Pay Attention

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

January 20, 2019

2 Epiphany/Annual Meeting

          When I am asked about my favorite television shows, I have to confess that other than Downtown Abbey and Call the Midwife, I haven’t had a favorite TV show in probably 30 years.  We just don’t watch much TV at our house.  But what I do love watching will probably come as no surprise to you: royal weddings and presidential funerals.  The choreography of music, liturgy, acolytes and servers, bride and groom or in the case of a funeral, casket, family and friends, all fascinate me.  When done well, all of the parts and people come together effortlessly (although I do know better) to honor the love being celebrated-whether wedding or funeral, and worship our God who makes that love possible.

          Funerals and weddings at Christ Church invoke that same sense of awe in me as many, many people come together to celebrate a life and worship God.  From ushers to acolytes, readers, chalice bearers, and perhaps additional clergy, to Mario and perhaps the choir and other musicians, to all those who make cookies and sandwiches, set up, serve, and clean for the reception, to those who hold the family in prayer, many people with many different gifts and skills go into celebrating love and worshiping God.  That, by the way, is not unlike a Bishop’s visit!

          When I hear Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians this morning, I am reminded of all the ministries here which require the whole body of Christ to offer their gifts so that the body of Christ can function.  Paul reminds us that there are a variety of gifts, services, and activities, but the same Spirit activates them all in all of us.  That means that whether you make sandwiches or preach for a funeral, or whether you help shop for supplies or teach at Vacation Bible School, the Holy Spirit is working through you and when each one of us allows the Holy Spirit to work through us, incredible ministry beyond our imagination can happen.

          This morning, we also see Jesus take a vast amount of water and turn that water into the best wine of the party.  Jesus is not the original party animal here, making sure that that the wine vats never go empty.  What Jesus has done is reveal his glory by taking something ordinary, water, and turning it into something holy, wine.  Jesus has taken scarcity and turned that scarcity into abundance.  Jesus has taken the expectation that the good wine would be served first and turned that expectation upside down.  Early in John’s gospel, Jesus is already revealing the Kingdom of God which makes the ordinary holy, where scarcity is turned into abundance, and where the expectations of this world are turned upside down and inside out. 

          Jesus calls us to do the same.  The only problem is that we are not Jesus.  But we are the Body of Christ, which means none of us is expected to do this Kingdom work alone, but we are all expect to do this work together.  Together, using all of our gifts, we reveal God’s glory to the world whether by working to transform a neighborhood at First Serve with our interfaith brothers and sisters, or touch the lives of our children and other children in the community through Vacation Bible School, or lift up the power of God’s love through a wedding or funeral.  Our challenge as a church this coming year and all years is to let the Holy Spirit work through us, together, to make the ordinary holy, to create abundance where the world sees scarcity, and to turn the expectations of the world upside down.  That work can be messy and we won’t always agree on how to go about the work.  But the Holy Spirit will work even through messiness and disagreement if we let her.  The church in Corinth to which Paul wrote was hardly a model of like minded people always getting along and cheerfully going about the work of Jesus’.  Quite the opposite is true.  They were arguing about who had the more superior gifts, who had the better baptism, who got to go through the line first at church suppers.  The reason Paul wrote the words that we heard this morning was to remind the Corinthians that there is one Spirit that activates all the gifts and no gift is superior to another.  All gifts are needed for the Body of Christ to do her work in the world.

          This weekend, we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was one person who gave his life to the effort to end racism in this country.  But even Dr. King did not work alone and knew that the gifts and courage of many, many people were required to make this country a place of equal opportunity for all people, regardless of race.  One person boycotting a bus or sitting at the counter at Woolworth was not going to be enough.  The letter from the Birmingham jail called on all clergy to join King’s work and held them accountable for failing in their responsibility to do so.  Making the future Kingdom of God that both the prophets and Jesus describe a present reality requires a movement, not just a person. 

          On Annual Meeting Sunday, we are called to see where, as a parish, God is calling us to make the ordinary holy, to turn scarcity into abundance, and to turn the expectations of the world upside down.  Where in our community and the world around us is God already doing that work and asking us to bring our many gifts and join in that work?  From the first Interfaith Thanksgiving service in a long while, to opening our doors as a warming station for the Frosty 5 race on Christmas Eve, to having a presence at Community Day at the Farmers’ Market and a booth at the Ice Cream Social on the Green, we were looking to see where we could make the ordinary holy, transform scarcity into abundance, and turn people’s expectations about church upside down.  In planning those events, we were looking to see what God might be up to in the neighborhood and join with God in that work with all the gifts and skills we have as our part of the Body of Christ. 

          The last line of our gospel reading is this: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”  Mary Oliver, the poet who died last week, has a poem that sums up for me the disciples’ response to Jesus’ work at the wedding at Cana and God’s call to us as we go about doing similar work.  The poem is “Instructions for Living a Life”.

Instructions for living a life

Pay Attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it. 

Let us pay attention to the work God is calling us to do.  Be astonished at what we can accomplish when all of us use our gifts together.  Then tell about it so that the glory of God is revealed beyond these walls.

Amen.

Gifts

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

January 6, 2019

Epiphany

On Christmas Eve, after the evening service had ended, I walked into the clergy vesting room to find an enormous pile of baby diapers.  Early in December, we had been in contact with the Battered Women’s Shelter in Akron to see what they might need.  Their response was diapers in size 5 and 6.  Last year, we collected baby food for the same organization and literally filled a shopping cart with bags of baby food.  However, diapers seemed a bit more challenging, so I had no idea what kind of response we would get.  I should never have doubted the generosity of Christ Church!  I loved watching the congregation come forward during the offertory at each service, singing “Now bring him incense, gold, and myrrh; come peasant, king, to own him” carrying cases of baby diapers as gifts for the baby Jesus.  The moment was both joyous and tender with both smiles and tears as we offered our gifts at the manger.

On this Epiphany morning, we hear the soaring words of Isaiah "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen round you."  The people who walked in great darkness, both in exile in Babylon and upon their return to a burned out, shattered Promised Land, are promised that better days are ahead, when people will be gathered back together from all over the earth, drawn by the glory of God that will arise over them.  And we see the camels bringing those people together, bearing gifts of gold and frankincense.  The day will come, says Isaiah, when you shall see and be radiant, and your heart will thrill and rejoice.  The psalm this morning also longs for the time when the King will come who will rescue the poor and the needy, and kings from all the nations will come bearing gifts.

According to Matthew's gospel, that day has come with the birth of Jesus.  This morning, the Magi arrive with those very gifts of gold and frankincense for Jesus. The story does not tell us how many Magi arrived, or whether they arrived by camel or on foot.  The traditional assumption has been that there were three Magi since they brought three gifts-gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  The story also says nothing about a manger. Instead, the story tells us that the Magi entered the house where the saw the child with Mary.  They knelt and paid Jesus the homage due a king, then opened their treasure chests and offered him their gifts.

 The story does not tell us a lot about the Magi, other than that they have come a great distance and are from the East.  Since they followed a star, they may well have been astrologers, or followers of a religion that studied the stars in their courses.  Clearly, they were people who believed in the power of dreams, since they altered their course home after being warned in a dream not to return to Herod.  And they were people with deep respect for royalty, since they went to a good bit of trouble to pay homage to the child born King of the Jews.  But while we are told that the Magi brought Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, I think the Magi had three other gifts which are gifts we, too, might offer this child.

First, the Magi had curiosity.  They saw the star in the heavens and wondered what the star could mean.  They might have chosen the wrong person to ask, since Herod was somewhat sensitive about who else might be the king of the Jews, and Herod's motives for giving the Magi the information they needed were ill intended.  But their curiosity led them to follow the star, to be filled with joy, and to pay homage to Jesus.

Secondly, the Magi were adventuresome.  They saw the star, and rather than think about how far they might have to travel, whether there would be clean restrooms along the way, or what they would eat on their journey, they apparently picked up and left.  They did not have benefit of a map much less a GPS.  They followed a star.  When, in a dream, they were warned not to return to Herod, they changed their plans on a dime and went home by a different road.  The change of route meant finding a different path through the desert, going a different direction, and encountering different obstacles.  But the Magi did as the dream directed.

Lastly, the Magi were generous. They were generous with their time, spending no telling how long on the road getting to Jesus, and generous with their treasure, opening their treasure chests to offer the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  Apparently the Magi did not travel lightly and did not carry just the three gifts with them.  Once they found the child, they wanted to be able to offer the best and most appropriate gifts.

 Curiosity, a spirit of adventure, and generosity. I wonder if these gifts might be the gifts Jesus would like from us as well.   What could happen if we were as curious about what God is doing in the world as the Magi were about the stars?  What could happen if we were as adventuresome as the Magi, willing to set out into the unknown to find the child Jesus without really knowing where we were going?  And what could happen if we offered our time and opened our treasure with the generosity of the Magi?  The Magi were overcome with joy when they arrived at the house where they found Jesus and his mother and offered gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  We arrived at the manger on Christmas Eve, and with great joy offered our gifts of diapers.  What might happen if, in addition to those gifts and other typical Christmas gifts, we offered Jesus the gifts of deeper curiosity, a more adventuresome spirit, and greater generosity?  Isaiah’s words “Arise, shine, for your light has come” might come more alive for us and for a world desperate to see a light shining in the darkness, and hearts will thrill and rejoice.                                   

                                                                                         Amen.

Love

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

December 24, 2018

Christmas Eve

          When I was a child, the Christmas story began like this: “T’was the night before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”  Jesus was not a prominent feature of our Christmas celebration and I do not ever remember going to church on Christmas Eve as a young child.  However, our house would be filled with the aromas of holiday cooking.  Relatives and friends would arrive from all over the country, and packages would pile up under the Christmas tree.  What I knew as a child was that Christmas is about love.  Relatives would arrive early and spend time with us playing games and reading stories.  Gifts were carefully chosen for each recipient and wrapped with care.  Meals were planned and hospitality arranged so that everyone would feel expected and welcomed.  What we didn’t know about Jesus was made up for in what I learned about love.

          Tonight, we hear the real Christmas story.  We hear about the birth of Jesus to unwed parents at an inconvenient time in a less than ideal place in circumstances that were trying to say the least.  We hear about the shepherd in the field, doing their work, minding their own business, when the heavens burst open and scare the shepherds half to death. We see the angel announce the birth of the Messiah, the Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  We hear the song of the heavenly host praising God.  We watch as the shepherds swallow their fear, leave their flock, and journey off to find this child.  And, with Mary, we ponder this story in our heart and wonder what the birth of a child so long ago could possibly mean for our lives today.

          What happened on that first Christmas so long ago is that Love became flesh and dwelled among us, to paraphrase John’s gospel.  We wrap and exchange gifts at Christmas, not so much because the magi brought gifts to Jesus, but because we want others to experience the Love of Christmas.  The love we experience when we give and receive gifts, including the gift of the Christ Child, is the Love of Christmas.   We share a great meal around a table, whether this table or a dining table, not just because that is the way we celebrate, but because table fellowship is a way we experience love as we eat, share stories, laugh and cry together.  We do for others at Christmas-time both so that others experience Christmas love and to remind ourselves that Christmas love is self-sacrificing love.  We come to church and  hear the Christmas story, the same story we hear each and every year on Christmas, not just because this is the night and that is the story, but so that we are reminded that the Love of God took flesh and was born on Christmas so that we might know and live that same love in 2018.

          Christmas happens here in this place tonight as we welcome the Christ Child.  But Christmas also happens wherever the love of God is born.  The Christmas story tells us that the love of God is born in the midst of the trying times of our lives, in inconvenient places at less than ideal times. In other words, Christmas Love is born in the midst of the mess of our lives, just as that Love was born to Mary and Joseph.  The Christmas story tells us that the love of God is born when we are going about our ordinary lives, minding our own business, doing the work God has called us to do, just like the Love of God was born to the shepherds.  Christmas Love is born when we are frightened, just as the shepherds were frightened, and Christmas Love is born as we rejoice in all that God has done for us, just as Christmas Love was born in the song of the heavenly host.  The Christmas story tells us that nothing need stand in the way of the birth of Christmas Love in our lives.  The call of Christmas on our lives is to show that Love to the world.

                                                                             Amen.

Rocks

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

December 16, 2018

3 Advent C

          Some years ago, when my husband was at Kanuga, the Episcopal Conference Center in Western North Carolina, he brought me back some stones from a place called High Rocks, a lovely spot on a cliff that over looks the valley below.  High Rocks is just up the mountain from the house where my grandparents lived and where our family gathered every Thanksgiving for about 30 years. Each year after Thanksgiving dinner, we would hike up to High Rocks to walk off that second piece of pie and enjoy the view. Countless other visits to our grandparents involved hikes to that magical spot where you can be eye level with the clouds and hear the sounds from the valley.  The stones Don brought me were just rocks.  They were not particularly beautiful, or polished, or even unique.  They were just rocks.  But the rocks came from a place that is near and dear to my heart, a place alive with stories of times I spent on that mountain with people I love, experiences of the presence of God that I cherish, and more memories than I can count.  The stones were alive for me, in their own special way, because of the stories they held.

One of my favorite Bible passages comes near the end of Luke's gospel.  Jesus has entered into Jerusalem, riding on a colt, and the whole multitude of Jesus' disciples begin to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power they had seen.  Some of the Pharisees in the crowd say to Jesus "Teacher, order your disciples to stop!"  And Jesus replies "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would shout out."   If the people are not moved to sing God's praise by the stories of God's deeds of power, then the stones will.

This morning, in one of the most memorable lines in Scripture, John the Baptist says to the crowds who have come out to be baptized by him in the wilderness "You brood of vipers.  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"  Then he tells them to bear fruit worthy of repentance.  "Do not begin to say to yourselves ‘We have Abraham for our ancestor' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham."  Bearing good fruit is what is important, according to John the Baptist, not pedigree.  Those who do not bear good fruit will be thrown into the fire.

When the crowds, the tax collectors, and the soldiers hear John's words of condemnation, they are moved to ask "What, then, shall we do?"  John's instructions are simple.  Share. Be fair. Do not be greedy.  This sounds more like "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" than how to avoid the unquenchable fire!  But the truth is that John is reminding the people of their very own story, for the Hebrew scriptures hold many admonitions to do those exact things.  The Hebrew story is about responding to the graciousness of God by being gracious to others, both friend and stranger.  That story is about remembering their life as strangers in a foreign land, whether Egypt or Babylon, and treating people in a similar situation with kindness and hospitality.  What God asks of us in not complicated.  But if the people forget their story, and fail to act as children of God, then God will raise up stones to take their place.

At the end of John the Baptist's tirade, we are told that with these and many other exhortations, John the Baptist proclaimed good news to the people.  Which part of John the Baptist's rant qualifies as good news? The part where we are called a brood of vipers?  Or the part where the people are told that their status as children of Abraham is worthless if they do not bear good fruit?  Or perhaps the part about the unquenchable fire?

The words from Zephaniah, Isaiah, and the letter to the Philippians help soften the blow from John's words this morning.  Zephaniah says  "Sing aloud, O daughter Zion, shout, O Israel!  Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!  The Lord has taken away the judgements against you, he has turned away your enemies."  The reading brings hope to an exiled, despondent people.  Likewise, Isaiah claims God as "our "stronghold and sure defense" and calls the people to "Ring out your joy."  And the letter to the Philippians calls the people to rejoice in the Lord always, and let their gentleness be known to everyone.  These are the kinds of readings I want to hear in Advent, full of hope and promise as we await the birth of the Christ Child.  No where in my imagination do I find a baby Jesus with a winnowing fork in his hand!

 However, the soaring words of Zephaniah and Isaiah come after the people have been severely chastised by the prophets for the way they treat widows and orphans, for their worship of other gods, and for the many ways they have broken God's commandments.  The people have forgotten their story and they have paid the penalty. Paul calls the Philippians to rejoice, but only after he gives them a tongue lashing for following false teachers and failing to get along with each other.   An often-overlooked fact about Scripture is that the good news often goes hand in hand with judgement. Judgement is tempered with hope, and mercy is free but not cheap.   John the Baptist proclaims judgement against the people who have come out into the wilderness to be baptized, but he also offers them hope in his own gruff way.  He calls the people to repent, so repentance must be possible.  He tells them the truth-that they way they treat each other matters to God and they can do better.  He tells the people that the chaff will be burned, but the wheat will be gathered.  And there is one coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  No wonder the people were filled with expectation.  There is hope!

 "So with many other exhortations, John the Baptist proclaimed good news to the people."  The message of John the Baptist is this: The good news demands something of us.  The birth of Christ requires a response from us.  That response is to remember our story, the story of our God who became human in the Christ Child, born to unwed parents who were away from their home with no place to stay, for whom the sky lit up and the angels sang, and who will give his life for the life of the world.  John tells us that simply waiting for the Christ child to arrive is not enough.  God can raise up stones to wait.  John calls us to remember our story and make our lives the response.

                                                                             Amen.

Dress Up

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

December 9, 2018

2 Advent C

         

          My grandmother kept old dresses in a trunk in her guest room.  The garments probably dated from the 1940’s and 50’s.  I do not remember the exact items of clothing, but I do remember the musty smell.  My sister and I would use those clothes to play dress-up when we were little girls.  The clothes would serve as costumes when we wanted to put on a play, like “Cinderella.”  Or sometimes we would just parade around the house in the dresses, pretending to be the fashionable ladies of the 1940’s rather than the awkward 7 and 8 year olds of the 1960’s.  Wearing those old clothes was temporarily transformative, however.  When, for a little while we saw ourselves as glamorous women, later when we were back in our shorts and t-shirts, we carried ourselves a little taller and with a bit more self-confidence than we had before.  When we thought of ourselves differently, even for a few short hours, we behaved differently for what I am sure was a time far more brief than our grandmother would have liked!

 Our reading from Baruch reminds me of those hours playing dress-up with my grandmother’s old clothes.  Baruch was the prophet Jeremiah's scribe and the book of Baruch is set in the 6th century BCE at the time of the Babylonian exile.  God's chosen people had been forcibly removed from the Promised Land.  The land had been burned and the temple had been destroyed.  The people wondered how they could possibly live as God’s people apart from the land God had given them.  Into this situation, Baruch writes the words we hear this morning. "Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory of God...For God will evermore give you the name ‘Righteous peace, Godly glory."  Baruch is calling the people to stop letting negative thoughts and self-pity control them.  Instead, Baruch calls the people to dress up in the beauty of the glory of God and the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting, living into their identity as people of God.  Then Baruch echoes the words of Isaiah that we hear from John the Baptist in the gospel reading: "God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low, and the valleys filled up to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God."

Baruch is speaking words of hope to this exiled people, encouraging them to live like people who have been given the name "Righteous peace, Godly glory."  In the midst of their heartbreak, Baruch calls them to live like people who believe God will lead them with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from God.  Baruch does not say this, but I imagine the scribe is thinking that if the people can live as people of deep hope, even in the midst of deep adversity, they will be transformed by that hope.  Then they can trust in the safety of the glory of God. 

On the other hand, John the Baptist proclaims a baptism of repentance this morning.  He won't get around to calling us a brood of vipers until next Sunday.  This Sunday is a milder call to repent in order to prepare the way of the Lord.  We hear words similar to those of Baruch "Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain shall be made low...and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

 Repentance.  When I think of repentance I usually think of things I need to stop doing.  But the word "repent" means to turn around, to change course, not just to stop doing something.  So, I wonder if the repentance John calls for looks like the change of behavior Baruch calls for.  What if repentance, preparing the way of the Lord, is really about taking off the garment of sorrow and affliction, giving up whatever negative thoughts and self pity control us, and putting on the beauty of the glory from God?  What if repentance means making a choice to live believing that God is leading us with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that comes from God?  And if we were to really live into the name "Righteous peace, Godly glory" might the valley of despair around us begin to be filled or the mountain of fear begin to be made straight?

 Neither Baruch nor John the Baptist are calling us to pretend that we are something we are not, or to act like real problems do not exist.  In the  midst of whatever situation we find ourselves, both are calling us to live like the people God made us to be, whether we feel like that on any given day or not, and to allow ourselves to be transformed from the outside in by our new behavior.  Baruch reminds us that we can't always control how we feel, but we can control how we act.  John the Baptist tells us to prepare the way of the Lord, to make his paths straight, not so that our own lives will be easier or better, and not so that we will be more pleasant to live with, although that might certainly be the case.  John the Baptist calls us to prepare the way of the Lord so that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.   As Christians we believe that the salvation of God became visible in the person of Jesus, and during Advent we wait for the Christ Child to arrive.  But as followers of Jesus, Advent also calls us to dress up a bit and put on forever the beauty of the glory of God.  Wear the diadem of the glory of the everlasting.  Live as people who are led with joy in the light of God’s glory.  Then our lives will reflect the salvation of God for all to see both here and now, and in the Christmas cradle. 

                                                  Amen.