Sermon for OCT 15, 2006
San Francisco California hosts the largest foot race in the world, a race called “The Bay to Breakers”. At the start of the race you stand in a sea of people, not knowing when or if the race has started, or for that matter how many feet will tread upon you if you were to fall to the ground. My first year in California I ran this race with Sara, it was quite a spectacle, naked people, weird and odd costumes, fully stocked and loaded tiki bars on wheels, people fully loaded as well. My favorite spectacle came half way through the race as a group of people dressed up as salmon came running AT US, up stream. Before the race started we stood in the midst of this mass of humanity waiting for our chance to surge forward and run on to the finish line, we could not see the start ahead of us, and we could not see the end of people behind us, we were in the midst of this great living organism, in the heart of San Francisco. We live our lives in a similar way, God’s grace preceding us and following us, we know not where we came from, nor where we are going; our lives together are simply in the midst of the vast glory of our God.
Our anxiety is often provoked when we start to realize that we are in the midst of something great and vast, it is not unlike being in water that is over our head. Breathing becomes difficult, muscles tense up and we start to panic. Sometimes it can be the same when we think about being in the midst of God’s grace and not knowing what God might have in store, or what the world might have in store for us. Recently, at our last Clergy Conference, we were asked to dive into those deep waters and to see that there seems to be little hope for the future of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota. Something like 40% was the number that was tossed out, the Episcopal Church has declined by 40% in the last 40 years, and there is nothing but a downward decline as other denominations surpass us and grow with great speed, the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church has more members statewide than we do now!!! Many denominations have passed us on the top ten list of denominational numbers in Minnesota. Imagine the panic among the clergy gathered, having not seen clearly the demise of our past, and not able to see how we will ever come out of this in our future. While the Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Churches remain steady, growing little by little, we drastically report shrinking numbers every year. Luckily, the people remaining in the pews have become more and more generous, as pledges have gone up considerably, and are greater in percentage than most other denominations. However, while other denominations were starting churches in growing suburbs, we were closing churches in the same suburbs. While other denominations were planning grand and strategic mission efforts, the Diocese of Minnesota was bickering over how the money we had and had not raised for mission should be used. While the rest of the culture around us shifted, the Episcopal Church stayed staunchly where it was, unwilling to waver, unwilling to adjust its practices to keep up with what the culture around us was seeking and desiring.
One of my favorite movies is Keeping the Faith, in it, Ben Stiller plays a young Rabbi, at one point he is preparing one of the young boys for his bar mitzvah, where the boy has to sing parts of the Hebrew scriptures. Of course he is in the middle of puberty, and Ben Stiller’s response to his own discouragement and crackly voice is priceless. Stiller says to the young man, “You have to embrace the fact that you suck, say it with me, ‘I love that I suck, I love that I suck, I love that I suck!” The kid of course sings that all the way home and is reinvigorated for the challenge facing him. The clergy and many people in the Diocese are finally doing the same thing, swallowing our pride and stiff upper lippedness and singing at the top of our lungs, “we love that we suck” over and over again. We have sucked, and now is the time when we grow out of puberty into the humans being that God is calling us to be.
It is a little too presumptuous I imagine to say simply that our baggage as Christians is that we have not been good stewards of the resources we have been given, it may be that we have not looked outside of ourselves, into the world, imagining a way to be Christ to others, imagining a way to be a house of prayer for all people. It may be a bit presumptuous to say that we have not been willing to share our stories of faith, to share with others why it is we call ourselves Christians while the conservative right picks a few voices here and there that ostracize, condemn and oppress people and cause great fear within our culture. It may be that we have not with boldness spoken out what the Gospel of Christ is to us as a community of faith, a Gospel that is not about judgment, that it is not about hate that is not about tradition for traditions sake. We all carry baggage to the table when we come to church on a Sunday, baggage that makes us seem bigger than we are, baggage that makes us seem smaller than we are, baggage that weighs us down and baggage lifts us up. Each Sunday we are asked by God to sell all we have and follow Jesus. Every Sunday we are asked to leave all that we have here at the altar, to live a life of radical discipleship and radical testimony. Every week God calls to us, lovingly as Jesus loved the rich man of today’s Gospel. Shedding all that we have, selling every little thing we own would leave us quite bare and dependent, which was the purpose of Jesus’ conversation with the rich man of today’s Gospel. Is it more vital to be connected to the things that are in our life or more vital to be dependent upon the hospitality and care of others? With nothing in our pockets, we become extraordinarily dependant upon the other, upon people we do not know, dependant upon their hospitality and their care.
I was given a graphic novel about the Gospel of Mark, called Marked and today’s Gospel story is depicted in a fascinating way. Imagine this, toasters, cars, clothes, furniture, our paychecks, vices, and indulgences, starbucks coffee, krispy kreme doughnuts, gasoline, Netflix, Tivo, Hi Def Flat Panel TV’s, shoes, hats, rings, necklaces, other jewelry, mortgage payments, cabins, boats, beds, armoires, dressers, painting, decorations, cameras, computers, bills, internet, imagine all of those things stacked on top of each other, all of it stacked upon your back. We carry all of our things with us wherever we go, all the stuff we have and all the stuff we own clings to us like a fly on flypaper. The novel simply shows a man coming to Jesus, a man you cannot see because of the piles of junk, the piles of stuff on his back and as he speaks to Jesus, all sorts of things are falling down around him, hitting Jesus and the other Disciples. Gradually the man realizes what is happening, and slowly, frame by frame all of him disappears and all of his stuff, also, disappears, the question is raised, as he wisps away into nothing, “is it too late?”, Jesus’ response is the same loving, “No, not yet.” We have baggage that we carry everywhere we go, we have baggage that we load up each day and it is never too late to let it go and embrace the hospitality and love that God has to offer us. I sing a Taize hymn often, that is a wonderful reminder, join me if you know it: “Leave all things behind, and come and follow me.”
Our anxiety is often provoked when we start to realize that we are in the midst of something great and vast, it is not unlike being in water that is over our head. Breathing becomes difficult, muscles tense up and we start to panic. Sometimes it can be the same when we think about being in the midst of God’s grace and not knowing what God might have in store, or what the world might have in store for us. Recently, at our last Clergy Conference, we were asked to dive into those deep waters and to see that there seems to be little hope for the future of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota. Something like 40% was the number that was tossed out, the Episcopal Church has declined by 40% in the last 40 years, and there is nothing but a downward decline as other denominations surpass us and grow with great speed, the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church has more members statewide than we do now!!! Many denominations have passed us on the top ten list of denominational numbers in Minnesota. Imagine the panic among the clergy gathered, having not seen clearly the demise of our past, and not able to see how we will ever come out of this in our future. While the Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Churches remain steady, growing little by little, we drastically report shrinking numbers every year. Luckily, the people remaining in the pews have become more and more generous, as pledges have gone up considerably, and are greater in percentage than most other denominations. However, while other denominations were starting churches in growing suburbs, we were closing churches in the same suburbs. While other denominations were planning grand and strategic mission efforts, the Diocese of Minnesota was bickering over how the money we had and had not raised for mission should be used. While the rest of the culture around us shifted, the Episcopal Church stayed staunchly where it was, unwilling to waver, unwilling to adjust its practices to keep up with what the culture around us was seeking and desiring.
One of my favorite movies is Keeping the Faith, in it, Ben Stiller plays a young Rabbi, at one point he is preparing one of the young boys for his bar mitzvah, where the boy has to sing parts of the Hebrew scriptures. Of course he is in the middle of puberty, and Ben Stiller’s response to his own discouragement and crackly voice is priceless. Stiller says to the young man, “You have to embrace the fact that you suck, say it with me, ‘I love that I suck, I love that I suck, I love that I suck!” The kid of course sings that all the way home and is reinvigorated for the challenge facing him. The clergy and many people in the Diocese are finally doing the same thing, swallowing our pride and stiff upper lippedness and singing at the top of our lungs, “we love that we suck” over and over again. We have sucked, and now is the time when we grow out of puberty into the humans being that God is calling us to be.
It is a little too presumptuous I imagine to say simply that our baggage as Christians is that we have not been good stewards of the resources we have been given, it may be that we have not looked outside of ourselves, into the world, imagining a way to be Christ to others, imagining a way to be a house of prayer for all people. It may be a bit presumptuous to say that we have not been willing to share our stories of faith, to share with others why it is we call ourselves Christians while the conservative right picks a few voices here and there that ostracize, condemn and oppress people and cause great fear within our culture. It may be that we have not with boldness spoken out what the Gospel of Christ is to us as a community of faith, a Gospel that is not about judgment, that it is not about hate that is not about tradition for traditions sake. We all carry baggage to the table when we come to church on a Sunday, baggage that makes us seem bigger than we are, baggage that makes us seem smaller than we are, baggage that weighs us down and baggage lifts us up. Each Sunday we are asked by God to sell all we have and follow Jesus. Every Sunday we are asked to leave all that we have here at the altar, to live a life of radical discipleship and radical testimony. Every week God calls to us, lovingly as Jesus loved the rich man of today’s Gospel. Shedding all that we have, selling every little thing we own would leave us quite bare and dependent, which was the purpose of Jesus’ conversation with the rich man of today’s Gospel. Is it more vital to be connected to the things that are in our life or more vital to be dependent upon the hospitality and care of others? With nothing in our pockets, we become extraordinarily dependant upon the other, upon people we do not know, dependant upon their hospitality and their care.
I was given a graphic novel about the Gospel of Mark, called Marked and today’s Gospel story is depicted in a fascinating way. Imagine this, toasters, cars, clothes, furniture, our paychecks, vices, and indulgences, starbucks coffee, krispy kreme doughnuts, gasoline, Netflix, Tivo, Hi Def Flat Panel TV’s, shoes, hats, rings, necklaces, other jewelry, mortgage payments, cabins, boats, beds, armoires, dressers, painting, decorations, cameras, computers, bills, internet, imagine all of those things stacked on top of each other, all of it stacked upon your back. We carry all of our things with us wherever we go, all the stuff we have and all the stuff we own clings to us like a fly on flypaper. The novel simply shows a man coming to Jesus, a man you cannot see because of the piles of junk, the piles of stuff on his back and as he speaks to Jesus, all sorts of things are falling down around him, hitting Jesus and the other Disciples. Gradually the man realizes what is happening, and slowly, frame by frame all of him disappears and all of his stuff, also, disappears, the question is raised, as he wisps away into nothing, “is it too late?”, Jesus’ response is the same loving, “No, not yet.” We have baggage that we carry everywhere we go, we have baggage that we load up each day and it is never too late to let it go and embrace the hospitality and love that God has to offer us. I sing a Taize hymn often, that is a wonderful reminder, join me if you know it: “Leave all things behind, and come and follow me.”
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