Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sermon for 3 Epiphany at Emmanuel, Mercer Island

I don’t know about you, but for me in the last week a lot attention went to Haiti.
The disaster there, of such a huge magnitude, is brought closer to home, not just in terms of being located geographically close to this country, but because Haiti, the diocese, is a part of the Episcopal Church.
We are not just the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
The Episcopal Church includes 10 dioceses in countries other than the US.
The Diocese of Haiti, which has been a part of our Episcopal Church since 1873, is our largest diocese in terms of membership with over 83,000 members and over 100 churches, plus over 200 schools.
Compare that with the diocese of Olympia with same number of congregations,
and 32,000 members compared with 83,000,
and our total square miles is approximately 23,000.
Haiti with 10,714 square miles is less than the size of Maryland.
Haiti – half the size geographically, same number of churches,
but almost 3 times the membership.
The Diocese of Haiti is a member of Province II of our nine provinces
along with dioceses in New York, New Jersey, the Virgin Islands,
and the Convocation of American Churches in Europe.
Haiti, the largest diocese in the Episcopal Church in membership,
but now virtually all of their church buildings destroyed.

1 Corinthians, chapter 12 the Body of Christ
The Apostle Paul writes:
"For just as the body is one and has many members,
and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body
--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free— Haitians and us!
and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. …
But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member,
that there may be no dissension within the body,
but the members may have the same care for one another.
If one member suffers, all suffer together with it;
if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it."

In Haiti, I now observe, all social and class distinctions are gone –
the collapsed buildings are not just the shanties
but the government, institutional, and church buildings –
We watched as people worked side by side
to pull survivors and bodies from the rubble.
And the response worldwide has been an outpouring of generosity, compassion and support during this initial phase of dealing with the immediate crisis.
This seems to be a clear indication
that what St. Paul was describing in that 12th chapter of 1 Corinthians
is not just a theoretical analogy for modeling how relationships within the institutional church should be,
but it is a very apt insight into an organic reality,
the organic reality of Christ’s Body as creation.
The urge to help in disasters indicates this basic, natural and fundamental connection among humans as one body.
It is at times like this that we KNOW in our bones that we’re all in this together.
Now this realization may not last very long before once again people become competitive, or start pointing fingers at each other blaming, accusing, judging, and all the many ways in which we divide up the Body of Christ
or rend asunder our organic unity in the realm of God’s creation.
But one thing that I would hope that people would notice
in all this shock and drawing our attention
to the great human calamity of this earthquake, one thing to draw our attention – our own extremely fragile condition.
Did anyone else here feel a psychic tremor, if not actual quake, in your own composure,
a sudden jolt of a reminder about your own mortality?
If you did, that’s a good sign, a sign that you are in touch with reality.
Our condition as human beings is really extremely fragile.
How we hold ourselves,what idea we have of ourselves, how we define ourselves and express that – just notice how each of us walks down the street.
But that projected image of ourselves is subject to sudden and unexpected shifts.
Just watch an extremely elegant person walk into a spider web!
You can watch them dance around waving their arms in a most un-elegant fashion.
How fragile our composed self-identity is that so suddenly and spontaneously it gets decomposed.
And so the Body of Christ, the community of all those for whom Christ died, is an organic whole, whose members hop around in terms of who are the stronger ones, and who are the weaker or less honorable ones.
Quoting again from the Epistle reading:
“The members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect;
whereas our more respectable members do not need this.
But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.”
The members that seem to be weaker are indispensable.
The weaker are indispensable.
The children, the elders, Haitians, ourselves given a turn of circumstances outside our control.
We too could end up as homeless as those Haitians.

Closer to home I think about those who are spending the winter in Tent City,
those who for any number of reasons now find themselves homeless.
While our attention is riveted on Haiti right now,
at the same time the Mercer Island City Council
is looking at policies and ordinances
about Tent City coming back to Mercer Island,
and voices of opposition are again being expressed.
Those of you who did so much a year ago in support of Tent City, take note.
You are being asked again to let your voices be heard.
For these “weaker” members are indispensable, indispensable,
an essential presence for us “stronger” members, reminding us of our own fragility
and our dependence on God’s mercy and providence
regardless of our own strength and expertise.
Just as the Haitians are indispensable to us,
if for no other reason than to show us our own mortality.
We all live on shaky ground, in all senses of the word.

Now for the Gospel hope for all this.
Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit,
comes to Nazareth, a town that can lay a claim on him,
and he reads to them from the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah.
And it is a powerful passage that he reads,
about the proclamation of the Year of Jubilee,
the Sabbatical Year times 7.
It is a message about proclaiming liberty,
the time to have family lands returned,
lands that had been forfeited due to debt,
a time to free all slaves,
those who had sold themselves into slavery
in order to meet debt obligations,
the time for forgiving debts.
And Jesus, his very presence, as well as his words and deeds that match his words,
Jesus brings good news that the listening heart responds to with a leap of joy.
He brings good news to those who recognize their need and poverty of spirit.
His very presence release the captives,
those bound in all sorts of ways,
captive in relationships, captive within their own dis-ease, finding liberation, recovery of sight to the blind,
to all whose vision and perspective is clouded and obscured
by all the misconceptions, ignorance, false assumptions, clinging desperately to illusions, setting free the oppressed,
all the ways in which we perceive ourselves as victims,
no longer caught in the victim roll,
but released for action in the year of the Lord’s favor,
the time of grace that God would have us enjoy.
Jesus, the Light of the world,
the Word in the beginning with God,
the Word who is God, creating by a Word, the Source of all life, the Power Source for our life together in his Body.
When the ground under us shakes,
and we are face to face with our own fragility, our own mortality,
then comes Jesus, the one whose loving-kindness, generosity and mercy
responded compassionately to each one who came to him.
Now receive this for yourself
and let his Spirit cultivate these same qualities
in his Body, in its members, in us,
that we may awaken more fully
to the basic, fundamental organic nature
of our relationship with each other in the Body of Christ, and live radically and compassionately out of that.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Winter Course Offerings

Lost In Translation

An evening session of Lost In Translation, beginning Monday, February 1, 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. 10 Mondays from 7:00 to 8:30 PM at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Mercer Island.
Register by calling: 206-713-5321 or email PrayeroftheLamb1@mac.com
Suggested donation: $120

New Course Offering: Meditation and Relationship, led by Pieter Drummond

Jesus said, “Love one another as I love you.” To love others sounds simple but in reality it can be elusive. The quality of our life is measured by the quality of our relationships from our children to our friends, clients and co-workers. The dynamics of relationship are driven by our awareness of our reaction to others. The Prayer of the Lamb is a form of Meditation that provides us with a rich spiritual practice in the Christian Tradition. The Prayer of the Lamb supports a process of discovery of the divine in every day life. We discover a sense of fullness and abundance in each moment giving us such strength that we can open more directly, honestly and compassionately with others.

This course includes:
• reflection on how the practice with the Prayer of the Lamb connects with our day to day interactions
• making connections between our experience of the practice and Gospel study, and defining a relationship with Jesus
• support in maintaining the practice through periods of guided and self-guided meditation
• discussion and reflection on self awareness.

“The Prayer of the Lamb is a spiritual practice to open consciousness of the mind of Christ. Awareness is called into relationship with Jesus, which then leads to a foundation for all relationships.” The Rev. Beverly Hosea

Starting: January 25, Monday mornings, 10:00 – 11:30 AM, for 5 sessions.
Location: The Community of the Lamb meditation room at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 4400 86th Ave. SE, Mercer Island
Register by calling: 206-661-1023 or 206-713-5321 or email pieter.stonegroundmeditation@gmail.com or PrayeroftheLamb1@mac.com
Suggested donation: $50

Supper of the Lamb

The 4th Tuesday evening of each month starting in February, the Emmanuel ongoing Prayer of the Lamb group will be devoted to a meditative celebration of the Eucharist. Sitting meditation with the Prayer of the Lamb, Gospel reflection, and intercessions for the world are placed within a simple framework of the Eucharist. All are welcome regardless of experience with meditation. Location: the Community of the Lamb meditation room at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 4400 86th Ave. SE, Mercer Island.

Save the Date! SUMMER RETREAT

A Community of the Lamb 5 Day Summer Retreat is reserved for July 5 – 9 at the Casey Conference Center on Whidbey Island. Five days and four nights in vintage officer’s quarters home with short walk to beach and woodland trails. Daily meditation, scripture study and teaching, with free time for personal reflection. Celebration of the Supper of the Lamb. Participants share meal preparations. Registration will be limited to 15. Call 206-713-5321 or email PrayeroftheLamb1@mac.com with inquiries and to reserve a space.

Sermon for the Feast of the Epiphany

We are now transitioning from the Christmas season to Epiphany,
a season of light in the dark of winter.
The word Epiphany means, of course, as we are all probably well aware, shining forth,
a word to signify revelation, light, enlightenment.
And the Epiphany season comes to its conclusion
in the grand finale of the Transfiguration,
bright dazzling light, blinding in its brilliance.

But there is a dark side to the Feast of the Epiphany as well.
The story related today has evil and violence implicit in it,
not what one would expect or what will be seen
at the 10:30 liturgy in the children’s presentation.

It is a story of great darkness in the human heart,
the darkness of greed for power and fear
that fuels self-centeredness and compulsion to control
to the extent of deliberately ordering the ruthless killing
of the innocent children of a whole town
out of fear that one of them might grow up to be a personal threat.

How much this is the picture of the condition of the world today!
Do we not see this all around us?
- the slaughter of innocents who by their simple presence
are taken not only as an inconvenient obstacle
but also as a threat to be removed by any means of force.


This slaughter of innocents is not only about baby boys under the age of two,
but people subject to genocide, oppression of women,
exploitation of human labor in the new slavery of human trafficking,
exploitation of other species in dairy, meat and poultry industries,
and the way humans have impacted the whole planet
- over fishing, strip mining, and the such -
that has contributed significantly
to the extinction of whole species of living beings.

This is great darkness, catastrophic darkness,
the darkness of the dereliction of our humanity.

So this story of the wise men, the Magi,
is not just a nice story about visiting dignitaries being added
to the lovely tableau of the manger scene, the Christmas crèche.
This is an event of enormous political and cultural and moral consequence.

The story starts with huge assumptions about who the Christ Child was:
the wise men from the East assume the sign in the heavens
indicate the birth of a king.
King Herod assumes a political rival to his throne.

Herod is frightened, and given who Herod was and what he was like,
if Herod was upset,
all the rest of Jerusalem had good cause also be frightened.
This was a ruler know for his merciless use of power.

No good could come of this; innocent lives would be lost,
sacrificed to the continuation of power and political control.

The wise men, the Magi come to Bethlehem and find Jesus and his mother
and give their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh,
gifts fit for a king,
but as it turns out, gifts they handed over to a humble family
that could hardly look royal.

And so it was that these expensive gifts
probably provided the means by which
Joseph was able to take Mary and the baby Jesus to Egypt
in order to escape Herod’s purge of Bethlehem,

The slaughter of innocents is the backdrop for our Lord’s nativity,
he who at his maturity
would take on these innocent lives
and all the world’s suffering
and bear it himself on the Cross.

Into this evil and darkness the Light of the world comes
and is born as one of us, as us,
and he gathers all that darkness into himself and takes it all to the Cross.

And so we enter the Epiphany season in the church year.
And as we do so, now is an opportune time
to consider our own relationship to light
and to the One who is the Light of the world,
and the path of illumination that this season invites us into.

There is the Light of the world
and then there is being lights to the world.
We are specifically called by virtue of baptism
into discipleship, into a process of learning,
in which we are to become living lights in the world.

Matthew 5:14,16 from the Sermon on the Mount:
“You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hid…
Let your light so shine before others
that they may see your good works
and give glory to your Father in heaven…”

Ah, but there is something very important to get first,
lest we assume that all we need to do
is run up a sizeable number of good deeds
and figure that’s sufficient.

That presumption of making light will produce only a feeble result
if it is our own ego-driven efforts,
for it is God who is the active agent of illumination, not ourselves.

St. John of the Cross, with great insight into the human soul, wrote:
“… the values of [a person’s] good works, fasts, alms, penances, etc.,
is not based on their number and excellence,
but on the love of God which prompts him to do these things.”

This is the ray of Divine Light
that can be so bright as to blind the eye.
It is beyond comprehension, [and again from St. John of the Cross]
“… a secret, peaceful, and loving infusion from God.”

Love is that Divine Light.

Knowing this liberation, this salvation, this mercy, this grace, this love
is not just for our own sake, my own well-being, my benefit alone,
but for the sake of the whole world, the whole created order,
for the sake of every living, breathing thing.

The Light of the World is not our own exclusive possession,
as though we could even think
that we could manufacture it ourselves, or even possess it.

This Light being manifest to the world, this Epiphany of God,
is for the sake of all alike.

This Light of Christ is for the sake of all victims of prejudice and discrimination.
This Light is for the sake of healing and unity,
for the poor, the homeless, the hungry and the abandoned,
for the sick and the dying,
and for those in power, in positions of leadership and authority.

Wherever there is human need,
wherever there is despair from lack of hope,
wherever there are cries of loneliness and suffering,
there is given to us the obligation to be light bearers
of what we have been graced with.

To know Jesus is not just about our own individual relationship with him.
You and I cannot be separated from the rest of creation.
If I truly know Jesus then I have no leave
not to be a Light-bearer.

So consider here in the darkness of winter
being engaged in openness of heart to what the Spirit, God’s Self,
will do to illumine and nurture and rekindle in us Light,
so that Christ’s Light, Christ’s Love,
will be our motivation, our empowerment,
our message and our witness.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us
- dwells in us -
And the Light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness does not overtake it.

O Come, Let Us Adore Him

How amazing that from the very beginning of his earthly life Jesus, the Lamb of God, is found as a newborn laying in a feeding trough, the “dinner plate” for sheep and cattle and beasts of burden! His whole life was offered to feed a hungry world: bread for the hungry multitudes, words of life that fed a hunger even deeper, his own body broken and blood poured out held out to us with the command to consume him utterly. Such is Yeshua’s devotion to us. Such is his commitment to us, and his love for us and for all creation. O come, let us adore him.

One way we express our devotion to the Christ Child, the Lamb of God, is through the offering of ourselves, our time and our attention as we sit with the Prayer of the Lamb. As we offer intercession for the world with its overwhelming suffering and needs, this too is an act of devotion, an act of trust in God’s abundant mercy, an act of trust that what lay in the manger was more than sufficient for all. May our devotion at this Christmas time in particular include intercession for the peace of the world. O come, let us adore him.


A very blessed Christmas to you and to your family,
and intercessions for peace in all the world
Beverly

A Poem by Don Snow, member of the Community of the Lamb

I had a notion
that emotion
was devotion.

But now I sense
it is obedience.

Calmness Makes a Good Friend, by Pieter Drummond

When I asked my seven year old son what makes a good friend he said, “calmness”. One of the greatest surprises that came from meditation was a personal sense of greater openness and less reactivity in daily interactions with others. Before beginning regular meditation, I felt great stress interacting with family, friends and co-workers. The stress came from always trying to impose my will on the moment, my need to control. This put a lot of pressure on relationships and created a distance between me and others. I was certain about what everybody else needed to do, even down to when they should wash their hands. When my son would tell me what he did at school that day, rather than honoring his presence and following the story as he told it, most of my attention would be devoted to strategizing on how to get him to do what I thought he needed to be more successful. I experienced stress, for myself and others, by taking everything too seriously and wanting to control outcomes as much as possible.

Meditation over time helped me to not take things so seriously to not be so controlling. Even the more challenging unavoidable conflict problem solving with a challenging co-worker became smoother and more productive. This does not mean that I have become overly nice. I am more willing to have difficult discussions around a conflict. At work for example, I am more honest with myself and with others to address and solve problems with mutual respect.

The Spiritual Side of Meditation
Before I learned meditation I thought I was satisfied: I had a great circle of family and friends and a successful career. But, I noticed that my day to day interactions with others seemed repetitive and mechanical. I was set on automatic pilot, preoccupied with a tomorrow that would never come and while the present was passing by: parents were growing older and children were growing up.

Since beginning to meditate eight years ago, “my” understanding deepened from two kinds of learning: intellectual learning and experiential learning. Intellectually, I learned as much as I could about how different spiritual traditions framed meditation as a spiritual practice. Through this I found that each tradition was a path that is designed to remove that which causes us to feel separate and isolated from the divine.

But all of this learning was only as useful as it could be connected to the experiential learning. For me the spiritual practice is where the real transformation happened. As I began using the prayer of the Lamb, I found it to be especially helpful for being open and present in each moment of relationship. In the Prayer of the Lamb I was able to let go of the burden of an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. I did not even have to believe any doctrine to engage the practice but somehow, someway I discovered through the experience of the practice a process of spiritual healing through Jesus.

I am very grateful to the Rev. Beverly Hosea for articulating the Gospel of Jesus that presents the Christian path in a way that is about discovering the spiritual process we are brought into for discovering our being in union with God. In Buddhism for example, it is the dissolution of attachments that blind us from knowing our true nature. In Christianity I find it to be the dissolution of a self-obsessed world view which distorts one’s understanding of being in union with God. By practicing the Prayer of the Lamb I am also developing a relationship with a Jesus as I discover creation happening as God’s continuing expression, a whole new world view.

Pieter