4 Advent B

Mary said, "Yes" and that made all the difference.

4 Advent B

Transcribed from a sermon given on

December 20, 2009

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Arroyo Grande, California

By Rev. Valerie A. Hart

From the beginning of creation God had it planned.  God had a plan and an intention that led up to a particular moment that led up to a decision of a woman. Everything beforehand was leading up to that moment. It had been predicted by the prophets. It was in the Psalms. A child would be born to a virgin and born in Bethlehem, a child of Jesse’s lineage from Nazareth.  It was all planned and ready for that moment that changed everything; that moment when Mary said, “Yes”.  And when Mary said, “Yes”, the angels rejoiced and God smiled and things could move forward. 

But it wasn’t a given that she’d say, “Yes.”  She had a choice.  Julian of Norwich talks about God as being a Gracious Lord.  God doesn’t force God’s self on anyone.  We have to say, “Yes.”  And Mary, that young woman, said “Yes,” said yes to something that was unknown, said yes to something she knew would be difficult, said yes in faith and trust and simplicity and that has made all the difference in the world, in all of creation.  I think instead of BC and AD, it should be BY, before the yes and after the yes, because everything changed at that moment.

And what Mary said “Yes” to was that Christ could come into her heart and into her being and grow in her and be born and made part of the incarnation through her.  God’s intention was to come to earth and he needed the form to do it.  He needed a human being to birth Him, and Mary said, “Yes”.  And God comes to us and wants to come into us and to grow within us and be born into the world through us.  We’re invited to say “Yes”. 

But we have lots of excuses.  Mary was simple and she said, “I will be the servant, the handmaid of the Lord.”  And we’re asked to say “Yes,” to be God’s servant.  Well we have lots of reasons not to say yes.  First of all, we’re afraid.  Well, Mary was afraid.  The first thing that the angel said to Mary was, “Don’t be afraid.”  We are afraid when God asks us to say, “Yes,” because we don’t know what’s going to happen.  We are afraid because it means giving up control.  We are afraid because we like to believe that we have some control over what happens in our lives, but that’s an illusion, of course.

We never know what’s going to happen, but we like to think we’re in charge. We like to think that we’re the one that makes the decision.  We don’t want to be the servant, the one who says, “Yes” and does whatever we’re told.  So, of course we’re afraid.  And Mary was afraid.  And we’re afraid of, “Gee, if I say ‘Yes’ to God, what’s going to happen to my reputation?  If I start telling people about Jesus Christ, oh my gosh, what would they think at work?” and “My family would be embarrassed and what would my husband or my wife say if I follow Christ. If I did then my kids would look at me like I’d become some kind of fanatic” or “My parents would not want me to act that way” or “What would the neighbors say?”  We have lots of reasons for not saying “Yes” to God. 

Mary could be pretty sure that if she said “Yes” the neighbors were not going to approve.  In fact, it was quite likely that she might get stoned and killed if she really became pregnant. We can imagine after she visits Elizabeth and spends several months there.  She’s left town.  She comes back and she is obviously pregnant.  Can you imagine what it was like in that village?  Can you imagine what the other women were saying to one another?  Can you imagine how hard it would have been for Mary to go to the well when all of the other women were there?  But she said, “Yes.”  She’s a servant of the Lord. 

And we might have difficulty saying “Yes” to God because we don’t know what’s going to happen.  We don’t know whether it’s going to work or not.  We don’t know whether we’ll get a positive response.  We don’t know whether it is actually right or not.  “My goodness, what if I say ‘Yes’ to God and I lose all my money and everything is destroyed and I don’t have anything?  What if I say ‘Yes’ to God and it doesn’t work out?”  Saying “Yes” to God does not guarantee that your life is going to be easy.  In contrast to what some people say on TV, saying “Yes” to God does not guarantee you’re going to have enough money or that you’re going to have a new car or that everything’s going to go well. 

Saying “Yes” to God means that we trust God.  Look what happened to Mary.  Yes, we celebrate her as being the Mother of God, but she had a son who ended up leaving home and wandering around teaching. She and her other children thought he was crazy.  He abandoned her.  And then, what was the gift that Mary got for having said “Yes” to God?  She got to stand on Calvary and watch her son die.  No, there is no guarantee when we say “Yes” to God that things will be easy.  We do have the guarantee that there can be joy, that it can be joyous, because there is that wonderful Magnificat that we read today where Mary magnifies the Lord. 

Here she is, a young virgin who is pregnant and she is rejoicing in the Lord and she is filled with joy, not happiness.  Saying “Yes” to God does not guarantee that we’ll be happy.  Happy is the sort of thing that happens when you go to Disneyland.  Happy is the sort of thing you feel when you get a new car.  Joy - joyousness is that welling up from inside that has nothing to do with the outside world, but in which we feel full and whole and alive and just want to sing and if we can’t sing, we just want to smile.  That’s joy.  That’s what Mary had.  That’s why Mary rejoiced because she felt God’s love growing within her.  When we say “Yes” to God, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be happy.  But we are offered the peace that passes understanding.  We are offered joy. 

One of the reasons we say “No” to God is “Well, after all, I’m nobody special.  God couldn’t possibly be asking me to do something.”  Well, you know, Mary was just a young woman; nobody special, humble.  “Not me, God, no.  No, angel, I’m not worthy.  Go somewhere else.”  But God knows.  God lifted up the humble.  God used the weak.  And the Magnificat says that everything is turned upside down with the coming of Christ.  She doesn’t use the future tense.  She uses the present tense.  Not the hungry will be fed and the rich sent away empty.  The hungry are fed.  The rich are sent away empty.  The proud are cast down and the humble are lifted up.  Everything is shifted around.  The revolution has begun because she said “Yes” and Christ is growing inside of her.

What we are asked by God is to say, “Yes”.  To say yes to Christ coming within us, to letting Christ come into our hearts and our minds and our spirits and grow in there so that we can become God’s instruments in the world.  The spiritual practice that I do twice a day called Centering Prayer is also called the Prayer of Consent.  It’s a contemplative prayer of sitting quietly and opening oneself to God.  Thomas Keating describes it as the Prayer of Consent because what we do is sit and consent to God’s presence and action within.  It’s a time twice a day that I try to just be open to God.  And, of course, my mind thinks about everything else and I have to keep going back to remembering that intention and that’s what the whole practice is about, constantly going back to that intention.  That’s what saying “Yes” is.  It’s saying yes to God’s presence and action within.  Yes to God transforming us so that we can be Christ’s hands and feet and eyes and voice and heart in the world. 

It’s different than saying that Jesus Christ is your personal Lord and Savior.  That’s a fine thing.  That’s a first step; it is when you say, “You are my Savior.”  Saying “Yes” to God is saying, “I am your servant.  It’s not about me, it’s about you.  It’s not about my salvation; it’s about serving you regardless of what happens.”  It’s an offering of ourselves.  From the beginning of creation God has been longing to hear your “Yes”.  And when any one of us says “Yes” to God and opens our heart, God rejoices and the angels rejoice with Him and everything changes because we become an instrument of God.  And whatever God’s intention for us and for the universe, now it can be fulfilled and God can rejoice and Christ is made known.

I invite you to say “Yes” to God and invite the newborn Christ into your heart.  Amen. 

Advent 3 C

"You brood of vipers." What a strange way to win friends and influence people. And what was this "Good News" he was sharing?

Advent 3 C

Transcribed from a Sermon Given on

December 13, 2009

By Rev. Valerie A. Hart

St Barnabas Episcopal Church, Arroyo Grande CA

Now I don’t know what John’s training was, but he obviously didn’t take a class on how to make friends and influence people.  Here he was, out in the middle of the desert, and people traveled not just for miles, but for days, because it was all on foot, out into the wilderness to hear him.  They’ve come to hear him and what does he say to them?  “You brood of vipers.  Who told you to come?”  That sure would make me feel good.  How would it feel if it took you two days to walk here to church today and I got up and said, “Who told you to come?” 

I don’t know, but it worked for John.

Then, at the end of all this about unquenchable fire and judgment and all of that, at the end of it, the Gospel reading says, “And in this way, he proclaimed the good news.”  So, all that’s supposed to be good news.  Where’s the good news in all of that?  What’s the good news?  Well, it wasn’t good news for the rich because they were being told they had to share what they had.  If you owned two coats in that time, you were pretty rich, and you were being told give half of it away.  It wasn’t good news for them.

And for those who were of the Tribe of Israel, sons and daughters of Abraham, the ones who had the right upbringing, it wasn’t good news for them because they were people who believed that because of their ancestry, they were in the right relationship with God.  All they had to do was be born into a family that had its ancestry go back to the beginning of the Jewish tradition and they were set.  And John said, “God can make the stones into children Abraham.  That’s no big deal, your ancestry, who your parents were.  That’s not going to get you right with God.”  So it wasn’t good news for them.

But it was good news for the poor.  It was good news for the outcast.  It was good news for the stranger.  It was good news for the ones who were born to the wrong parents. Because John was saying it’s not about wealth.  It’s not about ancestry.  It’s about repentance.  It’s about being in the right relationship with God.  Because you see, John’s good news was that no matter who you were, where you came from, what your profession was, what you’ve done, you could repent and start over knowing that God loves you and is with you.  And that’s pretty good news. 

And there’s good news in the other readings.  In the very first reading Zephaniah is speaking to the people of Israel who are having a really tough time.  In the Old Testament time period, people felt if a country was having a hard time that meant that God wasn’t with them.  The writer of Zephaniah is saying, “Don’t worry.  Your tough times are almost over.  It’s going to get better.  God is with you.”  And in the Canticle here today (Canticle means song. This one comes from Isaiah; it’s a song within the Book of Isaiah.  These Canticles are used in our morning and evening prayers, our daily prayer in the prayer book, so, if you’re not familiar with morning and evening prayer, that’s where that comes from.) In the Canticle Isaiah is rejoicing because God is present.  He’s with us. 

And then we have Paul.  A wonderful reading from Paul where he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.  Again, I say rejoice.”  Rejoice always.  And this is from Paul who was imprisoned, shipwrecked, stoned, kicked out of many different towns, had an ongoing chronic illness, and yet, he could say, “Rejoice.  Rejoice always.”  That’s some pretty good news.  That’s some pretty good news. 

What is your good news?  What is the good news that you might share with someone else?  My good news comes from my story, my life experience.  It comes from a time when I had brain surgery and I couldn’t think and I couldn’t work and I couldn’t take care of my children, you know, all those things you do to make yourself loveable?  I went to school and got a PhD so my parents would be proud of me.  I had long hair down to my waist so I would be attractive.  I wanted to be a good parent so I would be loveable.  We spend much of our lives, especially our young adult lives, trying to do something to make ourselves loveable. 

After my surgery, it was all taken away.  My long hair was gone and I was half shaved because of my brain surgery.  I had just had a baby and so my body, well, I wasn’t feeling real good about my body image.  All the women who’ve ever had children know that you don’t feel real good about how your body looks after you’ve had a child.  I was having difficulties in my marriage.  I couldn’t think clearly.  I couldn’t do my work as a therapist.  I couldn’t even be home alone with my children because I was having seizures.  It was like everything, everything I had done to make myself loveable was gone. 

But I discovered, not in one big moment, but over time, that I was still loved by God and that Christ was walking with me.  That even when all the things I did to make myself loveable were gone, I was and am loved by God.  That’s my good news.  That’s changed my life.  I have to tell people, “You’re loved by God, unconditionally, totally, absolutely loved by God.  And if you mess up and you do things wrong, God’s going to be right there. All you have to do is turn around and say ‘I’m sorry’ and He’s going to give you a big hug and He’s going to keep loving you.”  That’s my good news. 

What’s your good news?  What’s the story in your life?  What’s the good news that you could share with somebody else?  Perhaps your good news is that you’ve been lost in addiction and you found your way out of it and that God was there helping you.  Or, maybe your good news is that when you were alone, you found a community of faith that welcomed you in.  Or, maybe your good news is that when you went through a difficult time in your life, there were people there with you and Christ was there with you.  Maybe your good news is you had a time of deep guilt and discovered that you’ve been forgiven.  Maybe your good news is that you’ve made friends in a community of people who just like you for who you are and you don’t have to fit in with any group.  What’s your good news? 

I went to a program about two weeks ago on PR.  How do you present an organization or a program or a nonprofit or a political agenda, whatever, how do you present it to the world?  One of the talks was given by someone who had done a lot of work in politics.  She said that first of all you need to have short statements that are easy to remember and you have to have one message and keep everything you say on message.  One of the things that was said is you should be prepared with an elevator talk.  An elevator talk is what you can say to somebody when you get on the elevator and you’re going one floor.  In other words, you should be able to concisely state what’s most important about, say, your nonprofit.  You should be able to get on the elevator with someone and tell them what the issue is, what you are doing, why it’s important and what you want them to do before the elevator door opens back up again.

Can you develop an elevator story of your good news?  Can you distill the good news that’s happened to you in a way that you could share with somebody on the elevator?  Now some of you may not have good news yet.  Some of you may be here because you’re searching.  Some of you may be here because you are hoping that there will be something said or something will happen and you will feel the good news.  But those of you who have good news, can you distill it down into a couple sentences?  And can you tell it to somebody else? 

If you went to a movie last night or Friday night and you really liked it, if it was one of those movies where you were moved, maybe you cried during it, but you came out of it transformed would you go home and say, “Under no condition am I ever going to tell anybody about that movie because it’s private to me and I wouldn’t want to hurt them by telling them that I liked that movie because that might be uncomfortable for them.”  Or, would you go and call up your best friend and say, “You got to see this movie.  It’s really great!”  And then you’d go on Facebook and say, “I just went and saw the best movie.”  And you Tweet, “I was at the movies” and you say the name and you get it down to 140 characters somehow. You would want tell everybody what a great movie it was. 

We’ve got some really good news.  We’ve got some amazing good news.  The good news is that God loves us.  The good news that the angels proclaimed centuries ago, we’ll proclaim again at Christmas - glad tidings of great news - the Christ is born - Emanuel.  The good news is God with us, that God loves us, that God is with us, that God sent Christ to show us how much we’re loved, how completely we’re forgiven and that we’re never alone.  That's pretty good news.

And so, I’d like to invite each and every one of you to think and pray about who you’re going to invite to come to church on Christmas.  Inviting somebody on Christmas day is fairly safe.  A lot of people are looking for church on Christmas day and we’re going to make it really easy for you.  We made up these little cards and on the one side is the advertisement that’s been in the ticket about the Episcopal Church. It has a picture of Santa Claus with a little girl on his lap and it says, “Jesus, on the other hand loves you regardless of whether you’re naughty or nice.  Unconditional love and forgiveness are the Christmas gifts of Jesus Christ.  Join us as we celebrate the miracle of His birth.”  And on the backside is when our services are.  Take some on your way out.  They’re by the front door.  Give them to someone.  Give somebody this year a Christmas gift that really will matter.  Invite someone to open their hearts to Christ.  Give a Christmas gift that will last for eternity, and that’s a relationship with God through Christ.  You just might make a friend.  You just might change a life.  And if you’re really shy, you can just slip this on somebody’s desk and they won’t even know it was you who left it there. 

Indeed, we are about to proclaim, and we are proclaiming, good news of great joy.  Let’s not keep silent about it.  Let’s share what we’ve received and offer it as a gift to others.  Amen. 

Advent 2 C

Imagine that you are told that the President is coming to visit your home. What would you do to prepare?

Advent 2 C

Transcribed from a sermon given on

December 9, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Arroyo Grande

This past week I saw a small thing on the news about the president going to visit a middle class family. It was one of those photo opportunities. I imagined what it would be like to be a member of that family. Can you imagine getting the call, “The president is going to come to visit.” I don’t know how much time they had to prepare - certainly at least a few hours because the secret service had to come and all that. But can you imagine how you would feel. Immediately it would be, “Oh my gosh, when did we dust last.” And I have to vacuum under the furniture because I don’t do that. And then as you’ve got the house fairly clean you are thinking oh my there is all that stuff that we put down in the basement. The secret service are going to go down there and what are they going to find? You know. And the husband is going to be out there mowing the grass and blowing the leaves.

We know what it is like when someone important is coming to visit. We know what we do to prepare. Now I help with a lot of weddings, and I can’t tell you how many new carpets have been put into houses of the family of someone getting married. When people are going to come and see the house we have to get everything in order. We have to prepare. And of course if you have kept the house pretty clean all along it is not nearly as difficult as if you have been a little slovenly and haven’t done much of anything. But we all know what it is like when someone comes to visit, especially when it is someone important.

It is different if it is your friend. Now if it is the president of the United States or your spouse’s boss you are going to want everything to be just perfect. Not because you care about that person but because you care about what people are going to think of you if your house is a mess. But if the one coming is your old friend that you haven’t seen for years, your beloved friend, you want to clean the house so that it is warm and welcoming and they will have a good time.

So here we are, it’s Advent and we are hearing about “Prepare”. Get ready! It is going to happen. Any time. We don’t know when. At least that family had some knowledge that the president was coming. We aren’t promised any foreknowledge of when we are going to be encountering Christ. “Prepare!”

In spiritual teachers throughout history and in different religions have talked about the house as representing our spiritual life. Sometimes in dreams the basement is seen to represent your unconscious, while the attic is your higher self or spiritual self. It’s an image that is used a lot, so we can use that in our own sense of preparation. What are we getting prepared for? We are getting everything just right for the visitor.

Now how do we prepare? John the Baptist says that the way we prepare is to repent. Every year at Advent and at Lent we hear about repentance. It’s the word that comes up over and over again in Advent and Lent. Repent is a translation of a word that means to turn around, to see things in a new way - to turn your life around. This year for Advent in my own personal Advent reflections I’m playing with an image of repentance as how I look at things. Of whether I am looking primarily at me or out at others and at God. Are my thoughts about what I am doing and what is best for me and what I am going to do or am I thinking about God, and what God wants - and what other people want. When I go to buy Christmas gifts am I thinking, “Oh, they are going to think highly of me when I buy this. Or who do I need to buy for because they are going to get me a gift and they’ll feel bad if I don’t get them something?” Is it all about me? Or is it “Oh, I can bring joy to this person with this gift.” Of course it is mixed. It always is. But I am reflecting on trying to be aware of which direction am I looking? Am I looking at myself or am I looking outside.

Well in our preparations, when we look at ourselves we are focused on what is this visitor going to think of me. When we begin to focus outside, we begin to look at who is this person who is coming that we are preparing for? And the truth is that when we really see, when we get beyond ourselves and open our eyes to see who it is we are preparing for, we find we are preparing for our very best friend. The one being that loves us totally and unconditionally. This is a friend that’s going to come in and not take a glove and see if there is any dust on top of things, but say, wow, it looks so much better than last time I was here. Because Christ knows that we are a work in progress.

That is one of the wonderful things about this passage from Paul. He talks about may the one who has started a good work in you, which I assume he is referring to the Holy Spirit, continue to do so to prepare you for the coming of Christ. It is an ongoing process. It is a continuing process. We don’t “get it” and then we are right. What it is is that we are constantly in a process of becoming. Becoming more and more of what God delights in. And God takes delight in this process that we are going through.

So here we are. We are in Advent. We are getting ready. And these first couple of weeks are all about this kind of grumpy John the Baptist who yells, “Watch Out! Get ready!” But it ends on Christmas with the angels singing about great joy and good news. Because the one we have been preparing for is the one who is our best friend, most beloved, and the most wonderful guest we could ever welcome into our homes and into our hearts.

First Sunday of Advent Sermon

What are we to do when in feels like the end of the world?

The First Sunday of Advent

Sermon given on

November 30, 2009

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

During his 1960’s presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy often closed his speeches with a story. I know there are some of us here who may actually remember the 1960’s and JFK.  For those of us who do, we may remember this.  He would often close with a story of Colonel Davenport.  Colonel Davenport was the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives.  On May 19^th, 1780, the sky in Hartford, Connecticut blackened ominously, and some of the representatives thought the end was at hand, that this was the end of the world.  So, some of them asked Colonel Davenport to adjourn the meeting because the world was ending. And he said to them, “It’s one of two things.  Either the world is not coming to the end and so there’s no reason to adjourn the meeting, or it is coming to an end and I, at the end, want to be found doing my duty.  So I’m not going to adjourn the meeting.”  And he ordered candles be brought in.

We’ve all heard predictions of the end time.  You may have read how the world is going to come to an end in 2012 because the Incan calendar only goes up to 2012 and the ancient Incans must have known when the world was going to end, even though Jesus told us even he didn’t know.  And of course, we all remember Y2K, you know, if the computers crash, that’s going to be the end of the world.  People have been talking about the end of the world for a long time. 

In this reading from the Gospel where Jesus talks about the end, what does he say?  He says that that’s good news.  So if someone comes up to you and says, “It’s the end of the world.”  Your response, as a Christian, is, “Great!  That’s wonderful news!”  Because Jesus says at that time we are to stand up tall and raise up our heads because we know that our redemption is near.  The end of the world means that Christ is coming near.  It’s not something to be afraid of.  So I suggest if someone tells you the world is about to end, you say, “Fine.  I want to be doing my duty.” 

There’s a Buddhist story about an old monk who was well into his 90s.  He was outside his hut planting an apple tree.  It was just a tiny little apple tree and someone walking by said, “Why are you doing that?  After all, you’re not going to live long enough to see any apples from it.”  And he looked at him, and he said, “If I knew I was going to die tonight, what I would be doing today is planting that apple tree.”  We’re doing what we’re doing no matter what, even if it is going to be the end of the world. 

So the next time someone predicts the end of the world, say, “Great.  Now I’m gonna go about doing my duties because when the end of the world comes, I want to be found doing.”  I have a little refrigerator magnet that someone gave me and on it says, “The world is about to end.  Christ is coming.  Look busy.” 

So, that’s what we’re supposed to do if the world is truly coming to an end, but we don’t know when that’s going to be. 

Like everything in Scripture, talking about the end times also has more subtle meanings for our spiritual journey, for our own growth.  We’ve all had moments in our lives when it felt like our world was coming to an end.  It might have been when you walked into that doctor’s office, and you got the diagnosis of a dreaded disease.  It might be when you got the phone call of someone you love, a spouse, a parent, a child, who is dead.  It might be when someone you cared about hurt you deeply.  It might be when you lost your job.  It might be when you found yourself in the middle of a divorce. It feels like the world is coming to an end because the world, as you knew it, is coming to an end. 

When you walk out of that doctor’s office, everything is different. When the one you love has died nothing is the same.  Your world has come tumbling down.  The question is, “How are you going to respond to the things that happen in your life?”  We all have circumstances, things that happen to us because none of us gets through life without struggles.  We all have people we love die.  We all have people we trusted to betray us.  We all have to deal with physical illness.  It’s the way the world is. 

The question for us is, “How do we respond to that?”  Rick Warren says we have a choice.  When things happen, we can either become bitter or we can become better.  We can be bitter or better.  We can take the things that happen to us and feel sorry for ourselves and blame other people or we can see it as an opportunity to grow, as a time to grow closer to Christ. 

It’s like at that “End of the World” time. We can say, “The world is ending,” and cover our heads and moan and groan and scream, or we can stand up tall and raise up our heads and reach out our hands to God because we know that our redemption is near.  When we go through these times of difficulty, we stand up and we reach out to Christ because Christ is with us, is walking with us.  They are an opportunity to deepen our faith, to deepen our compassion, to understand ourselves and the world a little better. 

One of the exercises that is sometimes done in personal development workshops is to make a timeline.  You have your life journey, and in that life journey, you mark significant events:  births, deaths, illnesses.  Then you take and you make a line showing your spiritual life, how close you felt to God.  When I do that, what I find is that the times that I felt closest to God were the ones where I was dealing with a crisis.  Ones where illness had come upon me and the only way I was going to deal with it was to reach out and grab God’s hand because I knew I wasn’t going to get through it alone.

At the times when someone I loved died, my heart was broken, and it was broken open, and I knew my need for God.  And now, going through a divorce, there’s no question that I have no option but to pray and to be with God because that’s the only way I’m going to get through it.  When our world falls apart, when it seems like the end of everything, that’s the time we realize we can’t do it ourselves.  That’s the time when we have to reach out to God and ask for help.  That’s when we know our need for God and our need to pray. 

The Psalm says to trust, “I put my trust in God and He will teach me,” We are to put our trust in God at the times when the whole foundation of our lives is trembling, because Christ is there.  When it feels like our world is coming to an end, stand up, raise up your head and know that that is when your redemption is near.  Amen. 

Sermon Proper 29B - Last Sunday of Pentecost

I offer here a parable about high school to shed some light on Christ the King.

Last Sunday of Pentecost

Proper 29 - Christ the King

Transcribed from a sermon given on

November 25, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Today is the last Sunday of Pentecost. We begin the church year again next Sunday on the first Sunday of Advent The last Sunday of Pentecost is also called Christ the King Sunday, where we celebrate the reign of Christ.

As I was thinking about this and trying to wrap my mind around what it means for Christ to be king, I realized that king is not a word that we really identify with. Our image of kings, like the king or queen of England, is people who don’t have very much power. It is not like kings in ancient times. But I had a thought and came up with a story. One of the people at the first service called it a parable.

I’d like you imagine a high school that has just gotten out of hand. What has happened is that the normal cliques and groups in a high school have coalesced into what they call teams, and each team has a captain. This captain rules it over every one of his team members. He tells them what to do and collects money from them. There are drugs being sold, there’s violence and there are fights between the members of the different teams. Those who are not part of the team get harassed. It has become a very ugly place.

Some of the police in the area were discussing this and the young captain from another town said, “My heart is really breaking for these kids because I know there have got to be kids in there who are good kids and want to have a different kind of experience in High School.” This young captain was one of those people who looked very young, the sort of person who when he wasn’t wearing his uniform got carded every time he wanted to buy anything. So he volunteered to go into the high school and try and talk to some of the kids. Those of us who are old enough to remember 21 Jump Street, it is that sort of thing. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, don’t worry about it.

So he makes arrangements. He gets his hair cut in a strange way and he finds whatever kind of clothes the high school is wearing at that time and makes arrangements for him to be a transfer student. Of course he is a transfer student with a poor grade point average so he not put in the AP classes but in those other classes. You know. And he hangs out with the kids. At lunch he sits alone at one of the tables. Usually there are the teams that are all in different parts of the cafeteria. He sits in the middle. At first there are just a couple of kids who talk to him. Gradually each day more and more of the students sit at his table and want to listen to what he has to say because he is so gentle and loving and caring and smart. He tells them that they don’t have to live like that. That it is much better to work together. They need to take care of each other. And that nobody has a right to take away your lunch or your lunch money. You don’t need to do that and you don’t need to be part of one of these teams. You don’t have to be violent.

Slowly but surely more and more of the kids start to hang out with this new person. Not just the kids that weren’t in a team, but some of the ones who were part of a team, were leaving their teams and saying I don’t like what’s happening and also began to hang out with him.

Well you can imagine how the captains of the teams felt about that. The teams were like, “You can’t do that. He’s messing up the whole system.” So one of the team captains has his thugs go in and confront him and say you better stop doing that. “If we see you doing that any more you are going to be in real trouble.” Well of course this guy is a police officer. He’s not the least bit scared by that. So, that didn’t work.

Finally the strongest captain has his thugs grab him after school, bring him around behind the school in the alleyway and beat him terribly. And then the captain comes in and says, “Well, now what do you think?” And of course this police officer is not intimidated the least bit. A little beat up, yes, because he chose not to fight back, knowing that he probably could have done a good deal of damage to the kids. Then the captain says, “You don’t look afraid, what’s with you.” He responds “You have no power over me.” “Oh yes I do.” Then he asks, “Are you trying to be the captain here?” The officer responds, “I’m not a captain in this high school. I have no interest in being a captain in this high school.” The high school bully asks, “Oh, you are a captain then?” The officer responds, “Yes, but not in this high school. I have no interest in that.”

So it was decided that it was time for him to leave, and he wasn’t seen again at school. There were a couple of the people who had been listening to him who saw him in his police uniform and suspected it was him, but nobody was quite sure. But the ones he talked to began to change the school because they began to work together and not be afraid of these powerful team captains. Slowly the culture of the school began to change.

Then when graduation came, guess who was there to shake the hand of every one of the students as they graduated. The ones he had gotten to know well he helped them in the next step in their lives with scholarships or jobs.

This little parable to me is kind of what Jesus was. He came into our world, but never was totally of our world. He always was more than that as well. That beautiful but confusing concept “Who is and was and is to be.” He is outside of time, outside of space - beyond. Something quite different.

We all have memories of our own high school experience. When we were in high school, didn’t we take it seriously? Didn’t it really matter whether you made it into the cheer leading squad or not. And it really mattered whether you got invited to the prom. And when you were called one of the dorks or geeks or whatever the word was that they called it, you felt terrible and humiliated, awkward and strange. We all have our own particular experiences of high school.

When we were in high school it seemed really, really important. And when we raised our kids and they were in high school, and they were all bent out of shape, we did our best not to say, “Oh don’t worry, it’s just high school” because we tried to remember that for them that is real. Perhaps that is how Jesus sees us. We are so concerned about power, or money, or how many things we are going to have. Does it really matter? Is it really important? Yeah it’s important to have food, clothing, health, all of those are important but how much do we need? Does power on earth really matter? What does matter? What remains from high school? What was really important when you were in High School that has remained? Maybe there are some friendships. Maybe there are some things you learned. But they are all those positive things. Those things you didn’t worry about at the time. Christ came among us, became human, was born and lived as a human being to tell us that there is something more to life than just accumulating things. There is something more to life than power. There is something more to life than security. That it is about love - loving each other, loving God, loving ourselves.

And every one of you who is here today is here because there is some part of you, maybe it is a large part, maybe it is just a tiny little voice inside, that knows that there is something more than just this reality, this world, this cosmos. That knows that there is something more than this. That this is not everything. And Christ came to assure us that that is true and invite us to help bring a new kind of reality into the world.

When we say, “Thy kingdom come” it means helping to make this world be the way it was intended to be, the way God would like to see it - whole, loving, kind and good. And here we are. Each day we have a choice - who is our captain, who is our king. Do we follow the leaders of this world or do we follow the leader of that which is beyond this world? Do we bring in peace and love and hope or are we stuck here. Each day we have that choice.

Christ the King invites us to help bring his kingdom here on earth.

Proper 27 B Sermon

 This is a sermon about four widows who had very little except a trust in God. Out of that trust they needed to give, to care for those around them and to offer whatever they had to God.

Proper 27 B

Transcribed from a sermon given on

November 11, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

In the lectionary today we read about three poor widows. The widow in the Gospel of course, but also of Naomi and Ruth. For those of you who haven’t read the book of Ruth for a while I want to give you the context here. Naomi and her husband were from Judea, from Bethlehem. There was a famine so she and her husband and their two sons moved to Moab, which was a nearby nation. It was an enemy of Israel, but due to the famine they went and stayed there. While they were there their two sons married Moabite women. So they would have been considered foreigners to the Judeans. Then her husband died and Naomi became a widow. And then both of her sons died, and there she was a widow with two widowed daughter-in-laws. No grandchildren had been born. So the question came up, now what were they to do?

Back in those days the life of a widow was pretty difficult. They had no social safety net, no social security. Basically your support was from your children and your grandchildren, especially the males, because at that time a woman couldn’t own property or inherit property, and there weren’t any good jobs for women. So these three women were pretty destitute - very poor widows.

Naomi decided to return to Judea. She had heard that the famine was over there. As she left she told her two daughters-in-law, “you stay here. Go back to your mother’s houses and see if you can find new husbands because I am not going to provide you any more husbands.” Well one of them decided to stay in Moab, but Ruth, in a very famous statement said, “No, I will go with you. Your home will be my home. Your God will be my God.”

So Ruth and Naomi return to Judea, probably hoping that there might be some friends or distant relatives who would help them out. Well at that time the way that the poor were taken care of was through what was called gleaning. If you had a crop and you were harvesting it you were not supposed to harvest every single grain. You were supposed to leave a little bit behind. It is hard to get the edges, it is hard to get everything, and rather than going back and getting all of that for yourself you were to leave it there so that the poor could come by and harvest the part that was difficult to harvest and have it for themselves. So Ruth goes out to glean in order to try and get some food for her and Naomi. And it just happened. (There are lots of things that “just happen” in scripture, but we know it is God’s hand when things “just happen.”) It just happened that the place where she went to glean was owned by a relative of Naomi’s husband. So Ruth was gleaning, and she worked very hard, and she took back whatever she gleaned to Naomi. They had enough, and she did that for several days. The owner of the field, Boaz, noticed what a hard worker she was so he surreptitiously told the people who were gathering his crops to leave a little more for her so she had plenty to glean. And he told them to give her some water because she gets thirsty in the middle of the day. He was treating her very well. There was respect for her, even though she was a foreigner, because she was caring for her mother-in-law and she was working very hard.

This brings us to the part we just read, of Naomi going to Boaz, the owner of this field. Boaz was a kinsman and in Israel at that time inheritance of property was a very complex thing. It was to be inherited down the lineage, son to son to son. It was the property that had been divided up when they entered into the Promised Land, and the property was to stay within the family. So it was difficult if a man died without an heir. The law was that if a man died who didn’t yet have an heir and he had brothers one of the brothers was to take the man’s wife into his home and provide that woman with a child so that that child could be the heir for the man who died - so that brother’s name could continue on. There was a responsibility to take care of your brother’s lineage and heritage. Remember Naomi’s husband had died leaving no heirs since the sons have died.

So Boaz is a kinsman, but not the closest kinsman, it turns out. But he is a kinsman so if the property is going to go to someone, it should go to someone who is related. And that is why Ruth goes and offers herself to Boaz, getting all dressed up and beautiful for the, well you all can imagine. Add to that the symbolism of uncovering the feet. The feet are often used in scripture as representing the genital area. So you can kind of see what Naomi was telling Ruth to do. They left out a part in which Boaz says that he is interested in marrying her, but he can’t do it right away because there is one kinsman that is closer, one relative that is closer and should have right to the property. So he has to first give that kinsman the opportunity to take Ruth as his own. The other kinsman says no so Boaz marries Ruth. And that is why when Ruth has this boy child with Boaz, it is taken to Naomi because that boy child represents the lineage of Naomi’s husband. It is a little confusing to us, but it is a very important story. The reason it is so important in scripture is because the son of Obed was Jesse who was the father of David. So when you read the genealogy of Jesus in scripture, it includes Obed of Ruth. Ruth is one of the women mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy. It is interesting too that this woman is a foreigner. She is a Moabite. But what is important to me today is the faith that these women had. Their great trust, especially Ruth’s trust in Naomi’s God. She was willing to leave everything she knew to go back and worship the God of Israel.

We have another poor widow with great faith in the Gospel today. She comes and puts two small copper coins or pennies into the collection box. Jesus is impressed because he says she gave everything she had to live on.

And there is one other widow I want to tell you about, a fourth widow. This was a woman who went to my previous parish. She lived in the poorer area of town. She had an apartment in subsidized housing. She didn’t have much. There came a time when the person who had been giving her a ride to church wasn’t able to do it any more and since I went right by her house when I came in to church I started giving her a ride to and from church. And it came to be the fall and it was stewardship Sunday, which is what we have here today. When I got into the car with her on the way back to her house she had tears in her eyes. I asked what was the matter, and she said she couldn’t come to church anymore. So I asked. “Why not.” She said, “Because I can’t give anything. I don’t have any money to give.” At that moment I felt like God inspired me. I had been hoping to find someone to make bread, so I said, “Could you make bread?” She said, “Sometimes I won’t have the money to buy the flour and the yeast and all.” And I said, “If I got you the flour and the yeast could you make bread?” She said, “Sure.” After that, every single Sunday until she went into the hospital before she died, when the gifts were brought up, her loaf of bread was right there. Her gift was offered to God.

You see it is not the size of the gift, it is the heart behind it that matters. The two copper coins were more valuable to God then lots of money from a rich person, because you see God doesn’t need money. God doesn’t need money any more than God needed the blood of animals that were sacrificed at the temple. God has all the animals God needs in creation. God has it all - it is all God. God can take a church and blow it down. God can make something grow up instead. God doesn’t need money. But we need to give. That poor widow needed an opportunity to give to God. Each one of the four widows we have spoken of had a relationship with God. A relationship that involved trust, that involved love, that involved a sense of oneness. They had a relationship that included a sense of thankfulness even though they were poor, even though they didn’t have much, and they needed to give to God. Ruth did so by taking care of Naomi. The widow by giving her two pennies. My friend by making bread. They needed a way to express that relationship, to live out that relationship. The giving was a sign of a giving of themselves to God. Of their trust that God would take care of things.

And that is what it is for us. Today is the day we collect our estimate of giving cards, sometimes called pledge Sunday or stewardship Sunday. God doesn’t need your gift, but we need to give, because what we give represents our relationship with God. If we truly feel that we have received love from God, if we’ve experienced the incredible gift of God’s love, we need to give back. It’s just a natural thing.

We can give back in many ways. We can help out around the church, we can help our neighbors, and we can help our families. We can love God in many ways. One of the opportunities is by giving to the church. Because when we offer our offering to God it is a symbol. It is a symbol representing our offering of ourselves. As one of the Eucharistic Prayers puts it, “We offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies.” It is a giving of ourselves that is offered up at the altar. The amount of the money isn’t important. The ministry that goes on here can go on without a building, without a paid organist, without a paid priest and a secretary. We could still express the love of God to people. The early church worshiped in houses and there were no paid clergy. God’s work could still go on. God doesn’t need our money, but we need to give. We need to love, we need to give and we need to share.

All Saints Day Year B

"Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died." "Unbind him." These two lines surround the text for All Saints Day in Year B and provide fertile ground to think about suffering and hope.

All Saints Day Year B

Transcribed from a sermon given

November 4, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart at

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

John 11:32-44

Revelation 21:1-6a

In the Gospel today we hear the story of when Jesus brought Lazarus back to life. There were two lines that jumped out at me, the first one and the last. The first is when Mary said, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” And the last one where Jesus says to the people gathered around, and pointing to Lazarus, says, “Unbind him.”

“Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.” You can understand how Mary and Martha would have felt that. Jesus was their close friend. He stayed at their home. They had sent messengers to him saying, “Lazarus is very sick, come right away.” And he delayed. He delayed for quite some time, and he didn’t get there until after Lazarus was dead. And they knew that Jesus could have healed him! “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

We look on the TV and we hear about what has been happening with that horrible storm Sandy. Of the more than 100 people that have died. Of people walking along and branches randomly falling on their heads. Of the houses that are under water - some destroyed. Of the destruction of lives. And sometimes when thing like that happen we have this question, “Lord, where are you?”

And in our own lives I think all of us have at one time or another asked God, “Where were you?” “If you were here I wouldn’t be suffering so much.” “Why did you let my loved one die?” “Why is my friend suffering?” Those questions that we have are the same as question that we dealt with in Job that we read last week. That question of why is there suffering and where is God in it. And I am not going to pretend to be able to answer that. Why is a question that people have struggled with for thousands of years. But I will say that it is legitimate to ask that question. When we feel like we have been abandoned it is legitimate to say, “God where are you?” “It is okay to be angry at God,” I like to tell people. My God is big enough that God can handle my anger - and still love me. We all have times that echo those words of Mary, “Lord, if you had been here, then I wouldn’t be hurting so much.”

And the story continues where Jesus weeps. He feels the suffering and the struggle of Mary and Martha and those who are grieving. And he weeps. He weeps with us even now in our hard times.

Then they go to the grave and Jesus tells them to take away the stone. Mary doesn’t want to do that because as the King James version puts it so beautifully, “After four days, he stinketh.” But they roll away the stone and Jesus calls Lazarus out and we get to that line of, “Unbind him.” I imagine Lazarus kind of struggling to walk and he has these bandages around his head and on his arms and on his feet. And kind of confused, I would think, after four days and then being brought back to life. And Jesus says, “Unbind him.”

On Thursday, which was All Saints day, I went to visit a family of the parish. The choir knows them well. The father had died not too long ago and the wife lives with and their son who is dying from brain cancer. They have now called in hospice. So I went to visit. I spoke a little bit with the son who is confused, unable to stand, and suffering. Then I met with the family and we shared communion together. Since it was all saints day I read this Gospel passage, and as I read it I had a new sense of what that “unbind me” could mean, because at that point for Billy it felt as if his body was binding him. His mind didn’t work anymore, his body didn’t work anymore and maybe at some point, the prayer is “unbind him.” Because we know, and we believe, and we proclaim, especially today, on All Saints Day that all the believers when they are freed from this body are one with God. Or as it is so beautifully put in the Book of Revelation, “They will be his people and God himself will be with them.” There will be a closeness, a chance to see God face to face, which is what Job had longed for. To be surrounded by God’s love with nothing in the way.

Right now we are in these bodies. It limits us. They are wonderful. It is amazing. We can see great beauty but only can see a narrow band of energy. And if that is beautiful what does it look like if we could see all the energy around us? The scientists talk about all the universe being made up of energy. Imagine if we could be aware of and see that. And our ears are amazing because we can hear the beauty of a choir, or a bird chirping, or instruments, or a symphony, or the ocean. But it is limited in its range. Imagine if we could hear the sound of the celestial orchestra, if we could hear the angels sing, if we could experience that. We have glimpses of it. Little glimpses of it at a sunset when we see something, or sometimes we hear something, that transforms us. Where we feel that presence of God’s love. Little hints, promises, suggestions of what is there, of what is behind it all. Sometimes I feel like I am a prisoner who goes to visit with my loved one and there is a wall in between, and I can hear them on the other side, and maybe see their outline or a shadow, but I long to be closer. And sometimes that is how it feels with God’s love. Sometimes it feels like that day earlier this week when it was so foggy. There was this one morning when you got up and you could hardly see in front of you. And sometimes I feel like I am walking around in a fog and there is a world and an existence out there that is more beautiful than I can imagine. We have the opportunity to have tastes of God’s love, hints of the magnificent love that God has for each and every one of us, moments when that Kingdom of God that is described as coming in Revelation breaks in upon us and we know that we are loved.

Sometimes what keeps us from experiencing and knowing that love is bindings that we put on ourselves. I mean, think about it. Imagine that you are at work and you are coming home from work and you are really angry at one of the people you work with, or someone cut you off on the way home. For some reason you walk in and you are just angry. You are not angry at your family. You are just angry. But when you walk in the door and your family offers you love, you can’t experience it and share it because you are bound up by your anger. Or when we are afraid. When we are afraid we can’t open and be vulnerable with another person and it takes a certain amount of openness and vulnerability to feel their love. And when we are wracked with guilt and feel like we have done something terribly wrong, when our friends compliment us we can’t accept it because we can’t see ourselves as they do, but we see ourselves through the lens of our guilt. We bind ourselves up in ways that make it hard for us to receive the love that surrounds us and hard for us to share that love for others.

And so I would pray that God would unbind us. Free us from those things that keep us from knowing God’s love and sharing God’s love. That keep us from holding on to the knowledge and the hope that there is waiting for us a time when we will be truly free and know God face to face.