The Master's Tools (The Rev. Deacon Jackie Cherry, September 22, 2013)

I like the challenge of writing a lectionary based sermon. And I like the extra challenge of writing a lectionary based sermon that inspires a congregation to shell out even more of its hard-earned money to the church. But the bar is set ridiculously high this morning as I imagine you’d much rather hear me talk about sex.

Friends, I have 10 minutes to deliver a lectionary based, stewardship, gay-sex-scandal sermon.
Here we go...

I don’t know anyone who likes preaching the Parable of the “Dishonest Manager”. In fact, I bet I’m in the pulpit this morning because the Reverends Richard, Jack and Robert didn’t want to have anything to do with this bothersome gospel. Thanks guys. Isn’t it true that historically it’s the women who do the hard work?

The problem with today’s parable is that the manager is praised for actions that are clearly dishonest. First he squanders the rich man’s money. Then, upon learning he will be fired, the dishonest manager reduces the tenants’ debts. However, this gesture of kindness to the debtors isn’t intended to free them of their debt. Rather, the dishonest manager is angling to protect his own future by making the debtors beholden to him. Soon, the manager will be penniless and without a job, but the tenants have been tricked, and they will welcome this shyster into their homes.

In 1979, the black lesbian poet Audre Lorde wrote an essay called, The Master'sTools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House. Based on theories presented in her essay, Lorde might argue that the dishonest manager is doing more than simply reducing the tenants’ debt for his own gain. At the same time the manager is scheming to secure his own future, he is also exposing the injustice of the existing oppressive system of wealth; a system that kept the poor indebted to the rich landlords who commanded an unfair percentage of their crops. The economic systems in place today are equally unjust. The minimum wage isn’t a living wage.  The rich make their millions off the backs of the dark-skinned workers in falling-down factories, and bent over laborers in blazing hot fields.

Lorde might also suggest, that working within systems that are inherently oppressive, will never produce real change. Playing by the rules that shelter the dominant values, values that protect the strong and endanger the vulnerable is ultimately ineffective. Lorde says:

For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game,
but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.

In this illustration, Audre Lorde talking about dismantling the master’s house sounds a lot like Jesus Christ talking about the kingdom of heaven: they both strive to turn the ways of the world upside down. No thrones for the powerful, the lowly lifted up; the hungry are fed, and the stone hearts of the oppressors are broken open. I think it’s fair to say that earthly riches didn’t matter to Jesus. And, the amount of money we have today means nothing to God. But what we choose to do with our money, now that is a different story.

When I enter this holy place, this place that we call St. John’s, I am aware of God’s presence. It’s as if our very church were God’s dwelling place.  This is true for me because when I come into this church, I know I can come just as I am. And when I am here being who I am, without the fear of being cast out because of who I am, I am able to be present to God. And when I am present to God, I can move through this world in love.

Isn’t that all each of us wants to do? Live into the truth of who God created us to be?
And be welcomed for who we are?

That’s what we do at St. John’s, that’s why I’m here. I suspect it’s why many of you are here too. We invite in the homeless, and we share our food with the hungry, we welcome the gays, the bisexuals, the transgenders, in addition to the heterosexuals.  Our doors and our hearts are open to anybody who desires a place to worship God and to share in the Body of Christ. Our church has been a sanctuary for the oppressed and the outcasts for decades.

I have friends – gay friends and straight friends – who have challenged my religion. They ask a valid question –
Why do you want to be part of a church that has historically rejected gay people?
And I tell them about St. John’s:
I am the Deacon at a progressive Episcopal Church in the Mission District;  Our Vicar is a gay man, he has a husband and a son;
He goes to Sacramento and Washington D.C. to fight for immigration reform;  He marches in the streets protesting big banks and their predatory mortgage practices;  He led the fight that stopped Wells Fargo from repossessing the house of our colleague, the Rev. Gloria del Castillo.

Richard Smith represents my values. When I look at Richard, I see a man who shares part of my story. It's true, he is a white male with lots of privilege, but he understands what it's like to be judged as other. Plus, he is one of the kindest, gentlest men I have ever met. And I’m not saying this because he’s my friend, I’ve never told him any of these things.

Richard Smith is the priest this congregation wanted as its leader the moment the Rev. John Kirkley resigned in July of 2010. And he is the priest Bp. Marc appointed to be our Vicar in December of 2012.

Brothers and sisters, I am heartbroken that our Vicar had to send out an email warning us of a possible disruption in our liturgy this morning.  And I am appalled that he believes it necessary to assure us that he is not a rapist or pedophile.

If Richard is not morally fit to be our Vicar, than I am not morally fit to be your Deacon.

This parish that has been a sanctuary for the oppressed is being terrorized by a virulent strain of homophobia that I thought had been abolished, at least in this city, decades ago.

Some of the qualities that make Richard such a remarkable human being – his sense of fairness, generosity and willingness to give everybody the benefit of the doubt - also leave him vulnerable.

Some of the qualities that make this congregation remarkable – radical hospitality, progressive politics and welcoming people just as they are - also leave us vulnerable.

Audre Lorde knew all about racism and homophobia. She wrote:

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable know that survival is learning how to stand alone, unpopular
and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.

Four years ago we welcomed the Rev. Gloria del Castillo and her congregation into our church. Gloria told us her people were refugees looking for a home. The leaders of both congregations identified as companions who stood outside the circle of society’s definition of acceptable. It is clear now that the marriage between our congregations failed because we were trying to build a relationship without respecting our differences. Survival requires us to embrace our differences and make them strengths.

But calling our Vicar the anti-Christ and suggesting that he is not morally equipped to lead our parish goes beyond a culture clash. It is defamation.

Our politically correct radical hospitality and fear of being called racist
has impaired our good judgment and silenced even the most vocal among us.

And here we are, reeling under the threat of protesters and police, the media and lawsuits; and our Vicar, the priest who embodies the values of the absolute majority of this congregation, the priest whom we sought for more than two years; here we are, being assaulted by the master’s tools wielded in the hand of the oppressed.

Until today, I entered this church just as I am. The unconditional acceptance that St. John’s had always offered is why I’ve stayed here over 20 years; I want this church to remain a sanctuary. The world needs this church to remain a sanctuary. I ask that you hold this community in your hearts, we need your prayers, and, as Birgit is about to tell you, we need your money too. Amen.

The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin (The Rev. Dr. Richard Smith; Year C, Proper 19; September 15, 2013

The other day I was looking for something at the bottom of my backpack. My backpack is like the purses of many women. It’s a virtual Bermuda Triangle where things mysteriously disappear. When you reach in, you never know what you might find: an old key to I can't remember what, an expired Muni transfer ticket, an occasional dollar bill.

The other day, I reached in and pulled out this purple button with the words “More Love”.

If you’ve been around St. John’s a few years, you will recognize this. “More Love” has been our mantra here for many years. The words express what is in our DNA as human beings, as followers of Jesus, as members of this parish. We each desire more life, more beauty, more joy and laughter, and especially more love.

It's the way God made us, this desire for an ever greater fullness and completeness. More Love.

And in today's gospel about the lost sheep and the lost coin, Jesus suggests that this very same desire is found in the heart of God.

The numbers 100 and 10 are symbols of wholeness and completeness. In these stories, the wholeness has been broken: one of the 100 sheep is lost, one of the 10 coins is missing.

There is an incompleteness, and with that incompleteness comes a restlessness, a drive for wholeness. And so the shepherd is driven to climb through cracks and crevices, run over hill and dale to find the one lost sheep. 

And the woman searches the entire house maybe three or four times looking for this stupid coin. She goes through the trash, looks under the beds, checks her husband’s pockets. She lies awake at night, wondering where she has failed to look, or where she might look again more thoroughly. She talks to all her friends. She wonders if she’s losing her mind.

And then one day, when she is sweeping in a place she’s already been over more than once, she sees a glint of metal. There it is, scuttling across the floor! And so she goes back to all her friends--the same ones who have had to listen to her talk about losing the coin--and they share her joy and relief.

This woman and this shepherd are symbols of God and of God’s insatiable desire for fullness, completeness, more love.

I see this desire for fullness, for more love, at work our parish. It is what has moved us to do our work together the past few months. During the first few months of the year, we shared our stories in small groups in each others homes. We talked about those things that keep us awake at night:

• Things like what's going to happen to each of us and the people we care about as we get older 
• And our fear of violence, not just here in the Mission but in our own neighborhoods
• And the sense of isolation we can feel in this vast post-modern urban landscape

Each of these issues in its own way echoes the desire we each have for more life, more love. And these stories have led us to move in some bold new directions.

For example, last week our Bishop's Committee decided to officially become part of the San Francisco Organizing Project (SFOP), a federation of 30 faith communities working to improve the City. Because we’re not the only ones who have lied awake at night worrying about aging and violence and isolation.

• Many people in San Francisco worry about their futures as they and their parents get older. Right now, the Affordable Health Care Act , Obamacare, is being rolled out across the country. Here in San Francisco, our political leaders are making decisions that will affect people like our own beloved Nico and Marie Fowler and many of us sitting right here this morning. Because of our partnership with SFOP, people like Nico and Marie and others in our parish will be able to sit down with people like the Mayor and other political leaders, telling them our needs, making sure that people in our community are not left out of the decisions affecting our healthcare as we get older. At the risk of sounding flip, we hope to see a little “more love” from our elected officials.
• We’re not the only ones who worry about violence in our neighborhoods. Again in partnership with the faith communities in SFOP, we will have the chance to address this fear head on. For example, we’ll be able to join other faith communities in nightwalks. In these nightwalks, clergy and people of faith spend an evening each week walking as a group through the most dangerous streets of their towns, providing a presence of peace, urging an end to the violence. These nightwalks are already well underway in Oakland and Richmond, and where they have walked, the homicide rate has dropped by as much as 30%. A few lives saved. A little less violence in our neighborhoods, a little more love. You’ll hear more about nightwalks in the coming weeks.
• And we’re not the only ones who feel isolated in our rapidly changing, individualistic urban scene. One of our best antidotes to this isolation is right here in our own parish community and what happens each week around this table as we recommit ourselves to each other and to the work that Jesus has called us to. 

But there are other things happening in our parish:

• The pastoral care team has been reviving itself to help us stay more connected.
• I try to send out a weekly e-newsletter to help keep us in touch. 
• A few folks are working on a way for parishioners to meet in small groups to share our lives and faith in more intimate settings.

All of these are ways to counter the isolation we can sometimes feel, to find here in our parish more love.

That love goes beyond the walls of our parish and community.

• As you may know, one out of five Latino kids in the Mission now lives in poverty--nearly twice San Francisco’s poverty rate. Seven of the 10 lowest performing schools in San Francisco are here in the Mission. It's why years ago this parish gave birth to Mission Graduates, to help kids stay in school, graduate from high school, and go on to college. It’s one of our City’s strongest community-based academic programs. This year we’ve renewed and deepened our connection with Mission Graduates. You can see them once again using this space for their special trainings and celebrations, and they are happy to remember that St. John's is their home.
• We've continued our connection to El Porvenir, the amazing organization that helps people in rural Nicaragua dig wells to bring clean water to the people of their villages.
• Every Saturday morning, at our the Julian Pantry, 250-300 people receive food.
• Every Thursday noon, our own Robert Cromey vigils at the Federal Building for an end to the wars.
• And we've stood by many Latino families in our neighborhood who have been at risk of being torn apart by our broken immigration system, sometimes trying to stop an unjust deportation, at other times joining them in calling for immigration reform.

These are just our collective efforts. I could go on to describe the amazing things that each of you do every day on your jobs and other volunteer efforts around the Bay Area.

This desire for More Love keeps moving us to do some amazing things.

And this is the context for what I want to say next, about what it takes for us to do these amazing things.

For example, one thing essential to our ministries is this amazing space.

Have you noticed how the light is in here around, say, 5 or 6pm? Something happens to people who come here that time of evening. They might stumble in here unwittingly, thinking they were coming to just another meeting to strategize about immigration reform, or plan a press conference around the foreclosure issue, or talk about their experiences as transgendered women and the assaults and violence they've been experiencing at the 16th street BART station.

They might come here thinking it’s for just another planning meeting. But while they're here in this space, something happens. Other parts of their heart open up. Suddenly they are talking not just about politics and strategies and plans, but also about their faith and how it sustains them through all their struggles. They let down their guard and talk about the faith of their immigrant parents who brought them to this country for a better life, their trust that even in the midst of their struggles God is very near to them.

I've seen this more than once. It is always unplanned. I don't completely understand it, and yet I marvel each time I see it. Something about this space.

When I see this, it makes so very worthwhile all the work the wardens and Bishop's Committee do to maintain this space: replacing the roof, keeping the heat on, sweeping and mopping and vacuuming, cleaning the carpets and the furniture, securing the premises, keeping things in good repair. All these nitty gritty, mundane tasks without which none of our efforts to find and share More Love could ever happen here.

And there are the smaller things: 

• A temperamental copy machine, computers, phones, electricity, heat, cleaning supplies, light bulbs.
• And a part-time staff: a parish administrator to make the service bulletins, answer the phone, run to the bank, manage the paperwork 
• A music director to gather our dulcet tones during liturgy each week 
• A sexton to help keep the space clean 
• And, of course. yours truly (thanks for helping me support my family)

When we talk about More Love, we're talking about all these nitty gritty things. This is how More Love happens, becomes real. 

It's our fundraising season. Over the next few weeks we’ll each be discerning how we will participate financially in the life and work of this amazing parish. In a couple of weeks, we will each be asked to fill out a card stating the amount we plan to contribute over the coming year. This information will make it possible for our Bishop’s Committee to create a budget and plan the year ahead.

Please pray about this, so that your decision is grounded not just in running the numbers in your checkbook, but in a deeper place, in your heart and what you believe, the values you cherish, the kind of person you want to be.

Our tradition invites us to tithe, and it’s a worthy goal for all of us. This means giving away 10% of our income. You can give part of that 10% to the church and the rest to other good works.

You may decide that you’re not able to tithe this year. No worries, give what you can. No pledge is too small. I’m thinking of the African proverb: “If you think you're too small to make a difference, you haven't spent a night with a mosquito.”

Be as generous as you can, even if you sometimes feel like a mosquito.

Be like the crazy shepherd and the compulsive-obsessive woman in today’s gospel, driven for a desire for wholeness, a greater fullness. Let your financial discernment be grounded in your heart’s deepest desire for more love.

Banquet Strategies (The Rev. Dr. Richard Smith; Proper 17, Year C; September 1, 2013)

If I ever decide to do drag, I want to be like Dorothy Parker. She was an American writer known for her clever and scathing wit. Once she was attempting to go through a doorway at the same time as the glamorous socialite and playwright Clare Boothe Luce. Words were exchanged. Clare Boothe Luce stepped back for Dorothy and said, “Age before beauty.” Dorothy Parker replied; "Age before beauty? You mean pearls before swine." Then she swooped through the door.

Gotta hold on to our place in the social hierarchy, the food chain of money and status and looking cool.

In today's gospel reading, Jesus is invited to a banquet and notices how the guests are jockeying for the best seats at the table, the best positions in the social hierarchy. What he offers them is something like a New Yorker cartoon, a parody of their own self-serving strategies to gain a higher status.

Flannery O'Connor, the Southern, Christian writer, was once asked why her characters were so grotesque. She replied that you had to paint large, grotesque figures for the blind to see. She said we are largely blind to the assumptions that we live by and that drive our behavior. She fashioned grotesque characters and violent plots to wake us up to who we are and what we are truly concerned with. Her stories shock, but they also reveal. She was doing in her stories what Jesus does in this gospel passage today.

Like Flannery O'Connor, Jesus is holding up a mirror to the folks at the party, exposing the self-serving way their minds work.

And he offers them a ludicrous, non-starter of a strategy for gaining the edge on everyone else at the party. He suggests playing humble in the hope of winning big for all to see. Don’t head for the best place at table, take the lowest one, pretend to be humble, and then the host will reward you by inviting you up higher.

It’s a questionable strategy, and you’d have to be pretty obsessed with your own advancement in the food chain to even try it.

You could lose big time. Instead of inviting you higher, the host could end up saying, "Well, I see you've found your rightful place." Or you could end up enjoying the riff-raff at the lower end of the table so much that, when the host does invite you higher, you decline because you're having so much fun.

So Jesus' strategy is a questionable one, and if the guests entertain it even for a moment, they are exposed, busted for the status whores that they are. It suddenly becomes clear that what is driving them is their own insatiable drive for status.

In exposing them in this way, Jesus is inviting them to something deeper, something more real. To find their dignity, their deepest joy, not in their place on the food chain, but somewhere else.

When we  know we’re infinitely loved by the Creator of the Universe it really doesn’t matter where we sit at somebody’s dinner party. Or if we even invited. There is great freedom in not having to worry about those things. We find that our dignity doesn't depend on that stuff, but on something deeper, on our being loved and cherished by God. And that is something no one can take from us.

Our hearts are centered somewhere else, our treasure lies somewhere else. Maybe this is what St. Paul meant when he wrote:

But whatever gain I had, I count as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

These are the words of a man who has really found something, something more important than where he happens to be in the social hierarchy and in the eyes of others.

In addition to advice for the guests, Jesus has some advice for his host:

When you give a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

He’s calling out the “I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine” approach to dinner parties . He’s revealing that this host’s guest list is not just about the host’s extravagant generosity, but about reinforcing the social hierarchy and ensuring his own place in it.

Once again, he is holding up a mirror so the host can see himself and the game of social posturing and hypocrisy he’s caught up in.

This past week we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. King’s life-changing “I Have a Dream” speech. Maybe today’s parable sheds light on what we Americans celebrated there...

What if America was a banquet, and at this banquet the servings were fair wages, just trials, civil rights and liberties, but only certain people were invited? According to those who “March(ed) on Washington,” this was exactly the case. Blacks were simply not invited to that feast and they have had to struggle to receive the same opportunities as whites, the same level of respect, and equal rights.

Blacks’ experience of slavery, the most recent verdict in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman situation, and the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act--these things show the struggle persists because our corporate and political leaders go to great lengths to keep the social hierarchy intact, to tightly control the guest list to the banquet, to keep a place of privilege for whites.

White privilege. The writer Tim Wise, who happens to be white, gives a few examples of it from various studies, including some from the Justice Department.

• Job applicants with white sounding names are 50% more likely to receive a call-back for a job interview than applicants with black-sounding names, even when all job-related qualifications and credentials are the same. 
• White men with a criminal record are more likely to get a call-back for an interview than black men who don’t have one, even when all the qualifications, demeanor, and communication styles are the same. 
• White women are far more likely than black women to be hired by temp agencies, even when the black women have more experience and are more qualified.
• In the housing market, there are about two million cases of race-based discrimination against people of color every year in the US. That’s not just bad for folks of color; the flipside is that there are, as a result, millions more places I can live as a white person. White privilege.
• Or consider criminal justice. Although whites are equally or more likely than blacks or Latinos to use drugs, people of color (blacks and Latinos mostly) comprise about 90 percent of the persons incarcerated for drug possession.
• And although white men are more likely to be caught with drugs in our cars (if we are even searched), black men remain about four times more likely to be searched in the first place.
• And as the war drums start to beat yet again, it is black and Latino kids, their moms and dads and families, that will pay the heaviest price.

That’s privilege for the dominant group. It is far from Dr. King’s dream that we remembered this last week, that we not be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character.

Jesus seemed to feel more comfortable at a different kind of banquet than the kind he was invited to in today’s gospel, the kind we seem to have in this country. He loved to have dinner with whores and tax collectors and known public sinners. And as a devout Jew he looked for the day when all people of every tribe and nation would feast in the kingdom of God, where everyone would have a place, no one would be excluded.

And, like Jesus, we look with hope to that day, too, and re-commit ourselves to bringing it about, and celebrate it, as it were, in advance, every time we gather at this table, where everyone has a place and no one is excluded.

The Call of Jeremiah (The Reverend Deacon Jackie Cherry)

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
These are the words God speaks to the young Jeremiah. This passage, known as “The Call of Jeremiah,” is often read at ordinations and confirmations. I’ve always been skeptical when I hear someone talk about their calling; “God is calling me to…” – fill in blank. Calling me to work with the homeless, calling me to take a new job, calling me to vegetarianism. It seems like a convenient way to do the very thing your heart desires while putting the blame on someone who isn’t around.
But, I have to wonder, what are the criteria of an authentic call? What gives me the right to think that God has called me by name to my ministry? An authentic call originates from the outside; not from within. As Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me.” That phrase as well as, “Thus says the Lord,” is repeated over and over again by the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures. Sometimes a call is auditory and visual. And sometimes, as Jeremiah describes, it’s physical, “Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth.” But always, it is definitive with the prophet repeating the precise words spoken by God, words that compel them to action.
An authentic call pushes us outside of our comfort zone, often to be the messenger of uninvited news. God said, “I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah resisted arguing that he is only a boy and therefore not equipped to be a prophet. God offers reassurance and promises to deliver him. Then God commissions Jeremiah to pluck up and to pull down, destroy and overthrow, and build and plant kingdoms and nations.
I was called by God…but my call was nothing like Jeremiah’s. It happened about ten years ago, I was asleep, alone, in my house. “Jackie,” I heard a voice say so clearly that it woke me up. Again, “Jackie,” and I sat straight up in bed and looked around to see who was calling my name. Nobody was there. Then I heard these words clearly and distinctly: “Don’t be ashamed of your Christianity.” This phrase, “Don’t be ashamed of your Christianity,” was repeated aloud three times with such clarity that even today it is like a recording embedded in my memory. That call was an awakening for me; I understood the words.
Our dear friend Liz Specht coined the term “Secret Deacon” to describe a person who is a deacon at heart, but not ordained by the church. Liz considers herself a Secret Deacon. I wholeheartedly agree that she is the quintessential deacon; Liz Specht is a holy woman, one of the holiest people I know. Well, I thought the Secret Deacon model was a great idea – I could be a deacon and not have to go to school for three years or deal with the grueling ordination process.
The truth is, and this is what God called me on, the Secret Deacon plan was a way for me to remain closeted about my faith. I was a Christian for sure, but I didn’t talk about it much, and I certainly didn’t want my religion to shape my identity. Understand – it’s much easier to come out as gay than it is to come out as a Christian.
Most of us will probably never have the supernatural experience of being woken up from a sound sleep by a voice issuing a command. That’s just as well, because while some might consider it a blessing, there are others who believe hearing voices in the night is a sign of mental illness. There are a thousand books out there with instructions on how to be receptive to God. How to pray, meditate, practice mindfulness, all with the end goal of hearing God when he calls.
But being still and listening for the voice of God doesn’t always work. Sometimes God is silent. In fact, God is silent almost all of the time.
I’d like to suggest that suspending your life waiting to hear God’s call contradicts our Christian responsibility. Today, burning bushes are few and far between. Today, the prophet is moved instead by a burning conviction, perhaps by outrage at the social injustices that burden the people. Look at the example set by the bent-over woman – crippled for 18 years and unable to stand up straight, the unnamed woman refused to sit around and wait for God to come to her. Instead, she hobbled her way to God and made herself known to Jesus. Jesus did not call the bent-over woman until she had placed herself squarely in his line of vision. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
God the Creator is made known through Jesus, and sometimes, before we can hear a call, we have to stand up-on-our-own and make ourselves known to Jesus. Jesus doesn’t just set the bent-over woman free. By healing her on the Sabbath, he set the Sabbath day free too. He unbinds the spirits of the people in the synagogue to make room for the possibility of something new. The leaders of the synagogue were mad because Jesus had broken a long established, this-is-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it, rule that binds and burdens. And St. Luke said, The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things he was doing. 
Today’s prophets are not passive receptacles who recite God’s word verbatim. Today’s prophets actively see and then reflect on the issues in the world around them. This week we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his indelible I Have a Dream speech; a speech inspired by the Holy Scriptures. This is how King prayed:
“Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.”
And King’s dream for the world was no less than to create the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, the same vision Jesus has for us. Reverend Vincent Harding, a scholar and activist who worked with Dr. King, says the anniversary we celebrate is not the anniversary of a speech, but the anniversary of a very important point in history when black people were leading a movement to expand democracy, to deepen democracy, and to make democracy more faithful to its own sayings.
We must take note that after the speech, Dr. King continued his prophetic work in the world. He didn’t get down from podium, get down from the pulpit, in 1963 and say, "We’ve made the speech, we’ve made the march, we’ll see you in 50 years." King knew there was no time to wait around listening for a call. And he was right, this country continues to stagger under the weight of injustice; injustice that bends us over and prevents us from standing up straight: Voters’ rights, immigration, environmental, disparities between whites and blacks in education, employment and incarceration. Injustice so pervasive it could easily be crippling. Dr. King stood up to it all.
He had a vision, and as he proclaimed it his voice shook the earth: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Martin Luther King, Jr. never questioned whether or not his dream would come true. And when this happens, he said, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black and white, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old blessed spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! Amen.

St, Mary the Virgin (The Rev. Dr. Richard Smith)

On this special feast, I want to say a few things about Mary herself and then about the song she sings in today’s gospel.

She was a teenage Jewish girl from a fourth world country, a country under occupation by a foreign power. From what we know, she had dark skin and dark brown eyes and dark hair.

Some English translations say she was a handmaiden, which sounds nice, but the Greek word is doulos, which means slave or servant. She was a servant girl from a fourth world occupied country.

And her name was Mary, a Hebrew name with two meanings. The first meaning is bitterness. Like many of her fellow Jewish women from Miriam on down, Mary knew the bitterness that her own people experienced under the slavery and oppression of foreign nations, from Egypt to Babylon to Rome. Like them she struggled to keep hope alive in her people.

The second meaning of the name Mary is rebellion. Not the Mary meek and mild of Christmas cards, she is the one who rebels against anything that crushes the human spirit.

The story tells us that she was both a virgin and a mother, and over the centuries there have been many misguided efforts to see this in biological terms, leaving theologians and scientists with the impossible task of explaining how the mother of Jesus could also be a virgin. But if it is possible to set aside the biological conundrum and to think of this in symbolic terms, then maybe the image of Mary as both virgin and mother can teach us something, something about ourselves, something about life.

On the one hand, symbolically speaking, as a virgin, she stands apart, detached from the world, her own person, with a clear sense of herself, her own likes and dislikes, her own preferences and dreams and goals. This is the symbol of the virgin.

On the other hand, as a mother Mary is deeply connected not only to her child but also to her family and people, to the world. This is the symbol of Mary as mother, one who is deeply connected to others.

And it is in this creative tension between being virgin and being mother, between being her own unique person even as she gives herself completely to others, that she lives her life, not leaning too far to one side or the other, holding both poles in a creative tension as all of us must do.

Because we too must be both virgins and mothers in the symbolic sense--honoring and maintaining our own individual uniqueness, at the same time as we give ourselves to others.

If you lean too far in simply preserving and enhancing your own self, you become isolated, never take the risk of loving others, becoming closed in on yourself.

On the other hand, if you give yourself for others without honoring who you are, the unique person God has made you with all your limitations and gifts, without the proper self-care, then you can burn out, lose your zest, lose your joy.

The art is in holding both poles in a creative tension, being symbolically both virgins and mothers.

And in today's gospel, this Jewish servant girl named Mary, a virgin who is about to become both virgin and mother, sings a song, which begins with the words “My soul makes the Lord mighty” We should take those words at face value: that God becomes bigger, magnified, by this woman's unique soul. The unique shape of her own life over time will make God more God than before.

And what is that shape of her life? The words of her song suggest that she is not like the one that was mistakenly portrayed centuries later as though she had a romantic connection with God, like that between lovers or spouses.

No, her personal communion with God connects with social change. Her longing for God points to social transformation, a revolutionary restructuring of society that turns the values of this world upside down.

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

Her words anticipate the crazy upside down program that Jesus will later proclaim: That the first shall be last and the last first. If you want to be great, then you must become a servant. If you want to save your life, you must lay it down. Blessed are the poor, but woe to those who are rich.

A turning of the world as we know it upside down. A revolutionary message this song of Mary.

But notice that this great work of social transformation that she sings about is first and foremost God’s work. It is about God’s amazing work that Mary is singing.

God has shown strength with his arm;

God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

God has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

Having glimpsed what God has already been up to in the world, Mary aligns herself with that great work, working shoulder to shoulder with God to restore the dignity of those who have been crushed and broken.

It is what we try to do here at St. John’s. We try to look at the world around us with prayerful and discerning hearts, trying to catch a glimpse of what God is already doing. And then we go out to join God in that great work, whether it is bringing water to Nicaraguan villages, or working for immigration reform, or volunteering at the Julian Pantry, or doing all the various ministries we each do through the week.

By approaching our work this way, we don’t have to worry about cleaning up the world, imposing our will on recalcitrant situations. No need to fight for our way, our social and political agenda, and leaving havoc in our wake. We can chill, not take ourselves too seriously.

Because our own work is not about us. It begins with discernment, with prayerful attentiveness to the movement of God in the world around us, and we then humbly join God in that great effort, each of us in our own unique way.

A familiar prayer often attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero shows this kind of discernment, the perspective of Mary’s song, so let me close with this.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the Church's mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

Teach Us to Pray (The Rev. Richard Smith, Ph.D.)

The Lord's Prayer has been drilled into many of us from the time we were kids. These words form a kind of all-purpose prayer.

We say them when we are happy or sad, waiting for a child to be born or an elder to die, when we hear of a plane crash or watch a sunset or walk alone in the woods or gather with others for the Eucharist. In so many different moments, these familiar words are on our lips.

And they can become part of the arsenal of rituals and routines that give structure and solace to our lives--like good night kisses, or a tried and true jogging route, or that favorite recipe we can make without thinking, that practically makes itself. These soothing routines and rituals give us comfort and security. They are necessary for life.

But as many spiritual writers point out, there can be a danger of rattling the words off mindlessly, without attending to what we are saying. The trick, they tell us, is not to abandon the old formulas we have inherited--whether they be the Lord's Prayer or any of the other rituals and prayers of our tradition, but rather to inhabit them in a mindful way. The task is to enter into the consciousness they express and make it our own.

Usually this requires conscious effort and focus, but other times it just happens that the full weight of these familiar words can come crashing in on us.

A story. Years ago I was a chaplain in a big-city hospital on Chicago's south side. A young man was in the ER in critical condition from a gunshot wound. I was with his mother through what became a very long night, sitting with her, sometimes praying with her.

Along the way she taught me about praying as Jesus in today's gospel says we should pray: with persistence.

When she first arrived, the prayer that emerged from her initial hysteria and trauma was clear and straightforward: Please, God, don't let my son die. He's all I have. You can't let him die.

Now and then a doctor would emerge from the emergency room assuring us they were doing everything they could. But the signs were not encouraging.

She began to bargain: God, if you let him live I will start going back to church and maybe help in the soup kitchen. Please, don't let my son die.

The night wore on. Still no encouraging news. Her prayer shifted, becoming one of rage: You're supposed to be a loving god. And you're supposed to be all-powerful, so you can do this, you can make this miracle happen if you want to. My son does not deserve to suffer and die. If you let him die, I will hate you, God, forever.

The night turned into morning. She became exhausted with fear and sadness and rage.

But then around 4am, something else began to happen in her prayer. Her anger was softening, her prayer slowly becoming something like this : God, I know you love my son, and you love me too. I don't know whether my son will live or not. and I certainly don't know what I will do if he dies. but I trust your love for both of us. Even though I don't understand, I trust you.

A prayer of trust.

It was somewhere around this time I suggested we say the Lord's Prayer. So we did.
“Our Father, who art in heaven...” So far so good.

“Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.” At this point she's still OK. But then...

“Thy will be done on earth.” She couldn't go any further. She began sobbing uncontrollably.

Maybe for the first time in her life those words came crashing down on her, with all their terror and pain and rage, their trust and mercy and love. So many things rolled into those powerful, all-too-familiar words.

This woman had done what Jesus in today's gospel invites us to do: She had persisted in her prayer.

And the path of this amazing woman echoes Jesus' own path. On the night before he died, when he thought ahead to the loss of all his friends, the extreme physical pain, the rejection by society and his execution on a cross-- the scriptures say he sweated blood. He pleaded with God to let that cup pass him by.

It didn't happen, no miracle would rescue him from death. The next day, he would hang from the cross, barely able to life his head, and would cry out My God, why have you forsaken me?

But then, as with the woman I just mentioned, something else happened, a shift in Jesus' own prayer, a move into a different phase: He would say Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. In the end, an act of trust and complete confidence.

I am completely broken and all my friends have abandoned me now. I don't understand where you are right now, God, or why this has happened. But I know you love me and are with me, and I trust you. Into your hands I commend my spirit.

Like the woman I mentioned, Jesus had persisted in prayer, moving through all the terror and pain, arriving finally at trust.

As I was sitting with that woman at the hospital, I could see the dawn beginning to break, and it was time for me to leave and another chaplain to take my place. I had a plane to catch and would be gone for several weeks.

When I did get back to Chicago, I asked around the hospital about this woman and her son, but no one seemed to know what became of them. To this day I don't know if her son lived or not.

But to this day, I am still amazed at her faith and what she taught me on that long night as she persisted in prayer: through the hysteria and bargaining and rage to, finally, that deep conviction that God would be there with her and her son no matter what happened.

So my take-away from today's gospel is simply this: Keep on praying. In whatever words you have, familiar or otherwise, or completely wordless. Just keep praying.

And if the little voice that is inside all of us says, "But I don't believe. I don't believe," don't worry. Just keep praying anyway. Be persistent in your prayer.

As one spiritual writer says, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief" is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.”

The Good Samaritan (The Rev. Richard Smith, Ph.D.)

When I heard about yesterday's verdict in the Trayvon Martin case, I was on my way to see Fruitvale Station, a film about the tragic shooting four years ago in Oakland of another unarmed young black man. Another story about both the deep racism and violence in our society.
On my way to the theater, I got a text message inviting me to join other clergy from around the country in an emergency conference call. Ninety clergy dialed in.
All of us were outraged. Some feared what might happen to their own teenaged sons and young men in their congregations who are just like Trayvon. Would the same thing happen to their kids as happened to him?
You remember his story. One rainy night, Trayvon, a 17 year-old kid with a sweet tooth, decided to throw on an over-sized hoody and run to buy Skittles and iced-tea. His mere presence in a community caused him to be shot in the chest and killed.
Trayvon and other young black and Latino men are often misperceived by everyday Americans and the media as violent, dangerous, and as the "other". These racist lies about them are consciously perpetrated. These lies have left us, especially us white Americans, unwilling and unable to see their humanity, value them, and care about their lives.
And to the degree that this is true, we have sadly lost touch with our own hearts, our deepest loves and values and beliefs. We have become flatlined.
Today's gospel about the good Samaritan is about what can happen inside these hearts of ours
A lawyer, who is out of touch with his own heart, initiates a conversation with Jesus. He's not really seeking an answer, a deeper truth, but is testing Jesus' knowledge of scripture and the law by asking a tough question: What must I do to inherit eternal life?
This is not a question about how one gets to heaven. It's about is the meaning of life, the whole matter and purpose of life itself.
Jesus answers with another question. What does it say in the scriptures? How do you read it?
And, of course the lawyer knows all the right words: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And Jesus says, “That's it. That's what life is all about. It's about love. You have given the right answer. Do this, and you will live."
DO this! DO it. This is the key. You gotta move out of your head and live and act out of your heart in order to be fully alive.
The lawyer is not ready to make this shift from head to heart. He'd like to keep it a matter of abstract theological jousting. So he asks Jesus an abstract question: And who is my neighbor?
He wants to do some legal wrangling about boundaries and obligations, what the law requires, who qualifies to be my neighbor in the legal sense.
And as he so often does, Jesus responds not with abstract reasoning as the lawyer would like, but with a story.
A priest and a levite see a robbed and beaten man along the road. They move to the other side of the street.
Like the lawyer, they've lost touch with their hearts. Like him, they might have been weighing their legal obligations, an inner debate about what they were required to do, and what they were excused from doing.

• If they touched a dead or bleeding body, they would become impure.
  
• If the man was not a Jew, they were under no obligation to help him.
  

With this inner debate going on, they can't see the suffering human being in front of them. For them it's all legal fine print. Like the lawyer, they can recite the double commandment, but they can't do it.
In contrast to the priest and the levite, when the Samaritan sees the beaten man, he does not draw back; in fact he draws closer, and, as Luke says, he is "moved with compassion.”
The Greek word Luke uses for compassion here is esplanchnisthe. It's an interesting word.
The splanchna are the guts. To be moved with compassion is no matter of abstract reasoning. No, in this case you feel something in your guts.
Luke uses this verb on two other occasions:

• When Jesus sees a mother processing to bury her son
  
• and in the story of the prodigal son it is the father’s response when he sees his lost son returning home.
  

Esplanchnisthe. The Samaritan is connected to his heart. He sees another human being in need and he does not engage in inner debate about the law. No, he is moved, and out of that feeling of compassion he goes to work: bandages the man, pours oil and wine on his wounds, puts him on his own animal, brings him to an inn, nurses him, and gives money to the innkeeper for his care. Not a moment for legal and theological debate. It's time for action.
Could the Trayvon Martin verdict finally be our moment for action:

• working for sensible gun laws
  
• and for sentencing reform and other measures to keep black and latino kids from filling up our jails
  
• working to create more educational and employment opportunities so they have a fighting chance.
  

We gotta get out of our heads. We can't just talk about this. It's time for action.
There are times when it all seems clear to us religious folks. Like the lawyer, we know in our bones what must be done. We see the law so simply drawn: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Ah, but the living of it, the action, that is the rub.
To the extent that we cannot act with courage, we are flatlined, like the priest and the levite. We have lost touch with our own hearts. It's what our scriptures call sin.
At the end of the gospel passage, the lawyer's question, who is my neighbor, has been answered. He has moved beyond recitation and debate about the law. Through this story, Jesus has given him a concrete understanding of how to love God and neighbor, a preparation for action.
There is only one thing left for him and for each of us--the most important thing, the thing of courage--and that is to go and do likewise.

And that is up to us.