EPIPHANY 6B – 2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45 –
12 February 2012 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Reactivity v. Opportunity

INTRODUCTION – Not this way!

Have you ever reacted to something that has happened in your life and said, “This is not the way it is supposed to happen!”? Our son, Zach, now attending his third different college in three years, has said more than a few times, “I am not having the kind of college experience that I thought I would!” Perhaps God will remind you of your own similar feelings after we review the story of Naaman.

SITUATION – Namaan’s Leprosy

Namaan was a commander of the army for the king of Aram (modern-day Syria). We are told he was “a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram.” (2 Kings 5:1) But Naaman suffered from leprosy. And it just so happened that a young Israelite girl who had been captured in one of the Aramean raids now worked for Naaman’s wife. And this girl knew of the power of the prophet Elisha and said to her mistress, in effect, “There is a prophet in Samaria who would cure your husband of his leprosy.” On the basis of those words, Naaman went to the king of Aram, and the king agreed to send Naaman on his way, while giving him a letter for the king of Israel, along with a chariot full of silver, gold, and fine garments. The letter said, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” You see, the king of Aram was making an assumption that Elisha served in the royal court.

When the king of Israel received the letter, he did what any grounded, strong, faithful king would do – he freaked out and started tearing his clothes! Often this was a sign of mourning; sometimes it was just a sign of freaking out! We also call this getting reactive… living out of your reptilian “fight or flight” brain. When you and I are in reactive brain, we often don’t think very clearly, and we often jump to conclusions. “Am I God, to give life or death, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.” (2 Kings 5:7) You wonder which people in the king’s court heard him say this. You wonder if any of his advisors said, “My lord, perhaps the king of Aram is just asking for your help. Perhaps he’s not trying to pick a fight at all.”

Somehow the word got to Elisha that the king of Israel had started tearing up his fancy clothes, and Elisha sent the king a message. “Why are you doing that? [Aren’t kings supposed to be smart?] Send this guy over to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” (paraphrase of 2 Kings 5:8) And here is where the story get’s really interesting. If it didn’t hit so close to home with how you and I act sometimes, we might say it gets downright funny.
For when Naaman pulls up in front of Elisha’s driveway with his horses and chariots and 750 pounds of silver and 150 pounds of gold and all those fancy clothes, Elisha didn’t even come out to meet him. Elisha sent out a messenger to Naaman, and the man said, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” (2 Kings 5:10)

COMPLICATION – Naaman’s reactivity

This was the moment… the moment that did not fit at all with the picture that Naaman had formed in his mind. First of all, Elisha didn’t hang out in the king’s palace. And second, Elisha didn’t come out to meet him, didn’t perform some ritual over Naaman that would instantly make his leprosy go away. “This is not the way it’s supposed to happen!” Naaman became angry and went away, saying [yelling], “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!” (2 Kings 5:11) In other words, “This isn’t the way a prophet – a man of God… a man who speaks for God – is supposed to act!”

Naaman continued his rant. “The Jordan River? That crappy little thing? Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers on either side of Damascus, both way better than any stinkin’ river in Israel? Are you kidding me? [Boulder Creek? Really?]” As if we don’t get it already, the writer adds, “He turned and went away in a rage.”

This is big-time reactive brain in action! This is I-came-all-this-way-and-a-supposed-prophet-tells-me-to-wash-in-the-Jordan-seven-times….I-just-might-have-to-kill-someone-now reactive brain.

And here is where we give thanks to the Lord for the people in our lives who know us and love us and sometimes have the guts to say just the right thing at the right time… not only to keep us from doing the really stupid thing, but to help us see that perhaps we’re in reactive brain, and we might want to stop, take a breath, and reconsider things from a different perspective. For Naaman in this particular moment, those people were his servants – people who presumably served him for a long time and knew him well. “Father [a term of respect and honor], if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it [to be rid of this awful leprosy]? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” (2 Kings 5:13)

The writer skips a line or two here. It should read, “Naaman stopped, considered what his servants had said, and thought to himself, ‘They have a point. Perhaps I am being reactive. Why am I so angry all of a sudden?’” What we read is this: “So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.” (2 Kings 5:14) What we didn’t hear in the lesson read today was that Naaman then returned to Elisha’s house, with all his company, and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel…” (2 Kings 5:15)

Naaman, you see, after he spent all that time on the villain-victim-hero drama triangle… after he stopped, got off of the triangle and out of his reactive brain… after he took the suggestion of Elisha and washed in the Jordan River, Naaman had a conversion experience. But that would never have happened if he hadn’t listened to his servants and shifted. He would have ranted and raved all the way back to Syria, and never washed in the Jordan River, and might have had leprosy for the rest of his life. His one little entry point of openness – trusting enough in his servants to listen to them for a few moments – led to his healing, AND… led to his conversion.

NEW BEHAVIOR

What is your “leprosy”, your big challenge right now? Perhaps you’ve been laid off from your job. Perhaps someone in your family is sick, or you are sick. Perhaps you are in the middle of a conflict with someone. Perhaps you don’t understand why you keep repeating an old pattern in your life that is not healthy – you are a people-pleaser, or you consistently put yourself down, or you keep recycling the same conflict with someone in your family, or you always put others’ needs first and never take care of yourself.

Perhaps, like Naaman, you see your “leprosy” being cured in a certain way. It will happen like this: I will talk to the person in a normal tone of voice, and he or she will listen, and see my point, and – poof! – all will be well. But what if it doesn’t go that way? What if what you hear from God is, “Here’s what I want you to do….” and it is absolutely nothing like how you had pictured the situation being resolved. Then what?

Or what if you are facing into what seems to be chronic pain and you go see all the doctors you normally see, and nothing changes, and someone – not a doctor, maybe not even a member of your family, suggests something else, something outside your “box” of how you see healing coming to you. Then what?

Well… then, like Naaman who lived 800 years or so before Jesus, like everyone else on the planet today, you have two choices. You can go into reactive brain and jump on the villain-victim-hero triangle and look to blame someone or explain why you can’t do a darn thing about your situation or start trying to fix someone else… you can rant and rave about how “this isn’t the way it was supposed to be!”…. OR you can stop, listen, ask questions and seek to understand, wonder what other situation in your past this current situation reminds you of. You can breathe, move, pray, notice what you are feeling, express your feeling to another human being in an authentic, honest way… express your feeling to God in an authentic, honest way. You can seek out the people who know you and love you best, and maybe even ask for help, make a simple request.

“I am scared about this upcoming doctor’s appointment. Would you go with me?”

“I know you have dealt with aging parents. Do you have any advice for me?”

“You have had cancer. What was your experience like?”

“Mom, we’re about to have another child. It’s going to be a big adjustment. Could you come and stay with us for a few weeks?” (Or, “Mom, it’s going to be a big adjustment. Could you not come and stay with us for a few weeks?”)

In other words, we can go into reactive brain, which creates drama and little else but a brief spurt of adrenaline, or we can move into creative brain – the part of our brain that is God-inspired, connected to all the rest of our body and made in the image of God – and just put the real issue out there, like the leper did who came up to Jesus. Begging and kneeling before him, he said, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” (Mark 1:40) And Jesus, moved with pity [and probably by the man’s vulnerability and honesty, too], said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” And he was – immediately the leprosy left him.

No drama – just celebration. The man made his own choice, too. Rather than listening to Jesus’ instruction that he say nothing to anyone about his healing, he told everyone he came across. He chose to share the good news of what had happened to him, and suddenly everyone and his brother was coming to see Jesus.

CONCLUSION

You and I have choices all the time – just as Naaman and the leper cured by Jesus and Jesus did. God presents us with choices – a number of times each day.

What will we choose? Reactivity? Sometimes, being human, we will. But after a while we’ll start to understand that getting highly reactive doesn’t really shift anything; being reactive doesn’t make our “leprosy” go away. Will we instead choose to see the challenge facing us as an opportunity – an opportunity from God for growth, for transformation, or for a deeper connection with another human being (and with God)? If so, we’re apt to discover that a creative, cooperating-with-God response leads to our healing, and – yes – even to us becoming a new creation!

EPIPHANY 5B – Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39 – 5 February 2012 – A sermon by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

A Rhythm for Transformation

INTRODUCTION – Rhythms in music

To me, rhythm is one of the really cool words in the English language. It makes me think of that little saying many of us learned in kindergarten or first grade. “The vowels are a, e, i, o, u… and sometimes y.” Y is the only vowel in the word rhythm, and trust me, that’s cool! When I think of rhythm, I think of another really cool thing, and that is music. There is jazz rhythm, the rhythm of rock and roll, a very distinct reggae rhythm, a calypso rhythm, hip-hop rhythm, Latin rhythm, African rhythm, white-folks-ain’t-got-no rhythm… we could go on and on.

SITUATION – Jesus’ rhythm

The spiritual life, when it is going well, has a certain rhythm to it, too.

We see it exemplified by none other than our Lord in today’s gospel reading. We are told that Jesus, after worshiping at the synagogue with his disciples, went to the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. After healing Simon’s mother-in-law and “lifting her up”, Jesus entered into another time of ministry – a time of serving others. In this particular case, it was a ministry of healing, as “the whole city” – perhaps a slight exaggeration – had gathered at the door of Simon and Andrew’s house. Then we are told, “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” (Mark 1:35) And while he was having this time alone with God, Jesus heard from his heavenly Father. He heard that it was time to go proclaim “the message” – that the kingdom of God had come near – to some other villages. So when Simon and some others found him and said “Everyone is searching for you” – probably another slight exaggeration – Jesus already knew what he was going to do next, because he had heard from God. And so he went “throughout Galilee”, proclaiming the message in the various synagogues and casting out demons.

So what is the rhythm that we see on display here? What are its components?

They are:

• Community prayer and worship (for Jesus, regular time in the synagogue; periodic times going to the Temple in Jerusalem for major feasts)
• Time with family and friends (for Jesus, as this point in his life, this was time with the twelve disciples)
• Serving other people, i.e., ministry (for Jesus this was dominated by preaching, teaching, and healing)
• Time alone with God for prayer, listening, and contemplation (for Jesus, this often involved getting up very early in the morning to be with God)

Probably it’s good to not think of these four things in a linear way, but as more of a cycle, or perhaps a spiral. Probably it’s good, too, to not get so rigid about these four elements that we think that they have to always happen in the same order. You know, first I pray alone, then I hang out with my family and friends, then…. No. What’s important, I think, is that all the components are there. These four components make up the rhythm of the spiritual life, you might say. And when one of the components is missing, it’s like having a drummer in your band who can’t keep the beat! Suddenly it’s very hard to dance, because something is just off!

COMPLICATION – When one component is missing

So… if you are involved in ministry and are learning with your family and friends and worshiping regularly, but have no time to be alone with God, your spiritual rhythm will be off, because you won’t be tuning in to hear what God wants to say to you. You probably will miss what God would have you do next, because God often – not always, but often – speaks in a “still, small voice.” Not only that, you’ll probably burn out or experience your “well running dry”, because only those who wait for the Lord get renewed or even healed and “mount up with wings like eagles,”, only those who wait for the Lord run and don’t grow weary, only those who wait for the Lord can keep walking without fainting (Isaiah 40:31).

And if you have a regular quiet time with God and worship regularly and even nurture your relationships with your family and friends, but never figure out whom you are called to serve, never go beyond your comfort zone and meet new people and try something that you’ve never tried before, your spiritual rhythm will be off because you are not doing that thing – that lovely thing – that you are uniquely qualified to do, which God wants you to do and which makes your heart sing. Your spiritual life will be “off” because you haven’t found your purpose, you haven’t discovered the meaning that comes to you when you are engaged in a ministry where you know you are making a difference… you know you are helping build the kingdom of God.

And if you are engaged in ministry and having regular quiet time and nurturing your relationships with your family and friends but never gather for communal worship and prayer, your spiritual rhythm will be off because something important happens when we worship God together and hear the scriptures together. Something important happens when we sing together and receive communion. That “something” is that God imparts his grace to us. God fills and renews us in ways that we need to be filled and renewed for the journey. Not only that, quite often someone in the community encourages us or challenges us in a way that we need to be encouraged or challenged. It’s as if that person is God’s prophet or God’s messenger, and if we stop worshiping in the community we fail to hear that message.

And if you have a ministry you love and are having regular quiet time and coming regularly to community worship, but you don’t stay in touch with family and friends, before long you will probably feel very much alone, and you’ll probably stop coming to church, too. For what I have observed over the years is that if people don’t make at least one or two friends at church, there comes a point when worship just doesn’t do it for them anymore. On the other hand, when you and I have one or two friends who we can talk to anything about (whether inside church or outside of church), one or two friends who love us for who we are, and who we can love for who they are, we can make it through anything that life has to throw at us.

RELATIONSHIPS AT THE CENTER OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

Notice, then, that relationships are at the very center of the spiritual life. Perhaps that is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be said, but sometimes I think we forget the obvious. So one way for us to ask each other about our spiritual life is to ask, “How are you relationships?”

How is your relationship with God? Are you having regular quiet time with God – time to pray, time to listen, time to simply be quiet in God’s presence, time to study the scriptures, time to be alone with God in nature?

How are your relationships with family members and friends going? Are you spending regular time with the people who you say are the most important people in your life? If you are married, are you still having dates with your spouse? If you have a best friend, do you spend time with that person regularly? If you are a parent, do you have the kind of relationship you want to have with your child (children)? Are you able to be fully transparent with these family members and friends? Is there anything you don’t share, anything you withhold? If so, are you willing to looking at that, and wonder why?

How is worship for you? Notice that community worship is about worshiping God AND being connected to the people of God? How is the worshiping God part? How are your relationships with the people here? Is there anything you are withholding from God? Anything you are withholding from someone in this community – something that is stirring inside of you and dying to come out of you, but which you aren’t expressing? In particular, how are you showing up for worship? Are you really showing up, expecting to fully participate in worship, expecting to fully engage with the people you encounter here? Or are you showing up in some other way – as a critic… as a bystander… as someone who expects someone else to do something in a certain way so that you can have a good worship experience? Or, are you showing up with a willingness to co-create a great worship service, which is what it takes – all of us fully showing up?

And what does your serving, your ministry look like? Does you serving bless others, and does God bless you through it, too? Because if it doesn’t… if your service or ministry is something you think you should be doing, but you hate doing it, then you should find another way to serve.

CONCLUSION

Jesus models the rhythm of the spiritual life for us. We don’t need to always practice these disciplines in the same order, but practicing all of them does bring a certain meaning to our life. More than that, we experience transformation when we have quiet time regularly with God, when we worship regularly with others, when we nurture our most important relationships with family and friends, and when we find an avenue for faithful service – through which we can be used by God to bless others. These elements form the “backbeat” of a rewarding spiritual life. And at any moment of any day, we can look at these components of our spiritual life, and with God’s help, take an honest inventory of each of the four areas.

And if something is amiss… if the rhythm of our life is off… God will reveal that to us. And then it is up to us to decide if we are ready to recommit. For that is all it takes to address any one of these aspects of our spiritual life when it is out of whack – a willingness to recommit.

EPIPHANY 3B – Jonah 3:1-5; Psalm 62:6-14; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20 –
22 January 2012 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

God Is Calling You

INTRODUCTION – “I WANT YOU”

In 1916 a man named James Montgomery Flagg created what would become one of the most famous posters in modern history. It was a picture of Uncle Sam pointing straight ahead and the words read, “I Want You for U.S. Army.” Four million copies of the poster were printed between 1917 and 1918, as the U.S. entered World War I, and the poster was so popular that it was adapted for use in World War II, also. (“I Want You for the U.S. Navy” was one variation.) Not only that, you can now go on Amazon and buy a copy of it today.

Many men and women in our country have seen that poster, heard the call, and served our country in courageous and sacrificial ways.

SITUATION – God is calling you as God has called those before us

But there is still a more urgent and more prominent call upon your life and mine. It is Yahweh calling, Jesus calling, the Holy Spirit calling, and the poster looks like this. (Hold up a Bible) The poster contains the words you hear from God when you are praying and you hear that still, small voice, definitely nudging you to do something. The poster looks like the intersection of your deepest passions and something that God needs done in the world – something that benefits other people, or the planet as a whole.

Jonah heard that call. And at first he didn’t want to go to the Assyrian city of Nineveh and “cry out against it”, so he ran away from God, boarded a ship, and a great storm came up. Perhaps you remember the rest of the story. When Jonah was on dry land again, God called Jonah a second time, again telling him to go to Nineveh. And this time he went.

Simon and Andrew and James and John, all fishermen, were approached by Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry. Jesus hadn’t done anything amazing yet, but when Jesus said “Follow me and I will make you fish for people,” they went. In fact, James and John left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men as they were mending the nets.

In the same way, God is calling you and me, too.

God is calling us to notice the poor – both those nearby and those far away – and respond in love.

God is calling us to share the good news that – with the coming of Christ – the kingdom of God is at hand.

God is calling us to maturity in our faith, where we are no longer “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14), so that we can become people who speak the truth in love and grow up into Christ – i.e., become Christ to others in the world.

In sum, we are being called to become dedicated followers of Jesus. We are being called to become willing apostles – those who are sent out by God to continue proclaiming Jesus’ message of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. But even more than that, we are to do the things that Jesus did: bring healing, teach, love and forgive our enemies, help others experience the living God, help others discover that they cannot heal and become full human beings without the presence of God in their lives.

COMPLICATION – The calling often comes with challenges

In case you didn’t catch it in the readings, this calling from God often comes with challenges. Jonah was called to preach to the Assyrians, a people who had treated Israel brutally in the past. He doesn’t exactly want to see God give them a chance to repent and be forgiven, and when they do repent, Jonah is not a happy camper.

And James and John leaving their father Zebedee in the boat is not an exceptional story. When Jesus calls you and me, we are called to develop our own relationship with God, and sometimes that puts us at odds even with the members of our own family, or our close friends. Just think of some of the interactions Jesus had with his mother… some of the interactions that he had with his disciples, especially when they didn’t want him to go to Jerusalem, didn’t want him to choose the path of a suffering Messiah.

Yes, the call of God for your life may not always be what you would have chosen for yourself. The call of God for your life will mean leaving your parents behind in some way. The call of God for your life may mean leaving your “comfortable culture” behind – this American culture, the family patterns that were comfortable for you growing up, or even the culture that you came to know and love in the Church.

Paul said to the Corinthians – because he believed the Second Coming of Christ was imminent – that they shouldn’t get too attached to the present circumstances of their lives. “For the present form of this world is passing away.” (1 Corinthians 7:31) But with the rate of speed at which the world is changing today, isn’t this now always true?

God calls you and me when the present form of this world is passing away.

GOOD NEWS – God is at hand, and God is what we need most

But there is great news for us – to go along with the often-challenging call of God. And today it is found in Psalm 62.

For you see, in the midst of a world that is passing away, in the midst of God calling us to do some things that we are not even sure we can do, God is with us. God is with us to love us and guide us and encourage us and even to give us honor and safety and a stronghold… when it seems like all of the ground around us is shaking.

Did you hear the words of the Psalmist?

“For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.” (Psalm 62:6, The Book of Common Prayer)

He alone is our rock… our salvation… our stronghold… our safety… our honor… our refuge… our guide… our power – and the One who loves us steadfastly, in a way that no one else on this earth can love us.

Are you feeling the least bit scared – or a lot scared! – about the call of God upon your life? “Put your trust in him always, O people, pour out your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.” (Psalm 62:9, The Book of Common Prayer)

NEW BEHAVIOR

How is Jesus calling you today? If you are not sure, read your Bible. Pray. Listen to the faithful voices of those around you, for the call might come through them. And pay attention to what is going on in the world, especially to those who don’t seem to have much of a voice.

For Jesus is calling you. Jesus is calling you because He sees something special in you, and has faith in you… in the very same way that he saw something special in Simon, Andrew, James, and John… in the very same way that he had faith in them. They were ordinary people – just like you and me – who were capable of doing extraordinary things when they remembered that God was with them, and that the Holy Spirit was their source of power.

Yes, God is calling you. He is not pointing a finger or wearing a white top hat with a blue stripe and a white star. But you know what? Though millions of copies of that Uncle Sam poster have been printed, the Bible is the number one selling book of all time. There is a reason. People know, deep down, that they need God in their life – for so many reasons. And despite the challenges that may come with the job, people want to respond to the call of God. I do. Don’t you?

Jesus says to us again today: Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.

Let’s follow him, no matter what the cost may be.

EPIPHANY 1B – Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11 – 8 January 2012 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Overwhelmed with God

INTRODUCTION – Life can be overwhelming; baptism = overwhelm

Life can be overwhelming. It can be overwhelming in a good way, as when we get married, or see a child being born… when we accomplish something significant after a period of extended dedication, or when we witness something so beautiful in nature or see someone do something so loving that we are overcome with emotion.

Life can also be overwhelming in a frustrating or sad way, too, as when a loved one dies, or we first hear of the diagnosis that we don’t want any part of, or we go through something that involves severe physical pain, or a relationship ends or shifts and there is intense emotional pain.

Today, the first Sunday in Epiphany, we always hear the story of Jesus’ baptism. The root meaning of the word ‘baptism’ is ‘to be overwhelmed” – in this case, overwhelmed in the sense of going under the water… the water coming over you and surrounding you and taking away your breath, and – for some moments, at least – giving you a sense of unpredictability and fear and even – oh, my God! – what would it be like to never breathe again… what would it be like to drown right here in this water… what would it be like to die? If you have ever surfed or body-surfed and gotten hit in just the wrong way by a wave and tumbled over and over and you weren’t sure for a while which way was up, or if or when you were going to pop back up to the surface – and breathe sweet air again! – if you’ve ever experienced that, then you know something about what baptism is really about. It’s overwhelming.

And, in fact, it’s meant to symbolize both a dying and a coming up out of the water to a whole new life. The dying is to a prior way of life that was without God, and I would say that life without God is d-e-a-t-h. When the early Christians were baptized and they came out of the water and went up on the river bank, usually on the opposite side of the river from where they had entered, and were given new white garments to put on – garments that symbolized victory… victory over death and new life with Christ… there was a very real sense that you had died to that old life of wandering around without God, and you had been given not just a whole new lease on life, but a whole new life!

What I also know to be true about baptisms is that the witnesses are often overwhelmed, too. The parents, the grandparents – and maybe just folks like you and I who are not related to the person being baptized – become overwhelmed and overcome with emotion, because we know that something big is happening, something truly wonderful is happening, and that God and the Holy Spirit are indeed descending not only on the person being baptized, but on us, too. It’s the same feeling of overwhelm that often happens at a wedding or at a graduation or at an ordination or at a 50th anniversary celebration or at a funeral. We are reminded that God is indeed with us – the Holy Spirit is powerfully present – and we are overwhelmed… overwhelmed by God, really. You might it call it being overwhelmed with God.

So what I want us to remember today is that our Christian life – our eternal life-long journey with God – began with being overwhelmed. That’s important.

SITUATION – Life’s overwhelming moments

That’s important because as we go through life, we continue to experience significant life events where we are overwhelmed. We are either overwhelmed with how amazing and awesome and unspeakably beautiful life can be, or we are overwhelmed with how brutal and painful life can be.

As I alluded to earlier, one day we are seeing a child being born and we are rendered mute. All we can do is cry our eyes out and hug our spouse, and then latch on to that new-born babe like we are never going to let go. And then – 18 years later or so – that same person is heading off to college to find their calling, their path, and their great love – and you are crying your eyes out for a very different reason. But what’s true is that you are overwhelmed.

Or you’ve just heard that your parent or your child or your spouse or your best friend – someone very close to you, or you yourself – have cancer. And maybe you’ll make some adjustments and accept it or take on the challenge in a few days or weeks or months, but in that first hearing you are mostly just shocked and overwhelmed, and even though – on a head level – you know that people get diagnosed with cancer every day, you just keep muttering, “I can’t believe it! This doesn’t seem real!”

COMPLICATION – What are our options?

What are our options, in such moments of overwhelm? I suppose it is somewhat easier in the moments of overwhelm that are about pure joy. We want it to share the good news with someone, and that usually occurs afterwards. But in the moment itself – as the child is being born, as the child is being baptized or getting married, as you are bowled over by that sunrise or by the story of love and sacrifice that someone is telling you, you simply feel it. You let the feelings come and flow up and out and over, and so you cry or shake or scream or laugh, or maybe you do all of those things in a few seconds’ time. And after you’ve lived on this earth long enough, you don’t even apologize anymore, because you know it’s not something to apologize for. It’s just life and how amazing and beautiful life can be, and you know – deep down – that’s there’s absolutely nothing to apologize for. You think to yourself, “I am having an emotion, a God-given emotion, because I am a human being and I have a heart and a spirit and a body, and life gets to me sometimes.” And that’s a good thing – a really good thing!

And what about the times when you and I are overwhelmed with the hard stuff of life… with the bad news? Well… then we really see the different choices that we make as human beings, don’t we? Sometimes we want to go somewhere and hole up and hide, and that’s what we do. Sometimes we are mainly feeling anger – anger about having so little control – and we express that anger in some way. Sometimes the main thing we are feeling is fear – fear of not knowing what to do, and fear of what the future might hold. And sometimes, the moment we begin to feel afraid we stuff that feeling down, and just try to “buck up” and move on. We try to ignore the big feelings… the feelings of overwhelm… and we just decide we are going to try harder to make our lives work, and it’s as if we’re hoisting a backpack that is twice as heavy as the one we were carrying before the terrible news arrived, and – by God – I’m sure not going to ask anyone else for help, because – you know how it is: I can make it in this world by myself! These are all options, but perhaps, if we stop and take stock, we can admit to ourselves that some of them are healthier than others.

GOOD NEWS

Here’s a suggestion when the stuff of life is overwhelming you, when you are just like the Psalmist in Psalm 69, who writes: “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.” (Psalm 69:1-2)

Here’s a suggestion: Remember the beginning of your Christian life. Remember your baptism. Remember the waters coming not only up to your neck, but being poured over your head, and overwhelming you. And here’s the most important part of remembering your baptism: Remember that God was with you in that moment of overwhelm… AND called you his beloved child! The same Lord God promises to be with you always – anytime, anywhere, in any situation, no matter what. And that – by definition – means that He is with you in all times of overwhelm.

You might even say that – in these moments of overwhelm – God has us right where he wants us. Because in these moments, we may very well be so overwhelmed that we fall to our knees and cry out to the Lord, “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck… and the flood sweeps over me!” In these moments we remember that in fact we need help – BIG HELP! We need more than our own strength and power. We need God’s strength; we need God’s power. We need God to be with us – in the very midst of our sense of overwhelm – to carry us over to the other side. We need God to be with us and remind us that He has already won the victory, and that – for us, too – the victory has already been won. And that what we need to do, more than anything else during these times, is to be reliant on Him, trusting that He will be our boat in the storm.

CONCLUSION
Feeling overwhelmed today? Or were you feeling overwhelming recently? You know what? That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially when we remember that our whole life with God began with being overwhelmed… especially when we allow ourselves to cry out to God, and to grab the lifeline that He gladly offers us.

THE HOLY NAME OF JESUS – Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 8; Galatians 4:4-7 or Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 2:15-21 – 1 January 2012 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Holy Names, Holy People

INTRODUCTION – The Naming of Jesus

Today we celebrate the holy name of Jesus. We read in Luke: “After eight days had passed [from Jesus’ birth], it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” (Luke 2:21) Jesus – meaning “salvation”, or “the Lord is salvation” – the name given by the angel Gabriel, during his visit to Mary, before the child was conceived. The reading from Philippians, one of the options for today, fast-forwards us through Jesus’ life, his obedience “to the point of death – even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8), and his exaltation at the right hand of God. The one who humbled himself has been exalted by God and we are reminded that God “gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus ever knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…” (Philippians 2:9-11)

WHAT MAKES A NAME HOLY?

So… what makes a name holy? I suppose in the case of Jesus it’s not too hard to put it all together. Conceived by the Holy Spirit… come to be our Savior, Messiah, and Lord… to be called Son of the Most High, Son of God (Luke 1:32, 35) … “you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) It’s the whole package – the circumstances of his birth, what he came to do, what he did, how he did it, the fruit of his work… eternal life offered to all who believe in Him. He originated in God and lived a holy, perfect life. So yes – his name is holy. Not only that, God gave him the name that is above every name. Jesus’ name is holy, and the holiness of the name is inextricably intertwined with his origin in God, and in what He did. His name – Jesus – is holy, because he is holy.

But if we continue to think about the word “holy”, and what it means – “belonging to or coming from God; consecrated; sacred” (Webster’s New World Dictionary) – we are reminded that things are holy when they belong to God, come from God, are consecrated to God or are blessed by God.

You have a name. Do you know what it means? Do you like your name? Does it fit who you are? You meet people now and then who have changed their names, but most of us were given our names by our parents. You meet people in the Bible whose names were changed by God. Abram became Abraham; Sarai became Sarah; Jacob wrestled with God, or with a man sent by God, and had his name changed to Israel. Saul became Paul; Simon became Peter. Names are important. Sometimes, when we have gone through a transformation, the transformation is so huge that a new name is warranted.
And sometimes the new name is just a sign of maturity. “Mikey” finally becomes Michael; Susie finally becomes Susan. Or perhaps, when we reach adulthood, we decide we prefer the shortened version of our name.

But back to “holy”… “belonging to or coming from God; consecrated; sacred.” What strikes me once again, as we begin another year, is that all of life is holy, because all of life comes from God. When I think about the miraculous nature of human conception, human gestation, and a child being born… there is something so holy about the process. It is so God-driven, so sacred. Where there was no life before, suddenly – in a relatively short amount of time – there is life! That’s a God-driven thing!

Whatever you think of your name… whether you love or hate it, whether you tolerate it or don’t even give much thought to it anymore because you are so used to it, when you think about the times your name has been said with tender love and the times when it has been called out in the midst of deep anger… no matter what you think of your name, there are a few things that are true about you, that you need to remember as you begin another year.

1. You originated in God.
2. You were designed to belong to God.
3. You are holy.
4. And God chooses to bless you.

And just as God put his name on the Israelites – “You shall be my people, and I shall be your God” – we are his people, too. We are his children. Through Jesus we have been adopted as his children. God has no grandchildren. Each of us is his beloved child, and God has sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we cry out, “Abba! Father!” (see Galatians 4:4-7) We belong to God. We have come from God and – in the end – we will be returning to God. So we are holy, because we belong to God, and the one we belong to is the Holy of Holies.

LIVING INTO WHO WE ARE

Perhaps that can be our mission in 2012, to live fully into our names, into the people that God knows us to be: beloved children of God…blessed ones… followers of Christ… holy. And living fully into our names can reveal to us the other part of that mission: not just to see ourselves as beloved, blessed, followers of Christ, and holy, but to see our neighbors that way, too.

Yes… you are a beloved child of God, and so am I.

You are deeply blessed by God, and so am I.

You are a follower of Christ, and so am I.

You are holy, and so am I.

You have been made, as Psalm 8 says, but a little lower than the angels, and you have been adorned with glory and honor… and so have I.

The same One who made the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets and the galaxies, made you… and me, too.

CONCLUSION

In 2012, let’s claim our blessedness and our holiness, and do everything we can to live into it. And let’s see the blessedness and holiness in each other. And let’s give all the glory to God, and to his Son Jesus Christ – whose name is above every name – and to the Holy Spirit, who enables us to call God “Abba! Daddy!”

And may you, beloved child of God, know – throughout 2012 and through all of your days – that you are blessed in the same way that the people of Israel knew that they were blessed.

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-25)

These are words to treasure in your heart in 2012… words to meditate upon and treasure:

• The Lord (Yahweh)
• Jesus
• Spirit
• Bless
• Keep
• Shine
• Gracious
• Peace
• Follower
• Holy
• Beloved
• You
• Me
• Abba

“O Lord our Governor, how exalted is your Name in all the world!” (Psalm 8:10)

ADVENT 4B – 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Canticle 15 (The Magnificat) or Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38 – 18 December 2011 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Holy Waiting, Part 4 – Waiting, in Faith and Love… for Love

INTRODUCTION – God happens

I believe it was John Lennon who said “Life is what happens when you are making other plans.” Today’s gospel lesson about Mary being visited by the angel Gabriel would suggest that Mr. Lennon was mostly right, but that he missed it by one word. Today’s gospel might be summarized: God is what happens when you are making other plans. Or, if you want to make it fit on a bumper sticker… God happens.

Let’s review the story, shall we? And let’s not go so quickly, thinking we already know every detail, that we miss some of the key points.

THE INTERACTION BETWEEN GABRIEL AND MARY

Here’s how Luke introduces the story: “In the sixth month [of Elizabeth’s pregnancy... who would give birth to John.... who would become known as John the Baptist] the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.” (Luke 1: 26 ______)

Let’s stop right there. God had a plan. And God sent a messenger – an angel named Gabriel – to visit a young woman in a little nowhere’s-ville town. The woman was a virgin and happened to be engaged. Why this woman? What are we told? She had “found favor with God.” (verse ______) What had she done to find favor with God? We can gather a little bit from the rest of the story. She didn’t totally freak out when the angel showed up. She didn’t say, “That’s the most insane plan – my giving birth to the Son of God – that I’ve ever heard of! Go back and tell God that he needs to come up with a better plan than that!” No. She had a very practical, matter-of-fact question, the type of question that probably any other woman in her situation would have had. “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The point is that God saw some key traits in Mary:
• Someone who already believed in God, and in the goodness and love of God
• Someone who was waiting for God to show up… even expecting God to show up in some way, and to act in a way that was true to God’s character… i.e., in love
• Someone who was open to God intervening in her life, and changing her life, her plans – and her! – forever

What else do we notice in this interaction? Luke says that Mary was perplexed by Gabriel’s greeting, but she also must have looked scared.
For Gabriel said, “Do not be afraid, Mary…” All of us get scared. Being scared is one of the five main God-given feelings. Yes, God happens, and so does fear. And sometimes the two go hand-in-hand. When God shows up, sometimes it can be a very scary thing.

But our fear isn’t meant to be a destination. As Fritz Perls once said, “Fear is excitement without the breath.” Mary kept breathing and kept listening to what Gabriel was saying to her, and some very exciting things were being said! She was young, but already a person of faith. And faith – well – that’s the opposite of fear. Faith that God is with you… faith that God is for you… faith that God wants what is best for you. That kind of faith will elicit “yeses” and movement. So Mary kept listening… listening for the deeper message.

I think what she heard was all the love in the message.
• “Greetings, favored one!”
• “The Lord is with you.”
• “You have found favor with God.”
• “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus…. and he will be called Son of the Most High… He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
• God wants to do all of this through you, Mary.

She heard all the love at the very core of Gabriel’s message. She knew she was having an encounter with Love, and she had been waiting – in faith and love – for this encounter with Love. Now it was happening. For – you see – God happens. God is what happens when you and I are making other plans. God is what happens when you are making other plans – like getting married to your fiancee, Joseph, and expecting a rather normal Jewish life. God is what happens when you are making other plans, but open enough to change those plans when God shows up.

THE “HOW” MOMENT

And yes – Mary had her ‘how’ moment. “How can this be, since I am virgin?” A totally logical question. Often, before you and I say ‘yes’… before you and I make a big commitment, we want to know the ‘how’.
• How can we get married?
• How can I move to another state when I don’t have a job lined up yet?
• How can we be parents? I’m not ready!
• How is this dream of mine ever going to happen?
• How could I tithe?
• How could the Broncos win any games with that man playing quarterback?

And what kind of answer does Mary get? Is it satisfying? It depends, I suppose, on who you are. Here, I’ll summarize it for you: “It’s a God-thing, Mary! The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you… For nothing will be impossible with God” – and some people would hear all of that and say, “What a bunch of pie-in-the-sky religious gobbledegook! What I hear is blah-blah-blah-blah.”

But Mary – a young woman, but already a woman of faith… Mary, a women who had been waiting in faith and love, for Love… Mary, who was open to a loving God intervening in her life… Mary, who was open to being forever changed by God, paused and then uttered one of the most powerful lines of faith ever proclaimed by anyone… anywhere… in any generation. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

In other words, “I put myself in your hands, Lord, trusting in You, trusting in your Love, trusting in your plans. I am your servant. I am at your service.”

I read a similar quote recently from Thomas Merton. “… more and more I realize God wants me to put myself in His hands, and let Him take me through the things that are to come, and I must learn to trust Him without fear, or questions, or hesitation, or withdrawal.” (A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals, p. 362)

Isn’t that what Mary did? And then… then the angel Gabriel departed from her.

But God didn’t depart from her. God was right there, ready to accompany her on the next step, and the one after that, and the one after that. All the way to Jesus’ birth, and the arrival of the magi, and the flight into Egypt, and the time Jesus, as a boy, accidentally got left behind in Jerusalem. And the death of Joseph, and Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan, and his brilliant teaching, and that wedding in Cana and bringing Lazarus back to life and healing the blind man and the lepers and feeding the crowds and the arrest and that joke of a trial and – oh, my God – the crucifixion! And the mighty, out-of-this-world resurrection and seeing him again and eating with him again! And the ascension into heaven. For, you see, nothing is impossible with God.

CONCLUSION

We wait – in faith and love – for Love, for the God who is Love, for the God who often has way better plans for us than we have for ourselves. And when we wait, believing in this God of love… when we wait, loving and appreciating and being grateful for how God has already shown up in our lives… when we wait with an openness to God intervening in our lives, with an openness to having the way we see the world turned on its head… with an openness to having our very lives turned upside down – maybe with some fear and some growth pains, but always for the better… when we wait openly like this, and expectantly, waiting for the God of Love to show up… then that is what happens.

God shows up. God happens.

Just ask Mary. God is what happens when you are making other plans.

ADVENT 3B – Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126 or Canticle 15 (The Magnificat);
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28 – 11 December 2011 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Holy Waiting, Part 3 – Waiting for the Power of God to…

INTRODUCTION – A mini-Pentecost during Advent

I’ve thought for some time now that one of the intriguing things about today is that it’s as if God is giving us a mini-Pentecost, right in the middle of Advent! You’ll recall that on Pentecost we celebrate the “birthday of the church” – the day, soon after Jesus’ ascension into heaven, when they had been waiting, as Jesus commanded, to be clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49), that day when the Holy Spirit came down and rested on the disciples so powerfully that they could suddenly speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability, so that the foreigners in Jerusalem could hear the good news about Jesus and God’s saving deeds in their own languages (Acts 2). That’s a God thing, that’s a power thing, that’s a Holy Spirit thing – and that’s Pentecost!

Today in our opening prayer, the Collect for this Sunday, we hear: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us…” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 212)

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…”

It’s as if God knows, and the author of this prayer (whoever it was) knows that as we wait in Advent for the coming of the Lord… as we acknowledge that waiting can be difficult… as we acknowledge that sometimes we might not even be sure exactly what it is we are waiting for… as we sometimes wait in unproductive ways, waiting for the wrong things…. it’s as if God knows that what we are waiting for, deep-down, more than anything else, is God’s power – the strength and the mightiness of God to do the things that most need to be done, that only God can do. Or, perhaps to say that more accurately, the really important things that you and I can do, but that we can only do with God’s help… that is, with God’s strength and power.

Sometimes people outside of the faith ask us very good, basic questions, such as: What do we need God and God’s power for? And this is just one of the reasons that I love scripture so much. Today, through the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, God reminds us what we are hungry for. God reminds us why we so desperately need Him, and why we so desperately need the power that comes with the Spirit of God.

Listen, as I take you back through our lessons for the day.

LESSONS FROM THE LESSONS – What we need God and God’s power for

We need the power of God’s spirit to deliver us from our sins, which “sorely hinder” us. And sin does more than that, of course. Our sin leads to death – our death. And we need God’s power – God’s forgiving power, in this case – to deliver us from death, and to lead us into new – totally brand-spanking new – life… abundant life.

We need the power of God’s Spirit that brings good news to the broken-hearted. Is there anything you are brokenhearted about today? Make no mistake. It is God’s power – perhaps working through other people or through a sunset or a scripture passage – but it is God’s power that will heal your broken heart.

We need the power of God’s Spirit that proclaims liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners – not just those imprisoned in actual jails, but also those who are imprisoned in any way. By addiction, by our thoughts, by our narrowness of thinking, by our stubborn hearts. In the very midst of that imprisonment, it is God who shows up in all of His power and proclaims, “There is another way! You can be free! Even those of you in actual jail cells can be free!”

We are waiting for the power of God that proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor. Man alive, aren’t we all waiting for that?!? In a world full of bad news, in a world where many people talk to you more about what you do wrong than what you do that’s truly wonderful, aren’t you waiting to hear God proclaim, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Your are my beloved daughter (beloved son), and with you I am totally over-the-top pleased!”? And what would it be like to hear that message for an entire year – the year of the Lord’s favor? Aren’t you waiting for that?

We are waiting for the One who has the power to comfort those who mourn. God may do that through your dog, through your family, through a really good grief group, through a book, in the stillness – but it is God who is the source of that comfort, however it may come to you.

We are waiting for the power of God that can give us a mantle – a cloak – of praise, instead of a faint spirit. God has that kind of power, my friends, to turn our fears and our barely-alive energy into an energetic stream of praise, because God has the power to transform us.

We are waiting for God’s blessing, not just individually, but upon us as the people of God. And guess what? God has the power to bless us! Oh, boy does He!

We are waiting – this has to said among all the things that we are waiting for – for salvation. To be healed… to be made whole… to be reconciled with God, with others, and with ourselves. And only God has the power to save us.

Shall I continue? I’m just getting started with words of hope from today’s lessons!

We are waiting for the power of God so that we can know laughter and joy, so that we can even have the capacity to “rejoice always”. Do I need to remind you that joy is one of those things listed by Paul as the fruit of the Spirit? And that the Spirit is the power, the comfort, and the presence of God?

And maybe, just maybe, we’re waiting for God to scatter the proud in their conceit, and to lift up the lowly, and to fill the hungry with good things (cf. Luke 1:51-53). Maybe we’d like to learn how to pray without ceasing, and how to give thanks in all circumstances. I can assure you, if you’d like to make those your goals, you are going to have to tap in to the power of God!

We are waiting for the power of God’s Spirit that helps us testify to the Light, the power that helps us point to Christ so that others can encounter the One who is the way, the truth and the life.

We are waiting for the power of God’s Spirit so that – like John the Baptist – we can speak the truth about who we are and who we are not… and speak the truth about Whose we are, too.

We are waiting for the power of God’s Spirit so we can be led into the deepest of all truths, that there is only One who is perfectly loving… there is only One who loves ALL of us unconditionally… there is only One who is absolutely and perfectly worthy – the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.

We are waiting for the power of God that – how do I summarize all of this? – helps us with all the challenges of life, helps us to discover new life, helps us live the loving, serving, and abundant life to which He calls us.

CONCLUSION

Yes, yes, you betcha! I am waiting for the power of God, for the strength of the Holy Spirit. For without it, I can do nothing of ultimate value, nothing of consequence. But with it… with the power of God – well, what did Paul write to the Philippians? “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13) The “him” he refers to there is Christ. Through the power of Christ, I can do all… – ALL – things!

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, world without end. Amen.”

ADVENT 2B – Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8 –
4 December 2011 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Waiting for the Lord, Part 2 – Waiting, Commitment, and Listening

INTRODUCTION – Review of Last Week, and Israel During Jesus’ Time

Last week I began a sermon series on “Holy Waiting” and I said the One we are waiting for is the Lord, and that the kind of waiting that God calls us to is an active waiting, an on-tiptoe waiting, an eager kind of waiting, for we anticipate that the Lord will show up. This is a waiting that occurs after we have committed our way to the Lord. This is an “I’m in, Lord… I believe in You, Lord… I believe you are going to tear through the heavens and come down and change things for the better” type of waiting.

Before Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River, and even before John the Baptist stepped on the stage, there were plenty of people in Israel who were on the lookout for the Messiah. Faithful Jews were living under the foreign rule of the “not so holy” Roman Empire, paying taxes to the emperor and expected to pay homage to him, too; that was the situation. Only there was more to it than that, of course. An occupying army, and wondering every single day if you might say something, or not say something that you were expected to say, that would get you into hot water. Wondering each day if you would continue to have your freedom to worship, too.

You don’t think, if you’d been a faithful Jew up to this point, you’d be praying harder than ever, attending synagogue faithfully every Saturday, and saying to your friends, “Now! Right now would be a great time for the long-promised Messiah to show up, preferably with the power to rally a Jewish army around him, and drive these powerful but God-mocking Romans right out of Israel”? You might have said it quietly, and been mighty careful about who you said it to, but you would have been saying it. For there’s nothing like everything you hold dear being threatened with extinction to make you long – more than ever – for God to break through and make things right.

ENTER JOHN THE BAPTIST – To whom do I listen?

In the midst of this longing for the Messiah, you suddenly hear a lot of folks talking about a man. Folks are even talking about him before and after worship at synagogue. “Did you hear about this guy named John out by the Jordan River? He wear camel’s hair for clothing and eats locusts and wild honey, and tells everyone they need to repent and be baptized so that their sins will be forgiven. But who is he? And why doesn’t our rabbi seem to know who he is? Did you hear about the rabbi in Bethany? He went out to find out more about John, listened to him preach, was baptized by him, and came back and told his people all about what happened, and now he’s encouraging the members of his synagogue to go see John and to be baptized by him! What do you think? Should we go see him?”

They would have been pulled in two directions, at least. One pull: to just keep doing what they had been doing – going to their local synagogue if they lived out in the country, going to the temple if they lived in Jerusalem – taking part in the worship, saying the prayers, reciting the Shema, observing the Sabbath and all the various Jewish laws. Keep following the tradition, in other words.

The second pull: Leave your home and head for the Jordan River, to see what this John character – who kind of acted like a throw-back prophet from 600 or 700 years ago – had to say.

Here you are, with two forces pulling on you: the tradition that has grounded you and been passed on to you by so many generations of faithful Jews before you, and that man with the strange clothes and the strange diet, all by himself, and yet drawing crowds of city folk and country folk out to hear his direct, tell-it-like-it-is preaching.

(At this point in the sermon, have the John the Baptist “plant” cry out, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” And have the tradition “plants” start singing the “Tradition! Tradition!” refrain from The Fiddler on the Roof)

What choice do you make? Do you stick with the tradition and keep doing what you’ve been doing? Or do you go out to see what John has to say? Or is it a both/and, and do you do both?

LISTENING

After you and I have committed to following Jesus, and we are seeking some guidance for the next steps we are going to take, it’s mostly about listening. And, of course, with all listening, there is discernment. Who do you listen to? What do you read? Which voices that are out there and which writers that are out there are themselves listening to God? Where do you focus your efforts? How do you spend your precious time listening?

The Bible suggests that both kinds of listening are important. It’s important to read and study and seek guidance from the Holy Scriptures. And the Bible is also clear that we sometimes ignore the holy prophets – the people sent my God to speak for God – at our peril. And then, just to make it more interesting, the Bible talks about false prophets, too!

So how do you know when it’s the voice of God calling to you? One way you can tell: When you are a little too full of yourself, and think you know everything, and are ignoring the plight of others, God tends to send someone who will challenge your complacency… your arrogance… your obsession with your own self. And, on the other hand, if you are the one who is down on your luck, if you are the one who has been overrun by another person or another country, God tends to send a word of hope.

“Comfort, O comfort my people,’ says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all hers sins.” (Isaiah 40:1-2)

That is what the Jews heard when they were in exile, after being conquered by the Babylonia empire in the sixth century before Christ.

Which sort of word do you most need to hear today, if you are really honest with yourself and with God? A word of challenge… or a word of comfort and hope? Listen for it!

Listen for it by reading the scriptures.

Listen for it by paying attention when you are here on Sundays.

Listen for it by putting a request before God in prayer, and then listening for an answer.

Listen for it by asking questions of your friends, and listening to their answers.

Listen for it by paying attention to the unexpected person who shows up in your life, who might just be a modern-day John the Baptist, preparing the way for you to meet the Lord.

Listen by noticing anything unusual that happens in your life, something that doesn’t quite fit your normal routine. You know, along the lines of God appearing in the midst of a burning bush, or God telling you that you will conceive and bear a son…

CONCLUSION

When you’re waiting for the Lord, after you’ve chosen to follow him, you’ve got to be listening… paying attention… on the lookout. Because He’s always just a breath away. But sometimes you and I miss Him!

ADVENT 1B – Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37 – 27 November 2011 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Holy Waiting, Part 1 – Waiting for the Lord

INTRODUCTION – A culture that has trouble waiting

We are a culture that has trouble waiting, and it might be getting worse. In the world of the internet… in the world of email and texting, in a world where people now update their Facebook page several times a day, we expect everything to happen instantly. You’ve probably noticed that “holiday creep” is getting worse and worse, too. The first Christmas merchandise offered for sale in the Costco near my home was on display at the end of August. I saw some ads that said “Black Friday begins at 10 pm on Thursday.” Do you hear that? Friday now starts at 10 pm on Thursday; so make a note of that, please. That ad demonstrates pretty clearly how much trouble we have with waiting. Do stores really need to open on Thanksgiving? For some people, Thanksgiving seems to have become a day to get over with as quickly as possible so that we can get on with some serious Christmas shopping.

I wonder: Does the phrase “Good things come to those who wait” have any traction at all in our society today?

ADVENT AND WAITING

One of the preeminent themes of Advent is waiting. On one level I experienced this as a child, and probably you did, too. For me, the waiting was about a countdown to Christmas morning, and opening presents. What would be under that Christmas tree? There were some family rituals that helped with the waiting – Advent calendars, and baking cookies while listening to Christmas music, and putting up the lights and the Christmas tree. Such anticipation! The waiting had excitement wrapped all around it and in it, so much so that it was hard to be in school some days during December, and when school finally let out for the holidays, those days off prior to Christmas seemed to go on forever.

I knew Christmas was about the birth of Jesus, but I totally missed another prominent theme of Advent: waiting for the second coming of Christ, waiting for our Lord’s return “in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead.” (from the Collect for the first Sunday of Advent)

So I begin this four-week series on holy waiting by reminding you that it’s not just any kind of waiting that we are talking about. This isn’t waiting in the checkout line. This isn’t waiting for your spouse to change in a way that you really want him or her to change. This isn’t even waiting to see what your gifts will be this Christmas.

It’s waiting for a personal encounter with the Lord, one way or another.

It’s about waiting each week and listening the the lessons anew and re-living the Christmas story like a child, and having your relationship with Jesus be renewed and transformed in the waiting.

It’s about waiting on tiptoe, being alert and awake, living your daily life as faithfully as you can, and all the while thinking that Jesus might return tomorrow, and mess up everyone’s Christmas plans – and being absolutely okay with that.

Or it’s just waiting for the Lord to show up in the way that you most need him to show up. For the Israelites who were in exile, what they wanted – more than anything – was for God to “tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at [His] presence… to make [His] name known to [His] adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at [His] presence!” (Isaiah 64:1-2)

Perhaps you are waiting for the Lord to come and execute justice, too. Perhaps you are waiting for him to bring healing. Perhaps you have had a rough year, and you are waiting for the Lord to show up and bless you in any way at all, just so you know that He is present, and that He cares personally for you. Perhaps you are waiting for a word from the Lord – the exact word you know not, but you know you are waiting for some guidance, for some wisdom from above. Perhaps you are waiting for a situation or a relationship in your life to be transformed, or for you yourself to be transformed. Perhaps you are waiting for the love of your life – a lifelong partner – to show up, and you have a sneaking suspicion that God could play a big role in answering that prayer.

AN ACTIVE WAITING

The Bible makes it clear that waiting for the Lord is not some passive activity, where we just sit back and wait to be overwhelmed by the Lord’s presence. No, holy waiting is a very active thing. We first make ourselves available to God in some way. We might express to God our desires; we might walk over to see why the bush is burning but is not consumed; we might choose to wrestle with God; we might hear the angels words of invitation and not fully understand, but say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” In one way or another, we make ourselves available to the Lord. Second, there is listening involved – listening to our lives in a way that we are paying attention to what we read, paying attention to what is read in church, paying attention to what our friends say and what total strangers say. And – related to the listening – there is a being on tiptoe, a being on the lookout, an expectancy, an anticipation that the Lord is indeed coming, in the same way that a pregnant woman anticipates that her baby is indeed coming. Another way to say all this is that there is an openness associated with this kind of waiting, an eagerness to this kind of waiting.

Why? Because nothing is more amazing, nothing is potentially more life-transforming, nothing provides a bigger high than a personal encounter with the living God.

But there is one thing that must be said: The very word “waiting” implies that we don’t know exactly when God will show up. In the same way that we know the gestation period for a human baby to be born in around 280 days, we don’t know exactly which day that brand-new person is going to make his or her appearance in the world. Similarly, we can’t force God to meet our schedule. It strikes me that Jesus’ words about his second coming might apply to all encounters we have with him. “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.” (Mark 13:32-33)

CONCLUSION

Yes, we have entered into a holy season of waiting. It’s holy because the One for whom we are waiting is holy. And this is a different kind of waiting from the sort we normally encounter in the world. It’s not a waiting that’s mostly about frustration, but rather a waiting that is pregnant with hope. It’s not an anxious waiting, but a faith-filled waiting, because the One we are waiting for is loving and faithful. There is something in this waiting that is very similar to a child’s waiting for Christmas, though. This waiting for the Lord is laden with excitement, for we anticipate in our waiting how the Lord – when he shows up – can transform any situation.

I’ll end today with some wonderful verses from Isaiah:

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:28-31)

PROPER 28A – Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30 – 13 November 2011 – A sermon by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

My Dream for St. Ambrose

INTRODUCTION – The Parable of the Talents

The three slaves in Jesus’ Parable of the Talents were all entrusted with outrageous amounts of money, for a talent was worth over 15 years’ wages of a laborer. So one of them was given more than 75 years of wages, the second was given over 30 years wages, and the third was given over 15 years wages. If the story is to represent God and us – and I think it is – then Jesus is saying that God trusts us immensely, that God has great faith in our abilities. The three slaves were each given the talents “according to his ability”, as Jesus puts it. Clearly the master saw huge abilities in each of them. They were stewards serving the interest of their master, and they were expected to do something with this money – not only protect it, but produce something with it.

I wonder if some benefactor handed you or me such a large amount of money what our response would be. Would we see it as an amazing opportunity? Would we put our most creative energies into dreaming and scheming, or would we freak out and be afraid like the third slave in the parable, create a story that the master was harsh (a story not created by the other two slaves), and do ourselves in by letting our fear get the best of us?

What would I do if I were given a huge amount of money is not that different a question from what would I love to see happen at St. Ambrose. We have been given this community, which means that we have been given each other, with all our diverse and undeniable gifts and talents. And I deeply believe that it is our Lord’s desire to keep blessing us and teaching us. Not only that, just as in Jesus’s Parable of the Talents, our Lord has great faith in us to be about the work of the kingdom – to do good, to offer healing to others, to serve others in ways that make the world a better place, and to use what we’ve been given – our creativity, our particular genius, our money, our love, and – yes – our dreams to take something amazing – you, me, us, and the Holy Spirit – and turn it into something even more abundant and more amazing.

So having said all that, here is my dream for St. Ambrose. Here’s what I would love to see happen here.

A COME-AS-YOU-ARE PARTY

I would love to see St. Ambrose be a come-as-you-are party. On one level, what I mean by that is that all our welcome: young, old, black, white, brown, straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, baptized, unbaptized, recovering Catholics, recovering Baptists, recovering what-evers, high church, low church, saints and sinners of all stripes.

On anther level, though, what I mean is that you would not check your emotions at the door when you walk in the doors. We would not only know what the five basic God-given feelings are but we would not be afraid to feel them or even talk about them or share them. In other words, you wouldn’t have to stay home if you felt sad or angry or scared. You wouldn’t have to worry about making others feel uncomfortable if you were really happy, or if you were having a sexual feeling. You could come as you are, and not feel like you had to cover any of those feelings up. In other words, you could be fully who you are – be authentic – and nobody would freak out or say you’re “breaking down” or “going off” or “in a funk” or “sky high” or “too out there sexually.” We’d all know that you were simply having a feeling, and that in ten minutes you might actually have a different one.

OPEN TO GROWTH, LEARNING AND TRANSFORMATION

At the St. Ambrose of my dreams, every person would realize that you can come as you are AND that once you get here, you may discover that God is calling you to “become” some more. There would be a strong bias toward learning, growth, and transformation. We’d want that for ourselves and for each other, and we’d constantly be asking each other, “What is God up to in your life and how are you changing, how are you different than you were last year or five years ago?”

WORSHIP

In the St. Ambrose of my dreams, we will all show up to worship in a way that everyone is fully participating, expecting each time we worship for the Holy Spirit to be among us and surprise us in joyful, vibrant, and powerful ways. I dream of a church where the main postures or attitudes of our worship are gratitude, praise, joy, and generosity. I dream of 80 ASA at the early service and a 150 ASA at the second service.

A.R.T.

In the St. Ambrose of my dreams, we would continue to put a strong emphasis on prayer, worship, and on serving and welcoming others. And, we would place a strong emphasis on practicing the A.R.T. skills in whatever group or meeting we are a part of.
A – giving and receiving APPRECIATION
R – taking full RESPONSIBILITY for what we want to create in our lives, in our relationships, and at St. Ambrose
T – TRANSPARENCY – being way more invested in speaking the truth in love and being authentic, than in being nice (For you see, when we all go around trying to be nice to each other, without being authentic, the energy, and – for that matter – the creativity of the Holy Spirit, goes right out of the building)

IMPACT – RELATIONSHIPS AND LEADERSHIP

I dream of a church that is known across the Diocese – and maybe beyond that – for teaching relationship skills. I see the number of participants in the Transformation Learning Community (TLC) doubling, and drawing in more people from outside of St. Ambrose. I also see us as being known as a training center for leadership development, and this, too, would extend beyond the membership of St. Ambrose. I see headlines and articles in the Boulder Camera about what St. Ambrose is doing to foster both healthy relationships and strong leaders.

SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR DREAMS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED

I dream of a church where any member who shares a dream or a BHAG (a big, hairy, audacious goal) has support from the community to bring it to fruition, a community where we help each other discern and pursue the God-inspired dreams and passions of our lives.

FLOWING, ABUNDANT MONEY

The St. Ambrose of my dreams is a place where money is available, flowing and abundant, a church where money is never the reason given for why we can’t do something. Instead, whether or not we do something is totally based on prayer, listening for God’s guidance, sharing the deepest desires of our hearts, and moving forward with faithful action, trusting that the money that is needed will show up. The St. Ambrose of my dreams will be a church that moves beyond budgets and will be a-buzz with what God is doing in us and through us, and at least 50% of the money given by members will be going outside the church to support other life-giving ministries and programs.

GROUPS – CONNECTION, TRANSFORMATION, PURPOSE

The St. Ambrose of my dreams will have 30 or more young people in the youth group. There will be 50 or more in Sunday School. The St. Ambrose of my dreams will be a place where all kinds of groups meet together on days other than Sunday. That will be true for families with children. There will be a young adults’ group, a men’s group, a women’s group, a hiking group, and any other groups that meet the needs of our members. These groups will satisfy each person’s need for connection, transformation, and purpose, and folks in these groups will find meaning and purpose through service.

HEALTH

The St. Ambrose of my dreams will be a place where we regularly take risks of faith, stepping into commitments in which we don’t know how our big commitments are going to be realized. We will support each other in this risk-taking, and trust that God will show up – often in unexpected ways – to give us exactly what we need, when we need it, for we will know that God is not only with us, but also for us.

In the St. Ambrose of my dreams, there will be no gossip. Members will speak directly to the person that they need to speak to. Folks won’t have time to sit back and complain or be judgmental about what other people are doing, because they will be too focused on being creative, fully-participating members of the community. We won’t be consumers of church. We will be creative partners, working together to be about the work of the Kingdom, with God’s help.

MOVING FORWARD – You dreams for St. Ambrose

This is my dream for St. Ambrose. There may be some things you resonate with in my dream, and other things where you say, “Uh… not so much.” What’s next is for you to think about what you would love to see at St. Ambrose, and to offer it. Over the next ten weeks or so, leading up to the Annual Meeting at the end of January, I would ask you to add your dreams to this banner. You can take as many of these strips of paper that say “__________’s Dream for St. Ambrose – as many as you need – and place them on the banner. There will be two banners – more if we need them – out on tables here in the nave (perhaps in the narthex, too). I am looking forward to the chance to see what all of your dreams are, and how these dreams might come together in the form of a vision that can guide us in the coming years. I am very interested, too, in how each of us will discern what our commitments will be, to make these dreams a reality. But the first step is not landing on your commitment. The first step is to let your imagination go crazy, and dream about what you’d love to see at St. Ambrose.

POSSIBLE REACTIONS

Another way to put it: if anything were possible… if we had unlimited time, resources, and energy, what would you love to see at St. Ambrose?

I’m aware that there can be different reactions when someone asks us what we want. So I am going to list some of them now, just to lay them out.

1. It’s too hard to figure out what I want so I will defer to what others want.

2. This isn’t practical. There’s no way that what I want can happen!

3. What I want matters and I’m excited to contribute.

4. I don’t say what I want and then I sit back and complain.

5. What I want doesn’t matter. What’s important is what God wants.

6. I don’t want to say what I want because then it’s up to me to make it happen.

There are some common reactions; there are many other possible ways to react. What’s important is to notice how you respond to the question, “What do you want for St. Ambrose?” You and I can learn a lot just by paying attention to our reactions.

CONCLUSION

There is a process ahead of us. I envision one or two forums in December and one or two in January prior to the Annual Meeting. In the meantime, start tuning in to what you’d love to see happen at St. Ambrose. And be on the lookout for emails from me in the next few weeks, and please add your dreams for St. Ambrose to one of the banners!

Thanks so much!