Trinity Sunday Sermon - Year B

To be adopted by God, to know that we are loved unconditionally now and forever, to be born anew, that is the mysterious and glorious gift that I explore in this sermon for Trinity Sunday from 1997.

Trinity Sunday year B

Sermon given at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church

By the Rev. Valerie Hart

May 25, 1997

Romans 8:12-17 & John 3:1-16

         On Friday in the Chronicle there was an article about an 11 year old boy named Jason and his 12 year old sister Heather. Jason had had an abusive early childhood and been removed from his home. He and his sister had lived in eight different foster homes since they were preschoolers. They had struggled and suffered, but things are different now. They have been adopted. Their foster mother has now gotten through all the legal hurdles and has officially adopted them. They are orphans no longer, moved from home to home. As they engaged in a hug after she signed the paper, their new mother told them “I’m not leaving; you’re not leaving. For time and all eternity, you will be mine.”

         It is a new life for Jason and Heather

         They have a new home

         They have a new identity,

         New hope,

         A future filled with love.

         One could say that in a very real sense they have been born anew. It is a wonderfully inspiring story.

         We spend much of our lives like orphans, orphans going from place to place, thing to thing, relationship to relationship, searching for something. Each of us calls it something different, but we are all searching. Some search for power, or money, or purpose, or direction, or perhaps we call it love. We might say that there is something inside all of us that is searching for wholeness, to be complete. Often we can’t put a word to it, it is just a hollow inside, that even when everything is wonderful in our lives, we still feel incomplete.

         Like these poor foster children who bounced from house to house, searching for, hoping for permanence, for love, we search to be filled, to be satisfied. We may look for the answer in money, in work, in drugs or alcohol, even in relationships, but the search still comes up empt. Something is missing.

         Even in the very best marriage, it is still not perfect. No human being can love us totally, unconditionally. No human being can see our souls, not all of us, and still completely, without demands, without expectations, without judgment, just love us - warts and all.

And that is what we are longing for - to know that we are loved, totally, unconditionally, for eternity. To be loved without having to disguise, or change any aspect of ourselves.

         Nothing of the world can satisfy this ache, this hollow inside. Nothing of the world can satisfy it because this is a longing for connection with God. It is a longing to know and be really known by God. It is the longing to live in God’s love.

         Paul writes, “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” He also states that we have received “a spirit of adoption.”

         To be adopted by God - what an image. What a sense of connection and love.

         Is this what Jesus meant when he told Nicodemus that we must be “born from above”? Or as it is often translated to be “born again.” The Greek word has both meanings - from above and again - and Jesus probably desired the ambiguity of the double meaning, because in the same passage he plays with the word for wind and spirit, which is the same in Greek and Hebrew, and uses that pun to make important points about the nature of spirit. But I digress. Jesus said to Nicodemus that one must be born again. Now that’s a phrase that sure has been battered around a lot lately. But what does it mean? Nicodemus certainly couldn’t quite figure out what Jesus meant. To be born again, born from above, how can that be?

         Perhaps the reading from Paul helps us. To be born again- from above - may be to come to know that we have been adopted by God, for adoption is in many ways like being born again.  To know that we are adopted by God, that after all this struggle, all the abuse, all the dead ends, all the fears, we are God’s and God is our eternal parent. Like Jason we feel the security, the peace, the joy, when we can hear God say to us, “I’m not leaving; you’re not leaving. For time and all eternity, you will be mine.”

         How is it that God - the creator - can let us know that we are adopted children. How can this God who loves us totally and unconditionally, communicate to use that we are God’s for eternity. The way the Creator chose to do this is to send his son - the redeemer. The oft cited (especially at football games) John 3:16 which ends today’s reading states, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

         God so loved the world.

         God so loved each of us.

         God so loves us, so longs for us to know that we belong to him, that we are loved by him, that he sent his child to let us know that we are all God’s children.

         How then do we become adopted by God? Not by signing papers and getting the OK of a judge, but through the action of the Holy Spirit - the Sanctifier. Jesus says that we are born of water and Spirit. Paul says that we have received a spirit of adoption and that “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

         We are sanctified through the spirit.

         We are redeemed - reminded - by the son.

         We are created and loved by the father.

The Trinity - that divine mystery - that confusing theological concept - that inadequate description of the divine (as are all descriptions of the indescribable) - it is that which we name God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is that which passionately loves us - that which calls us to adoption - that which transforms us. It is that which says to us, “For time and all eternity, you will be mine.” because, you see, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Pentecost Sermon

On Pentecost we invite the Holy Spirit to be among us. Yet, we never know what the Spirit will bring, peace and comfort or power and transformation. Perhaps we need to be careful what we ask for.

Pentecost 1997

Sermon given at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church Brentwood

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

John 20:19-23

Acts 2: 1-11

         Come Holy Spirit, come, come like the fire and burn, come like the wind and blow. Take our eyes and see through them, take our ears and hear through them, take our mouths and speak through them, take our hearts and set them afire.

         Have you ever had to write something, maybe a paper for school or a report for work, and you just sit there in front of the paper, empty, tried, thinking you’ll never get that done, and all of a sudden, a thought enters your mind, seemingly out of nowhere, and soon you are off and writing, feeling energized, creative again.

         Or perhaps you have sat at a meeting where all you wanted to do was go to sleep. You know the feeling, bored, drowsy, the meeting is going nowhere and you have a hard time concentrating. And you can tell that the others around you feel the same way, even if they are suppressing their yawns. When, suddenly, someone comes up with a comment or idea that seems to set the place alive. Suddenly the tiredness is gone and the ideas begin flying. What seemed like a waste of time that you would do anything to leave, is now the place you most want to be.

         We’ve all known those flashes, those breakthrough of illumination, where suddenly the energy is there to make a difference. Sometimes we refer to it as inspiration - to be in the spirit - to breath in.

         Today, on Pentecost, we celebrate the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity. Today is also considered the birthday of the church. Before my sermon I invoked the presence of the Holy Spirit. At the baptism today we will ask for the Holy Spirit to come upon the child Jacob Rhys Cropper. But what are we talking about when we refer to the Holy Spirit?

         When I was growing up the third person of the trinity was referred to as the Holy Ghost. In my child’s mind I imaged it to looks something like Casper the friendly ghost. It was a white, see through kind of thing. But that is not at all how the Holy Spirit shows itself in the Bible.

         One image is of a dove, and we can see that dove represented on the back window, that descended upon Jesus when he was baptized. The other images are presented in the readings today. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit comes as wind and fire. It is also represented as breath in the Gospel as Jesus breathes upon the disciples. Breath, fire, wind, a dove. These are the images. But what do they represent. At first look they are very comforting, the gentle dove, the fire that warms us when we are cold, the gentle breeze that cools us, the breath of Christ. Who wouldn’t want the spirit to be present, to give us support and peace.

         But there is one thing we need to remember about the Holy Spirit - it is not domesticated. The Spirit blows where it wills. It can be a gentle breeze that fills us with comfort, or a tornado that turns our life upside down. - Just ask Dorothy when she finds herself transported from the gray of Kansas to the vivid colors of Oz. The Spirit can be a warming fire, and it can rage and burn bright and hard like the fire that purifies metal, burning away all our impurities. And if you have ever felt yourself in the refiner’s fire you know how uncomfortable that can be.

         And even the image of that gentle dove is deceptive. After Christ’s baptism, we are told that the spirit drove him into the desert for 40 days of fasting and temptations. I’m not sure I’d want that kind of gentleness.

         And finally we have the image of Jesus breathing onto the disciples. He tells them “receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” What a powerful, daring, incredible responsibility, and awesome power.

         The Holy Spirit is sometimes described as God’s action in the world. So what is this action like. First of all, when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives everything is turned upside down, everything is changed. We are no longer the same person we were before the spirit enters our life. Dorothy is a wonderful image for this. Her old life was destroyed by the tornado. She finds herself in a whole new world, a world full of wonder, and fear, and temptation, and hope. When we ask for the presence of the spirit, be ready to be transformed.

         Next we find that the action of the spirit is the beginning of a process, of a journey. Christ goes to the wilderness, the disciples go out of the room they are hiding in and begin to preach.

         When Dorothy finds herself in Oz she begins a journey, a journey that transforms her. She goes from being a weak and frightened girl, into the leader of a group of travelers who has the courage to confront the false wizard and demand gifts for her friends. And she also develops the wisdom to realized that she has, and always has had, the power to go where she most wants to be, to go home.

         The spirit transforms, purifies and empowers. Empowered to do what God calls us to do. Christ is empowered to follow his call to teach, and heal, and sacrifice himself. The disciples are empowered to forgive, to preach and to teach the good news.

         The Holy Spirit is God acting in the world, and when it comes upon us, it is to prepare and empower us to act. One must be very careful what one asks for.

         After my brain surgery, and the difficulties I went through for the first year, I was so grateful to be alive, to be enjoying my family, to be able to think and act, that I prayed in thanksgiving, “How can I serve?” I prayed this almost every day for several years, not having any idea what the answer to this prayer would be. Suddenly one day I felt the Spirit upon me, and felt I had received the answer to my prayer - I was to become a priest - it was something I had never even imagined. And it was the beginning of one of the most difficult and rewarding journeys of my life. I knew what I felt called to, but getting their involved dealing with the diocese, going to seminary, confronting many inner doubts and fears, learning things about myself that I would just as well have ignored. It was years of burning, purification, tempering of the instrument (and it still goes on), for a purpose. So I could be empowered. So I could act.

         Every experience of the Holy Spirit in the Bible is associated with empowerment, empowerment to action. When we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit we are called to action. Those of us who are baptized had the Holy Spirit invoked in our lives. Those of us who feel touched by the spirit of God’s love, have been touched by the spirit and are empowered to act, to make a difference, to tell others, to be God’s instruments on earth.

         The Holy Spirit is far from domesticated. It can and will turn your life upside down, sending you to place you have never imagined, testing refining and purifying you, and most importantly, empowering you. Empowering you to make a difference in the world.

         Come Holy Spirit, come, come like the fire and burn, come like the wind and blow. Take our eyes and see through them, take our ears and hear through them, take our mouths and speak through them, take our hearts and set them afire.

7 Easter

Transcribed from a sermon given on

May 20, 2012

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church Arroyo Grande

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

As I have spoken about before, every year we go through the whole history of Christianity. Now we have had Easter and the resurrection and celebrated the time when Christ was with his disciples and appearing to them after his resurrection. Last Thursday was Ascension Day, which in spite of the fact that it is not celebrated very often is actually one of the main liturgical holidays of the Christian calendar. It is sort of number four after Easter, Pentecost and Christmas.

Last Thursday we celebrated Ascension with a service up at Paso Robles with the bishop for the whole area. It was great. Our whole choir was there and Janis played the organ. I was talking to some of the other clergy beforehand and most said that they had never been to an Ascension service before. Since Ascension falls on Thursday, unless you are at a very large church, it doesn’t get celebrated.

We are right now, today, in an interesting spot of the church year. Jesus’ physical presence as the resurrected Christ is not longer with the disciples, he has been taken up into heaven, and yet the Holy Spirit on Pentecost has not yet come upon the disciples. So now represents that odd time of waiting waiting, wondering what’s next and how Christ is to be known into the world now. How do we see him? He was alive and then he was resurrected and now he’s gone. How is Christ known in the world?

The gospel reading today is a continuation of the prayer of Jesus during the last supper where he is praying for his disciples. Now when he is praying for his disciples it is not just those that are physically present then that his is praying for, it is for all of us who throughout time will be his disciples. That prayer is for us.

Because you see once Jesus was no longer physically present God’s presence, Christ’s presence, is made known in the world through us, through the disciples, through the people of God.

What Jesus prays is about relationship. He prays that the disciples may be one as he and the Father are one. Which also means that we would be one as Jesus and God are one. It is interesting this emphasis on relationship. And is part of why that wonderful confusing mystery called the Trinity is so important. It is all about relationship. That God’s very essence is a relationship among a unity that also has some separateness to it. A unity of three persons. There is only one God but it is in three persons, which is totally confusing, but it speaks to the understanding that God IS relationship because God is often referred to as love and love is about relationship.

So Jesus is praying that that relationship manifested between Jesus and the Father would be alive in the community of his followers. That sense of a unity, of oneness, and yet separateness. That we are all separate human beings and yet we form one body. We are Christ in the world - in unity. It is a little like a dance of relationship, a dance of love and caring for one another. It is how we manifest Christ in the world.

Christ is seen by how we relate to each other, which is sometimes good news and sometimes is not such good news. Think about when people come to the church for the first time and they finally get the courage to open up those doors and walk in. Sometimes they are coming because they hear that we have great music, sometimes they may be coming because they hope that they will get an inspiring sermon. Usually they are not quite sure why they are coming. But the way in which Christ’s love is made known to them is by the community of who we are and how we live as Christ’s disciples. It is our love for one another, it is our relationships with one another and our openness to inviting others into that relationship that is the way we manifest God in the world.

We are Christ’s eyes and ears and hands and feet. We are the body of Christ. Some research has shown that people who come to a church for the first time if they don’t within two months have at least a first name kind of relationship with eight people probably won’t come back. It’s about relationship. We have a couple of months to establish a relationship. That is how God is known. That is how God’s love is expressed.

I remember when Marilyn was getting the Sunday School going and I said the main priority for Sunday School is that each and every one of those children feel safe and loved and cared about. If they happen to learn some scripture, great, but what’s really important is that they feel cared about and loved because we preach with our relationships. Remember, Christ prayed for us that we would be in unity as he and the Father are a unity.

He also prayed about the idea that we were in world, but we are not really of the world. As I have been thinking about this sermon and how to relate to that I went to a conference at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. At the cathedral they have a labyrinth, which is a circle on the floor that has a path that winds back and forth and back and forth and eventually gets to the middle. The idea is that you walk that path until you get to the middle, you stop and pray there and then you walk back out. It is a walking meditation and it is a very powerful one that I like.

I hadn’t been to Grace Cathedral in a long time and so after the conference I decided to go up and walk the labyrinth. One of the things about the labyrinth is that it winds. It’s on the outside for a while and then you kind of go toward the middle and then you are back out on the outside again and then you finally find yourself in the middle. So while you are walking it can be a little disorienting. You just have to focus on the path in front of you.

There were a few other people who were also walking the labyrinth and they were going at different speeds. Some were coming out and some where going in. Sometimes we were far apart and sometimes we were close together. It is kind of how the church community works. We are all walking the path, we are all walking on that faith journey, but sometimes we come real close together, and sometimes we look like we are further apart. Sometimes somebody is coming out while you are going in and you almost bump into each other if you are not careful. You’ve got to make room for each other. And there is a sense of almost being in a dance. If you are watching some people walking the labyrinth they seem almost like they are dancing when they come close together and then they go far apart.

That for me is a wonderful description of what the community of faith is like. We are each is walking the path to Christ. It is our own path yet we are in relationship as we do that.

On a beautiful Saturday in San Francisco there are tourists, lots of tourists. And Grace Cathedral is one of the places that tourists come. When you come into Grace cathedral there is the baptismal font and then the labyrinth is right there. You have to walk across the labyrinth to go down the main aisle of the cathedral. So tourists, when they are coming in and they are looking at the stained glass windows, and they are looking at the architecture, and they are taking pictures, and they are chatting with each other many of them walk right across the labyrinth.

Those of us walking the labyrinth probably look really strange to the tourists. We are walking and then turning and then walking and turning. They probably can’t figure out what we are doing because they don’t even notice the labyrinth on the floor.

And it is a very interesting experience to be focused on following this path and then all of a sudden encounter a this family that is walking across in front of you or somebody standing and taking a picture. So there was this sense that those of us walking the labyrinth were walking our spiritual path, and the world was going on around us. We weren’t separate from the world, we were perfectly aware of the tourists and the cathedral and everything that was going on, but our focus was on following that spiritual path, while these others didn’t even see the path that we were on and probably couldn’t understand why we were walking the way we were.

To me I think that is a great description of what our life in the world is like. If we are following whatever path that Christ is calling us to walk, and if each step along the way we are trying to follow where Christ is calling us, we may look a little odd at times to the world. Our responsibility is to keep focusing on our own path. But we are still in the world and the world is still going on around us. It is a wonderful description of what it means to be the body of Christ following this spiritual path.

Another thing about the labyrinth is that as you walk in you walk toward the center which represents reaching Christ. When you arrive you just stand and experience and let in that presence of Christ, but you don’t get to stay there. There is no bed there to stay in. You can’t set up your tent. You have to walk back out and go back out into the world. That is the spiritual journey where we come together as a community and we support one another and we nourish one another but we don’t do it for our own sake. We don’t nourish each other as a community just because it feels good, we do it to empower us to go out into the world and to share God’s love in the world and to minister to others and to share that love beyond ourselves.

So we are the body of Christ. We are in Christ’s prayer that we might be in unity as God and the Father are one and that we might be in the world, and yet not totally of the world.

Amen

6 Easter Sermon

Jesus calls his disciples friends. What does it mean to be a friend? To be a friend of Christ?

6 Easter B

Transcribed from a sermon given

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Arroyo Grande

On May 13, 1012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

John 15:9-17

What is a friend? Jesus says to his disciples, I do not call you servants any longer… but I have called you friends.” What does it mean to be a friend? Think about someone who is a really good friend of yours. Someone whom if someone asked, you would say best describes friendship. What is that friend like? What is the nature of that friendship?

Now friendship often comes from associations. Our friends may be people we went to school with, or we’ve worked with, or we have been part of a project with. Perhaps your friends are ones who share a hobby that you enjoy or are part of a club that you go to. Perhaps we share going to this church, or working in the thrift shop. Perhaps it is someone that you go and stand beside a stream and you throw a hook in hoping to catch a fish. It is somebody you share with.

Now there are different kinds of love, and erotic love, the kind of love that leads to a long term commitment, tends to be shown by looking at each other. You are focused on each other. And then there is the kind of love that is affectionate. Where one person is taking care of the other, like parental love. And that tends to be focused on one person caring for the other. But friendship is different.

In friendship the eyes of both are looking forward together. They are not looking at each other but at whatever it is that they are engaged in. Whatever it is that brings them together, whether it be a shared passion, interest or a job to be done. And friendships often grow gradually. They start out as an acquaintenship but you discover that you share a lot in common and as time goes by and the friendship grows deeper. You get to know one another better even though the conversation is not focused on your home lives. You get to see how that person reacts in different situations and in a really good and deep friendship you know one another. You know each other’s strengths and you now each other’s weaknesses. You see them for who they are. The wonderful thing about a really good friendship is you can just be yourself in that relationship. You don’t have to pretend to be anything else because if you did your friend would look at you and say “come on, get real.”

Friendships like that are really important. They are not necessary to live, they are not necessary for survival, but they enrich our lives so greatly. With a friend you can get in an argument and you know you can work it out. A friend is a kind of person that when you ask, “Do these pants make my hips look big?” will tell you the truth. A friend is someone who will complement you when you are doing well and will critique you when you are not. A friend is someone who celebrates with you when things are going well, grieves with you when things are tough and is always there. A friend is the sort of person who you haven’t talked to for six months but when your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere at 2:00 in the morning you can call them on the phone and they’ll come and get you. They may be cussing you out the whole way there, but they’ll still pick you up. That is what a friend is. A friend is a really honest relationship.

Today is mother’s day. For e one of the greatest gifts of being a mother is watching the process in which my children move toward becoming my friends. It is really delightful. Somewhat like the process in which Jesus talks about the disciples who have been his servants becoming his friends. You see I will always be my children’s mother, that doesn’t end, but the relationship changes. When they are real little and they are babies you are busy feeding them, and changing them, and taking care of them, and making sure that they are warm enough, and rocking them to sleep. All focused on their care. And then at some point as they get a little older it starts being focused on setting boundaries, on discipline. It is about helping these wonderful creatures turn into somewhat civilized beings. And then there is always a time when there is tension. Because they have to get separate from mom. And you go through that. You don’t stop loving them no matter what, but you are sensitive to the changes. But a delightful thing can start to happen in adulthood. Where they start becoming friends. They stop seeing you either as the idealized mother when they were little or the pathetic mother when they are teenagers. And they begin seeing you as a human being, with strengths and weaknesses; with gifts and times you don’t always act perfectly. They begin to share in a different way. And you share with them in a different way as they become your friends.

And so it is with Christ. The relationship with Christ changes over time. The relationship with God changes over time. Jesus describes God as the Father. The perfect parent and in that sense we are totally dependent upon God - God is there to nurture us and care for us and be there for us as the perfect parent. But in this Gospel passage Jesus invites the disciples to a different aspect of the relationship. Not one of duty and dependence as a servant, but as a friend. As a friend who is not there primarily for what they can get, but is in the relationship because the relationship in itself is of value. It becomes a relationship in which the focus is on doing what needs to be done.

Christ invites us into a friendship that is focused on loving one another. A friendship in which our relationship with him is focused around doing the work that he began - of teaching the world about God’s love. It is about being God’s love and compassion in the world. It doesn’t mean that God ever stops being our parent. It doesn’t mean that Christ ever stops being our savior. But the friendship adds another dimension to that relationship.

And why? Why would we want this friendship? Jesus tells us very simply. He says, “so that your joy may be complete.” That the completion of our joy in Christ is when we find ourselves companions with Christ, working to bring about the kingdom of God.