Mother's Day: Call it an Intervention!

Ascensiontide & Mother's Day

It is Ascension Sunday and we celebrate this day the fact that Jesus has ascended to the right hand of God on high to become our Advocate and Judge. Isn't that a curious juxtaposition of words. How curious that these two words are set together so as to open for us a means to maintain an Honest to God creative tension. Jesus, at one and the same time an Advocate for us for the forgiveness of our sins, and Judge to keep us accountable to God and ourselves for our behaviors. As we read in the Book of Revelation; "See, I am coming soon, my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work." Thanks be to God. 

Happy Mother's Day. I do hope that there is an appropriate amount of fussing and flowers and dinners today in honor of those among us who give so much that we might know life, and love and joy. There will be some of that in our family, I can assure you. Having said that, I must tell you that my mom could be a feisty and ferocious woman. We did have our difficult moments. But she also gave me much to be thankful for including some backbone. Indeed, the apple does not fall far from the tree and I too can have my own feisty and ferocious moments. 

She loved us in her own way. I remember one day in particular, when I was still very young. I was venturing out on the rocks in Gloucester, and didn't realize how slippery those rocks could be. She called out for me to return, and I pretended not to hear her and continued further out on the rocks. She hollered out to me using my full name for emphasis in a way that indicated she was becoming somewhat irritated. I ignored her. And then my foot met one of those slippery spots which was as slick as grease. My feet went out from under. me, I went flying, and landed on my back. The impact knocked the wind out of me. When I looked up, there she was reaching out to me to carry me back to safety. She used some colorful language which I also learned from other members of my working class family in Somerville. It was an intervention that I shall never forget.

I learned that unconditional love and intervention have a direct relationship to one another.

May is the month of the Mother of Jesus especially so among our sisters and brothers in the Roman tradition. The example of of the Holy Family; Jesus, Mary and Joseph is exemplary as we take note of Mother's Day and that dimension of the human and Godly character that seeks to nurture and care and love. This dimension of our Journey to God is indeed worth noting and celebrating.

It is not surprising then that we see judgment and advocacy, and unconditional love and intervention as proclaimed this day as being two side of the very same coin. 

We love our children unconditionally, of course. But what do we do when we see them on a course of self-destruction? Shrug our shoulders as if there is nothing we can do until they hit bottom? Or do we put ourselves at risk and venture out on the rocks to snatch them out of the jaws of danger?

We live in an increasingly secular world. There are those who accuse us of holding onto "The God Delusion" as Richard Dawkins, the famous contemporary atheist calls it. It is a world that believes it can go it alone. That also includes many of our children. For so many we are children of science to the exclusion of any notion of God.

The problem of holding to such a notion is that it is simply not true. It is the greater delusion by far to think we can go it alone; either without God or without one another. As John Donne, the famous English metaphysical poet and Anglican clergyman once noted; 

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 

own were; any man's death diminishes me, 

because I am involved in mankind. 

And therefore never send to know for whom 

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

We discover time and again that we cannot go it alone. Even those of us who do believe in God, we need to learn every single day of our lives how urgent a matter it is to be Honest to God with ourselves and one another. 

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Albert Einstein once observed that "religion without science is blind" how true, but he went on to say "science without religion is lame". Interesting statement! Imagine looking at the wonder of the universe either in its immensity or at its most minute, without a reverence for the creation. What emptiness!

No, the Scientific method requires of us the curiosity and rigorous honesty to ask the right questions. It is not a pursuit of all the answers as much as it is the pursuit of framing the right questions. 

The same can be said of our Spirituality. For more than a quarter of a century, I have been keeping a journal in order to explore the inner mystery of my attempt to love God, love my neighbor and love myself. There are no easy answers. But it is not the answers that help me as much as the ability to frame up the questions. 

For me the search for inner truth, relational truth, scientific truth and Godly truth are all of the same sacred quest. It is the search for the Truth itself that is at the root of our deepest yearning; As Jesus said; "You shall know the Truth and the Truth that shall make you free". ~John 8:32

Call it an intervention; It is into this world that the Child is born.

God's Name is "Love". Love is much more than warmth. It is Honest to God Truth. You know that Jesus was a truth teller. Being honest brought him into conflict often particularly with the religious authorities of the day. Pharisees, Sadduccees, Scribes, and Doctors of the Law often found themselves in conflict with Jesus.

This God business is a matter the Joy of Jesus. It is also a matter of life and death folks, Honest to God!

I believe that without God, we set ourselves up for all kinds of sin. The human being is created to know and to love God. We are called into Covenant with God. To ignore this one central fact of our very creation is to put ourselves into great and immediate peril. 

This wonderful little story of Paul and Silas in Philippi in Macedonia is a case in point. They cured a fortune teller and seeing their hope of financial gain disappear, the folks conjured up some charges and Paul and Silas ended up in jail. The ensuing earthquake led the jailer to see himself in immediate peril and Paul then told him not to harm himself. The jailer then understood where he stood with God and declared "What must I do to be saved?" 

Paul tells him; "Believe on the Lord Jesus." There is more to belief than a few syllables. Belief is the fruit of that earth shattering realization that our entire being depends on an encounter with the living God. Baptism is a good beginning but it is only a beginning for each and all of us. Daily we turn to God. Moment by moment we set the compass of our lives to True North, Honest to God. 

Without salvation, we find ourselves subject to the sinful nature of a world that seeks to destroy us. Conflict, violence, hatred, bigotry, oppression and injustice are just the beginning of our sinful nature. We are also subject to the self destructive tendencies human nature is prone to. We may not always take the word sin seriously. We do so at our own peril.

What must we do to be saved? Believe. But when you believe put your heart and soul into it! Jesus the One Ascended to the Right hand of God is both our Advocate and Judge, thanks be to God. On this Mother's Day may our hearts be filled with all the fullness of God. 

In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity.

Fr Paul. 

Can Anyone Withhold the Water for Baptism?

Note to the reader; The news that a baby was refused baptism in the Episcopal Church because he happens to have two dads boggles the mind. Here is how I approached the subject in today's sermon.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you”

So begins today’s Gospel. And the love of God continues to flow like the very River of God itself, from God through Jesus to us and from us to one another. It is in the nature of God’s love that it shall flow forever and build in strength and power as its flow builds within every human heart, and as its flow conquers every evil.

It is Mother’s Day; a day to honor all the moms of this congregation and elsewhere, and of course their moms and the moms who came before them; all of them gathered together into one great cloud of witness together with all the fathers and grandfathers too, who loved them and loved us. As the Scripture says; "Honor your father and your mother". 

The gathering; this notion of gathering is central to our understanding of the Eucharist. The word “gathering” is a word I use to begin teaching our First Communion class about the nature of the Eucharist. After all, without the gathering of the people of God, there can be no Eucharist.  It is in the very act of gathering that we learn the central teaching of Jesus; “as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. And so this is my commandment; that you love one another”.

When a church and a family are doing their work well, this very love is the cornerstone out of which we build our lives. It is the very cornerstone upon which God builds our faith.

Today is Rogation Sunday. The word comes from the Latin “rogare”; to ask as in the English “interrogation”. Rogationtide is a time to “ask” God for a fruitful earth so that we can make provision for ourselves and all God’s creatures. Coming with that request is the ethical mandate that we in turn, are responsible for caring about Mother Earth.  She who bears us and nurtures us also requires that we care and nurture her in return. Such is the nature of love’s reciprocity.

The clarity of the Gospel’s mandate for love is unmistakable. For it is out of the Father’s love that Jesus is born, and more particularly, it is because Mary became the handmaid of God that Jesus came to us, in human form.

In Christian circles Mary is honored in the East as the “theotokos” the “Mother of God”. She is honored in Roman Catholicism. She is honored in Anglicanism in the frequent and joyous singing of the Magnificat.

God’s love finds a special focal point in Mary whose song is of God’s universal love for all without regard to any human classification. She sings at the Annunciation “My soul proclaims the greatness of God” or in the Elizabethan rendering “My soul doth magnify the Lord”. 

A mother’s love for her child is intense. God knows you don’t want to get between a mother bear and her cub. You could find yourself in a world of hurt if you do. It is in the nature of things that a mother’s love can be intense, sometimes bordering on ferocious. Many of us are all too familiar with that dimension of a mother’s love.

John puts an interesting twist to the notion of the love between a parent and a child. As he explains in today’s Epistle, those who believe that Jesus is the Christ of God also recognize the love between the parent and the child, and of course Jesus takes the matter to its logical conclusion; there is no greater love than this “to lay down your life for your friends”. That love is not coterminous to a mother and child or even a father and child as Jesus articulates it…but this love goes well beyond familial lines to kind of friendship bears toward us.

“Sing of Mary pure and lowly virgin mother undefiled”. I love the hymn. Mary understands the price she will pay for the love she bears. After all, Jesus will be the one to lay down his life for his friends. 

Knowing what we know of the love of God as revealed to us in the person of Jesus, particularly as we see it articulated in today’s scripture, let me ask you this, to whom may we deny baptism? 

Let’s say I bring a baby to you and ask for a baptism. Lets say I have been been gathering regularly in church with my spouse. On the face of it all seems well. The church seems welcoming. We come to the priest and ask for a baptism. Can you think of any reason to say “No”?

I find it delightfully appropriate that today’s lesson indicates with crystal clarity what the answer will be to such a question. Peter says, "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”

When Jesus tells us to love one another as he loves us, obviously we know he means everybody whatever race, ethnicity, class, or gender. Do we have to specifically add the word “orientation”? I thought that when Philip baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch, we covered that issue. 

But apparently we have to come out and say so. It came as a total surprise to me to find out that when a same sex couple joined the Cathedral Church of St Luke in Orlando Florida, they were told that their baby’s baptism would have to be postponed since there were those in the congregation who objected.

Can you imagine such a thing in this day an age! I thought we had pretty much settled this issue in the Episcopal Church. And furthermore; a baby! I cannot imagine, even in my most cautious days refusing to bring a baby into the gathered community of faith. In fact I cannot imagine denying the love of Christ to anyone. For heaven sake, in recent days, even the pope said that no priest will deny baptism to a child. One would hope we could get that part straight.

God knows that when Jesus stretched out his loving arms on the hard wood of the cross, he did so in order that everyone might come within the reach of his saving embrace.

And there can be no exceptions to that love; not for God and certainly not for us and most certainly not for God’s Church.

Well, the news that this baby was refused a baptism hit the social media and raised a firestorm of protest. The matter became something of an embarrassment to the bishop of Central Florida, and thankfully the baptism has been scheduled. 

There are those who wonder where we shall draw the line. There is a funny story I heard years ago of a young curate serving in a small Texas town. When the rector went on vacation in July that year so did most of the clergy in town. The young curate was left in charge. One day the funeral director called to ask if he would bury a Baptist. The curate was unsure of himself. After all he was fresh out of seminary and he just didn’t know where to draw the line. He put in a call to the Bishop who was also on vacation at the time, but after some difficulty the call was put through. 

“Bishop can I bury a Baptist?” asked the curate.

I think the Bishop was a bit taken aback by the question, but he couldn’t contain his sense of humor and replied to the question;

“Young man, you may bury all the Baptists you can!”

Where shall we draw the line? For me it is here, (making the sign of the cross of myself) It is within my own heart and soul where I have encountered the love of God living and true. Here it is where I have discovered how much God loves me and loves you too, without exception and unconditionally. It is not where I judge anyone else. After all, as Jesus so succinctly put it, “Judge not, let ye be judged”. Be careful therefore where you draw the line.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”

“This commandment I leave with you; that you shall love one another.”

Such is the love of a mother for her child, such is the love of God for us all, that one thing we can say with resolve and courage; we shall love one another as Christ loves us.

And now may the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen.

Fr Paul

Economic Justice on Mother's Day

Good Shepherd Sunday

and

Mother’s Day

This year’s Most Valuable Player award for the National Basketball Association went to the Oklahoma City Thunder star player Kevin Durant. In his acceptance speech on Tuesday night of this week, the six foot nine inch tall forward spoke of his mother as being the real MVP winner behind that award. The big tough guy, stopped to pay tribute to his mom.

She was his Good Shepherd. 

In his own words, this is what he said;

“I think you know what you did,” he said, as the camera cut to his emotionally overcome mom. “You had my brother when you were 18-years-old. Three years later, I came out. The odds were stacked against us. Single parent with two boys by the time you were 21-years-old. Everybody told us we weren’t supposed to be here. We moved from apartment to apartment by ourselves. One of the best memories I had, is when we moved into our first apartment – no bed, no furniture – and we just all sat in the living room and just hugged each other, because we thought we made it.

“And when something good happens to you, I don’t know about you guys, but I tend to look back to what brought me here. And you’d wake me up in the middle of the night in the summer times, making me run up a hill, making me do pushups, screaming at me from the sideline of my games at eight or nine years old. We weren’t supposed to be here. You made us believe. You kept us off the street. Put clothes on our backs, food on the table. And when you didn’t eat, you made sure we ate. You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us. You’re the real MVP.”

This now brings us to Good Shepherd Sunday, Mother’s Day and the Fourth Sunday of Easter. Here, on this side of the Resurrection, we take note of the sacrifices we make for those we love. They do not end because Jesus rose from the dead, indeed our sacrifices take on new, joyful, generous and abundant dimensions.

He who came into the world so that we might have life in all of its abundance, has become our Good Shepherd. He is the gateway into a way of life that makes of sacrifice our joy and our gratitude. We know what it takes to have children, and send them on their way; it takes everything we have.

But then if you want to give birth to anything worthwhile, you will have to sacrifice a great deal. You may write a book, build a shelter for the homeless, expand a soup kitchen and a food pantry, argue for an inclusive church, or a hundred other things, but you will be giving birth, and making sacrifice to do so.

In this sense you are embracing that abundant life that Jesus came to bring us. The joy and the generosity of Jesus involves great words like forgiveness and repentance, love and compassion, the equally sacrificial and demanding word reconciliation. It is not just his attitude toward us that gives flesh and blood to our redemption, it is our attitude and sacrifice toward one another within which his body shape and substance. 

Those who bring us to the knowledge and love of God may have been our mothers or grandmothers, our dads or grandfathers, our aunts or our uncles, but whoever they were they have become for us a whole constellation of spirits we now come to call the “Communion of Saints”.

They led us to God the Creator, Jesus the Savior, and the Holy Spirit the Holy Wisdom and gift giver from on High. The Holy Trinity then also become an abundant and dynamic community dwelling with and among us.

There is nothing static about discipleship. Like that dazzling new model of the universe expanding over time that the students at MIT have developed, we are an ever evolving and emerging force for good in a world in desperate need of Good News.

It has all happened before time and again. In salvation history it happened to Mary, the Mother of our Lord. May marks her month for our Roman Catholic friends. The angel came to her and informed her that the Holy Spirit would “overshadow” her. 

Please remember she too was a single mother and that Joseph considered sending here away quietly so as not to scandalize everybody, but something or somebody told him in his dreams that this was all God doing the kind of thing that God does.

Mary then discovered a great deal more about God than what was within her as a baby. She discovered a message; a song that sang within her spirit. It is a song we will sing at Evensong in a few short weeks with others members of the Churches of the Collaborative in the Merrimack Valley. We will join and sing with her a song She has been singing since even before the Baby’s birth. Anglican Christians have a special love for her song because, for Anglicans Evensong has won within our hearts a special place for our spirituality. You know those words;

My soul doth magnify the Lord, *
    and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
For he hath regarded *
    the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold from henceforth *
    all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me, *
    and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him *
    throughout all generations.
He hath showed strength with his arm; *
    he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, *
    and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, *
    as he promised to our forefathers,
    Abraham and his seed for ever.

Mary’s sacrifice, God’s sacrifice, Jesus’ sacrifice are made good in the message given and received and then shared

I find it interesting that the number one best seller on the New York Times list of non fiction hard cover books right now is “Capital in the Twenty First Century” by Thomas Piketty, the renowned French economist. This business of income and wealth inequality is reaching proportions that pose a danger to democracy and capitalism. 

I hadn’t realized that Mary or Jesus could be thought of as economists until I started connecting the dots

He hast put down the mighty from their seat

And exalted the humble and meek

I have come to bring good news to the poor.

Blessed are the poor, and the meek.

Insofar as you have done it to one of the least of these, you have done it to me.

A basketball player and his single mom make it from the mean streets of Washington DC, a single mother becomes the mother of God, Jesus becomes the Good Shepherd for the likes of you and me.

What differentiates us now is not just the forgiveness, the love and reconciling power of God, it is the message that God has sown into our hearts and our willingness, yes our courage to communicate that message.

And if we are to mark Good Shepherd Sunday & Mother’s Day, never forget the message the Holy Spirit put into Mary’s heart the day she heard the Spirit’s message.

He has filled the hungry with good things.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fr Paul