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.

Halo Shining

Halo Shining
Sermon: Psalm 51, Hebrews 5:5-10
5th Lent, March 25, 2012

Let’s take a quick journey through thousands of years of God’s work among us, through the Old and New Testaments and up to the present time. It will be a fast trip and we will have glimpses of biblical characters and passages. Hopefully, it will all make sense in the end. Think of the intro to the current tv show, the very popular, Big Bang Theory, At the beginning of the show there is a fast moving collage that takes the viewer from the origins of the universe, through the evolution of life, into the study of physics and up to the present time. So our biblical journey will be similar. What would a tv show be without a commercial, though? Our commercial this morning is for the Scripture 101 class that meets at 9.30 most every Sunday morning. We are taking a quick journey there through scripture and invite you to get on board, if you haven’t already.

Okay, ready for this journey, here we go. Picture Adam and Eve in the Garden, shamed because they sinned. Suddenly we see old Abraham. He approaches the priest Melchizedek, who offers to the God Most High a sacrifice of bread and wine in Abraham’s name. Next there is David, God’s favorite king, breaking three of the ten commandments, like all at once, and then composing that great psalm of his repentance, Psalm 51, the one we prayed after the reading from Jeremiah this morning, “Have Mercy on me, oh God.”

Then there is Jesus at the Last Supper offering up the sacrifice of bread and wine, a foreshadowing of his sacrifice the next day upon the cross. We hear echoed today’s words from Hebrews, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

A quick transport in the salvation time machine and we see the present day Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, writing one of her many books. What is Sister Joan saying?

“One mistake we often make is to accept perfection as our standard, as our goal. When we imagine that we will never fail, failure hits hardest. Perfection is an oppressive standard and no Christian this side of heaven will ever reach it. The problem, of course, is that we fail. We know ourselves to be weak. We stumble along, being less than we can be, never living up to our own standards, let alone anyone else’s. We eat too much between meals, we work too little to get ahead, we drink more than we should at the office party. We are all addicted to something. Those failures and addictions convince us we are worthless and incapable of being worthwhile. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy of the worst order because it traps us inside our own sense of inadequacy, of futility, of failure.”

Do her words feel familiar? What’s to be done about this condition? If we can’t be perfect, do we just give up and “go the way of all flesh,” to quote St. Paul. Well, let’s go back through the time machine and get the bigger picture. God didn’t give up on us. In that mythical story of the fall in the Garden, God didn’t give up on Adam and Eve and on the human race. When David broke those three commandments (he lusted after his neighbor’ wife, he committed adultery with her and he had her husband killed so she could be his wife.) God didn’t give up on David and David didn’t give up on David. His repentance is expressed in that remarkable psalm that can be our expression of repentance, if we need it.

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through and through from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin.”

The thing about it is Christ has won forgiveness for us. He offered the ultimate sacrifice upon the cross; that sacrifice is re-presented and we are invited to enter into it each time we celebrate the Eucharist. He is a priest forever according to the Order of Melchizedek. Remember that Melchizedek offered the sacrifice of bread and wine, way back in the days of Abraham, just as we will today, only it has much more power and meaning now because of Christ’s death and resurrection. And there will be a time in today’s service, very soon in fact, to express our repentance and hear the words of forgiveness. Then there is also the opportunity to go for personal confession.

So, what about Joan Chittister’s words concerning perfectionism. I find them encouraging. We can’t be perfect as we tend to define it. So, let’s give it up. We don’t give up trying to live the Christian life, we just stop trying to be perfect. We will screw up and be less than we think we should be. I dare say, very few of us will screw up like David; and he was forgiven because he repented and made amends. And so will we, if we repent and make amends. We have to forgive ourselves. Most of the things we beat ourselves over the head about aren’t sins at all but failures to live up to our own self-image, you know, trying to shine up the halo.

Baby Powder

Sermon: Gen. 17:1-16, Mark 8:31-38
Lent 2, March 4, 2012

When the comedian Yakov Smirnoff first came from his native Russia to this country he was amazed at what he found in our supermarkets. “On my first shopping trip I saw powdered milk—you just add water and you get milk. Then I saw powdered orange juice. You just add water and you get orange juice. Then I saw baby powder and I thought to myself, ‘What a country.’”

He was speaking the truth about America. We don’t have baby-making down quite that efficiently, but we are into fast-food, fast-communication, and fast-solutions. Sometimes we have the same approach to religion. Powdered salvation. Mix with water, Baptism maybe, and you have instant salvation. There are two kind of extreme approaches of this type. One is the evangelical Christian approach of accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior and you are saved. It comes across as fast-food salvation. I haven’t looked but maybe there are cans of powdered-salvation for sale in the Christian bible stores. Without beating up on the evangelicals too much and continuing to over-simplify their belief, let’s look at the other end of the spectrum, the Roman Catholics. Their emphasis on the power of the sacraments can come across not only as fast food religion, but instant salvation, as well. The belief, for instance, that if someone is baptized and dies suddenly, they go immediately to heaven or that through confession and the sacrament of anointing a dying person also goes immediately to heaven, smacks of salvation-in-a-can theology. Indulgences, which guaranteed passage from Purgatory, and the sale of which triggered off the Protestant Reformation, are thankfully not for sale any longer.

How about us Episcopals? Are we immune to such thinking? Since we share both Protestant and Catholic origins, we are susceptible to this kind of magic from one side or the other. We consider ourselves the bridge-church, assimilating both the best of Catholicism as well as of Protestantism. We need to check if we are always assimilating the best. Are we perhaps into instant salvation, as well?

Part of the problem is an over emphasis on the afterlife. If I see salvation as primarily about life after death, my major goal will be to do whatever I can to go to heaven and avoid hell. Then I’m tempted to do it the easiest way possible. Go and get saved or receive the right sacraments just before I die.

If, on the other hand, I see salvation as primarily dealing with this life, the one we have right now, then I will take a very different approach. Let me present an approach which I think is much more in keeping with Scripture and with human nature. It is a roadmap for living. It is called transformation. In other words, the purpose of our life and our calling as a Christian is to transform ourselves with God’s help and that of the Christian community into a true follower of Jesus. This does not happen overnight and we can’t get it from canned religion. It is the work of a lifetime. The afterlife will follow from it as naturally as day follows night, sight follows blindness and resurrection follows death.

Today’s readings are transformational. In the Old Testament reading, God is speaking to Abraham when Abe was 99 years old and telling him he would become the father of many nations. Abraham had already done a lot of living and because of his faith he found favor with God, but his faith was still in need of strengthening. When he is told he and Sarah would have a son both of them in different passages are described as laughing in disbelief, but they came to believe, and they had a son, Isaac. That wasn’t enough. Abraham is further tested by God who asked him to sacrifice that son Isaac. Through Isaac Abraham became the spiritual father of Jews, Christians and Muslims, but he didn’t find faith and salvation in a quick fix. His transformation was slow and painful.

Paul in today’s reading from Romans speaks of Abraham and tells us he was justified by his faith and we his spiritual descendants are justified in the same way, by our faith. That faith is not a mere intellectual thing; it is the work of our heart, of our whole self, of our whole life.

In the Gospel reading from Mark Jesus is having trouble getting his disciples to believe he is going down to Jerusalem to be crucified and that they are going with him. They want the quick earthly messiah, establishing His kingdom with them as his lieutenants. None of this crucifixion stuff. He ends up having to say ”If any want to become my followers let them take up their cross and follow me.” This is how we are transformed, not by powdered religion, but by trying to walk with him in faith wherever he leads us. That doesn’t mean we should go out and ask to be crucified. Trouble in the form of challenges will come without our asking. How we deal with them is the determining thing. Do we deny them, run away from them or, worse, try to handle them all by ourselves, as if He and those who care about us were not on this journey with us.

Lent is that time when we figuratively go down to Jerusalem with Him. I’ve asked you during this Lent to work at giving up worry. And you say to me, “Give up worry and you tell us we are going down to Jerusalem to be crucified with Him.” Ah, but you see, that’s the Christian bind. We are called to accept life in faith and hope and love, but to realize we don’t have to face it all alone. He is there, often in the person of caring, loved ones. In another place he has told us that his yoke is sweet and His burden light.

The Number Forty

Sermon: Gen: 9:8-17 and Mark 1:9-15
1st Lent March 26, 2012

The number 40 keeps popping up today, along with a number of other themes. If I were superstitious I might use it to play the lottery. The Old Testament reading about Noah, for example, is preceded in the book of Genesis by the story of the great flood. It rained 40 days and 40 nights in order to cause such a deluge. Then in the Gospel of Mark we are told that Jesus after his baptism was driven by the Spirit into the desert for forty days. And the season of Lent, which we began last Wed., lasts for forty days.

Then there’s the water. All that water in the flood, the waters of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan and the practice in the Episcopal Church of blessing the new waters for Baptism at the Great Vigil of Easter.

What emerges for me from this symbolism is a theme of death and resurrection. Yes, God made this idyllic world described in Genesis where all things were in harmony, but when men and women messed it up He got fed up and moved to destroy all life on earth. That’s the death theme. Yet he provided a way for life to regenerate by saving Noah, his family and all those animals. That’s the resurrection theme. And He set the rainbow in the sky after the rain as a reminder to himself, but mainly I think for us, that He will not destroy like that again. Now the rainbow doesn’t come after every rain or even after most rains, but when it does come and we get to see it is such a beautiful, hopeful sign.

Jesus goes off into the wilderness, like a death to his old life, certainly a major departure from His former life. He goes back to nature, to the elements, and comes out ready to begin His life of preaching. Baptism symbolizes all that dying to the old way and rising to the new life.

Lent is the time to think and pray about these things, a time for going figuratively into the wilderness to get our heads straight, to focus on elemental things, those things that are most important. It is a time to get rid of the debris that builds up in our lives, the old ways, as it were, those things that distract us from that which really matters. Hence the custom of denying ourselves as Jesus did, of giving up things during Lent.

It is time to stop focusing on things as problems or disasters, but rather as opportunities. Noah sensed this; he sent the birds out to see if there was dry land yet. They had a great opportunity to start the human race all over again and God sent them a rainbow as a sign of hope. Lent is a time to look for the rainbows. If we don’t look, we won’t see.

We have been through a bad time economically in this country, especially in this state, but there are signs that the worst may be over. We are not out of the wilderness quite yet, though, and before we leave the wilderness let’s resolve to not return to the old ways of taking things for granted. Times of scarcity are times of opportunity to band together and help one another. Times of plenty are times of temptations to just look out for number one, ourselves. So maybe as things continue to improve we will just return to our old ways and not remember the lessons learned in an economic downturn, like what is most important. Let me ask “what things are most important for you?”

As is my custom and as I mentioned last Sunday, I am recommending something to give up this Lent. In previous years the recommendations have been resentments, prejudices, and gossip. This year it is worry. Not an easy one. As a help let’s look at the Serenity Prayer. It is a prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, the great Protestant theologian. He is, reportedly, President Obama’s favorite theologian. That would make sense. I hope the president has been able to pray the prayer and benefit from it during these three plus years in the wilderness. The prayer has been popularized by the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and the other Twelve Step groups. You know it already.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Okay, let’s look at those three elements. If there is something bothering me that I don’t have the power to change, rather than worry about it, I need to just put it in God’s hands. If there is something about me that I need to change, then rather than fret about it I have to get on with changing it. If I am worrying about something and don’t know if I can change it or not, then it is time, big time, for prayer. So, I recommend we use the number 40. Each day of the 40 during Lent stop, center yourself and say the prayer. Ask the question what am I worrying about? Decide which of the three situations applies and move accordingly. Oh yes, four of the 40 have already passed. So that means do it twice for four days in order to catch up.