I like this sermon, if I do say so myself! Pentecost 14 A

Proper 14 Year A        Matthew 14:22-33 

In today’s gospel, we have a story that is probably pretty familiar to most of us; it is the story of Jesus walking on the water. The disciples are out in a boat.  We are told that it has taken them all night to cross the sea of Galilee.  Now, the sea is only seven miles wide going from east to west.  There is no way is should have taken them all night to get across the thing unless the weather was really bad!  Storms on the lake are notorious, so they had been getting buffeted by waves all nigh and not seeming to get anywhere.  Then they saw something, something they at first thought was a ghost.  When they saw this they were afraid, then Jesus spoke to them and told them to not be afraid.  Peter recognizes Jesus and, in a great display of faith, says that if Jesus calls him, he, too, could walk out on the water to Jesus. So Jesus calls him and Peter begins to walk. But once Peter starts walking, he begins to doubt, his faith begins to waver; and as he doubts, he begins to sink.

I don’t think Peter’s experience is too far away from our own experiences in life. We see where Jesus is calling us and it may cause us to be initially frightened. But then we reach out and say, “Just call me Jesus and I will follow you anywhere. “We then venture out in faith, and to our shock and amazement,  we realize that we, in fact, can walk on the water! We continue to walk in faith, but then it dawns on us, WE ARE NOW IN THE MIDDLE OF STORMY WATERS!   And as we look around, we realize something else; our boat is WAY behind us!

Oh no! We are out in the middle of the water. Our boat is out of reach behind us. Jesus is somewhere in front of us. (Have you ever felt this way?)  We look for a way to save ourselves. Suddenly, we feel the water beneath our feet go from being solid enough to hold us to being, well, water!  We feel ourselves starting to sink and we feel the water wash over us. Now we start to panic.  And as we panic, we feel the water cover us even more! We are going to drown!

We step out into life with the best of intentions. We have every intention of volunteering our time to help take care of the church building and grounds. We intend to help with the nursery and Sunday school. And we are going to jump right in and tithe. And we truly have faith that Jesus will see us through on these intentions. But then the strong winds of life begin to buffet us. We begin to notice that we are moving in uncharted territory.  We notice that the water around us is mighty choppy.  We notice that the water around us is just that, WATER!  We notice that our usual sources of support are gone.  And then we realize the boat is out of reach.

What we forget about in this story, however, is that Peter does NOT drown. When Peter faltered, Jesus didn’t just abandon him to the depths. Jesus reaches out and catches Peter. Jesus does NOT let Peter drown.

And we are also told that Jesus speaks to Peter. Now, how we interpret these words of Jesus have a lot of bearing on what we take away from the story. If we hear Jesus speaking to Peter as a punitive parent, then we would rightly have fear of stepping out of the boat and out into the chaos of the world in faith. If we hear Jesus say in some booming, angry voice, “OH YOU OF LITTLE FAITH!!” we may assume that we should only try something so audacious as walking on water, only if we are some kind of faith superstar.

But there is another way of interpreting what Jesus said.

Imagine yourself as a parent. Now, imagine your child in the process of learning how to walk. Your child is at one end of the room and you are on the other. Your child is reaching out to you and you are encouraging her to take her first tentative steps toward you. She looks into your eyes with total faith and then lets go of the bookcase. Keeping her eyes on you, she toddles into the middle of the room. When she reaches the middle of the room, she begins to look around. THERE IS NOTHING TO HANG ON TO! The bookcase is behind her and you are in front of her. And the only thing between you and her is the wide expanse of floor. Suddenly in a panic, your child starts crying and drops to the floor.

Now, do you go to her and begin to scold her because she got frightened? Well, of course not. You scoop her up in your arms and you laugh. She was doing so well and then she began to doubt. And when she doubted, it was than that she lost her footing.

I guess I see Jesus in just such a parental role in today’s reading. I don’t see Jesus as scolding Peter. I see Jesus as having one of those, “Oh so close but not quite yet” moments. Peter seems to get it; Peter seems to get that Jesus can be trusted in even the most bizarre of situations. But then the world gets the better of Peter and Peter flounders.  (I guess we should have expected that, Peter does mean “Rock” after all!)

Jesus knows we will flounder too. But still, Jesus calls us.  Jesus calls us to get out of the boat and enter into the chaos that surrounds us.  Jesus calls us to get out and trust in him. Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples to row the boat faster or try harder. He just tells them to take heart and not be afraid. And what does Jesus do when Peter begins to sink? He reaches out and grabs him and carries him to the boat. Even when Peter’s faith falters, Jesus does not leave him behind to sink into the chaos; Jesus scoops Peter up and carries him to safety.

Jesus is asking us all to step out of the boat, or let go of the bookcase, or release our grip on our time or our paycheck.  Jesus is asking us to let go of those things we think are giving us support and to look into his eyes and trust. Jesus is asking us to believe and then move. Jesus is asking us to just step out in faith.  Jesus is not expecting us to be faith superstars, he is just expecting us to take one small step, and then another, and then another. And you know, in no time at all, not only are we walking on the water, but we are running laps around the lake!

But if we should lose faith and become caught up in the winds of life, we are not lost, we are not left to sink to the bottom and perish. If we get caught up in the chaos of life, Christ is there for us, ready to hold us up and support us. Ready to carry us back to the boat ready to calm our fears, and if need be, ready to calm the winds that surround us.  Even if WE get caught up in the troubles of life, Jesus doesn’t just leave us.

I can pretty much guarantee that we will get caught in the troubles of life.  We will lose faith and falter.  But that does not mean we are punished.  Christ comes to us, scoops us up in his strong arms, looks into our eyes and smiles. He gives us a little shake of the head and then, trying, but not quite succeeding, to suppress a knowing chuckle, says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Why do we doubt? Why do we doubt the one who died and was raised? Why do we doubt the one who calls us and feeds us with his own body and blood? Why do we doubt the one who promises to be with us until the end of time?

But the fact is: we do doubt. The fact is: our faith will flounder.  And although sometimes we will be out there like faith superstars, the fact is, most of the time we will get caught up in the winds of the world. But the fact that we need to remember is that no matter what we do, Christ is there, urging us on to step out of the boat in faith; and also ready to scoop us up if we should falter.

Pentecost Proper 13A Our Gifts Can Do Great Things!

(ed:  The cat barfed on a copy of this sermon.  I guess she didn't like it!)

Matthew 14: 13-21

I think one of my least favorite things in the world we live in today is advertising. I know, it runs our world, but it is everywhere. And I also know that it pays for most of the things we watch, we read, or we see on line. But what is the cost of all of this advertising? Have we ever thought about this?  What have we, personally, paid for advertising? What in our lives have we given to advertising? That may sound like an odd question to be coming from the pulpit, but I think it is a valid question. What has become of our lives due to advertising?

The object of most advertising is to make us want to buy things. And the best way to make us want to buy someting is to make us feel like we are somehow lacking if we do not have that specific something. And what is even more, better than just having that specific something, in many cases we are lead to believe that we need to be the FIRST person to have that specific something. So the whole aim of advertising is to make us feel like we are in some manner inadequate if we do not have a specific item, or what we may already have is just not good enough.

Now if we really stopped to think about this, it is kind of silly. Are we any more special because we have Nike shoes over Adidas shoes? Are we any more important because we have an iPhone 4G as opposed to the Android phone? Are we more special because we have a smart phone as opposed to those who may only have a plain flip phone?  Are we just so much more special because we have clothes that say “Pink” on them or “Hollister” of “Levi”? And one of my biggest questions of all: Why would anyone need to spend $300, $400, $500 or more for a purse? It just baffles me.

During my life, I have seen many trends come and go. For a while, we all needed designer jeans. Then we all needed Member’s Only jackets. At one time people were literally fighting over Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. And how many people thought they were going to be able to retire on the profits they would make when they sold their Princess Bear Beanie Baby?

Stuff. Our society wants us to believe we are only as good as our stuff. But having the stuff is never good enough. The bar HAS to move. At one point, driving a Cadillac was the epitome of luxury. Then we all had to drive Leuxuses or is that Lexusi? I don’t know.  For a while it was Hummers and now it seems to be anything that is a Hybrid. To keep the economy moving, new things have to be placed out there as the “it” thing to have. To keep the economy moving, we need to be convinced that if we do not have that “it” thing, then we are not good enough.

But what does this whole lesson in economy and psychology have to do with us here a church? Actually, quite a lot. The disciples in our reading exactly exemplify the type of thought that we see here in America.

The disciples present Jesus with a monumental problem; how to feed over 5000 people. But instead of Jesus either sending the people away or doing some kind of miracle that would feed all the people, he tosses the request back to the disciples and tell them to feed the people. At which point I am sure the disciples must have though Jesus was totally insane. All they had were five loaves and two fish. Jesus was asking them to feed well over 5000 people with that food. 

If we think about it, five loaves and two fish is not very much. If you have ever given a party, you know that people can eat a lot! The disciples were faced with thousands of hungry people and a very small amount of food. If I were them, I would be afraid of a riot or something breaking out as they all fought to get the limited amount of food.

Unfortunately, I think our world teaches us that what we have is inadequate. No matter WHAT we have, if we look, we can always find something that is bigger, better, more stylish, or more impressive. We may feel that whatever we can offer is not going to be good enough. But if we believe this, we are not believing the teaching of Jesus.  This is not a teaching of Jesus, this is a teaching of the world.

I cannot think of one place in the Bible where someone offers their gifts up for Jesus and Jesus says, “Well, I guess that will do. I really wanted Long John Silver’s fish and fries, but I guess your fish and loaves will have to do.

We may laugh at this because we see the absurdity of it. But still, as a kid, I remember feeling like I was not as good as the other kids because my family could not afford the Nike shoes that everyone else was wearing. It is not that my shoes were not good enough, they we just fine, it was that they were not the status symbol shoes that were being proclaimed on the commercials. The absurdity of being judged by one’s shoes should be obvious, but it and similar kinds of judgments that happen everyday.

So, since we are daily being bombarded with messages that tell us that what we have or what we are is not good enough, is it any wonder that so many of us go through life feeling like we are victims?  But Jesus is showing us a different way to go through life. What we have, no matter how small it may seem, is very important and of great worth. We each have been given a multitude of gifts and these are what Jesus asks us to bring to him. 

The disciples assumed that their loaves and fish are not enough. They assumed that they needed something that was more or better or both. They did not think that their meager offering could be enough for this impossible task that was set before them. But they found out that they are wrong! In the hands of Jesus, the gifts of the disciples became more than they could have ever comprehend.

There have been many arguments over the whether the fish and the loaves miraculously multiplies or whether sitting with someone who is hungry, while you have food, brought out the altruism in the members of the crowd. Personally, I think don’t think it profits us to follow this argument. The writer of the gospel did not give us the details. All we know is that these five loaves and two fish were enough to feed the multitudes.

But what we CAN learn is that when we bring our gifts to Jesus, Jesus will lift our gifts up to heaven and bless them. When we trust what we have been given and, in faith, give it to Christ, we will find that our efforts will NOT be in vein.

Our world tells us that we are not good enough and the gifts we have are not adequate. But those are the lies of our world. The wheels of commerce are not kept greased by people who are joyful and content with the gifts God gave them. Commerce keeps going through our discontent with our lives. The more discontented the world can keep us, the more we will spend.

But Jesus has a different message for us. We all have been given wonderful gifts and we can freely give of these gifts. When we give in faith, our gifts are multiplied and the results are greater than we could ever imagine. Even those who would appear to have nothing to give can still be part of Christ’s plan. In one of my former congregations, there was a wonderful woman who was unable to come to church and was not able to get out of her house except for dr. appts. But she still gave her gifts to Christ who blessed them and used them. This woman would send birthday cards to everyone in the congregation. Not a huge task, but one that touched many lives. Through her faith and willingness to give, her gift was multiplied throughout the community.

It is Jesus himself who gives us the ultimate example: He gave himself as a gift for us all. We are all called to the table and receive the gift of Christ’s own body and blood. Although he may seem like one small person, through faith and blessing, love and forgiveness is brought to the whole world! And as Christ’s followers, we are called to present our gifts, our lives, our selves, in the certain faith that Christ will use our gifts and multiply our gifts.

The world tells us that we are continuously in need; but in the economy of God, we are greatly blessed. Unfortunately, so often the words of the world are so loud that the words of Christ, “Bring them here to me,” are drowned out. But Christ continues to call us, continues to ask us to reach out in faith. And when we do, the results are unimaginable!

Still Thinking About Society

I guess riding on a Greyhound bus can make you wonder about people's ability to be civil.  Watching a couple in their 50's (hetero, mixed ethnicity, not that it matters) snogging for a hundred miles is really annoying.  At one point, this would not have been tolerated by society.  Now I guess I would have been surprised if it didn't happen.  I guess I would have expected it from the younger travelers, though.

Society works because we all agree on standards of behavior.  But lately, it seems, this standard has gone down the tubes.  And to try to raise that level is considered rude.  It is more rude to point out that someone is littering by throwing their cigarette butt on the ground than the person who is actually doing the littering.  It is more rude to point out that snogging on the bus is causing other discomfort than to actually be causing the discomfort by snogging.

It starts with little things.  People disregard stop lines.  People disregard parking lot speed limits.  People disregard clothing decency by wearing clothing that has socially inappropriate words on it.  People are exposing body parts that really shouldn't be exposed.  Even baby clothes can be found with totally inappropriate things on them.

I don't consider myself a prude.  But I also think that if we are to exist as a civil society, we need to be able to keep a society that is aware of all of its people.  Laws work because we all agree to follow the laws.  When we all decide that the laws don't apply to each of us, then we descend into chaos.  Just things like stop-lines and speed limits.  We decide these things don't apply to us and then it moves on.

We become bullies because it is all about "ME!"  I don't care about you, just about me.  And when the whole world is worrying about ME! then we go down the tubes.  And quickly from what I am seeing.  There is no thought about how our actions will effect anyone else; as long as I am enjoying life, well, FU.

I see where people may say that things like Stonewall shouldn't have happened then.  Or that I shouldn't hold Nick's hand in public because it might make some people uncomfortable.  And I guess there is a difference between holding hands and sucking face.

I don't know.  What does anyone else think?

News on Nick's Daughter

Some of you know what is going on; some of you probably don't.  (I am a logical genius, huh?)

Nick's daughter went into the ER with chest pains.  She had a heart attack and they put in a stent.  Then the stent collapsed and they had to go back in and replace that stent and placed four more.  They also put her on a ventilator and a cardiac pump.

I am home now, and Nick is still down south.

The doctors were trying to wean Nick's daughter off the ventilator and have been having some difficulty.  They will be trying again today.  Hopefully they can get her breathing on her own.  When the get the vent off, then they can get the cardiac pump off.

Once those are off, there is talk of surgery, but that will be a few weeks down the road.

Dear Santa, It is only 5 months!

More Contemplating on Weeds and Wheat

I have recently "defriended" two people that I have known for almost 10 years from Facebook.  This act has shaken me and I still feel saddened by it almost a week later.

It wan't just one thing that caused this break, it has been in the works for a while.  One of these people is responsible for the "Letter to a Friend" post of a month ago.  And the other is his wife.  There had been growing stress as the ideological differences between us became more and more pronounced.  But the final straw was when I wished people "Happy Bastille Day" and was attacked for celebrating a bloody governmental overthrow.  When I can't even  wish people a happy national celebration, well, things have gone too far.  I am not going to ever change France and its holidays, so why should I even try.

It is not that these people have different political philosophies than I do.  I have very good friends that are dyed in the wool Republicans and a friend from college who is the personal assistant to a Republican Presidential Candidate.  (The one whose third wife happens to like expensive jewelry.)  And we manage to be respectful of each other's opinions and stay on friendly terms with each other.  We do not fire pot-shots over the bow.

I think it has become acceptable to be rude in society.  I don't like it.  People only seem to be worried about themselves.  "As long as I am having a good time, to Hell with you all!"  This takes the form of profanity screamed into a phone in public.  Firecrackers lit in public places.  Road Rage.  Congresspeople yelling at the President.  I might even go so far as the whole "Sagging" thing.  (I really don't want to see your underwear-covered butt at the mall.  And it makes you look deformed.)

Whatever happened to manners?  What ever happened to the concept of being polite?  It really does help to keep society civil.  When a comment such as "Happy Holidays!" is met with anger or snarkiness, there is definitely a problem with people.  When an act of kindness is met with scorn, I see a society in decline.

Gardening with Jesus Proper 11 A

Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

Welcome to “Gardening With Jesus!”

You know, last week, the gospel was talking about spreading seeds and how those seed would grow.  We had God spreading the seeds of his love EVERYWHERE, even in those places where most people would believe that love could not possibly grow.  And saw how God spreads those seeds of love, even where others may think it totally silly.  Contrary to what we my think, God is spreading love.

This week, we have the seeds growing, but we have a new problem; we have weeds growing along with the seed!  Can you believe it?  So what is a good gardener, I mean Christian, supposed to do?  What are we supposed to do with those pesky weeds?

The usual response would be that we are supposed to pull those weeds out!  Isn’t that what we have been taught all along?  Having no weeds around make the plants grow stronger, right?  And isn’t that exactly what the workers in the parable suggest?  Just get in there and yank out those weeds out!

But, of course, we are gardening with Jesus, here, and if we have learned anything as Christians, we should have learned that when Jesus enters the picture, what we expect to do and what we are told to do are often two totally different things.  The master of the workers, who we are told is the Son of Man, tells the workers to leave the weeds grow along with the wheat.  And when the plants have all grown, then the master will tell the reapers to collect the weeds to be burned and to gather the wheat into the barn.

Why not just pull up all the weeds?  Isn’t that what we hear all the time?  We need to get the weeds out of the way so that the good crops can grow?  But here we have Jesus instructing his followers to do just the opposite:  Leave the plants AND the weeds.  Just allow them all to grow.

We probably all have stories of things in our gardens that we thought were weeds but end up being the very plants we were trying to cultivate.  I moved into a new house ans saw all of these plants growing along the driveway.  There were growing at an incredible rate and were producing a ton of seeds.  I began to pull these plants out, thinking that they must surely be weeds.

Well, you guessed it: They weren’t weeds at all, they were day lilies!  Some of the poor things that escaped my savage yanking began to bloom!  They were beautiful flowers!  In my ignorance of plants, I almost yanked up the entire flowerbed!  Thankfully, I didn’t rip out all of the plants and these “so called” weeds managed to reestablish themselves and continued to bring beauty to my driveway.

But just think about it:  If we have this much trouble identifying which plant is a flower and which plant is a weed; then how much harder is it to make judgment about people?  People are so much MORE complex than plants.  How can we even begin to kid ourselves that we know which people are the wheat and which people are the weeds?  Jesus is pointing out the folly of thinking we can boil a whole, complex, person down to a simple title such as wheat or weed.  But yet, we, as people, as Americans, as Christians, as whatever, try to do just that.

We can just look through history to see where this has happened and see the results when people tried to place others into the categories of wheat and weeds.  Throughout history people have named groups of people as “weeds” and then tried to get rid of them.  We have had the Jews, the Blacks, Women, Gays, Italians, Protestants, Catholics, Communists, Socialists, the Mentally Challenged, the Physically Challenged, the Mexicans, Irish, the Poor, the Rich, the Indigenous Peoples of the area, the Christians, the Muslims, Chinese, Mormons, Japanese, the Smokers, the Left-handed, Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers, Hippies, Vegetarians, …and I am sure there are many more categories that I have not thought of.  But if you fit into ANY of these categories, as some point, YOU have been considered a weed and have been considered worthy of being yanked out by the roots.  Let that sink in for a moment:  At some time, someone wanted to yank YOU out by the roots.

So, as you can see, just about anything that one person could use to identify another person as “different” HAS been used to categorize others as “weeds.”  And what is even scarier is that in just about every one of these cases, the labeling of “weed” was said to be mandated by God.

The other interesting thing, when we look at the historical context of wheat and weeds, is that history often portrays the ones trying to do the weeding as the actual weeds, themselves.  Groups such as the KKK, The McCarthy Commission, and even the Pharisees have not fared well in the eyes of history.  Although I am sure these people believed what they were doing was for the good of society, and many cases, believed their actions were mandated by God, hopefully we can see that their actions were as evil if not more evil than the evil they were trying to eradicate.

Now, this is not saying that we should just ignore everything anybody does and carry an extreme “Live and Let Live” attitude, but it does call us to think about what is happening.  Crime is crime; murder is murder; abuse is abuse.  There are things that do, indeed, tear away at the fabric of society.  We need to be aware of what is happening in society and work to build up society as a whole.  But when people are placed into the “weed” category en masse, it is then, that we need to begin to wonder what is happening.  We need to question exactly what it is that makes that group a bunch of weeds.  Maybe we even need to ask, “Why am I not one of those weeds?  What have I done, or not done, that puts me in a different category?”  Are these people weeds just because they are different than you and me?  In trying to rid ourselves of the so called “weeds” are we being good stewards or are we being bullies?

So often, is seems the thing that causes one group of people to place another group of people into the category of “weed” is a lack of understanding by those who are either in the majority or those in power.  And since these OTHER people are different than those of us in the majority, there is a feeling of threat.  Now, most of us would agree that threat is not the most comfortable feeling and most of us would want to make that threat go away as soon as possible.  So, instead of learning why the power folks feel threatened and growing through the experience, the power folks turn those who are different into “weeds” and try to get rid of them.  So, to say it another way; the perception of who is a weed is based off of fear, ignorance and discomfort.  I feel uncomfortable so you need to change.

Unfortunately, right now there are various sections of our world calling each other weeds.  The Republicans are calling the Democrats weeds.  The parts of the Anglican Union are calling parts of the Episcopal Church, weeds.  Factions of the ELCA are calling other factions weeds.  These sections are trying to tear each other out by the roots.  But tearing each other out by the roots is NOT what Jesus is telling us to do.  Jesus is telling us that we are to grow together.  That has been a hallmark of both the Episcopal Church, and the Lutheran Church for hundreds of years.  That is a hallmark of what we claim to love about the United States!  We claim to work and grow together.  When we  are not so quick to yank those people we would consider weeds, we learn to grow together.  And as we grow, our fear, ignorance, and discomfort decreases.  It is in this way that we grow together and we grow into the reign of God.

It is not our job to select those who are worthy of God’s love and those who aren’t.  We are not to go around yanking people out by the roots just because WE think they are undesirable.  It is not our job to decide those who are part of the crowd and those who are the weeds.  If we were left to decide, eventually there would be no one left, except maybe me, ‘cause we all know that I never, EVER, do anything that would cause God to be disappointed!  Yeah, right!

Just like the lilies along my driveway, when we begin yanking weeds without really knowing what we are doing, we may just start yanking the flowers!  And some of those whom we have decided were weeds, if we had let them grow, may have grown to be wheat of flowers, but since we yanked them out, we will never know.  When the time for the harvest comes, God will do the deciding, but for now, our business is to help ALL to grow, regardless of whether we think they are wheat or weeds.

I do want to repeat that this does not give people free reign to do whatever they would like.  And it does not mean that we are to tolerate everything that anyone would care to do.  But it does mean that we are called to be inclusive, welcoming, and open to the alternatives the Holy Spirit might be sending in our directions.  Just consider that some people may come into our lives, not for us to change them, but that person may be a gift from God to change us.

The garden that Jesus would have us grow on Earth is one of diversity and delight.  Or maybe we need to think more along the lines of a meadow; Jesus would have us create a meadow filled with a variety of plants and animals.  This meadow is one that both sustains and dazzles us.  This meadow of diversity is found in those places where we would expect to find it, but also in those places where some may be shocked and scandalized.  The meadow that Jesus would spread across the world would be so much more than we could ever dream.   It is a place with all kinds of plants, all growing together.  Christ places this vision before us.  And Christ empowers us to help bring it to reality. 

Ho Humm...

Maybe it is the summer doldrums.

We are half-way through the time from when my previous church closed until the time the next possible call could come around.  And quite frankly, it is getting long.  I am one of those people who tends to "futz" over things.  And having all of this time has allowed me to futz with abandon.

Why am I doing this?
Why does it seem like others always do better?
Why does it seem like things always work for others?

I know, I am falling into the "Why" trap.  "Why" generally never solves anything.  It is what it is and part of life is just learning how to deal with what is.  But when I look at what life has been, all that comes to mind is "Why??"

Life is nothing like I had imagined.  By this point in my life, I was supposed to be firmly ensconced in the career-path of my choice.  I was supposed to have a house, wife, kids.  I was supposed to be out tinkering in the garage and  trimming the yard.

I was reading an article about a couple of gay pastors and the article was gushing about how wonderful these people are doing.  Yes, I am happy for them, but it seems that the only stories that are published are the stories about the "successful gays."  But what about the others?  What about us who are struggling because of the stupidity and prejudice of others?  What about those of us who don't have people rushing to give us the teaching jobs, the emerging churches?  What about those of us who have gotten hit by the tsunami of fear and bigotry and are just trying to keep our heads above water?  The articles want to put a happy face on the situation, but there are still people who have been hurt by the church and just rushing to the poster children isn't going to fix that.

I started this about 5 hours ago and have left it alone for a while.  Kind of lost my steam.  But this still makes me angry; just because the rule has changed doesn't mean everything is now ok.

Spread the Seed! Pentecost 4 Proper 10A

Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

I have often gotten into some fairly heated discussions with people over something that may seem kind of odd.  I have gotten into discussions over whether we humans were truly capable of unconditional love.  Most people would say, “Yes, of course people are capable of unconditional love!  I love my wife unconditionally, I love my husband unconditionally, I love my kids unconditionally!  It is silly for you to even ask this!”  And these people are a little put off that I would say different.  I guess being a clergy person; I am supposed to believe that people are capable of just about anything, including unconditional love.  But if we look at the world, we see that unconditional love is sorely lacking.

I think we all would like to think that we are capable of unconditional love.  I think we would like to believe that there are people that we would love, no matter what happened, but if we look at the world, we see that the opposite seems to be the truth.  Divorces are running around 50%; half of the marriages that start with “I do forever” move to “I don’t any more.”  I am sure that for the vast majority of these people who end up divorced, on their wedding day, would have said that they loved their spouse unconditionally.  And yet, these people find that love is not unconditional and the trials of life are just too much and overpower love.  So even where there was a sincere profession of unconditional love, in the end, we find that love between humans is conditional.

Some may say, “Well, look at the love between parents and children.  We see unconditional love there!  How can you say that THIS love is conditional?”

Unfortunately, I have heard stories about parents who have disowned their children.  The child does somethi9ng or the parent learns something about the child and the child becomes a persona non grata.  In a best case scenario, the child is just kicked out of the house.  In the worst of cases, this love can turn into extreme violence.

We may want to say that these people who appear to turn their back on unconditional love are weak or morally bankrupt.  We may want to say that if we were confronted with the same situation, we would rise above the situation and show unconditional love.  We really want to say this, but I am sure most of us can think of times when we have used our “love” as a means of manipulating others.  Or we withdrew our love until the other did want we wanted.  We are as prone as others to putting conditions onto love.

Well, we may be thinking, “I KNOW there are situations and people to whom I would show unconditional love.”  And even if this were true, even if there were people what you could love unconditionally, we still have an interesting situation.  If we can be unconditional in certain situations, then we are, by definition, conditional in other situations!  We are exhibiting “conditional unconditional love!”  To my way of thinking, if there is ANY condition placed on love, then that love is NOT unconditional.  Or to quote the great bard, Meatloaf, “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that!”

So why am I spending so much time going on and on about how we fall short of the mark many of us set for ourselves?  I am doing this so we can truly see the miraculous in our midst!  And today’s gospel of the Sower and the Seed helps us to see just what unconditional love is.

The way most of us have looked at this story is that of an allegory, Jesus even tells us what each part of the story means.  And looking at the story from this point of view is not bad by any extent of the imagination!  When we study the story in this manner, we tend to think about what kind of soil our lives may be and how the word of God is growing, or not, growing in our lives.  And this is all well and good except for one thing:  This view starts with the assumption that it is all about us.  What is OUR soil like?  Are WE a good medium for God’s word to grow?  What can WE do to help God’s word to grow in OUR lives?  And again, these are not bad things to be thinking about, but if we just focus on ourselves, we are missing something.

Let’s move earlier in the story.  Let’s move to the very beginning of the story; “A sower went out to sow.” This is the very first thing that Jesus tells us in the story, and it is so often lost in the rest of the allegory.  “A sower went out to sow.”  Period.  Not, “A sower went out and fount the most perfect field to sow.”  Or even, “A sower went out and found some adequate field to sow.”  No, just a simple statement:  “A sower went out to sow.”

“And as he sowed, some seeds fell…”

So who is this sower, and what is it with these seeds?  Well, of course the sower is God.  But the seeds, now that is one we can think about for a while.  Jesus likens the seeds to “the world of the kingdom.”  This description is good, but it contains some religious buzzwords.  Another way to think of the seed is that it is knowledge of the Gospel, and that is Gospel with a capital “G;” This would be the knowledge of the unconditional love of God for US, God’s people.

Whoa!  There is that word again!  “Unconditional!”  “The unconditional love of God for Us.”

So what is happening here?  As God, the sower, is going to spread his seeds of unconditional love; some of this seed is falling on the various types of soil.  Some of this seed falls on the path while some falls on rocky ground.  Some falls among the thourns while others fall on good soil.  The point is, this seed is falling EVERYWHERE!  God is not just keeping it all nice and packaged up until God arrives at the fertile field.  No, the seeds of God’s unconditional love are flying all over the place!  Those seeds are covering EVERYTHING!

To us this may sound silly.  Why should God let the seeds fall where it is almost certain they will not grow?  Why not hold back and sow those seeds where the reward will be the greatest?  In our economy, this frivolousness does not make much sense.  To us, and to our understanding of economy, this throwing seed willy-nilly just sounds foolish.

But our understanding of economy is not God’s understanding.  To God, even the hard-packed path is worthy of love.  God keeps spreading that seed in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, some of that seed will take root and grow.  God doesn’t hold back and say, “You, Path…You are a lost cause and are not worthy of my love.”  No, God spreads God’s love, even to the hard packed path.

Now, we may be temped to say, “Since god is spreading this seed everywhere, I can just go on, I have no reason to worry about the state of the soil.”  Yes, God’s unconditional love is still there, but on the hard-packed path. That love has trouble taking root and growing.  When our hearts are hard and our soul is rocky, it is so much harder for the good news of the Gospel to reach into our lives and produce a harvest.  Or when we surround ourselves with distractions and diversions in life, the love of God can feel distant and tenuous.  The love of God is still there, still falling into our lives, it is just that we often make it difficult for that love to grow.

So often, too, we forget that God’s love is freely given.  We may feel like we have to do something to earn God’s love or be good enough to have God love us.  We may feel that we need to be perfect Christians in order to receive God’s blessing.  But we see that God’s love is spread across all kinds of soil.  God doesn’t withhold God’s love until the perfect growing situations are found; God spreads the seeds, even when growth looks nearly impossible.

Or sometimes, we see where people place standards onto others, expecting that, only those whom THEY have decided are good enough, are loved by God.  In situations like this, in situations where we pass judgment upon each other, it is not God who is withholding love; it is the judgment and prejudices of others that make life difficult.

I believe our gospel reading for today is asking two things of us.  The first is to truly contemplate what kind of soil we have in our lives.  Are we allowing the unconditional love of God to take root and grow in our lives?  Are we surrounding ourselves with rocks and thorns that are stealing away our joy?  Or are we doing the best we can to make our hearts fertile soil for God’s love?

And the second question it:  Are we helping others to cultivate rich soil in which the seed of God’s love can grow?  This second question is not just aimed at us as individual, but at us as congregations and denominations, at us as the human race.  What are we doing to help others to prepare the soil of their lives to receive God’s love?  How can we, as a community based in Christ, help the world around us to see that God’s love is not just for the few, but for all?

We may not be able to rely on ourselves to exhibit unconditional love, but we can rely on God.  God’s love IS unconditional.  God’s love is spread throughout our lives and throughout the world.  The seeds of God’s love will fall, no matter what the growing conditions.  And even though we may not be able to exhibit unconditional love, we CAN love, nonetheless.  And it is through our love for each other that God reaches out and spreads God’s love to the world.

Through the death and resurrection of Christ, we see the ultimate in unconditional love:  That while we were still sinners, Christ came to die for us.  Not just the righteous, but the unrighteous too.  And although we cannot hope to reach Christ’s level of love, we are the beneficiaries of this unconditional love.  And this is the love we are called to emulate.  We are called to the table through this love, and we are sent out into the world through this love.

I pray that we can be as extravagant with our love as our loving God.  But I also know that we will fall short.  However, just because we may fall short, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.  Just because our human nature will get in our way doesn’t mean we should not reach out to the world with the love Christ has first given to us!  We are called to love and we are called to reach out.  And we can be assured that when we reach out in Christ’s love, God will bless our endeavors and grow a plentiful harvest.

I don't get it...

Can someone please explain to me how we can accuse public school teachers of making too much money while we give billionaires "house" depreciation on their yachts?

How can we cut medicare while allowing billionaires to take 7 year depreciation on their jets?

How we can give tax cuts to industries that ship jobs overseas?

Why people would rather shut down the economy of the US rather than asking the richest of the rich to give a little more?

I am confused.

Pat Buchanan was complaining about how 51% of Americans don't pay taxes.  (This was shot down, thankfully!)  Harold Ford Jr. gave the answer I would give:  If you don't like your tax bracket, switch with one of us!  I know I would gladly deal with cutting the staff on one of my homes in order to pay more to help the country.

But I am just a barbarian gay pervert who couldn't possibly love Jesus.

Updates from the Homefront

Well, the stent is supposed to come out today.  To say I am happy would be a total understatement.  This whole thing has been just knocking me down.  Urinary Urgency is not something that is easily ignored, but when you then go to relieve yourself and not much, if any, comes out, it is just frustrating.  "Too much to ignore, but not enough to attend to."  And the urine that does pass, HURTS!  I have tried to go out, but that just makes the situation worse.  And the two Sunday mornings that I preached ended in blood and pain the rest of the day.  Possibly TMI, but I am SO excited to have the stent leave.

I have sent the Letter to a Friend to the friend.  I have not heard anything back from him.  I find it interesting that there was NO response.  Not a "thank you," not a "I still think you are a sinner," nothing.  I don't want to read too much into it, but I hope the no response represents some thought.  I told him that I would be brutally honest with him in the letter.  Maybe people don't want to think of their clergy people looking at Hustler magazine or getting aroused by men.  I didn't even mention "bait and switch" masturbation!  I don't know if people want to know that their clergy are sexual beings also.

Oh well, life goes on.  Looking forward to feeling normal once again.  Hope all is well in your world, too!

You Better Work It! Pentecost 3 Proper 9A

Matt. 11:16-19; 25-30

A while back, back when I had my house, I had made the decision to move a tree that was in the back yard.  In moving this tree, we first started by digging around the base and getting a root ball.  But finally, we had to get under the root ball and finally yank the thing out of the ground.  We dug and then we tried to move the tree.  But it just would not move.  There were roots that just weren’t going to be cut.  We had the tree 90% out of the ground, but there was a tenacious 10% that just weren’t going to budge.

We tried to use ropes to saw through the roots.  We tried to pry the root ball up.  We tried to tug the tree out of the whole.  We tried just about everything.  Finally, we rigged a harness system and managed to pull the whole thing out of the ground.  What we thought was going to be impossible, became doable when we rigged the harness.  The harness helped, or maybe we could call the harness a yoke.

Yokes are not things we encounter very much in our world today.  Granted, a yoke is usually associated with farm work, but it is not even because most of us live in the city that we don’t see them.  Pretty much, any more, yokes are not needed.  Tractors usually do the farm work that was done by animals.  The image of two oxen pulling a plow is highly rare; unless you live near some Amish folks.  In our world today, we really don’t think much of being yoked or using yokes.

But yokes would have been very familiar to the people of Biblical times.  People would have seen animals yoked together  and probably would have used a your themselves; either for such jobs as carrying heavy loads such as water or even assisting animals in the field.  How rare one is in our time is how common they would have been in Biblical times.

What we need to remember is that in Biblical times, the yoke had two very different meanings:  One meaning would have been that of work.  The yoke represented work, hard work.  A yoke was not worn as a fashion statement; it was only worn when there was some serious work to be done.  However, the other meaning is almost the opposite; the yoke also represented ease.  By wearing a yoke, the work that HAD to be done was much more easy to do than if it were done without a yoke.  The yoke didn’t get rid of the work, but it did make the work easier to do.  So actually, the yoke had two meanings:  Yes, it meant work, but the work that had to be done was easier with the yoke than without the yoke.

The one thing the yoke never does, though, is deny that there is work to be done.  It never denies that things need to happen in life.  What it does tell us is that these tasks in life, while being unavoidable, can be easier.  The yoke says that the work can be made easier, but it never says that the work can be avoided.

In our age, we hear Jesus talking about yokes and we may question why we should even have to wear a yoke.  We can just hire someone else to do the work for us, can’t we?  We can pass the yoke off onto another person and not have to be troubled with the work at hand.  We have gotten used to having the hard work done for us; and if we do the hard work ourselves, we wear it like a badge or award.  “Yep, I dug that pond out myself; I didn’t even rent a backhoe!” 

We like to think we can just pass the work off onto another.  But if we think about it, we all have a yoke on of some sort.  It may not be a yoke for carrying water, or for plowing, but we are all carrying heavy weights around.  Are we dragging around our wealth?  Are we dragging around our power?  Are we plowing up the field of self-worth?  Or are we dragging around some different kinds of weights?  Are we dragging around the belief that we are unworthy?  Are we toting a load of guilt and self-hatred?  Are we carrying a belief that God’s gifts are not for us?  What are the weights you are carrying?  You may have been carrying these weights for so long that you don’t even notice them anymore.  But even though you may not notice the weight, it is still there, slowing your steps and sapping your energy as you carry it.

One experience I had with yokes was in carrying canoes.  When you portage a canoe, you have to move the canoe and all of your equipment from one side of an obstacle, such as a dam, to the other side.  I don’t know if any of you have ever carried a canoe, but they are not the easiest things to transport.  They are long, they are awkward, and they can be pretty heavy.  If you are traveling by canoe, though, you cannot just leave the canoe sit on one side of the dam and walk to the other side of the dam and just find a canoe sitting there.  You have to do the work; you have to get your boat and equipment to the other side of the dam.  A canoe yoke helps you to balance the weight of the canoe on your shoulders and helps you to move the canoe through the portage.  The simple fact is, the boat has to move; the yoke makes that move so much easier.

In offering us his yoke, Jesus is telling us two things, the same two things the people of Biblical times would have understood from the yoke itself.  The first is that there IS some hard work that has to be done.  The second is that this work can be made much more easy through Christ.

The work Jesus calls us to is the work of discipleship.  We are called to follow Jesus.  We are called to discipline ourselves to be about Christ’s work in the world.  We may not recognize it, but disciple and discipline come from the same word.  Discipline is not a bad thing!  In our society, we tend to equate discipline with punishment.  However, these are not the same thing.  Punishment is inflicting an adverse stimulus contingent upon a behavior happening or removing a positive stimulus contingent upon a behavior happening.  Another way to think of this is getting a speeding ticket for driving too fast or losing your license for drunk driving.  In punishment, the thing that is trying to control behavior is coming from outside. 

Now in discipline, the controlling factor comes from within.  We control our behavior because we want a specific result or to reach a desired goal.  Think about foregoing the piece of chocolate cake or getting up at 6 am to go to the gym.  Punishment is imposed from the outside; discipline emerges from the inside.

So how is the yoke of Jesus a form of discipline and not a punishment?  Being forced to work, isn’t that a punishment?  Possibly in our time we see work as a punishment, but in Biblical times, for the people who would be reading the Bible, work wasn’t a punishment, work just was.  For the people who would have first heard the Bible, carrying water and plowing the fields would have been facts of life.  They would not have been seen as punishment.  However, the yoke to help ease the labor would have been seen as a gift, just as a dishwasher was a gift for me when I got one.

But with the yoke come discipline.  I could still pile the dishes in the sink, even with a dishwasher, if I don’t put the dishes in the thing, it can’t help me!  I have to have the discipline to put the dishes into the dishwasher in order to have the dishwasher lighten my burden.  Jesus gives us the gift of his yoke, but we need to have discipline in order to have this yoke lighten our load.  The gift is there, freely given, but we need to train ourselves to get the most from it.

This is where discipleship really comes into play.  It is through disciplines like prayer, worship, and studying scripture that we prepare ourselves to fully take on the yoke of Christ.  It is through encouraging each other to prayer, worship, and study that we prepare our community to take on the yoke of Christ in the world.  We learn in scripture and prayer that we are loved and special, not because of what we have or what we can do, but because we are the beloved children of God.  It is through worship that we learn our place in this world and connect to our community of faith.  It is through encouragement, service, and giving that we find our purpose in life.  It is when we practice these forms of discipline, become disciples, that we get the most out of life.

Jesus does not give us false hope by telling us that everything is going to be easy.  Jesus doesn’t sya that in following him life will be a breeze.  However, Jesus does tell us that through him, the burden will be life.  When we follow the discipline of discipleship, the trials in our lives are place into perspective.  We remember that there is more to the world than what we see before us.  We know that our story doesn’t end with our death, but lives on in our life in Christ.

So although a yoke may sound life work, it is really a gift.  Christ’s gift to us is a yoke to ease our struggle.  The yoke doesn’t deny that there will be work to do in the world, but it does tell us that the struggles of life will not overcome us.  The struggles in life are not the final word.

So what is the best way to begin the discipline that leads to discipleship?  How do we learn to wear the yoke that Jesus presents to us?  Well, we just need to start.  We make the choice to read the Bible.  We make the choice to be present at worship.  We make the choice to tell people about Jesus.  It is no big event, it is just small changes.  But these small changes can change your life!  Whatever you choose, just make the choice and then do it!

The yoke is easy and the burden is light, but through Christ, life will never be the same!

Letter to a Friend

(A friend commented that "Born This Way" is a crutch, birth certificates say "baby boy" or "baby girl" not "baby gay."  This is my response.)

Born This Way vs. Choice

The usual question is, “When did you choose to be heterosexual?”  If you did choose, then maybe you are not a heterosexual as you think.  Actually, research would say that most of us are not as heterosexual or homosexual as we think.  Kinsey would tell us that, for the most part, we all fall somewhere in the middle.  Most of us are primarily heterosexual or homosexual, but very few of us are totally one or the other.  Our society is stuck in this dichotomy and it tends to rub off on us.

Could I choose to be heterosexual?  I could choose to ACT heterosexual.  I could choose to date women.  I could choose to go through the motions of being heterosexual.  I could have gotten married.  I could have fathered children.  (I have many friends who are/were married and also have children.)  Does that make me heterosexual?  In some circles, yes it does.  Some circles will narrowly define homosexuality as solely what one does with ones genitals.

I find that definition, that our sexuality is based purely on what we do with our genitals, to be demeaning.  My relationship with my partner is more than just sex.  I would hope your relationship with your wife is more than just sex.  Generally, relationships that are based on purely sex don’t last.  Relationships have to do with love, companionship, care, and sacrifice.  We can look at many straight and gay relationships where this is present and these relationships have true staying power.  (I was able to celebrate a 50^th anniversary with a gay couple.  They were bucking societal norms for a long time!  Their relationship has weathered things that most straight couples cannot comprehend.)  I am sure we can also find relationships, both gay and straight, that appeared doomed from the start.  A relationship is a relationship:  whether it is gay or straight has less to do with its longevity than the people who comprise the relationship.

Now, again, if we ask, “When did you choose to be gay?”  I would have to say, “Never.”  But if we modify the question to, “When did you choose to acknowledge that you are attracted to men,” then I have to give you several answers.  There really was not one day.  There was a FINAL coming out to myself, but it was not a “Eureka” moment.

For all of my life, I knew that I was different.  I was not like everyone else.  Did my parents do anything to me to make me this way?  I don’t know.  And, frankly, I don’t care.  I believe my parents did the best they could.  (As I believe you are with your children.)  And I do not think they did a bad job, I like the way I turned out!  I was never into football.  (But there are gay football players.)  I was never into baseball.  (But there are gay baseball players.)  I got along with girls as friends but I also had male friends.  I was more cerebral than most, but that doesn’t make me gay.

I do remember looking at the Sears catalog being fascinated with the men’s underwear ads.  I do remember not being so interested in the bra ads.  I remember the bulges in the men’s jumpsuits while watching Star Trek.  I remember thinking that women in leotards looked weird.  I remember (in detail) one of the first men I saw naked when I was around 5 year old.  (My father would never think of being seen naked.  I actually did not see my father naked until I was in my 30’s.)  When looking at my brother’s Hustler magazines, I remember being much more attracted to the naked men in the pictorials than the women.

So, is there anything that “made me gay?”  Is there anything that could have/should have been done that would have “made me straight?”  I can’t think of any.  I would pray that I would be like everyone else.  I would pray that God would provide a girlfriend.  I would pray that I could find someone and get married and make babies and live “happily ever after.”  I would pray and I would try and I would tell myself that everything that I was feeling was wrong.

I would date.  I tried to convince myself that I was in love.  I would try to figure out want I was doing so that I could do the right thing.  It was all weird!  I didn’t really want to make-out with girls, it sounded boring to me.  I did not understand what everyone else was talking about.  I had kissed girls, I even got aroused while kissing girls, but it just did not feel right, natural.  When I lost my virginity, I was drunk.  And it was a disaster.  And it didn’t suddenly make me straight.  I had sex with another woman and it didn’t make me straight.  I dated and just didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t get the signals.

I eventually decided that I was destined to be alone.  Relationships with women never seemed to work and, of course, God didn’t want me to be gay, so I would have to live alone.  I bought a house.  I bought furniture.  I bought dishes.  I decided that there was no way God was going to give me a wife so I should learn to live alone.

Now this God question needs to be addressed:  What was I to think when I prayed for the feelings to go away and they do not?  Part of me questioned if God cared about me.  I am praying and God is doing nothing; so God must not care.  Part of me questioned if I was being too pushy; maybe the right person is just not “ready” yet.  Part of me wondered if God was cruel, giving me these feeling and then saying, “Naughty, naughty!!”  I truly had to wonder, if God did not want me this way, why did God make me this way?  It took a lot for me not to give up on God, but I had always been taught that God loved me and God did not make junk.  So I was loved and not junk.  But I was going to have to spend my life sad, depressed, and alone?  What kind of loving parent would want that for their children?  The whole “Pray the Gay Away” thinking is definitely “crazy-making.”

The finally deciding to “come out to myself” moment happened when I was at Stony Lake.  I was cleaning the White House when a friend of mine said, “Where is a broom?”  I said, “In the closet.”  And I would swear he said, “That is not the only thing in the closet around here.” 

Well, I was pissed! HOW DARE HE SAY THAT!  Then I started thinking:  If I am fooling no one else, why am I trying to fool myself?  And that was my “choice point.” 

Of course, this had more implications than just deciding that I really was attracted to men.  I was suddenly dealing with the ELCA polity of being gay but not doing anything about it.  I could still be an ELCA pastor; I would just continue to be lonely and depressed.  I could lie to the congregation but that just did not feel authentic to me.  I could not tell people to trust in God’s wonderful creation of each person while hiding such a huge part of who I was.  So in deciding to come out, I was choosing to lose my call, lose my insurance, lose my standing in the church.  I was risking my home.  Risking my car.  Risking my family.  Risking my friends.  Some may think that coming out is an act of “throwing their sin in our faces,” but actually, it is quite an act of courage.  I could have said nothing at church, but I probably would have ended up leaving the ministry instead of just leaving the church, because you cannot hide that much of yourself and still be effective.

Many in the congregation supported me.  Some were angry that I was not staying around to fight an unfair rule.  Some people who normally would come out the center aisle started to go out the side doors so as to avoid shaking my hand.  (After three years of being in a congregation, you get to know people’s habits.)  The church, which normally is a place of support, suddenly became a part of the “problem” which is a very scary place to be.

So the question becomes:  Why would I “choose” this?

Why would I choose to lose my home, friends, family, and credit rating?  Why would I choose to have people hate me just because I share my life with a guy?  Why would I choose to (quite literally) place my life and livelihood at risk when I could just choose to have sex with women?  Yeah, doesn’t make sense to me, either.

That is because being gay is not a choice.  Living life with integrity is a choice.  Not placing some woman in the situation for being “instead of” is a choice.  (I think that “settling” for anyone in a marriage is cruel.  And marrying a woman that I didn’t truly love and desire is “settling.”  Marrying a woman just to “make me straight” is no reason to get married.  Would you want either of your daughters to marry a guy just because he HOPED she would make him straight?)  Choosing to celebrate your sexuality as a gift given by God is a choice.

I was born this way.  There is no other way I can think of it.

Ok, Moment of "Way Too Cute"

Everybody say, "Awwww..."

SIX MONTHS!!

Post-Op Recap

Well, the surgery is over.

In truth, I actually hurt worse now than much of the time before the surgery.  Since Rocky was content to stay where he was, there was not a whole lot of pain.  There would be moments of pain, and then it would be over.  But now, the pain has been more constant.

The surgery itself wasn't too bad.  I went in at around 9 am and I remember getting on the bed in the operating room.  They put a mask over my face, adjusted it a bit, and then I was in the recovery room.  And I HAD to pee!  And it HURT!  There was the constant feeling like I had to go but couldn't.  I was told to expect this, but it still was not pleasant.

I had been told to drink a lot of water.  Problem, every time I peed, it HURT!  BADLY!  And then, because they put a stent in (from the kidney to the bladder), when I would go, it would hurt as if someone had stuck a knife in my back.  And also it would feel like my bowel was about to explode.  Now, I know this is reference pain from the irritation caused by the surgery, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.  (I am again taking some pain killers, and that seems to help.)  But between pain in the whole urinary tract and drinking copious amounts of liquids, recovery has been unpleasant.

A bright spot was the recovery room nurse.  He was a cutie!  Trim, a bit of a 5 o'clock shadow and a cute butt.  (Scrubs can do wonderful things for people!)

It is only "Minor Surgery" when it happens to someone else.

Well, tomorrow I "go under the knife."  Well, not actually.  Actually I will be having a device shoved up my penis in order to pull a kidney stone out of my ureter.

I have been having all kinds of mental images of this.  The one that keeps popping into my head is Arnie Schwartzengovernor pulling the tracking device out of his head.  All that I can imagine is them sticking a long metal thing up there, grabbing on to the stone and then streatching my poor penis all out of shape.

Also, the concept of people doing things with my organ is kind of weird.  Not that I don't like people doing things with my organ.  But to be passed out and having people do things with my organ, well that just weirding me out.

Oh well.  Leaving the thing in place really isn't an option so tomorrow, "Rocky" the stone is going away.

(Oh, I must admit that I stole the title of this post.)

Get out there! Pentecost 2 Year A

I was watching a movie yesterday.  It was called The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.  Now, this sermon is not going to be about that movie, but there was something in the movie that really got me thinking about today’s gospel reading.  In the movie, the Apprentice is told that once he starts on the path of learning, there is no going back.  Once the Apprentice steps into the circle, there is no going back.

I was thinking that stepping into the light of Christ is sort of a similar thing.  Once we take being a Christian seriously, we will find that we are in the same place; once we take our call to be Christian seriously, we find that our lives are changed in ways that will never allow us to go back.

Yet, unfortunately, being the humans that we are, we may not want to go back, but we may be very content to stay where we are.  We find something that we like and we decide that this is good enough.  We get to know people and decide that these people are the ones we want to stay with.  We find a place of comfort and decide that we just don’t want to move from there.

Really, this wanting to stay in the same place makes sense.  If we know we are safe, then we don’t have to be spending a whole lot of time keeping watch for threats to our health and well being.  If we find a safe place, then we can spend our time doing other things like raising our families, cultivating friendships, and pursuing our passions.  But, eventually, staying in the same place begins to fail.  We run out of food.  We become bored and complacent with each other.  We begin to see enemies where enemies don’t exist.  When groups become to content with their surroundings, it is then that the group begins to fall apart.  This almost sounds counter-intuitive, but I have seen this happen too many times to just write it off.

This was a problem that was facing the early Christians after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  They were all together in a room because it was safer to be there.  Stories were being spread that sightings of the risen Christ we hoaxes that were being perpetrated by the disciples.  The disciples were huddled together in the upper room to avoid the very real danger that awaited them outside their walls.

But whether the walls of a cell are imposed on people by another or the people choose to stay where there are; cell walls are cell walls.  The disciples were locking themselves away.  Their fear was placing them into a jail of their own making.  The disciples may have felt safe, but that safety would eventually destroy them.

When we look at the world, it can seem big and scary.  There are so many things out there that can feel threatening to our well being.  There are things that are unknown.  There are murky gray areas which seem to have no right or wrong answers.  There are multiple options out there with no sure-fire guarantee that any of the options will succeed.  When the world looks scary, movement becomes difficult.  When resources like money become scarce, staying put looks like a pretty tempting choice.  But in today’s gospel reading, Jesus calls us to move beyond that tempting choice.  In today’s gospel, Jesus calls us to be something more.

Many of us have gone through the heyday of being Church in America:  All we had to do was plop a church down and open the doors and the people would walk in.  Churchlife was part of the fabric of society.  This was a very comfortable place to be!  We knew that the folks who were walking in were of a similar mindset as we were.  We knew that although we may differ on a few points, for the most part we all agreed.  But now things are changing.  We cannot assume that people believe the same things we do.  We cannot assume that a person’s understanding of scripture is similar to our.  We cannot even assume that a person adheres to the same scripture we do. (Possibly tell “Our Father” story here)  With all the changes that are occurring in the world, it may feel safer to stay within the walls of our churches than to go out and face the challenges of the world.

And we may even convince ourselves that staying inside is a good thing.  We may convince ourselves that by closing ourselves within our walls that we are protecting the faith and building up our congregations.  In a former congregation, I had a person seriously tell me that she liked her small congregation and that we needed to be spending our time caring for ourselves rather than looking out into the world.  Unfortunately, that congregation is now closed.  When a congregation becomes totally inward focused, it just starts to feed on itself.

However, Jesus was not about to let the disciples become that inwardly focused.  While they were all in the upper room trying to be safe, he called them and sent them to Galilee.  And while he was there with them, he told them what we heard in today’s gospel; the words which we have come to call the “Great Commission.” 

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

Jesus wasn’t telling them to spend their time looking after their own little congregation and make sure they were all dealing with their grief in appropriate manners; he was telling them to move out into the world.  He was telling them to go out to the nations and spread the word that they received from Christ, himself.  He didn’t tell them to make sure they were all ok with the system, even though we are told that some doubted what they were seeing.  He told them to go out; go out and make disciples of all nations!

That is rather scary!  But Jesus does not give us any wiggle room.  We may say that we don’t know enough to go out.  We may say we are too old to go out.  We may say we are too young to go out!  We may try to come up with all kinds of excuses to not be out in the nations making disciples.  But like I said before, Jesus does not give us any wiggle room.  If we are afraid to go out, Jesus reassures us that Christ himself will be with us.  We are not being sent out to the nations on our own, we are being sent out with Christ himself as our traveling companion!  Could we ever ask for a better companion?

I am guessing that you, as a congregation, are going through something similar.  Your beloved priest of many years is no longer with you.  The tendency may be to feel like it is better to draw together and keep safe to heal.  But the words of Jesus would challenge you to think differently.  Yes, the disciples did come together for a time of healing, but then Christ sent them out; sent them out to baptize, to teach, to make disciples.  Christ knew that part of the process of healing was to reach out and help others.

We as Christians have been called.  And when we recognize that call, there is no going back.  If fact, Christ is not content to just let us stay where we are.  Christ is moving us ahead, sending us out.  Out into a world that needs to hear the message of Christ’s love.  It can be scary going out, and like the disciples, we may have our doubts, but even those disciples who doubted were not given a pass.  Jesus called them all and sent them all.

And because they went out into the world, people heard the message and lives were changed.  And those people went out and spread the message and more became disciples.  And those disciples went out to teach and baptize and still more learned of Christ’s love and followed.  And this chain of disciples has passed through the years and now comes down to you and me. 

So, what are we going do?  Who is waiting to hear the good news from us?  Even if we may doubt, Christ sends us out.  And in all things, we can be assured we are not alone.  Christ is with us, even to the end of the age.

Gotta Love Advertising!