Bishop Lee Reflects on Imperfection

If you attended Julianne's ordination, you know Bishop Lee gives a good sermon. The Episcopal Café is currently featuring this 10-minute video of the bishop:

Jeffrey Lee, "Wounded Gifts" from 30goodminutes on Vimeo.

Advent I sermon

Jeremiah 33:14-16 St. John’s Episcopal Church
Psalm 25:1-9 The First Sunday of Advent
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 November 29. 2009
Luke 21:25-36 The Rev. Kara Wagner Sherer

Home Depot Greeter

I admit I am proud that I never shop on the weekend after Thanksgiving; I like to stay home and enjoy leftovers. However I found myself on Saturday, needing to do some Advent shopping. If my Sunday School class was going to make Advent wreaths I needed supplies. So I found myself in Home Depot on Saturday afternoon looking for greens for our wreaths. As I entered the store I heard a voice from behind a mound of Christmas decorations singing “Here comes Santa Claus” in a loud and somewhat out of tune voice. I thought he was mocking the Muzak so when I saw the Home Depot greeter I said, “You’ll be sick of that pretty soon.” “I know!” he said in a cheerful voice, “But it’s the first day of Christmas shopping and I love it!” He turned to the next customer coming into the store, “Welcome to Home Depot!” he handed out a sale flyer. Gosh I felt like a curmudgeon!

It was kind of like going into church on the first Sunday of Advent. There are beautiful greens by the front door, and wreaths inside, the Advent wreath is up, and the vestments have finally changed from months of green to beautiful purple. And then Jesus walks down the aisle and says, “Watch out! The world is going to end!”

I’ve been preaching for seven years, so it is no surprise to me that I have to preach the end of the world on the first Sunday of Advent. But it still annoys me. I still can’t understand why we are reading about the end of the world. Can’t we have some Advent peace and quiet?

We are lucky this year. We are reading from Luke, and he’s a little softer than the other gospel writers on the end of the world stuff. As I read and sat with it this week, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. These warnings seem to go from global to personal; and Jesus gives a bit of advice about how to deal with the warnings.

First, Jesus talks about global disasters, “There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars.” These are natural disasters, part of living on this earth. These warnings sound a bit like the global warming warnings we hear now. Jesus says that when these natural disasters hit we should lift up our heads and have hope. Some people react to the warnings about global warming by denying it; or not caring because they won’t be alive when the world falls apart. On the other extreme, some people react with fear, paralyzed with the realization that everything they do harms the earth in some way. But Jesus suggests a different way, the way of hope. These warnings are an opportunity to do something, to change our ways, to take seriously the call given in our ancient story of creation; that we are not owners of the earth, but stewards, charged with caring for the gift of creation. In the face of disaster, we can act with hope.

In the second paragraph of the gospel, Jesus gets more local. He tells a simple story, “Look at the trees,” he says, “You know when they blossom that summer is near.” Read the signs he says, look at the realities. If kids have nothing to do after school but paint graffiti on our garages there is something wrong at home, something needed in our schools. Read the signs. If there are people pan handling at Six Corners then they need affordable housing, they need health care, and they need skills so that they can get jobs. Face the realities, says Jesus. But Jesus says that when we see these signs we know that God is near. Get close to the people who are suffering, because that is where you’ll see God.

And then Jesus turns the heat on. “Get rid of these distractions,” he says, “Dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life.” The harshest warnings are reserved for our personal life. My kids are tired of hearing me say it, but screen time sucks brain cells. Dissipation is entertainment, whatever distracts us from facing the realities of life. Alcohol does that too…drinking is an escape from the real stuff we need to face in our own lives. Worries of this life? Too much shopping! Whoever says religion is an escape has never listened to the readings for Advent. Jesus’ words shine a bright light right on our personal stuff. And Jesus’ advice? Be Alert! Get rid of the distractions so that you can face reality.

In fact we should all be more like the greeter at Home Depot. He wasn’t thinking about the 25 days he’d be listening to the same song over and over again. He wasn’t thinking about the pressures he’d face if sales didn’t rise. He didn’t think about the day after Christmas when he’d be out of a job because the holiday rush was done. He was living in the moment, enjoying the music, connecting with the people who came his way, even the grumpy priest who didn’t want to be shopping.

When there are global disasters, Jesus says, “lift up your heads, have hope!” When there are problems in our community Jesus says, “Look at the signs! God is near!” When our lives are crumbling, Jesus says, “Let go of your worries and be alert! Pay attention to the moment, so that you will be ready for Christ to come into your heart.

Pruning Vines

In Kara's sermon this morning, she read an email she received some months ago from Vicki Westerhoff, who delivers the produce from Genesis Growers to St. John's every week. The email was so remarkable that I asked Kara if we could share it here, too.

Happily, Kara sent the whole sermon:

Every morning, when I was a little girl, my mom brushed and combed my hair and braided it into two tight braids behind my ears. She knew a woman who was fifty and had never cut her hair, and that was my mom’s goal for me. I hadn’t bought into her goal, and every morning I complained, sometimes cried, even screamed, “It hurts!” It did hurt!

It will not surprise you to know that when I grew up and had girls of my own I tortured them in the same way. “You have to brush your hair to keep it healthy,” I said. “A little scratching of the scalp with a comb is good for it, as is combing out the hair that is damaged and broken. Pay no attention to the clumps of hair caught in the comb. It’s good for you!”

This Sunday Jesus tells us that he is the true vine and that God is the vinegrower, or “husband” in the old English version. God removes every branch in him that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. Sounds like my theory of keeping healthy hair, and just as painful.

There is no question that the theme of this week’s readings is Love. The word appears 26 times in the first letter of John. But while last week we heard about how God loves us as a Good Shepherd who guides and comforts and protects us, the love of God in this reading from the gospel of John is tougher, even frightening.

I tried to reassure our Wednesday reflection group. “God just prunes away the parts of us that are dead and damaged, the parts that are hurting us,” I said in my most motherly, soothing voice. “But it says, 'Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.'” said Suellen, “That’s not part; that’s the whole branch!” I began to realize why some priests thought it would be dangerous to let lay people read the scriptures: they might quote it back at you! And then John H. said, “Have you ever seen how vineyard keepers prune their grape vines? They cut away about 90% of the branches and only leave a very small branch with a few green shoots on it.” I looked back at the reading again, “Gosh, even if you are bearing fruit, you still get pruned, to make the vine more fruitful. No one escapes the pruning knife.” Ouch! It hurts!

I don’t know much about gardening or growing grapes, but this conversation brought to mind an e-mail I received from our farmer, Vicki Westerhoff, who grows the vegetables and fruits delivered here each week. Last fall she had to let go of all but one of her farm workers, because of lost profits. I wrote to say how sorry I was to hear the news. She wrote this back to me:

“I have learned to trust in God. There are easy times. There are difficult times. Both are necessary to life. I learned a great spiritual lesson from my plants that has helped me so often when things get tough. If I raise a plant, such as a tomato, inside the greenhouse where it is protected, it will grow up to be weak in stature. The stem is thin. The leaves are spaced out. The plant easily breaks when a wind or hard watering occur. But, a plant that is raised outside where it experiences the stresses of life, such as wind, rain, storms, insects, etc., it grows and strong and sturdy. The stalk is thick. The leaves are tougher and spaced closer together. It becomes resilient to the storms of life. Where the coddled plant will bend and break, the battered plant stands strong. It takes a monsoon to break it. Anyway, the moral to this story is, life requires hard times so that we can grow strong and resilient. A coddled human will whine and cry at every mishap. A seasoned human stands strong, grows and matures into a much better person who can smile even when adversity comes their way.”

For many of us, life presents difficult situations that force us to mature; for others the tough love of a mother or father shapes and teaches us, urging us to bear good fruit. All of us are invited to abide, live in, trust, rest in, the love of God, the great source of life. Alone, we cannot live or produce good fruit; we will be cut off and wither and die. If we are willing to remain connected to the vine, even when it is difficult or painful, we will find strength and energy, a life rooted and growing in Love.

During Easter season we are using a Communion prayer from “Enriching Our Worship,” a supplement to the Book of Common Prayer. The goal of the new materials is to enrich our language of God, using feminine imagery — which is found in Scripture but not often used in worship — as well as masculine imagery. In general I think this is a wonderful idea, but I find myself stumbling over one line that I have to say in the communion prayer. In recounting God’s work in the world it reads, “As a mother cares for her children, you would not forget us.” Every harsh word, every forgotten duty, every evening away from home plays through my brain as I say it. I want to edit the line and shout out, “Like a mother on a good day, you would not forget us!” or “You love us as an ideal mother, not as a imperfect human mother.” I think of mothers who hurt their children, or those like me, who inflict pointless hair-pulling in the name of “it’s good for you.” I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about God!

I think of the picture that one of the children living at Lydia Home drew for our Martin Luther King celebration. She drew a mother and a child next to her with tears in her eyes. “Love hurts” was written in the heart shape between them. Ouch. That hurts.

Our God is like a mother, like a father, but God’s love is perfect, endless, without condition, tough when tough is required, gentle when gentle is needed. That is why Jesus invites us into relationship with God, the root and source of love. “Abide in me as I abide in you.” The first letter of John echoes Jesus’ invitation “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.... There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”

Do not fear. Love your mother, love your father, love your children, your friends and your enemies. If that love abides in God, it will be perfected in God.

The readings appointed for today were:
Acts 8:26-40
Psalms 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8