Many Are Called, Few Chose to Come - Sermon Proper 23 A

 

Many Are Called, Few Chose to Come

Proper 23 A

Transcribed from a sermon given

By Valerie Ann Hart

October 9, 2011

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

 

Philippians 4:1-9

Matthew 22:1-14

 

Rejoice always, again I say rejoice. This is one of the most wonderful things that I think Paul wrote. Rejoice always! Always!

Paul was already at the wedding banquet. He knew that his relationship with Christ meant a joyous celebration, and he invited all of his readers to live a life of celebration knowing the joy of the relationship with God. To know that the kingdom had come near and was part of them. Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.

We are at the wedding banquet. The wedding banquet is an image used over and over again in scripture to describe the relationship between God and God’s people. 

The imagery of wedding is so rich and full and complete. After all, what is a wedding but a celebration of a relationship. The celebration of a relationship of love and mutual commitment. A celebration of the whole community. It is a welcoming of everyone. 

We don’t do wedding banquets the way they did back in Jesus’ time. They knew how to do a wedding banquet. A wedding banquet back then was not an afternoon affair where you had some cupcakes and tea. These lasted for days, sometimes over a week of feasting. They had meat and food and drink and song and celebration and dancing and everything joyous. It was a time when the whole community came together. 

It served a number of purposes. One of the purposes for the wedding banquet had to do with feeding. People at that time, even the rich, did not have an overabundance of food. The poor lived on very little, and they didn’t get to have meat very often. So, when you had a wedding banquet it was a chance for the wealthy or even the not so wealthy, to share what they had with others. It was feasting and sharing and bringing together of the community, of the whole clan. 

In fact, it was the bringing together of two clans because often it was the matter of the husband and wife representing two different clans coming together to make one. Especially if it was the wedding of the leader of the clan, which is what this king probably was. The king in this parable doesn’t sound like a high king in charge of a whole area, like David or Solomon. What Jesus is probably referring to is a king over a couple of cities, a clan, or an area. We need to remember that the Palestine of this time was a tribal area. It still is a tribal area. Sometimes when we see what is going on the news it is hard for us to wrap our minds around it because we don’t live as tribally. But the relationships and interweavings based on blood relationship was extremely important then. If a leader of an area, lets say a tribal leader’s son, is getting married often that was used to cement a relationship, to make a treaty. The son might be marrying the daughter of another tribal leader and then the two tribes would become one, would have a relationship. If you remember your European history, that’s what the kings in Europe did for many years. 

So this wedding, this wedding that Jesus is talking about, is much more than just a celebration. It’s about relationship, its about bringing people together, bringing the whole clan together. It’s a time to see people you haven’t seen for a long time. It’s a time to reconcile with people you haven’t talked to. 

Maybe you have been to a wedding where there was some cousin you hadn’t seen for a long time and you weren’t too sure you wanted to see him, but if you have several days of eating and drinking there is a good chance you are going to find a chance to make up. It’s about that relationship, that celebration, that joy. 

One of the ways that scripture has been thought about, meditated upon, is by taking all the characters in the story and imagining yourself as each one of the characters. Now I’m going to ask you to think about how you might be each character and I’ll reflect upon my thoughts. 

First there is the king. I have had two children get married. I know what it is like to send out those wedding invitations. You go through who do we invite and who do we not invite. Sometimes, if it is a small wedding, you only have a certain number of invitations as you try to decide who to invite. So, from the point of view of the parent it is a very special thing to invite someone to come to your child’s wedding. You are so happy when people say yes and you are disappointed when they so no. Now sometimes they have a good reason for not being able to be there, and you understand that, but there is still a disappointment. But then if there is a friend or a cousin that doesn’t come and doesn’t explain why, maybe doesn’t even respond to the RSVP, that relationship is weakened. You feel like that person doesn’t really care about you. Maybe you aren’t as close as you thought you were. 

So for this king to send his servants to invite these people was an honor. It was something special. Please come. Join in the celebration.

The next ones to consider are the first two people invited. They are too busy. One has to go to her office the other has to go to his farm. They can’t come to the wedding. I think most of us have at least once in our life been invited to something that had to do with relationship. Even though we were in a good relationship with that person we decided that we were too busy. That we just don’t have enough time to go and be with this person. We have all had to make those choices. Sometimes its hard. Sometimes we really want to spend time with this friend or relative or child but other things are calling us and we feel torn. We know what that is like.

We also know what this is like in terms of our relationship with God. Do we have enough time to go on retreat, because there is all the business to do? My to-do list is too long to take the evening off for a special service. We are behind at work and don’t come to church on a Sunday morning. We all have to make those decisions about relationships and our responsibility.

It is interesting that these first two are not condemned. They have just chosen not to be in relationship with the king. 

The next group of people that are invited are ones who get angry at the servants that are sent to them and they beat them up and they kill them. Now imagine that you are the head of the clan and you run a couple of cities and perhaps the reason people from a certain city have been invited is that your son is marrying a daughter in that clan and you are inviting the whole city so you can establish a deeper relationship. They make light of you. They make light of you so much that they even kill the servants you send. The are saying, “We don’t think you matter.” Can there be a more direct way of saying “You are irrelevant to me? You are weak. It doesn’t matter. We don’t owe you anything.” So you can understand that the tribal leader who sent his servants now has to show these people that he is powerful. But it was their choice not to be in relationship. 

And then the next thing the servants are told is to go out and invite everyone, good and bad. Everyone. Everyone! 

What a generous welcoming thing to do. To say, “I have all this feast, come and share it with me. I don’t care, I want a relationship.” That’s the action of someone who really wants relationship with everyone and everyone is invited. Imagine being invited and not expecting to be invited. It would be like a few months ago when there was that big royal wedding in England, one day going to your mailbox and having an invitation to the royal wedding. Wow!! I’m invited. It would be exciting, you’d be thankful. You’d be all set to go. 

Which brings us to the next character, the one who showed up at the wedding without a wedding garment. Now a wedding garment back then was not something real fancy. A wedding garment was basically clean clothes. Generally, if you had two sets of clothes, one you used for work and the other you used for special events. To show up at a wedding without a wedding garment would be like going to a wedding on Saturday afternoon and beforehand changing the oil in your car. You now have oil all over your hands, you have overalls on and you haven’t brushed your hair yet you show up at the wedding. What does that say about how you feel about the person who is hosting the wedding? What does that say about how much you value the relationship? It’s obviously not terribly important to you. You didn’t even brush your hair. You didn’t even put on some clean clothes. 

Now if I had been invited to that royal wedding you darn well know that I would have gone out and bought something new. I might have needed to go to the thrift shop to find it. And I might even have gotten one of those silly hats. I wouldn’t show up in my jeans or my short shorts, or whatever. God help me if I showed up in short shorts. 

But this last one chose not to take the wedding banquet seriously. In the imagery of scripture, the wedding banquet is not between two people, the wedding is between God and the person who shows up. 

At the end of the parable Jesus says that many are called but few are chosen. I would put that a different way. Many are called but few chose to be in relationship. You will notice in these stories, the ones who aren’t there all chose to not be in relationship with the king. There were good ones and there were bad ones who were there because they chose to come. It is the ones who chose not to be in relationship that are not at the wedding. 

There is one more character or group of people in the parable that I haven’t mentioned. Anybody think of who it is? The servants. The Greek word is doulous. Doulous has often been translated as servant. In the New Revised Standard Version, it’s translated as slave, and that is probably a more accurate translation because what it means in Greek is someone who has given themselves totally to serve someone else. They have given themselves up totally to the other person. Which a slave would do. 

What the servants do is they go out and they invite people. I would say that here we are, all of us were invited to the wedding banquet and we showed up. Showing up is a large part of being in relationship. And how did we hear? Someone invited us.

Now that you are part of the wedding banquet, now that you are able to rejoice and celebrate the great joy of your relationship with Christ, the next step is deepening that relationship. It is about offering oneself wholly to serve the other, to become servants of Christ. And what is it that the servants do? They go out and they invite everybody to come to the wedding.

 

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Jacob revisited

  Jacob was left alone; 

and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 

...

Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking."
But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ 

Genesis 32:24-26

As we are left alone, we all struggle with something, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. The story of Jacob encourages us to hold on, continue to wrestle, and seek out the blessings which can only be found through confronting the pain. We, individually, as a country and as a world community, will be different when we have prevailed against this virus. What that will look like will depend upon what blessings we have gathered.

I wrote this on my blog on March 30th, when our social isolation was still new. A month later, as people begin to demand that our society reopen, we need to ask ourselves what blessings have we received? What have we learned? Are we truly ready for whatever is next? Or, do we need to continue wrestling with separation and all that entails until we are ready to move on?

And remember, while Jacob was blessed with a new name, he walked away with  a limp.

Holy Saturday - 2020

Holy Saturday – 2020

Alone

Together

Surrounded by darkness

Drowning in sorrow

They wait

Dawn

Without hope

Sabbath

Without rest

Lost

Endless

Empty

Fearful day

They grieve

While Love transforms the world

Palm Sunday 2020

Palm Sunday 2020

Dried palm cross

Leans against computer

Waiting 

Cathedral organ plays

Beautiful 

Mournful 

Prelude

Heart opens to prayer

For all those suffering

Sick

Grieving

Isolated

Filled with fear

Workers 

Without work

Families 

A little too close

Exhausted

First responders

Doctors

Nurses

Technicians

Hospital cooks

Cleaners

Guards

Telephone operators

The most vulnerable

The old

The sick

The poor

The homeless

People of my neighborhood

My town

My state

My country

My world

Tears streaming down my face

Prelude ends

Transported 

To Jerusalem

Many years ago

With its deep, deep sorrow

That lead 

Inevitably

To hope and new life

Boomers 2020

Boomers 2020

Valerie A Hart

Our hearts long to serve

To go 

To help

To feed the poor

To heal the sick

To comfort the dying

To make a noble sacrifice

But that is for others 

For those who are younger, healthy

We are told to stay safe 

Because that will lessen the load 

On brave physicians

And warrior nurses

Free up ventilators 

For someone else

Slow the spread of sickness

Our hearts long to serve

So we stay at home

Eat what’s in the pantry

Lounge in comfortable clothes

Call up a friend

Learn to join a zoom group

Read 

Watch TV

Sit alone with our fears

And fast from human touch

Kaleidoscope of butterflies

March 31, 2020

  Yesterday on my morning walk I noticed a butterfly flitting across the road. I turned to look at where it had come from and discovered a bush bursting with blooms. Suddenly I was swarmed by butterflies, at least twenty or thirty flew out of the bush, around my head and across the street. 

  Did you know that a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope? Imagine in your mind a kaleidoscope of butterflies. If that doesn’t bring a smile to your face I don’t know what will.

  Since that encounter I’ve been thinking that while we, humanity, are focused on a virus, the rest of earth’s inhabitants have been going on as usual. Perhaps the creatures in the cities are appreciating the cleaner air. Perhaps the wildlife in our parks are enjoying fewer human visitors. But otherwise, in the spring in the northern hemisphere, as the earth warms, plants are sprouting, flowers are blooming and butterflies are migrating.

Romans 8:17-22

Romans 8 – 2020

With sighs too deep for words

We wait

We groan

The whole creation groans

Throughout the world

All are touched

All suffer together

Groaning in labor pains

We wait

We pray

With sighs too deep for words

Trusting the Spirit intercedes

AM Walk - Poem

AM Walk

March 24, 2020

Thankful for each step

Right foot

Left foot

Achy knees that still work

Bringing me outside

Thankful for the cool, damp breeze upon my face

And the soft jacket that keeps me warm

For shoes and socks and puddles

For this flower, right here, right now

Bright yellow orange bursting out on a thousand petals

Within the space of a robin’s egg

Thankful for the birds that sing

Each voice unique

The little sparrow perched on a for sale sign

The loud demanding crow upon the housetop

The soft coo of an unseen friend

The more the listening the more the different voices

All joined in praise

For the day, for the grey clouds, for last night’s rain

There is a calmness

A peace in the stillness

Strolling through the park

By a wonderful playground

That is empty

Jacob was alone

  Jacob was left alone; 

and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 

When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, 

he struck him on the hip socket; 

and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 

Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ 

But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ 

So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ 

And he said, ‘Jacob.’ 

Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, 

for you have striven with God and with humans, 

and have prevailed.’  

Genesis 32:24-28

As we are left alone, we all struggle with something, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. The story of Jacob encourages us to hold on, continue to wrestle, and seek out the blessings which can only be found through confronting the pain. We, individually, as a country and as a world community, will be different when we have prevailed against this virus. What that will look like will depend upon what blessings we have gathered.

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.