Here is the sermon from Sunday, October 17 - on Luke 18:1-8:

I can’t help thinking of the Chilean miners as we all watched in awe this past week as all 33 of them … against almost impossible odds … emerged safely from the mine. People around the world watched and cheered … and prayed for their safety… as we did last Sunday in worship and on Tuesday night at the Session meeting.
Was it the prayers that made the difference?
If that’s so, then what about the 20 Chinese miners who died on Friday in an underground explosion?
Or what about one friend who is declared cancer-free … and someone else we know and love who is not?
Does God really answer all our prayers this way?
For many of us, prayer is not like drawing answers out of a hat any time we want them. Instead it is more often a lifetime of asking, seeking, knocking, waiting for an answer and growing impatient … even sometimes angry … with the silence.
An elderly black minister read this parable and gave a one-sentence interpretation: “Until you have stood for years knocking at a locked door, your knuckles bleeding, you do not really know what prayer is.”[1]
So when the Gospel tells us not to lose heart, that God will answer our prayers and bring justice quickly … sometimes our own experience tells us: well, maybe that’s true … but maybe not.
There is a dissonance here for people of faith – and there always has been as prophets like Habbakuk and voices like that of Job wonder why it is that the unjust prosper and the righteous suffer.
The answer was … and still is: I don’t know. But be patient and trust and be faithful.
Which is never a very satisfying answer … at least for those of us, and I count myself among them, who want to have all our questions answered and problems fixed – as quickly as possible.
Which is why I’ve always liked this parable of the “persistent” widow. She knows how to get things done – and won’t give up until it happens. She is the Erin Brockovich of the 1st century … she could be the lobbyist for hungry children or unemployed workers or widows on pensions pounding on every door in Congress until she’s heard and justice is done.
There’s a great little story of Mother Theresa visiting Edward Bennett Williams – a Washington lawyer who at one time was the lawyer for Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon (among other notable … and sometimes notorious people) and for a time he was the owner of the Washington Redskins and the Baltimore Orioles. Mother Theresa was coming to ask for a donation for her hospice in India – and Williams was not inclined to give it to her. So before she got there, he agreed with his partner that they would hear her out, then politely refuse.
Which they did – hear her, that is, then decline to give a donation … whereupon Mother Theresa said simply, “let us pray.” After she had prayed, she started over and gave her pitch for the hospice once again – word for word as before. And again Williams said no … whereupon Mother Theresa said again, “let us pray.” And Williams, exasperated, looked up at the ceiling and said, “all right, all right. Get me my checkbook.”[2]
Maybe that’s the widow in our parable. Someone who should be insignificant, yet who by her faithful persistence can change the mind of even those who are more powerful than she.
Even this judge. There is not a lot to like about this judge. He makes no secret of the fact that he has no time for God and basically doesn’t like people. By refusing to hear her case he violates every command in the Jewish Law where judges were charged with the responsibility of hearing all complaints fairly and impartially. Let alone there is in Scripture a clear expectation that special regard and protection should be given to widows, orphans and foreigners.
But our judge seems to have had no regard for any of that.
And by the end of the parable, he hasn’t changed his mind either. He has no more regard for God than he did before and he could still care less about anyone else – and he doesn’t mind saying so. He has simply gotten tired of this woman coming to his court every day demanding justice.
Now, Luke tells us this parable is meant to show the disciples they should always pray and not give up, which might lead us to think that if we simply pester God long enough and hard enough, our prayers will be answered.
But parables … and life … are never as simple as that.
Several weeks ago on the Fox Network’s hit series “Glee,” which is all about a high school glee club, they actually tackled the topic of prayer. The series loves a good satire – and they had great fun poking at our idea of God as a god who gives us whatever we want. The high school football star creates his own theology of prayer when he thinks he sees the face of Jesus in his grilled cheese sandwich and then imagines that Jesus magically grants his every wish. It was all very silly and had to make you laugh at ourselves and our own expectations of prayer sometimes.
But while they never really resolved the issues of prayer (how could they, really in a 1-hour episode of a comedy show?) – still I have to give them credit: …they did not hesitate to raise the questions that youth and adults have every day:
what happens when our prayers are not answered,
and what happens when they are?
What difference does it make when we believe in the power of prayer …
and even when we don’t?
We pray for peace … but the world hasn’t changed very much.
We pray for healing … but sometimes there is no cure.
We pray for direction … but find no clear answers.
We pray for our children … but that doesn’t guarantee we can protect them or that they will make good decisions.
Is it simply a matter of pestering God long enough and hard enough … or is there something more?
This is where I think it helps to hear again the message throughout the gospels: that we are to ask and seek and knock, we are to remember that if God’s eye is on the sparrow then it is also on each one of us. For the parable is not comparing God to the unjust judge. God doesn’t need to be pestered into paying attention to us. After all, Jesus has taught us to pray asking each day for what we need … for daily bread and forgiveness and for God’s will to be done.
If that is so, then Jesus here is simply reminding us that if even such a man as that judge will see that the widow gets justice, then how much more will God hear us and care for us and see that justice is done … even if the answer is long in coming … even if it is not what we asked for.
It’s not about having the right prayers, or praying for the right things … it’s not always even about asking for anything. But over time, prayer is about building a relationship with the living God, who created us and sustains us in love and who cares for every details of our lives.
In the end, all of our prayers – our complaints, our requests, our praise, our thanksgiving, our confession … all of it is part of our relationship with God.
Like the widow we keep asking, seeking, knocking until prayer becomes the ongoing conversation between us and the One who made us.
“Then,” someone said, when we have that ongoing conversation with God … “we will never come away empty-handed from prayer, because even if we wind up with none of the things we thought we needed, we will always wind up with God listening, attending and answering our prayers in ways we hadn’t [even] imagined.”[3]
When the author Madeline L’Engle was waiting for results from a biopsy, she says that she kept praying: “please, don’t let it be cancer. Don’t let it be cancer.” And she says her friends kept telling her that was the wrong prayer – it was either cancer or it was not and praying would not make it otherwise.
But she insisted that praying for it not to be cancer was what was in her heart, therefore it could not be a “wrong prayer.” She needed to pray as her heart needed to pray – nothing more and nothing less.
When the biopsy results came back and she learned her cancer was terminal, she wondered if her prayers had been wasted, but she decided:
“Prayer is love, and love is never wasted…. Perhaps there will be unexpected answers to these prayers, answers I may not even be aware of for years. But they are not wasted. They are not lost. I do not know where they have gone, but [she goes on to say] I believe that God holds them, hands outstretched to receive them like precious pearls.”[4]
I find great courage in believing that prayer is never wasted and I have come to trust in the fact that throughout our lives there are times we will struggle with faith and with God … because it is in our nature to wonder, to doubt, to believe, to question, to hope even when we know only long periods of silence and to trust even when we see only in part.
Maybe Jesus is telling us this parable not to show us how God answers prayer, but rather to show us how we are to live … in faith … like the widow, faithful enough to keep:
- praying
- to keep asking, seeking, knocking … and doing it with boldness
- never giving up, never losing heart
- and trusting that each and every day, in every circumstance – God is there, persistently seeking us. Always desiring goodness, wholeness, and justice for all creation.
Even for us. Even for you. Even now.
May it be so. Amen.


[1] Cited by Fred Craddock, Luke (Interpretation Commentary – Louisville, KY: John Knox Press), p. 210.
[2] Cited by Rev. Dr. Thomas Long in “Praying Without Losing Heart,” found at the website: http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/long_5101.htm
[3] “On God’s Case,” by Stephanie Frey, The Christian Century, July 13, 2004, p. 17.
[4] James C. Howell, The Beautiful Work of Learning to Pray (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), p. 31.

I will..... with God's help

In the wake of our church’s recent baptisms, I have been particularly grateful for my own baptism and that my parents made the decision years ago to present me before our church, formalizing the covenant between God, the church and its members. When I was home this past weekend, my mother brought out the extra-large Tupperware container of my childhood keepsakes. Somewhere wedged between saved birthday cards and pictures from the first day of kindergarden was the bulletin from my service of baptism, some twenty-seven years ago. As I held it in my hands, looking to see if there were any markers that the service was especially significant, I noticed that the liturgy focused on the communal action of the church body in the sacrament of baptism. My name wasn’t even listed. As personally important the service was to me, the emphasis was on the promises made by that congregation to raise me and direct me in ways which honored Jesus.

Perhaps, as I have grown to a point that I realize saying the words, “I will,” carries great weight and responsibility when asked of me, I wonder what those questions posed to a congregation during a baptism really require. Pondering this, my thoughts often drift to a friend I have from the church I attended during high school. Though her children had graduated from our youth group, she was one of the main adults that participated in our various activities from lock-ins to driving the van to camp every summer; we all secretly fought over who would get to ride with her. As we graduated and departed for college, the military, and other more distant horizons, I wondered if sheer geography would mean the end of her involvement with us. Ten years and many different zip codes have proven otherwise. And, it’s not just me who she has managed to guide and nurture.

There were two girls from another family in our church who lost their mother when they were very young. When their father remarried, they were lost in the shuffle, left in many ways to weather their lives alone. Over the years, I have marveled at the significant and palpable ways that this friend has walked alongside these girls. She has helped them move house, buy cars, struggle through difficult break-ups, stay in school, and learn how to manage adulthood. There have been ups and downs, frustration, tears, and, on many occasions, also heartwarming joy. I ran into one of the girls while I was visiting my hometown, and she commented that whenever she encountered a challenge which seemed more than she could handle on her own, this friend was the first person she thought to call.

I don’t know if my friend was present when these girls were brought before the church for their baptisms. I can’t help but imagine, though, that every time she has said, “I will,” to those questions, whenever they have been asked of her, she has taken them to heart. Certainly, her actions, her willingness to be enmeshed with so many of us, live up to those promises made, again and again, whenever baptism is celebrated. My friend is not the only person I know who has lived out these vows with intention. She, along with others who have said, “I will,” and on many days remembered, have been enabled to act through the grace of Christ.

Ultimately, it is the church as a whole, a community of both givers and receivers, that upholds the baptismal covenant. None of us acts alone. When we say, “I will,” we do so knowing that God has gone before us, is there with us, and will continue to be present until the end of time. As we are woven further into a community of faith, we are reminded that in our binding, with God and neighbor, we live not through our own power, but as a part of a larger story. Being baptized does not ensure that God will love us more deeply, for God’s love for each of us exists regardless of baptism. This covenant is, however, a reminder of a promise between God, the church, and its body, which names aloud God’s sign and seal over us.

As stated in the baptismal liturgy found in the Book of Common Prayer,

There is one Body and one Spirit;

There is one hope in God’s call to us;

One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism;

One God and Father of all.

Fall Reflections

This Devotion was written by Elder Marti Hawkins and shared with the PCC Session at our meeting this past Tuesday night. With Marti's permission ... here are her reflections:

I am not a biblical historian, but I can’t recall a single passage of scripture that embraces the beauty of fall. Did David write any psalms about vibrant autumn color? Were Mary and Martha busy before Jesus’ visit, raking leaves that accumulated at their doorway? Was Solomon’s temple adorned with jack-o-lanterns?

This time of year is transitional between the growth and bloom of summer vegetation, and the winter dormancy of flora and fauna. As many creatures hibernate and refresh their bodies until the spring renewal, others migrate to the eastern shore to become reinvigorated. I have been thinking of hibernation and migration in a spiritual sense, how do these activities relate to human life?

I believe we all need a time of renewal, an opportunity to cleanse our spirit, rest our body, and reflect. Perhaps this renewal represents a hibernation from the hectic demands of our world, an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with our God and our faith.

Migration, such as our Canada geese habitually engage in, is a little trickier to apply to our lives, but it may suggest a shift from a focus on self to a focus on others. Or it may be the symbol of passages in our life…as we age and mature, our love for family and friends deepens, our trust in God migrates from childhood to adulthood as the ultimate and constant source of strength.

Therefore, we can fulfill a need to energize our souls as we rest and hibernate. and like the geese we can pursue invigorating change by migrating on our faith journey. May we follow our instincts along the path to salvation, and praise our God from whom all beauty and blessings flow.

This was Sunday's sermon from October 10, 2010 - Title: "10/10/10" ... for those of you who might be interested!

Until the year 2012, each year there will be one day, like today, where are all the numbers are the same – May 5, 2005 – or 5/5/05; or September 9, 2009 – 9/9/09. You get the idea.
People pay special attention on a day where all 3 numbers are the same – expecting it to be somehow uniquely special … or at least simply unique. After all, they only come around once every 100 years.

But, to be honest, I fully expected to find dire, apocalyptic warnings about today being 10/10/10. After all – there is something about the number 10 that lends itself to this kind of thinking. It’s fairly basic in our lives. We count by tens. Most of us have 10 toes and ten fingers.

In the Bible, the number “10” often symbolically represents divine order or completeness. There were 10 plagues that Moses called down upon Pharaoh and Egypt. There were 10 maidens with their lamps burning in Jesus’ parable about being ready for his coming. And of course, there is the idea of a tithe – or a gift of 10% that is to be returned to God. And just in case you thought I had forgotten the most obvious - there are 10 Commandments.

With all of that symmetry and order – of course there must be massive conspiracy theories out there expecting something that would happen at 10 min. 10 sec. after 10 a.m. on 10/10/10. After all, that’s going to be not too long from now (and this is one time during a sermon that the preacher won’t even mind if you check your watches).

So, where do you go if you want to find out what strange and curious things might happen on 10/10/10?

Well, a random search on the Internet actually turned up … not much.

Other than the fact that if you’re in a store that sells clocks – you might notice that they’re usually all set to 10 minutes after 10.

And yes, there is the rumor of a massive Internet virus that will crash all computers at 10:10 this morning. But since in every 24 hours there are over 60,000 pieces of malicious software that are launched – one security engineer wondered why anyone would worry about today in particular?[1]

I did learn that Bride’s magazine is reporting that more than 30,000 couples will be married today – about 10 times the normal number reported for any other day.[2]

For a while I muddled my brain with all those “zeros” and “ones” from today’s date, trying to figure out how to convert from a binary system into a decimal system and I remembered why I didn’t major in math. But I did find out that 101010 in binary code converts to the number “42.” For those who know the classic science fiction book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, they will quickly recognize that the number “42” is the answer to life, the universe and everything.[3] There’s definitely a sermon or two in that.

But overall … I found no global-apocalyptic-cosmic cataclysm-conspiracy theory for 10/10/10.

In fact, I learned from one website that, even when taking into account the differences between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, nothing significant appears to have happened a thousand years ago during the year 1010 nor did anything significant appear to have happened two thousand years ago during the year 10.[4] Their point being: so why would we expect something significant to happen today?

The closest I got to any worldwide conspiracy is simply that the Gospel Lesson for today in the Revised Common Lectionary – used by most American Protestants and Roman Catholics – is indeed about the 10 lepers who were healed.
I have to wonder if the Lectionary Committee had a good chuckle about that one. Or maybe they didn’t even notice.

Which may be part of the point.

I have always read this healing story as a lesson in gratitude.
So just as the Samaritan who turned back, so we are to become a grateful people who live each day in thankfulness to God. That seems simple enough.

But the more I sit with this text, it seems to me to be more than simply a call to be thankful, as important as that is.

After all, there is nothing in the text that would lead us to believe that the other 9 men were not thankful – my guess is they were very thankful indeed to be healed and they ran as fast as they could to the priests in order to start to live a normal life again.

But the difference came in what they saw – or did not see. What they noticed … or did not notice. Ten men are healed – but only one sees what has happened. And that seeing makes all the difference.

In fact, Jesus is always teaching his followers – then and now – that faith is not just a matter of believing certain things, but it is also about seeing – about seeing and naming God’s presence and work in our lives and in our world … and helping each other to do the same.

Someone once said that in fact, what we do in worship each week is “cataract surgery” because every week we need to have our sight restored and our vision clarified.[5]

During any given week there can be so much busyness and doubt in our day that it can be difficult to sustain faith in a loving God. A day or two of things going wrong at work; tensions with our children; bad news from the doctor … as someone said, “even though our faith might be sure and confident on Sunday morning, by the following Friday – and … some weeks it’s by Monday afternoon – we need to have our faith rekindled.”[6]

And so every week, and sometimes every day, we need to be reminded that even when our vision becomes cloudy, Jesus still sees us in whatever confusion or clutter our lives and our world might be in – and God reaches out to us first, to make us whole.

Time and again, we need one another to help clarify our vision and restore our eyesight, so that we are ready to recognize that moment of grace when it comes.

This past month when we have been busier than I ever knew we could be – with anniversary events and Malawi friends to host, I have felt like one of those 9 lepers. I was so relieved to be “healed” that I was the first to run off, ready to get back to “normal” – whatever that is.

At times when life is at its busiest, I can find my senses dulled as I simply check things off my list, and my nerves stretch to their limit and I’m consumed by anxiety and everyone else’s expectations, let alone my own pettiness and distraction. I wouldn’t recognize a moment of grace if it came up and hit me. It’s all I can do some days to simply keep moving.

But when I’m at my best, even if I’m at my busiest … when my eyes are opened, like that 1 Samaritan’s were … I find that grace is all around me. I can look back now and see how I almost missed it these past few weeks – but grace and God’s presence have been there all the time.

I’ve been learning that I have to practice this kind of seeing – and I’ve actually tried “exercising” my ability to see by taking an assignment for a day – by telling myself to notice one thing all day long: like one day it might be the color orange; the next day it may be to notice shoes. I’ve learned it doesn’t matter what the thing is I’m supposed to notice – simply that I’m practicing learning to pay attention – it’s the discipline of being “mindful” about what is happening.

And I find that when I am “mindful” … I start to be aware of God’s presence in any number of ways during the day … in shared conversations; in the routines of the day; in the simple beauty of the garden, and the sound of the geese overhead. Instead of simply being only annoyed and angry with the failure of politicians and leaders the world over to make peace and act justly, I find myself praying my way through the news of the day – seeking God’s wisdom for us all. I become more aware of God’s presence in answered prayers – and even when prayers go unanswered. I am less likely to take the good in each day for granted.

And when I am here in worship every Sunday, I find my spirits lifted, my heart stretched and strengthened because we have been together to pray and listen to God’s word, to sing and even be silent. My sight is restored for now because we have been together … and I can recognize that by the grace of God and the presence of Christ in this community I too have been made whole.

These are moments of grace … and I find myself filled with praise.

When the 1 man who had seen what was happening had turned back to praise God, Jesus said to him: Rise and go …

And so do we … we turn to praise, and then we rise and go, ready to see and notice and to help each other see that God is still at work in the world and in our lives – God sees us and in Jesus Christ, God keeps making us whole … at 10:10 on 10/10/10 and on the 11th and the 12th and every day hereafter.

Maybe that is the answer to life, the universe and everything.
May it be so. Amen.

[1] As reported at: www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/101010-interent-virus-hope-rumor/ – “Rumors of a 10/10/10 Internet Virus …”
[2] Also from the same www.abcnews report.
[3] The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.
[4] From the website: http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Interpret-101010-Sunday-October-10-2010.
[5] These ideas are from an article, “Cataract Surgery,” by Dr. David Lose on the website: www.workingpreacher.org.
[6] Ibid.

Take, Eat, and Remember

I have a distinct memory of the very first Sunday I took communion. I wish I could say I remember it so well because I caught a glimpse of the holy wonder of Jesus through participation in this timeless sacrament or that I had some recognition of what this mystery meant. I should confess, however, the memory has little to do with Jesus. I was in the backseat of my father’s car, sitting surreptitiously behind the driver’s seat so that he could not see what I was up to.

My father, a faithful Episcopalian and Eucharist partaker, had decided that that Sunday was the first Sunday that I would take communion. Because my mother was at home with my younger, sick brother, it was up to him to impress upon me the importance of this day and this meal. I, on the other hand, had a different agenda in mind. With my mother distracted with illness and my father focused on imparting Eucharistic wisdom to his impressionable daughter, I saw this car ride as a unique opportunity to try out the red lipstick I had stashed away in my white, paten-leather purse the previous Easter. As my dad eloquently spoke of Jesus’ life, death and last meal with his friends, armed with a pocket mirror and Estee Lauder, I proceeded to paint the lower part of my face bright red. It was a least two days before my face returned to its normal hue. But, after a vigorous scrubbing in the bathroom and many amused looks from those who witnessed my make-up artistry, I joined my father at the communion rail, cupping my hands in the sign of a cross, ready to receive the bread of life. I will never forget that morning.

Our celebration of World Communion Sunday was a reminder to me of the great diversity of those who are hungry to be fed. From the youngest ones who join the meal without care or pretense to the ones who have come to the table, again and again, year after year, growing in the knowledge that this food, which binds together saints of the past, present, and still to come, is the only food which truly fills us. That’s not to say that there have been some seasons in my life when taking communion has felt less significant to me. I have often thought fellowship meals and coffee dates on random afternoons which help relationships to grow into intimate, close friendship, are even more important than any ancient tradition of the church. In part, I may have even been right. But I don’t think one precludes the other. Perhaps they go together, hand in hand, our holy meal which celebrates the love of our Savior providing the framework for all of our other encounters. Coming to any table to break bread is given deeper meaning because we have been taught how to commune rightfully with one another with unconditional love, respect, and care.

When we celebrate holy communion, we acknowledge that this morsel and drop of bread and wine are a foretaste of the fulfillment of God’s promises to us and to the whole world. Last Sunday, from East and West and in every tongue, we joined with countless others to be reminded of the abounding hope found at the Lord’s table. With this memory fresh in our hearts, we are sure to experience this hope elsewhere, around other tables, holding hands and saying grace, or even as we marvel at the signs of the season’s shifting. God’s presence abides with us-- in our worship and in our world, always steadfast, faithful, and true.

Leave-taking

“I am better at hellos” quipped Karen Blixen in one of my favorite scenes from Out of Africa, when she discovers that her husband is, yet again, leaving her alone on their Kenyan farm. I would imagine many of us would relate to Karen when the time comes to say good-bye to the ones that we love. It’s never easy, even with the assurance that one day, in one way or the other, we will meet again.

As we prepare for leave-taking with our Malawian friends, I have thought of the great difficulty I have had with saying good-bye over the years. The day before leaving is always the hardest. Emotions seem to run high and low. I always end up in a colossal argument with my mother on the way to the airport, dissolving in tears and my resolve to never allow her to drive me to the airport again. It is as if we are refusing to face the truth of our sadness at leaving by conjuring up some other pain as a distraction. Days later, once resettled in our respective lives, we remember how we have learned to love each other even at a distance.

At times I have wished to corral my family and friends into one place, keeping them safe and close. But, I know this is impossible, that we must learn to hold each other in our hearts, and envision new ways of relationship and care which transcends space, time, and geography. We can even teach ourselves to be grateful for the few hours we are given, an impromptu coffee date along an interstate thoroughfare. I realized I was getting better at coming and going when I viewed an hour conversation with an old friend not as too little time but instead as simply a gift. Despite the moments when I wish I would have stayed safely tucked in my original home community, I know it is impossible to prevent life’s movements-- friendships shift, people move, and loved ones pass away. None of us are immune.

For the past two weeks, our church community has been given a gift of face-to-face time with our Malawian brothers and sisters. We have smiled and laughed a lot, encountering parts of our home with them as if it were our very first time. We have been reminded of our unity even in the midst of our different cultures. We have come together, making a patchwork of memories which all of us, on both sides of the ocean, will cherish dearly. Saying goodbye to friends who live 8,000 miles away seems rather stark, worthy of tears to say the least. Yet, we do not know what future gifts of encounter await us. We do not know God’s ways or plans, but that His faithfulness endures. With this leave-taking, we give thanks for the gift of time that we have been given with our friends, and trust that in a myriad of ways, even from afar, our relationships will continue to grow and strengthen through the power and love of Jesus Christ.

Leave-taking Prayer

By: Saint Thomas More

If the heart grows heavy

As an adamantine stone

May some lost lark find refuge there

And a lilting song intone.

And if sadness sits upon your winter face

And heavy knits your brow

May spring descend with flowers bright

And laugh upon the broken bough.

If the road leads to deserts sere

And the soul is on sorrow's brink

May you find old Jacob's ancient well

And drink, and drink, and drink.