Stay salty, my friends (sermon for 5 Epiphany)

How appropriate that our gospel reading today talks about salt!  Where would we be without salt these days?  In our driveways, most likely. Or, on our bums on the sidewalks.  Salt makes it possible to survive winter.

Actually, you would be amazed at all that salt can do.  This chemical combination of sodium and chlorine has quite a history.  The need for salt led animals to natural deposits and early hunters to animals.  Ancient Britons set up a small city near the Thames to wait out the tides as they carried salt from the north to the south of their island nation.  That city is now London.

Salt was used as money in many cultures.  You could purchase slaves or pay soldiers with it.  If someone wasn’t worth their salt, you knew exactly what that meant. The word salary comes from the same root word as salt.  So, does salad…as long ago, people used to salt their green veggies.  Ranch dressing hadn’t been invented yet.

Spilling salt means bad luck to superstitious folks. This stems from that famous Leonardo da Vinci painting of the Last Supper, wherein Judas overturns the salt container. However, throwing salt seems to counteract this bad luck.  If you pitch the salt over your shoulder, you hit the devil in the eye and chase him away.  Sumo wrestlers still throw salt in the ring to purify it before a match. 

Battles have been fought over salt!  The French Revolution grew from the people being forced to purchase salt from royal providers only.  Lord Howe of England stole George Washington’s salt reserves during the Revolutionary War in America.  The salt factories in the Confederate south were of the first to be captured by Northern armies.  Gandhi led a march, in protest of British salt taxes, to the sea, where he made his own salt.  That action began India’s journey to independence. 

The Brits are slow learners.

Salt is an absolute necessity for life itself.  Our nerves wouldn’t know how to synapse without salt. The electrical systems that keep us breathing and keep our hearts beating both need salt to work.  Of course, the amount of salt needs to be in perfect balance.  Too much salt gives us high blood pressure.  Too little, and we just shut down.

So, when Jesus calls his disciples “the salt of the earth” – he wasn’t messing around!  This was one serious metaphor. There were three attributes that I believe Jesus was trying to get his disciples to think about with this salty metaphor:

Number One: Salt is a preservative. Jesus’ disciples were called to preserve his message.  But, this isn’t a call to let the good news settle in, dry things up, and keep them the way they are.  This preservation is about keeping the essence of Jesus’ message of God’s love throughout the ages.  The good news is for all times and all peoples.

This is kind way to say “this isn’t about you.”  Being a disciple wasn’t about how far you could go or how famous you could become.  Being a disciple was about learning the message and sharing it.  Like anyone using salt, you have to be aware of how much to use.  The good news, while refreshing and hopeful to some, may be somewhat of an acquired taste to others.  There are times to hold back as well as times to just let it pour.  To do that means to pay attention, to get to know the people around you. Share what you can, when you can.  Know when to stop so that you don’t turn people off.

We’re also salty in a preservative way when we embody the love of God through acts of mercy and kindness.  Keeping a child fed or a family housed or a prisoner visited helps preserve their dignity as human beings.  This is a great segue to the next attribute.

Number Two: Salt is used to purify.  Jesus’ disciples were called to be purifying agents. Now, there’s an impossible task if I ever heard one. 

But then, who would think that tiny little crystals would turn dark pavement white as snow or turn slippery ice into evaporating water.

Made aware of God’s love, we are to go about our world making it a better place.  Thankfully, there are lots of us out there charged with this task.  I think one of the most important sentences I ever heard during one of my Cursillo experiences was “Jesus has already saved the world.  You don’t have to do that.”  It was a sentence that reminded me that while I did have responsibility to discern what I could do in my sphere of influence, the entire planet wasn’t on my to-do list.    

Discernment, though, is as multifaceted as a salt crystal.  It requires education, prayer, listening, patience…and that’s just on your end!  It also takes community.  Rarely does it happen that God knocks on the door of your heart with a message like “Go be a teacher” or “See that kid over there, go read to her.”  No, usually we find out what God has in store for us because other people have seen talents inside of us that should be shared in specific ways.  Or, it is the conversation between friends that ideas come forth or needs get discovered.

Once we’ve discovered our calling we do move about this world making it a little brighter.  Individually and collectively, as we share the love of Christ, we melt the iciest hearts and make the darkest of perspectives as clean as new-fallen snow.  How amazing is that!  Which brings me to…

Number Three:  Salt was/is valuable.  We call veterans of the sea “old salts” because their experience and wisdom is to be honored and respected.  Jesus’ disciples were of infinite value to him when he walked this earth and we are of infinite value now.  Each and every one of us has experience and knowledge that are needed: each and every one of us. I was reminded of this just a few weeks ago when a young person asked me why grown-ups make everything so complicated.  “It’s easy,” she said. “Love God, don’t judge, be nice to people.”  I needed that.  I needed her fresh, untainted perspective.  I didn’t need a Master’s degree to figure that out – I just needed her. 

Wisdom comes from all people.  We just need to value each other the way God values us in order to discover that.

So, my friends, be salty.  Preserve the good news of Christ within yourselves and share it with those you know.  Make the world a little brighter.  Remember that you are of infinite value. 

Amen.

 (c) 2014 C. B. Park, all rights reserved

Joseph's Annunciation (Sermon for last Sunday in Advent 2013)

Writers describe the season of Advent with the words expectation, hope, and patience.  Today, we can add miraculous.  There are lots of miracles happening in Matthew’s birth narrative.  First is the miracle that a young woman conceived a child in a way we simply are unable to understand.  The most important miracle, though, is that she didn’t end up the way that most young women in her situation ended up.  The responsibility for that miracle was completely in Joseph’s court.  Yes, I know, he had a dream.  But even before the dream, Joseph planned to treat Mary very differently than most.  Other women in this delicate position would most likely have been put to death, or at least maimed, by stoning.  You see, adultery in that age was not a violation of a person’s morality, it was a form of robbery.  Joseph would have been well within his rights to have had Mary punished, but he didn’t.

It was a miracle.

Joseph planned to ‘dismiss her quietly’.  Joseph had compassion despite his disappointment and anger.  He put Mary’s needs before the community mores and before his own embarrassment.  And, that was pre-dream!  

The angel’s message to Joseph was much more than a request for him to go ahead with his plans to make Mary his wife.  Joseph was the subject of another annunciation.  God needed Joseph’s “yes” as much as God needed Mary’s “yes” to set out the plan of salvation.

Poor Joseph.  His “yes” gets lost in the midst of all of our nativity scenes and images of Mary great with child.  All the attention is on the pregnant one.  It’s still the same in our day, too.  Not too many people throw baby showers for the dads.  Even though the prevailing politically correct reference is that WE are pregnant, WE all know who’s taking the brunt of this new life in her womb.  The dude isn’t working through morning sickness, the swollen ankles, the elevated blood pressure, the exhaustion and eventually labor and delivery. (Now you know why my son Kevin is an only child.)

Thankfully, once every three years, we are asked to consider Joseph and how much his “yes” mattered.  Without him, Mary would have had no guardian – something that was a matter of life and death at that time.  Thanks to Joseph, Jesus had brothers and sisters – a family who eventually would join the apostles in sharing the good news of God’s coming kingdom.  

Without Joseph, Jesus would have had no one to teach him a trade or insist on his learning the faith. The Incarnate Word needed a place to grow up.  Thanks to Joseph, Jesus had an earthly mansion – a home – in which to become fully human.

God didn’t ask for a “yes” that Joseph and Mary could just forget later, their “yes” took a great deal of courage.  It required a leap of faith.  I know that we sometimes use that term lightly.  It was even used for the title of a movie starring Steve Martin a while back.  This isn’t fair to the commitment that Soren Kierkegaard had in mind when he coined it.  For him, a leap of faith was not convenient nor did it guarantee the person making the leap would benefit from doing so. A true leap of faith is a permanent choice made with total commitment, knowing that the success may not be the payoff. 

According to Kierkegaard, the moment of leap-taking is the pinnacle of a person’s freedom.   It is a fall you cannot reverse.  There are many ways of looking at this leap – from one perspective it is outrageously foolish, from another it is courageous.  Most of the time, it’s both!

When I think about Joseph saying “yes” to God by taking Mary to his side and treating Jesus as his own son, it occurs to me that there are many men – and women – out there who have done the same thing.  Stepparents, adoptive parents, even some godparents and grandparents:  they are our modern day Josephs.   Everyday there are people in our midst who have said “yes” to God and a child of God in order that love might build a family.

I also believe that our responsibility to God’s children doesn’t end when they grow up and move on to new adventures.  First of all, we never stop being parents, no matter what anyone says.  Just ask my mother.  But, we also have little ones who don’t belong directly to us who need us too.  There are kids who need to be read to, kids who just want a hug, and kids who need a warm meal. 

There are godchildren and grandchildren to play with and tell the Christmas story to so that another generation knows the love of Jesus.  To them, we are Joseph, the grown-up who adopts them out of love and because God’s dream for all of us is to be one family.  On their behalf, let’s take a leap of faith and say “yes” when they need us because too many others are quietly dismissing them.

Amen.

It's not about us.

The reading from the prophet Haggai reminded me of an old joke for which there are several punch lines.

Question:  How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?

A:  Seven: Five people to form a committee, one to mix the martinis, and one to call the electrician.

B:  Whaddya mean change the light bulb – my grandmother gave that light bulb!

C:  None…we just sit around and reminisce about how wonderful the old light bulb used to be.

In 520 BCE, the exiles have returned from Babylon, thanks to Cyrus, the emperor’s, decree.  Now they are attempting to restore the temple to its former glory with the blessing of the new emperor Darius.  Things aren’t going so well.  There are several reasons:

A: The priority of faith is lost to the priority of personal security and comfort.  A spiritual center is no longer the focus of the people’s lives.

B: Those who have some institutional memory of the first temple (even though they probably never saw it) sit watching the work and reminding the community of all they’ve done in the past to keep the faith and that the young people will never measure up.

C: The rest just want the same church they’re parents had without having to make a commitment toward its restoration.

That’s when the light bulb went on over my head:  the more things change, the more they stay the same!  The call of the prophet Haggai to the people of ancient Judah bidding them to reconstruct the Temple is our call as well.

The Episcopal Church, as a denomination, and the Diocese of Southern Ohio are both undertaking projects to re-imagine and restructure the church as we know it.  I believe both are at the stage we find the Jerusalem community in Haggai’s time.  We search through the rubble and charred ruins of what was once loved trying to find something to resuscitate.  We have no doubt that the way we are doing business needs to change if we’re to be in relationship with people today.  It’s just that we want it to change for other people and not ourselves; we think it is someone else’s job; or, we’d rather just cocoon ourselves into our safe abodes and forget about the rest of the world. 

We are going to spend time, talent, and treasure to eventually face what is already a foregone conclusion: The rational, scientific, overworked, overcommitted, world the church lives in thinks we’re boring, irrelevant, and optional.  The problem is that in doing so, we’re looking backwards.

Our theme for the month of November is “What God has been and done, God will be and do.”  This is not a statement of the past – it is a proclamation for the future.  And while it never hurts for an organization or institution to examine its structures and work to improve how it operates, we so often forget that we’re really not about the institution. 

We forget that this isn’t about us.

I was reminded of this on Wednesday at the noon Eucharist when we remembered William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury in the early-1940s.  Temple wasn’t remembered so much for being an archbishop as he was for encouraging and empowering the laity to take their place in the ministry of the church. He also understood that the church was not an extension of the nearest country club or the private religious home of the perfect. Temple didn’t believe that the church existed for the people in the pews at all!

He is oft quoted as saying “The church is the only social society that exists for those who aren’t here yet.”  His work challenged the status quo within the institutional church as well as of the balance of profit and service to the community. 

It was interesting to hear our keynote speaker at convention talk about the role of the deacon in the church. She talked about the ministry of deacons in the context of the baptismal covenant in order to remind us that we are all in ministry together.  She said at one point that one role that deacons play is to help goad the church into exile.  INTO, not out of….exile.  At the time it seemed like such a contrast to this lesson.  Or is it?

When the people of Israel were in exile, they had to trust God.  When they were in the wilderness with Moses, they had to trust God.  Now that they have returned from exile, God has taken a back seat to security and privilege.  Having returned from exile, it was now all about them. 

It’s not about them and it’s not about us, and it isn’t about the institutional church. It’s more than balancing a budget or growing attendance. 

Ultimately, it all comes down to how much we’re willing to trust God and work toward the reign of God in our lifetime.  Ultimately, that’s what Advent is about.  We know things are a mess. We know the ‘good old days’ are gone.  But, do we remember that God is with us?

God’s encouragement rings through the voices of the prophets.  “Take courage.” “I am with you.” “My spirit abides with you.”  “Do not fear.”   

Each time we courageously step out to do a new ministry as individuals or as community, we are making a choice for the reign of God.  Each time we say “no more” to a ministry we’ve done but it doesn’t work anymore, we are saying “we trust God” with the future.  When we stop thinking about ministry as “we” helping “them” and begin understanding it as “us” helping “each other,” the shackles of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and prejudice will begin to rust and crumble. As we become aware of the presence of God in every aspect of our lives, we will discover that people around us will get caught up in the Spirit’s transformative power and we all will be changed for the better.

God has been for God’s people a constant source of glory and confidence.  God will be this source no matter what new things might signal God’s presence. 

God has always and will always do great things for God’s people.  However, God requires that we have courage, remember that it’s not about us, and work for justice.   We too are called to rebuild – not a temple made of stone, but a temple of commitment to our relationship with God.  Remember that as we begin our Advent season. 

Amen.

Pharisee or Tax Collector?

The way we usually try to explore a parable is to place ourselves in the story, maybe imagine ourselves as one of the characters.  It’s especially true for parables like the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son. When you hear the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, what do you like to do?  Are you the Pharisee? Are you the tax collector?  Are you Jesus telling the story? 

However you’ve imagined this parable in the past, today I’d like you to think about it in today’s context. Perhaps, it might sound something like this - -

Jesus told this parable to those who trust in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:  “Two Episcopalians went up to the church to pray. The cradle Episcopalian stayed in the back pew, where cradle Episcopalians always sit, and prayed thus, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other Christians: Methodists, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Bible literalists, or that thieving corporate executive over there. I know the difference between a dinner fork and a salad fork; I serve on many committees; I give a tenth of my income. Well, okay, I lied a little there – but hey, I make a pledge, I’m a good person.” 

But the Episcopalian convert would not even look up to heaven, but knelt at the altar and said, “God, forgive me. I didn’t want to lay those people off. But, it was them or me and I have a family to take care of.  I feel horrible.  Please have mercy on me and on them.”

And Jesus said to the crowds, “You are neither the Pharisee nor the tax collector.  You are both.” 

Yes, both. Both Episcopalians are dealing with being shamed before God.  Of course, it’s easier to see in the bombastic Episcopalian, but the humble Episcopalian is dealing with it too.  Both are fallen souls who have lost their balance with regard to their relationship with God. We are Pharisee and we are tax collector; we take too much pride in our own abilities and we make our confessions, truly sorry, but without any intent to change our behavior. While we might prescribe a good dose of attitude adjustment for the Pharisee, what’s really needed is reconciliation with God.  While we might suggest to the tax collector a change in professions along with a change of lifestyle, what’s really needed is reconciliation with God.  We need to be in right relationship with the one without whom we cannot even draw breath.

Being in a right relationship with God doesn’t necessarily mean you’re happy with God. Even our least favorite teachers provide wisdom if we’re willing to hear it.  Many years ago, one supervisor, for which I had little respect, told me that the measure of a person’s character wasn’t so much that they excelled in what they enjoyed as much as it was that they strove to excel at those things they didn’t enjoy.  And one of my least favorite seminary professors always warned us to “confess our own sins.”  That’s something the Pharisee hasn’t quite caught on to and the tax collector has figured out.

Understanding our need of reconciliation is difficult in our culture.  We’re taught early to cover our back sides so that no one can hold us accountable for whatever might come to pass.  (And, yet, the first thing we cry out for in a crisis is to demand the discovery of who is to blame!)  We are caught between what we must do to survive and what we believe we ought to do as believers in Jesus. We believe that we have to put on a different persona for work and for home and for school and for church. We’re afraid to be who God made us to be. After a while, the imbalance bends us over – and in some circumstances, breaks us.  We forget that God’s grace has our back. We forget that God’s love surrounds us even in our darkest moments.  We lose our center – our friendship with God goes awry.

God doesn’t abandon us, however.  God is always more ready to hear than we are to pray. We need only be willing to know and take our place in the scheme of things. When we pause to acknowledge that we’ve hurt others to benefit ourselves and drop the self-righteous proclamations, then we are open to the Spirit’s cleansing breath.  Then, we are open to do the same for and with others.

There is a reason that we usually follow the prayers of the people with a general confession.  By getting our own souls washed up and purified, we can then turn to our family and friends and offer them the peace of Christ.  There is something quite comforting about hearing those words of absolution.

But, you know what?  It’s a lot more comforting if you really put some thought into those words and what parts of your life are behind what you are saying.  It’s too tempting, in a general confession, to stay on the surface, confessing the equivalent of getting your hand caught in the cookie jar.   Those are the easy sins to confess.  If you go a little deeper, what spiritual flotsam and jetsam gets stirred up and sent to the surface?  What are those things you have done that you shouldn’t have done. What are those things that you didn’t do that you should have?  What is the evil that enslaves you? What is the evil done on your behalf?  What lies were told? What bad things have been said? What ideal hasn’t been upheld?

Before you begin the confession, take a little bit of time to think about these questions. It will help you make a new beginning by turning things around and letting God be the center of your life.  

Be humble and you shall find yourselves exalted.

Amen.

Excuses, excuses

(c) 2013 C. B. Park, all rights reserved

I was about to despair of having anything to say this morning when the phone rang.  “It’s your gym,” Steve said, handing me the receiver.  I knew what this was about.  I’d just left a less than pleasant note in the door of the gym.  For the second time that week, no one was there to open at the published business hours.  The place is closing and it’s been a hot mess for the last 3 months. 

The first thing the owner did was pronounce my name wrong. Strike one. 
Then, she prefaced her “apology” with “you have no idea what I’ve been going through.” Strike two. 
“Yes, I do, actually.  I owned my own business and I shut it down,” I said.  Well, that set her off on a tirade.  “I guess I’m not perfect like you.  I guess you do everything right.  blah….blah….blah…”  All the while I was thinking – all you should have done was apologize and assure me that my refund would be ready on Monday morning.  That’s it.  That’s all.  I’m the customer. I’m the one paying for you to provide these services.  I don’t want to hear your excuses. Strike three – I’m out.

I don’t want to hear your excuses.

“I’m only a boy,” Jeremiah said.  “I’m slow of speech,” Moses opined.  “I don’t want to go to Ninevah,” pouted Jonah. “She gave me the fruit,” whined Adam. “You’re not following the rules,” beseeched the leader of the synagogue.

Excuses, excuses.  The only thing as old as humankind has been our ability to make excuses. The fact that we can manufacture these annoying things does not give us permission to employ them.  They’re called excuses for a good reason: we want to be excused from our behavior or failing or lack of compassion.  We want to be comfortable in our mischief or mistake.  We want to push the blame off to the other. Unfortunately, that won’t work with God. Just ask Jeremiah, or Moses, or the leader of the synagogue.  God doesn’t work that way.

We, the people of God, forget that we are not the customer here.  We are not the ones who are paying for things. God is the customer in this world of faith.  God has paid the price for us.  Jesus – the incarnation of God’s love – suffered and died in witness to the incredible love God has for us.  The Hebrew scripture is bursting with stories and psalms that remind us that our gift of free will costs God on a daily basis. 
God’s people spurn the one who loves them into being, who treats them like a bridegroom treats his bride.  God laments over Israel. Jesus cries for Jerusalem. We have all of this and we disregard it.  Then we make our excuses.  Jesus continues to weep.

There was a link circulating a while back on Facebook about the phenomenon called “church shopping.”  Some people acknowledge the phenomenon as a given, a sign of the times.  People go place to place deciding whether or not they can ‘buy in’ to the services offered by the institution. Others, myself included, felt very uncomfortable with this notion.  Why?  Because when it comes to faith, we can’t approach decisions like a consumer.  We have to approach them by discernment.

Discernment isn’t about buying in.  It isn’t about getting what you pay for.  Discernment is about where God wants you to be and trusting God to provide the ways and means to live into it.  It’s true for individuals.  It’s true for faith communities like churches. 
Frankly, the consumer avenue is a lot easier and cheaper in the short run.  There’s also that whole instant-gratification-thing for consumers that discerners just don’t have.  That’s what makes it so much more appealing than discernment. 

The Facebook article’s author wrote, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people joined a congregation because they discerned that God was leading them there.”  What a difference that is from ‘I think I’ll attend here because they have a great choir’.  It doesn’t make the choir less great, but it shifts our perspective from what we get out of a community to what God wants us to be as a community.

Discernment’s other difficulty is that God might just ask you to go where you don’t particularly feel qualified or just flat out don’t want to go.  Actually, you can pretty much guarantee that.  Just look at the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs.  When I think about it, the one person who threw caution to the wind and just accepted God’s call without hesitation was an unmarried teenager in backwater Galilee.  Becoming the mother of Jesus certainly was not a smooth road, but where would we be if Mary had said to the angel Gabriel, “Honey, you can’t pay me enough to do that.” 

Discernment requires trusting your relationship with God with every fiber of your being, knowing that it’s not always going to be pleasant.  No relationship is sunshine and rainbows all the time.  Sometimes, as prophet and singer Pink would say, you’re gonna get burned…but you gotta get up and try, try, try.

I ask you to think about why you are here.  The reason may be intensely personal or it may be that you liked what you saw.  Regardless of why you came, God had a hand in it.  So, now it is time to discern what God may be calling you to be and do here.  As you chew on that over the next few days, take note of those ideas that you might be shying away from because you don’t feel qualified.  Remember, Jeremiah was only a boy.  Moses was slow of speech. The leader of the synagogue was trapped in what had always been.  God makes God’s self known in weakness. That’s what Christmas is all about! It’s why Jesus healed the bent-over woman. God also provides what is needed to fulfill God’s purposes.

Our job is to listen, trust, and take leaps of faith.  Remember – God is the customer here.  Excuses should be left at the door.      Amen.

(c) 2013 C. B. Park, all rights reserved

What I did this Summer.

School is beginning this week in several central Ohio school districts.  Everyone else starts next week.  Parents are happy, for the most part. Kids are sad, for the most part.  I was one of those kids who was happy.  I loved school.  Summer for me was an awful boring time when Mom and Dad made me play outside when I just wanted to stay in and read my books.

Summer now looks a lot like the rest of the year.  I tend to take time off in the spring and fall in order to avoid peak travel costs.  The parish begins to ramp up for Vacation Bible School just as the program year is ending.  We exhale for a little while in late July and early August.  So, mostly, I worked.

There have been some bright spots.  Some of the programming that was born previous to this summer actually took root and started to grow.  "St. Arbucks," the coffee house ministry I've been attending to for a little over 2 years now, has a core faithful.  We've begun to do a book study along with fellowship time.  Those who gather are getting closer and more trusting of each other.  "Divine + Wine" has gone from a sure 4 people to "at least 6 and sometimes more."  From the outside it may look like people having dinner together. At the table, we check in with each other and support each other in our faith journey.

The Celtic Evening Prayer service has been the most surprising of all.  Based in parishioners homes, those attending offer prayer, study scripture and other spiritual texts, chant a little, and spend time in quiet contemplation.  The group has become quite close and we may expand it out this fall. 

It's been a good summer.  Just think - fall and a new program year are just around the corner.  How exciting is that!