Proper 18 C

Clay in the hands of a potter, a letter asking for a slave to go free and Jesus saying that we cannot be his disciple unless we give up all our possessions. How do these all fit together?

Proper 18C

Transcribed from a sermon given on

September 5, 2010

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Jeremiah 18:1-11

Philemon 1-21

Luke 14:25-33

I love the image in Jeremiah of the potter and the clay - that we are clay in the hands of God. It is a wonderful, wonderful image. Think about how a lump of clay is turned into a beautiful pot or bowl or other useful item. First the potter thinks about what is to be made and then picks the particular kind of clay based on what the item will be used for. Some clay is heavy and good for things that need to be very strong. Some clay is very fine and is good for things that need to be more fragile. Some clay is light colored, some is dark.  There are lots of different clays from all over the world. Once the potter has chosen the particular piece of clay that he believes is just the right clay for what he wants to accomplish, he takes a hunk of it. When you cut off a piece of clay from a larger piece it is kind of ugly. It is just this wad of clay. 

The first thing that has to be done is that the clay has to be prepared. That means you have to get all of the air bubbles out, because if there are air bubbles in the clay and you put it in the kiln the thing will explode - break apart. It is a process sometimes called wedging or kneading. Wedging is when you take something and you put it into the clay over and over again. Kneading is not like bread. When you knead bread and fold it you are trying to get more air in. When you are kneading clay you don’t fold it, and you don’t want any extra air in it. You push, and you shove, and as you do that the clay warms up and gets more pliable. Finally, you have a nice round ball. Often the potter will throw the ball back and forth between his or her hands to get the air out, and if you really want to get all the air out you take the ball and you throw it down on something hard, and then you pick it up again and you just throw it down again. Each time the clay gets a little better and a little purer. 

Then the clay is taken, and if you are making a statue you might just pinch it and work it into shape, but if  you are making a bowl, you put it on the potter’s wheel and it spins around. You still have just a lump of clay. A little smoother than what you had when you started, but it is still a lump of clay. But in the hands of a master potter, with just some subtle pushing here and there that is gentle but strong all of a sudden up comes a bowl. It is almost miraculous when you are watching it because it just kind of appears there. 

Once the bowl is finished to the place where the potter likes it and it looks beautiful it is still not useful because it has to be fired in the kiln. You put it in the kiln and you get the temperature up to 850 degrees for 24 hours. Then you remove it from the kiln. Now you could use. It’s solid, but its not done yet. 

It has to cool, and if it is a particularly nice piece and the potter is pleased with how it came out, then the potter might want to decorate it, to paint it and glaze it. Once he’s done that then it goes back into the kiln and gets heated up again until finally it is removed and you have a useful and beautiful item. 

I think that describes very well the spiritual journey. We start out as a lump of clay and we get kind of thrown around and hit and beat up until we are softened enough that the potter can do something with us. And then just when we feel like nothing is happening, all of a sudden we blossom into something beautiful and useful to God. We just start to feel good about what we have become and suddenly we find ourselves, we call it hot water, I’ll say we find ourselves in the kiln, and it is hot, and it hurts, and it is intense, but it makes us stronger. And we come out of that particular crisis strong and ready to serve God. But if God finds us particularly beautiful we will get decorated and stuck back into the kiln again for more fire and more perfecting. Until we become something that is useful to God and beautiful. 

The letter that we read today of Paul to Philemon is the one time we read an entire letter in one day at church. In it he talks about someone being useful. It is interesting letter because the best we can understand of what this letter is about is that there was a man named Onesimus who evident ran away from his owner Philemon and then came to Rome where Paul was in prison. H was helping Paul and obviously had become a Christian and at some point. He and Paul decided that as part of the spiritual journey he had to go back to his owner and ask to be released from slavery so that he could come back and serve Paul. Of course when he went back to his owner he had no idea how the owner would respond. So Paul wrote this wonderful letter. It is a great letter because if you want to do fund raising or get someone to do something, read this letter and write something like it. It starts out basically saying, “Oh Philemon you are so wonderful, and you are so generous, and I’ve heard wonderful things about you. Now I’m going to send this person back to you. He was useless to you.” It is interesting that the name Onesimus is very close to the Greek word for useful or useless. So it is a wonderful word play that you can’t get in the translation. Paul says that once he ran away he was useless to you. But if you set him free than he will be useful, and he will be your brother. If you do what I am asking you are going to be better off than you were in the first place. Then Paul writes, “I could demand it. I could insist upon it, but I won’t do that. I’m going to trust your good heart to give this. And if it costs you anything, put it against my debt. I’ll take care of it. But of course you do know you owe me your soul. Wonderful letter when you really look at it. 

It made it into the canon, not as a fund raising letter and not because it was about slavery, it made it into the canon because it has a spiritual side to it. Because as long as we are enslaved we aren’t useful to God. And until we are truly free we can’t serve God. Now for us slavery doesn’t look like slavery then, where there is a person who owns us, but we all know what it feels like to be enslaved. The most obvious is those who get enslaved to alcohol or drugs. Some people are enslaved to power, or relationships, and most of us are enslaved to wanting to be financially secure. 

The Gospel reading today is one of those Gospel reading that make us uncomfortable. It is one of those Gospels reading that people who say they take all of scripture literally and follow it complete tend to ignore. Here is Jesus surrounded by thousands of people who are impressed by this wonderful charismatic teacher who has been healing people, and they are just fascinated by it. They have been feed by his miracles and they are all excited and want to follow him. Then he says be careful what you ask for. Think about it before you make the decision to follow me. You don’t want to be like someone who decides to build a new house and puts in the foundation but never gets to finish it and all the neighbors laugh about the waste of money. You want to be sure that you are going to be able to follow through. 

To follow through and to follow Jesus means to offer ourselves to Christ - to become clay in Christ’s hands. Now clay that tries to resist all that happens to it ends up not working very well. The only way for clay to become useful is to surrender. And we can’t surrender to Christ as long as we are enslaved to something else. Jesus ends this talk about being careful think before you become my follower by saying therefore you must sell all your possession - to be able to let go of everything you have. Now very few of us are capable of doing that. That’s why they call St. Francis a saint. But it is an important point. It is an important point because we are enslaved with a fear and concern about money. In our culture that is what enslaves almost everybody. If you don’t have money your focused on the fear of not getting it, and you have some to get more. If you have a little bit of money you want to have more so you can some put away and be secure. If you have a lot of money your focus is on protecting it so that you don’t lose it. So you get security systems and worry about where it is invested. 

It is not so much the having of the money that is the problem it’s the attachment to the money that is the problem. What we need to do to really follow Christ is to be able to give up our financial security any time we feel that is what God is calling us to. We need to feel free enough about our finances that if we feel that God is calling us to be generous we can be generous. To be comfortable enough and trusting enough of Jesus that if we feel like we have to leave our job because in order to stay we have to be untrue to what we believe, then we quit our job and trust that God will take care of us. We have to have a comfortable enough attitude toward money that if we feel called by God to go over seas and serve the poor that we can do that. To not be slaves to anything. To not be slaves to anything so we can be useful to God. Jesus warns us that if you want to be my follower, if you want to have that relationship with me that will feed your soul, if you want that, think about it first because you will be like a lump of clay in my hands which means you may get tossed around, you may find yourself in a kiln, in heat. It won’t be easy. And you will have to let go of all of your attachments, even your attachment to money. Think before you make the commitment.

Proper 17C

Proper 17

Transcribed from a sermon by

Valerie Ann Hart

On August 29, 2010

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

I think almost every person experiences two voices inside themselves. It is almost like two people inside. One is what Freud labeled the ego, which is Greek for I. That part of ourselves, Freud said, is absolutely essential to develop as a child. It takes care of us; it makes sure we get what we need. The ego makes sure that we are safe, that we get enough food, get a job. Our ego does all that sort of stuff. It is important. But sometimes it becomes dominant. That can be a problem because we have another side of ourselves. That side is sometimes called the higher self, or we could call it the spirit or the soul. It is that part of ourselves that knows there is something much more important than just our own survival. It is he part of ourselves that is connected with other people and with the whole universe. Where the ego says, “I need,” and makes demands, the spirit gives and offers. Where the ego says, “I’m separate and important”, the spirit yearns for unity and relationship. Where the ego lives in a world that when I was in school was called a zero sum game. This means that there are a limited amount of resources and if you got something I didn’t and if I got it you didn’t. The ego lives in that kind of a world. The spirit lives in a world where there is more than enough, and if I get and I give to you, I will have even more. We all have those two parts of ourselves.

Sometimes we may be feeling like we are living in the world of spirit, thinking, “I am just so generous and good,” and then somebody runs into your car. Suddenly all you care about is yourself. Or you may be finding that you are lost in self centeredness and then someone touches your heart and you go, oh yeah, there are other people in the world. We all live in those two different worlds, those two different ways of being.

This conversation, this parable of Jesus, about two people at a banquet really represents those two parts of ourselves. The ego is concerned with being seen. The ego might go into the party saying hello to all the important people, noticing who are the players and making sure to talk to them - getting the good seat. Or another with that kind of ego might be making sure to have the nicest clothes and most expensive jewelry. That is the ego - I want to be special, important, noticed. I need to be reinforced by people outside to tell me that I am good.

The humble person, the other person, comes in and is just content to be at the party. Just happy to have been invited at all and takes whatever seat is available. - not particularly concerned if anybody noticed them. Just happy to be there. That is the way true humility is. True humility is not putting ourselves down. True humility is being content with whatever God has given us. We all know false humility. Have you ever had someone come up to you and go “My hair, it’s just not working quite right today.” And you know they want you to say, “Oh your hair looks lovely.” Or “I’ve put on a little weight.” “Oh no, you’re looking wonderful today.” That’s not humility. That is a different form of ego because it is still all about me. It might be all about me and how I’m incompetent, but it is still all about me. Ego is fine and necessary to survive, but when it is in charge it is not a healthy thing. You also find, I’m sure, that the ones who have to be at the head of the table are usually the ones who don’t feel very good about themselves in the first place. They are looking for other people to give them attention. So there is that tension within us.

The scripture readings today are calling us to be attentive to that spiritual part. Calling us to live beyond our separate egos. The writer of Hebrews begins this section with a remember to love one another, take care of one another and offer hospitality. We are told to not be concerned with wealth, take care of your relationships in our homes and in your families. To be generous, giving and welcoming. We are to practice doing that. Practice looking beyond ourselves.

There is another way to look at this story in the Gospel and that’s the fact that it is a wedding banquet. The wedding banquet is an image that Jesus uses a lot. Usually the person who is giving the wedding banquet is God. It represents God’s abundance and God’s giving to us. The wedding banquet that has become what we celebrate when we celebrate Holy Communion - that giftedness, that giving of God. So when we are invited to the banquet of God there is only one way to truly receive it, and that is humbly.

I must say I seriously considered coming in here and starting the sermon by saying, “Okay you guys in the front, you have to sit in the back, and you guys in the back have to sit in the front, but I decided that would be much too traumatic for the church. (laughter) You don’t mess with where your seats are in the church.

But there is a way in which this is our wedding banquet and how you come to it makes all the difference in the world. The truth is none of us deserve the love and forgiveness we receive from God. We all need to come humbly. If you’ve been around the Episcopal church for a long time you may remember that in the old Book of Common Prayer there was a prayer we always said before communion called the Prayer of Humble Access. It is now an option in Rite I. It was taken out because, I think, it was leading to a lot of false humility or over beating up on ourselves, but it has a real truth to it when we come to Christ’s table. “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But though art the same lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

So we will be celebrating, as we do most weeks, the Holy Communion; we will be having the wedding banquet and you will be invited to the Lords Table. This s a chance to remember that it is a gift, and to have that humility that is content and appreciative of whatever it is that God offers.

Proper 16 C

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." Those are powerful words reminding us of our eternal relationship with God. Prophets are called to speak what God commands. How is life transformed if we take the time to ask God to give us the right words?

Proper 16 C

Transcribed from a sermon given

August 26 2013

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Jeremiah 1:4-10

I want to go back to the first reading today to the call of Jeremiah, a classic prophet’s call. I love what it says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” Think on that - before God formed us in the womb God knew us. God knew us before we were even conceived and being formed in the womb. And God knows us long after we are finished with this earthly journey. It presents a sense of the eternity of that relationship with God. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” And it goes on to say, “I consecrated you.” Before you were born God consecrated you. So there is a way in which each one of us, even before we were born, is consecrated for this moment to serve God, to be an instrument of God.

Then we have the call of the prophet. They are all fairly similar. God says, “I want you to be my prophet,” and the prophet says, “No way.” And God says, “Way.” So God says to Jeremiah, who has said, “I am only a boy, I don’t know how to speak,” “Do not say I am only a boy, for you shall go to all whom I send you and you shall speak whatever I command you.” Now that’s the most important thing about a prophet. A prophet is not someone who tells the future; a prophet is someone who speaks what God calls them to speak. Someone who is an instrument for God to communicate God’s word. Then God says to Jeremiah, “Do not be afraid of them”. Now one of the reasons that prophets don’t want to become prophets is they know what happens to prophets, which is usually not very pretty. So God assures us, assures Jeremiah, “Do not be afraid for I am with you.”

What wonderful words for each and every one of us. That when we find ourselves in a difficult situation that God is with us, and we don’t need to be afraid. We have an example of someone who lived this out this week, and I am sure that all of you have heard of Antoinette Tuff. She is the woman who is a bookkeeper who wasn’t even supposed to go to work that day but came in and was in the front office of an elementary school when a man walked in with an AK 47 and five hundred rounds of ammunition. An amazing thing happened. She talked to him. She spoke with him. She had compassion for him. And he put down his gun. No one was injured. It could have happened very differently. How did this amazing thing happen? This woman who is lifted up as a hero. Well on CNN, when Anderson Cooper said, “You are a hero,” she said, “No, It’s all about God. I was praying the whole time. I was praying not just for myself but I was praying for him, and God gave me the words.” God gave her the words to say to him. I would have had no idea what to say.

It is interesting that people who train individuals who are working with hostage situation have said that it is really quite amazing what she did because even the inflection of her voice, everything she did, was exactly what they spend weeks training people who work with hostages. And yet this woman spoke those words because she prayed and she asked God to give her the words. Because she prayed and she knew God was with her. She didn’t react out of fear or anger. She was able to stay in the state of compassion and empathy and even say to that young man “I love you.” She says it is all about God and about her prayer. How else could someone be so clear and so perfect in that situation?

We have another example of a prophet that we are remembering this week. This week is the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther Kings’ I Have a Dream speech which is being remembered in many different ways. Here is another man who didn’t want to be a prophet. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and was arrested in Montgomery Alabama some people came together and said that she is the perfect example of someone whom we can lift up, someone of whom we can make an example to show the injustice here. How are we going to respond to this? They had a meeting and it happened to be at the church of a young preacher who was new to town, Martin Luther King Jr. When they gathered and they planned for the bus boycott they thought about who would be the best person to be their spokesperson, to be their leader. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. because he was new to town and he hadn’t been intimidated by the authorities yet. He hadn’t learned to be afraid yet. He didn’t want to particularly take on that responsibility. But he did. I’m sure he had no idea where it would eventually lead him. But he did know it would be dangerous. Even in those first few weeks there were threats and there was danger to him. Few people want to be a prophet. But what you see in Martin Luther King Jr., and those words that he spoke 50 years ago, “I have a dream,” - we know that those words came from God. They are the words of love and purity and clarity and prophetic voice that ring down through generations.

To be a prophet, to be called to speak for God, is a scary thought. But each one of us, each one of us, could find ourselves in a situation where God can use our voice. It might not be a calling to be a leader of a group of protestors. We hopefully never will find ourselves face to face with someone with an AK 47 but there may be other situations in which God wants to use us to speak love and compassion and hope. Antoinette Tuff was ready for this. She hadn’t been trained to be a hostage negotiator but at her church they had just finished a series called “anchoring.” The idea, the best I understood it from what I read in the news, is that anchoring is about anchoring yourself in God and in prayer. And it was a training program to help people be more compassionate with those who are in need, with those who are struggling. It was something to use within the church, but also to use outside the church, so she was ready. She knew in this situation that her best hope was to pray. And her best hope was to listen. And her best hope was to love and have empathy.

Think about the times we have said something that we later regret. We all have done that. Now, how different would it have been if in that situation before we had spoken we had prayed and asked God for guidance? If we had prayed for ourselves and the person who we were with. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer. It’s just an inner prayer. It is one of those prayers that I think are most effective. Those one word prayers – “Help” “Please” “Thanks.” That’s really what all prayers are. God knows the help we need. But if we stop and took that small moment to pray and ask to be God’s instrument, how different would our conversations be? Might we speak differently with the person who has cut into line at the grocery store if we saw that person with a little love and compassion and prayer. If we were able to empathize with someone who has a whole handful of coupons and food stamps. To understand that the reason they are taking so long is because that is the only way they can get enough food to eat. How different would it be when we are talking to our children or our grandchildren or our spouse and feeling some anger if we took just that moment to ask God to give us the right words to say and a little empathy and love for the person we are confronting?

It would be a different world if we could all do that. God assures us that God is with us. He knew us before we were formed in the womb. He is with us and tells us not to be afraid. And if we ask, God will give us the words of love and peace.

Proper 14 C

Proper 14 C

Transcribed from a sermon given

On August 12, 2013

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Luke 12:32-40

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

(Sung)

People get ready

There’s a train a comin’.

Don’t need no baggage

You just get on board.

All you need is faith

To hear the diesel hummin.’

Don’t need no ticket

You just get on board.

As I look around I can tell the people who come from the sixties because you are all smiling and know that song that was written by Curtis Mayfield who was the lead singer of the Impressions. And it has been recorded by many other artists since. That’s the chorus of “People get ready,” and it has a lot of meaning to me personally. But I feel that chorus sums up the Gospel reading for today.

Look at what is in this amazing little piece of writing

People get ready

Well that’s the whole point of what Jesus is saying. To be ready. To be ready and to be waiting. To know when it is time. To be listening. If you are ready and waiting for the master to come home, you have your ears open. You are listening, you are hearing. It is like my dog. When my car comes near she knows. She doesn’t always get up and greet me, but she knows that I am coming.

So we are to be ready. We are to be paying attention. Listening to those subtle clues, because there is a train coming. A train is such a great image. I know for children, especially boys, they love trains. And there is something about being by a diesel engine, the size of it and the strength of it and the power of it that just is awesome. It puts you in a particular position. Trains are fascinating, fun, powerful, and once a train gets moving down the track it is really hard to stop. It is going someplace. And one of the things that is exciting about seeing a train go by is imagining where it is going. Where the people are being taken.

Don’t need no baggage

Last week we talked about baggage and Jesus is talking about baggage again today. He is talking about all of the stuff. Of selling what you own. Of giving it as alms. I’ve taken several train trips. One of the best I had I was just going for a weekend and I had everything in a small suitcase, well actually it was a large purse. And it was great. I could get on the train, I could move from place to place and take everything with me. I had no worries and enjoyed it tremendously. There was another time I took a train trip when I was staying for a couple of weeks, and I had a BIG heavy suitcase. Baggage. First of all, when you get on the train there are these high steps to get up and I had to drag the suitcase up those steps. And then there are these tiny little steps that go in a circle to go to the upper place where the seats are. Well there was NO way I was getting the suitcase up that. There was an area where you could leave your suitcase, but it’s right by the door, and it’s not locked and you just leave it there. When you go upstairs you can’t see it any more. You don’t know what’s going to happen to it and there’s a certain amount of concern. Is it safe? Will it still be there when I get down? If I have to go to another car how will I find it? Will I be sure I can get to it before the train leaves when I have to get off? All the anxiety that comes with baggage.

This song and this scripture are saying you don’t need no baggage. Whether that be psychological baggage of memories, of angers, of resentments or whether it be the physical baggage of the stuff that limits your life. I talk to people who say, well I’d love to move but what am I going to do with all my stuff? It is so hard to pack everything, and then we have to pay someone to move it, and I’d have to get a place that was big enough to fit all that stuff or else I’d have to decide what to get rid of and I don’t know how to do that. Often the stuff we accumulate over our lives begins to limit our lives.

Don’t need no baggage, you just get on board.

What is this train that we are getting on board?

Now Jesus also says, when he tells people to sell everything, he says it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. God takes delight in this. The greatest thing for God is to be able to give to us. Can you imagine that? The thing that gives God pleasure is giving to us. To give us the kingdom, to give us everything we need. So we are to get on board this train, this train that is headed for the kingdom. This train that’s headed into the future that we are invited to be part of that.

All you need is faith to hear the diesel coming.

In the second reading we have that wonderful definition of faith in Hebrews. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” When you get on a train you sure hope it is going where you want to go and you have a conviction and a hope and faith that it is taking you to the destination you want to go to. But once you are on the train there is nothing you can do about it. You are going wherever the train is going. We don’t think of it when we get on the train of it being an act of faith that it is actually going to go where we want to go but it is. And when we get on board with Jesus, when we get on board with the kingdom come, when we get on board with God’s intention, we have that faith, that hope, that assurance that it is leading forward - that it is leading to something good. We have that hope, that assurance, that life with God will be better than life without God. That the coming of the kingdom, whether we think of that as after our death, or at the apocalypse at the end of time, or as something that is going on right now where we are in the process of bringing God’s kingdom, God’s rule on earth we have that assurance that if we get on board, we will be going there, we will be part of that process.

All you need is faith to hear the diesel humming.

Now I live in Grover Beach and when the weather is right, even when it is not, I can hear trains going by. Sometimes you can hear them far off in the distance and they slowly get louder and louder. It is kind of a neat thing to listen to the sound. It is kind of like that with the coming of the kingdom. When we have faith we can hear the sound of the kingdom coming far away. It may not be here yet. We may not experience all of it right now, but it is coming. It is on its way. The new world, a world of justice, is coming. Christ is coming. You can hear it if you have the faith to listen to that humming sound.

Don’t need no ticket.

I like that. You don’t need a ticket. You don’t need to buy something. You don’t need to have credentials. You don’t have to have any kind of particular stamp or anything. Everybody. Everybody is welcome on this train. Everybody is welcome to get on. All you need to do is thank the Lord. To get on board, to be part of that journey of faith, that journey towards the kingdom of God. It is all summed up in that little song.

(Sung)

People get ready,

There’s a train a comin’.

Don’t need no baggage

You just get on board.

All you need is faith

To hear the diesel humming.

Don’t need no ticket

You just thank the Lord.