Julie Luna—Sermon
St. John the Episcopal Church, St. Paul, MN
Aug. 26, 2018— 14th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 16
1Kings 8:1,1,10-11,22-30,41-43, Psalm 84, Ephesians 6:10-20, John 6:56-69
How dear to me is your dwelling, O LORD of hosts!
My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the LORD;
My heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God. (Psalm 84:1)
Amen
We are quickly approaching fall—a time of change. So many things are happening at once…children go back to school and young adult to college, we begin to think about putting the patio furniture away, and wondering what the next few months will bring. This is a season of transitions—it is palpable here at St. John’s as we prepare to say good-bye to Monte, and welcome Richard and Craig to our community. And, as we begin to wind down from our season of rest and renewal and anticipate the return of the Rector, Jered, and his family.
Sometimes transitions can be unsettling and we seek stability to ease our discomfort. We see this today in the OT reading when the Israelites desire to make a permanent home for God—they put “God” symbolized by the ark of the covenant in the inner sanctuary of the Temple in Jerusalem. They wanted to confine God to a particular place so they knew where God was at all times. They had finally settled in Jerusalem and they wanted the stability of knowing that God was with them.
This idea of God residing in one geographic location, namely Jerusalem, didn’t work so well for the Israelites and also for the early followers of Jesus. John’s gospel was likely written post destruction of the Temple when Jews and the Jewish followers of Jesus were going through an identity crisis—now that their place of worship, the Temple, was destroyed, they wondered where would they find God. More importantly they wanted to know where they belonged.
This yearning for belonging is one that has plagued religious peoples forever, and there is no easy remedy for this desire to belong.
One perspective, from our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, is that we belong in Beloved Community.
He says, “As the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement, we dream and work to foster Beloved Communities where all people may experience dignity and abundant life and see themselves and others as beloved children of God.” (https://www.episcopalchurch.org/beloved-community)
This idea of Beloved Community is appealing, but if you’re like me, it is hard to cultivate this kind of community. Even many of the disciples in John’s story today walk away because they cannot fulfill the demands that Jesus has for following him.
Also, community is not an easy concept in our transient culture where we can move from state to state or even church to church until we find our tribe. And, I don’t know about you, but my tribe, the people I chose to associate with, are generally those that think, act, and vote like me.
In my self-righteous youth, it was easy to walk away from those people or groups that I did not agree with; and to be self-selective about what I perceived to be community. In my slightly wiser (only slightly) adult life, I’ve learned walking away is not always an option, and that living in true community means that I belong to groups of people that I may love but don’t always like so much.
One of the places I’ve learned to participate in this type of truer community, is my neighborhood.
My family lives in a smallish town that allows us to have chickens if we follow certain rules set up by the city council. Our neighbor next door is vehemently opposed to my family having chickens but we followed all the rules so the city granted us a permit.
This was not before Phyllis, our neighbor, filed a petition with the city council that opposed our permit. I won’t go into all the details of what became a highly political fiasco, with our city council representative coming to our home and the mayor calling us to personally invite us to the city council meeting to defend our chicken permit.
Our friends called this situation Chicken-gate to express the hilarity of small town politics and community engagement. And it become more than a civics lesson on democracy, it was ultimately a lesson in love.
Our children, still pretty young at the time, but aware of what was going on, asked me why Phyllis, our neighbor, hated us. In that moment, with that question, I decided to love instead of walking away.
I told our children that Phyllis didn’t hate us; she was unhappy about us having chickens and that we may not understand her, but we could love her and pray for her. We turned to love, and learned that love could reside in differences as well as similarities. And we shared our eggs with Phyllis.
Chicken-gate is just one small example of how my family reached across difference and maintained love for our neighbor Phyllis. And, it gets much harder to do when the stakes are higher.
I was so sad and so distraught when I read about a study that showed siblings no longer talk to one another, as well as husbands and wives, and life-long friends because they are divided by partisan identification. (Jeremy W. Peters, “In a Divided Era, Political Anger is all Each Side has in Common,” The New York Times, Monday, August 20, 2018, page A12)
I find it excruciating that those with whom we are supposed to be the most intimate—siblings, friends, and spouses—are not talking with one another. This does not sound like Beloved Community.
And, there is hope. Mahzarin Banajin, a professor of social psychology at Harvard University, says, “intimacy is one way to overcome the division between human beings.” (Mahzarin Banajin on “On Being with Krista Tippett,” aired on August 26, 2018.) Intimacy—the really knowing of another human being. A knowing of the other.
Beloved Community begins with the love that can only come from God incarnate in Jesus Christ. This way of love begins with turning to Christ. Again, from Bishop Curry, he says this about practicing Jesus’ love, “Like the disciples, we are called by Jesus to follow the Way of Love. With God’s help, we can turn from the powers of sin, hatred, fear, injustice, and oppression toward the way of truth, love, hope, justice, and freedom. In turning, we reorient our lives to Jesus Christ, falling in love again, again, and again.” (http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/files/2018/07/Way-of-Love-2-English-Full.pdf)
Falling in love again, again, and again! I like that. That sounds like the intimacy we are missing, and the foundation upon which to create stability in an uncertain and divided world. First and foremost, falling in love with Christ by following the Way of Jesus, is a place to begin.
In today’s gospel, Christ tells us, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living God sent me, and I live because of God, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”
We learn that God resides in us through the incarnate Jesus Christ. God resides in us.
This is the most incredible intimacy with God possible—God is inside of us. And not only that, Christ tells us that we can renew that relationship with God by eating his flesh and blood. By coming to this altar as a community, we renew our intimacy with God.(intimacy with God idea influenced by…”Caught up in Love” by Martin L. Smith in Sojourners, August 2018, page 44)
This is where we truly belong—in Beloved Community that starts with our intimacy with God by turning to follow Christ and renewing the commitment to love one another. We do this each week when we come together to share a meal in Christ’s name.
This is the dwelling place to which we belong…here, in this community loving one another into Beloved Community…
Amen
Julie Luna—Sermon
St. John the Episcopal Church, St. Paul, MN
August 5, 2018— 11th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 13
2Samuel 11:1-15, Psalm 14, Ephesians 3:14-21, John 6:1-21
In this Sabbatical season of rest and renewal, it is difficult for me to find any peace in the OT reading today. And the way David is acting during these last few weeks of readings, I surely don’t want him as my companion in transformation!
These past few weeks, our OT readings have exposed us to the Israelite’s constant battle between, on the one hand, having an earthly king; and on the other hand having God as their only king and leader.
We are listening to a long drawn out conversation between God and the Israelites about whether or not having an earthly king is a good idea.
God of course, says, “No, it’s a terrible idea to have an earthly king. I am your only king and always will be your only king. Earthly kings exploit—they take, and take, and take until you have nothing left.
And Scripture gives us examples of how kings take, take, take…
Kings take your labor—look at Solomon; he enslaved the people of the northern kingdom of Israel to build the temple
Kings take your money—look at Solomon, again, to finance the temple project he taxed so heavily the people were enslaved
Kings take lives—look at David in OT story last week and today, he murdered Uriah so that he could marry Uriah’s wife Bathsheba
Kings will even take your wife—again, David in the OT story, he took Bathsheba and made her his wife
In this story, David is the poster child for exploitive kings. He abuses his power to exploit those who are culturally and socially inferior to him.
And, on the other side of the story, we have God’s people, saying, “Yes, we want an earthly king. We want to be like the other nations that surround us—they have kings and their kings protect them from enemies and intruders, and their kings provide for them. We are a tiny and vulnerable nation. We want a king.”
David, in other stories of the OT is also depicted as a good and wise leader, which is the voice of the people saying, “See, having an earthly ruler is a good idea.”
This is one of the ironies and the beauties of the OT texts—we get more than one perspective and it is our job, over time to sort them out and discern how these stories are applicable (or not) to our contemporary lives.
In our contemporary time, we would replace “king” with leader, president, mayor, or any number of names for our political leaders.
If we were to make these books of the Bible into a movie, they would be Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy. These Scripture stories are the cosmic battle of who is the ultimate leader—God or an earthly leader. And they are the cosmic battle between good and evil. And the cosmic battle between which force will prevail—an earthly force or God.
Upon reflecting on these readings, one thing is clear to me for today—and that is God’s desire to have us, God’s people, follow God.
In our collect today we succinctly hear God’s plea for the church to follow God when it says:
Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always in your goodness…
How do we discern how we are to follow God?
Fortunately, God thought of that. God was prepared and gave us prophets who are the voice of God speaking out against injustices. Today we hear the prophet Nathan admonishing David for his sins of assaulting and taking Bathsheba.
In the tumultuous times in which we live; no matter what side of the political aisle we find ourselves, it can be difficult to discern if we are following God’s will or we are following the will of a leader disguised as God’s will.
We need prophets to show us the way of God’s justice, love, and mercy. We need prophets in our lives today—this is who we want to be our companions in transformation.
I am not here to tell you to abandon all earthly leaders—we need them to lead us in the way of justice such that we can all experience God’s love, grace, and dignity. And when we are led well, our leaders are doing the will of God, manifested in love, on our behalf.
Recently I heard one of the most unlikely people talking about love—a politician. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey who says we need to manifest love in our work. That is our true calling, each and every one of us—to manifest love in our work. I would add, when we manifest love, we are doing the will of God.
And I will ask you to wonder together…are our earthly rulers/leaders manifesting love and acting in the best interests of God’s people such that justice prevails?
And to wonder together…how do we discern if we are manifesting love in our work?
God tells us how to follow God’s will—it is through following Jesus. God tells us that when we follow the words and actions of Jesus we are living God’s will and living into God’s grace, love, and dignity, and living into justice.
In our reading from John, we hear Jesus say, “I am the bread of life.” In first century Palestine, bread was a staple that was needed for survival. John is telling us, we need to follow Jesus to survive, and also to grow and thrive.
Returning to our theme of Sabbatical rest, I challenge us to figure out how to rest in God’s will and not my own will or the will of misguided leaders.
Sr. Joan Chittister gives us one example of how to rest in God’s will. She advises us to rely on the second rule of St. Benedict, which simply states: “love not our own will”
Sr. Joan says,
“This second rule tells us that God wills the same good for all the people on the planet, and to accept God’s will above my own is in essence to promise that we ourselves will not obstruct good for others in any way, anywhere.”
She goes on to say,
“We would surely not be doing anything as a nation that would destroy, pollute, poison or extinguish the ecology of creation. We would not be playing God ourselves, and we would make national choices that allow the whole world to flourish.”
Today I pray, with you, that we are able to pay attention to those prophets in our midst who speak God’s messages of love, dignity, and justice into being…
Cory Booker, perhaps a prophet, who is working to manifest love through work
Sr. Joan Chittister, perhaps a prophet, that teaches us “love not our own will”
Theologian Walter Brueggemann, perhaps a prophet, who teaches us to interrupt the silence that harms God’s people
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, perhaps a prophet, who preaches a God of love; and asks us to participate in the Jesus Movement to spread justice
Theologian Dolores Williams, perhaps a prophet, that teaches us to look at the lens of justice through the eyes of the marginalized
When we listen to the prophets as our companions in transformation, and we partake of the “bread of life” we are learning to follow in the way of God’s will, we are learning to bring love, grace, compassion, and dignity into this world for all God’s people. This is how we experience rest and renewal in this Sabbath time—through God’s love given to us through Jesus, the bread of life. Amen
Julie Luna—Sermon
St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, St. Paul, MN
May 13, 2018—Seventh Sunday of Easter—Year B
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26—1 John 5:9-13—John 17:6-19—Psalm 1
God we offer you this time of reflection, with the love of our whole community. We humbly ask that these words fall on our ears such that we are your love in the world. Amen.
Good Morning! I’m so happy to be with you on this Mother’s Day…today we celebrate all the ways we have been nurtured by women in our lives.
One of the women that nurtured me growing up was my grandma, Mary Leona. She was a bit of a character, a large strong woman that used to whip trays of cookies out of the oven barehanded. I could eat a whole pot of her chicken and dumplings or a whole plate of her blueberries pancakes. But one of the most memorable things about grandma was her spontaneous outbursts. Seemingly out of the blue she would exclaim:
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Or God help them
Or Thanks be to God
Another memorable thing about grandma was that she was never without her rosary, and she said the rosary constantly—while she was doing dishes, while she cooked, while she watched TV…
I didn’t know it at the time, but what grandma was doing was teaching me to pray. She wasn’t telling me how to pray…she was showing me one way to pray.
Today, in the gospel story we hear Jesus pray. Jesus is praying, out loud, to God, asking God to care for, protect, and watch over the disciples.
John’s gospel is unique because in all the other gospel stories, Jesus is off on his own praying while the disciples fall asleep.
But today, we hear Jesus pray out loud. I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to pray out loud.
Recently I was with a group of people and the facilitator asked for a volunteer to pray for the group. Suddenly we all looked down at our hands to pick something out of our fingernails, and we squirmed in our seats, and we certainly didn’t make eye contact with the facilitator lest we get called on to pray out loud.
So don’t worry, given my uneasy relationship with prayer, I’m not going to stand here and tell you what prayer is and how to do it.
Barbara Brown Taylor describes exactly how I feel. She says, “I’m a failure at prayer. When people ask me about my prayer life…my mind starts scrambling for ways to hide my problem. I start talking about other things I do that I hope will make me sound like a godly person. I try to say admiring things about prayer so there can be no doubt about how important I think it is. I ask the other person to tell me about her prayer life, hoping she will not notice that I have changed the subject.” (An Altar in the World, page 176)
This sound familiar to anyone else?
And…I never give up…I keep praying as best I can.
Bishop Rob Wright of Atlanta told those of us gathered at clergy conference recently that prayers of oblation are the most underutilized form of prayer.
Being a good student, I got out my prayer book to look up oblation. On page 857 in our catechism it states:
Q: What is prayer of oblation?
A: Oblation is an offering of ourselves, our lives and labors, in union with Christ, for the purposes of God.
Oblation is my new form of prayer… I’ve taken it up…in my car…while I’m diving…I just talk out loud to God…and hope that everyone else on the road thinks I’m singing along to the radio…
Sometime in the third century the desert fathers and mothers spent their lives in prayer. And one of them (I don’t remember which) said one reason to pray is to create intimacy with God. There certainly is an intimacy Jesus has discovered with his disciples…they taught together, they ate together, traveled, shared their stories, lived with each other…AND yes, they prayed together.
This particular prayer that we hear Jesus say out loud is part of what some scholars call the “farewell discourse.” Jesus is saying good-bye to the disciples because he will soon be crucified.
In the lectionary, this reading seems chronologically out of place, because as a community, we’ve already celebrated Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter.
In the story, Jesus has told his disciples that he will die and the disciples do not know what is coming…They are in, what I like to call, a Holy Saturday moment…that time period of waiting, not knowing what the future holds—some people call this a liminal time.
Richard Rohr gives this description of liminal: “It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer.”
(https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-creativity-cure/201306/creativity-and-the-liminal-space)
The word “liminal” comes from the Latin word limens, which means, “threshold.”
(https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-creativity-cure/201306/creativity-and-the-liminal-space)
The disciples are at the threshold of not knowing what comes after Jesus’ death. But we know…next week is Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is given as gift. Today in our Collect we hear, “…send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Saviour Christ has gone before us…”
Perhaps, it wasn’t an accident the lectionary seems out of order…perhaps we are meant to learn that Holy Saturdays, liminal places, and threshold [however we choose to describe them] are always a part of our lives…we continually move into and out of liminal space—those thresholds of our lives…
We have many thresholds right now, here in our St. John’s community. We wait on the threshold while Jered and his family ready themselves for Sabbatical, and Margaret heads off to England, and we wait in anticipation of Craig’s first Sunday.
Some of us wait for a family member to heal from surgery.
Some of us wait for final exams to be over so we can have a break.
Some of us are waiting to be baptized next week on Pentecost—to be brought into our Christian community.
As I pondered prayer and liminal space and the anticipation of the Holy Spirit, I kept asking myself, “What are the connections here?” I’m still not sure I can answer that question.
The only thing I can offer is that perhaps, just perhaps, when we find ourselves in those vulnerable Holy Saturday moments waiting in anticipation of what is next, the best we can do is pray. The only thing we can do it pray.
We pray, just as Jesus prayed: that God has given us what we need, and God will protect us, and keep us, and guide us. And God will love us.
And maybe a few spontaneous outbursts of prayer would also help. Thanks be to God!
Amen!
Julie Luna—Sermon
St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, St. Paul, MN
February 18, 2018—First Sunday in Lent—Year B
Genesis 9:8-17—1 Peter 3:18-22—Mark 1:9-15—Psalm 25:1-9
Let us pray: God, remain steadfast in your covenant of everlasting compassion and love; And give us hearts to live in compassion and love with all your creation. Amen
This week, with Ash Wednesday, we entered into the season of Lent when we are asked to go into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. We enter into a time of reflection on our lives, our communities, and our relationships with God and with each other.
Years ago, I was camping in the wilderness of northern, California, when, in the middle of the night the ground began to shake. There wasn’t much padding between me and the earth so I felt the shock waves of the earthquake course through my body.
I’m not native to California so I was terrified of earthquakes the whole time I lived there, but on that particular night I was elated. I was young and confused, and struggling with what I wanted to do with my life, so I fled to the wilderness seeking answers. And, in that moment of violent shaking, I was convinced that God had spoken.
I awoke the next morning and realized I had no answers… The earthquake was an earthquake. I was angry. My journey into the wilderness turned into an epic battle between me and God—I wanted answers and demanded that God give them to me.
After a few weeks of hiking, exploring caves, stepping over rattle snakes and encountering very few people, I was gutted…there was not much left inside of me. I was sunburned, tired, and I finally admitted defeat—I had lost my epic battle for answers and was drained of my desire to fight God any longer.
Yet, I was cleansed. Instead of being baptized by John in the River Sacramento, I was baptized with the sand and sun and solitude of the desert. I was stripped of my ego, my demand for answers, and my desire to control God.
My anger at God was replaced with deep longing…longing for love, and community, and longing for God. This profoundly deep longing to be in communion with God and with others has a name in our tradition…it is called covenant.
In the Genesis reading and in the Psalm today we hear this word. A covenant, according first century law, is considered a contract entered into by two parties. My wilderness experience is an example of covenant…in my longing for God, I re-entered a deep and binding relationship with God. But covenant is not an individual experience—it is all of our community, all of God’s creation, entering into relationship with God.
The Genesis text tells us, “God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.”
God creates a covenant, a relationship, will all of creation. God’s part in this covenant is that God gives us steadfast love and mercy and promises to be with us. And although God does not demand our participation, God longs for us to participate in covenant. God longs for us to participate…
During our Lenten journey in the wilderness, we learn, through the gospel story, that Christ is the new covenant with God…Christ is the way that God establishes a new covenant with God’s people and all of God’s creation.
Despite my demand for answers while in the wilderness of northern, California, God doesn’t give us ready answers that fit all of us. The closest thing we get to an instruction manual on how to enter into this new covenant, are the Scripture stories of the life and ministry of Jesus.
We enter into a new covenant through Jesus by living our lives like Jesus lived his. And, in today’s gospel Christ teaches us that this is a colossal task. To model Christ we are driven into the wilderness to confront our demons. And we do this before we get even a small glimpse of how to participate in this new covenant.
In baptism we symbolically we enter into the water of death to be reborn into a life with Christ. We stray from our baptismal covenant with worldly temptations and in the wilderness, our temptations confront us. If you are like me, my list is long…here are just a few the temptations that may confront us:
Abandoning God when we don’t get my way…
Comparing ourselves to others and finding ourselves lacking…
Expecting to be superhuman and perfect, when in fact we’re just human…
Attempting to fix people or situations when it isn’t our responsibility…
Failing to act when the situation warrants our response…
This gospel story ushers in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Spoiler alert, over the next few weeks we also learn that to live into our new covenant with God, through Christ, we are called to participate in Jesus’ ministry.
In the meantime, we enter the wilderness…we are given the opportunity to reflect and renew our covenant with God and with others…we are give 40 days, that’s pretty generous, to renew our longing for connection with God, and with our communities…
Despite the ease and comfort that a “wilderness manual” would provide, each of us enters the wilderness in our own way. We don’t need to rush out and purchase airline tickets for northern California. Our wilderness can be as close as our living room—with a cup of coffee and time to sit without the distractions of this world. The comfort of our own home can be the starting place for our journey into a new covenant of God’s love, mercy, and compassion through the life and ministry of Jesus.
My prayer for all of us this Lenten season is that we are able to find our special wilderness spot so that we are able to listen with acute attention to know God’s longing for us, longing to be in covenant with us, through Christ, in love and steadfast faithfulness and mercy. Amen
Julie Luna—Sermon
St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, St. Paul, MN
Christmas—December 25, 2017—Selection I
Isaiah 9:2-7—Titus 2:11-14—Luke 2:1-14(15-20)—Psalm 96
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness–
on them light has shined.
Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The birth of a baby, small and vulnerable
If you’re like me, you’ve heard this story many times and it feels familiar, like a warm and cozy blanket that I wrap around myself on a cold winter day—the pregnant mom, Mary, the baby, Jesus, born in a stable, the hospitality of strangers that allowed Mary and Joseph to give birth among the animals in the town of Bethlehem bursting with travelers…
But…perhaps this is not a story to comfort us, but to challenge our thoughts, words and actions…
I know what it is like to expect a baby this time of year, when it is dark and cold outside. My son was born 14 years ago during this time of winter darkness. I know what it is like to grow larger with child each day and to wait and wait for the birth of my baby, small and vulnerable. And I know what it is like to see light—when my son was finally born he light born into this world.
We read the Old Testament Isaiah reading today not because it is a prediction of what is to come, but because it reminds us of God’s promises for God’s people—that God will always care for God’s people—the sick, the hungry, the marginalized, the persecuted…And yes, today we learn that God cares for the most vulnerable. This Isaiah story reminds us, a Christian people today and every day, that into darkness, God always brings light and goodness and new life.
Historically we know that Jesus was born into the darkness of oppression—the oppression of God’s people at the hands of foreign kingdoms—many, many years of oppression under the Assyrians, the Babylonians the Roman Empire. The evidence of oppression is not lost in Luke’s account of the birth narrative, which he situates in Bethlehem, where Mary and Joseph have returned to register for the census.
The census was not meant simply as a numerical statistic, it was meant as an accounting tool to impose taxes on the people by the Roman Empire. It was a blatant message, by the Empire that they were in control of the people and they would prove it by taxing them heavily and keeping them financially insecure.
God’s people, the Israelites, were expecting a Messiah, one who would save them from this oppression and control at the hands of foreign powers, a strong ruler that would over throw all oppression.
The word Messiah comes from the Hebrew verb “mesah” which means to anoint. God’s people were waiting for a special person anointed by God, chosen by God to save God’s people from oppression.
And we got him, the one anointed, marked by God…but this person was not quite who we were expecting. God’s people expected a strong ruler, a powerful king, a mighty warrior
Instead, they got, we all got, a baby… A baby, weak, vulnerable born into the darkness of oppression…
I find it fun to point out the irony in this situation, which in Luke’s account is clearly a juxtaposition of the role of authority and power between the Roman Empire and God.
The Roman Empire’s authority and power came through military might, heavy taxes and political oppression.
God’s authority and power came through Jesus—through God revealing God-self in a small and vulnerable baby.
Rome oppressed through control.
God liberates through life. Only God gives life. Empire cannot control life…only God can give life. This is a story that challenges our expectations of where God will show up in the world, where God will show up in our lives.
I loved being pregnant with both of my two children…pregnancy is full of joy and excitement and anticipation to meet the baby that was growing inside me. But having a baby is not without anxiety for how our children will fare in the world. Both of my children were born post-9/11 and I fretted and stressed about what kind of world my husband and I would be raising our kids in.
And we still live in a tumultuous time. We’ve lived through recent mass shootings, hurricanes and wildfires. Refugees continue to flee war-torn countries and are sometimes met with hostility while seeking resettlement. As economic insecurity affect so many, we see more hunger, more homelessness, more in need. We have more vulnerable in our midst.
The heavy weight of tragedy, loss, death, censorship, and destruction can leave us feeling grief-stricken and in despair. We can feel stuck and not know how we can change the plight of our communities and the world. We don’t know where we can find hope and new life in the midst of debilitating despair and oppression.
God knows…God knows that hope and new life comes in the vulnerability of a baby. Hope comes with new life….
For those of us who have held a baby we know they are tiny and floppy and completely dependent on other human beings for their survival. When we brought our first child home from the hospital she was asleep in her car seat and Ernesto, my husband, set her on the floor in the living room, looked at me and said, “Now what?” We had this small, vulnerable person in our midst and we had no idea what to do.
I can imagine a similar scene in first century Palestine. Now what? A baby?
We have the expectation of a strong warrior to free us from oppression and we get a baby. God upended our expectations and showed up in the way we least expected. What does this tell us about the God that came to dwell with us? How does this help us today with the oppressive disruptiveness and violence we find ourselves living with in our world?
The answers to these questions are in Luke’s narrative of the birth story of Jesus. Luke tells us that God’s messenger angels came upon the shepherds in the fields. God’s messengers did not appear to the Roman officials, or any with worldly authority.
The angles appeared to the shepherds, the everyday people that do the everyday work of God. This story is full of God showing up in unexpected places—Mary, a teenage mother, Joseph taking Mary as his wife, some shepherds in a field…This story is evidence that God shows up.
God shows up in me, in you, and in the kind acts of mercy we show to one another.
After Ernesto and I looked at each other and said, “Now what?” We scooped up our vulnerable baby and we held her and loved her and cared for her and loved her more and more each day until we were all filled with love and light and goodness.
God showed us through the message of God’s angels and through the birth of the baby Jesus, that we, the people of God, are partners in God’s work of healing, compassion and love that brings peace and relief from all oppression.
This story of Christ’s birth this is not a story to comfort us, but to challenge our thoughts, words and actions…
We are challenged to scoop up the vulnerable and love them. For most of us, loving a vulnerable baby is easy. Our challenge is to schoop up those that are hard to love—the marginalized, the persecuted, and those that are oppressed. We are called to welcome the stranger, to house the refuge, to talk with the lonely, to sit and listen to the elderly, buy a meal and eat with the hungry, befriend the physically and mentally challenged.
We are called to love the vulnerable and love them and love them and love them more and more until we overcome the darkness of oppression and until we all become the light of Christ.
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness–
on them light has shined.
Amen
Julie Luna—Sermon
Ascension Episcopal Church, Stillwater, MN
November 12, 2017—Proper 27—Year A
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25—Psalm 78:1-7—1 Thessalonians 4:13-18—Matthew 25:1-13
I find this a challenging gospel reading and I really wrestled with it. It reminds me of when a friend was about 5 years old she was vigorously wrestling and fighting with her older brother and wouldn’t stop. Her mom finally had to sit on her to calm her down, but this didn’t contain Lydia’s enthusiasm; she kept flailing her arms and screaming, “You can’t defeat me!”
That’s how I feel when I wrestle with the gospel text today—I want to scream, “You can’t defeat me!” This text tells us that those who are prepared will be included in the kingdom of God, and those that are not prepared will be excluded from the kingdom of God. This flies in the face of my idea of a loving and protective God that is inclusive of all God’s people.
I consulted several commentaries hoping that I’d find a softened version of the meaning of this parable….And, no such luck…they were all pretty stark in their interpretation.
Yet, I refuse to believe that Christ, the incarnate of God’s love and abundance would exclude anyone from the kingdom. I need to believe that there is more to this gospel than inclusion and exclusion.
After all every woman in this story are waiting. Why would some be included and some excluded?
Waiting…waiting…the word waiting kept popping out at me as a read and re-read this gospel hoping for insight beyond what I found in my reading and the commentaries I consulted.
Matthew’s gospel was written when there was great expectation that Christ would come again in bodily form—the second coming. And Jesus’ followers were waiting, waiting, waiting for this event.
But here we are 2000 years later and we are still waiting.
Waiting is not something our culture does very well. In the age of instant media we expect results immediately—we expect news updates to arrive on our smart phones every few minutes, we know where our children and spouses and friends are at all times because we text them constantly, we can trade stocks with the push of a button, or queue up movies on any of our devices in a matter of seconds. It appears that we really don’t have to wait for much these days.
I started asking myself, what DO I wait for? What is WORTH waiting for?
In his writings, St. Augustine told us that God deals with us by making us wait. He said, “Simply by making us wait God increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us.” (St. Augustine, Love One Another). That makes waiting sound more palatable. I am waiting to receive something that God will give me.
We all wait…we wait for children or parents to get home, we wait to get into college, we wait for that job promotion, we wait in line at the grocery store, we wait for a medical diagnosis…
And perhaps, if you are like me, we find ourselves waiting for the next tragedy to occur. We have seen so much of it lately—with the destruction of hurricanes, and the violence and death of shootings. I find myself in this unnerving state of anxious waiting for the next tragedy to occur.
This past week I had a conversation with some colleagues about where we find hope in the midst of what is going on in the world? One colleague thoughtfully suggested that maybe we tend to focus on the death of Christ rather than the resurrection of Christ. Perhaps we need to focus on new life.
I’ve been pondering these words all week especially as I’ve been writing this sermon. I started wondering where I experience new life and see little resurrections in my life.
We talk about the resurrection of Christ and this is the core of our gospel today—being ready for the second coming of Christ. But resurrection also has meaning in our every day, ordinary lives.
When Rowan Williams (former Archbishop of Canterbury) was asked how he could possibly believe in the resurrection of Christ, he responded that he believed because he was surrounded by resurrection every day. We see it in the flower that lies dormant all winter and blooms in the spring, or in the healing after an illness, or in a simple smile from a friend that brings new energy to our day.
I was waiting (there’s that word again…waiting) for some insight to come to me about this gospel story that I wrestle with; secretly hoping that maybe some little resurrection would appear. And then it struck me, maybe I need to examine the concept of waiting.
In our gospel story, perhaps all women were included in the kingdom, BUT, in different ways and at different times.
The women who went to the banquet entered into God’s kingdom immediately. That would be like going to a huge event where we immediately experience God’s presence—like TEC, or the birth of a baby, or a rally to protest an injustice.
The women who did not go to the banquet have a harder job. They are still part of the kingdom, but after waiting a long time they were told to wait some more. Perhaps they have the job of waiting to see God in the small every day moments of life, in the small resurrections that we often overlook.
God’s kingdom is there both inside the banquet and outside the banquet; both in the huge events of our lives and in the small events of our lives. It just that we experience God differently depending on which side of the banquet door we find ourselves.
A few days ago I was gathered in the kitchen with my family. It was early morning and we were engrossed in making lunches, cooking breakfast, emptying the dishwasher, and making coffee. Suddenly my daughter squealed—look at the sky! It was painted with pink and blue and interspersed with wispy clouds; and it was gorgeous. In that moment, I was standing outside the banquet hall, but I am still part of the kingdom, and I experienced the small resurrection of a new day.
I challenge you this week to see one small resurrection in your life—to wait for it patiently because it will be there.
I will end with the very first line of Psalm 62: For God alone my soul waits in silence… Amen
Julie Luna—Sermon
Ascension Episcopal Church, Stillwater, MN
August 20, 2017—Proper 15—Year A
Isaiah 56:1,6-8—Psalm 133—Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32—Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28
I offer my words to God and to you in the Name of God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
These two gospel stories from Matthew are about how we use our words—the one about our speech originating in our hearts, and the one about the Canaanite woman shouting for healing for her daughter—are both about how we use words and how words are powerful and can both help and hinder. Our words can, if we allow them, bring love into our lives and our communities.
Given that these gospel stories are living documents that we are invited into and allowed to interact with, these two stories we read in Matthew’s gospel today are incredibly appropriate in the aftermath of the violence that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend.
In light of the violence in Charlottesville, the readings this week present the themes of resistance, persistence, and hope.
Resistance
Persistence
Hope
Resistance
We need to resist hatred. As Christians, we are called to speak love. I need to use language that brings love into my life and my community.
The Jesus we encounter in Matthew’s gospel tells us, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Defile—something that desecrates the sacred. We, human beings, are sacred because we are created by God. The words that come out of our mouths can desecrate another human being. When I shout hate language towards another human being I am doing great harm to God’s creation and to God.
I also would add that it is sometimes a lack of what comes out of our mouths that defiles. When I fail to speak out against poverty or racism or homophobia, or when I fail to denounce white supremacy I am also defiling God’s creation, the people whom God has created.
But as a Christian, I need to resist the urge to NOT speak out. And, I need to name white supremacy for what it is. I name it a sin. Me, Julie Luna, name it a sin.
[Speaking the truth is also speaking love]
OK, I said the “s” word in church. Sin.
Some of you may be gasping for air at this moment and some of you may feel relieved that the “sin” word was finally mentioned in a sermon.
This is a word we are sometimes not accustomed to hearing in church let alone a sermon, and we tend to shy away from the word because it is loaded with lots of Christian baggage and lots of personal baggage.
But I, Julie Luna, believe it is true. White supremacy is a sin.
One way to define a sin is any action, thought or deed that alienates us from God. When I speak hatred or I do not speak out against hatred, I alienate myself from my sisters and brothers, those created in God’s image and thus I alienate myself from God.
Imagine leaving here today and only speaking words of love. I want to live in that world.
Resistance…I pray we resist speaking hatred and like Fredrick Douglass we can speak in love about the equality of all people.
Persistence
It is our task, as Christians, to be incredibly persistent in speaking out against hatred. And, I need to use language that brings love into my life and my community.
The Christian Church has a spotty history when it comes to racism. Sometimes the Church has been silent and in its silence has been complicit on the issue of racism. I’m not an historian so I won’t elaborate but I encourage you to do your own research. One great place to start is with the book The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone.
And there are beautiful examples of the Church resisting racism. The Church has worked hard, since the Civil Rights Movement, to combat racism—it is on the right path to mending its alienation from God on the issue of racism. And, we must persist.
The Canaanite woman in our gospel today is a great example of persistence. She is described as “shouting” for Christ to heal her daughter. And she doesn’t give up. She persists until Christ listens to her and heals her daughter.
Imagine us leaving here and shouting for an end to violence and hatred and we don’t give up until we got what we want. I want to live in that world.
Persistence…I pray we are persistent in speaking God’s love and like Sojourner Truth and Rosa Parks we persist in creating a world where love prevails.
Hope
And finally, but most importantly, we have hope. I need to use language that brings love into my life and into my community—this love creates hope.
Our gospel stories are full of hope. The disciples fervently hope that Jesus can help them understand. The Canaanite woman fervently hopes that Jesus will heal her daughter.
Our media is not big on hope. The media is great at giving us all the bad news. Don’t get me wrong, we need to know what is going on but I also searched hard this week to find hope. The hopeful stories I found also give us clues as to how we can engage in creating love with our words and actions just as we learned about in the gospel stories.
Here are a few stories of hope.
Alvin Edwards, Pastor of Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Virginia started a collective of local clergy a few months before the protests. Edwards describes the Collective this way: “Once a month, a small group of white and black pastors, from different denominations, would meet for breakfast and discuss activities that they could do together. But we weren’t prepared for what happened with the K.K.K. coming here. We didn’t know that was going to happen when we formed this.”
Edwards ended by saying, “You can’t let others have the last word, we `have to move to the high ground. If they come back, we have to shout louder and more often.” [Sounds a lot like the Canaanite woman in our gospel story today!]
One counter-protester, a person resisting the hatred of the white supremisicists, said, “But for all the vitriol and hatred, there was also something deeply human happening in downtown Charlottesville. People were offering each other water, masks, earplugs and gloves. I, for my own peace of mind, have to believe that humanity’s good will eventually outweigh its bad. It won’t happen on its own, but with the help of people like those who were helping, or perhaps, watching from their homes in horror, thinking about the role they might play to stop something like this from happening again.”
These stories of hope teach us to:
Resist hatred
Persist in speaking love
And live in hope that God’s love will prevail
I challenge you to find one hopeful story every day…and then when you succeed, find two hopeful stories. And to pray. Pray we can speak love into our lives and into our communities.
I will end with Jesus’ words.
‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31New Revised Standard Version)
Amen
Readings for August 20, 2017
Julie Luna—Sermon
Ascension Episcopal Church, Stillwater, MN
June 25, 2017—Proper 7—Year A
Genesis 21:8-21—Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17—Romans 6:1b-11—Matthew 10:24-39
“Do not fear them”…Early in this gospel reading Jesus tells his disciples, “Do not fear them.”
[Not only that but Jesus tells the disciples…they really want to kill me so guess what? They are really gonna want to kill you too.]
When I read the gospel stories I always ask myself, “What is the good news in this story?
Jesus says, “Do not fear them.” Fear is mentioned three or four times in this reading.
Fear…wonder with me…how that is good news
Fear—it is ingrained in us. We are a culture of fear…
When I asked two young people the question, “What do people fear in our culture?”
One responded: “We fear people that don’t look like us.”
Another said: “We fear not fitting in.”
These are wise and perceptive answers.
We learn early in our lives to live in fear: We fear offending others, We fear public speaking, We fear getting old
We fear that if we don’t keep our family secrets—like the alcoholic aunt, or the pain-killer addicted son—we will not be accepted by our peer group
Our political system is motivated by fear—politicians make decision based on fear of not getting re-elected rather than what might be good for God’s people.
Our economy is driven by fear—we watch the stock market rise and fall and fear its effects on our lives, jobs, and families
And yet, despite this fear, we journey on…we live our lives…we journey on…
In these last few weeks, we have been on a journey through Matthew’s gospel as Jesus instructs his disciples on how to be disciples.
Jesus tells the disciples to go out and heal the sick, and cast out demons, BUT, they are to take nothing for their journey. This is daunting…do great things but take no tools to help you…
That would be like asking me to drive across the country without my cell phone…
And, this week, Christ also instructs his disciples, “Do not fear them.”
Do not fear them…go out and share the good news, BUT, do no fear them.
Who is this “them?” Who are the disciples to not fear? In this passage, the “them” likely refers to the scribes and the Pharisees—both of which were Jewish groups with different political and religious leanings. They felt threatened by Jesus and would therefore feel threatened by Jesus’ disciples.
What Christ is telling his disciples is that sometimes we are held back from our journey by those that are closest to us because we fear them. Like the scribes and Pharisees that were part of the larger Jewish family.
In our 21st century context, the “them” are usually the people or persons with authority or power, and they may be those people that are closest to us like a parent or spouse or other family member.
I met a family recently that struggled with generations of alcoholism, which they kept a secret. The mother in the family was the gatekeeper of the secret—she forbade anyone to talk about the family secret. In this system, the children feared the mother and what she might do if the children talked or sought help. The result, the children did not embark on their journey of healing because they feared their mom.
So today, we hear Christ tell his disciples, and also tell us—Go out, take a journey, but fear those closest to you. In our context, another way to say this might be, “Don’t let those closest to us hold us back from our journeys. And sometimes the person that is closest to us might be a family member, but it may also be ourselves.” Fear holds me back…
Perhaps our journey might be pursing a life-long goal. During my formation process, I met a woman, who has known most of her life that she wanted to be a priest, yet she was part of a religious denomination that did not allow for the ordination of women. She feared leaving this religion behind because she did not want to disrespect generations of her ancestors that practiced and kept this religion alive for her. She feared being ostracized by her family.
Perhaps our journey is something we want to learn. I have a huge fear of singing in public. To confront this fear I’ve embarked on a journey of singing lessons.
Perhaps our journey is an inward journey. We want to be a kinder person to ourselves and others or we want to embrace failure as a learning tool rather than an excuse to beat ourselves up.
So…what is the good news in all of this? The good news is that we don’t do any of this alone…we don’t confront our fears in isolation. We are a community and we journey as a community.
First and foremost, God is in our midst and God cares for us and comforts us despite our deepest fears. And the Holy Spirit is always with us, guiding us on our journey to be children of God in our full glory.
BUT, here’s the best part…Jesus did not send his disciples out alone. He sent them in pairs or in groups.
Our journey is no different today. We come here each week so we can journey out into the world together as the body of Christ. Look around you, each one of us is here because we are on a journey and we support each other…
And lastly, the good news is that Christ did not tell us to get rid of our fears…fear can be a healthy motivating factor if put in perspective…Christ tells us to be aware of our fear and to overcome it. To take our journey despite the fear.
I will end with the words of the late activist and President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela:
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave [person] is not [the one] who is not afraid, but [the one] who conquers that fear. (Nelson Mandela)
Go in peace, courageously confronting fear, and many blessings on your journey…Amen
julielunaponders 