The Persistent Widow (The Rev. Dr. Richard Smith; Proper 24, Year C; October 20, 2013)

When I was a kid, this parable seemed to confirm my worst suspicions about God: that he was like a stingy judge who is both unjust and cranky. If I asked him for what I legitimately needed, he was not disposed to grant it. So I had to storm heaven with my prayers, keep praying until finally I managed to manipulate him and wear him down.

This is not what Jesus is getting at. Rather, this is a story about the connection between prayer and justice.

It is about a widow seeking justice from a judge. The judge is both unjust and intractable. As a widow in her day she is by definition without a voice. Without a husband, she lacks the resources to attain justice. The deck is stacked against her. She is at the mercy of this unjust judge.

But she doesn't give up until, finally, the judge relents

How does this happen? What keeps her going?

Since she has no resources of her own in this seemingly unwinnable battle, the implication is she has help. Her persistence and energy come from a source outside her, they are grounded in something deeper.

Jesus suggests she is a woman of continuous prayer. Her prayer connects her with the source of boundless energy that wears down injustice. This prayer is what sustains her in this fight despite the odds against her. Persisting in prayer and persisting in the work for justice are two sides of the same coin.

If I were writing this parable today, I would tell the story of Marisol, a woman I know who is working hard for immigration reform. She is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, a mother of three daughters. Several years ago, she and her husband started a small business together, and over the years they have worked very hard to support their family.

One day, Marisol was slated for deportation--a deportation that was both unjust and illegal.

Marisol is a woman who prays. Constantly.

From her prayer and that of her family and fellow parishioners and friends, she found a boundless passion for justice--justice not only for herself, but for the millions of other immigrants like her.

Out of that passion for justice, Marisol, like the widow, kept crying out to the unjust immigration officials "Grant us justice".  And  she did so without losing heart, even though the forces she was up against were as intractable as the unjust judge in today's gospel.

Praying persistently and working for justice persistently are two sides of the same coin.

This is what happens when you pray--you get flooded with an outrage at the pain and injustice in the world around you, and even though the odds are against you, you--like Marisol, and like the widow in today’s gospel--become determined to make things different; you don’t give up even when the deck is stacked against you.

You may recall the story Martin Luther King used to tell at the height of the civil rights movement. They were picketing a business that refused to serve blacks. The day wore on, with no sign of a breakthrough, and it was very hot.

Toward the end of the day Martin noticed an old woman shuffling along holding her sign, chanting and singing with the rest of them.  She had been one of the first to arrive and had been picketing all day. He said to her, “Mama, aren’t you tired? Aren’t you just tired?” She replied, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.”

She was obviously a woman who prayed, and because of her constant prayer, despite all the odds against her, despite the hot sun and her own tired feet, her soul was rested. She did not lose hope. She had the energy to keep walking.

This is what we do when we pray: We tap into that deep down well of faith and hope that sustains life. It gives us the passion and purpose to keep walking.

The best image I know of for prayer involves our patron saint, John the Evangelist. Many scripture scholars say that he is the one referred to in John's gospel as the beloved disciple. In Jesus darkest moment as he hangs from the cross, and after all the other apostles have fled, John is the only man who stands firm, stands bravely with the women at the foot of the cross.

He is the one who, at the last supper, lays his head on Jesus' chest, next to his heart, and from there he looks out at the world. Such a powerful image!

This is what prayer is, whether we do it with rosary beads or scriptures or the Book of Common Prayer, in a quiet corner of your apartment or on the way to catch the bus. Prayer is that moment when we, like John, rest next to the heart of Jesus, bringing our hearts into rhythm with his, feeling what he feels--what makes him happy, what makes him sad, what makes him angry, what makes him laugh. Becoming in tune with the heart of Jesus.

And from that moment and that place, we look out at the world, seeing it all as Jesus does, noticing what he notices, understanding the things and people and events around us in the way that he does, with the same compassion, the same delight, the same anger, the same hope, the same passion for justice.

That's what it means to pray--it means being like our patron, St. John, in that moment at the last supper resting on the heart of Jesus, praying persistently until our hearts are in tune with his, and then stepping out into the world to be his hands and his feet and his heart in the world around us.

TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST PR 23C October 13, 2013 The Rev’d Dr. John H. Eastwood

Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.
In the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. Ps. 111:1

This text lends itself well to what we do today.  In recent weeks we have taken up the important task of fund raising because it is the one important way we have as a congregation to share together in the life of Christ and to welcome others into that spiritual life.  We have attempted to emphasize several things: making an annual pledge,  discerning how much you will give through that pledge, and the vision we have to fulfill the mission of St John’s.  We also acknowledge that financial support is important, but, so is the time we volunteer here, and the particular talents we have - time, talent, and money,  the traditional framework of support for mission.

When we bring our offering to God’s altar today we take up not only bread and wine of the Eucharist, but our offerings and also our pledges for the coming year. Each of these are symbols of our thanksgiving for the new life we receive here in community.

  I noticed that The Feast of St. Luke falls on Friday this week.  We remember St Luke the apostle as the patron saint of the Church’s healing ministry which is an important part of the mission we support.  To heal is to make whole, and we believe that God is concerned about our social and political wellness as well as our physical wellness.  As we have heard last week, that mission of healing can take place right here in our church, or in our organizing on the steps of
Well Fargo, or in the state’s immigration legislation, or in the clean water wells of Nicaragua.
That brings us to our readings in which we find the theme of healing with a special emphasis: the healing of the outsider. In the story of Naaman the commander who is healed by the prophet Elisha, he is a Syrian and an outsider to Israel. He is told to go bathe in the Jordan river, but he believes his own streams of water in his country are just as good as the Jordan in Israel.  However, he yields to the prophet and learns that God’s inclusive healing power goes beyond geography and culture. In the gospel story of the ten lepers, while all ten were healed, God’s inclusive healing power is manifested in the case of the tenth leper, a Samaritan prostrating at the feet of the stranger,  Jesus the Galilean of Israel.

To anyone who has experienced or appreciates the experience of being an outsider, these are stories that really reverberate.  To anyone like myself and each of you, who has more than a curiosity about knowing the welcoming love of God that brings you home into God’s arms of embrace, these stories will strongly resonate within you. If you are an outsider you know how it feels to not belong, you have a special sensitivity and openness to others who don’t feel they belong. The cause of concern can be social, political, or one’s state of health. No more pertinent and poignant, than, are these stories about victims of leprosy.

In the bible, leprosy is a physical and social disease.  It not only endangers your health but it also causes isolation, loss of community and deep fear and prejudice.  The book of Leviticus spends two whole chapters teaching how to diagnose skin diseases, how to pronounce lepers ritually unclean, and how to perform rites of purification if healing occurs.   We read in
Leviticus these admonishing words,  “The one who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and cry ‘unclean, unclean’. He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; and he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp.”  Besides all the pain of having the disease, this dreadful affliction was considered an act of God, which besides it being contagious,  gave more  reason to why those with the disease were shunned.  In pain, isolated and lonely, living in camps set apart from the mainstream of life, lepers were feared by the rest of society, especially the religious community.

And so our tenth leper knows full well the pain of isolation. While the others being healed go off to the temple to do their duty and resume their normal lives, when he discovers he is healed, he turns back toward Jesus.  He let’s out a burst of praise and prostrates before the man he hardly knows, but senses something of the divine in him. I don’t know about this for certain, but I can imagine that if you begin your life being born in a stable because the sign said “No room in the inn” that might give a person some sensitivity to what it means to be an outsider.

Plainly, he worships, Jesus, which is not what a Samaritan or a Jew would do.  The Samaritans worship God on Mt. Gerizim, the Jews, including the nine who were healed, worship in the temple.  It is no matter that he didn’t follow the rules and do as he was told.  He was a leper and a foreigner, a double loser; now he is thanking God as if somehow God were present in this man Jesus, whom he hardly knew.  But, he was one of the unclean who could see what the others could not see, and what he saw was new life and he wasn’t going to be
separated again from that.   That’s why the tenth leper makes me more than just a bit curious. I wonder what he has to teach us.

As I reflected on this story this week, many images came to mind. I thought about my childhood and how I learned about who the outsiders were - in school and in the neighborhood I grew up in. The outsider didn’t fit in, didn’t conform to expectations, or didn’t follow the rules.  But I never questioned who was setting the rules.  I thought of healing stories in the bible where being an “outsider” was characteristic of those who came to the prophets or Jesus for healing, and how through God they had found a new life.  And then I thought about my ministry in the church and how we were always working at being welcoming to the stranger who was looking for a spiritual home, or at least needed for a time the strength and comfort of a community in which there were some who were much acquainted with being on the outside.  I remembered street people, visitors from another state or country, people who needed had just experienced some personal loss or trauma, people of all sorts and conditions. The ministry of healing to those who at any time in their lives feel on the outside, is Jesus’ ministry to the tenth leper.

Our calling at St John’s which we support today, this month, every month, year in and year out, is to be a warm, welcoming place to which an an outsider, could bring his or her deepest needs for belonging and find God in community. That just happens to be what this place, and you, the St John’s community, means to me, and I would think to each one of us.  We know this because the passion and the prayers of people’s deepest longings for God stick like glue to
these wall.  Just think of people you know here, or used to be or will be here, from years back and to years to come. They are part of the fabric of this place.  That is why the tenth leper should make us more than just a bit curious.  AMEN

Jesus and the Heavily Burdened (Feast of St. Francis, 2013; The Rev. Dr. Richard Smith)

It is our fundraising season here at St. John's. Today you will receive your pledge cards. We’ll invite you to fill them out over the coming week, listing what you plan to give in the coming year, and then return the card next Sunday. These will enable the Bishop's Committee to put together the budget for the coming year.

I don't think there's ever been a time when a parish like ours is more needed--to speak the truths of gay people and many others to the larger church, to provide shelter and a place of rest to each other and to many people beyond our walls. I’ll say more about these things in a minute, but first a word about today’s gospel.

Jesus’ teachings weren't going over so well, especially among the religious leaders. He’d been talking about how the kingdom of heaven transforms human hearts and societies, but they weren't buying it.

Instead of lamenting this, Jesus praises God who is at work in this situation. “I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants…”

The wise and the intelligent are the religious leaders. They know all about the 613 dictates of the law. They “tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law”, like justice and love and compassion; “they strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” They like everything that can be seen: greetings in the marketplace, first places at table, long robes, the outside of the cup. What they do best is lay heavy burdens on people’s shoulders, judging and condemning them, all the while coming up with reasons to justify the fact that their own hearts have become flatlined.

They remind me of what the novelist Graham Greene once wrote about the church: “The Church knows all the rules. But it doesn't know what goes on in a single human heart.”

Those rules can be endless and petty; they crush the human spirit rather than nurture it. They cause people to lose zest and pleasure in life, to lose heart.

Not many people could follow all their petty rules and scripts. Many in those days may have wanted to fully participate in worship, for example, but they couldn’t follow all the purity rules needed to do it.

For example, shepherds were judged unclean most of the time, because they dealt with birth, disease, and death among their flocks and did not have the luxury of performing all the washing rituals. Anyone diseased, lame, blind, or disabled was also ritually impure. Lepers, tax collectors, and sinners were shunned for their impurity.

These are the “heavily burdened” Jesus is referring to in today’s gospel: the ones who, try as they might, can never succeed at conforming to all the religious laws and cultural scripts.

All of which brings me to the first reason why a parish like St. John’s can be so important.

As many of you know, my own heart is “heavily burdened” right now, as I know many of yours are, because of the objections that have been raised to my being officially installed as vicar and the charges recently filed against me in the church courts.

I still haven’t seen the charges or the evidence being used to support them, so I admit that my perspective is still somewhat limited. But I suspect this is part of a larger culture war.

A few people have peered into the culture of somewhat typical gay men like me, misread what they have seen there, and made moral judgements and condemnations that are simply unfair. In this case, the “typical gay man” would be me. But it could be any one of a million others--and not just gay men, but also many women and many straight people. This is not just about me.

Since the cultural upheavals of the sixties, many of our lives no longer fit the old scripts. As I see it, we do, in fact, share many of the values of our grandparents, but we live those values differently. Our relationships are hopefully as strong and faithful and loving as theirs--but ours don’t always look the same as theirs.

Unfortunately, this is not always understood by people looking into our culture from outside. Maybe it’s understandable that they misread us. This often happens when people of one culture peer into another. But the judgements and condemnations that arise from that misreading are often wrong and unfair. From what I know so far, I believe that is true in this case.

Let me think out loud for a moment. Rather than lamenting this current situation and feeling victimized by it, what if we try Jesus’ approach in today’s gospel: Give thanks to the Lord of heaven and earth who is at work in this moment.

Maybe there is grace here. For example, maybe this is a moment for “typical gay dudes” like me to say our word, talk a little more about our lives and love and the powerful values we live by. It’s a message the larger church might benefit from hearing. Just saying.

Maybe this is one reason that a community like St. John’s can be so important at this time in history. Our church and our larger culture have come a long way on gay issues, but the present situation may indicate that we still have work to do.

Could it be that, in this moment, our community in particular is being called to an important ministry of dialogue with our larger Diocese and church? This is a question. I’m just wondering about these things...

Back to the gospel for a moment. To those who are weary and heavily burdened, Jesus says, "Come to me, and I will give you rest."

But it's a certain kind of rest. He's not calling for shorter work weeks and better vacation benefits. He's offering the sabbath rest, the rest of the seventh day after God created heaven and earth, and he looked on all he had created and said “It is good”, and he rested.

Rest happens when our true nature is realized, when we live in harmony with ourselves, our neighbor, nature, and God.

This is the kind of rest many weary people like us have found in this crazy character we call Jesus, the one who knows each of us fully and loves us completely. That love transforms us, expands our hearts for even more love and life and joy--so that we can become, like Jesus, a place of rest for each other.

Our community has a history of doing precisely this.

In the early days of the AIDS crisis, when many gay men were being disowned by their families, kicked out of their churches, and fired from their jobs, many came here to St. John’s. They found in this community a home and a place of rest, where they could be themselves, die a little less alone, with a little more peace. They were heavily burdened and we became a place of rest for them. Many of them chose to be buried in our garden. You can see their names in the narthex. In those days, when so many of us were heavily burdened, we became for each other a place of rest.

That story continues today. In our story sharing earlier this year, we learned some of the things that are currently keeping many of us awake at night. Most often mentioned was aging, our own and that of those we care for.  The second was violence in our neighborhoods and City.

To help us address these important issues, we recently joined the San Francisco Organizing Project (SFOP), a coalition of faith communities, many of whom share our concerns about these issues.

Working with SFOP, several of us will soon be giving input to the Human Rights Commission as they form their own recommendations on this topic.  Shortly after that, I expect that people from our community will be sitting down with Members of the Board of Supervisors and staff from the Mayor's Office to tell them how it is for us as we grow older in this city, what we need to stay healthy, have a decent place to live, be secure.

Stay tuned for more information about those upcoming meetings and events. Our community can make a big difference here, not just for ourselves, but for many others.

We also said during our story sharing that we were heavily burdened by all the violence around us. This affects not just us, but many others, including far too many young people in this neighborhood who are swept up into the gangs when they're just 11 or 12 years old. Too many of them have been shot and killed, and too many sent to prison. I've talked to some of their moms, shed more than a few years with them.

In response to this violence, beginning Wednesday, October 16th, clergy and people of faith from the Mission will be regularly walking as a group along our streets that have seen the most violence. In a low-key way, we’ll be letting our neighbors, especially our young people, know that we want the violence to stop, that we want them to be both alive and free.

In other places where similar walks are underway--in Oakland and Richmond--the homicides along their routes have dropped by as much as 30%. We hope these walks will make a similar difference here, protecting our kids and keeping us all safer. Again, this is another thing that has emerged from our story sharing a few months back.

These are a few of the things we do to provide shelter and a place of rest to each other. There are ways we also make a difference, provide a shelter, a place of rest, for many beyond our walls.

We continue working for immigration reform, trying to bring rest to immigrant families now living in fear of being torn apart by unjust immigration laws. Through Mission Graduates, we help kids stay in school--kids who might otherwise get discouraged and drop out. Through El Porvenir we help villages in Nicaragua get clean water for their families. Through the  Julian Pantry we help people in our neighborhood and City get food.

Should I add that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence took a shine to us when they held one of their successful bingos here?

The story keeps unfolding...

Several weeks ago, I was invited to meet with a group of Latina transgendered women in our neighborhood. Many of them had fled their own countries seeking a place of rest and shelter here in the US. I went to their gathering place on 16th Street, and while I was waiting for the meeting to start, I was looking at a large wall with a huge gallery of photos of transgendered women. In the middle of all these photos was a large picture of our Lady of Guadalupe surrounded by votive candles and small Christmas tree lights. I assumed the photos were of famous transgendered women, or perhaps former officers of their organization.

Then I learned that these were photos of women who had been killed right here in our neighborhood in the last several years. This was a wall of remembrance. Many of these women's deaths went unreported and were not investigated because everyone was afraid to go to the police station to fill out the reports--afraid of being harassed by the officers themselves, or of being deported if they happened to be undocumented.

A couple of weeks after that meeting, about sixty of these women gathered here at St. John's to share their stories and to discuss ways to make things better. They loved being here. They felt safe here.

Now discussions are underway with them and with the Human Rights Commission to have our church become officially designated as a safe space, not only for them, but for other vulnerable and heavily burdened groups in our neighborhood. With personnel and resources provided by the City, people like these women will be able to come here, rather than the police station, to fill out police reports, to learn about their rights, and about the resources and services available to them. A newly emerging chance for us to be the hands and heart and feet of Jesus, giving rest to a group that is heavily burdened.

And all these things we try to do begin and end right here each Sunday at this table where we gather as a people, tell the story of Jesus in words and music and gestures, and break the bread.

At the center of it all is an overpowering love for this amazing person we call Jesus. It is as his followers that we do these things. It’s because of him that all these things make sense.

It’s at this table that we most fully remember the kind of community we have been and are and hope to become.

Today you will receive your pledge card, and we ask you to return it next Sunday so the Bishop’s Committee can start planning next year’s budget. Please prayerfully consider how much you can contribute financially to help us be this kind of community. Please be as generous as you can.

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.