Sermon for 2 Advent at Emmanuel, Mercer Island

Well, we can tell it’s Advent
because here’s John the Baptist
proclaiming the quintessential Advent theme:
Prepare the way of the Lord!

The image that is given for preparing the way of the Lord
comes from the Prophet Isaiah
and it could read as thought it were a scene from the movie 2012,
or some such disaster movie
a cataclysm of the end of the world
or the end of life as we know it.

It is an image of clearing the way
described on a gigantic level – divine road excavation –
to drive home the point that
“…all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Clear all away so that nothing shall obscure the view,
the seeing, the perception.
Prepare the way,
so that we …
so that all will know salvation.

Well, dare I ask the question? What do we mean by salvation?

This is very important because this is one of those key words
associated with the heart of our Christian faith,
right up there next to Jesus,
and somehow we Episcopalians
don’t directly talk about salvation very much.

Salvation is liberation, is being set free;
set free from what?
Whatever imprisons us, constricts and binds us,
whatever thwarts living out our full humanity,
that is, sin,
which is expressed blatantly
in the kinds of greed, violence and hard-heartedness
seen so easily all around us,
and sin
which is the littleness of our minds,
our self-centered focus of attention,
the blinders we wear so as not to look too much
at the human suffering all around us.

We need saving out of all of that.

So salvation is what we realize as the result of Jesus
working intervention in our lives,
and the state of being saved is the outcome of the revelation
of the awareness of the present Jesus with us.

So the John-the-Baptist Advent message is
prepare the way for seeing salvation.

Now, December is a very dark month,
not just for lack of daylight,
this being the time around the winter solstice
when nights are longest,
when seasonal affect disorder kicks in.
December is dark
because it is also a depressing time for many
in grief or want or loneliness,
for whom the holiday cheer
associated with rosy family scenes
and full of happy expectation,
is more like a cruel taunt,
something hopelessly out of reach,
a painful reminder of your isolation and loneliness,
of how bereft you are.

And this year, in particular, December is darker for more people
impacted by a whole year hit hard by the state of the economy.
It weighs heavy on my mind how so many more people that I know
are struggling financially because of job lay-offs or job cut-backs,
or are attempting to refinance the mortgage on the house,
and are rapidly depleting life savings
meant to see one through the end of life,
people living dangerously close to disaster.

It is a time of fear, a time of increased anxiety.

As we look around the pews this morning,
the one you are sitting near
could be facing some bleak aspects of December right now,
or it might be you yourself.

So we are faced with the very real and personal challenge
of living the Gospel in a crumbling culture,
the end of life as we have known it
without a clear view through the terrain at the salvation of God.

Too often, I fear, suffering people just quietly give up
and silently drift away from church; they just quit coming.
They didn't have a connection with or identity with
the Gospel hope such as Paul places before us.

So let’s turn to the epistle for today.

The Apostle Paul, corresponding with the Philippians,
was in prison at the time of writing.
He knew incredible difficulties.
And yet this letter he wrote to the Philippians
stands out particularly among all his epistles
because of its joy.
Why? Let’s take a look at it:

“I thank my God every time I remember you,
constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you,
because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.
I am confident of this, that the One who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
It is right for me to think this way about all of you,
because you hold me in your heart,
for all of you share in God's grace with me,
both in my imprisonment
and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.”

Verse 6 again:
“I am confident of this,
that the One who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”

Now and again we need to hear a message of hope,
not the pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by kind of hope,
but the Gospel story of God's mercy and saving grace and loving kindness.

This kind of hope grapples with all the negative stuff,
and faces up to the suffering which is universal,
so that negativism and grief and disillusionment
do not end up siphoning off all that is positive, joyful and hopeful,
or obscuring from view the tremendous love of God for all of creation.

And notice this tremendous clue given here
as to why Paul spoke out from such a capacity of joy:
“because you hold me in your heart.” (verse 7)

This was more than others just having a warm feeling about Paul.
“because you hold me in your heart.”

Being held in the heart of the community:
what might this look like if we applied that to Emmanuel?

Here are some of the more humble ways
in which we are holding others in the heart of the community:
• taking poinsettias to shut-ins and those who have experienced recent loss
• eucharistic visitors and Emmanuel Friends regularly attending to those whose physical limitations keep them from being with us
• members of the altar guild taking part in the Toy ‘N Joy program of the Salvation Army
• the giving tree in the Narthex and all those participating in that project
• the teachers and mentors offering spiritual formation for our children
• and here’s an important one – those praying and offering intercession
o both at the Wednesday healing eucharist
o and in the Prayer of the Lamb meditation group
o and also people like Ruth Mary Close, who although she says it is now too much for her physically to attend here on Sunday mornings, nevertheless prays faithfully every day in intercession for each name on our prayer list.
She hold the whole parish in her heart!

Other ways in which people can be held in the heart of the community
is in our work of reconciliation, bringing peace to others,
standing by one another
asking how your neighbor is
with the intention of really wanting to know how they are.

These are small ways in which we can be
a community holding one another in our hearts.
And in these challenging times may that Spirit-given love and compassion
rapidly expand within us
to meet much greater needs that are sure to come.

With the Apostle Paul I trust that
“…the One who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion/to fulfillment/to fullness
by the day of Jesus Christ.”

In Advent we recall that the life of the whole church
is an in-between time of waiting, watching and preparing
between the first coming of Christ
and his appearing in fullness in our lives and at the end of time.

But it is also a time of great hope
in which we too can become like John the Baptist
and cry "Prepare the way of the Lord."

BECAUSE our hope is based in God's love for us,
a love so profound that God became one of us,
and was born in Bethlehem
just so that the times of grief and loss,
the times of hardship and difficulty,
could be overcome through and dissolve away in
the love of God
present here and now in the Spirit of the Resurrection Jesus.

And so I would join with Paul in saying:
“…this is my prayer (for you),
that your love may overflow more and more
with knowledge and full insight
to help you to determine what is best,
so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless,
having produced the harvest of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ
for the glory and praise of God.”

25th Anniversary as a Third Order Franciscan

May the power of your love, Lord Christ, fiery and sweet as honey,
wean my heart from all that is under heaven,
so that I may die for love of your love,
who was so good as to die for love of my love.


This is a prayer of St. Francis
that has been a challenge and inspiration for me for years.

At the suggestion of my Spiritual Director,
this will be my Franciscan witness to 25 plus years
of living a Rule of Life as a Third Order Franciscan,
not a sermon, but a witness,
an occasion to stand and deliver
about what being a Franciscan has meant to me.

I am thankful for this opportunity to share personally with you this evening.
One doesn’t often get the chance to talk about one’s self.
So here is something of my personal story.

I began exploring this Anglican religious order of Franciscans
who can be married and living in the world,
because, out of the blue, my husband said that he was going to do this,
and he asked me to consider it too.
I never figured out fully his attraction
or even how he came to learn about the Third Order,
but what happened pretty quickly for me
was the discovery of a whole world wide community
with the same spiritual values and practice
as I had been attempting to live out on my own.

This was an amazing and delightful discovery,
and also like finding water in the desert.
I could see immediately how the Rule of Life and community
were going to be significant supports and important spiritual resources
for my own personal work in living faithfully
what I had been baptized into – Life in Christ.

So I began this journey and formation process in 1981
as the Franciscan world celebrated the 800th anniversary
of the birth of St. Francis of Assisi.

St. Francis became a guide, role model, exemplar, mentor for me
in how I too would be in discipleship with Jesus.
The more I studied Francis’ life,
the more I discovered the depth of this man’s soul,
way beyond the bird bath
and some simplistic and archaic sounding stories
from the devotional book, The Little Flowers of St. Francis,
which previously seemed to me as being overly sweet.

Instead I discovered a complex man who felt deeply
and with great courage faced hard truths about himself.
Here was someone who could ignore what his father wanted of him,
who was not afraid to act counter culturally,
who could give all of himself to our Lord Jesus
when he discovered that Jesus had put a claim on him,
and who would struggle honestly to live his life with extreme integrity.

Now I don’t claim to have walked in his footsteps to the same degree.
For one thing I have never disrobed in public
except to get into a hot tub,
which is not at all making a profound statement
of renunciation and faith like Francis did.

But I have found myself keeping on the look out for lepers to kiss,
and I have kissed a number of them along the way.

The first one I remember quite clearly.
It was 1985, June 8 to be exact,
the day of my ordination to the diaconate,
to which order Francis had also been compelled by the Church.
The big impressive liturgy at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco,
of the ordination of four priests and 8 deacons
came to the final hymn followed by the spectacular postlude,
the toccata from the 5th Symphony by Vidor.
We poured out of the cathedral through the beautiful Ghiberti replica doors
into the balmy bright sunlight,
and there was someone I hadn’t seen in two years.
The last time I had seen him he was healthy and vigorous.
That day as I looked at him I was aghast.
His hair had turned all grey and hung limp,
he had lost weight
and was slowly and painfully walking bowed over two canes.
His face looked haggard as though he had aged at least ten years.
I gasped and asked him what happened.
He said simply, “AIDS.”

Now this was 1985,
and I was currently serving as a chaplain
in a cutting edge trauma and research hospital in Houston.
The impact of the AIDS epidemic was just beginning,
and not much was known about it then,
so the fear was great about how contagious it was
and how it was transmitted,
and all our AIDS patients in the hospital
were kept under strictest isolation precautions.
But here was a human being in front of me, not a stranger
and someone undergoing great suffering.
Without hesitation I enveloped him in my arms and held him
as we both wept.

What I was given that day
was a taste of the sweetness Francis had experienced
when he embraced the rotting form
of a leper confronting him on the road.
Francis later wrote: (from the Testament, 1226)
The Lord gave me, Brother Francis,
thus to begin doing penance in this way:
for when I was in sin,
it seemed too bitter for me to see lepers.
And the Lord Himself led me among them
and I showed mercy to them.

And when I left them,
what had seemed bitter to me
was turned into sweetness of soul and body.
And afterwards I delayed a little and left the world. …

And he goes on to write:
And after the Lord gave me some brothers,
no one showed me what I had to do,
but the Most High Himself revealed to me
that I should live according to the pattern of the Holy Gospel.

Francis has been the inspiration in my life
challenging me always to go to the next level in living out
what I say are my beliefs and values.
In his extreme example of following Jesus in literal gospel poverty
Francis provided me with permission and encouragement
to take my own spiritual journey much more seriously
than the cultural norm,
which affirms being “religious” as long as you are not fanatical.
Extreme spiritual work is looked upon with suspicion,
and for good reason as we can readily see in the world today
with the extremes of fundamentalism in every world religion
that results in spiritual terrorism.

But Francis lived his extreme devotion to our Lord in such way
that others were drawn to life, not death,
to ecological integration, not exclusiveness and separation,
to realization of union with Christ so deeply and completely
that he bore in his body the same wounds of the Cross.

Francis became a welcome beacon light for me,
an encouragement of the possibility of living every more fully
into the fullness of my human potential as a follower of Jesus.

From him I was able in my own small way
to discover the secret of gospel poverty, of non-possession.

A number of you have heard my story
of preparing to take a two year sabbatical
in order to devote myself fully to meditation
and scripture study.
I was delighting in selling or giving away most of my possessions.
But one thing remained – my house.
It had been on the market to be sold for months,
and no one even was looking at it.
The date I was scheduled to begin the sabbatical was rapidly approaching
and this one thing stood in the way.

A week prior to the end of my job and the beginning of this sabbatical
I went to see my spiritual director
and we talked about this concern
about how this one thing was holding me back
from being able to freely and whole heartedly
dive into the meditation work.
He said to me simply this, “Well, you’re a Franciscan aren’t you?
You could give your house away.”

Suddenly the light bulb came on,
and with a rush of joy I realized I could really be a Franciscan now.
I went home and called the diocesan planned giving officer
and told him I wanted to gift my house to the diocese.
He was quite delighted,
but told me that it would take awhile
for all the paper work to be done,
and he would need to be in communication with the bishop,
board of directors, trustees of the diocese, chancellor,
diocesan council, standing committee.
So meanwhile continue to have the house on the market
while he worked out all the details.

The following Sunday people started coming to the door to see the house.
On Monday an offer was made,
and by Thursday we had agreed on a counter offer.
Three weeks later the transaction closed and keys were handed over.
I tithed what I gained from that sale to the diocese.
God’s mercies are so great, and I have been so blest.

One more illustration of what I have learned from Francis,
a significant awareness he has given me regarding sin.
Francis would speak of himself as being a great sinner.
Sure, his youth was spent in revelry and excess,
something he certainly was repentant about after his conversion,
but his repentance went on and on life long.
He expressed his concern that coming so far,
up to the very gates of the Kingdom of Heaven,
he should find himself excluded because of his sins.

One might say,
“Oh, Francis, what a baseless worry.
You are so good, so self-sacrificing, so scrupulous.”
But, no, I am coming to understand what he was saying.
It was not a statement of super pious self-effacing humility.
It was a statement of fact.
The more we awaken to reality, the truth of life,
the more we are aware of the work of the Holy Spirit within us,
the more we are engaged in the spiritual process of discipleship,
the more we come to recognize the subtlety of our own sin.

The gross sins, the blatant sins are not a problem.
It is what is at the core of our beings,
what emerges in attitude and habit and motive and desire.
It is essential in the spiritual life to be brought beyond our self-delusion
to the truth about our huge need for God’s mercy
and of our utter reliance on Jesus
to heal and transform and bring us to the wholeness
in which we are created.

Francis, by all the time spent in deep self-reflection,
gave me permission to leave behind other ambitions,
more recognizable and acceptable to the culture of this world,
and to give myself ever more fully to this excruciating
but also exhilarating process of purgation/purification,
which I engage in meditation practice.
So I am one of many, some 3,000 of us Anglican Franciscans world wide,
and this is my testimony.
I consider myself very blest to be among the company
of other great tertiaries, who are also inspirations and examples,
other Third Order Franciscans such as:
Desmond Tutu
Emily Gardner Neal
Peter Funk (of Funk and Wagnell)
and Bishop Mark MacDonald,
who will be our speaker on January 30
at the Communion With Creation conference,
and so many others I meet at our Franciscan gatherings
when I hear about their many exciting ministries,
and Dianne Aid and Susan Pitchford and Steve Best
and Diane Brelsford and Carole Hoerauf
and Bill Berge and Edie Burkhalter
and Nedi Rivera
and so many more.

This is a fellowship which sustains me,
and supports my heart’s greatest desire in living my life in Jesus.


May the power of your love, Lord Christ, fiery and sweet as honey,
wean my heart from all that is under heaven,
so that I may die for love of your love,
who was so good as to die for love of my love. Amen.

Sermon Nov. 1 All Saints, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

All Saints Day, when we remember all those,
regardless of their acknowledged sainthood, or their obscurity,
who have died in the faith,
the capital letter Saints and the small letter saints,
the obvious Saints and the quiet, hidden and forgotten saints,
a day especially for celebrating all the saints
who don’t have their own day on the church calendar.

And then there’s the next day, November 2, All Souls Day,
when we remember all the faithful departed,
our own Memorial Day.

As we came in this morning
we saw memorialized there around the baptismal font
loving reminders of all those who have died in the last year:
members of the congregation or their family members
or close friends.
So this is a time to be reminded
of the common theme of mortality – Death.

Now these Saints, we may note, were often martyrs,
and all of the Saints are dead.

Saints are different from heroes.
With Saints it’s not all happy endings and success stories.

The reading from the Book of Wisdom states
“In the eyes of the foolish … their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction …
in the sight of others they were punished”

The passage then goes on to say
that they were being disciplined and tested by God,
refined like gold in the furnace, and like a sacrificial burnt offering. This is the discipleship process
that anyone who is a Saint is called to go through.
This is the spiritual process that Jesus called his disciples into.

To follow Jesus faithfully is not just a one time altar call,
being fairly regular in church attendance
and keeping your nose clean.

Be assured that simply by being initiated into the household of God in baptism
we are now susceptible to this refining process in our lives.
It goes with the territory, part of the deal when we’re baptized.

Jesus, the spiritual master, is mightily present with us
as Resurrection Spirit, Holy Spirit,
doing spiritual housecleaning within us.

And I have learned from experience over the years
that if I don’t attend to what needs attention in my life
- spiritually, emotionally, behaviorally, relationally -
life is going to hit me up side the head - over and over again,
as much as it takes,
until I get the lesson,
until I awaken to my need for God’s incomparable grace, unconditional mercy and healing love,
and I start cooperating with,
instead of frustrating, this process of refinement.

You see, I have the belief that we are all saints,
and I don’t mean goody-two-shoes kinds of people
who are always sweet and smiley and self-effacing.

We are people upon whom Jesus has put a claim
and now there’s no use resisting.

You want life to work better for you?
Stop resisting and pay more attention to Jesus.

Remember he was the guy
who told Peter, Andrew, James and John
to push their boats out into the deep
after fishing all night and not catching anything.
And now when he tells them to cast their nets
all the fish in the lake make a bee line for the boat,
coming at the call of Jesus.

But then we humans aren’t half so cooperative as the fish
so that it often takes a lot more to get us to realize
that the One we call Savior actually can save us,
save us from ourselves.
Lazarus died.
He was gravely ill when his sisters sent the message to Jesus,
but Jesus had purposely stayed away
and he even informed his disciples that Lazarus was dead
before he started back to Bethany.
And indeed by the time he gets to Bethany
Lazarus has now been dead long enough in that climate
for significant decay.
There could be no disputing of the fact that he was dead.

Jesus was being very intentional in his delaying
and this was to serve a purpose in the school of discipleship
for Mary and Martha and those with them and his own disciples.
This was to refine their faith in a severe way,
through the intense personal experience common to all humanity,
the death of one we love.

For when we have come face to face with death
and discovered God with us,
discovered that nothing can separate us from the Love of God,
then we know that faith is simply trusting that reality,
and this will carry us through anything
and reveal our nascent potency as saints.

Jesus came to raise Lazarus from the dead,
the brother of two women who had great faith in him,
coming with disciples who ought to know what he could do.
And he encounters
“If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Here was the Resurrection and the Life
standing before them personified in Jesus,
and they couldn’t look up from their tears
to catch even the possibility of hope
that Jesus’ presence at that moment might make a difference.

It was enough to make a grown man cry.
But, of course, these tears that Jesus wept were more than frustration.
This was also Jesus taking within himself all their grief,
all their sorrow, all their hopelessness and despair.

“Take away the stone,” he tells them,
and when Martha protests
because she anticipates the corruption of the body,
Jesus’ rebuke must have come like a bucket of cold water
splashed in her face.
“Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

Then the only one present realizing faith in Jesus at that moment
was Lazarus – and he was dead.
But the voice of Jesus is not to be resisted,
like the fish swimming into the net
Lazarus responds to those words shouted into the cave tomb
and bound as he was, the burial cloth wound about both legs,
he somehow managed to hop up out of the tomb,
so powerful was that voice.



What they all went through, Mary and Martha, their friends, the disciples,
from grief
to what must have been a huge fright
seeing a dead man emerge from his tomb
to unspeakable joy.
Such an occasion will change a person – most profoundly.

That’s how saints get formed.

Jesus says to each one us,
“Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

We could see the glory of God being worked right here in us
if we would believe, if we would trust,
if we would not resist quite so much.

We would be Saints.
The potential is there.
We can be so much more than we are right now.
That is always the case.
God sees in us all the unrealized potency that is there
God sees us as great Saints,
ones who have gifts and ministries that can
bring living water to thirsty people,
that can unbind people,
that can loose them from all the various ways
in which lives can get bound up in death.

We’ve been baptized.
Jesus has put a claim upon us as his own.
He wants to disciple us,
so that we can be of some good use to the rest of a world
struggling in darkness.

We would be Saints.

Why do I meditate?

Beloved in our Lord, after being away on meditation retreat for the month of September, and returning to the fall schedule already underway, I am now finding a moment to share with you a few thoughts.

When I was on retreat the question came up as to why we meditate. As I looked as honestly as I could at this question, this is what I wrote in my journal of that retreat:

“Meditation provides me with refreshment. I can come into a meditation sitting bone tired and leave feeling renewed for engagement with others and with life (most of the time). Meditation is the place where I can process emotions, be present in an undisturbed environment with what is really going on in my life, where I can sit with difficult and demanding feelings and watch them be taken care of without any help from me. Meditation provides me with grounding, especially in times of high stress and activity when I am over-busy. At those times I can come to meditation and be reunited; without the time in meditation I feel scattered and energy gets diffused.”

One might notice from this that meditation is far more than a stress reduction technique or a brief escape from the hard realities of the present moment. Meditation is for engagement with life, a way of facing it head on, a way to break through the avoidance and denial served by keeping one’s self overly busy.

But during meditation we do not sit there working through problems or strategizing conversations or making action plans. We leave our imaginations and focusing on the future at the door, and instead we sit with the truth of what we are feeling right now. I have learned to sit and observe the body, and have discovered that it has amazing wisdom of its own. It will show me by the sensations that I feel, for instance, where I am connected with others (in both positive or negative ways) and where I am isolating myself. By paying attention and observing long enough I can come to see how much of what I feel is not something I can credit or blame others with, but comes from my own imagining and self-affliction.

Much of the time this observation will bring me again and again to the realization of my need for Yeshua’s mercy, which, of course, is abundant, free flowing, unconditional and always available. Then as I continue to sit I watch the physical sensations, and with them the dilemma, the concern, the suffering and self-affliction gradually diminish and dissipate. The faith process of meditation again brings healing and restores wholeness.

I meditate because I have found this to be, and can dependably trust, that the process of meditation is the most effective and efficient means I have experienced for healing my inward blindness. Without mediating navigating life and all that it throws at me would be full of frustration and despair, grief and anger, given what I know about myself, and I say not thanks to that. Why do you meditate?

Blessings in the Lamb
Beverly

Course Offerings This Fall

Lost In Translation

Beginning Monday, October 26, this course explores key Greek words used throughout the New Testament, their use in conveying the central themes of the gospels, and what they reveal about the spiritual process of salvation, discipleship, resurrection, the work of the Holy Spirit, creation, light, eternal life, etc. We also look at how this deeper exploration of the gospels in their original language can inform an understanding of Christian meditation. No prior knowledge of the Greek language is required. Sitting in silent meditation is a part of each class session as an effective spiritual practice in preparation for reading scripture. 12 Mondays from 9:45 to 11:15 AM at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Mercer Island.

12 Week Course at Emmanuel, Mercer Island

For new and returning meditators, the 12 Week Course is a comprehensive foundation course of the Prayer of the Lamb designed to give support to establishing a reliable practice. Course includes meditation, study of the original text plus new material, and passages from the gospels that give light to the spiritual work of meditation. Tuesdays from 7 to 9 PM, Emmanuel, Mercer Island, beginning October 27.

Calm in the Storm, Developing a Rule of Life

A day-long workshop at St. Mark’s Cathedral on November 14, 9 AM to 3 PM, in Skinner Auditorium: The Rev. Beverly Hosea, of the Community of the Lamb, will facilitate this workshop on developing spiritual practices for daily living that engage our ministries in the world.

The ancient practice of following a Rule of Life helps us to integrate our faith practice with experiences of every day activities. This workshop will explore how the Prayer of the Lamb offers an integrative spiritual practice that is biblically, sacramentally and ecologically connected to the ministries of intercession and service in the world. The workshop will include instruction and times of silent meditation with the Prayer of the Lamb, as well as discussion on building a personal Rule of Life.

In follow-up to this workshop those attending may want to continue exploring and developing their personal Rule of Life with this spiritual resource of meditational intercession. A twelve week course will be offered to give support and further teaching for establishing an effective and sustaining spiritual practice for individuals and community for living this out.

Register by contacting the Rev. Marilyn Cornwell at St. Mark’s Cathedral: 206-323-0300, ext. 222, mcornwell@saintmarks.org

Clergy Meditation Group

Already underway this meditation group meets Mondays from 7:30 to 9:00 AM, for Episcopal and other clergy. Support for personal spiritual practice, instruction in meditating with the Prayer of the Lamb, and confidential reflection on practice.

Sermon Oct. 4 St. Francis, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

Looking around at you this morning, you are amazing;
you are all such lovely and loveable people.
It is so good to be here with you
in this beautiful space, all of us gathered together
to sing God’s praises along with the stars and moon and sun
and all God’s creation
and to plunge again into the incredible Mystery of the Eucharist
communing with the Heart of Christ, and with each other.

I am just back from a 30 day meditation retreat,
the entire month of September off in the woods near Spokane
with a few other veteran meditators
getting grilled daily by my meditation teacher about my practice
and reveling in the uninterrupted silence
of several hours of meditation each day.

Now I should say something about this retreat
because I know a number of people will ask me, “How was the retreat?”
And the quick answer that usually is all we have time for is “fine.”

But I think it is more helpful to say
what value this meditation retreat has had for me.
To that I can say with greater clarity
that meditation for me is energizing,
that it is the most effect way for me to process what I am feeling
and for being with what is really going on with me,
and that meditation is grounding for me,
especially during high demand times.
Through meditation I am empowered for action, for service, for ministry.

And just as we are here communing with God and with each other,
so too the retreat was a form of communion,
a Eucharist not of bread and wine
but of all creation.

Communion in that setting was different in configuration
than here at this altar.
Our retreat facility was set very closely within the natural setting of creation.

We were the interlopers intruding into the habitat of white tailed deer,
chipmunks, rabbits, hawks and crickets,
quail and myriad varieties of beetles,
coyotes singing to the moon,
and wild turkeys, always the wild turkeys making their daily visit
to the buffet table that seemed to be spread
right outside the barn we used for our meditation room.
All this set back up in the pine-covered hills away from civilization.

Then came the task of returning to “civilization”
which is often more like UN-civilization
returning to traffic lights and grocery stores
and mechanical sounds and artificial vistas of cityscapes
and the need to lock one’s door.

However, while in this beautiful pine forest perched on a hill
happily ensconced in my little hermitage,
I thought about Francis of Assisi,
whose Feast Day is today.
I thought about Francis of Assisi on a similar meditation retreat
likewise during the month of September 800 years earlier
perched on another high hill, Mount La Verna,
meditating there at the time of the Feast of the Holy Cross
and receiving within his own body
the same wounds as our Lord absorbed at the crucifixion.

This was more than Francis identifying with our Lord Jesus
and therefore wishing to imitate him to the ultimate degree,
although that certainly was expressed in all the literature
about this remarkable event.

This was more about Francis’ personal realization of oneness with Christ,
of being in Christ, as the Apostle Paul wrote about,
of baptismal identity in the Eternal Word of God.
And in that Francis’ own body then manifested this blood baptism
as a sign and witness of this union, this unity of being,
to his generation and for all generations to come.

That September of 1223/4 alone in the woods of Mount La Verna
Francis was in intimate connection with his environment.
You might even say that the distinction between self and environment was gone,
for that distinction is really arbitrary and dependent
for one cannot be distinct from environment,
we are ourselves part of the environment.

Admittedly this is not as easy for us to recognize,
because we can separate ourselves off from the environment so readily:
step inside a building, climb into our cars,
set the thermostat, screen the windows,
plant our gardens in neat rows and remove the weeds,
spray for cockroaches and ants in the kitchen.
We place ourselves over and against the environment
building artificial barriers.

It was after this time when Francis received the stigmata
that he composed his famous Canticle of Creation.
In it he expresses this interrelationship and interdependence
of all living beings in creation
all living beings including Brother Sun, Sister Moon,
Brother Fire, Sister Water, Brother Wind,
and our sister, Mother Earth,
all the primal elements
and all of them speaking in each their own way the praise of Creator God.

Francis, you see, is the ecological saint,
who saw the intrinsic connection between us humans
and all the other creatures, indeed the whole planet,
the entire ecosystem,
the interrelatedness of all life forms,
the interconnection that binds up all our destinies together,
so that we must both honor
our four legged and winged brothers and sisters,
and our sister Mother Earth,
both honor them and serve them for the sake of us all.

And also listen to them.

Did you pick up on that from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible reading
for today? From Job, chapter 12
7 "…ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
10 In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.”

The animals can teach us if we will let them.
The birds of the air have been trying to tell us, but will we listen?
Their very disappearance speaks volumes to us!

I grieve that it is more and more likely
that I will not again hear the song of the meadow lark
or the haunting call of the loon that graced my growing up years.

And should we not all tremble at how this gives us warning
of the likelihood of our own extinction?
of the madness of our own self-destructive behavior
that ignores their message.

St. Francis of Assisi saw clearly that interconnectedness
exhibited to him through all members of creation
as examples to illustrate the need for and the way to
reconciliation,
for indeed Francis is a saint for reconciliation,
for peace making
for relationship to creation and care for all living beings
for embracing Gospel poverty, non-ownership, as key to this
for the embodiment of a love for Jesus in imitation of his life and death
and for the power of that love, fiery and sweet as honey,
to save us from our own foolishness.

Francis was so remarkable in his own day 8 centuries ago
that thousands and thousands of people followed him,
and history was changed in Europe because of it.

Today within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion
there are those of us who are caught up in the same vision
that Francis had,
who see Francis as role model in living out faith
in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Third Order, Society of St. Francis, of which I am a member,
there are many of us who take this ecological interdependence
with all the other life forms very seriously,
and we look critically at our own relationship to creation
and interdependence with other species of living beings.

We have been blessed to have my dear friend and fellow Franciscan,
Susan Pitchford, with us again today for the education hour.
This last Lent when she was with us, she was very well received.
Susan had more to say about the Franciscan understanding
of relationship with creation
and indeed our communion with creation.

And while I am taking a moment here to kind of make announcements
in the course of this sermon,
I want to mention the outstanding internationally known person
that we are bringing to Emmanuel as a guest lecturer on January 30,
Bishop Mark MacDonald, another Third Order Franciscan,
former Bishop of Alaska
and currently serving as Anglican Bishop
for the native peoples of Canada.
Bishop MacDonald will also preach here on January 31.

His is another voice echoing St. Francis,
helping us see this relationship of communion with creation
with astonishing freshness and clarity.

So this morning I stagger out of that space
of living in communion with creation
listening to coyotes and wild turkeys
singing the praises of Creator God.
and I come once again to this sacred ground, this holy table
for communion with you, beloved creatures of God.

And this afternoon when we include our animal companions
in our celebration of this feast day of St. Francis,
but may it also be a time of reflection about our relationship
with all our brothers and sisters of the diversity of creation,
the four legged and winged brothers and sisters,
and the ways in which they bless us
and the ways in which we are dependent on them
for our own existence.

And for all of us living, breathing beings
may we know more truly how each breath
is an incredible miracle and gift from God,
the One who is Source of all life, Creator and Sustainer,
in Whom we live and move and have our being.
Amen.

Sermon 9th Sunday after Pentecost, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

(To the children:)
How many know the story of Moses and the Israelites, the Children of Israel?

They were freed from slavery in Egypt
crossed over the Red Sea escaping Pharaoh’s army
Now they were on their way to a land where they could live free
where our rector Hunt is on his way to
traveling through a rough wilderness desert area to get there
Hunt gets to go there by airplane
but 3,500 years ago when this story takes place, no planes.
They had to walk.

It was going to take a long time
and they would be walking through the desert,
a hilly and stony desert.
Now there were not any grocery stores or restaurants out in the desert.
There was very little grass even for their flocks of sheep and goats to eat.
And there were a lot of people out there in the desert in that band of Israelites.
They had had to run away from Pharaoh’s army
so they had not been able to bring whole lot with them.
What food they did have with them didn’t last very long
before it was all gone.
So they started complaining,
and do you know what they said?
They said they would rather have stayed back in Egypt as slaves
than to be free out there in the desert
because at least there in Egypt they had something to eat.
So what did God do?
God sent them some special food.
First that evening at dinner time
some quails, a small bird, sort of like a chicken,
thousands and thousands of them flew into the camp.
It was like everyone getting a big bucket of fried chicken from KFC!

And then in the morning, what happened?
Here they were in the dry, dry desert
and in the morning there was dew on the ground.
Do you know what dew is?
Have you ever noticed the grass in the morning sometimes
covered with tiny drops of water all over
shining in the sunlight
and you know that it didn’t rain. That’s dew.
And when the dew dried up in the sun
there on the ground was something small and white and flakey.

And the people looked at it and said, “What’s that?”
In Hebrew the word for “What’s that?” is manna.
They picked it up, and someone tasted it and said, “Mmmm, this is good.”
They said it had a sweet taste like honey, and it was like bread.

Let’s look around from some manna.
Does anyone see some manna here? No.
Wait, I know something that is sort of like manna.
-- get basket with communion wafers from credence shelf –
The grown ups that prepare all the things for the altar on Sunday morning set out some of the communion bread for us.
This bread has not been consecrated yet,
not had the special Eucharistic Prayer said over it yet.
So it is simply bread, little round pieces of a particular kind of bread.

These look sort of like manna: flat, white, flakey.
Let’s see what they taste like.
Put your piece in your mouth and suck on it so that you can taste it.
What does it taste like?

Every day as long as they were out in the desert, which was a long time,
the Israelites found this bread waiting for them in the morning.
They always had enough for everybody, but just for that day;
and the whole time they were in the desert they got fed one day at a time.
God was taking care of them until they came out of the desert
to the place where they could plant their own gardens
to grow their own food.

Now let’s look at our Gospel story, the reading where we all stand up
and face toward the Gospel book
as we bring it right down into the middle of the congregation.

Last week we heard about how Jesus feed 5,000 people with a boy’s lunch.
Today we heard about how people went looking for Jesus the next day.
Why were they looking for him?
They wanted to see him do that miracle again.
Because they wanted him to feed them again this day like yesterday.
Jesus had fed them all with the boy’s lunch
because he had compassion on them and loved them.
And now when they wanted him to keep on feeding them
Jesus began to feed them with words
that would be even more nourishing for them than bread,
words of life.

The people came looking for bread like the manna that the Israelites knew
bread that would last only one day
But Jesus told them, “I am the Bread of Life,”
a different kind of bread than they assumed,
bread that would last far longer than only one day,
bread that would last forever.

(To the children:)
Thank you for helping the grown ups listen to the story,
and when you come up for communion,
when you come up to receive the Bread and the Wine,
think about how Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life.”

(To the adults:)
Jesus fed the 5,000 because he loved them.

He saw their need,
and his compassion and love were put into practical action.
So he touched the food and enlivened it,
causing an expansion that resulted in an abundance,
more than what was needed,
because they had so much left over after they were all stuffed to the gills.

And his touch began to enliven the people
as they sought him the next day,
and as he engaged them in life giving dialog.

“You were looking for me,” Jesus said to them,
“because you ate your fill of the bread
that you didn’t have to work for yourselves, free bread.”
You know what it is like to work hard day after day
to put groceries on the table at home.
But I’m going to say something different to you, Jesus said,
Do not work for the food that perishes,
food that gets eaten up and then it’s back to work again.
Work for the food that endures for eternal life
- well, obviously, a different kind of food -
food from the One upon which God has set his seal,
upon whom God has indicated approval and authenticity.

So they ask how they are to work for this kind of food,
what works are they to work to be doing the works of God.

And here is the crux of all that is too follow in this chapter,
indeed, the central point of this whole Gospel.
This, as we would say back in Minnesota where I spent so many years,
is “the whole kielbasa.”

Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God,
that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Does this strike you as odd?
that the work of God that we are to do is to believe?
not to keep all the Commandments
not to do good to others
nothing that requires muscles and sweat
or that make a product, accomplishes a task
but to believe the One God sent.

Let’s look at this word believe.

You have heard me say more than once about the challenge of translation,
how a word in one language usually has
a constellation of meanings about it,
and when we translate it to another language, say English,
we have to pick a word that inevitably cannot include
the whole scope of meaning of the original word.
That’s how it is with the verb that is translated here as believe.
I would rather translate it as have faith in.

To believe has the connotation of giving mental assent,
to accept as a doctrine, like when we say in the Nicene Creed,
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty…”
But the Greek word is much richer.
We could begin the creed just as well with
“We have faith in one God… We have faith in one Lord, Jesus Christ…”

To have faith in someone
means that we have a history with that person.
We have experienced that person as trustworthy in particular areas,
such as keeping their word, or arriving on time,
or doing a good job at fixing your car.
What we have faith in is the truth of that person as we have experienced it.

So this is the work we are invited to do:
to trust Jesus, to have faith in him,
to trust him, especially as we have experienced him in our lives,
how we have experienced him in our prayers and meditation,
how we have experienced his Resurrection Spirit guiding us,
how we have experienced his voice, his presence
through others who reflect his life in their own,
how we experience him in bread and wine week by week,
how all of creation points us to him,
in all the hundreds of ways we can come to experience and know him.

And to trust that, to rely utterly on Jesus
who would feed us with himself.

Jesus gives himself fully,
so that when you receive him,
you are nourished to fullness of Life.

He will feed us with what he is.

He will feed us with what he is.
And then we become him,
for, as they say, “You are what you eat.”

Jesus is the bread of God who comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.

We may want to make a link between this Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel
and the sacrament of the Eucharist

The essential Bread of Life is there for us
to sink our teeth into spiritually,
living bread that conveys life to the eater.

What are you hungry for? What does your soul crave?
Work for what will satisfy that hunger like nothing else can.

So come to the Table today with all your hunger,
and you may want to say a little prayer prior to eating,
such as the grace we say at home before a meal,
something like this:
For what we are about to receive,
may the Lord make us truly grateful.

Sermon 8th Sunday after Pentecost, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

Today we begin a 5 week series
with the Gospel readings from the 6th chapter of John,
the Bread of Life chapter,
taking us up through August 23.
This happens just once every 3 years,
a rare opportunity to examine a very important biblical theme
for a whole month.
Today we give the setting
for what the next 4 Sunday Gospel readings will be addressing.

The Gospel story today starts with telling what Jesus did
when a huge number of people came to hear him speak
and to bring those who were sick for him to heal.
(To the children: )
What did Jesus do when he saw the big crowd?
He fed them.
How did he feed them?
With a boy’s lunch.
Do you think that the disciples took the boy’s lunch away from him?
No!
What do you think might have happened?
The boy may have heard them talking
about not having enough food to feed everyone,
and so he offered his.
What did Jesus do next with the boy’s lunch?
He gave thanks (said grace)
and then he gave the food to all the people.
How far around did the boy’s lunch go? How many got to eat something?
Everyone.
Did they each just get a little bite?
No. Everyone got enough.
Everybody got filled up with as much as they wanted.
How can we tell?
There were leftovers.
How much leftovers were there?
Enough to fill 12 baskets full.
But how many little loaves of bread did the boy have to begin with?
Five
How can this be! There are more leftovers than what they started with.

What do you suppose the people there were thinking?
They were amazed.
They thought it was a miracle.
They wanted him to do it again.
They wanted to make him their king.
So what did Jesus do then?
He left.
He went up a mountain by himself to pray.

Now comes the second part of this story,
something else about Jesus that was very extraordinary.

First of all, the disciples are in a boat going across the Sea of Galilee.
In a few days our rector, Hunt, is going to be on the Sea of Galilee
during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
He’s going to get to go for a ride a boat
similar to what the disciples were in.
Each time I’ve been on the Sea of Galilee the weather has been quite calm.
But it can also get very wind, which makes for rough sailing.

Now the Sea of Galilee is actually a very big lake, about 10 miles long.
And the disciples were in the boat
when a strong wind was blowing and the water got rough.
Apparently the wind was blowing against them for where they wanted to go,
so they had to row.

Pretend like you are in the boat and you are rowing.
Everybody row.
The wind is getting stronger! Row harder!
Getting tired? Keep rowing!

Now it was starting to get dark,
and they had only made it part way across the lake because of the wind.

And suddenly they see something,
something on the lake.
Even with the wind howling and the waves surging,
here was something moving toward them on the water.

(figure under a sheet comes down the aisle)

What’s that?! -- Is it a ghost?

The disciples are terrified. Everyone act terrified.

(person emerges from under the sheet with a big sign that says “Jesus”)
“It is I, do not be afraid.”

And immediately they reached the land they were trying to get to.


Thank you all for helping me retell this story for the grown ups.
You were helping them pay attention to the story.
Now you can go back to your seats
while I say some things for everyone.


The disciples had been doing their best to row against the wind,
and they had not made much progress across the lake
because of a strong headwind;
it was a time spent in fruitless labor.
We all have probably experienced times like that.

So what’s the deal with Jesus?
walking on top of the water
as though he were taking a stroll along any old road
light enough for the water to hold him
yet not blown away by the howling wind,
while the disciples strained at the oars.
One might even think that Jesus is expressing a quirky sense of humor here
messing with the disciples’ minds.

Well, the disciples see him and of course get quite a start.
This is way out of any understanding they had about the laws of nature.

What human can make himself so light
that water will support his full body weight like that?
Not even Moses at the Red Sea or Elijah at the Jordan River could do that!
They had to clear a path through the water.

Jesus has just blown away their whole understanding of reality.
The world the way they knew it just didn’t hold together any longer.
Water can be walked on like solid ground.

The disciples don’t get it,
and the Gospel writer links this story in
with what happened with the bread.
There is a connection
between these incidents of superceding the known ways that reality works
in the feeding of the multitude and walking on water.

I suggest to you that it all has to do with the nature of the Resurrection
Walking on water is living out of Resurrection reality.

But maybe in this case Resurrection is even more mind-blowing
because this is before Good Friday and Easter; Jesus hasn’t died yet.
This is called paradigm shift,
a shift in our understanding of reality
that reorients the way we look at our world,
jarring to the sensibilities
blowing our previous way of looking at things to pieces
so that we cannot go back to the way things were before.

I would like to suggest that, maybe,
Jesus may be doing something similar here at Emmanuel
- a major paradigm shift
opening up a whole new spectrum of meaning and understanding
about the nature of the faith community,
how we are as a congregation.

From my many years of ministry among various congregations,
what I observe here at Emmanuel
is the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus emerging in awareness
and being expressed outwardly
through such things as how we worship on a Sunday morning,
and inwardly in what I see in individuals I talk with pastorally
and in meditation groups.

The Jesus who walks on water
would mess with our minds and change the way we see the world.
He would open us up to new possibility
way outside the box of our currently limited vision,
and what each of us might perceive as fruitless labor,
so much rowing against the wind.

He wants, I dare say, folks who will walk on the water with him,
people who will discover faith,
faith that is more than belief,
more than believing certain creeds, statements of right belief,
faith that recognizes the Divine as one’s experienced reality
and then puts full trust in that.

What is our faith and knowledge of Jesus?
What is our trust in Jesus, what is our personal experience of Jesus?
Is our knowledge limited to what we can figure out with our minds?
Or will we be frightened if we see Jesus show up in a new, surprising way?

I put these questions out to you for your serious consideration,
because this is really at the heart of why we are here to begin with:
FAITH.

And this is also a major theme for the next four weeks in John, chapter 6:
that to do the work of God means to have faith in Jesus,
and where else can we go? These are words of Life.

Jesus himself is the Bread from the boy’s lunch.
He himself is life sustaining nourishment.

So here is my prayer for the congregation and for each of you here,
words from the Epistle reading from Ephesians today:

I pray that,
according to the riches of [God’s] glory,
he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being
with power through his Spirit,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith
as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend,
with all the saints – with all those who have encountered Jesus,
experienced that profound paradigm shift of faith,
and have lived out of this new way of being
faithfully throughout the rest of their earthly lives,
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend
what is the breadth and length and height –
what is the expansiveness of this love
in which we are being rooted and grounded -
and to know – deeply know – the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
- understanding, what the mind can take in -
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Filled with all the fullness of God – be so God-filled, so God-filled
that how can there be room for anything else.

Sermon 4th Sunday after Pentecost, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

I just got back last night from a few days of vacation,
time spent with family,
especially my two little grandsons who are such a delight in my life.
I consider myself very blest to have this family,
to share these significant primary relationships,
and for us all to be in a wonderful place at the moment.

But like just about every family, it hasn’t all been wonderful.
Our family has experienced its share of suffering, death, grief and heart ache
and that makes this present time so precious.

Yet it is in the time of darkness and trial
when the purpose and meaning in life is tested
that we find our spiritual grounding and discover faith.

The Gospel reading for today is about such a crisis moment
for a family suffering for 12 long years of brokenness and grief.
I am going to tell you something today about this story
that you probably haven’t heard before.
It may or may not be true,
but I think it is not only probable, but implicit in the passage.

First and foremost is the implicit connection
between the woman who was hemorrhaging for 12 years
and the 12 year-old girl.
Didn’t you ever wonder why the text made a point
of mentioning the 12 years?

In these necessarily brief and sparse ancient documents of the Gospels
every little word is there on purpose.

The woman, you see, is quite possibly the girl’s mother.
And the word for woman and wife are one and the same in Greek,
so this shifts the whole way in which we can look at this story.

This story appears in all three of the synoptic Gospels,
Matthew, Mark and Luke,
and the three accounts are very similar.
In fact, they concur on all the important points that support what I am saying,
that this woman was the child’s mother.
Again the Greek is clearer than the English translation
because of syntax as well as vocabulary.

That makes this a story about Jesus healing, reconciling and restoring a family.

And this has application for us even in this contemporary setting,
in which this woman’s post partum hemorrhaging
could have been readily handled medically today as opposed to then.

First to understand why the mother of the dying child
was sneaking up behind Jesus to touch him,
and why she was so afraid of detection,
why she was acting in this way,
recall the significance of blood in that time and culture.

There were a lot of laws around matters involving blood,
and they had to do with ritual purity.
Women who were menstruating were “excused” from social contact
so as not to make others ritually unclean,
since merely the touch of a woman during that time of the month
was considered as polluting all that she touched.

And her husband, Jairus, was a leader of the synagogue,
so this meant that he and his family had greater obligation
to uphold the customs of their religion and society.

They were in the public eye,
and therefore obligated to be scrupulous in their religious observance.

Quite possibly this flow of blood had originated
at the birth of their first, and – notice – only, child,
and so for 12 years the girl’s mother, Jairus’ wife
had had to be excluded not only from society and the synagogue,
but also from the marriage bed.
Here was a family that had been living with a severe disruption all these years,
and now their only child was dying.

But the woman’s faith is greatly encouraged by the Presence of Jesus,
and perhaps she reasons with herself
that if Jesus is coming to heal their daughter,
then she too has the opportunity to receive the overflow of that healing.
But how to get near enough to him…
She must have been both bold and stealthy,
veiling her face so as not to be recognized
in the close and jostling crowd,
since if she were detected, can you imagine what an outcry there would be
among all those who would be wondering
how many of them she had touched and made unclean
by pushing her way through the crowd to Jesus.

Yet Jesus knows that she has touched him and that she is healed,
and he calls attention to it.
In all three Gospels what Jesus says to her is key,
is the heart of this whole story.

First he addresses her as daughter, he calls her his daughter.
This is typical, traditional language for identifying the disciple.
The prophet, guru, sage, spiritual leader
names the disciple by calling them son or daughter.
Jesus is identifying her as his disciple, laying a claim on her.
She had responded out of faith in him,
and he recognized that and validated that.

A powerful spiritual connection has been made here.
This woman’s need was great.
For the entire life of her child she had been separated from society,
excluded not on the basis of moral consideration
but because of ritual impurity from no fault of her own.

And now the child was dying.
One might wonder that she had any faith at all,
that she hadn’t railed against a God who seemed deaf to her prayers,
a God whom she could blame for the unfairness of it all.

But her need was so enormous for her daughter, her family, herself
that she would do what she had to in order to reach Jesus.

So the need draws her to Jesus, calls her to Jesus.
This is often how the disciple gets called to the spiritual master.

We don’t often get the chance to see true spiritual masters at work
so as to see how this process of calling disciples works.
We mostly don’t see how it is
that each of us has been called into discipleship with Jesus either.

In most cases our need hasn’t been as great as hers.
It’s not as clear cut.

I have been fortunate enough to spend time around
one of the world’s true spiritual leaders currently living,
and I have been able to observe close up the significant spiritual power
that can draw people irresistibly.

That’s how I ended up in India.
Four years ago Amma – Mata Amritanandamayi – took me in her arms
and whispered “My daughter” in my ear,
and a monthly later I had airplane tickets to India my hand
and I was scratching my head wondering how all that had happened!

And Jesus, as the Gospels give witness about him, was in his earthly life
a most powerful spiritual guru,
and now in the Resurrection he is even more powerful.

But we often miss that because we are just too ignorant
in this western, post modern, highly secular culture
to know what to look for or how to name our spiritual experiences.

What I am leading up to is that I think that in this Gospel story
this huge spiritual Presence of Jesus is already drawing the woman
and she is able to make it through the thick crowd
because, in a sense, the way is opened for her.
The way is opened for her.
Such mercy and love from our Lord…

Then Jesus calls attention to her, affirming both her healing and her faith.
“Your faith has saved you.” “Your faith has healed you,”
The Greek word here is the same for saved and healed.
“Your faith has saved, has healed you,” Jesus says,
affirming both her healing and her faith,
and thus restoring her to her family and to the whole community.

This is very important to note.
This is the center point of the whole story.
This is crucial for what follows.

Because it is right then that the word comes that the girl has died.
And then Jesus continues to their home despite the news of death,
bringing both the father, and the mother now, into the home with him,
and only 3 of the 12, the ones closest to him – Peter, James and John.
Those without faith, all those standing outside the house wailing,
they stay out.
And then Jesus touches the dead body – another taboo;
(crossing another ritual boundary)
taking the child by the hand would also make him unclean,
and he raises her to life again.

And the family is completely restored and reconciled,
all flying in the face of what seemed to be proper religious mores
for one who is a synagogue leader.

And Jesus was taking all that uncleanness upon himself.

Then Jesus orders them that no one should know about this,
what with all the rules having been broken,
and because people will end up attaching to Jesus their own ideas
about the Messiah
and miss the point about faith and responding to the call of Jesus.

But most importantly this family was restored again,
brought back together.
The family was far more important than either
religious rules or culturally accepted norms,
and rules were broken for the sake of basic human relationships.
Thank God!

What might be the ways in which you and I as brothers and sisters in faith,
might bridge cultural norms and societal ideas
in order to bring healing, reconciliation, and restored relationships?

Even though we are not all of us here related by blood,
we can still call each other brother and sister.

We can think about this on a global level
with such concerns as what might come up at General Convention
coming up in July,
concerns about how we can all stay together in the Anglican Communion.

We can think about this on the local level
in terms of how we here in this congregation
follow our Lord in discipleship and faith, and relate to one another.

We can think about this in ways in which our own social norms
are broken for the sake of compassion to meet basic human needs.

Need comes in many ways.
Needs for the basic necessities of life – food, housing, medical care,
and also our basic human needs for love, relationship, family.

And we can see from this gospel story
that needs can actually work to our good to propel us toward God.
What needs brought us here today?

What might impel you to reach out your hand to touch Jesus?
to seek his love, mercy, healing, reconciliation, peace?

Would that we were as impelled as that woman in the Gospel
that we would push our way
through whatever is blocking the way to Jesus!
push our way through whatever in ourselves is blocking the way.

Here is the Good News:
The healing Presence of Jesus is just as much here
as it was in the streets of Jairus’ town.
You can, if you want, reach out your hand to touch the robe of Jesus.

Consider this: you can actually physically touch Jesus today,
this very morning.
His physical Presence is with us powerfully,
albeit hidden in bread and wine.

You could push your way through the crowd to the altar rail
and grab hold of the very Body of Jesus
and claim the faith that brings healing and reconciliation.

In his great love and mercy
there is reconciliation and restoration and healing
for the whole family of God.

The healing Presence of Jesus is just as much here
as it was in the streets of Jairus’ town.
You can, if you want, reach out and touch Jesus.

Pentecost Sermon, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

You may have wondered why it was
that we began the liturgy today with the Easter salutation:
Alleluia! Christ is Risen. The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia!
And here it is Pentecost.

Do you realize that Pentecost is another Resurrection appearance?

Pentecost is the 50th day of Easter,
and the Risen Christ present in a new and powerful way,
Pentecost as an ultimate Resurrection event,
where resurrection becomes very personal.

Pentecost, as told in the story from Acts, chapter 2,
is at the center of the very meaning and existence of the Church.

Pentecost is the Risen Christ, invading and penetrating us
to the core of our being as Holy Spirit, as the Divine Presence.
Pentecost is the forcing of our eyes open to seeing
that God really does dwell in us.
And maybe we then might be able to see that we dwell in God.

This Pentecost event happened quite possibly in same room as the Last Supper
and where the disciples were gathered in fear after the crucifixion
when Jesus suddenly appeared with them behind locked doors.

Now 50 days later
and it’s 120 gathered instead of 12
and Jesus suddenly appears,
but in a new form:
Flames – on each, bright radiant energy.

The room was ablaze with the light of these flames
burning on the disciples
burning without the disciples being reduced to ashes.
Now, does this sound familiar?
Where have we heard about something like this before?

How about Exodus 3,
the story of the bush that was burning, but was not burned up.

As you may recall,
this extraordinary occurrence got the attention of Moses,
he went to investigate,
and ended up with his shoes off on holy ground,
encountering the Living God.

In the written language of Hebrew
the difference between the word for fire and the word for a man
is one tiny dot,
the difference between vƈa and v´a,
a human being on fire, but not burnt up…

…and Moses would return to this place of the brilliant light
in the bush that was not burned up,
bringing with him the Hebrew People
freed from slavery in Egypt
bringing them to that very spot where Moses had encountered God.
Where else would he bring them?

And on this mountain Moses would receive from the hand of God
the Law of the Covenant,
and when Moses came down from the Mountain
from time spent in face to face encounter with the revelation of God,
his face shone,
his face was aflame with brilliant light.
He was transfigured,
a human being on fire, but not burnt up.

Human beings on fire, but not burnt up
Pentecost – people on fire

The tongues of flame radiantly burning on each of them,
yet not burning them up,
become transfigured into tongues of languages.

And now, for that diverse crowd gathered in Jerusalem for the festival
the sound that is heard, that draws them,
is each one hearing in their own tongues, their own languages
words, not just sound.
The sound that attracts the crowd is the sound of intelligible words.

The fire of the Spirit, of the very Breath of God
is translated through the human person
as utterance, words, communication.
The languages expand the message, the revelation of God,
beyond ethnicity, way beyond any arbitrary human divisions.

The breath that the Resurrection Jesus breathed
on those huddled disciples on Easter Day
now comes with great force and transfigures them
in flaming tongues of light and language,
uncontainable by the room they were in.

In the story of the Day of Pentecost, after the people on the street exclaim,
“How is it that we each hear in our own languages?”
next we read that “they all were amazed and perplexed,
saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’”


And, of course, there are those who jump to conclusions and make assumptions.
So the theory is put forward that they are drunk,
filled with new wine, raw wine, not aged,
still bubbling away in the wineskins in the process of fermentation,
and that has made them raving mad!

So Peter and the other Apostles stand up and address the huge crowd:
“These people aren’t drunk, as you suppose,
since, after all, it’s just 9 in the morning, too early to get a toot on.
But this is exactly what you have heard read from the scriptures,
from the Prophets, from the Prophet Joel,
what it would be like
when God poured out the Holy Spirit freely on the people.
And all of what the Prophet Joel was saying
applies to what we have seen in Jesus of Nazareth,
all the signs and wonders and mighty works
that God did through him right here in your midst,
as you are well aware of.

Not only that, but when he was crucified and killed,
God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death,
because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
…this Jesus God raised up,
and of that we all are witnesses,
and so this is the Holy Spirit he promised to send us from the Father,
which has now been poured out upon us, as you can see and hear.”

So that 120 upon whom fell the fire of the Holy Spirit
were not drunk;
at least, they were not drunk with NEW wine.

Instead they WERE drunk, drunk with the new wine of the Holy Spirit,
drunk with that wedding wine Jesus had made in Cana,
the Holy Spirit bubbling away inside their skins
in the fermentation of transformation into the image of God.

Be drunk.
Be drunk with the new wine of the Spirit.
Be intoxicated with the love of Jesus,
our love for him responding to his love for us.
Let his love flow over you until you are swimming in it.
And drink from the ocean you are swimming in
and become drunk with it.

The Spirit, like wind and fire, is not tame,
but sweeps through whatever is in its path.
To enter the whirlwind
is to become drunk with the walls reeling about you.
Then in the madness of Spirit-drunkenness
the Love of God rearranges the mind and we are changed.
Our vision is changed.
We rub our eyes and look again.
Everything looks different.
What was dingy and grey and old and worn out looking
now radiates color, dances with energy in the field of vision.

Pentecost, it would seem, is very much a resurrection appearance,
a Resurrection appearance of a whole new sort.
The anointing of the disciples with the Holy Spirit,
is expressive of the Resurrection,
creating in these Spirit-infused people a new race of resurrection beings
reproducing in them, and us, if we’ll let it happen,
Jesus himself.
We can’t begin to know the full range of human capacity
available to us.

How can we become the immediate revelation
of the presence and self-expression of God?
It is through the Spirit of the Risen Lord, the Spirit of Resurrection Jesus.

And what the world needs is this fire burning in the People of God
for the sake of the world.


The fire that we know is the fire that consumes.
But the fire that does not consume
is something new to our experience,
something which is the product of the Resurrection,
something provided for us, not of our own efforts.

It comes from the Light of the world,
from the Source of all creation,
from the Word who was in the beginning with God.
The new articulation of the Word in languages of every race and nation
flows from the Resurrection Jesus into each open heart,
placing a flame on each individual for the sake of the world.

Now, what if your hair was literally on fire!
There would be a lot of hopping about and shrieking, I would expect.
That would attract a lot of attention.

And here we are walking around calmly conversing with one another
while our hair is on fire.

Did it ever occur to you what that might be like
to be aware of having the Holy Spirit in such fiery presence
what potential there would be,
how that might change your life, expand it, enlarge it?

Can we get close enough in our openness to the Holy Spirit
that we actually catch fire?

As Peter told the crowd on that Day of Pentecost
for all that turned to Jesus,
“you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off,
everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”

That is what you are charged to consider for yourself on this Day of Pentecost.

Can you see?
You are loved to such a degree
that God knew that the only way to help you
the only way to work reconciliation in you
the only way to restore Life
is to live in you.

And God with us, the Spirit as close and as intimate as our own breath,
comes right on in and will identify for us our deepest suffering
if we would allow it
and then works in us the healing process
bringing us always toward greater fullness of Life
bringing us even deeper into the Heart of God
that throbs with such love for us.

Let’s stop messing around and ask for power from the Source.

Now may God give us eyes to see
that we too may become,
are in the process of becoming
burning bushes ourselves,
burning bushes for others to catch notice of,
and turn aside in wonder to see,
and to catch fire themselves also. Amen.

Summer Retreat Day

Our next Community of the Lamb offering will be:
A Summer Retreat Day
"Don’t worry! Be happy!"
Saturday, July 18
9 AM – 3 PM
hosted by
St. Dunstan Episcopal Church
722 N. 145th St., Shoreline
To register call 206-713-5321
or email PrayeroftheLamb1@mac.com
Suggested donation $35
Lunch will be provided

Community News and Reflections

I had wanted to get a newsletter out since March, but as you can see I missed the due date! However the ministry of the Community of the Lamb has been growing, and now I have news about this that I am eager to share.

The 17th Prayer of the Lamb introductory seminar was held at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Mercer Island, this last February, followed by a 12 Week course that will finish in June. Those participating have been actively engaged in establishing a meditation practice, and express obvious commitment to this spiritual practice through consistent regular attendance and active engagement in discussion during our sessions. Watch for what the next Community of the Lamb event at Emmanuel will be.

Summer Retreat Day – St. Dunstan will again host a retreat day on their beautiful campus in Shoreline. This will be Saturday, July 18, 9 AM – 3 PM, with the theme, “Don’t worry; be happy.” This event will include meditation, gospel study, free time to walk meditatively in the gardens and among the trees, a light lunch, and the Supper of the Lamb.

Prison Outreach Ministry – Since October of 2007 I have been going out to the Monroe Correctional Complex to offer meditation instruction twice a month. The big news is that the Community of the Lamb has just received a generous grant of $3,000 from the Social Outreach Committee of Emmanuel, Mercer Island, for this ministry for 2009. This enables me to now go once a week greatly strengthening the program by giving more consistent and regular support to the men participating in the meditation group, and it also goes a long way toward meeting its expenses this year. The benefits of meditation in the prison setting are becoming more well known, and the chaplains and inmates tell me that this ministry is deeply appreciated. So I also want to communicate to all those who participate in the Community of the Lamb by using the Prayer of the Lamb in your spiritual practice, that you too can contribute to this ministry, especially so that we can continue to offer it on a weekly basis in 2010 as well.

While it has been a few months since the last newsletter, I hope you all have visited the blog/website and read what has been posted there. If you would like to have an email notice sent to you whenever a new item is posted on the blog, you can go to the blog site, sign in (and create an account if you don’t already have one), and sign up for an email feed.

Meditation Reflections - Here are some words about the significance of observing the body while sitting in meditation with the Prayer of the Lamb.

It has been said that paying attention to the body as we sit in silence can be compared with looking at pond water under a microscope. What is not obvious to the naked eye now is revealed as full of myriad tiny creatures swimming about. There is endless activity. So it is that as we observe more closely our own body sitting so still, we discover so much activity – subtle, tiny vibrations, variations, and movement. We can see how each part is in constant change and flux. The body now seems more like a river than a still pond.

Thus we have the opportunity to see how the body communicates its condition to consciousness more clearly. At times it is settled and at ease. Other times it is jumpy, edgy, tense, and emotions and thoughts are turbulent, or it is sleepy. In order to pay attention to what the body is communicating we may cultivate a compassionate gaze that becomes more alert to this subtle body language. We bring to it our same intercessory intention of the Prayer of the Lamb as we have for all those others for whom we are asking God’s mercy. And then when we have been able to sit with the body and all that it tells us, we are then able to sit with our feelings and emotions that rise to our attention, where previously we had been in avoidance and denial regarding them.

We cannot change ourselves, but in spiritual practice we can become what we practice. We do this by repeatedly practicing observing ourselves in place of reacting, and instead let go of fear and trust the process of purification of the Spirit at work within us, seeing through the self-limitations of our ego identities, our identifications with our suffering, needs and limitations, our poverty or lack. As we express compassion for self, the self opens to healing. Then comes the cultivation of the virtues and qualities that can strengthen our lives.

Realization and awakening are not accomplished by force of will-power and the efforts of the self in perfecting spiritual practice, but rather through rest, the resting of the heart and the opening of the mind. In that we discover what has always been present to us.

The point of meditation is the present moment – not getting someplace. In this way it is like dancing, which is not done to get somewhere, but to be present interacting here and now. With Jesus in the dance, there is no need to go anywhere else. Keep meditating!

Jane's Testimony

The following is a brief reflection written by Jane Gray York, president of the board of directors for the Community of the Lamb. The words she has to say about a faith response to the global economic conditions are neither naive nor glib, but words out of her direct experience and the wisdom that has come to her through faith. Jane has the life credentials to speak to us all these challenging and encouraging words.

Philippians 4:6-7
Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

During this time of recession in our country and our world where we don’t know what is coming next, it is more important than ever to turn to Jesus, who is the one we can depend upon to care for us. I am a person who likes things in order. I like to know what will happen, look ahead, make plans and have them work out.

But life isn’t like that. The Holy Spirit frequently changes the lesson plans to teach flexibility and to trust in the Lord one day at a time. I have found that by praying the Prayer of the Lamb each day I have let go of the need to control my circumstances, to live each day fully one day at a time, and to cease “futurizing.” If I am worrying about the future, I am not living today. I’m not staying in the moment. This prayer has helped me to adjust to big changes in my life when the tendency is to try to hang onto the familiar.
I’m 77 years old, my husband has dementia, our retirement nest egg has been lost to the stock market, and I am asking the Lord for direction as to how I can earn money at home. However these events do not determine how to respond to the events. The way in which I respond to these events will direct and influence the events more than the events themselves.

Because prayer, scripture and giving to others has been a larger part of my life, of my abiding in Him and His abiding in me, I am learning to live trusting that the Lord will provide what we need when we need it. Prayer helps me to let go, and to keep the garden of my heart weeded and fed each day with love, peace, joy, and hope so I can live each day with energy and gratitude.

Philippians 4:19-20
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God be glory for ever and ever. AMEN.

Jane Gray York

Sermon preached 6th Sunday of Easter at Ascension, Seattle

Thank you for sharing Carla with Emmanuel, Mercer Island, this morning,
and thank you for having me here with you today.

Pulpit exchanges are a double benefit:
a good way for a congregation to hear
a different voice and a different perspective on the gospel,
and an opportunity for the clergy
to experience how another congregation worships
plus that little but dangerous enticement of being a new voice
and thus likely to be more appreciated than at home.

Carla and I are each getting to preach on our favorite topics.

Carla is back with a congregation that knows and loves her
to have her take part in Emmanuel’s Rogation celebration.
Emmanuel is blest with expansive grounds
with some garden areas that are particularly beautiful right now
and also a large pea patch for vegetable gardens.
And this year our Kids Green Team
is planting their own section of the pea patch.

And I am honored to be back here at Ascension
where I had held a Prayer of the Lamb seminar
and led a 12 week group.
Today’s pulpit exchange was originally to have happened during Lent
when the topic of prayer and meditation was part of your lenten program,
but those plans had to be changed,
and now here we are, and prayer is always a topic that can be addressed.
The prayer relationship with Jesus is at the heart of our Christian faith.

This is where faith is made real,
where the rubber hits the road,
whenever we bring ourselves into the posture of prayer or meditation.
The prayer relationship with Jesus is foundational to trust and commitment.
It informs all that we subsequently do.
Prayer is the time and place where grace is given freedom to act in our lives.

What we experience in prayer and meditation
shapes our motivation for service and enables us for action.
That is why it is so very important to pray first before engaging in action.

So now, how to talk about prayer and meditation
in this short space of time this morning…
There is so much that can be said,
BUT I always find that a gospel passage gives a good way
to focus in on an aspect of prayer and meditation
that is a gold mine to explore,
and today’s gospel is no exception.

Actually I think that John 15 describes rather well
what is at the heart of prayer and what is realized in meditation.

Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.”

This love of which he speaks is, of course, agaph love,
that is the unitive love of God
which is a dynamic force and action within the heart of God,
within the Holy Trinity,
and this is what Jesus preached, demonstrated, and lived.

This agaph love flowed from Jesus continually,
so that in all the gospels everything recorded about Jesus
indicates this dynamic
and reveals no self-interest, no self-concern,
no self-contraction away from others and their needs.

This is a way of being that has overcome the mindset of the world,
where self-preservation arises
out of concern for having one’s own needs met.
Indeed Jesus so loved that he willingly laid down his life for his friends.

Jesus says, “Remain in my love,”
remain in this agaph, unitive love of God: be here!
Don’t go back to the old mind set.
Don’t get hooked by the pressures of the world.

Then he says, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,”
which can also be said the other way around:
“If you remain in my love, you will be able to keep my commandment,”
because what was that commandment of Jesus?
Love one another – in the same way he has loved us.

Look, this is for the sake of joy – your joy, joy that completely fills you up,
joy that permeates to the depth of your being,
joy that swallows up all grief, all suffering, all sadness, all anxiety,
all fear, all despair, all confusion, all self-constriction,
all that melting away in unbounded, liberating, life-giving joy.

Again, this love talk in today’s gospel is at the heart of prayer
and what is realized in meditation,
AND what can be experienced at every point in life.
I am saying that to sit in meditation
is to put ourselves in the best possible position for being able to
recognize and experience this agaph love, this unitive love.

See! We can’t be loved from afar.
God seeks to have us realize that God’s love is so intimate
that it is unitive.

So Jesus says remain in the love – don’t go back to the old mind set,
don’t get hooked by pressures from the world.
You can take a lot of hits from the world, if you are wakeful to the Love.

Now, a word about being chosen, since it’s right here in the text:
Jesus said, “You did not chose me, but I chose you…”
This is not an issue of being chosen out of the great pool of all living beings
to have an exclusive claim about relationship with Jesus.
Not that at all.
This is about initiative.

We may think we have made the first move by coming to church,
by getting ourselves baptized or confirmed, by offering our prayers,
but the move was initiated by Jesus, his Resurrection Presence
through the Holy Spirit moving us to turn toward him:
Jesus lifted up on the cross drawing all to him.

Ah, so we come to offer prayer, we sit to meditate,
not because we thought it up, but because we cannot help it.
If some of you then begin to think, oops, I’m not a meditator
and I hardly remember to say my prayers each day,
take that self-realization as indication that you are being drawn, being called.

Now the reason for all this love,
and for being the object of Jesus’ initiative, his choosing:
it’s not so we can just sit around in this wonderful love being blissed out,
or just feeling comfortable in the self-satisfaction of knowing we are loved.
It’s not so that we can come to church each Sunday,
hear the beautiful words of the liturgy that pronounce this love,
have a cup of coffee with friends
and go home again to think about other things.
We are being loved and being chosen
so that, frankly, we can be of some good use,
so that we can be fruitful, create some results, bear fruit.
And what happens to fruit grown on a tree or vine?
It gets eaten.
That’s right. If we bear fruit, then expect to get eaten.
Expect to be nourishment for others.
Jesus did this big time.
Look – we come here, up to this table, and eat him,
this literal giving of his life blood for us.

I am speaking very intimately here, at at very fundamental, foundational level
about life in relationship to Jesus.
I speak this way because what I have come to see
through my own meditation practice
is the very solid and immediate reality of this Love that Jesus has for us.

And this has worked in me an action of grace and mercy
that has been liberating and healing.
I began to meditate as a response to huge grief and loss
through the deaths of two young men in our family
followed shortly after by the death of my father,
out of a deep inner need that began shout at me
to sit down, shut up and listen.

And when I did, I came to discover this huge love,
and as I opened my heart to let this love in
much more than the grief was transformed and healed.
There were many ways in which my own self-limitation, doubt, fear,
anger, aggression, and other self-destructive attitudes
were being addressed,
not through any agenda or effort of my own,
but as a result of sitting still and doing nothing,
that is, meditating.

That is why I recommend this spiritual practice to others.
As a spiritual practice meditation is tried and true, accessible,
and bears fruit for those who discern a call to engage the practice.
That is why I have dedicated my time and effort
into providing instruction and forming meditation groups
where establishing a stable and ongoing personal practice
can be supported.

Bearing fruit – let me say one thing more.
It should have been no surprise to me
that eventually my own mediation practice would start making
some use of me in a way that would go beyond
my own comfort level in offering ministry.

It started with a simple pastoral referral
when I was doing some interim work in Monroe.
A prisoner was sent there who was an Episcopalian. Would I visit him?

I don’t like prisons,
and I don’t particularly care for the kinds of people you find in prison.
I can work pastorally in other situations of need.
I have been a hospice director and a chaplain in a trauma hospital.
I’ve been with a lot of people in crisis and difficult situations.
But prison ministry and the personality types there –
well, others would do much better with that than I;
I had never been much good with that or felt comfortable in that setting.

Nevertheless I made the visit to the Monroe Correctional Complex,
and lo and behold, this inmate wanted to learn how to meditate.
So there we sat in the large visitors room
surrounded by everyone else visiting – prisoners and their families –
a veritable din going on around us,
and we mediated together.

This guy was super motivated,
and he went back to his cell and meditated daily between my visits.
This went on for months.
Then he introduced me to the chaplains,
and we talked about my coming as a volunteer to teach meditation to others.

Now I go out there on a weekly basis, and have just recently received
a grant that will help keep this going for the rest of the year.
So far over 30 men have at least sampled the meditation class,
and some have stayed and established a personal meditation practice.

I am learning along with these men about the mercy of God,
mercy for them for an openness to
healing and transformation in their lives,
and mercy for me in bringing me to repentance
about my own judgments about them,
freeing me from another inner prison.

I am learning more and more what it is to do what Jesus commands,
that we love one another.