The Rev. Steven Paulikas November 25, 2018 All Saints’ Church Last Pentecost, Year B John 18:33-37 Every once in a while the preacher has no choice but to force the congregation to indulge him in a bit of self-reflection. For my sins and yours, I’m afraid this is one of those Sundays, so please bear with me. If you know me at all, it won’t be hard to imagine that as teenager, I was, well, unique. My friends and I were incredibly studious and over-achieving…but at the same time we thought that school—and along with it the underpinnings of the society in general--was absurd. I was as straight edged as a razor, and yet somehow I still managed to get into trouble. But no bother; I had it all under control. One day in my senior year of high school, I got a pass to go see the assistant principal. I thought maybe I was going to receive an award or some other sort of honor. So I was shocked to learn that, apparently, all the unexcused absences from my first hour class led the administration to think they could suspend me from school. I don’t know what came over me, but without flinching, I just looked the assistant principal in the eye and said, talk to any teacher here and they’ll tell you I don’t have time to be suspended, so thanks, but I’ll take a pass. And I walked right out of the office! In short, I was a jerk. But as I’ve learned to appreciate since then, my adolescent struggle with power was rooted in a deep anxiety about what it means to live a dignified and meaningful life in our moment in human history. My school friends and I were a little bit too bright for our own good. We looked around at what was on offer and thought, there has to be more to life than this. The political leaders seemed small and ridiculous. The rewards of material wealth looked ultimately cheap and gaudy. Social status was given out arbitrarily to people who didn’t deserve it. Earthly power wasn’t really something to aspire to, because it was obvious it was built on the weak foundation of insecurity and pettiness. Where was beauty? Where was love? Where was TRUTH?? Ultimately, it was these questions that led me to be a Christian. When I first encountered the Gospel, I thought, wow, here are the answers to the questions I care about most. Jesus lived a life worth living and then gives us all that same life. It turns out that beauty IS love IS truth, and all these things rest in God. In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus stands before the judgment seat of Pontius Pilate. What is Jesus’ crime? Healing the sick. Proclaiming freedom to the captives. Loving everyone he meets. Giving God to everyone. This was entirely too much for the rulers of his day. Because someone who is truly free will never allow themselves to submit to an unjust power. A person who has been set free by the Gospel can never become captive to the powers and principalities of this earth, never get trapped in the false temptations of wealth and status. Jesus said, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The truth is that you and I—we have all been created in the image of God, and once you have discovered this fact, your dignity can never be stolen from any earthly power, no matter how powerful it pretends to be. This is why Pilate feels threatened by Jesus. He knows that he has no power at all compared to Jesus. “So you are a king?” he asks Jesus. Jesus answers, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Every one of us belongs to the truth. We are citizens of heaven, and in that place, Christ is Lord and ruler of all. The pettiness of power in these times has no sway over us. There are so many voices talking about power right now. They pontificate and babble on and on and on, 24 hours a day. But they are restless and easily distracted. Do not let them distract you. There is a higher voice, and that voice speaks the truth. Listen to that voice, and you will remember what power really is—that power is gentleness, that power is mercy, that power is rarely understood in this world. Jesus tells us what power really is: listen to his voice. Back in my teenage days when I was wrestling with these questions, I read George Orwell’s book,1984. It’s a bleak vision of what society becomes when earthly power controls truth. The main character is a man named Winston Smith, and he has a job at a government agency called the Ministry of Truth. Like every organ of power in this dystopian society, the name of the agency is the opposite of what it really does. The job of the Ministry of Truth is to control the truth, because the people in power know that if you can control the truth, you can get people to do pretty much anything. They create a new language called Doublespeak with slogans like “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength.” As an ultimate sign of control, the Ministry of Truth tells everyone that 2+2=5. When Winston begins to question these so-called truths, the powers that be force him back into submission. There’s a terrible scene in the book where Winston finally becomes fully brainwashed and accepts that 2+2=5 when power tells him it is so. In that moment, Orwell writes, Winston “accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past had never been altered. Anything could be true.” And then he writes: “God is Power.” But God is not power. God is truth. We must never forget the difference. 1984 had a profound impact on me, as it has on so many people. But reading it all those years ago, I never imagined I’d be living in a time when the truth would be up for grabs the way it is today. I never imagined that this country would be vulnerable to revisions of the truth spread by the Russian government. I never imagined that the truth of the crimes of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation would be up for debate. I never imagined that a government by the people would try to “erase” its own citizens. I never imagined that people would start to believe whatever power tells them just because power says it. Earthly power will always in some way want to control the truth—but in Jesus we have a heavenly ruler who is himself the truth. 2+2 does not equal 5, and God is not Power. 2+2=4, and God is love. Why? Because Jesus is pure love. The powers and principalities may win the day. They may do it with lies and falsehoods and half-truths. They may convince us from time to time that we are not the children of God. But a victory won without the truth is a flimsy one. The truth will always prevail, because God is truth, and that truth is eternal. Truth came down to heaven to dwell among us, and that truth will set us free. Thanks be to God. These are such strange times, and these days, it seems as if there is a prophet of some kind everywhere you look. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the messages. So if you ever question whether something is true or not, Jesus gives us a simple way to test it. He says, “everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” We must listen to that voice. We must heed its call to love God and to love our neighbor with everything that we have. When we do these things, we belong to the truth, and there is no power that can ever separate us from the love of God. Listen to his voice. It is the voice of reason. It is the voice of compassion. It is the voice of God. And God is truth. Amen.
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The Rev. Steven Paulikas November 18, 2018 Proper 28-B Hebrews 10 In the last few days, I have been so moved by the words from today’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews: Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. This so perfectly describes what it is that people who strive to know Jesus do in their lives. They capture what it means to be a church, the living, moving, shining Body of that same Jesus in the world. This is the picture of a faithful people, a hopeful people, a community of people who encourage one another and lift each other up. It’s the description of a group that I want to be a part of. And luckily, I am—and so are you. Today is Harvest Sunday at All Saints’ Church, when we give thanks for the blessings in our lives and offer the first fruits of what we have to God—the same God who has given us all that we have. It’s a time to step back, look at the amazing things that happen in our lives, and give thanks. I firmly believe that the foundation of the Christian life is gratitude. Jesus lived a life of thanks, and even on his last day, he gave thanks to God the Father before breaking bread at his last supper. Today is a time to follow his lead and offer up a great thanksgiving for the bounty in our lives—and to make our thanks complete with an offering back to God. The fact is that there’s always something to be thankful for. Always. When times are good, it’s not hard at all to find that thing that makes you thankful. But it’s in the more difficult times that an attitude of gratitude can be the real life saver. That’s when you have to take some time, dig deep, and maybe even find that one thing that makes you thankful. The blue of the sky. A single kind word from a friend. Maybe even a word in a prayer or a note in a hymn. The fact is that we are constantly floating in blessings, and they’re always tapping on our shoulders, begging to show us the beauty of this life we have been given. To be a grateful person is simply to let those blessings do their work, to acknowledge them, and then, if you are able, to add to them with your own gifts. That’s a life spent in gratitude. That’s the kind of life Jesus spent. That’s the attitude of an open and joyful person. On this Harvest Sunday, it’s important to note that some of us grew up in a time and place when the literal first fruits of the land were offered to God in the sanctuary. Those lucky people among us saw the whole cycle of the farming year, from the sowing to the reaping. They have seen the earth yield her increase, as the psalmist writes. I’m sad to say that here in Brooklyn, our farms are less fertile. Jesse keeps a container garden in front of the rectory, and every year he plants one decorative sweet potato. I’m always excited to see what it looks like at the end of the growing season. He sent me a picture of it yesterday when he pulled it up: one knobby purple tuber, about the size of a child’s fist. So that’s our harvest this year. But hey, that thing I said about gratitude? I’m actually really excited about it. You could even say I’m grateful. You see, even here in Brooklyn we have a harvest. All your hard work in the past year has yielded you a bounty. The work of prayer. The work of faith. The work of healing and teaching and peacemaking and justice demanding. The work of mourning and mercy and yes, even suffering. In these holy acts of sowing, you have cast the seeds of the Spirit into the fertile earth. With your patience and humility, you have nurtured the tender stalks as they rose from the soil. And now it is time to gather the scythe and reap the harvest. And just what are the fruits of this harvest? We heard about them all just now in that passage from Hebrews. Hope without wavering. Love. Good deeds. Encouragement. And clarity of vision as we see the Day approaching. This is a rich harvest indeed! It is a bounty that can hardly be counted. Thanks be to God! There is something amazing that happens when people come together around Jesus. All the divisions and the prejudices from the outside world melt away. Spiritual isolation—that great affliction of the modern world—is no more. Our hearts open up to God and to one another. We realize that so many of the things we thought were important actually aren’t at all. This is when the field is tilled and ready for the planting. As we grow in love with Jesus in our midst, the crop grows too, and the harvest becomes ever richer with time. Just as the author of Hebrews says, the community of the faithful holds fast to the confession of hope. Friends, in a time such as this, how many places really and truly are holding fast to a confession of hope? I don’t mean a cheap kind of hope. I mean the real, living, abiding, life-changing kind of hope. The hope that there really is a power greater than us, a God whose nature is to love, a hope so great that even the grave has no power over it. That’s the hope of Jesus, and it’s his hope we confess in our words and actions. The crop ripens, and according to Hebrews, the gathering of the faithful is moved to provocation. The letter says that we come here to provoke one another to love and good deeds. This is the sign of a true Christian church. I would be willing to bet that there isn’t a single person here—even if this is your first time at All Saints’ Church—who hasn’t been provoked in some way or another to love. To love more deeply. To love differently. To love more fully. To love God. To love your neighbor. To love yourself. I bet there isn’t a single person here who hasn’t been provoked to do something good. To move the needle of goodness in the world even just a little bit forward. That’s what a church is supposed to do. That’s the harvest we’re talking about. When we meet together, we encourage one another in these things. Because God knows it’s not easy. It’s not easy to love in a world full of so much hate. So much darkness. So much…coarseness. There’s just so much out there that is trying to reduce us to our meanest selves. We need the encouragement of one another to keep moving forward, to keep walking toward Jesus. These are the fruits of the harvest. In a few minutes, we will offer our pledges of financial support for this ministry in the coming year. As you place your pledge card in the offering plate, I encourage you to say a prayer of thanksgiving. The Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver, and it’s true. It is a blessing to be able to give. This year, I pledged 10% of my pre-tax salary to support All Saints’ in 2019. This is the eleventh year I have tithed my income to my church, and with each passing year, I feel myself formed more fully into the person God created me to be. I become more open, more generous, and yes, more grateful. I am more able to allow God’s blessings to flow through me, because I know through my actions that the holy abundance that feeds me is infinite and never-ending. There’s nothing like the act of putting your money where your mouth is to make your values clear to yourself and everyone else. What a blessing! Yesterday, Michael Curry, our Presiding Bishop, preached at the 150th anniversary celebration of the Diocese of Long Island. He did it in a tent. That’s right, a tent. And as if that weren’t enough, that tent was set up in a parking lot next to the Nassau Coliseum. That’s where he wanted to speak to us. Not some grand and fancy church building, but a place where we could hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us. He gave us a word about witnessing. He reminded us to be witnesses to Jesus, to His mighty power of love that can heal all wounds and divisions. If you couldn’t be there in that windy suburban parking lot yesterday, we’ll share the sermon online when it gets posted. And it’s worth watching. Because if you’re looking for direction, if you’re looking for an answer, if you’re looking for some higher meaning in your life, there’s no one better than our Presiding Bishop to remind you: we were put here by a loving God to love God and one another, and even ourselves. That love is both the seed and the harvest. That love will feed you when you are hungry and it will never stop. It’s worth the effort. It’s worth the sacrifice. Because that love…is nothing less than God. Amen. Carl Adair
All Saints’ Church November 11, 2018 Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17 Mark 12:38-44 In the name of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen. As the All Saints’ family knows, I just started seminary this fall. So before we ask together what God is saying to us in today’s readings, I want to begin by sharing the best thing I’ve learned so far in my 10 weeks of theological education. Like everyone else in the first year, I’m taking OT 101: Intro to the Old Testament. And one central concept we’ve discussed is tsedeqah. It’s Hebrew. Just say that with me: tsedeqah. One more time: tsedeqah. This word is all over the Hebrew Bible. What does it mean? In our English Bibles tsedeqah is usually translated as “righteousness” or “uprightness.” But in the original Hebrew, as one scholar put it, tsedeqah “refers more specifically to the virtue of fulfilling one’s social obligations to others, particularly defending those most vulnerable in ancient society; the orphan, the widow, and foreign immigrant” (Carr, 67). To live with tsedeqah means to be proximate to people who are up against it, who live close to the bone. Tsedeqah means to stand in solidarity with those who are hurting, and to stand up for them when they call. Tsedeqah is an ethical and political vision that remains foundational for many of our Jewish siblings in this very city—and we stand with them in solidarity in a time of anti-Semitic intimidation and violence. Tsedeqah was also the standard for political leadership in ancient Israel, in the time of King David. Psalm 72 says: Give the king your justice, O God, …May he judge your people in tsedeqah. May he judge your people in solidarity and your poor with justice! 6: May [the king] be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. 12-14: For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life [they are precious in his sight]. In these days I am moved to see a full-throated declaration that the powerful are judged by how they stand with the least powerful. Yes, King David was expected to be a brave military leader, and the chief executive of the royal court. But the king was also explicitly tasked to defend the most vulnerable, to hear their appeals for help, and to answer. In our own time, we are talking about the person struggling with addiction without health care, the asylum seeker, the trans woman, the person of color harassed by the police with impunity, the child prosecuted as an adult. Ancient Israel expected its king to defend the most marginalized and at risk because their image of human justice was based on their idea of God’s justice. Another Psalm says: [The Lord] judges the world with righteousness [with tsedeqah]… The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. (Psalm 9:7 Friends, it is as true today as it ever was, regardless of who was elected this week, or who will be elected in 2020. The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. I’m going to turn to today’s readings in just a second, but there’s one more thing I want to say about tsedeqah. It isn’t just a social responsibility, a duty. It is the way of life. The way to life. Rich, deep, joyful, vibrant life. Let me give you one more psalm, one I bet you know by heart: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul: he leads me in the paths of righteousness…nah. The Lord restores my soul: the Lord leads me in the paths of tsedeqah. The Lord restores my soul: the Lord leads me to embrace those who grieve, into solidarity with the oppressed, into joy with those who are being liberated and empowered—why? Because God wants to restore my soul. Because God wants me and you to really live. And the way to life is love, love that goes down to the bottom. Because our own joy cannot be complete unless there is justice for all; because our own liberation bound up with the liberation of “the least of these.” Ruth knew it. And Naomi knew it. The poor widow who put two copper coins in the collection plate knew it. Throughout scripture, we see women who act in solidarity with one another and with the most vulnerable in their communities; women who thus show us what God is like. The part of the Ruth story we read today presents Ruth as an important figure because of her ties to men: her new husband Boaz, and her great grandson, David. There’s no getting around the fact that this book was written in a time and a place where the value of women was defined by their relationship to men. But when I read this story, I like to think that it’s David who is important because he is the great-grandson of Ruth! Whose example inspired him? Who taught him about solidarity, who taught him that fidelity to the least in our communities, is the path of life? I think it was Ruth. You may remember the story. Ruth and Naomi have met in tough times. A famine in the land of Israel has forced Naomi and her husband and their two sons to flee to the land of Moab. In other words, Naomi and her family are migrants. They are refugees. Naomi’s sons marry Moabite women, one of whom was Ruth. But then, without much explanation, the story says that Naomi’s husband dies, and then her two sons die. And suddenly she is alone, a woman in a time and place where widows beyond the age of childbearing are among some of the most vulnerable members of society. Now Ruth still has a good chance of remarrying, and thus recovering what security and status was available to women in her society. But Ruth will not seek her own security and happiness if it means that Naomi will be left alone and put at risk: “Where you go, I will go; where you stay, I will stay: your people shall be my people, and your God my God,” Ruth says. Your future is bound up with my future, Ruth says. Your safety is tied up with mine. So Ruth walks beside Naomi as she journeys back to Bethlehem: because of her commitment to Naomi, Ruth becomes the foreigner, the immigrant. Our reading today begins here, with Ruth and Naomi’s roles reversed. It’s now Naomi who tells Ruth, “I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you.” My need, Naomi says, my heart’s desire—is to ensure your well-being. So, doing what she could do in that situation, she sets Ruth up with Boaz. When Ruth indeed marries Boaz and bears a child, Naomi shares in that blessing. They have borne grief and struggle together; now their joy is shared. This child, this new life, is a symbol of the bond that has led both Ruth and Naomi in the path of life. The path of tsedeqah of solidarity is not an easy road; it’s not without risk. But its blessings multiply. That is why, friends, the two copper coins the poor widow gives in Mark’s gospel are worth so much. Here we have another woman who shows us what God’s generosity is like. Another poor widow, another vulnerable person, who with two pennies declares that her own flourishing cannot be separated from the flourishing of the whole community. That is tsedeqah. That is the standard my wife Meg and I are thinking about as we discern how we are going to give to All Saints’ in the coming year. How can we participate in the flourishing of the whole community. I think that question is at the root of what Jesus invites us into, the Jesus who comes among us to restore our souls. The core of Jesus’ message was tsedeqah. He just didn’t use that word: he said Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and love your neighbors as yourselves. Give others what you would want to be given. Don’t withhold from others what you would not want withheld from yourself. In Mark, Jesus has harsh words for the scribes: they have power and status, but Jesus insinuates that they have stolen from the estates of widows. Whether or not that was literally true, Jesus condemns them for flaunting their wealth while the poor around them are exploited. And he lifts up the abundant generosity of the widow. Though she has little, she knows that to really live—she must share what she has with others. She must link her own life to those around her. So may the Lord lead us to embrace those who grieve, into solidarity with the oppressed, into joy with those who are being liberated. May we be servants of God’s peace, God’s justice, God’s joy. So may the Lord restore our souls, restore us to life. Amen. The Rev. Steven Paulikas
All Saints’ Church October 28, 2018 Mark 10:46-52 When Jesus was walking along the road out of Jericho, Bartimaeus approached him. Bartimaeus was not a powerful or a rich person. He was not held in regard by his own people. Bartimaeus was a beggar, and he was blind. But he was a child of God, and that’s all that mattered. So when Bartimaeus called out to Jesus, Jesus heard him. He was probably the only person in the crowd who actually did. Remember, this scene in the Gospel of Mark takes place immediately after the disciples argued with one another and with Jesus about who would be first in the Kingdom of God. They were concerned with who would be on top, who would have the best seat. But Jesus told them that whoever wants to become great must become a servant of all. So in this moment, he showed them with his actions what he explained to them in words. Bartimaeus asks Jesus to let him see again. Can you imagine the courage it would take to do that? Can you imagine the faith? This is the prayer of a man who has nothing in this world to lose, and who knows that all he wants to gain can come only from God. Bartimaeus, the beggar, doesn’t ask for money. He doesn’t ask for status, like the disciples do. He asks, insistently, with his whole heart, “my teacher, let me see again.” And Jesus says, “go; your faith has made you well.” And the Gospel says that Bartimaeus regained his sight, and followed Jesus on the way. How desperately we need the faith of Bartimaeus in these times. How sincere our prayer must be to have our sight restored. And how deep our desire must be to jump up and follow Jesus on the way. Because this world in which we live—this complex, frenetic, violent, beautiful, exasperating world—this world is making us blind. If we are to see again, we must have the faith of the blind beggar, the one who has nothing to lose and everything to gain from God. Jesus, let us see again. Yesterday, 11 of our fellow children of God were murdered while praying at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Their souls join the 26 who were killed last year while worshipping at Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church in Texas. They join the witness of the nine victims of the shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston who were killed by a young man they invited in to their Bible study. Americans at prayer have become victims of violence. That which is sacred has become the target of the most profane. As the news came in yesterday, I was reminded of a line from the poet Theodore Roethke: “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.” This wave of gun violence in our houses of worship is evidence that we are a people groping blindly. The deep darkness that surrounds us has robbed us of our sight. And yet, as Roethke says, when the shadow is cast, it gives the eye a chance to adjust and to begin to see in a way it has not before. It can perceive that to which it was previously blind. Perhaps it is in a dark time that God will hurry to answer our prayers for sight. Maybe now is the time when we will see again, and the way of Jesus will be made straight and clear. To our Jewish friends, sisters, brothers, and family members: our hearts go out to you. We are children of the one God. As Christians, we will forever be guests in your spiritual house, because the Lord we follow confessed your faith. Throughout history, we have abused the privilege of being your neighbors, and our prayer of repentance will last for centuries. We love you, and we grieve with you. And we commit ourselves to walking this dark path with you. Perhaps doing so will restore our sight. It is against this backdrop that Stewardship Season begins here at All Saints’ Church. Now is an appropriate time—a necessary time—for us to dig deep and consider our responsibility as stewards of all that God has placed in our hands, and to ask for the vision to use it wisely and for God’s purposes. Stewardship season the time when we prayerfully consider how we will give out of our own abundance for the work that God has in our midst in the coming year. The ministry of All Saints’ Church depends entirely on our own generosity, and it cannot exist without it. Listen again to that: the ministry of this place depends on our generosity. It cannot exist without it. You see, stewardship is not about raising money. It is about an ongoing transformation of our hearts. It is about awakening from our own blindness to the reality of the world around us and deciding to get up and follow Jesus on the way. It is about opening our eyes anew and gaining a sense of perception, even in the darkness. And much of that blindness is caused by the rampant materialism in which we live and move every day. We are the wealthiest country in history. Again: we are the wealthiest country in history! And yet for all our material wealth, we suffer from a poverty of spirit. As it says in 1 Timothy, the love of money is the root of all evil. The Christian faith has taught me that the violence in our society is in some part the result of our lack of generosity. It’s not that hard to see. When we love money more than people, when we love money more than God, then we place our faith in a thing that has no power in itself to heal and bind together, no value other than what it can buy and sell. A people that believes first and foremost in money is a cruel people, one that is comfortable with terrible injustices caused by poverty and inequality. And the fruit of this injustice can only be frustration, anger, and, yes, violence. Today I am pledging 10 percent of my 2019 income, pre-tax, to God’s work at All Saints’ Church. That’s the Biblical tradition of tithing, and I feel blessed to be able to do it. And now that I’ve had the chance to practice tithing for many years, I know that it’s as much about me as it is about the church. Each check I hand over feels like a prayer. It separates me from my material possessions and reminds me who I am without them. It is a sign to myself and to God that I appreciate what I have rather than lusting for more. And it is an act of faith and hope in a better world, one in which we place value in those things that actually have value: in God and our fellow human beings. Practicing stewardship is a profoundly counter-cultural act. The signals we receive tell us to hoard our things and strive for more, not to give them away. It is a constant onslaught of falsehood. We are bathed in this poison, day after day, year after year. Before long, we are no better than naughty children fighting on the playground over some shiny object. And once there are no adults in charge any longer, then all manner of terrible thing can happen. We see this over and over again. But giving out of your abundance breaks this unfortunate spell. It awakens you to the beauty of life in all its forms. It makes you see how precious those gifts currently in your possession truly are. It pries open the heart and makes it eager to offer help and encouragement. And yes, it opens the eye and helps it to see more clearly. Giving out of your abundance is an act of profound faith. It is powerful spiritual medicine. Though we may be blind in some way today, there is always the hope of sight tomorrow. Though darkness may cover the land now, there is the promise of daybreak in the morning. The eye is opened by the faith of the blind beggar. Lord Jesus, let us see again. Amen. The Rev. Julia Macy Offinger
Sunday, October 7, 10am Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost Job 1:1; 2:1-10 Psalm 26 Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12 Mark 10:2-16 Good morning All Saints’ Church. It is my distinct privilege to speak to you today from this pulpit for the final time as your program minister. And actually for the first time as a priest. In many ways, I would say I have “found my voice” in this pulpit. When I first preached to you, 5 years ago, in October 2013, I was still in seminary. I wasn’t even yet a postulant for ordination; I was still praying and thinking about what my path in life and in the church might be. It really wasn’t until a few months into my time here with you all that I began to think seriously about becoming a priest. The day I knew for sure I wanted to be a priest was in December 2013, when we celebrated Father Paulikas’s new ministry here, when he went from being the priest in charge to your official rector. Many of you here might remember that snowy Saturday almost five years ago, with Bishop Provenzano visiting and everyone wearing their finest red attire. To paint you a picture of what All Saints’ looked like then, especially for our newcomers today ... my hair was long and brown. Father Steve and Jesse weren’t married yet. Dakarai Arnold was a lot shorter. Miss Thelma was only a spritely 92 years old! It was a different time ... You might think that it was the stirring liturgy of that evening that led me down this path--seeing the church welcome Father Steve with open arms. But it was actually something that happened downstairs during the reception, at the tail end of the night, after many of the visitors had gone back out into the snow, and only the All Saints’ faithful remained. The DJ played the last song and everyone came together and danced to “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge. The Holy Spirit wrapped me into that dance ... and I knew, if this was what church could be, if you were what church could look like, I would be so lucky to be able to be a priest. So as you have formed me into the priest that I am today, I have had the privilege of speaking to you over the years from this pulpit, and you have followed along with me as you have grown, as you have grieved, as you have welcomed new family members, including my wife Caitlin (it is actually our first anniversary today), and as I turned into a blonde. A few weeks ago, I turned with eager anticipation to our lectionary, the cycle of bible readings we move through together as a church, to see what would be the subject of my final word to you. It is the custom when a minister leaves a church to leave them with a final word, a final charge, in their last sermon. And I do think all of us today could use a good bolster, a good charge. I want this to be an uplifting sermon for you all. ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ YIKES. Surely there is more? "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” DOUBLE YIKES. This is the moment as a new priest when you turn to your boss with a big question mark. And because he is wonderful, Father Steve told me, “Don’t worry about. This is a special case. Just preach on the Old Testament.” “Okay, but the Old Testament Is Job,” I replied. But the more I prayed about it and thought about it, the more I got excited to tackle this Gospel text with all of you. My church family. We are family, after all. (I got all my sisters with me.) And this Gospel text is about family. So the first thing I want to say, very clearly, because Jesus, though I love him, is not actually being very clear here: DIVORCE IS NOT necessarily BAD and marriage, in and of itself, is not necessarily GOOD. You can have great and loving divorces and and you can have awful, bad marriages. And whatever your personal experience is with these—because in any room there are people who have struggled in bad relationships and there are people who feel left out of relationships—whatever your experience is, I promise to you, Jesus is not shaming you or condemning you. Actually, typical Jesus, he’s doing the opposite. If you’re feeling bad, he is standing up for you, against the status quo. The way marriage worked when Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees was very different than the way marriage works today. First, it was only between men and women. We don’t really know what options there were for people who didn’t want to get married, but I’m fairly certain Jesus wasn’t married, and 50 or so years later, Paul wasn’t married either, and they are both pretty big figures in Christianity, so who knows? Another major difference in and around marriage was how divorce worked. Jesus’ Jewish, male contemporaries could get a divorce for basically any reason, at any time ... women had far less agency in this regard. But more importantly, the consequences of divorce were much worse for women than they were for men. Households functioned primarily with men as the head. Divorced women were overlooked and cast out. Seen in this light, Jesus’ answer actually protects women. Jesus is saying to the pharisees that what is lawful is not necessarily good nor right. Moral authority comes from another source, comes from God, and is rooted in love, protection, and care, for the marginalized, for the poor, and for children. So this is where I have to get a little bit Julia with you, since it’s my last time up here with you all. And by Julia, I mean, talking about gender, talking about justice, talking about ... gasp ... politics. Because there is this idea that we shouldn’t talk about politics from the pulpit. But Jesus talked about politics all the time. Talking about marriage is talking about politics. This is why I am grateful this is the Gospel passage this morning, especially because we are living in a time where the Gospel of Jesus Christ is being distorted and manipulated by American politicians to do the opposite of what Jesus models for us again and again in his limitless love, concern and care for the poor and marginalized, healing of the sick, and welcoming of little children--despite whatever the laws of our land might say. Did you notice this passage ends with Jesus welcoming the children? I think people get a little sidetracked by the DIVORCE and the man/woman things in this story and miss the final part of this story, but this part is never separated when we read this text aloud: “People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” Imagine a political reality in this country today where our elected officials could say to us, “Do not stop the children, let the little children come to me, for it is to such as these that this land, this country, belongs.” Imagine a political reality in this country today where our leaders primary concern was the least of these, the marginalized, the poor, the oppressed. Or even, the women. Imagine a political reality where the concern in law making was to protect women, transgender people, and non-binary people, to protect them from powerful men’s bad behavior. This is not a pipe dream. This is the Gospel. And to hear this Gospel is why you come here to All Saints’ Church. Martin Luther King, Jr had deep faith in that long arc of the moral universe bending towards justice. I have thought of this image so many times these past five years at All Saints’, whenever something happens that feels like a threat to justice. Whenever fear or grief threatens to take over my hope. I’m remembering the sermons and prayers we have shared here after Eric Garner’s death, after Michael Brown’s death, after Charleston, after Charlottesville, after hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes, after so much needless violence, gun violence, so much much loss. We have been through a lot. We are going through a lot. Thinking about bending this arc of the moral universe towards justice reminded me of the pain of this kind of slow movement. The image that came to me, and this one is mostly for the teenagers in the congregation today, was of the braces I had on my teeth in high school. Did any of you have braces? I had the old school kind with the brackets on each tooth and the wire from molar to molar. That wire arced around my teeth, anchoring to the most stubborn ones, and when the orthodontist would tighten it, even a fraction of an inch, the pain was so bad. My whole mouth hurt, and there was nothing to do to ease it but wait for the wire to do its work. Jesus knew about this long arc of the moral universe. He knew that human-made laws and human-made government were not necessarily good nor right, that human beings’ reading of scripture was often confused. And Jesus knew that we, the people, were the anchors of this long arc, some of us more stubborn than others. If the law of the land were always good and right, we, the people of All Saints’ Church, would not be family. Please look around the pews today. This kind of diversity used to be illegal. My marriage, only seven years ago in New York, would have been illegal. America’s moral authority cannot come from its laws, from its government, from its courts, alone. It must come from us; its pillars, its anchors. I have often felt like a warrior going to battle trying to bend this arc faster, pushing with all my might, but I have realized a few things these past five years. God is the arc, pulling all of us into alignment. It is less painful if we are closer to where we need to be, my friends. And it is a lot less painful when we are together. A lot lot less painful when we are dancing, right miss Thelma? A lot less painful when we are loving each other. We are family. We are family. Amen. The Rev. Howard E. Blunt
September 30, 2018 The 19th Sunday After Pentecost All Saints’ Church Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 Psalm 124 James 5:13-20 Mark 9:38-50 I have been looking forward to a time to do the Sunday homily here. We have heard much from our rector, we have heard from our newly ordained Julia Offinger, we have heard from Deacon Jennifer, we have heard from our theological students Carl and Chris. We have even heard from some of you our regular membership giving witness to the faith that is in those of you in pews. I will hope to add to all of that grand tradition. So now, I like the Delany Sisters remember them, I can have my say. If you don’t remember them see me later. By now we have all heard about the Bible study that takes place here every Tuesday. This gathering is a faithful remnant of our membership. Most of us in this class are in the age range when the day is not constrained by the 9 to 5 duties. Last year we 8 to 10 people were studying the Acts of the Apostles. It was a mighty journey through a book that is often neglected. So we learned much. This time we have decided to look at the lessons just ahead on the coming Sunday. This approach will look at all the lessons recited each Sunday, so the many books in canon of scripture will be referenced. When we were looking at the book of Acts, we found out what life was like in beginning years of the proclamation that Christ Jesus is Lord and Savior. It was fascinating to find out that our spiritual ancestors had many of the same challenges in teaching and preaching and believing this faith. I can well imagine our new course of study will render similar insight. For to study the scriptures appointed each Sunday is to understand more and more what we hear from the given three lessons and just exactly what they mean to say. First of all we might know that the large tradition across many denominations is to hold up a set series of readings. This means the Church reads scripture together. Yes you can and do read the bible alone. But reading it together is like feeding on the one bread and the one cup of Christ. The scriptures inform the Church and the church lives it and explains it. The two stand together and neither stands alone. To illustrate that, lets review each lesson just read. And let’s agree that each Sunday we are in one grand bible study trying to consider what God is saying and what all we together can hear. First we look at the story of Queen Esther. This story is in the 16th book of the Old Testament. It is, of course, revered by our Jewish neighbors. They observe it on the 14th day of Adar. That day was observed this year on March 1, 2018. It is a joyous day for this Queen has persuaded King Ahasueras that his overseer has fatal plans for the Hebrew people. So the king makes this sin righted and he sentences that overseer to the same outcome he had planned for the Jews. Haman is justly punished for his tragic behavior. Another insight to this text was shared with me by our own Mother Julia. Due to the fact I missed this week’s study I would not have known how it was discussed and understood. So for sure Julia let me in on a helpful tutorial. She indicated her well-known feminist insight. She let me know that the story of Esther witnesses to what women have always been doing in a world of the historic patriarchal dominance. That was a class I should not have missed. Julia, while you have been called elsewhere, know that you have left the legacy of the female voice in the divine chorus here. This theme should ring a lot of bells in our contemporary #metoo time. Nowadays women are having their say and they are in succession to Queen Esther. Even the story of America has had its own Esthers: Abigail Adams, SoJourner Truth, Susan B Anthony, Rosa Parks, and just now an unknown soul named Christine Blasey Ford speaks to power. Whatever comes of that event this someone has worked her heart over a heartless time. Just look at all these women now coming forward demanding justice. We are learning right now that women less heard from are stepping out into the pages of history. Queen Esther, bring on more of your sisters. So on the day called Purim our Jewish neighbors dance and sing about a mighty achievement. And it is good for us Christians to revere this story and to dance and sing for the Lord is the God of justice. Now, Church, we move on to the second lesson. It is from the book of James, part of scriptures known as the Pastoral Epistles. Here the Church wants us to see that we all fall astray of divine purposes; whether King, Queen or just the common every one here and there. So in James we hear this appeal: “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises. Is any among you sick? Call for the elders of the church and let them pray anointing with oil in the Lord’s name; and the prayer of faith will save….if you sin, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed, for the prayer of the righteous availeth much. I love the King James way of saying that. These lessons maintain that as time goes by we are all contending with the slog of life and so it is right and necessary to pray. At a recent study time Fr. Steve was giving us all the details of his present testing when he is being considered for higher office. One of us asked him, how do you stand all the tension. He looked at us in that class in his familiar way of pausing, and then he gave his thoughtful answer. He said, “ I pray”. This is what we do in and out of season, in all sorts of conditions, predicaments, afflictions that come our way in this our mortal time. So whatever happens in that election, we have in this rector someone who prays. And if he gets a vote up or down, scripture says he is in the reach of the righteous realm. Thank God we have come to know him. Now let me give fair attention to the Gospel. That part of the word liturgy rounds out the three-lesson lectionary. In our tradition the Gospel is the supreme announcement. It gives us to know the Savior, who he is, what he did, and why he did it. Through it we say Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. This lesson says that some asked Jesus to forbid the works of others for they do not fall in line correctly. Then, oh my then, Jesus says this: do not forbid anyone who does a mighty work in my name, for such a person will not be able to speak evil of me. Up and down this street there other places of God: Baptist, Reform, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Jewish...we need not see them only in how they are different. We might just come to see that they in their way are an honor to God and a picture of the Savior. Pray for an increase of that posture. Then there are several more items in this passage which beg for attention even though they confuse the mind. They all amount to what it will mean to be disciples of Christ Jesus. The gospel ends on three anathemas. And they are hard to comprehend and hard to hear. I am tempted to omit any mention of them, for on the face of things they are ridiculous. I am sorry I missed the most recent bible study. It would have been interesting, informative, and reassuring to hear some seminar on these words: if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Really! If anyone thinks such words are to be taken literally, listen up and listen well. A draconian piety like this will not get you into heaven. It will get you into the locked ward of Bellevue Hospital. This is best reason for reading scripture not alone but in church, for with your fellow Christians, you can find help towards a holy and wholesome interpretation and commentary. There, in the Church and with the church you can know and appreciate the meaning of metaphor, allegory and hyperbole. There are many examples of sound interpretation in church and in scripture. Note: Jesus speaking with travelers on the Emmaus Road. Philip speaking to the Ethiopian eunuch. Or you here at All Saints' speaking with another from the various biblical texts hard or easy. That will keep in a healthy understanding of holy writ and it will keep you out of Bellevue. May the Lord make it so through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. The Rev. Steven D. Paulikas
September 16, 2018 Founders Day All Saints’ Church Mark 8:27-38 Welcome to Founders Day at All Saints’ Church! 151 years ago this very day, a group of twenty or so families living in this neighborhood voted to incorporate as a parish to serve the spiritual needs of Park Slope. So much has changed since September 16, 1867, and the people who founded this church could never have imagined the world or even the church that we inhabit today. But every year we celebrate the gift they gave to us: faith. Faith in a future they could not imagine. Faith in a God who would carry this place through troubled times and into promised lands that look different with each passing generation. Faith in a Lord who teaches us that life is not something to be taken for granted or hoarded, but allowed to flow like the waters of baptism, an ever-moving river of grace and love. So let me begin by offering a welcome once again to all people who have come into this holy house that turns 151 years old today. If you are a visitor or guest here today, you are in good company, because this place remembers a century and a half of newcomers. Our founders created this parish so that each successive generation could come and wonder at God anew. You are now part of that long and holy story. In doing so, you bless us. It does not matter who you, where you’re from, or what you believe—you are welcome here, and you bless us with your presence. It may seem strange to welcome visitors with the message of the Gospel we hear this morning. In case you missed it or thought you heard wrong, let me repeat it. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?” Indeed, what can we give in return for our life? This question reminds us of one of the hardest and most profound teachings of Christianity: that our lives do not belong to us. We do not own our lives. We determine neither the time nor the circumstance of our life or our death. We do not choose what kind of body we have, or the family we are born into, or even the span of our days. These are unpleasant things to remember. Most of us spend a lifetime trying to forget these facts—and when we do, it can get us into a heap of trouble and confusion. But it is only with the knowledge of this truth that we can begin to be free. Because when you acknowledge that your life is not your own, you are liberated to dedicate it to everything that isn’t just about you. And that is a joyful life. That is a full life. That is a life well-lived, a life that flows within that river of grace and love. This is why Jesus tells us these hard words: because he wants us to live life freely. This Gospel truth has been proclaimed in this church for over a century and a half. In that time, countless souls have been set free from the captivity of believing in their own self-superiority. Where else are we to go to receive this healing? Where else can we turn for our very being to be shaken to the core? This is a temple built to honor and glory of God—and no one or nothing less. And the lessons our ancestors learned have been passed down to us today. It is so perfect that today is Founders Day because today we have among us living, breathing examples of people who are heeding Jesus’ call to abandon life as they have known it, take up their cross, and follow him into the light of love. They breathe life into the mission of our founders and show us what it means to be the beloved community of Jesus in our time. As many of you know well, our beloved Julia has been made priest in the Church of God. [applause] Many here today witnessed as Julia took her ordination vows yesterday at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and was ordained a priest forever. In being ordained, Julia has left behind the life of her past and bravely stepped forward into a new reality. There is no other way to describe what it is like to be a priest. Like so many things in life worthy of our time and effort, the priesthood requires us to lose our life so that we can gain it. It is a life of dedicated service in which the needs of God and God’s people most often come before our own. God has called Julia into this life in part to remind the rest of us that our lives are not our own. In a few moments, Julia will celebrate her first sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. We are incredibly blessed to have a brand new priest adorn the font and altar of this church with her first sacraments. There’s an old prayer for priests that goes like this: make this my first Eucharist, my last Eucharist, my only Eucharist. Julia, this is my prayer for you today. The sacramental life in which you now lead us is one in which the present is suffused with the eternal. It opens for us the gate of truth that God is with us in this moment of time and unites us with the eons. Your sacramental ministry will remind us constantly that our lives are not our own and will release us into the eternal bounty of God’s love. That may sound naïve. It may sound poetic. But guess what: that’s what priests do. In a world made brittle with cynicism, poisoned by the love of things that are not worthy of our love, a world shattered by hatred and misunderstanding, your job is to join God in softening the hearts of the mighty. They have forgotten that their lives are not their own. As a priest, you will remind them and all of us of who and whose we truly are. And Julia has two fellow messengers today. She will baptize Margie and Beatrix, using those same waters that flow throughout time. In baptism, we welcome God’s children into God’s kingdom on earth. Margie and Beatrix will join us in Christ’s royal priesthood. Julia, after all that work you put in to get ordained, you might be a little jealous that all these girls to become royal priests was to show up and look cute. But that’s kind of the point. We are all God’s beloved—the same God who lifts up the lowly and casts the mighty down from their thrones. Margie and Beatrix’s families know that they are blessings beyond compare. Today we recognize the gifts that they are to the world. They are royal priests just by their being, and they remind us that we are too. We are priests every time we walk in love as Christ loved us. We are priests every time we reach out when one of God’s own is in need. We are priests every time we allow ourselves to be humbled, just as Jesus was humbled. God is love. Every time we love, we are God’s priests. Indeed, there is nothing we can give in return for our life. There is nothing Julia can give in return for hers, nothing Margie and Beatrix can give in return for theirs. Let them be examples to us. Let the love they embody be signs to us of God’s love for us. Life is gift. Let us take this precious gift we have been given, and, like priests at the altar, offer it up to the same one who laid down his own, so that we may be set free to love. Amen. The Rev. Steven Paulikas
September 9, 2018 Proper 18-B All Saints’ Church The message from Holy Scripture this morning is crystal clear: God shows no partiality to any person, and neither should we. As we can tell from these lessons, people of faith have struggled with this teaching for two and a half thousand years. In all that time, somehow we still haven’t gotten it right. By grace, God doesn’t seem to have gotten tired of trying to teach us. But it’s up to us this morning to try to learn. The passage we read this morning in the Book of Proverbs proclaims that the Lord is the maker of all. It warns that those who sow injustice will fall—and especially those who are unjust against the poor. Chapter 2 of James’ epistle begins with the rhetorical question: do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? Echoing Proverbs, it seems that the Christians James was speaking to preferred to welcome the rich into their assembly over the poor. I hate to say it, but I understand why. The rich can donate money to the church. They are usually well-connected in society. Sometimes it feels when you’re with a rich person that some of their glamor can rub off on you, too. The poor, on the other hand, have nothing to offer the church…but their souls. James reminds us that no amount of silver or gold can add up to the value of a human soul. When we follow Jesus, we are in the business of souls. Everyone has one, and no one’s is worth more than anyone else’s. If only we treated one another equally in light of this truth. Then we arrive at the Gospel of Mark and the story of the healing of the Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter. Up to this point, Jesus’ ministry has been exclusively with Jews like himself, not with gentiles like her. Jesus ignores her first request to help the little girl. You see, even Jesus isn’t immune to the temptation to treat some with favor. But her argument and her faith prevail, and in the process, she is able to teach even our Lord a lesson. So there we have it: two ancient truths. First, that the God of all people demands that we treat one another as equals. This rule holds regardless of status, wealth, or even religion. And the second truth is the sadder one: that this lesson has fallen on deaf ears throughout the generations. And yet, if you want to know God, truly, deeply, you must show impartiality toward none and welcome and love toward all. This lesson has a special meaning this time of year as we approach the anniversary of that terrible day seventeen years ago in this city. Perhaps you remember that on Friday, September 14, 2001, Americans observed a National Day of Prayer. President Bush’s proclamation establishing the day cites Matthew 5:4, “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” I remember the comforting effect of a nation gathering to grieve, as vigils and prayer services were held from the National Cathedral to the one I attended at my home parish. At the same time, because I was freshly graduated from college and exploring a call to ordained ministry, I was deeply curious about what faith leaders would say at such a horrible time. I was happy, of course, to hear healing words of sympathy for the victims and their families and reassurances of God’s presence in our times of need. And yet there was a key message missing back then that I fear we are still suffering from a lack of. I thought Christians would proclaim the message of impartiality that we hear this morning, a call to love all people regardless of who they are. Sadly, I barely heard this truth. A few verses deeper into Matthew 5, Jesus says, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” This is one of the most difficult of spiritual teachings, and yet 17 years after the tragedy of 9/11, it is time to ask: would we be better off today had we sought to love our enemies and not destroy them? How would our society today be different had we channeled our grief and anger into a spiritual effort to treat all people with equal dignity and respect as we are commanded to do in Scripture? Even with almost two decades of hindsight, it is still arguable whether the tremendous suffering inflicted by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq started in response to 9/11 have made the world a safer place or bolstered domestic security. Yet the clearer impact of wars abroad may be in plain sight at home. The unrelenting mentality of entrenched conflict against a permanent perceived enemy has infected American domestic life and is at least in part responsible for the bitter political and cultural divide in Western society today. If this is indeed the case, then the only way out of our current dark chapter of common life is to strive for reconciliation rather than retribution. It is not too late to learn to love our enemies—in fact, I believe it may be our only hope for a peaceable future at home. Showing partiality toward none is not the same as excusing the actions of those who hurt you. The attacks on 9/11 were a terrible sin. The sacrifice of the victims that day was a slaughter of the innocents, and almost two decades later, Americans must give thanks that nothing like it has happened on U.S. soil since. Some of the smartest and bravest people among us work tirelessly in the military, the intelligence services, and elsewhere to prevent a future tragedy. This week is an appropriate time to offer them our personal gratitude. But in spite of trillions of dollars spent and the massive mobilization of the U.S. government, we have yet to see the ultimate victory of the “war on terror,” and it should now be clear that we never will. This war on a concept rather than a traditional adversary was launched on the premise that the defeat of sets of external enemies would be both retributive justice and prevention of future threat. This has always been a war that could only yield suffering without the hope of victory, waged at the cost of, among other things, almost 200,000 civilian lives who could hardly be called enemies. This is hardly the picture of a people committed to equality and dignity among all. What has gone overlooked in this prolonged season of war is the spiritual illness with which it has infected the culture that pursued it. Over time, we have watched as the thirst for retribution that took hold shortly after 9/11 has entrenched itself within American society to the point that we are convinced of the presence of the enemy within. It is truly striking to me how domestic politics have replaced enemies abroad as the target of the rhetoric of punishment. That Russia--an historic American adversary--actually intervened in the 2016 election with only mixed public outcry is but a symptom of the degree to which American voters have internalized the notion that the democratic process itself is a form of political and cultural warfare between enemies more dangerous than any beyond their borders. As New Yorkers head to the polls this week for the primary election—and you better get out there and vote! If we are still suffering from an unwise response to 9/11, how do we right the ethical wrongs of the past? The answer is not simple and will require hard work—but nothing more difficult or painful than the heart-rending loss of life and human suffering that has masqueraded as a solution for the past 17 years. We have become entitled in this century to demand neat solutions to deep problems, slogans and soundbites that soothe and seduce. What will be necessary instead is what the St. Paul called “metanoia,” or a full conversion of the heart. The root forces driving the current crisis in our national life are moral and spiritual ones; it is only moral and spiritual remedies that will quell them. We must be converted to a real and true love of all people, beginning with those who are most difficult to love. We must believe there is still more we have to learn from the tragedy of the 9/11 victims. Our sympathy for them must extend to the suffering of those who are not our own. We must strive to find a basic common understanding with those opposed to us--not in order to condone their actions or opinions, but to witness to the oneness of humanity. We must pray for our enemies, knowing—even if they don’t—that our fates are inexorably linked. We must be as concerned for the children of the countries we have invaded or the counties that vote against our preferred party as we are for our own. Otherwise, those same children will perpetuate our own failures and miss the precious opportunity to love one another as we have so ostentatiously done. Seventeen years ago, I was a young man. I have lived my entire adulthood in the unrelenting climate of hatred and violence our society has chosen to perpetuate since then. Today, as we approach this sad anniversary, I choose a different path—a path of peace, healing, and sanity. Wars will rage and rulers will come and go. But none of this can ever prevent me from loving my enemy. None of it can prevent me from striving to treat all people with dignity. Nor need it prevent you. Carl Adair, preacher
September 3, 2018 Ordinary Time, Proper 17 (Year B, Track I) All Saints’ Park Slope Song of Solomon 2: 8-13 James 1: 17-27 Mark 7: 1-8, 14-5, 21-23 Let me tell you a story. A few months ago, I was taking the subway home at the end of a long, exhausting day. A young girl and her mother got on and sat down across from me. The girl was maybe 3 or 4: curly hair pulled up into a messy ponytail, white Minnie Mouse t-shirt, pink leggings, Velcro sneakers with the little neon lights in the soles. It looked like she had been at the playground, and it looked like she had been playing HARD. Her shoes were dusty, her knees were stained, and there were tiny beads of sweat on her forehead. Without speaking, her mother reached into her bag and took out a water bottle covered in Hello Kitty stickers. She handed it to her daughter, and the girl downed half of it in three long draws on the straw as her big eyes surveyed the other straphangers. Having slaked her thirst, she went “Aaaaaaahhhh,” and I was totally charmed. She handed the bottle back to her mother, who silently exchanged it for a little ziplock bag of Cheerios. I don’t know why, but their wordless routine reminded me of a boxer and her coach in the corner between rounds. The coach knows and anticipates the fighter’s every need, so she can stay completely focused. The girl had that intensity of focus. And she pried the bag of Cheerios open and was about to chow down when her mom suddenly interrupted: “Wait a minute, now. Let’s clean up a bit first.” Mom pulls out a wet wipe. Daughter sticks out her hand. Given what’s happened so far, I’m expecting an efficient, silent scrubbing. But something different happened: something that, in retrospect, I would call holy. Mom slowly, mischievously draws the wet wipe over her daughter’s hand, so only its very tips tickle her palm. The girl squeals with delight. She sits up super straight; she points her toes; but she keeps her hand very still. Waiting for more. “Oh yes,” Mom says, grinning as she tickles the palm again, “we’ve got to get these hands clean...” It takes at least two minutes for Mom to wash her daughter’s hands. Not because they are so dirty, but because both are enjoying themselves too much to rush it. “Shall we wash...this finger?” Mom asks, looking deep into her daughter’s eyes. “Oh yes, Mama,” her child answers, consumed by giggles. The air conditioning in the subway car is on full blast and that cool wet wipe must feel so good against her warm skin. “Shall we wash your pinkie finger?” “Oh yes, Mama!” And on and on, both mother and daughter savoring these moments of connection, until the Cheerios were remembered and Mom answered an email on her phone and their stop came and they got off the train to walk the rest of the way home, holding hands. I have thought of this moment again and again over the last few months, and as I said, I think of it as a holy moment. And it came back to me especially this week as I have spent a lot of time on the subway, commuting up to Union Theological Seminary for my new student orientation. Like Chris, who preached last week, I am a postulant for the priesthood in the diocese: the Bishop is postulating that I will be ordained a priest after three years of seminary. So I am looking forward to having my backpack blessed shortly. But I have also been thinking of this mother and daughter this week as I have meditated on our scripture readings, which ask a question that pervades scripture, and the life of the church, and our own lives. What does it mean to be holy? In our Gospel reading today we get a sense of what it meant to Jesus to be holy. It comes out in a conflict with some prominent religious leaders of Jesus’ own day: the scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus and his disciples have sat down to eat, and they have not washed their hands. They are tired, and hot, and probably more than a little sweaty. They have been busy. In the chapter that precedes our reading today, we hear that so many people were coming to see Jesus that he and his disciples “had no leisure even to eat.” My friends, even Jesus struggled with work/life balance. They had tried to go off by themselves in a boat. But crowds of people just followed them around the shore to where the boat landed. So instead of having a quiet meal alone, Jesus and his disciples sat down with five thousand people and they all ate their fill from five loaves and two fishes. You know that story? They left and Jesus calmed a storm that threatened to overwhelm the boat and terrified his disciples, and they promptly arrive in another place where throngs of other people flock to Jesus, desperate to be near him, to hear his words of grace and to feel his healing touch. And we note that Jesus does not hesitate—not for a second. He touches their hurting bodies. He touches people with open sores, people we would now call mentally ill. He touches people who have been abandoned by their communities because they are seen as frightening, dangerous, even disgusting. In our reading today, the scribes and the Pharisees are upset that Jesus and his disciples have skipped the wet wipes and gone straight for the Cheerios. But given what Jesus has been up to, it’s clear that this is just the tip of the iceberg, just a small piece of the much more significant conflict between the movement of revolutionary love that Jesus is beginning and the status quo that the scribes and Pharisees represent. At the root of that status quo is the idea that holiness entails separation. To be holy is to be set apart from all that is profane, ordinary, everyday. This is easy for us to understand instinctively, and it is an important way that we still honor God and one another. This sanctuary is a place set apart from the rest of the block, and we enter it more reverently than we enter into Five Guys. We approach the altar differently than we approach the ATM at Bank of America. And that is right and good. But Jesus says that the scribes and the Pharisees have lost perspective. They are enforcing traditions that are less about setting certain things in a place of honor and more about separating oneself from the unfamiliar, the strange, and the wounded. They are making people anxious that they aren’t good enough, pure enough, to be in the presence of God. And, they say, if you want to protect your own purity—if you want to be clean—you had better avoid contact with those people who seem dirty, or strange, or broken. Such purity codes, Jesus says, have become barriers to God’s commandments: to love God with our whole heart and mind and soul, and to love our neighbors--all our neighbors—as ourselves. Jesus doesn’t seem to care if we eat clean or not: it’s not our failure to live up to an impossible standard that defiles us. What defile us are the thoughts and actions that diminish our capacity for love: our selfishness, our indifference, our pride, our lies. If Jesus had been concerned about his own purity, he would never have eaten with five thousand poor people, or prostitutes, or tax collectors, or people of other ethnicities. He would never have touched the sores of a leper, or a hemorrhaging woman. No one, in the eyes of God, is worthy of contempt. No one is untouchable. Jesus shows us that the deepest root of holiness is not separation but connection. And that means that we cannot be made holy alone. We cannot be whole while others are being broken down or cast out. Our freedom and joy is bound up with theirs. In Jesus, the very Son of God, we see that what makes us holy are not the things we do to protect ourselves, but the actions large and small that restore and guard the integrity of others. The word of kindness, the gift of time spent listening, the half a sandwich shared, the protest chant, the silent prayer, the transformation of our institutions in the pursuit of justice and joy for all; the gentle play of a wet wipe across a child’s hand on a crowded subway car. Was the point of that wet wipe to clean the little girl’s hands of dirt and germs? Sure. But more importantly, it was an opportunity for mother and daughter to delight in one another. And it moved me because I see it as an image of the kind of connection that God wants with us, and for us to have with one another. “Holy, holy, holy Lord: God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.” Heaven and earth connect wherever there are relationships of honor and care and delight, in which we are renewed and restored to the fullness of who we are. A holy people: people created to love and be loved. Amen. The Rev. Julia Macy Offinger
August 12, 2018 All Saints’ Church Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost Proper 14, Track 1 My birthday is August 21, so right around this time every year, I always start thinking about aging, and birth, and death, and mortality -- you know, all the typical birthday thoughts. And this year I have a niece who just turned one, on the same day as our parishioner Valerie had a big birthday, so I’ve just had birthdays on the brain this week. I’m especially grateful to the people at All Saints’ for teaching me that birthdays are a time for celebration, not feeling sad about getting old, but feeling triumphant about living life. But as I celebrated my niece’s first year of life, I realized that she shares this weekend with another anniversary, which is the grotesque display of white supremacists last year in Charlottesville, Virginia. I felt a little sick to think of the unfolding political landscape of the last year in our nation, alongside the delicate unfolding of Beatrix’s life. Babies and young children have this powerful way of putting life into context, don’t they? It’s hard to imagine the last year in our country’s history being the extent of our whole life. When we are faced with trouble, be it broad political trouble or personal trauma, grief, loss in our own life, we can balance that immediate context with the long, long arc of history, no matter how old we might be. As faithful Christians, the bible is a great way to do this, to remember that long before Beatrix was born, before we were born, before anyone who was in Charlottesville last year, before anyone in this room was born, before our country was born, before the people who lived here before Europeans colonized this land were born, before the printing press, before the English language, before paper -- there were these stories. This summer, we have been reading through the story of David, a shepherd boy known for making beautiful music, who then slays Goliath in an unexpected victory of the underdog. This is a classic Sunday School story. David then is chosen by Saul, the King of Israel, to come into his court, to be like a son to him. But then there is conflict between them. Saul worries that David is trying to become King, and perhaps his fears are warranted, because when both Saul and his son Jonathan die in battle, David does become King. This is where we begin our story this morning: David, once a shepherd boy is now the king of all Israel and Judah. He has many many children, sons and daughters with many many different women. Our story today is the story of one of those children, Absalom. So let me flesh out for you a little bit the story of Absalom. The first part of Absalom’s story is one that we don’t read in church. It’s not a pleasant story at all, in fact, it is one of the most gruesome parts of our holy scripture. But I do think it is important, as a group of people who come together to read from our bible together each week, that we don’t forget that there is a lot of stuff in there that is really disturbing, just as there is a lot of stuff in life that is really disturbing. Among the many children of David, there is one named Amnon, who decides he wants to lie with Absalom’s sister Tamar. It’s a little unclear, but it seems that Amnon has one mother and Absalom and Tamar have another. When Tamar refuses Amnon’s advances, he does not listen to her. And after he violates her wishes, he murders her. And to be clear, the translation of the bible we read in church, the New Revised Standard Version does use the words rape and murder to describe what happened, in case you fear I am being needlessly provocative on this hot summer morning. This terrible story, of course, makes Absalom very mad. David, their father and the king, is kind of at a loss about what to do -- they’re all my children, he says, what can I do? So Absalom waits two years and then avenges his sister’s murder and kills his brother Amnon. Now David really doesn’t know what to do. His children are killing each other. And Absalom decides he doesn’t really care what David thinks, and goes out on his own, to gain political favor, and perhaps make a move to take over the kingdom. This is where we learn that Absalom is known for his beauty, he is admired by all who see him, and in a fun little biblical fact, we learn he has to cut his hair once a year because it gets too big, and when he cuts it, it weighs 200 shekels, or about five pounds. Big-haired, handsome Absalom gains a lot of fans and followers, and David’s close advisors think David should put an end to this, for fear of losing the kingdom. But David hems and haws, Absalom is his son after all. He tells his people over and over not to kill Absalom, “deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom,” he says where our story starts this morning. But then Absalom is riding on his mule and his big hair gets stuck in a tree. And Absalom is hanging from the tree ... quite an image isn’t it? Hanging from the tree, the lectionary leaves out this line: David’s man Joab comes upon Absalom hanging there and says “I will not waste time like this with you.” So He took three spears in his hand, and thrust them into the heart of Absalom, while he was still alive in the oak.” Returning to David, Joab tells him what has happened. And even though at this point Absalom had killed his son and had fled from his house and was leading a political uprising against him, David wails: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” So you can kind of understand now why David and Goliath is more often taught in Sunday School, yes? Rather than this story, the story of Absalom. This story is so complicated. It is a messy story about family. About love. About a brother’s love for his sister, about a father’s love for his child, his children. About real wrongdoing and evil done to each other. It’s also at its heart, a story about narcissistic, ego-driven political guys fighting for power and killing each other, discarding women and women’s experiences, which ... I don’t know about you, but thousands and thousands of years later somehow still feels familiar to me. As Christians today, here in Brooklyn in 2018, what are we supposed to do with these stories? In a fraught political time, when women are demanding to be heard, when parents and children find themselves disagreeing bitterly over politics. What can we take from the foundational stories of our faith, what comfort or good news is there here? One of my favorite biblical scholars, Phyllis Trible, explains how to read the bible faithfully. Be like Jacob wrestling the angel, she says, Jacob who was awakened from his nap by this messenger of God and fought back. As he wrestled with the angel, he said, “I will not let go of you until you bless me.” We say the same to the text, “I will not let go of you until you bless me.” What happens if we don’t let go of this story, what blessing might we find? To be honest with you, when I was writing this sermon, the potentially easier thing to do would have been to dust off an old sermon about bread and talk about what’s going on with Jesus this morning. How Jesus makes sure that we will never go hungry, how we have to eat bread every day, how that is at the core of our faith, how much I love bread, and how we have to make sure that our neighbors all have enough bread, too. That is a pretty easy story to get a blessing from. But I couldn’t let go of the angel in this story of Absalom, I would not let go of this sermon until we found a blessing. What blessing might we find together? Do you know what the name Absalom means? In Hebrew it is Avishalom, that is Avi, father, and Shalom, Peace. Father of peace. So I am left scratching my head at this, because, if you will recall the story we have just gone through together, Absalom is known as a brother, and as a son, but not really as a father. And the story doesn’t seem so peaceful, does it? It could be that the author of this story is just being ironic. But as I’m wrestling with this story, I want to be a little less cynical than that. I think, instead, that God is telling us that peace is complicated. It’s not a simple, black and white, easily moralized story. What if God’s peace that has passed down to us through the generations from this “father of peace” is a peace that understands violence? But a peace that, at its very core, despite political differences, also reconciles us with the love of our parents? To understand Absalom as the Father of Peace is to understand that God has not given up hope for peace, hope for reconciliation, hope for love. Hope that we might not turn against each other, hope that we might listen. And to understand Absalom as the Father of Peace is to understand that God has not given up on justice. Because David, hemming and hawing and not acting because he does not know what to do, he is not the Father of peace. Absalom is, Absalom who acted, who did what he thought was right. Absalom, who it turns out, was a father, and though we don’t know much about his children, we do know that he named his daughter after his beloved sister, Tamar. God invites us into this lineage of peace. God invites you, invites me, invites Beatrix, and Valerie, invites everyone in Charlottesville, and Washington D.C. this morning -- God invites us to into this active peace, to make peace together, to be a blessing of peace. Amen. |
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