On the Lips of Eve: Psalm 139

There isn’t a word on my tongue Lord that you don’t already know completely. 

It can be interesting to imagine Psalm 139 coming from the lips of Moses, or Eve, or Job. It actually sounds very much like Job, This psalm with its harmonic notes and painting in similar hues as the book of Job. What we hear today is the cosmic sweetheart song. The verses that were ‘edited for content’, those verses skipped in the middle are a different key: an even earthier intimacy, and, straight-up vengeful anger. ‘If only, you God, would kill the wicked, These people talk about you, but only for wicked schemes’. Whatever the situation that led to the elaborate artistry of this psalm, it bears a strong suggestion of persecution may be due to such wholehearted devotion to God. Yes, I can imagine the whole psalm on the lips of Job. 

Then there are the other verses we skipped, Earthy, feminine ones that invite me to imagine Psalm 139 on the tongue of Eve. God is certainly so close, right there walking in the garden in that primordial time before time. I can imagine Eve being furious at the forces that oppose God, It only takes a bit of coloring outside the lines, and outside the garden. However, she comes to mind more for phrases such as: God knitting us in our mother’s wombs, and other subtle playful references to the creation stories, both hers, and the seven-day refrain of it was good, it was good. And speaking of coloring outside the lines, there are also in this whole psalm some illusions to creation stories of other ancient religions. 

Yet what really connects Eve with this psalm in my imagination is the repeating of the word know. Seven times in the whole psalm. Know as in the source of the phrase biblical knowledge. It doesn’t always mean that, but it does always convey the kind of relationship you might have if you shared a garden with God. 

Psalms are high art, carefully crafted art - so that even if you have never felt such closeness with God something in the poetry delights you, causes you to lean in, hum that tune for just a moment. This psalm in particular is a decentering poem of big faith, perhaps bigger than you feel sometimes. Could you give voice to this psalm in prayer for someone in your life, someone who needs to know they are not alone, that they are beloved, someone who is so caught in the heap that they cannot even express such feelings? 

Psalms are art, but they are not silly. They are likely rooted in real experience. All the experiences of life: the orientation, disorientation, and reorientation of this continuing COVID-tide moment are known in the Psalms. They are ready to pray words we didn’t know we needed, singing refrains we know by heart but forget to sing. This song, this psalm, was deep knowing truth: true for someone like Eve, and like Job, and for Teresa of Calcutta and Martin Luther King, Jr. and you and me. What makes scripture scripture it has a way of knowing our truths and birthing our imaginations that are already but also not yet. 

There isn’t a word on our tongues that God doesn’t already know.

RCL A Track 1 Proper 11: Psalm and Gospel

Christ Church, Ridley Park, PA

Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania

July 14/19, 2020

Seeds are Never Wasted

Mustard is a seed. At least when we usually encounter it. Most of the mustard plants grown on this planet are not grown for their greens which are edible and medicinal, but for their seeds. Seeds that get ground up and emulsified and some of you put that stuff everywhere. And then, what about sunflower seeds? Potent packages of nutrition and flavor. Ever notice how nobody worries when sunflower seeds get snacked on instead of planted? 

The parable of the sower is the opening of the sequence of parables that Jesus offers about what the reign of God is like. Reign of God is why we don’t just do whatever we want. The kingdom of heaven is what this all means in the end. 

The thing about the metaphorical storytelling of parables is that the outside is simple, the inside is profound. You are not supposed to eat the shell of the sunflower seed: it is a valuable container, but not the point. The prize requires breaking open the shell. When we break open the shells of Jesus' parables about the reign of God we notice four commonalities: 

• that the reign of God is already present, 
• it is all over the place, 
• it is revealed in unexpected simplicity, 
• and it demands our commitment in the middle of evil opposition. 

If we read this parable from an assumption that the one with the most full granaries wins, then we are perhaps eating the shell and missing the tasty food. Because the one with the most toys wins is not the way God's creation works. A seed is no less valuable because it doesn't become a sprout or plant. The reign of God is as ever-present as seeds - which are everywhere. Sometimes seeds sprout and make huge blossoms.  TBTG. And many seeds make our plates tastier: ever notice how many spices are seeds? And plenty of seeds get eaten by birds: and God seems to like birds! God keeps tinkering with that design endlessly - so seeds that feed something God loves is not a waste. And then, sometimes, seeds go back to dust and God makes use of that potency all over again. Alleluia. 

Our reading today isn’t just a simple parable. It is also an interpretation of a parable, An interpretation that seems to be digging into frustration and disappointment. I've been thinking about the seeds of ideas and dreams that Christ Church had been fiddling with back in January. I have been wondering about the sparks of hope that I doodled in February. And how many of those seeds and doodles could have been amazing, and I grieve that we are not able to live into them. But the ideas - those seeds they weren't wasted. The nurture, the spice, the divine initiative, it lives on in new forms that we might not recognize yet.

2020 is not what we expected and certainly not what we wished. We have lost so many lives, 133,000 at this moment. It is wretched and we have much to lament, but I also believe we can act and pray and speak for living the love we are capable of. Jesus is working through our soils and seeds toward the reign of God, Planting in us what is needed for right now, and for what comes next. The reign is already (and also not yet), it is sown everywhere, it is surprising, and it demands our duty.  God is the sower.  We are seeds.

July 7/12, 2020

RCL A - Track 1; Psalm and Gospel Only

Christ Church, Ridley Park

Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania

Children, Wisdom, and the Marketplace

I always imagined a fountain. I imagine these young people playing around a fountain in the middle of this marketplace. What's in my imagination isn't a plaza in Jesus's day but something mid-twentieth century, maybe a little like a scene from Roman Holiday. I guess I imagine a fountain because of the connection with John the baptizer. Or maybe it's a place from my mid-70s West German childhood. The children I imagine playing certainly look like my friends, they sing the songs we would have sung and tell the stories we would tell. We all come to scripture with a lifetime of memories and art that fill in the space between the text.  What do you see and hear?

If you look beyond this imagined fountain in this marketplace, Jesus and some of his companions have come to get some fruit, some bread, whatever. Jesus and his friends run into some of curious opponents who are so intrigued or bothered by Jesus's holiness and teaching. So bugged that they just can't let him be.  In the background, these children could be singing what we would think of as a nursery rhyme, or it could be the equivalent of a pop song. They were not quoting Aristotle or uttering proverbs, however, Jesus raises their presence up to eye level. 

Childhood is a modern ideal. Of course, there have always been children, but the sweet darling vision of innocence that we might assume when we hear of children isn’t what Jesus’ hearers assume. Generally, people loved their children, the gospels themselves witness to such wholehearted familial love. However, the cultural norm, especially in the wider Hellenistic world, considered children in general to be on par with squirrels or stray dogs. Germy and in the way, a drain on resources until they could contribute, unfocused: plenty of the same critiques we might make today when we are quite frustrated with our children.  In this ancient situation the repeated New Testament use of children as a positive analogy for the way of discipleship - it would have gotten your attention because it sounded somewhat insulting. And here where children are raised up as carriers of sacred truth and wisdom, is stepping way outside the status quo. 

In 2012 a boy named Robbie was stuck at home, or maybe he was in the hospital again. When you have a brittle bone disease some times of immobility are just par for the course. So to keep him busy his older brother-in-law started a video project with him. It was a silly little delight intended just for themselves, a video of what a "Kid President" might have to say to anyone who would listen. Things like: if you can’t think of anything nice to say you aren’t thinking hard enough. And: give people high fives for just getting out of bed. Being a person is hard sometimes. It was a playfulness but he managed to same some things that apparently we need to hear.  The internet is our modern marketplace and that child, he uttered pep talks that went viral. 

One of the things that's changed since Jesus's day is sometimes we are more willing to hear the truth from a child than a peer. Especially a child with a muppet-like laugh and a sly smile. I believe a big part of the reason for this change in the embrace of childhood is because of Jesus himself. His very Incarnation, his humble birth to struggling parents in a backwater town: it changed how we see all children and our duty to them. We don’t inherit our world from our parents, we borrow it from our children. How should that truth, in the light of Jesus, shape our choices? What are they saying that we should hear? 

The scene we just witnessed in the marketplace has Jesus responding to his detractors saying, we just can’t win with you, because you are not even listening.  These children get something you don't.  He is also subtly repeating the fragility of his own life, the threat that he was under. The commentary regarding he and John, some of those bad reviews are punishable by death. Jesus whistles a tune of his own fragility in this life for being so transparent to God.

The very image of God's heart, Jesus doesn’t show up to issue report cards or reject the way we are made. He comes alongside our play fountains and our dark valleys. He sings along and welcomes us: the gluttons and challengers and the last and the least and the lost. He comes to love us all so wholeheartedly, to sing along with us so naturally, that our tune falls in line with his. 

Do you hear his song, and won't you sing along?

June 30/July 5, 2020

RCL- A Proper 9 (Psalm and Gospel only, Track 1)

Christ Church, Ridley Park, PA

Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania

Take Us By the Hand: God and Robots

Wall-E is the last functioning junk compacting robot on Earth. Perhaps you remember the lead character in the Pixar animated film of the same name. Humanity has trashed the planet, those that survive have flown away on an infinite interstellar cruise. That space pod of humanity has sent a robot back to Earth to search for signs of life. EVE is the slick advanced technology life detective Who arrives on Earth, And clunky, dirty, duct-taped together Wall-E is immediately entranced, even though she is distant, tightly-wound, and frustrated. Wall-E’s fascination with EVE is perhaps an illustration of the way some of us ordinary people feel when we meet someone of significant famousness or attractiveness or polish.

There are many ways in which our lessons today could connect to that film Wall-E, which if you haven't seen it you really should. What truly brought it to mind however is the full meaning of the word that we heard translated as welcome. We heard it seven times in three sentences. It can mean learning, to grant access, to not refuse friendship, and it can also mean to take with the hand. Wall-E has no other instinct than to receive this stranger, to show her his home to offer her his treasures.  And time and time again he tries to take her ‘hand’. She doesn’t understand the gesture, her arms and hands are held tightly, but again and again, Wall-E never gives up on welcoming EVE by taking her hand. 

Many of the Gospel stories that we know the outline of by heart are variances on the command of these few sentences. Most of the times that Jesus is at table are an embodied expression of just such an open invitation. The wonders of the loaves and fishes, the Samaritan woman at the well, the children in the courtyard. Just as Jesus tells us today seven times to accept him, this call to grant full access to his life and death and Resurrection - is repeated and repeated all over the New Testament, like it is God’s favorite movie. He's not just asking us to welcome the smooth and slick or the carbon copies of ourselves, but also the prophets those who speak truth to power, those who cast visions of who we need to embody God's Reign.  Jesus calls us to welcome, receive, to take by the hand the prophets of moral revival. 

We've been through the first three months of learning to extend our hands to one another in less literal ways. In the name of Jesus we've been practicing our discipleship #togetherapart. And for the most part, we will keep doing that. And yet this week for the first time in as many months we have the chance to take with our hands the sacrament of unity with each other, and unity with God in Christ. To take the bread that is a recommitment to our baptismal promises into our very selves. Those of us who gather will be receiving not only for ourselves but for all who for their own well being are choosing not to gather in person. We are together in the mystery of the sacraments, together in the mission of healing and reconciliation, and the commitment to be the concrete shape of Jesus in our neighborhoods in welcoming ways. 

Our Gospel lesson today even though it is prevalent, it has not always been the dominant practice of the whole church. If you have ever felt left behind on a trashed planet, if you've ever been treated like you are grime-y or outdated or too other, I am sorry and on behalf of the church in which I am a priest, I declare that we are sorry, that God loves you, wants to take all of us by the hand, and show us his true way. Jesus shows us over and over that we are to welcome you, just as God made you. 

One of the meanings of the Greek word that is translated today as welcome is learn. Interesting to think of how welcome and learn are connected. What we are learning and welcoming in this era of figuring out what it means that church is more than a building or a club? Church is a people-on-a-mission word. The church is a duty and a responsibility to welcome and learn the best practices for the common good … at the minimum. And in the middle of the curve is to welcome into our lives the life changing vulnerability Of letting Jesus take us by the hand. God is smitten with all of us, and like Wall-E is trying over and over to take us by the hand. 

Stay safe as possible, and at the same time, trust in God's mercy, love, and act on his command to welcome the last and the first, the slick and the clunky, the expected and the revelation. Welcome, learn, embody Jesus, he is trying to take us all by the hand.

June 23 and 28 2020

Christ Church, Ridley Park

Proper 8, RCL-A Track 1, Psalm and Gospel

Fresh Fruits of the Spirit - 2020

Pentecost is finally here.  The celebration of the Spirit of God, the focus on the third person of the Trinity in whom we might have a stronger sense of living and moving and having our being; or you may also not know what in the world folks are talking about when they say they feel the Spirit move.  This Covidtide has demanded from us some fresh fruits of the Spirit. Here is my list.  What other fresh fruits of the spirit might you include for this time?

If you scroll a long long way you might find last year's fruits.  A few of these have changed, not because they are not fruits of the Spirit (maybe) but because they don't suit the best practices of now, or, take much more of a conversation to agree on. 

Whatever fruits you are seeing, or missing, I pray that the Spirit of God is with you this day, bringing you comfort, energy and courage.

Never Normal Anyways

I haven’t been comfortable with the word normal for a long time, And now I really don’t know what to do with it. I like bumper stickers that say 'normal is boring'. Or posters that say 'weird is a side effect of awesome'. I verbally dance around the word normal, often choosing conventional instead. Even the most conventional of my close friends are not very ‘normal’, and some might consider the adjective an insult. For most of my life the use of the word normal has been on a downward trend in books, but months into this upsetting era of pandemic and red zones, normal seems to be one of the most wished-for ideas, a word used like it is magic. Even some of the most funky folks I know are embracing nostalgia while naming our loneliness and losses and grief in one word: normal.

You might have noticed that I am making choices about our lessons to shorten the time of the service. Some of you may feel like we have all the time in the world, but I trust that there is good experience behind the time segments of the broadcast industry. More importantly, however, is looking ahead to being able to offer a modified and strictly organized and as safe as possible option of in-person communion services: which will need to be quite brief. So early this week I glanced at the readings and I saw the words Noah and baptism, and without really reading and chose 1 Peter (over the Acts of the Apostles lesson with Paul at th Aeropagus). 

It feels like a Great Flood kind of time, but it also doesn’t. Everything is storms of information and loss. We are a zoo’s worth of emotions inside of us and a rainbow of external experiences right now. But outside the world looks, normal. Grass keeps growing and bunnies chase, and there isn’t a disaster like a watery flood at our doors. Except that there is - and isn’t as obvious as a torrent. So the discord between the view outside of boring, and the feelings from our tossed hearts and grieving minds - the incongruence is making our seasick feeling even worse. So we cling to the wishes and balmy magic of the word normal. 

The first letter of Peter. It is a weird text. It is a beautiful Greek, which raises some logical curiosities. It makes arguments and advocates for ideas that are coloring outside the lines of what became normal in Christian doctrine. In our bulletin our lesson today is two paragraphs. The commentary was five pages long in a big book! The Noah connection with baptism is classic and almost unexamined, but the analogy here is odd if you think about it too much. The power isn’t in the details, but in the almost Jungian imagery. The whole letter is trying to work out what it means to be outside of normal, to be a resident alien, to face slander and lies, and not retaliate. How do we keep our whole lives aligned with Jesus’ commands to love as we are loved, when we feel so far from safe? 

1 Peter is pastoring at a distance and despite its detailed complexities and out of stepness, the focus is very potent to us right now: how do we hold fast to Jesus’ promises? How do we practice the common good in this bizarre storm of suffering and confusion and grief and distancing and denial - under sunny skies? Furthermore, this paragraph urges us to not idolize the previous norms. For the original audience, this meant whatever was found in the local idol practices. These previous ways only feed the denial of our deep anxiety and discomfort. The commendation here is that it is Jesus’ servant leadership that is our strength in this chaos. His death and resurrection are the victory over confusion and evil. 

At the top of this lesson is the directive: do what is right - follow the commands of Jesus - especially when it is hard. In this, we will find blessing, not saccrine escapism or numb glee - but Christ's peace, which is connected centered gladness. This promise has held true for a long time, it has been tested before and found to be verifiable. It can meet this era of grief and weirdness. Follow the directions of Jesus. Love. Serve. Adapt. 

We have been baptized into Christ’s life, and death, and resurrection. We are people who have promised to move beyond our comfort zone and brave the strange and the unknown. Jesus is with us in learning unexpected new ways to strive for wholeness and peace. Yes - we feel strange because we are stuck in an ark when the rains have stopped. It isn’t normal. Much of what we thought was normal might lay in our wake: and it will be ultimately alright, if not in the way we had expected. We can lament all that we left behind and lean lovingly into the adaptations of today and tomorrow. The Spirit is with us in this. Advocating for the best of us, and brooding over these and chaotic waters with divine love and energy. 

This time is difficult - and the message of 1 Peter for us today is that our places of pain are the places of grace where we learn anew how fiercely we are held by God.  This is where we learn that we are not finished, we are not alone, that we are still changing, and the church is too. Maybe weird is the new normal. And just maybe, weird has always been normal for disciples of Jesus Christ.

CCRP

DioPA

Easter 6 RCL A

Broadcast on Facebook Live @christchurchatridleypark

Acts of the Pioneers

In this part of the US (SE Pennsylvania) things get named revolutionary, colonial, patriot, liberty. I lived for many years in Oregon and Washington and out there a lot of the same kind of things get named pioneer (also Lewis and Clark).  There are of course historical reasons for that difference. Today we heard a small slice from the text named Acts of the Apostles. Which is a creative storytelling of the memories of a pioneer movement in a revolutionary time in the life of the world.

Acts of the Apostles is full of action tremendous highs and devastating lows as it explores the revolutionary impact of Jesus's resurrection. It is much more about pioneers than it's about revolution, but then it's probably fair to say that most pioneers a revolutionary. It also wrestles with theodicy: Why is there evil in a good creation? Specifically what happens when the good news of the Jesus movement encounters hard-heartedness, enemies, Evil, and destruction. If this good news changes everything for good, then why are witnesses like Stephen martyred by their kinsman?

You may have noticed, that the primary time we hear from Acts of the Apostles is in Easter season when it displaces our usual Old Testament reading. This is of note with today’s lesson because it is the Christian relationship with the Hebrew scriptures that Stephen is talking about when he gets in trouble. He is one of the first deacons, he was called to take the good news out into the world both in word and in the distribution of food. He is also as far as we know the first Christian martyr. From our brief lesson, You may be left wondering why was Stephen stoned to death? (The lesson doesn't tell.)

Earlier in the Acts of the Apostles, we were told that Stephen is full of the Holy Spirit, and he defends the word of God with wisdom. Stephen is a Greek name and it seems that he was a person who is hereditarily Jewish but born and raised in the diaspora - scattered communities elsewhere in the Mediterranean region. He may have come back to Jerusalem to be closer to its roots, and it is there that he encounters I presume, Jesus himself, and becomes a disciple of this one who he believes is the Messiah. Most Jewish people in that ancient spread out diaspora had learned how to practice their faith far removed from access to the Temple. Stephen's argument is building on this - connecting the pre-temple era with the divine presence of Jesus. 

He celebrating the ways of worship in the wilderness with Moses with the Spirit moving through the tent with flexibility and mobility. He says this tent life with God this is the same as the new creation they have encountered in Jesus the Messiah the Christ. A temple built by human hands isn't necessary he argues. God's activity is not bound by place or by time and God's judgment of humanity is based on are our obedience to God’s commands to safeguard the last the least and the lost. Some prophets have advocated similar things (and may have died for their prophetic speech), this isn’t a new idea, but also not coloring inside the lines. And the response of the authorities and his not-Jesus-following brethren is outrage and fear and panic and anger, so much that it becomes a mob which stones and kills Stephen. 

It is this death which strikes such fear in his community that many of them leave Jerusalem they had to escape to the north and began what becomes the pioneer story of the Jesus movement. This devastating blow moves us into a life-giving, liberating mission to all. Acts of the Apostles is not a victory performance. It's a marathon with celebrations and devastation and loving-kindness and confusion and righteousness and amazing growth. I think the lesson from Acts of the Apostles for us right now at this time is that the grief and the joys will come like waves as we ride through different 'landscapes', or new 'weather systems'. These changes are going to be a part of our life on this journey. This is a pioneer time, it is like a trek all the way across North America, not by plane or train, but by horse and wooden wheels. It will be long and complicated. 

Looking ahead to this truth and way of life is important. The death toll should scare us It should throw our hearts to the ground. It should put our masks on and keep us at home as much as possible. It should call us to be in prayer and study more, to empower us to demonstrate the love of Jesus in the shadows of injustice. This storm of grief is real and we shouldn’t pretend it is sunshine. However, in the same moment, I hope we feel the tender mothering wing of Christ around us. And then never forget to look way back and see how far we have come. We are resilient and we meet the challenges! The millenias of people that came before us have survived incredible difficulty and strangeness with almost none of the advantages we have.. and they figured it out. We have so much to be thankful for and we will create life together beyond this pandemic. Even when parts of what we loved in the past will be no longer. 

Remember - everything we know about God's creation is that it is constantly changing it has always been changing and with tears and in laughter, we can continue to listen and learn together-apart to serve forever with Christ. The witness of the Acts of the Apostles Is that we are called by the Spirit of God To not get stuck, to brave all the days with love and adaptation. This week may we know the wise faith of Saint Stephen, the candid courage of the revolutionaries and patient commitment of the pioneers.

CCRP

DioPA

Easter 5 RCL A