Proper 16 C

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

Proper 16 C

Transcribed from a sermon given

August 26 2013

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Jeremiah 1:4-10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proper 14 C

Proper 14 C

Transcribed from a sermon given

On August 12, 2013

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Luke 12:32-40

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

(Sung)

People get ready

There’s a train a comin’.

Don’t need no baggage

You just get on board.

All you need is faith

To hear the diesel hummin.’

Don’t need no ticket

You just get on board.

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

Look at what is in this amazing little piece of writing

People get ready

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

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

Don’t need no baggage

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

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

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

What is this train that we are getting on board?

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

All you need is faith to hear the diesel coming.

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

All you need is faith to hear the diesel humming.

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

Don’t need no ticket.

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

(Sung)

People get ready,

There’s a train a comin’.

Don’t need no baggage

You just get on board.

All you need is faith

To hear the diesel humming.

Don’t need no ticket

You just thank the Lord.

Proper 13 C

Paul wrote "and greed (which is idolatry)." All three readings this week look at greed and/or idolatry, and greed is clearly an issue in our lives today.

Proper 13 C

Transcribed from a sermon given on

August 1, 2010

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Luke 12:13-21

Colossians 3:1-11

Hosea 11:1-11

I’d like you to imagine you had an opportunity to talk to Jesus. Not in prayer in an abstract sense, but that he was physically here. Or, if not Jesus, then think of whatever spiritual teacher has been most meaningful to you. Someone like a Billy Graham or a Thomas Keating or whoever it might be who you believed to be really, really wise and holy, and perhaps a healer. Imagine that person is coming to give a talk right her in Arroyo Grande and you’re going to get a chance to ask a question. To ask something of that person. What is it that you would ask?

In the Gospel reading we have someone who has a chance to ask Jesus for something, and what he asks is, “Tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” It kind of echoes back what we heard a few weeks ago where Martha said to Jesus, “Tell my sister Mary to get in the kitchen with me.” Both are wanting Jesus to take care of a family dispute. To fully understand this you have to understand that in Jesus’ time the inheritance all went to the eldest - the eldest son inherited everything. And sometimes, if the parent wanted to, he would give a part of it to the younger children, but legally the eldest son got the inheritance. So clearly this person speaking is a younger son who is saying, “I want to get a share of that.” Of course Jesus’ response is don’t be so greedy. “Who am I to make that decision?” “Why are you asking me?” Is that really the most important thing for you right now? Jesus looks at this man makes up a parable.

A man had this wonderful harvest, more than he could fit into his barn. So he tore down his old barns and built new ones and filled them up to the brim and said, “Ah, I have enough to live off for a long time. It is time to retire. Now I can just relax and have peace of mind.” And then he died that night.

Where was the peace of mind? Or was it really greed? Jesus uses the word greed. In the second reading today, Paul is writing to some of the people he has converted. He has taught them about Christianity. Basically he says to them, “Now that you are baptized in Christ everything is different. You should be seeking that which is above, not things of this world.” And then he has a list. Paul seems to like lists of things that are not good. And at the end of the list is greed. Then it says, and this is very interesting, and then he writes “which is idolatry.” That greed, to be greedy, is idolatry.

What is idolatry? In the first reading from the Old Testament we have Hosea talking about the people of Israel who are worshiping other Gods. They are worshiping the Baals, they are worshiping idols, they are worshiping trees, they are worshiping everything except the one true holy and living God. That’s idolatry. Idolatry is worshiping anything other than the one true God. It is making anything more important than God. It is making anything in your life more important than serving God, of trying to do God’s will, of being loving and caring and a good person and all those things that God wants from you. Idolatry is making something more important than God. And Greed is making things more important than God. That is why it is idolatry. And greed of course can be for more than just money. It can also be for power, greed for possessions, greed for all kinds of different things. It is that sense of wanting more, of wanting to have it as your own. Greed is idolatry. Putting something before God. Greed is when you are the CEO of a company and you are already getting a million dollars and this year you are getting a million and a half but you are laying off a lot of people because you can’t afford to pay them. Nobody needs a million and a half. I don’t think any CEO needs any more than what the president of the United States gets paid. Four hundred and forty thousand dollars should be enough to get you through the year, don’t you think?

That’s greed. It is not wanting money because you need it to live. It is because you are looking for some kind of false security. Jesus says we are allowed to ask for what we need. In the Lord’s Prayer we say give us daily bread. Give me what I need today. But we are not supposed to be worried about a security blanket. Greed is when it is more than what I need for today. Greed is trying to make yourself safe. If I just have a little more then I won’t need to worry any more. For some people that little more is, “I’ve got twenty thousand in the bank, I need five thousand more and I’ll be set for retirement.” While others it’s, “I’ve got a million dollars in the bank and if I just have 500 thousand dollars more than I’ll have enough for retirement.” It’s that sense of needing more and more. It is when things become more important than God. It’s idolatry

Hosea says that the people of Israel have looked for their security in worshiping idols. But God wants to be like a parent. He beautifully describes God as caring for them, nurturing them, holding them up, guiding them just like a good parent. So greed is like the 13-year-old that is bothered by the fact that the parents have rules and says, “Well I’ve saved up my allowance and I stole the money out of the cookie jar and now I have this wad of money I can take care of myself. I’m going to leave home and take care of myself. I don’t need them anymore.” And of course we laugh at that. Of course you need your parents for much more than just some money. No matter how much money you have it is not going to be enough to thrive without the love and care and support of your parents. So when we go under the illusion that when I just have enough money I don’t need God, that is idolatry, that is greed.

One of the good things that came out of this recession and this economic downturn is a reality for all those people who thought that by having a house, a big house, and by having lots of good investments that they would be secure for the rest of their lives. They were placing their security and trust in that. And we discovered that that wasn’t a very good place to put your security. House, money, savings, can disappear, but your relationship with God can’t be taken away. No one can touch that. That if you put your thoughts and your mind and energy into a whole and healthy and trusting relationship with God then everything else will get taken care of.

We all know that wonderful little song, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness and these things will be given unto you.” That’s the message that Paul is trying to teach the people to whom he is writing. That’s the message that Jesus is giving to us in that parable. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else, everything else, will follow.