Proper 11 C - Mary and Martha

Proper 11 C

Transcribed from a sermon given on

July 18, 2010

At St Barnabas Episcopal Church by

Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Luke 10:38-42

Let’s imagine what this story of the relationship of two sisters might have sounded like if it happened today. Let’s imagine that Jesus and his disciples and the women who were traveling with him were all in an old tour bus. They had gotten it from a tour company that was going out of business. They are on there way to Jerusalem, driving up from Jericho to Jerusalem. It is a very steep hill, and it is hot and their old bus has come almost to the top when it starts bellowing brown black smoke coming out of it. And it starts making this horrible thumping sound. James, who is driving it, is getting very upset and of course Jesus is asleep in the back of the bus totally ignoring all of this. They wake him up and Jesus says, “Don’t worry, why don’t you turn off and go into that town named Bethany. So with loud noises coming out of the old bus and not knowing when it is going to just stop working they get into Bethany. It makes one final loud horrible sound. The engine is dead and they manage to coast over to a nice parking place by the side of the road. Jesus gets out of the bus and knocks on the door of the house they happen to stop by and out comes Martha smiling and saying, “Oh, it is so good to see you again.” The disciples and women are so excited to see their old friend Martha that they all come bounding out of the bus. There is a wonderful celebration for everybody to see each other. They go inside chattering and laughing and having a wonderful time. It didn’t take long for them to settle down in the courtyard. Jesus begins talking and everybody is listening to what Jesus has to say. It is a wonderful, peaceful time, and then all of a sudden in comes James, angry! “Where is that brother of mine?” he shouts. Everybody looks at James’ hands that are covered with engine oil. His clothes are all dirty and soiled from soot. “Where is that brother of mine? He should be helping me fix that bus,” he repeats. Jesus looks at him and asks, “James, why are you so upset?” “Well somebody’s got to fix that bus or we are never going to get to Jerusalem,” he responds, not knowing that Jesus has a donkey in the back yard. But that is another story. 

Jesus says, “Don’t worry, it’s okay.” James responds, “Well my brother should be helping me with that blanking bus!” Just then, laughing and talking, John and Martha and Lazarus come out of the kitchen. They have all been working to get something to eat for everybody and they bring out large trays of food. They have had a wonderful time working together in the kitchen. 

Now this is a switch of time and place and gender of the the people involved, but there is a similarity in that there is one person who is all upset and worried and who has an expectation for the behavior of another person. When you read commentary, even the ancient commentary, on this little piece of scripture about Mary and Martha they almost all conclude that Jesus values both the doer and the one who is the contemplative and they are both of equal value. But if you actually read the scripture you don’t find Jesus saying anything positive about Martha. So where did Martha miss the mark? What is wrong with Martha? Back then, and even now, in the Middle East one of the most important values is hospitality. It is your duty to take care of a person who comes to your home. It is your duty to give them coffee or food or whatever it is you have. So could Jesus be being critical of hospitality? Martha was doing the right thing. Also, in that time period, women were not supposed to be listening to rabbis. They were not supposed to be studying theology. Even today in extreme orthodox traditions there are different prayers for women then there are for men. 

Now it might be because I grew up in a household where I had two older brothers, but I started to resent it when after dinner my father would look at me and say, “Go help your mother in the kitchen,” while my two brothers got to watch the game on TV or sit and talk or play games or whatever it was they were doing. It was always me that had to go help in the kitchen! Right? Some other women are nodding there. Or maybe there are some guys in here that had sisters and your dad always said to you, “Go out and mow the grass.” But he never asked the sisters to mow the grass. Any of those who ran into that? 

I think there are two problems for Martha. Two ways in which Martha has missed the mark. First of all, she has expectations for her sister. She thinks her sister “ought” to be doing something. It is not based on what the sister’s gifts are or what the sister wants to be doing or what Jesus has told her sister that should be doing. She has an image in her mind of what her sister ought to do, and it is based largely on the fact that she is feeling overwhelmed. There is a real danger when we have expectations for another person’s behavior. And the danger is that we will probably be let down. Whatever it is we expect from someone else they probably will not live up to it. Whether it is your sister or your son or your daughter or your spouse. When you have clear expectations of what they ought to be doing odds are they are going to let you down because that is not what they are doing. So I think that is the first problem with Martha is that sense of expectation. 

But the second problem which is most clearly presented in the Gospels, is related to what Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.” Martha’s problem is that she is worried and distracted. She was the original multi-tasker who was trying to do too much. We all know what that is like. You are having people over for Thanksgiving dinner and your mind for weeks is worried about who is going to sit where? and do you have enough food? and how are we going to cook the turkey? and, and, and. By the time the dinner comes you can be so totally bent out of shape that you don’t even enjoy your guests. Maybe it is like that for the guys when they are having a Superbowl party and they are worried about getting it ready, I don’t know. But there is that sense of trying to do too much and worrying about it. Jesus says to Martha, “There is only one thing necessary.” Martha’s mind is going in a million different directions. She is probably thinking about straightening up the bedrooms, and worried about clean up and worried about whether there will be enough food left over for tomorrow. Her mind is just going in all different directions and Jesus says, “There is one thing, one thing necessary.” What is that one thing?

Now it is probably not about sitting at Jesus’s feet as the one thing. Because right before this story in the Gospel we read about the Good Samaritan. Here is someone who was going outside of role. The Good Samaritan was showing mercy and love. He was doing and caring. So it is not so much about what it is you are doing. The one thing, that one thing, is to not be distracted. To be listening. To listen to Jesus. To listen to what God is calling us to. To listen to the Holy Spirit. To listen for what is the one thing that I should be doing at this moment. Not what should I be doing later. Not what did I do before. Not what should someone else be doing, but what should I be doing right now. The Good Samaritan was walking down the road, and unlike the scribe and the Pharisee and the priest who were thinking about where they were going and what they had to do, the Samaritan was right there. He saw someone in need and he listened to the voice inside him and it said, “That’s what you need to do now. Put aside wherever you were planning to go and be with that person.” Mary heard the voice inside that said, “I need to sit and listen. Jesus is here at our house and I have this precious time to listen to him.” And she responded to that. 

But we have to get quiet inside to be able to hear what the one thing is for us at any moment. If Martha had been quiet inside and not worried and distracted she may have heard God calling her to get some light refreshments for people, but she would have done it out of love, not out of a sense of “duty.” It is when we start doing things out of a sense of duty that we start wanting other people to have as much of a sense of duty as we do. But out of a sense of love she could have been joyous in the kitchen. Or she might have gotten the sense that “I need to listen to Jesus right now and I know he can take care of the food if that is an issue.” He fed 500 people, he certainly can feed twenty people here. She wasn’t listening to what was true for her at that moment. Because when we do that things always work well. 

Some of you may have had a time in your life, perhaps you were at a party, and you just get this sense inside that that person sitting over in the corner needs someone to talk to. And you go over and you discovered they needed somebody to listen. Or you may be at a party and you are so distracted worrying about whether your hair looks right, and worried about whether the food has been put out. So distracted that your mind is too noisy to hear that whisper of the Holy Spirit to be attentive to someone else. 

What is the one thing? There is one thing that is right for us at every moment, but in order to know what that one thing is we have to practice quieting our minds, not worrying so much, and being fully present right now so we can hear what God is calling us to.

Proper 7 C

We all have voices within us. Which ones will you listen to?

Proper 7 C

Transcribed from a sermon given at

The Chapel of the Transfiguration

Grand Teton National Park, WY

On June 19, 2016

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Luke 8:26-39

Galatians 3:23-29

We all have voices inside ourselves. If you have ever tried to meditate or do Centering Prayer or even to be quiet for a moment of silence you will notice how busy your mind is. You sit down with the full intention to focus your entire mind on being with God and you start thinking about - “I wondering how long this is going to take.” “Oh, this is an uncomfortable seat.” “My nose itches. Would it be really inappropriate for me to scratch my nose while this is going on?” “How long is this going to continue?” “What am I going to do afterwards?” “Oh, I need to go to the store. What do I need to buy? Well, someone is coming over tomorrow.” Our brains are always talking to us. 

There are all kinds of voices. We have voices left over from our childhood. Today is father’s day and some of the messages that we received from our fathers are wonderful, like: “You can do it.” “Good job.” “You are strong.” “Don’t be afraid.” There are any number of wonderful messages we received from our parents. But when we are a child we also get other messages. Like from the bully at school or the cousins or siblings: “You are so stupid.” “You messed up again.” “You can’t do that!” “No one says that!” “You’ll never amount to anything.” So we have all of these voices in our heads. Sometimes it feels like my father is sitting on one shoulder and my mother is on the other and they kind of talk into my ears. 

As we grow up we learn to realize that these voices are inside our own minds, and we learn to decide which ones to listen to and what to ignore, which ones are helpful and which ones are not. But some people, for one reason or another, are unable to make this differentiation.  Some people experience these voices in their heads as if there is a person talking to them, inside telling them what to do. And they find these voices irresistible. So when it is a hot day and one of the voices says, “Take off all your clothes.” They take off all their clothes. Or when the voice tells them to hurt themselves or tells them to hurt someone else. They hurt someone. 

In our culture someone who hears voices in that way and can’t control themselves we label as schizophrenic. And we treat them by giving them medicine. And sometimes that works really well, and sometime it doesn’t. We don’t fully understand why. This is a disease that has a lot of mystery to. In Jesus’ time they didn’t call it schizophrenia they called it being possessed by demons. They believe that there were demons inside the person that were telling him or her what to do. Because that is how the people experienced it - as if there were voices in their head. And so at that time if someone was diagnosed with being possessed with demons, the treatment option was exorcism, a healer would come and send the demons away. 

Jesus had been in Galilee. Galilee was part of the Jewish area. Almost everyone in the area where he has been was Jewish. They identified as being religiously Jewish because they worshiped Yahweh. They also considered themselves ethnically Jewish because they were descendants from Abraham. And they felt that that made them special. They felt they were the ones who worshiped God correctly. They were the ones who followed the law. And they followed all the cleanliness rules. They were clean and pure. Everybody else, everybody who wasn’t Jewish was a Gentile. That meant not Jewish. So there were the Jews and there was everybody else. And there was a clear distinction in that the Jewish people felt that they were cleaner and better and purer. 

But Jesus gets on the boat and goes across the lake to a gentile area. It is called the Decapolis. You know it is a gentile area because they have swine, they are herding pigs, and Jewish people do not eat pork. They consider pigs to be unclean animals and a swineherd is the lowest of the low, and they certainly wouldn’t have had any pigs in their towns. So it is clear that Jesus has gone to a gentile area. He is with “them”. But that doesn’t matter. He sees someone who needs his help. He sees this man who is possessed by demons or schizophrenic and doesn’t hesitate to help him. It doesn’t matter whether or not he is Jewish. He is a human being. And when you read the Gospels you see that over and over again Jesus heals and has compassion for everybody. For a Roman centurion, for a woman from Tyre, for people who are outcasts, for people who are sinners, for tax collectors. It didn’t matter. For Jesus every human being was someone that he loved and he did what he could for them. For Jesus it was all “us.” And he loved them.

We get this sense of being rid of the “us” versus “them” in the letter from Paul we read today. Paul is talking to the Christians who were made up of people who were from the Jewish faith and people who were Gentiles. He said: “In Christ there is no Greek or Jew, there is no slave or free, there is no male or female. We are all one in Christ.” Those three differentiations that he made are the basic differentiations in any culture to define who is in your group and who is not in your group. Who is part of the tribe and who is not part of the tribe. 

The first one is Greek or Jew. Well a Jew is both a religion and ethnic heritage. Greek is an ethnic heritage. It says it doesn’t matter who your parents were. It doesn’t matter what religion you were raised. It doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t matter whether you have Abraham as your ancestor or have no idea who your ancestors were. It doesn’t make any difference. If Paul was writing today he might say, “It doesn’t matter how you believe in God. It doesn’t matter where you were born. It doesn’t matter where your parents were born. We are all one in Christ.” 

In the second one he says there is no slave or free. In that society clearly on the socio economic ladder the lowest class were the slaves. They owned nothing. They had no power. They were on the bottom rung. And the free people were on the top rung. He was saying that it doesn’t matter where you are on the economic hierarchy. Today he might say, “It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, we are all one in Christ.” 

And then he made the most outrageous statement for his time, there is no male or female. That was a very radical concept in that culture. It is still a radical concept in much of the world even in our country we don’t have full economic equality between males and females. We all know that women get paid less. In Jesus’ time and in Paul’s time males and females were as separate as could be. Jesus went against convention by having women among his followers, and Paul said it doesn’t matter whether you are male or female. It doesn’t make any difference because we are all one in Christ. Our gender doesn’t matter. And today I think Paul would probably say, “It doesn’t matter whether you are male or female or gay or straight. Because we are all one in Christ.” 

All these distinctions don’t matter because Christ taught us that we are to love one another as he loved us. And he loved all of us and continues to love all of us. When he was walking around on this earth he made no distinctions. He had compassion and love for every human being, with no distinctions. He even asked forgiveness for the soldiers who put him on the cross. It’s not about “us” and “them”. In Christ it is all “us”.

But we have voices in our heads and there are voices in the culture that tell us that there are distinctions. Depending upon where you are raised which distinctions are most important may differ. We learned while growing up those people that we could trust, and those people we shouldn’t. We learned that our people are pure and good, and those people are bad. That our race is better than that other race. There are lots of distinctions in our culture that we were raised with, and we have some of those voices within us. We all have to admit that we do have those voices within us. But we have other voices. We have other voices that call us to love and to care for everyone. And we have a choice. We are not schizophrenic and unable control the voices. We have choice as to which voices we listen to. Do we listen to the voices that make distinctions? The voices that judge other people? Or will we listen to the voices of love, to the voice of Christ and of Paul? Which ones will we use to base our actions? That’s the choice we have today and every day. Do we make distinctions, or is it all “us”? 

Do we love one another as Christ loved us?

Sermon 6 Easter C

Sermon Sixth Sunday of Easter C

John 14:23-29

Revelations 21:10, 22-22:5

May 26, 2019

Valerie Ann Hart

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”

What a beautiful promise. Peace.

Who doesn’t long for peace. The frantic parents juggling work and children. The employee who’s trying to make ends meet and hoping the job remains. The senior contemplating retirement and wondering if the money will last. The patient digesting the last doctor’s report and seeing life transformed.

Who doesn’t long for peace, for a quiet mind, for a good night’s sleep, for a deep sense of inner satisfaction.

Who doesn’t long for peace.

Yet here it is. Christ offers us peace. Not the peace of the world, but his peace.

He goes on, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

But we are afraid. Afraid of the future, afraid we’ll run out of money, afraid our children will be hurt, afraid we will let someone down, afraid we’re not enough. We all have our own fears.

Yet Jesus tells us not to be afraid. 

Jesus offers us his peace.

How are we to know this wonderful peace?

He gives us some clear directions

“Those who love me will keep my word.”

So we are to love him. We are to respond to his love by loving him in return. This is not the kind of warm fuzzy love for your child. It’s a love that involves surrender, a love that sacrifices for the other, a deep longing to serve. We are to love him.

And keep his word.

What is his word? What does he tell us to do?

Forgive – It’s right there in the Lord’s prayer. We are to forgive others. Not for their sake, but for our own. When we forgive we are not saying that what the other person did was right. When we forgive we are making the choice to not hold on to the pain any more. We let go of the burden of the hurt and the anger.

When we forgive, we find some peace. We are no longer haunted by the past.

What is his word? What does Christ tell us to do?

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

Love one another, everyone, starting with those closest to us. When we open our hearts to Christ, when we love him, we begin to see Christ in others. We love the image Christ we see there. The image of Christ in the poor, the ill, the destitute, the homeless. The image of Christ in “The least of these.”

To love one another means to be in right relationship. It means we are working together for a better world for everyone. There’s no need to fight with someone you love, there’s no desire to hurt someone you love, there is peace. As we learn to love more we fall deeper into peace.

And when we love and keep Christ’s word, he and the father will come and make their their home with us.

What a beautiful image. To have God, Father and Son, dwelling with us. With us at all times. Not distant. Not up there somewhere. Not in the future. Not someday I’ll meet God. But here, with us, right now.

Christ’s love, God’s love, is with us. Here. Now. Closer than our own breath. 

Christ’s love, God’s love, surrounds us, interpenetrates our being. That love is in the deepest part of our souls.

But we are so busy, so distracted, we don’t even notice it.

We need to take time to be still. Not just to pray to God, but to listen to God. To find the time, carve out the time, to sit quietly and listen. To make the search for God’s love within us a top priority. 

Perhaps you can engage in some kind of contemplative, meditative practice each day such as following your breath, Centering Prayer, praying with a rosary, or sitting quietly and listening to the birds.

Do something, regularly, that will open you to the presence of God. 

Something that welcomes the Holy Spirit. 

Something that takes you deep within, where you will find God dwells. 

Something that takes you deep within to discover the peace we are promised.

Something that gives you a few minutes free of fear.

It’s not always easy to find that peace. Sometimes we first find demons of unresolved grief, long held resentments, unhealed wounds. Sometimes we have to deal with these before we know that peace.

That’s what I think the book of Revelation is about. The struggle within that we have to go through, the demons within ourselves that we must fight, before we live in that wonderful Holy City described in the reading today. 

The Book of Revelation is full of dramatic battles, but after all the struggle it ends with a city of peace, a city of light, a city of abundance. Pure running water, trees that not only give fruit all year round, but whose leaves are healing. 

A place where there is no fear. A place where our hearts can sing.

A place where we dwell with God.

A place of peace.

Christ offers us his peace.

May you seek that peace.

May you find that peace.

May you live in that peace.

And may you share that peace with others.

Easter 4 C - Good Shepherd Sunday

4 Easter

Sermon Given on April 25, 2010

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas, Arroyo Grande, CA

Today is the fourth Sunday of Easter, and every year that is Good Shepherd Sunday, for we remember Christ as a shepherd.  It also turns out that this is the Sunday closest to Earth Day, and so it is Earth Sunday, a time to think about our environment, and I couldn't help but think that there had to be some kind of tie in between sheep and shepherds and Earth Day, that somehow that pastoral sense of caring for sheep and the pastoral sense of caring for the environment were somehow combined.  We'll see how that works out in the sermon.

How many of you have seen a live sheep? How many of you have seen a live sheep outside of a zoo or a petting zoo?  Seen a flock of sheep?  Hey, this group really knows animals.  Well, some of us grew up in the city and don't have that much familiarity with sheep.  Sheep are interesting animals.  They are the first animal that was domesticated for agricultural purposes. They probably domesticated the dog first for hunting, but the domesticated sheep go back somewhere between seven and nine thousand years.  They've been around a long, long time.  And they think they probably were easily domesticated because of their tendency to follow whoever is moving, so it wasn't too hard for human beings to begin to herd them.  But it also means that sheep have been domesticated for so long that they can't survive in the wild.  If a sheep escapes from its fold, it will not be able to survive.  

Now, sheep have been given the rap of being really dumb.  I'm not sure they're quite as dumb as they're made out to be.  That might be how cowboys – you know, cattle herders, talk about sheep, but sheep are probably about as smart as a cow, which, of course, is not brilliant. Basically they have a one-pointed mind, and that is focusing on the ground and finding things to eat. And they are perfectly built for that. With their heads down they just kind of wander along and they look for anything that looks like it might taste good.  And also, the shape of their faces and their jaw is such that when they eat grass, they get it right down to the roots.  They get right down there because it's a thin face.  Cows and horses don't get as far down; they leave a little bit.  So if you have a flock of sheep that stay in the same pasture for a long time, they can rid it of all living things, and it's very hard for it to come back. So a good shepherd knows that you don't keep your sheep in one spot.  You move them from place to place.  They feed in one place and then you take them somewhere else.  

So, sheep are one-pointed, one-pointed consumers. That's really all they're concerned about. They eat and when there's nothing to eat right in front of them, they look around, and the closest thing that looks good, they go over to it and they'll eat that, unless somebody in the flock starts to move. And if somebody in the flock starts to move, then they will just follow that.  There is some sense of hierarchy in a sheepfold, but it's not like in some animals.  Leadership sometimes is just whichever sheep moves first. That is the one that everybody else follows.  

So let's think about that.  Focused on consuming, looking just at what's close by for the next thing to consume until somebody gets up and starts to move. Sound like anybody you know?  A little like modern Americans, isn't it? Just focused on what the next thing is that we're going to consume, and if we're not careful, we can consume ourselves out of a pasture.

So sheep need a shepherd.  Sheep are in a pasture, and they don't think, "Well, gee, there's not as much to eat here now.  We need to start looking for somewhere else to go."  They don't think that far ahead, and they can't remember where the good pastures were, and they can't see high enough to look out and see where there might be some grass or some water.  They need a shepherd to lead them. 

Most of the time, sheep move from one place to another with the time year, with the climate.  In Spain, at the time of Christopher Columbus, they had huge herds that would go from one end of Spain to the other during the course of a year. That was how Isabella was able to finance Christopher Columbus, through these herds of sheep.  

If you live in Palestine, during the winter you keep the sheep in the lower levels because it gets a little chilly up in the mountains.  There's not much up there.  You keep them down low and then in the springtime, you take them back up into the mountain country where there's nice spring grass that hasn't been touched. But how do you get from the low country to the high country? If you've ever gone into the mountains, you notice you don't just keep going straight up.  You go up a hill and then you go back down into a valley, and then you go up another higher hill, and then you go back down into a valley.  It's not a straight line.  There are these valleys you have to get through.

So the shepherd has had the sheep in the winter down in low areas. Spring is coming, the pasture is getting kind of worn out, and the shepherd knows there's good grass up in the hills.  The sheep have no idea.  Now, you could, as a shepherd, sit down with the sheep and go, "Okay – okay, sheep, I want to explain to you what we're going to do. We're going to be going through some tough territory, but I want you to trust me that there is a good pasture up on top of this mountain.  It'll be worth it."  You could do that with sheep and they'd sit there and they'd go "baa" – and they'd have no idea what you were talking about.  Maybe a few might, but most of them would have no idea.  And so, what the shepherd has to do is just start going, and if the sheep trust the shepherd, they'll follow – well, unless there's a really good-looking thing to eat over here, and then one of the sheep might go over and have to nibble, and then – then you've got to go back and get a sheepdog to kind of get that sheep back in line.

But generally, they will follow the shepherd. Imagine, when the shepherd comes to a deep valley, and it's steep and it's dark and the sun doesn't get in there, and the sheep don't know what's going on.  They're going through this really difficult time, and they're tired, and it feels like the valley of the shadow of death.  But they keep following the shepherd because they trust the shepherd, and eventually they come out of the valley, and here is the beautiful green upland pasture, untouched by other sheep yet that year – lots of wonderful grass to eat.  

That's the image of the Good Shepherd that we hear in Scripture.  The image of the one who takes care of the flock, who knows a little more than they do and makes sure they have everything they need.  The people of Jesus's time would have certainly understood this. After all, in the Old Testament, Abraham became wealthy because of his flocks of sheep, and Jacob became wealthy because he was good at breeding sheep, and King David had been a shepherd before he became the king.  So it's part of the whole story.

So we, like sheep, are sometimes not real bright. For example, right now, we tend to consume and consume and consume and not really worry about whether there's gonna be enough there later.  So that's part of the Earth Day thing. Are we going to be narrow-minded sheep, just worrying about feeding ourselves or are we going to realize that we have to pay attention to what we're doing?  

And in our own personal lives, we all know, we've all gone through valleys of the shadow of death.  Every one of us here is old enough to have in one way or another experienced that shadow time, experienced that valley time, that time when we may have lost a job and not found another one yet.  We don't know what's on the other side but have come out the other side to discover a whole change in direction.  Or we've gone through grief and loss and found that Christ walked with us and that we were able to come out the other end.

About six or seven years ago, I was misdiagnosed. I had a disorder, and they misdiagnosed it, and they gave me medicine for it.  And the medicine made it worse.  So they gave me more of that.  And that made it even worse and also made me really confused.  And then, since that didn't work, they decided to give me another medicine on top of that until I was in the hospital and the problem had become so intense that they thought they might have to do surgery.  Finally, I got to a doctor who correctly diagnosed it, treated it, and I've had no problems since.  But during that period of time when I was misdiagnosed and on all these horrendous medications, I couldn't read, I couldn't think, and every time someone would come to visit, I would say, "Get out the 23rd Psalm. Read it to me."  Because I wanted to be reminded that while I was going through this valley, that on the other side of it, when I got to the other end of this, there was going to be something good and that Christ was with me as I walked through it.

That's the power of the 23rd Psalm.  That's the power of the Good Shepherd.  To know, no matter what, we're not alone.  And, no matter what, there's something good on the other side.  And in this season of Easter, when we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, it says even if that shadow of death leads to the death of our bodies, that's not the end.  That even on the other end of that valley is a pasture, is a celebration, is peace and joy and the presence of God.  

Sometimes life leads us through very difficult things, and sometimes all we have to hold onto is keeping our eye on that Shepherd, knowing that the Shepherd is walking with us, and knowing that eventually, if we just keep putting one foot in front of the other, if we just keep our eyes on the Shepherd, it will be okay.  In fact, it will be more than okay and that our cup will runneth over.

And for us, on this Earth Day weekend, when we look around us and see what's happening to our environment, and as we, as human beings, have been asked to shepherd the world, we may feel that it's a dark time.  And we may be asked to go through a time when we stop just consuming and we have to give up some stuff in order to get to a place that's healthier for everybody. And it might not be real clear, and we might need to use our own minds and our own thoughts and our scientists because you know what - the Shepherd also gave us minds.  We're not as dumb as sheep.  In spite of the fact that we act like that sometimes.  We are not as dumb.  Unlike sheep, we are capable of seeing that we're overeating the pasture. The question is:  Are we ready to set out and go someplace new, whether it be as a culture or as an individual?  

I love the 23rd Psalm, and many of us have great fondness for the King James version of it.  So sit back, relax, and let me read it to you.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. 

He leadeth me beside the still waters.  

He restoreth my soul.  

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.  

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, 

for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.  

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; 

thou anointest my head with oil; 

my cup runneth over.  

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; 

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."  Amen.

Easter Sermon

Sermon

Easter 1997

Valerie Ann Hart

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

       What a glorious morning, a glorious time to celebrate resurrection, a glorious time to acknowledge that through Christ’s resurrection each and every one of us has been resurrected, made new, lifted up, healed.

Alleluia, Christ is risen

       One time I was at the grocery store about to buy some corn chips. Next to me was a woman who lifted up a bag and replaced it and said, “no one will buy this bag, it’s full of broken chips.” And indeed it was. I too passed it over in favor or one with nice big whole unbroken chips. But since then I have been thinking about what kind of chips Jesus would choose. What do you think?

       The Christian church is often described as a resurrection community. What does it mean to be a resurrection community? What do we mean by resurrection? To resurrect means to bring to life again that which has been dead, to lift up again that which has fallen, it means the transformation of that which is broken into that which is truly whole. It is taking something that is broken, dead, destroyed and lifting it up to a state that is even better than what it was before it was broken.

       In order for there to be resurrection, there must be a death of some kind. In order for Christ to be resurrected he had to be broken. There is no Easter without Good Friday. Before he could be resurrected Jesus had to be broken. We are reminded of this each time we celebrate the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper. The bread does not become for us Christ’s body until it has been broken. Through the breaking of the bread it is transformed. In the same way Jesus had to be broken in body, mind, and spirit - he had to die to who he was - he had to lose his identity as the Galilean Rabbi named Jesus - he had to disappoint his followers who each had some idea to who he ought to be - he had to resist all the demands, inner and outer, for him to be anything other than who he truly was - he had to die to it all in order for him to be resurrected as the Christ.

       We are a resurrection community, because we are a community of people who have been broken. We come to Christ, we look to the resurrection, not because we are already perfect, not because our lives are always wonderful, not because we feel full and complete, but because we are broken, each in our own way. We know that we are not perfect, that we are often in physical, emotional, or spiritual pain. That sometimes we feel lost, abandoned, empty, and afraid. We come because somehow we know, as Peter said, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.”

       We are like the community that surrounded Jesus - a group of men and women who each had their own stories of brokenness. There were prostitutes, and tax collectors, passionate fishermen whose uncontrolled anger had won them the nickname “sons of thunder” and an insecure teacher who came to see Jesus at night. There were those who were greedy, and those who were afraid. There were slaves and army generals. There were those who had been diagnosed as crazy, possessed by demons, and those who had been blind beggars. There were menopausal women and epileptics. Each one had a story of brokenness. It is for this reason that I am convinced that Jesus would have chosen the bag with the broken chips. He always seemed less interested in those who were whole and sure of themselves and more interested in those who knew themselves as broken.

       And with Jesus’ death this motley group became even more broken. They dispersed, they denied their relationship with him and they hid in an upper room. Their expectations about Jesus and his movement had been broken - shattered - by the cross. Even the women who came to the grave responded not initially with joy, but with fear to the knowledge of the resurrection. What was to become of this community of broken people? The most amazing thing about the resurrection stories is not that some of his followers claim to have seen him alive, but the dramatic transformation that took place in these broken followers. Those who were hiding and afraid became fearless speakers, telling the good news of Christ. Peter who once denied he knew him found the courage and the voice to speak eloquently of his love. The women who were afraid to tell anyone eventually did and went on to share the gospel as far as Rome. This band of broken people became a force that changed the world. These frightened people risked their lives, and often lost them, in speaking out for what they believed. This community of broken people was resurrected into a powerful force. Who says you can’t use the broken chips?

       Like Jesus’ followers we are a community of people who have been broken, but we are not just a broken community, we are a resurrection community. That means that our brokenness leads to resurrection. Our brokenness leads to rising again to something that is even better than before we were broken. Just as a doctor will tell you that if you break a bone, after the bone has healed that point is stronger than the rest of the bone. Through the healing it becomes stronger than it was before the break.

       Through the healing of our brokenness we become more than we were before we were broken. Through the healing of our wounds, we become resurrection people. We have died to who we thought we were, died to our self-identity as victims, or abusers, users or sinner, haters or lovers, insecure or self-absorbed. As resurrection people we live into our wholeness. We are ready to die to that which is broken in us, to let ourselves be healed, to let ourselves know ourselves as resurrected people.

       We come to Christ as broken people, asking to be resurrected into something more, something greater. Yet, you wouldn’t know that looking around. For some reason, especially on Easter, we feel a need to present ourselves in the best possible light when we come to church. We put on our best clothes, fix our hair, shave or put on makeup. We want to look our best. And we bring our families and tell our children to behave and our spouses to make a good impression. We hide our brokenness from each other as if we believed that we are the only ones with a story of pain and suffering, of doubt and fear, of abandonment and loneliness. We forget, that this resurrection community is not about proving we are already well, but seeking out healing, it is not about already being perfect, but about being forgiven, it is not about being fearless, but learning to transform the fear, the doubt, the pain. It is about the process of resurrection. And we come together as a community to remember and celebrate Christ’s resurrection - through which we are assured that there is more, much more, unimaginably more, to life and death than we had ever dreamed. We celebrate that through his resurrection we have the potential to be resurrected, to be lifted up, and to become more. We are reassured that who we really are is so much more than the broken, struggling human being we think we are. That who we really are is a loved, resurrected, child of God, who is full of grace and joy and peace. And all we have to do to know that is to die - to die to who we think we are, to die to our pretensions of wholeness and admit our brokenness, to die to our fears and doubts, to die to the illusion that we can do it on our own, to die into the loving arms of Christ who will resurrect us from out current state into a superior state - who will lift us up - who will show us what it means to truly live.

Good Friday Sermon

Good Friday

April 14, 2017

Faith Episcopal Church

The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

I don’t know for sure what makes it so hard to hear the Passion read out loud.  Is it the suffering of Jesus? Or is it seeing the incredible cruelty of which humanity is capable?  When we read the Passion, like we did tonight, we can’t help but realize that very few people in this story demonstrate anything positive about themselves. Instead, what we hear is betrayal, cowardice, self-centeredness, fear, power, and manipulation - all the things that make us human. At least all the negative things that make us human.

Everything that’s cruel about humanity is part of this story, even the word crucify.  When the Romans conquered a people they didn’t worry about making them friends. They just wanted to control them. They decided the best way of doing it was fear. So over time they developed different ways to punish people that would elicit fear.  

Crucifixion was the most elegant of them all because crucifixion was designed to maximize the humiliation. Maximize the pain. Maximize the time it would take to die. They were always done in public places so when people were walking down the street, going to work or to go get their groceries, they might see a person or five or a hundred hanging on a wall or tied to a tree up on a hill.  They might be dying, they might be dead, they might have the birds eating their flesh. It was unbelievably cruel. 

It’s hard to imagine how a culture could be that cruel.  Yet, when we read this story we hear echoes of ourselves. We have all had times in our lives when we have been afraid and acted out of that fear.  We have all had times when we have denied somebody else, kept quiet when we could have spoken up.  

I sometimes try to imagine who I would have been in the story.  I think I might have been one of the ones who were cheering and waving palms as Jesus entered the city. But once He got arrested, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it. I would have stayed home, stayed away, not wanted to get involved.

I doubt I would have been there yelling “Crucify Him.”  That’s not my style.  But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been there protesting.  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been speaking up and saying, “Not him” because I know how many times I see injustice in the world and I stay quiet.  

Each one of you here tonight, where would you be in this story?  I would like to think I’d be standing at the cross. Jesus’ friend who stood by his mother. I doubt it.  I doubt it.  I know myself too well.  Nobody comes out very good in this story except his mother and John.  Even Joseph of Arimathea, who offers his grave, had been silent because he was afraid.  He was a secret follower of Jesus.  

I once heard of an ancient tradition of theological reflection where people wondered what it was Jesus did in that part of the Apostles Creed where it says, “He descended into hell.”  What was he doing during that time in hell?  One of the theories is that he was looking for Judas.  He was looking for the one who betrayed him to get an opportunity to forgive him.  

In the Matthew version of the Passion, Judas, when he saw that Jesus was going to be killed, realized what he had done.  He repented of it, but he was so disturbed, he went and killed himself. It also says that Jesus didn’t lose any one of them. I can imagine Jesus looking for his friend Judas to tell him he was forgiven.  Just like Jesus comes looking for us who have all let him down in one way or another in our lives.  He comes looking for each one of us, each one of his friends, so he can tell us that we’re forgiven, that we’re loved, that it’s all going to be okay.  

In fact, it’s going to be more than okay.  Out of the sadness of our lives, out of the tragedy of our lives, out of the things we do wrong in our lives, Jesus can bring hope. He can take each part of us that is dead and he can transform it, forgive it, love it, and resurrect it.  

This was a very bad Friday in many ways for the people in this story we read today, but we know that this is not the end. It is not the final chapter.  

And that’s why we call it Good Friday.

Maundy Thursday sermon

Maundy Thursday 

March 29, 2018

St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church

The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Do any of you remember the last conversation that you had with someone before they died? Do you remember where you were, what you did, what that person said? Thirty-five years later I still remember my father’s last words to me. It doesn’t matter whether at the time we know the person is going to die, we still remember the interaction. And if the person knows that they are about to die it gives even more power to those last words. A dying parent will want to share some last bits of guidance for the children, spouses share a last loving good-bye and a teacher longs to impart one more bit of knowledge.

All four Gospels contain a description of the meal Jesus had with his disciples before his death. There are differences between the Gospels, but they all make it clear that it was an extremely important event. Jesus knew that it was going to be his last time to eat with his disciples. As a teacher, he also realized that this was going to be his last opportunity to teach. The last class. The last chance to get through the thick skulls of those disciples exactly what it was he had been trying to teach them

At this last meal he could have talked intellectually. He could have sat with his disciples and said, “Okay, I want you to get the theology right. Here is the exact nature of God, and my relationship with God, and it is important that you believe this correctly.” But he didn’t do that. 

And he could have talked about spiritual things. He could have talked about the things that are kind of hard to understand, like heaven and eternity. But he didn’t. 

Instead that last supper was very incarnational. It was about action. It was about the world, being here, being now. It was about bread and wine and water and a basin and a towel. Concrete things. Simple things. Nothing expensive. Nothing fancy. Things that were in every Jewish household. Bread and wine, water, a basin and a towel. 

Jesus came from the prophetic tradition. If you read the prophets in the Old Testament, you’ll find they often illustrated their teachings by doing outrageous things. Jeremiah at one point took a brand new pair of pants, wore them once and them folded them up and stuck them in a crevice in a rock. Six months later he took them out and they are full of holes. Then he explained that God said this is the Judean people, full of holes in their relationship with God. Another prophet had the king fire an arrow through a window and then said this is how you are going to conquer Syria. Another one went up to the future king and took his cloak and ripped it into twelve pieces and threw the pieces in all different directions to show that the tribes of Abraham were going to be scattered. The prophets did this because they knew that people remembered those kind of dramatic actions. Jesus wanted people to remember his last meal and what he was teaching. So he took some dramatic action.

First he took the bread. Now the bread that he picked up had great meaning, if it was indeed a Passover feast. The unleavened bread represented the flight from Egypt, the hurry to get out of slavery into freedom. The bread represented that freedom. It also represented the manna that God gave people when they were in the wilderness. Bread represents survival, sustenance, the basic foundation of living. It nurtures and feeds. It has a very rich meaning. 

Jesus picked up the bread, and he blessed it. Then he broke it and said, “This is my body, broken for you.” He gave bread a whole new meaning. 

Then he picked up the chalice of wine. The one cup that would be passed around and they all would drink from. The disciples were used to blessing the Passover cup. 

Now wine also is rich in meaning. We call alcohol spirits for a reason. Wine was considered to have spirit in it. And at the time of Jesus there were worshipers of the God Dionysus or as the romans called him Bacchus - the God of wine. Wine was one of the things that was offered at the temple in Jerusalem and poured onto the altar. Wine was rich in significance and meaning. 

Jesus picked up the wine and he blessed it. Then he said, “This is my blood which is shed for you.” This is my blood? This is my blood! Imagine, imagine the reactions of the disciples who were all good Jews. Jews never, ever, ever drink blood. When an animal is killed for Kosher food all the blood is drained out of it. Blood was considered to carry the life force of the animal. That blood, that life force, was only to be offered to God. The idea that the disciples would drink blood? That got their attention! 

Then he said “Do this to remember me.” Well you can be pretty sure that the disciples weren’t going to forget that. 

And if that wasn’t enough, the next thing he did was he took off his outer cloak and got down to his basic underwear, a simple garment much like the albs the clergy and acolytes wear. He was now dressed like a servant might be dressed. Then he took a towel and a basin and a pitcher of water and he began to wash the disciples’ feet. 

It was not like today. How many of you took a shower before coming to the service tonight? We don’t want our feet to be dirty when we come up to have our feet washed. Back then they were wearing sandals, and they were walking on the dirt streets that the chariots and donkeys and camels all walked down. There was the mud, and grim and all the stuff that you would not want to have between your toes. That’s what they were walking through on the way to dinner. So, when you came to a person’s house, if you had been traveling, to have your feet cleaned was a great gift. But it was never done by the host. If the host was rich, one of the slaves would do it, but it had to be one of the slaves that wasn’t Jewish because according to the Torah, you couldn’t make a Jewish slave wash someone’s feet. It was beneath them. So it would have to be a non-Jewish slave that would wash your feet. The bottom of the bottom. If you didn’t have slaves, then if you were a good host you provided a pitcher of water and a nice clean towel and a basin where a person could wash their own feet. But never, ever would the host wash someone’s feet. 

Yet here was Jesus, their Lord and their teacher, down on his knees washing their feet. No wonder Peter said, “don’t do this.” 

After Jesus was finished and had done all these dramatic actions, much like in the prophetic tradition, he began to teach. Now came the teaching that all of those actions were leading up to. 

He said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Love one another as I have loved you.  

How did Jesus love them? Jesus loved them? Incarnationally, in the material world. Jesus fed them. He offered his body and his blood for them. Jesus got down on his knees and washed their feet - like a servant. That is how Jesus’ followers are to love one another. 

When Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you,” he was not saying have a nice warm feeling about everybody, because that is not how Jesus loved people. And he wasn’t saying love in a sort of abstract sense of “well I love everybody in the world”, because that was not the way Jesus loved. The way Jesus loved was material, and real, and right here and in depth. It involved bread and wine, water, a basin and a towel. It meant being the servant. It meant touching with love. It meant offering his life. It meant dying for them.

That was his final teaching. That is what he wanted the disciples to remember. That was the summation of all his teaching and all his ministry. ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’

Now we will participate in the ceremony of the foot washing where we have an opportunity to wash one another’s feet, where we have a chance to physically represent Jesus’ command to love one another. There are two parts here, two opportunities to practice love. 

The first is the humble act of washing another’s feet. To be the care giver. To serve.

The second, and for some, more difficult opportunity, is to let someone else wash your feet. We, like Peter, are confronted with the question of whether we can be humble enough to let someone care for us in such an intimate way? Can we permit ourselves to be vulnerable to this loving action of another?

To love one another means to both lovingly give and lovingly receive. To love is to be willing to be vulnerable.

To love is to live in the knowledge that each and every person here tonight is a beloved child of God in need of comfort and in need of the opportunity to offer comfort.

4 Lent C

It's just not fair!

4 Lent C - 2010

Transcribed from a sermon given by

Rev. Valerie Hart 

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Arroyo Grande, CA

It’s not fair!! It’s just not fair!! 

You giggle? 

Sounds like you’ve heard that before, or perhaps you can remember times in which you have said that.

We as children have all had moments where we said “It’s not fair” “I’m the eldest that has to do all the work around here and my younger brothers don’t have to do anything.” Or “It’s not fair, I’m the youngest and I have to go to bed earlier then everyone else does.” Or “It’s not fair, I’m an only child and I don’t have any brothers or sisters to play with.” It doesn’t really matter what the situation was, when I was growing up there was always some way in which it wasn’t “fair.” And of course if you are a parent or a grandparent or a teacher you have heard children say this to you. 

One of the darker days as a parent is when the children learn to say “It’s not fair.” Because it’s always not fair, one kid says that the other got a larger slice of cake. Another says you spent more time with one child than the other. . 

It’s not fair. We know what it feels like to have that feeling inside that it’s not fair. And even as adults, even though we don’t say it out loud, we think it, “It’s just not fair.”

When we look at this Gospel reading, it’s all about fairness. It begins with the Pharisees critiquing Jesus because he is speaking with and eating with prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners of all types. And that’s not fair! Because while they’ve been out having a good time the Pharisees have been following all these rules and laws. And it’s not fair that they get all the attention. They should be being punished in some way and the ones who have been following all the laws should be getting some goodies for it, some acknowledgement for how hard they have worked. 

So Jesus responds to them by telling this wonderful story of the father with two sons. And if we didn’t have anything else from the gospels except this story it would teach us of Jesus’ understanding of the nature of God. 

Now you can understand the older son’s perspective. The younger son has said basically to his father “I’m going to treat you like you are dead, give me my inheritance.” And back in those days inheritance was not split 50/50, the eldest got a large chunk and the younger ones didn’t get as much. So, for a younger brother to be asking for his share before the father even is dead is an incredible insult to his father. And then he goes off, leaves his father, basically abandoning him. You can imagine how angry the older brother was right from the beginning that his younger brother would do this and leave him having to take care of the farm. We can all kind of understand why the older brother was so angry when “that son of yours” returns.

(I love the little nuances in this story, they are so great. The older brother refers to his brother as “that son of yours.” He has pushed him out of the family. “I have no relationship with that one any more.” And the father responds “Your brother.”)

He represents the Pharisees. They were talking about fairness and justice, while what Jesus was talking about was mercy and love. If you have been a parent or a teacher or in other ways work with children you know that you love them all. They are each unique and your relationship is unique with each one, but you love them all. When you pick up a little baby and you feel that overwhelming sense of love you don’t love that baby because it is being so good. That baby is screaming and throwing up and going in its diaper. It’s being a baby. But you love it because that is it’s nature and your nature is to love. And that is the way God is. God doesn’t love us because we’re so good. 

Most of us spend much of our lives trying to make ourselves loveable. You know. if I get one more degree, if I work a little harder, if I lose some weight, if I go to church ever Sunday. Something that we do that we think will make us more loveable. That’s not the way love works. Love is.

It is just like the father in the story who loves both of his sons. There was nothing that the younger son could do that would destroy his father’s love and there was nothing that the elder son could do, being good, that would make the father love him any more. The love was complete. Unconditional, and that’s the love we have from God that Christ is trying to tell us about, to show us, to demonstrate. It’s not about fairness, but about mercy. That we are all loved by God, and God wants to be in relationship with each of us. 

We call it reconciliation, healing of the relationship. God wants each one of his children to come home. And God will run outside to meet us when we decide to come home. And that makes all the difference

This wonderful little passage from 2 Corinthians is just beautiful because it says we regard no one from a human point of view. Think about a family. How the brothers and sisters perceive each other and how the parent perceives them. The parent perceives them with love. The brothers and sisters are in competition. 

What if we were to see everybody else the way God sees them. With the sense of mercy and love and acceptance that God has for them. If we could see the person that’s hurt us and instead of seeing them as an enemy we could see them as a child of God, loved by God, regardless of what they have done. That would change things, wouldn’t it? If we could see one another the way God sees us. That’s what Paul says here, “We regard no one from a human point of view.” Not seeing what’s fair, but seeing with the eyes of love. 

He goes on to say “So if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation, everything old has passed away. See everything has become new.” This new creation comes when we realize that we are dependent upon the mercy and love of God and when we are reconciled to God. When we know that love, that totally underserved love of God that fills us and heals us, we become a new person. We see things in a new way. It becomes much harder to hold on to our resentments of other people when we know how much we have been forgiven by God. 

Paul goes on to say, “All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” Has given usthe ministry of reconciliation. Once we are reconciled to God, God empowers us to be instruments of God’s love in the world - the ministry of reconciliation. Our jobs once we know that we are forgiven and loved is to help others to know that they are forgiven and loved by God. To help others to be reconciled to God. And to help others to be reconciled to each other. 

It all begins with us. It all begins with us acknowledging the fact that we have not lived a perfect life. We do not deserve God’s love, no one deserves love, love is given as a gift. And when we acknowledge that and accept God’s mercy and forgiveness, we then do the hard work of acknowledging how we have hurt other people –  working to forgive others and be forgiven. Those who have gone through the 12 steps know that process very well. We become a new creation – instruments of reconciliation. That’s our job, or ministry. 

Our job is not to make the world fair, our job is to bring people together and to bring people to God through Christ.

Paul continues and says, “so we are ambassadors for Christ because God is making his appeal through us, we entreat you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” First step is to be reconciled to God. That is why in almost all of our services we have a confession, we have a way in which we acknowledge we need to be healed and reconciled to God. That is the foundation upon which we are sent out to be ambassadors for Christ and to bring reconciliation, love and mercy to the world.

Amen