preacher without words, the way to God is humility. So, don’t look up; look down, look deep. Feel what it is to be human.

Human - humus -- the Latin word for soil.

“And God formed man from the dust of the ground.” Our very being is of the earth, and so it is with Jesus.

We began this service with the Exsultet, rejoicing that darkness has been vanquished, and praying to God that the light of Christ may shine continually to drive away all darkness. Yes; yes, the light of Christ is glorious. But often we forget that there is holiness in the darkness, too. Jesus was born in a dark cave. We say stable, but that stable was in fact a cave. And from a cave, Jesus rose from the dead.

Before the great earthquake, 

Before the stone was rolled away at the tomb,

In this holy moment between Good Friday and Easter Sunday,

Right now, a divine alchemy is taking place.

And I can’t help but believe that what is happening tonight in the tomb, is like the Holy gestation that occurred in Mary’s womb, some 33 years earlier.

In the dark God mingles with Mary and humanity is infused with divinity. On this Holy Saturday, in the dark tomb, a sacred process of gestation and germination is occurring. Like the suspension of time between Daniel giving the choir a direction, and the choir responding to that direction with music, there is a moment when all of the elements necessary for creation, for resurrection, are there, but the creation has not yet been manifest.

That’s where we are tonight. And that’s where I want us to stay. Because the resurrection didn’t happen on a beautiful Sunday morning, flush with white lilies, fanfare, and bonnets. It happened in a cave. There was no light and it was silent. I imagine it was dank with a very earthy smell. There were no witnesses to see it.

Wendell Berry wrote:

To know the dark, go dark.
Go without sight, and find that the dark, too,
blooms and sings.

My friends, new life begins in the dark. Seedlings take root in dark soil. In fact, almost all vegetable growth takes place in the dark.

Tonight I ask you to open up and embrace this holy darkness. I ask you to remember that God is present even when we don’t feel the presence. I ask you to remember that God is present even when everything around us feels horrific.

When it seems that nothing could ever lift us from the darkness, all of us, including our fragile earth, are transforming now, just as Jesus is being transformed.

After listening to the long record of God’s saving deeds throughout history, I don’t think there’s much more for a preacher to say. Tonight while God and Jesus are still in the tomb making the mystery, I want us to stay in the mystery. I want us to hear with open ears the anthem that William

Byrd wrote, that Daniel will direct, and the choir will make manifest. Byrd’s words push us beyond the Pascal Mystery, the words assure us that we too shall be restored to new life. Let these words seep deep into your heart:

Christ rising again from the dead now dieth not.
Death from henceforth hath no power upon him.
Christ is risen again, the first fruits of them that sleep.

For as in Adam all men do die,
so by Christ shall all men be restored to life.

Amen.

Religion: Is It Good or Bad?

May 7, 2017

Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A

The Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

There are two sides to every story.

Today’s gospel comes just after Jesus heals a blind man on the Sabbath. Healing that blind man gets Jesus in trouble with the religious leaders. There are two sides to this story. 

The official story from the religious leaders is that the man would not have been born blind in the first place if he or his parents were not sinners. And, furthermore, Jesus is a sinner, too, for violating Jewish law that clearly forbade one from healing on the Sabbath. That’s one side of the story, the official version.

But the man Jesus cured tells a different story: “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

Two sides to the story. How do you sort this one out? Whose testimony should you accept here? Can you trust the official story from the religious leaders, the shepherds? Or should you run with the man who was cured? 

This is what Jesus is wrestling with in today’s gospel where he refers to himself as the gate to the sheepfold. He doesn’t refer to himself here as a shepherd--he uses that image for himself later in the gospel. But today, in this passage,he refers to himself as the gate to the sheepfold. 

It’s the gate to a large protected corral. Through that gate, each evening, all the shepherds from the region would lead their flocks, bringing all the sheep together where they’ll be safe through the night. Then in the morning, each shepherd would gather his own flock, by calling each sheep by name, then lead them out to the nearby pastures to graze.

“I am the gate to the sheepfold”, Jesus says. The gate symbolizes Jesus own path of compassion and justice, of care for the poor and the outcast, his hope and joy and sheer delight in the world. 

A shepherd who enters the sheepfold through this gate shares in Jesus’ own work of bringing life in abundance to his sheep. 

Any leader, religious or otherwise, who does not approach the sheep through this gate is no shepherd, but one who brings destruction and death. You should not trust such a leader.

It’s a matter of recognizing the difference between good religion and bad religion, between good religious leadership and bad.

Archbishop Tutu was once asked whether he thought religion was good or bad. He said the word “religion” itself is neutral. It’s like “politics” or “art”.

Politics can sometimes be good, leading to greater equality and freedom and peace. At other times it can be bad--enslaving people, dividing them against each other, plunging them into poverty. 

Art can sometimes be good, opening unexplored regions of your heart to beauty in the world and in people. At other times it can fuel violence, racial hatred, misogyny, homophobia.

As with politics and art, religion can be good or bad. It can serve either life or death, human flourishing or human and planetary destruction.

The trick is to recognize the difference between good religion and bad. It’s a matter for discernment.

The word religion comes from two Latin words: re meaning again, and ligare, meaning to connect. We get our English word ligament from that Latin word, ligare. So, religare means to reconnect. This is what religion is meant to do. 

The idea is that over the course of the week--going to work, feeding the dog, shopping for groceries, dealing with all the ups and downs of our relationships and of life, we can lose touch with something vital. We can lose our zest for life, our passion and purpose. We can lose touch with our own hearts’ deepest desires, lose our connection with other people and the larger universe. 

We look to good religion to reconnect us, help make us whole again. This is the purpose of our religious practices--our feasts and fasts, our seasons and holidays, the rituals and the prayers and the music and songs--all meant to reconnect us with ourselves, each other, the world. This is what good religion offers us--whether Jewsih, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu. 

This good religion is lived in the lives of Archbishop Tutu, Dorothy Day, the Dalai Lama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, the Sufi mystic Rumi, Pope Francis, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, Oscar Romero and the many priests and nuns that were killed serving the poor in El Salvador. There are many shining examples of good religion.

Then there is bad religion--religion that disconnects us, alienates us from ourselves and others. It includes preachers who condemn women and gay people for following the promptings of our own hearts and our bodies. Such preachers alienate us from ourselves; they preach bad religion. And bad religion includes religious leaders who condone or remain silent in the face of human cruelty, poverty, violence, war. It includes “Christian” prosperity gospel politicians who tell you, as some recently have implied, if you lead a good life, you will not need health insurance because you will never get sick or have an accident. If you’re good, they tell you, you will always prosper. 

Bad religion leads not to life in abundance, but rather is embedded in today’s violence against gay men in Chechnya; the exploitation of women; the enslavement of people of color; many Crusades and “holy” wars down the centuries; many people forced into in poverty; and many, many suicides. 

Good religion, bad religion. One that serves life, one that destroys and crushes. Important to recognize the difference. 

Oscar Romero described what being church and providing religious leadership looked like in his own context, and his words give us a clue about what they might look like--and not look like--in our own US reality today. Romero wrote:

It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world, a very spiritualized word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because it belongs to no part of the world. A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts.
What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine church, is the word that, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims and accuses; proclaims to the people God’s wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God’s reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws – out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the rights of God and of humanity. This is the hard service of the word.
A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what gospel is that? Some want to keep a gospel so disembodied that it doesn’t get involved at all in the world it must save.
Christ is now in history. Christ is in the womb of the people. Christ is now bringing about the new heavens and the new earth.

This gospel passage speaks to official religious leaders, but also to each one of us. Because each of us is a shepherd in our own way--as parents, teachers, artists, activists, or as friend or in one of the many other roles we may play. Each of us called to enter--and invite others--through the gate of compassion and hope, the gate that leads to life in abundance. The gate we Christians call Jesus.

One minister, Victoria Safford, reflects on what this feels like to stand at that gate leading and inviting others in. I’ll close with her words.

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope — not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right.” But a different, sometimes lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle. And we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.

Back to Galilee: Easter 2017

Easter 2017

Year A

Richard Smith

Did you like the special effects in today's gospel story? The two women arrive at the tomb looking for Jesus when, like a lightening bolt, an angel appears. The earth shudders beneath their feet. Single-handedly, the powerful angel rolls back the huge stone, then sits on top of it like it was his throne. 

The men standing guard at the tomb take one look at him and pass out.

And then, the angel turns his gaze on the two women and says "Don't be afraid".

Say what? 

“Do not be afraid!???” Isn’t that a bit counterintuitive? Everything about this messenger is meant to overwhelm, and we humans are programmed to fear what overwhelms us.

But in this case, things are different. Because what overwhelms is a love stronger than death. This thunderbolt messenger, far from being a threat, is at their service. 

“Do not be afraid”, the angel tells them, and then sends them off in a new direction, away from the tomb, this place of death--”He is not here”--sends them to Galilee. "There you will find him." From the tomb to Galilee.

What began in tears and defeat in the place of death now ends with a broken tomb, a garden teeming with life, and Jesus, with a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eye, sending his disciples back to Galilee.

Galilee is where the story of Jesus began. It is where he first called the disciples, where he touched lepers, dined with whores and tax collectors, railed against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, shared bread with hungry crowds, spoke truth to power.

Galilee, that backwater town: Jesus knew well its dusty roads and fragrant fields.

And after all that has just happened to him in Jerusalem--after his trial and condemnation, the abandonment by his friends, his torture and crucifixion, his death and burial--now after all of that, in this moment of resurrection, what does he do? The Risen One goes back to Galilee. He’s starting the story all over again. 

Back to the beginning, but now with a new clarity about where it all leads. Despite what happened on Good Friday when all hell broke loose, the path of Jesus--of caring for the poor and the outcast…--has now been vindicated by God. Despite all appearances to the contrary, the path of violence and retaliation, of indifference to the poverty and racism and homophobia--these things will not have the last word. Today, the path of Jesus, that path of compassion, of service to the least of his sisters and brothers, today this path of Jesus gets revealed as the path to life. It is the triumph of love and laughter and life over all forms of death and oppression.

And if you want life, the angel tells the women, you will find it by joining Jesus there in Galilee--where he continues feeding hungry people, overcoming violence with love; welcoming outcasts, and wiping away tears. 

Do you want to draw close to God? Go to Galilee. "There you will find him."

What about our own Galilee? For we have our own, we know it well. It’s a world: 

• Where the bodies of young people of color and the mentally ill are too often incarcerated or riddled with police bullets
• Where homeless people huddle against the rain under freeway onramps and in tents alongside luxury condos, alongside our church
• Where immigrants and Muslims are vilified, and doors are slammed in the faces of terror-stricken, Syrian children and their impoverished families
• Where children of undocumented parents go to bed afraid of losing their parents to Trump’s deportation force
• Where people in this community have grieved the loss of Judy Eastwood, and other good friends and family members over this past year
• Where some of us struggle with our own health and all that comes with our own aging, broken hips, arthritis, the loss of control over our own lives
• And where, as our city changes so quickly around us, we wonder if we, like so many others, could lose our homes. 

Galilee. We know it very well.

If we would draw close to the Risen One, this is where we will find him, right here in our own Galilee--in this little parish, in this neighborhood with all its terrible beauty. It’s here that we’re invited to work alongside that Risen One, and in doing so, find life. 

We do this 

• in our handing out fresh veggies and bread in our food pantry each Saturday, 
• In providing a warm, dry place for homeless people to sleep each weekday morning
• in our Nightwalks to end the violence in our neighborhood,
• In our vigils at the Federal Building to end the wars, 
• In our offer of Sanctuary to young people fleeing the violence in Central America
• and in our efforts to stop the unjust deportations that tear apart immigrant families…

These are some of the things we do as a community, but there are so many other things, great and small, that we do as individuals among our friends and acquaintances, in our families and with our kids. 

Here, in our Galilee, the risen Christ invites us to join him more and more closely in his great work. 

In a moment, we will approach the font to renew our baptismal vows. Like the women in today’s gospel, we vow to join the work of Jesus right here in our own Galilee. This is how we draw close to him, by becoming his heart and hands and feet right here.

The poet Jan Richardson writes from the standpoint of the angel at the tomb speaking to the women that morning.

Easter Blessing

If you are looking

for a blessing,

do not linger

here.

Here

is only

emptiness,

a hollow,

a husk

where a blessing

used to be.

This blessing

was not content

in its confinement.

It could not abide

its isolation,

the unrelenting silence,

the pressing stench

of death.

So if it is

a blessing

that you seek,

open your own

mouth.

Fill your lungs

with the air

that this new

morning brings

and then

release it

with a cry.

Hear how the blessing

breaks forth

in your own voice

how your own lips

form every word

you never dreamed

to say.

See how the blessing

circles back again

wanting you to

repeat it

but louder

how it draws you

pulls you

sends you

to proclaim

its only word:

risen

risen

risen.

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?