Sermons
A sermon preached on the 7th Sunday of Easter
(RCL, Year A), May 4, 2008, in St. John's Episcopal Church,
West Hartford, CT by the Rev'd Joseph L. Pace
+In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A question for you today:
What are the holy places in your life;
where do you find God?
Make
a list in your mind of those places that are holy to you,
places where you feel God's presence --
churches, European cathedrals,
your family dinner table,
the Grand Canyon, the woods near your house,
the golf course, a 5 star restaurant,
the library, a quiet beach on a Caribbean island,
Jerusalem, Mecca, Rome, Canterbury, Benares....
Think
of those places where you find God in your life
and then ask what it is that sets them apart
in such a distinctive way....
Are
they places associated with happy or important times
in your life or the life of your family?
Are they places where you had some sort of revelation?
Places where something suddenly became clear --
a place where a mystery was solved,
a problem resolved?
Or, are they places where you just simply feel good --
or perhaps a place where you might feel
strengthened or challenged?
We all have our own select list of holy places,
where we meet God --
for me that list includes places such as Santa Sabina in Rome,
a church elegant for its simplicity and overwhelming age;
or the Shwedagon pagoda in Burma,
clearly permeated with the power of endless prayer;
or a garden in New Orleans,
where I know God surely must nap;
or a beach in Nova Scotia
that is startingly pure and clean;
or the Umayyad mosque in Syria
hallowed by the prayers of millions
of Muslims and Christians over the years.
No doubt your list of places where you meet God
is much longer than you might at first have thought;
and the reasons those places are holy
are as complex and changing as your life.
Places are made holy by the way we encounter and respond
to God and the divine breaking into our world.
The mystics are certainly on to something
when they remind us that everything
is holy and sacred;
for, God does break into our lives
at any time and in any place.
Every
place and moment is holy --
some obviously more so than others --
But, no time or place is completely secular,
untouched by the holy.
Even
though God claims and owns all as holy,
there are certain times and places that
seem to us to be especially holy,
places where we know we have encountered God.
Setting those places apart,
marking them as special, hallowed,
is very important business
that not only brings comfort,
but also strength.
One can only wonder at what a great loss
the disciples must have felt at that moment
when Jesus left them at his ascension into the heavens.
Certainly
there was shock and surprise --
when I read this passage at a nursing home service on
Friday,
one of the residents gasped and said out loud --
loud enough for all to clearly hear
--
"Oh, my gosh!"
as if she herself had just witnessed Jesus
ascending
and not believed what she had heard and seen.
The disciples could do nothing but stand there also,
looking into the heavens,
thinking that surely
Jesus would come back the same way any moment.
They
did not know what else to do.
It was up to the two men in white --
two angels --
to remind them that their search for Jesus
involved more than standing around
looking into the heavens.
They
had to be reminded by the angels
that Jesus is not to be
found in the heavens,
but closer and much more accessible than that.
Our
quest to find God --
to find our holy places --
may take us to strange places
and set us on strange journeys --
even if those journeys mean
we never really leave home.
The
Qur'an tells Muslims that God
is as close as the jugular vein.
Christian
tradition and our belief in the Incarnation
tells us that God is even closer,
having taken on human flesh in Christ Jesus
and become one with us for all time;
that God, quite simply,
dwells within us,
our bodies are God's preferred home.
But, it often takes a long journey
and a great deal of time
to discover God's presence so very close to home.
The
way the two angels helped the disciples discover this
was to tell them to stop staring off into space --
to go on with their work,
for in preaching
and teaching
and sharing the good news of Christ
as they had been commanded to do,
there they would surely see Christ --
in so doing they would truly find their holy
place
and know God's presence.
The angels' advice to the disciples
remains the best advice any of us can give or receive
on how to find our own holy places,
to come to know God's presence with us;
for, it is in doing as God has commanded us --
sharing with others the good we know first hand
of God's presence with us --
it is in so doing
that we truly see and know God --
for we will see God in every eye
that meets our look.
God's
home is within us,
as well as within all whom we meet.
Holy places are actually seeking us out.
Again,
I invite you to make a list of your particular holy places --
the places were you know most strongly God's presence.
Take comfort in that list --
in each of those places.
Treasure those places,
for they certainly are your treasure.
But,
also know that the holy places
to which God truly calls you --
and where you may perhaps know God best of all --
are most likely places not on your list.
They
are places where God calls you
to be and to witness to Christ's presence --
places where the good news of Christ
most desperately needs to be heard --
and heard from someone just like you.
God
has equipped you
to do just that sort of work.
This
was the truth the disciples learned
after they stopped staring into the heavens
and got about doing what the two angels
told them to do.
Their
witness and their work in Christ's name
not only spread the good news of God's love for all of
us
and God's abiding presence with us,
it also helped restore what God set about in creation
and what Christ died for on the cross --
the redemption and the sanctification
of every single particle of our
world.
In the end, the mystics are right:
all space is holy --
no place is without God's presence.
All
places are holy
and perhaps -- just perhaps --
the place which seems least holy,
least significant to you --
the ones that don't come anywhere near
making your list of the top 100
holy places --
those places are most likely
where you are most badly needed
to give your witness and testimony
marking those places as holy,
as they surely were intended to be.
I treasure my own little list of holy places,
for they are holy and special to me
in many, many ways.
At
the same time,
it is exciting and comforting
to know that with God's grace
the list is only going to grow and grow,
widening my world,
bringing me deeper into God's love.
A sermon preached by the Rev’d Daniel Heischman,
in St. John’s Episcopal Church, West Hartford, CT on Sunday, April 20, 2008
In the play, A Man for All Seasons, Cardinal
Woolsey and Thomas More are sitting by the window, watching as Henry VIII and
Anne Boleyn return, in the evening, from one of their “outings.” Woolsey, obviously worried, turns to More
and says to him, “The King wants a son.
What are you going to do about it?”
An impossible, unanswerable question, to be sure. And whether it is in our work, our personal lives, or in our
relationships with God, it is likely that we encounter, on a regular basis, the
unsolvable problem, the request that in some way we tackle a question that simply
cannot be answered . Every day, no
doubt, we field that impossible inquiry, our own version of Woolsey asking,
“The King wants a son. What are you
going to do about it?”
Thomas More answered with humor – he replied, to Woolsey, that, “I’m very
sure that the King needs no advice from me on what to do about it!” But sometimes humor escapes us, as we come
face to face with expectations that exceed anything we can do about the
situation. Chances are, as well, that
in this complex world of ours we will be living with an increasing number of
such requests, of problems that are at root unsolvable, due to their complexity
and ambiguity. Even the literature on
leadership is taking a dramatic turn: away from the Lone Ranger model of
leading, the individual who can swoop in and take care of it all, then ride off
into the sunset. Rather than
controlling or solving, and doing it all alone, writers are using different
images, such as that of the artist, one who can live with uncertainty, or the
one who worries the gap – as one writer puts it – between ideal and reality,
who can juggle what has been with what is emerging. We are gradually coming to realize that even the people in charge
are not really in charge: Al Gore may have invented the internet, but is there
anyone really in charge of it? Who
controls such a vast and interrelated system as that?
So we live with an ever-increasing number of questions, questions that do
not give way easily to quick solutions.
But observers also tell us that this rapid-paced, everything is
important, world makes us think that we must respond quickly to all sorts of
things, even when they are not urgent.
Ever notice the proliferation of red exclamation marks by the incoming
email messages, indicating that they are extremely important? As English theologian David Ford tells us,
we live today with an addiction to urgency – everything, everything is
important – that cell phone call, that list of things we must do – and it
leaves us with a “solve and run” mentality, even as we deal with those
Woolsey-type questions that cannot be solved so easily, so quickly, urgent as
they may appear to be.
This is quite a dilemma we face in many dimensions of our lives. On the one hand, the reality that we live,
as Margaret Wheatley put it, “In an era of many messes,” most of which cannot
be easily solved. On the other hand, we
are conditioned in this rapid-paced world of ours to think we have to solve
things quickly, move on to something else.
We want an answer, and want it now.
As Wheatley puts it:
As life continues speeding up…..we
don’t have time to be uncertain. We
don’t have time to listen to anyone who expresses a new or different
position. In meetings and in the media,
often we listen to others just long enough to determine whether we agree with
them or not. We rush from opinion to
opinion, listening for those tidbits and sound bites that confirm our
position. Gradually, we become more
certain but less informed.
(Margaret Wheatley, Finding Our Way, p.
210)
I detect at least three requests in the readings for this morning, and in
one way or another, these requests are in search of answers. In Deuteronomy, the question we all know too
well is asked: What are you going to say?
What words do you have when your son comes to us and asks, as every
child will, what is the meaning of all of the testimonies, statutes, and
judgments of our faith? What will you
say?
All of us know the situation: when son or daughter comes to us and asks the
blockbuster theological question (such as, “Who made God?”). What do we say? What answers can we muster up from our Sunday school days to meet
the challenge of that poignant moment?
Curiously, Deuteronomy – at least in this situation -- does not give us a
quick answer, nor does it provide us with a list of tips, or how-to’s. We do not get a parenting self-help
discourse so that we will know exactly what to do. Rather, the answer comes in the form of a story. It begins: we were slaves of Pharaoh in
Egypt, and Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand…” (and on the story
goes). Instead of solving the problem,
instead of putting closure on the issue, the question is met with a story. And notice that the story does not focus on
where we end up, but on where we began; instead of the finish line, we focus on
the starting line.
Why is that? Perhaps because some questions can indeed be only met with a
story, indeed the story of where we come from.
The depth of the response needed has less to do with answers and more to
do with the stories of our lives and their trajectories – how we got to where
we are. A question of this sort, on the
mystery of God, is not best treated with a simplistic answer, but with
something that will add to, not subtract from, the mystery of God. That is what stories do.
You may know E.M. Forster’s description of a story:
If you say, “The queen died, and the king died,” that is a chronicle.
If you say, “The queen died, and the king died of a broken heart,” that is a
story.
Increasingly, it may be that story is the best response to many of life’s
mysteries, including our understanding of and our relationship with God. For story enhances the mystery, rather than
takes it away; it does not solve a problem, but it puts the problem into a
perspective that does indeed address the messes of life. Stories may not wrap up the problem into a
neat and solvable package, but they engage us more than any packaging
will. It is also, in this world of
great polarization, very difficult to hate someone whose story you know.
In the Gospel of John, for this morning, we hear Jesus fielding two
requests. Thomas asks him, in response
to Jesus’ description that his Father’s house has many mansions, “We do not
know where you are going; how can we know the way?”
Jesus’ answer is not one of solving the problem. As someone I have known for a long time is fond of saying, “You
aren’t going to get the clarity you want.
That is as good as it gets.”
Most likely it is not the answer Thomas wanted. In fact, it is not an answer at all. Rather, it is a declaration of presence: “I
am the way, the truth, and life.”
Rather than giving Thomas a road map – “Here is exactly how you do it” –
Jesus gives himself. Rather than a
formula to solve the problem, rather than an answer, Jesus gives presence.
Presence. That illusive, but
all-important gift, the meeting ground between the inner life of a person and
the external circumstances. How we
dwell in a place, how we are attentive and responsive to those around us. How we speak and act with authority and
influence, yet not with simplistic answers or efforts to control people. How we live as a person of conviction and
commitment, right there in the midst of uncertainty and anxiety.
So, too, Philip is eager for a quick fix.
He asks Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and that is all we need.” Period.
Jesus knows that is not all that Philip needs, and, once again, he gives
him presence. “How long have I been
with you, Philip, and yet you do not know me?”
He meets his question with another question – something we are hardly
prone to doing these days, but something which evinces presence.
On September 11th, 2001, students at Trinity College began
gathering in the Quad as news of the horrific events of that day reached
them. At first, they gathered out of
fear and the need for being together at a time of tragedy and tremendous
uncertainty. But nothing officially was
happening; it just seemed to be the thing to do at that point. After some time, one of the student leaders
went to the office of the Dean of Students, who, along with her staff, was busy
fielding telephone calls from worried parents and students while keeping
another eye on what was unfolding on television. The student leader entered her office and said to her, “We need
adults down there on the Quad.” Adults
were needed, not to supply answers, but to be present, amidst the overwhelming
uncertainty of the moment. So, too,
when in our lives we are wandering aimlessly in response to an event that has
shaken us, we pray to God not for answers – as much as we would like them – as
presence. A presence that assures us of
that biblical promise – God with us – a presence that stems from the story of
our tradition, that God is indeed with us in those times when we need God’s
presence.
Story and presence, not quick solutions or easy answers. That is at the heart of our tradition, and
it is also why, in my opinion, our tradition is best positioned to minister to
a world of great complexity and uncertainty.
We do not try to take those ambiguities away – indeed, in some ways we
will frustrate those who wish us to wipe them away. Rather, we hold up those unsolvables, we do not wish them or
answer them away. That is far more
difficult work than providing the quick solutions. But it is also about knowing what people are really asking for
when those questions come to us – they are seeking meaning and purpose, not
solutions, context and perspective, not quick fixes. In that sort of world, it is all the more important that we know
the presence of God, and how God directs and infuses our lives.
Rachel Remen put it this way:
I’ve spent many years learning
How to fix life, only to discover
At the end of the day
That life is not broken.
There is a hidden seed of greater wholenessa
In everyone and everything.
We serve life best
When we water it
And befriend it.
When we listen before we act.
In befriending life,
We do not make things happen
According to our own design.
We uncover something that is already happening in us
and around us
And we create conditions that enable it.
Story and presence – the non-answers to the impossible questions. In the end, we do not have solutions – we
have God!
A sermon preached on the Fourth Sunday of Easter,
April 13, 2008 (RCL, Year A) in St. John’s Episcopal Church,
West Hartford, CT by the Rev’d Joseph L. Pace
+In
the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I had something prepared for today --
a sermon about abundance and equity --
but, as I am sure you know all too well,
our community was shocked this past week
by a pair of suicides
of young boys who were way, way too young --
middle schools students.
Many
of the young people here at St. John’s
either knew these two students
or their families
or their friends,
or were in classes with these two boys.
Death
is a difficult matter to encounter
in any form and at any age.
And, it always raises unanswerable questions,
not just for young people.
Learning how to deal with death is part of life.
There is nothing easy about it.
Sudden, unexpected death --
such as this past week --
raises even bigger, unanswerable questions.
In so many ways,
young people in our community are sheltered from death.
Childhood
diseases are less often fatal today
than they were two generations ago;
and, our culture has sort of sanitized
death,
as funerals more often than not
are celebrations of life
and the cemetery a place to jog.
Violence on TV and in the movies
and in many other areas of life
is certainly much harsher today;
but, because death appears on TV or a movie
or a video game
it seems a bit unreal,
a wicked fantasy,
hyper-reality.
It is a profound shock
when death breaks into life
the way these two suicides have broken
into so many of your lives this past week.
As,
I’ve said --
answers are inadequate
explanations never quite satisfactory enough
and what has happened is final and absolute --
it simply cannot be undone
no matter how much we wish or pray or hope.
But,
the church is in the business of
remaking the future and improving the world.
We cannot reverse the past;
but, faith does assure us
that the future can and should
be brighter --
that hope should grow,
not diminish.
And,
we, as the members of the church,
are the ones to bring this about.
Therapists,
who look into mysterious sides of life,
are more or less agreed
that there are a handful of things
that we can all do
to lessen the probability of suicide --
for young people
as well as adults.
.
First
and foremost is to reduce isolation as much as possible --
be aware of isolating behavior;
don’t let a child or anyone else
withdraw into himself or herself.
Promote and encourage the importance of community
--
stress the fact that we all,
in one way or another,
are in need of community,
of belonging;
that we have a place
and that our contributions have value.
The second is to encourage honest and open talk,
including acceptance of one another,
no matter how different we may be from one another.
The Prayer Book says it best in the words,
“respect the dignity of every human being.”
Each of us is valuable.
And, the third is to share
what’s going on in your world with others.
When you need help:
ask for it.
When you have a problem:
ask for help.
When things go well in your life:
share the good news with others.
They
are three very simple guidelines,
And, I -- from my perspective as a priest --
cannot help but see how closely
they reflect those promises we renew
at every baptism.
These
three guidelines
are also foundations
for our life in Christ,
for the life of the church;
and, it makes perfect sense
that they should also be principles
upon which strong and healthy societies
are built.
Community
Respect
Sharing --
foundations of life in Christ
as well as foundations
for healthy society --
three key principles deeply embedded in our
faith.
We might not always tend to think in these terms
when thinking about the church --
especially the local congregation;
but we certainly notice the absence
of any of the three quickly
and feel the weakening of the church.
When any of the three --
community, respect, sharing --
is missing,
life is considerably less bright
than it should be.
The Good Shepherd passage from the gospel of John
emphasizes the strength of the church
built upon these principles --
principles which find their grounding
in Christ's redemptive presence with us --
renewing, reconciling and recalling the church together
under our pastor and shepherd,
Christ.
There
is one shepherd, Christ Jesus.
And, as long as we tune ourselves to hear his
voice
our mission and work will be clearer,
our life stronger,
and our community richer.
It
is when we search for competing shepherds
or ignore the shepherd --
or worse, when we decide we can create
our own shepherds --
it is when this happens
that community, respect and
the generous give and take of sharing
are lost and community becomes chaos
and life is sadly tarnished.
The answer to West Hartford's tragic problems this past week
does not lie in us converting the entire town
to the Episcopal Church or even Christianity --
that, I suspect, would open the door
for unimaginably greater problems.
An
answer to our community's woes
does, however, lie in our commitment --
the commitment of this congregation
and the many other faith communities in our town --
our renewed commitment --
to modeling our life together in Christ
on any one of the many images
the gospels and Scripture give us --
the true vine, seed in good soil,
a brightly burning light,
salt of the earth, a precious pearl,
a place of mercy and humility,
the good shepherd....
models in all cases where there is One beyond us,
One whose love and mercy
is without question....
One who is known clearest
when the place the highest value
upon community
and respect of one another
and sharing our lives --
joys as well as
needs and sorrows --
with one another.
Pray for our community.
Pray for these two young men who have died too young.
Pray for their families and friends and schoolmates.
And, pray for ourselves that we may never forget our place
in making our community strong and safe,
as well as a place of respect and love.
Amen.