Boots the Kitten

The Rector’s Corner, May 2012  

We humans can learn much about faith from God’s other creatures, especially our pets.  I am inspired by an article Little Boots: the Cat that Walked by Faith by Lillian Daniel in the Christmas, 2011, issue of The Christian Century.   A true story, Lillian and her husband came upon this emaciated but loving kitten who was making an empty container of Kentucky Fried Chicken jump in the middle of the street as she attempted to claim any remaining morsels of food.  They took her home and fattened her up but were puzzled by her repeated bumping into furniture and walls until they realized she was blind.  In those early “poor days” of their marriage they moved several times and each time Boots, named after her long black hair and white paws, would have to adjust to a new environment of walls and furniture until she had it figured out.  She never gave up, never was defeated, managed to flourish and continued to love.  She became a model of faith for Lillian because she was willing to push forward into the unknown, probing with her paws, making wrong turns, taking her bumps  and ultimately succeeding, the cat that walked by faith and not by sight.

The day came when Lillian, pregnant with her first child and often perched with Little Boots on her bulging tummy, rising and falling with each breath, found out the kitten had a terminal illness, the cause of the blindness.  She and her husband could not afford the costs of pregnancy/birthing AND the treatments Boots needed.  Lillian fell into a deep depression, wondering how she could care for a newborn, if she couldn’t provide the care needed by Boots, let along become the caring minister she aspired to be.   She stopped caring for herself, stopped eating and bathing and became despondent.  Then a seminary classmate brought her an envelope of money collected by her classmates to pay for the treatments.  She pulled out of her funk and even bathed, much to the relief of her husband and classmates.

Little Boots didn’t make it, but she was with Lillian and her husband long enough for them to learn the lessons of faith and love and trust.  Eighteen years later, that baby boy is going off to college and Lillian has a new challenge to her faith.

God does come through, often not the way we would prefer, and rarely without the help of others.  Animals have the advantage of not much introspection; they tend to live in the present more than we “worry worts.”  It may be that our pets do more for us than we do for them, especially if we let ourselves learn from them.

Another sign of hope in our confused world is the continuing story of Gary Weinstein, the Novi jeweler who was the core of my Easter Sunday sermon.  Gary’s forgiveness of the man responsible for the death of his wife and children was featured on CNN and is the inspiration for a national movement, Project Forgive.  Funds are being raised to make a documentary about Gary Weinstein and the drunken driver he forgave.  You can stay tuned on www.projectforgive.com or in Rochelle Riley’s column in the Detroit Free Press.

Moving now to international church news, Rowan Williams has resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury to return to university teaching.  Dr. Williams is head of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the American Episcopal Church is a member.  It is the second largest Christian denomination in the world.  If the name Rowan Williams sounds familiar, it may be because we pray for him on many Sundays.  Dr. William’s successor will be chosen this summer.  To my surprise a letter came to St. Stephen’s asking us to input the name of any candidate that we would suggest to be the new Archbishop.  Let me know if you have such a name.

I wish you all the blessings of this Paschal season.                          John+   

The Lord is My I-Phone

Sermon: Psalm 23, John 10: 11-18 Easter 3, 2012 It is clear to me that we live in a very different culture from that out of which came the Bible, both old and new testaments. That culture was steeped in sheep and shepherd folklore. The ancient patriarchs all had huge flocks of sheep. God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush when he was tending his father-in-laws’ sheep. David was tending his father’ sheep when Samuel came to anoint him king. There were shepherds at the stable in Bethlehem, the angels announced Jesus’ birth to them. Jesus often used the imagery of sheep and shepherds in his parables. He will come at the end of time to separate the sheep from the goats. He described himself as the Good Shepherd, who left the 99 in search of the one that was lost. He told Peter to feed his lambs and his sheep. Clergy are referred to as pastor, which means shepherd. And so on... Hearing these stories over the years and the multitude of sermons based on them we have come to understand pretty well and to apply this imagery to our own lives. But the fact remains that it comes from a culture foreign to our lives. Let me ask you. When was the last time you saw a flock of sheep? Have you every shorn a sheep of his wool? Do you know a shepherd? Maybe a sheep dog? I rest my case. It’s time to express divine messages in language coming out of our contemporary culture in order to be more relevant to this 2012 generation. Here’s an example of right-between-the-eyes, third millenium, preaching the Word of God. The Lord is my I Phone; I shall not want. She finds me a Comfort Inn when I travel on the turnpike and recommends the best watering spots. She revives my soul with country music and leads me on right paths as well as any GPS. Though I drive through the valley of Rt. 23 I fear no state trooper or eighteen wheeler. for you are with me; my e-mail and my voice mail they comfort me. You spread many tables before me, Wendies, and Coneys and Paneras and Cracker Barrels. You have found my favorite shampoo and my diet coke runneth over. Surely Comcast and Verizon shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell with credit card debt in the house of Silicon Valley. Well, maybe the shepherd language wasn't so bad after all. May the Good Shepherd forgive me and King David or whoever was the human author of the 23rd psalm. I would like to leave you with a serious message and hope you will blot out from your memory any sacrilege I may have committed. The message is that we are all sheep. Good shepherds care for us by feeding and clothing and healing and visiting us in jail as THE Good Shepherd said. But we are all also called to be shepherds, good shepherds, who feed and clothe and house and heal and visit in jail and love, as Jesus said. Sometimes each one of us is a sheep needing to be cared for; sometimes we are the shepherd who provides the care, but all of the time we are one or the other and sometimes both at the same time. Peter the Apostle is a good example. Jesus fed and nurtured him. He mentored him to be the head of his church, but as we know Peter let him down through his denials. The Good Shepherd didn't give up. He came to him after the resurrection and gave him a chance to repent. Then he made him the chief shepherd. Peter and the others were still cowering, though, until the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. Then they went out and started preaching; Peter became the shepherd he was called to be. As we heard in the reading from Acts today, he was hauled before the very same people who had engineered Jesus crucifixion. When that happened he ran way, a lost sheep. This time he stood his ground as any good shepherd would. Everyone need to love and be loved. To care for and be cared for. And sometimes, sometimes, the I-phone can help that happen. V

Unexpected Life

Sermon: Easter ‘12 Years ago I had a homiletics professor, (that’s a preacher-teacher) who said we should prepare our sermons with the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other. That’s what I did this week, only I hadn’t planned it that way. First, let’s talk about the Bible. Then later the newspaper. Jesus, who is featured in the Bible, made a habit of doing the unexpected, the counterintuitive, not what the ordinary person would do. At the age of 30 he walked up in his local synagogue and started interpreting the scriptures with such power that people wondered where he got such authority. He basically declared himself the messiah. They tried to kill him then and there. This was all so unexpected, this knowledge and this effrontery that even his brothers and sisters didn’t take Him seriously. It didn’t stop there. He continued to do one thing after another over the next year or three before he was killed, unexpected things. He hung out, even dined, with disreputable people, like internal revenue agents and escort girls. He conversed with the hated enemies of the Jews, healed them and held them up as examples of neighborliness, the Good Samaritan. He did terrible things to break the Sabbath rest, like healing people in pain. And when his followers urged him on to be a kingly messiah he forbade them to tell anyone of his mighty deeds because he came to establish a different kind of kingdom. Oh and after he was tortured and put to death in the cruelest possible way as a common criminal he had the effrontery to rise from the dead, that is if you choose to believe in the resurrection. His closest associates, Mary Magdalene and the Apostles, didn’t believe he would rise, even after he had been telling them repeatedly what exactly would happen. One of the most unexpected things He did was forgive those who tortured and put him to death. That is, if you choose to believe these things. Oh, many of us, maybe most of us here today say we believe in the resurrection because, well in Christian circles, it’s kind of taken for granted. Belief is more than an intellectual assent, however; faith goes well beyond just saying “I believe.” Faith demands a commitment to live the life of the risen lord, to follow His example, to change the way we go about doing thing. You say, “If believing in the resurrection means doing what he did, that’s impossible. I can’t walk on water, change water into wine, feed thousands with a few loaves of bread and fish and heal everyone who comes to me.” No, but you, we, can do some of the things he did, like forgiving those who tortured him. Let me give you an example. This is the newspaper part. I came home from church on Palm Sunday picked up the Free Press and there front page and center, was my sermon. The headline said “Power of Forgiveness.” It was hard to miss. Sometimes God has to hit me right in the middle of the forehead to get the message through. It was the story of Novi jeweler, Gary Weinstein, who in May of 2005 lost his entire family, wife and two sons, at the hands of a drunken driver. That driver, Tom Wellinger, with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit was going 70 mile an hour in a 45 mile zone on 12 mile near Orchard Lake Rd. when his Yukon SUV rear-ended the Honda Accord carrying the Weinstein family, minus Gary, on their way to the orthodontist. These were two Farmington Hills families with children in the same schools, whose parents at least had never net. At first Gary Weinstein wanted vengeance, justice to the fullest extent of the law. But he gradually he learned some things about Tom Wellinger, like he was a recovering alcoholic with several years sobriety that life had recently hit hard and he had relapsed. Ironically that very day his family of origin was gathering from around the country to do an intervention to get him back into treatment. Before the year was out Gary Weinstein visited Tom Wellinger in the Oakland County Jail before Tom began his sentence of 19 to 31years in the penitentiary. All Gary could think to say to him was “How are your kids?” The response was “I haven’t seen my son in over a year.” “I haven’t seen mine either,” said Gary. Tom asked, if he could ever forgive him and Gary asked if he could forgive himself. Well, Gary did forgive. At first he wanted punishment to the fullest extent of the law, but later he testified in favor of early release. How he got to that point is a long and inspiring story, which you can find on line at www.freep.com for Sunday, April 1. He is now participating in a documentary about forgiveness in the hope that Tom Wellinger can speak and the world will not consider him a monster. And that his children can heal. Today Gary Weinstein is free of vengeance and resentment. Resentment is a toxin. It was Malachy McCourt who said “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other guy dies.” So, Jesus isn’t the only one who can forgive those who inflicted pain on him. Because of who he is and what he did we can do the same. You say, “Wait a minute. With a name like Weinstein Gary is probably not Christian.” And I say “Wait a minute. Who said Jesus died and rose only for those who claim to be Christian?” If you have chosen or do now choose to believe, I mean really believe, not just the formality, you have been amazed or will be amazed at what can happen, like forgiving your enemies, especially on a beautiful Easter Sunday.

Lest We Forget

Sermon: Easter Vigil, 2012 This is the “Lest We Forget” night. We are here lest we forget that Friday precedes Sunday. Good Friday and the Crucifixion precedes Easter Sunday and the Resurrection. It is the in between night, the service that starts in darkness and ends in light. Both Friday and Sunday are brought together in one service. All those centuries of darkness are commemorated by the prophecies you heard, with the theme of water in them. Light entered into darkness with the coming of the Messiah and that light spread like the new fire spread through this church tonight with the entry of the paschal candle. Paschal means the lamb, referring to the lamb that was eaten at the Passover meal, symbol of the Lamb of God who was sacrificed on the cross and rose from the dead. Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The water is blessed with the plunging of the paschal candle into it and it becomes the source of new life through Baptism. This night is the primary time for the baptism of new followers of Jesus. It is not mainly about getting baptized so I can go to heaven someday. It is about becoming part of Christ in this world so as to Christianize the world. Lest we forget our role as members of Christ we recommit to our baptismal vows as adults. Lest we forget, that means we carry the light of Christ into the world by the way we live up to those vows. We now are celebrating the Eucharist of Easter with all the bells and alleluia s and joy we can muster.