First Mass of Christmas, 2013, The Rev. Dr. Richard Smith

At this time of year, our scriptures and our tradition ascribe to Jesus so many great titles: Son of the Most High, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace, and many, many more.

And in light of tonight’s gospel, one other title comes to mind. It’s one I heard several years ago: Jesus, the Compassion of God. Jesus, the Compassion of God.

Years ago, when I was a grad student, I spent a summer traveling and studying in Peru. Along the way I visited a town high in the Andes Mountains called Yungay. It had once been a booming town surrounded by beautiful, high, snow-covered peaks on all sides. In the middle of town was a lovely plaza surrounded by palm trees, with a fountain in the center, the cathedral at one end. Each day, while the men were out working in the fields around the town, the women would come to the plaza to sell the things they had made at home--colorful and warm fabrics, and breads, and goat cheese--and together they would keep an eye all the little kids.

At one end of the town, at the top of a small hill, the people built a huge statue of Jesus, his arms outstretched over the town in blessing. He stands there strong and beautiful, poised and powerful.

In 1970, an enormous earthquake hit Yungay. Boulders from the mountaintops came crashing down at the speed of 250 miles per hour. There was no time to escape. Within a few minutes, almost the entire town was buried alive. Out of 20,000 people, only 92 survived. Of those who did survive, many suffered severe mental and emotional illnesses from the trauma.

On the day I visited Yungay, all I could see of the former town was the huge statue of Jesus. Because it was built at the top of a nearby hill, the crashing boulders simply bounced off the sides of the hill, leaving the statue untouched. So today, the beautiful, powerful statue of Jesus stands there with his arms outstretched over what has now become a mass grave. A sad and sobering thing to see.

I spoke with an old man from the town. When he was younger he had helped build that statue of Jesus up on the hill. He said, “We put Jesus up there to bless and protect our homes and our families and our kids. But when the earthquake came, all he did was protect himself.”

A man of simple faith, carrying an unbearable pain in his heart. I had no idea what to say to ease his pain.

His words stayed with me for several weeks. In fact, they became for me what the Buddhists might call a koan, a paradox that you simply can’t figure out through reason.

Then, a few months later, I read this evening’s gospel about a beautiful and poor young Jewish couple, pregnant and about to give birth, making their way to Bethlehem. No one would welcome them, so their child was born in a stable. This is how God enters the world, not with power and grandeur and magnificence, but vulnerable and fragile, like a small child, like the people of Yungay, like each one of us.

That’s when it finally occurred to me that the Jesus we meet in the gospels does not stand powerful and aloof on a serene mountaintop while everything falls apart below. He is at the bottom of the hill. He’s with the people of Yungay.

With those who were buried alive in the earthquake. He was buried alive with them.
He’s with those few who survived. He shares the trauma they went through.
And he continues, even after all these years, to struggle at their side, to rebuild their lives and their families and their beautiful village.

Jesus, the Compassion of God. This is the one our scriptures speak about:
Who doesn't cling to his divine power but becomes a fragile child, gazing up with unspeakable trust into the face of his mother;
Jesus, the Compassion of God, who later says, "Blessed are the poor, the gentle, those who mourn, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness;
The one who touches the lame, the crippled, and the blind;
Who speaks words of forgiveness and encouragement;
Who dies alone, rejected and despised;

Jesus at the bottom of the hill. Jesus, the Compassion of God.

In Jesus’ day there was a social grouping of people who felt wholly unacceptable, maybe like some of us here feel at times. The world had deemed them disgraceful and shameful. They took this toxic shame inside, internalized it, and became outcasts.

Jesus’ strategy with them is a simple one: He eats with them. Precisely to those paralyzed in this toxic shame, Jesus says, “I will eat with you.” He goes where love has not yet arrived, and by eating with these despised outcasts, and reminding them of their own loveliness, he renders them acceptable.

How do we explain this everlasting God becoming an immigrant, crossing the border into our history, our moments of love and laughter, our pleasures and delights, our pains and disappointments, the ups and downs of our days? How to explain this migration of God?

How to explain that we are freed by someone who became powerless, that we are lifted up and strengthened by someone who became weak, that we find new hope from someone who divested himself of all distinctions, and that we find a leader in someone who became a servant?

This downward movement of God runs so completely counter to the logic of the world, the logic of Wall Street and national defense programs, the logic that urges us to climb to the top at all costs, acquire more power, more money, more respect and fame.

How do we explain the logic behind the downward movement of God on this Holy Night?

The answer, of course, is simply Love. Love does such things. The One who loves us wants to be with us, through thick and thin, and so draws near, experiencing with us all that we go through, sharing our lot. Love does this.

And if we are to be followers of this Jesus, then we, too, go where he goes. Sometimes that might mean going to the bottom of the hill, to those places of fragility and weakness.

First of all, to those weakest places in our own hearts, in those places where we feel most broken, most insecure, most in agony and afraid.

Why there? Because there, our familiar ways of controlling our world are being stripped away. All the struggles perhaps of coming to terms with an addiction, healing a broken relationship, keeping hope alive when you’re without job, coming to terms with a scary medical diagnosis--in these moments we are often called to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency.

And in these moments, where we are weakest and most vulnerable, at the bottom of the hill, Jesus, the Compassion of God, comes to dwell with us, makes his home with us, brings comfort and hope, labors at our side to create a fuller, more abundant life.

We find this Jesus here in this parish family, with all our struggles and uncertainties and idiosyncrasies, where we gather week after week to break the bread and tell the stories--not only the Story of Jesus, but our own stories as well. Sometimes we just talk of cabbages and kings and the small, ordinary stuff of our lives. At other times we talk about things that keep us awake at night.

Here, with each other, perhaps to our surprise, we sometimes get a glimpse the face of Jesus, the Compassion of God.

And seeing him here in our own midst gives us the eyes to recognize him in other places as well, places we never would have imagined.
Several of us have gone on nightwalks along some of the more violent streets of our neighborhood, pausing at times to pray for those killed by gun violence and to call for peace.
Some of us have come here on Saturday mornings to the Julian Pantry to help with all the chores of food distribution and hospitality to people struggling to feed their families.
Many of us have literally stood with immigrants threatened with having their families torn apart by deportation, demanding with them a change in our nation’s unjust immigration laws.

The list goes on: working with El Porvenir to bring fresh water to poor villages in Nicaragua, standing silently for peace each Thursday noon at the Federal Building, working for a more secure and dignified future for our elders.

In each place and moment, in our own personal lives, the life of this faith community, and in the larger world, sometimes at the bottom of the hill…

and perhaps to our surprise, we discover
The fragile child born in a manger
The one the scriptures on this Holy Night call Emmanuel, God with us
Jesus, the Compassion of God.

Freedom, and Truth and Reconciliation, The Rev. Deacon Jackie Cherry, Advent 3, December 15, 2013

Last week, amid the memorials to Nelson Mandela, I was curious about how religious leaders

addressed his death from the pulpit. I read several, and even listened to a few, sermons from

Advent II. During this process, I began to feel hot and irritated. Usually, I feel this way in a

meeting or at some public event when something that I think should be said isn’t being said.

What the media, and the preachers, are saying about Mandela is true – he was a peacemaker,

freedom fighter, hero, reconciler, prophet. Mandela committed his life to human rights. In 1993

three years after his release from prison, Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with South

African president Frederik Willem de Klerk.

But what they are not saying is also true - the leaders of this country and many countries around

the world, considered Mandela a communist terrorist; he was reviled by some until the day he

walked out of jail, others reviled him until the day he died. Before he was imprisoned, the once

nonviolent Mandela shifted his political strategy after realizing the tragic truth that peaceful

resistance was not enough to overturn an entrenched and brutal government. Mandela was

offered freedom in exchange for publically denouncing the use of armed resistance. He refused.

Isaiah and John the Baptist present conflicting descriptions of the coming of Christ; the prophets

contradict themselves and one another. Isaiah presents a world transformed; a paradise where

waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. And the rough and rowdy John

calls his hearers to repentance holding a winnowing fork in one hand and the water of baptism

in the other.

As surely as John the Baptist proclaimed the coming of the Messiah last week, this week he sits

alone in his jail cell, death drawing near, overcome with doubt. John wants to know the truth and

sends his disciples to ask Jesus: Are you the one? Or shall we wait for another?

Like Isaiah and John the Baptist, Nelson Mandela proclaimed his vision of a new world. Unlike

John, who was killed in prison, Mandela lived to walk free. Mandela said, “To be free is not

merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that enhances the freedom of others.” And

that’s just what he did. The mainstream media is stuck on the image of Mandela as the peaceful

master of reconciliation. However, I’m not entirely sure Mandela himself would agree with this

representation.

Still annoyed by the narrow scope of commentary on Mandela’s life, I happened upon President

Obama’s memorial eulogy. With relief and gratitude, I heard the president say,

There are too many people who happily embrace Mandela’s legacy of racial

reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic

poverty and growing inequality. There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with

Mandela’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people.

And there are too many of us on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism

when our voices must be heard.

Obama continued,

It took a man like Mandela to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well, to show

that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is

not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion and

generosity and truth.

Reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with

inclusion and generosity and truth.

We Christians talk a lot about reconciliation, both in the worldwide church and here, in our

parish church. We say Jesus came to reconcile God and humanity. We have the sacrament of

Reconciliation of a Penitent. Bishops often heavy-handedly advocate for reconciliation – a thinly

veiled attempt to stifle conflict by avoiding unpleasant truths.

German theologian and Nazi resistance organizer Dietrich Bonhoeffer defined what he called

“cheap grace”. Cheap grace, Bonhoeffer wrote, is the grace we bestow on ourselves. It is the

preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance; it is grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

I’ve noticed that progressive Episcopalians tend to be uncomfortable with the concept of sin.

It’s a challenge for us to lovingly hold others and ourselves accountable for past and present

wrongful actions. We need desperately to find the middle way between ignoring sin altogether

and hitting people over the head with it. True reconciliation demands that we not shy away from

conflict.

After Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa, he appointed Archbishop

Desmond Tutu to lead the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In his 1998 book Struggling

to Forgive, Brian Frost wrote about Mandela and Tutu’s shared, yet differing, approach

to reconciliation and forgiveness. Mandela often believed that reconciliation concerned

letting "bygones be bygones," but Archbishop Tutu emphasized that reconciliation and

forgiveness require repentance and confession.

Tutu’s insistence on repentance sounds strikingly similar to John the Baptist’s message from

last Sunday: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near". In today’s gospel, Jesus

offers reassurance to John, and to us, that he is indeed the One about whom it is written,

‘I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'

I’d like to suggest that the familiar Advent theme of “prepare the way, make straight the path”

actually describes the process of reconciliation – a complex, three-part formula:

• Truth telling, or confession;

• A change of heart, or repentance;

• And an authentic effort to repair any damage done; restitution.

Confession, repentance and restitution make straight the path to justice. And reconciliation flows

from justice.

Today we are called to reflect, we are called to repent, we are called to open ourselves to God;

not just in this short season of Advent – God is forever ready to be born – but always.

When our cantor sings Come to us and set us free, we are not asking God to free us from

bondage, we are praying for the freedom that binds us in sure and certain hope that Jesus is

the one. May that bond free us to speak the truth; for my friends, bearers of truth, are bearers of

God.

Amen, come Lord Jesus.

First Sunday of Advent/World AIDS Day 2013, Gregg Cassin

Our day for remembering, for feelings and tears (liquid prayers) and incredible pride in our community's luminous love!

Here we are in the advent season and also honoring world AIDS Day. 33 years ago I had come to San Francisco to come to terms with my sexual orientation. I came at the suggestion of my spiritual director at Boston College who was a closeted gay man and a Jesuit. I was grappling with the question of whether I have a vocation for the priesthood. He nipped that in the bud and said if you are questioning your sexual orientation you ought to head out to San Francisco. This is the kind of spiritual direction every young gay Catholic guy needs! And that was exactly what I needed because my 1st relationship was one that would have an impact on me for the rest of my life. His name was Bill and he walked me through my self-doubt and self-hatred in a loving yet firm way. The message and theme of many of our conversations became the foundation and standard that I would attempt to live my life. The message was profoundly freeing and healing… “Gregg, this man Jesus that you love so much identified as the truth and the light. That living one's truth was so important that that's how Jesus identified himself. And the amazing responsibility that each of us has to be our unique light.” It was as if some switch had been turned for me. That I began to recognize that each one of us is this unique and profound gift. That each one of us has a responsibility to be our essential self. And that this journey of self acceptance and self love was a sacred journey. But what can seem like a selfish or egotistical goal is actually more humble than anything else. Because it is this faith and this trust that there is something precious about every single one of us. And that each one of us as we begin to honor and love who we are we recognize that we have a personal ministry, a life mission to be fully who we are and to give generously of this gift. That who you are is not only acceptable but indispensable.

So when you are 22 and newly aware of this amazing gift that you are to the world :-) It would be incredibly selfish not to share it! Even better, give it to your parents living peacefully on Long Island as their Christmas present! (Years later my mother would laughingly say "Timing is everything.") My little brown paper that I hold here is the torn grocery bag on which I wrote my notes which was my Christmas present to my parents. It talks of everything that I just said. My parents had been leaving to the mall to go Christmas shopping and I was sitting on the sofa watching TV and it hit me. I have come to tell Archie and Edith Bunker that their son is gay. I have a critical decision to make… Take a cab to JFK while they were out shopping or tell them that they're getting their Christmas present when they get back. Clearly I chose the latter. I went into the attic and grabbed baby pictures, first-grade pictures and my high school graduation picture. I wanted a reference point for my parents. I wanted something that reminded them… As they received this life-changing information, that I was still that beautiful little boy that they love so much. Is every gay person's worst nightmare–to lose the love of a family. My parents came home I share my story and looked into my father's eyes… My father the 6' 4'', 300 lb. construction worker “My gift to you this Christmas is to share with you that I am a gay man.” Silence. Then my father stood up and with a big sigh said “Come here”. And my dad leaned forward and enveloped me in a gigantic bearhug with his face pressed against the side of mine and whispered into my ear “Son, I love you so much. It must have been so hard all of these years. I wish you could've told us sooner.”

All this came in handy a few years later when given another challenge of acceptance and trust. In the mid-eighties I found out that I was HIV-positive and like for many of us, it was devastating news. It was not only terrifying but for a period of time I carried great shame, feeling like I was a pariah, diseased and unlovable. I searched for healing. Another powerful, life-changing moment for me was attending a workshop for people with AIDS. It was the simplest things that I found transformative. We really are healed by one another, that is why it is so important to hear one another's stories. One part of the workshop was just people taking turns standing up and telling the story. The only have a short period of time and it could be anything that they wanted to say. And I remember sitting in the front row and leaning forward and taking in every single story and thinking to myself “Oh my God, I love that guy''. And the next one “Oh my God, I love that guy.” And the next one, and the next one, and the next one,… And then I realized–they are all lovable, they are all worthy of love, they are all innocent. I must be too.

I realized what healing took place as we came together to be supportive of one another, finding comfort and inspiration in one another. By joining together we could 'find our way' even in the middle of this horrifying and devastating epidemic. Lots of people came, and a lot of people died. While preparing for this talk today I thought I would just start writing down a few names… And here are some of my losses.

I never had the courage to even consider writing until yesterday morning. So on this World AIDS Day,  I fill my mind and heart with some of my sweet ones whom I've loved so much and lost way too soon. But who left me with more than I thought one could be left with after so much loss.

PHILIP - friend, support, roommate, like a brother to me, no an older sister  a really strict one who calls you on your stuff, expects the best of you, walking through the Castro your face covered with lesions-the biggest on your nose, we sat in the middle of the restaurant I was prepared to be in a corner with you facing the wall "I want to face out." you said. I never was prouder of a friend, I hear your voice still requiring so much of me. And I can't forget the gift/miracle of holding your cold hand after you passed and in my other hand  your Mom and Dad's hands, remembering you saying the night before "Be the bridge for my parents, help them understand this is my 'healing' - And we did and it was.

XAVIER - lover - for 25 years you've come to me in so many dreams(one recently) and after every one of them I wake thinking you're alive "I'm going to Paris to find you"-then I remember, you are gone. You were so 100% unconditional- I swear if you were alive I'd ask you to grow old with me, I'm sorry I couldn't stay.

MICHAEL - my dear, dear quiet roommate whom I let down, I got terrified when you got sick, I'm so sorry, I asked you to move out. Seeing you alone in Mother Theresa's hospice and you held my hand smiling, "Who'd believe it would come to this?'' If I got a do-over you'd die in my big green chair in the living room surrounded by Melinda and Karen and the other guys and I'd be making soup in the kitchen-still in denial that you or any of you were really going to die.

LUIS -  BEAUTIFUL Luis! your profound love transformed Tom, and it lives on with him and Jim. I'll never forget you calling- just returned from a very hard Dr's appt, so sick, mouth and throat full of lesions and you spoke for about a half hour telling me how wonderful people are "Gregg, the nurse took my hand and held it so gently, she didn't have to do that." I was in tears the whole time I covered the phone thinking 'How could she not?'

JAMES - roommate, friend my beautiful sweet James welcoming my new partner & daughter David and Breauna here "Have them live here! I'll move out and live with Douglas!", and you did and WE DID! Thank You!

KEVAN - Breauna's first dad, never met you but I owe you. You gave the world- Breauna. No greater gift in my life. 1995 when it seemed every friend was dying, all hope was lost- into my life came Bree and David. No greater gifts. The luckiest day of my life. Thank you Kevan. .

MATTHEW - your generous incredibly broken heart. You forgave your mom who disowned you and sent back every birthday and christmas present you ever sent her. On your deathbed she took your call. Her loss was our gain.

MORRIS - like your best friend Matthew disowned by your parents. On your deathbed in the hospital your dad called. i begged you to talk with him. 'No thank you!'

DOUG - you sent me to that NY quack of a Dr 97 years old, eyes closed prescribing me something that i think was nail polish remover-and I drank it! Jeez!

DORIS - cried every time you told the story of your baby dying and laughed every time we watched the documentary you were in and the part where you shifted your weight and went 'Phrumph!! " Oh Lord Jesus, I'm going on a diet."

DAN Burlando - the toughest, most skeptical guy at group, scared the hell out of us, we were trying to heal and we knew nothing- Too sick to come to group we went to you, into the evening you said "Guys, this isn't BS, your love is really working, i haven't been able to eat solid food for a month and  I've just eaten 2 slices of pizza and french fries!' Courageously lived with those KS lesions, the biggest on your nose…Burlando you became 'Fernando the Bull' in the children's book and the bee on the tip of his nose was replaced a butterfly sticker, to cover that lesion. Loved hearing from Lois that you sent away for a box of monarch butterflies and released them in your loft.

CEYRA - were you 16,17,19? TOO YOUNG!  calling you 'Pickles' and 'Peaches' it kept changing. My goal- a smile on that face of yours. I never believed you'd die that young.

CAROL - it was breast cancer that took you but you were the one who we were 'booking to do our memorial services', each speaking gig you'd call and say a prayer and ended with "Well, we know God's no fool...you're the only man for the job Gregg, the only man for the job." It was crazy talk but it worked every time.

SCOTT F. - and then there was Scott,  Healing Circle you brought with you only joy, your last gift to me was joining your Mom and Larry anointing your body with holy water and oils, singing, praying, crying, dressing you in your orange sneakers & an orchid blossom, lifelong lover of orchids
you carried that one for years from city to city, it never bloomed and you never gave up on it… Larry called to tell me you died, "And" he said "that orchid bloomed! Come help us with Scott." And I did.  A few months after you memorial I was having a terrible time-too much loss. I needed some hope, a miracle…so I got out my monthly Day Book-each day had a poem, or prayer or a reading from something. What was the reading the day Scott died. Flipping through the pages I found your day.

"Silently a flower blooms,
 And silently it falls away;
 Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,
 The world of the flower, the whole of
 the world is blooming.
 This is the talk of the flower, the truth
 of the blossom:
 The glory of eternal life is fully shining here.

And it all came back - the possibility that miracles can sweep in effortlessly and by surprise–and take care of you. That we are not alone. And that it's not all up to us, that the burden does not rest on our shoulder's alone. That there is this loving presence that will send in caring, caring that you are unaware of needing. And as a result faith is restored. Faith in the possibility of grace.

Feast of Christ the King; the Rev. Dr. Jack Eastwood; November 24, 2013

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

This Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year, is commonly called the Feast of Christ the King. The gospel for each of the years in our three­year lectionary bears the same theme. Today it is St Luke’s turn to give us his witness to the kingship of Christ in his portrait of Calvary. All the gospel writers agree that Jesus did not die alone.   But only Luke includes the three crosses making the story much fuller and more complete.   It is all a concluding testimony to the significance of Jesus Christ for us and for our world before we embark once again on the Advent Season and the journey to Bethlehem.

From the moment of his birth, the child represented some new implication for all the kingdoms of our world. And that is played out here some thirty years later as Christ hangs from the cross, being mocked and derided, as the so called King of the Jews.  It was earlier that day that He had before Pilate saying: "My kingdom is not of this world."

Obviously Pilate hoped that Jesus meant that he was not concerned with this life, only with the life to come. After all, if Christ and his church are not really interested in questions of justice, or concerned with how people are treated and mistreated, threatened and abused, then the kings and kingdoms of this world really have nothing to fear ultimately. If Pilate can be assured that Christ's kingdom is not of this world and without serious concern for this world, then the status quo is not threatened, and the rule of intimidation goes on unchallenged.  "I find no fault with this man",  Pilate concluded, and in that conclusion, he became a victim of his own hopes for power and control.  And for that reason he misunderstood Jesus and his significance for us.

We must ask ourselves,  "Am I complacent about Jesus?"  "How does he challenge me?  Does the story of Jesus cause me to struggle with myself, with my hopes, and with my values?
Does his life empower me?  Or, have I fallen victim to my hopes for power and control and misunderstood Jesus?  How is Christ significant for me"

God’s sovereignty and the ways the people of the Bible resisted it is a major part of the biblical experience. The people of Israel struggle with God; Jonah runs away from God. Job argues with God.  Over and again stories of disobedience and incidents of rebellion with heroes like Moses, David, and Joseph and in the history of the nation of Israel testify that the sovereignty of God is not irresistible.  It is resisted all the time.

Yet however resistible it might be, God's sovereignty is nonetheless, invincible.   And that is because it comes from a love that will not let us go. For God to bear with us may break God's heart, but the one thing God cannot bear is to give us up. God can let himself be nailed to a cross and sealed in a tomb and still not be done for.  This is a strange sovereignty.  It is grace, not irresistible, but still and nonetheless invincible.  God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

"Grace to you and peace...from Jesus Christ...ruler of kings on earth".   AMEN

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.