SPAM

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 29, 2020

5 Lent A

          When my siblings and I cleaned out our father’s house after his death, one of the surprising things we found in his pantry was a supply of SPAM. If you have never heard of spam-the edible kind, not what winds up in our inboxes- you are lucky.  SPAM was invented during WWII as a way to make rationed meat stretch further. SPAM stood for Special Processed American Meat.  That’s pretty much what SPAM tastes like, too.  If you google SPAM today, you will find that the company that makes the product says the word stands for Sizzle Pork and Mmmmm.  I have my doubts.

          Why would this man, who enjoyed good whiskey and fine cuts of beef, have multiple cans of SPAM in his pantry?

          Dad was born in 1933, so he was raised during the Great Depression and WWII.  He had lots of stories about rationing, black outs, creative meals, and the fear of being bombed since they lived in Queens, a borough of New York City.  He also had stories about the normalcy of life during that time-being a cub scout, playing with his friends, tormenting his older brother, getting in trouble, and taking the train to the Worlds Fair in Queens in 1939 and 1940.  The stories were a combination of hardship and normalcy and included references to SPAM among other creative culinary concoctions.

          I have been thinking a lot about those stories this week as we have lived into our new, if temporary, reality and wondered what our new normal might be.  I think we reach back for stories we know and experiences people have had in generations past to ground us in the present and give us hope.  We look for the ways they survived those challenges, thinking that, if we do the same, things will turn out okay for us, too. 

          The Hebrew people were no different.  Over and over again, when the people found themselves in a disastrous situation, whether in exile in Babylon, or trying to rebuild in Jerusalem, or in countless other  horrendous situations in post-Biblical times, the people remembered all that God had done for them in the past.  Primarily and fundamentally, they remembered the way God led them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land.  In the psalm this morning, we hear the cry of despair “Out of the depths, have I called to you, O Lord; Lord hear my voice.”  The despair of the psalmist moves to hope as the psalmist remembers what God has done for the people: “O Israel, wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy.”  How does the psalmist know this?  Because the psalmist knows that God has shown great mercy in the past and trusts that God will do likewise in the present.

          I find myself doing the same thing this morning.  I hear the story of Ezekiel and the dry bones.  I see all of the metaphorical dry bones around us as we cope with a virus we can only control by staying home and I want God to come in a put us back together just the way God put the bones of Israel back together.  Right now.  I hear the story of Lazarus where Jesus says “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus, dead and in the tomb for four days, comes out!  Okay, Jesus, we are waiting.  Can you not do for us what you did for Lazarus?  I confess to no small measure of impatience here.

          One of my favorite passages of Scripture, which will no doubt show up in a daily reflection before long, is from Isaiah 43.  The chapter begins with another favorite passage of mine “Do not fear for I have redeemed you.  I have called you by name, you are mine.”  But later in the chapter, God says “Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth.  Do you not perceive it?” 

          Why would God tell us not to remember the former things, when our faith is rooted in the stories of those former things, whether the escape of the Hebrew people, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, or the centuries of stories in between?

          I think God is telling us not to hold onto those stories as if those are the only ways God acted and acts in human history.  God is always doing something new.  Stories about the ways God acted in the past, whether bringing back together the dry bones of Israel, or calling a dead Lazarus from the tomb, give us comfort because they promise us that God will act again.  The stories call us to watch for the amazing and sometimes mind blowing ways God is acting now and to tell those stories, so that future generations will have our stories along with the stories of scripture to bring them hope and comfort that God will act in their lives.  Those stories call us to allow God to act through us with God’s creativity and mercy so we can be part of the way God brings hope into the present.  The stories of Scripture do not call us to sit back and wait for God to do again what God did in the past, but to actively watch for the unique way God will act now.

          I think my dad kept SPAM in the pantry because that food reminded him of a hard time, a globally hard time, when people banded together and got through with a combination of grit, humor, and determination.  He was not a religious man, but in the lonely years after my mother died, perhaps those cans of SPAM connected him to a former challenging time that his family and the world eventually came through.  As people of faith, we have the stories of scripture and the stories of our own lives as God’s promise to us that God is acting in new ways to bring life abundant into this challenging and frightening time.

                                                                   Amen.

Light

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 22, 2020

4 Lent A

          All over social media as well as in other conversations, I hear the same sentiment expressed.  That sentiment is “I had not planned on giving up this much for Lent.”  I can certainly say that we never planned to give up corporate worship for Lent, although we are all learning new ways to find God in worship, which is an excellent, if hard, thing.  We never planned to give up jumping in our cars and going where we want to go to get whatever we need, even though thinking twice about where we go and what we buy is a good discipline.  We did not plan to take up praying intensely for our medical professionals, first responders, the protection of their families, and those sick and dying with a virus we had not even heard of a year ago, although we should probably do that all the time.  Our Lenten plans did not include an ever deepening concern for all who stand at the brink or have been pushed over the financial edge by the economic fallout from COVID-19, along with those who were struggling long before now, or watching us come together as a community-both local and global-to support them.  I certainly never dreamed I would spend the third week of Lent refashioning myself as a digital priest, learning how to take much of the way we gather online, although many colleagues were already doing that in order to reach folks who can’t come to church on Sundays.   This Lenten wilderness has taken on a life all its own for all of us as we all learn to navigate life in new and challenging ways, at least for the near future, and we learn to see what new things God is doing in our midst.

          The stories from 1 Samuel and from John’s gospel this morning are both about new things God is doing.  In I Samuel, Samuel is sent by God to find the king who will replace Saul.  God sends Samuel to Jesse the Bethlehemite to find a king among Jesse’s sons.  Samuel checks out seven of Jesse’s sons, looking for the one who seems most fit to be king.  But God tells Samuel not to look at appearance, or height, because “the Lord does not see as mortals see.”  Finally, after not finding a king for Israel from among Jesse’s 7 sons, Samuel asks Jesse if this is all of his sons.  Well, no, there is one more but he is the youngest and is out keeping the sheep.  Obviously, a young son who is tending sheep is not ready to be king.  But Samuel asks to see the boy, and, indeed, the young son David was the one God had chosen to be king.  God is doing what seems to be a new thing by choosing a king according to the heart, not his size or strength or age or experience.

          In the story of the man born blind, Jesus’ disciples want to know who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind.  Surely someone sinned for such a tragedy to occur.  When Jesus heals the man, a firestorm of controversy erupts and the now healed man is peppered with questions. Who did it? How did it happen?  What did he do?  How did he open your eyes?  The questions could lead one to believe that the formerly blind man was at fault for his own healing.  And yet, through this man’s blindness and his healing, the glory of God was revealed.  Some had eyes to see what God was doing and others did not, but nonetheless, God’s glory was a light shining in the dark.

          These two stories call us to open our eyes to the unexpected ways God is working in the world, even and especially in these days of COVID-19.  In the eyes of the disciples and the others in the gospel reading, the man's blindness must point to someone's sin.  In the eyes of God, the man's blindness was an opportunity for God's works to be revealed.   To see God’s glory, however, the people had to give up their belief that the man’s blindness had to be caused by someone’s sin.  Likewise, in the eyes of Jesse and his first seven sons, and perhaps even Samuel, an older, wiser, more experienced son would be the best choice for Israel's king.  But God’s choice was the youngest, least likely of the brothers because God was judging by David’s heart not his age or stature.  Throughout Scripture, God acts in unexpected ways from promising an elderly, barren couple that they would have descendants that number the stars in the sky, to calling Moses, a fugitive without leadership skills, and on and on until we get to Jesus who calls a bunch of fishermen and tax collectors to be his disciples, and to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

          The fourth Sunday of Lent is traditionally known as Laetare Sunday, which means “rejoice” as we take a mini-break from the solemnities of Lent before soon heading into Holy Week.  The reading from Ephesians calls us to “Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.”  Living in the light means watching for the new things God is doing in our midst, even now, looking for all that is good and right and true in the midst of all that seems dark and wrong.  God is pulling us closer even as we must be separated.  God is drawing us into new ways of worship, whether at home or online, helping us prioritize our lives in new ways, and showing us new ways of appreciating each other and all that God has given us.  God is showing us our connection with the whole human family and giving us ways to help each other where ever we might be on this fragile earth, our island home.  In the midst of the darkness, God is shining new light on all that is good and right and true and calling us to live in that light, and be that light for each other and the world.  In that new light, even in the midst of loss, sadness, confusion, and fear, we can rejoice.

                                                                             Amen.

Dark

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 8, 2020

                                                       2 Lent A

When I was a teenager, I spent many wonderful weekends at Camp Mitchell, the Episcopal Church camp in the Diocese of Arkansas. The camp is on the side of a mountain, set on a cliff with a spectacular view of the valley below.  By day, we were self-confident teenagers, quite sure of our beliefs about God, our relationships with our peers, what we wanted to be when we grew up, our relationship with God, and our salvation.  But when night fell, somehow things changed.  Somehow in the dark of the night, the questions came to the surface.  Suddenly things didn't seem quite so clear.  Something about the dark made us more introspective, more willing to admit that we didn't have all the answers.  At night, the adult staff would position themselves around the camp, not just to keep an eye on us, but also to be available when we needed someone to talk to.  And, as a rule, they would be up most of the night as we questioned the meaning of life, the existence of God, or our futures.  There was something about the dark that brought forth an honesty we couldn't express by day.

Nicodemus came to Jesus by dark.  Nicodemus was a faithful Jew, a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews as a member of the Sanhedrin.  After Jesus' death, Nicodemus brought a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes for Jesus' burial.  He is a righteous man.  And he is curious about Jesus.  Nicodemus has seen Jesus turn water into wine, and many other signs, the gospel tells us, and Nicodemus knows that no one can do these signs apart from the presence of God.  So, full of questions that cannot be asked in the daylight, Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cloak of night.

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

Jesus has a very odd response for Nicodemus.  He does not say "Thank you for coming," or "Yes, I am from God" nor does he invite Nicodemus to join the disciples and come on board.  Instead Jesus says "No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above."  What kind of response is that?  Nicodemus is equally confused.  Nicodemus says, to paraphrase, "Are you kidding me?  How can someone re-enter their mother's womb and be born again?"  And yet Jesus is insistent.  No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.  How bizarre!

Jesus is stretching Nicodemus, and us, to think of our relationship with Jesus as not based on what Jesus can do, but on who Jesus is.  Jesus points to an organic relationship with God, one in which the believer is born of water and the spirit, a birthed relationship, where the very being of the one being born comes from the one giving birth.  Our relationship with God is based not on what God can do for us or what we can do for God.  Our relationship with God is based on the fact that in baptism we are born of water and the Holy Spirit, on God's time, not ours.  And then the gospel lesson ends with what is probably the most beloved passage in the Christian Scripture: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life."  Jesus came, not to perform signs, but so that all might come into relationship with God, all might be born of water and the Spirit and participate in the Kingdom of God.  God sent Jesus so that we might have a relationship with God as children of God....connected to God in a way that can only be described using the language of childbirth.

During Lent, we can easily think that the disciplines we take on and the things we give up in some way earn us a better relationship with God. We can become absorbed in what we can do for God and what God will do for us.  The point of our Lenten disciplines, however, is the exact opposite.  Lent is like the mysterious dark of the night, where we recognize the faith we put in things and people rather than God and we realize that our relationship with God is not quite what it could be.  During Lent we take on new disciplines or give up pleasures, not to earn anything from God, but to let the light of Christ shine in our darkness and bring us into a deeper relationship with God, not based on what God can do for us, but on who we are as children of God, born of water and the Spirit.  Lent is a time to seek God's healing in our lives, so that the light of the risen Christ can shine in our hearts on Easter morning.

For God so loved the world, that God gave God's only son, so that the world might be saved through him.  In the darkness of the night, whatever that darkness might be, whether grief, or illness, or fear, or broken relationships, anxiety over the future, or any other darkness, Jesus told Nicodemus, and Jesus tells us, that, our relationship with God is not based on what God can do for us or we can do for God.  Our relationship with God is based on who God is as Lover of the World and who we are as God’s beloved children.  That relationship will sustain us through the darkest of nights.

                                                                    Amen.

Temptations

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 1, 2020

1 Lent A

          This week, the world has seemed a bit like a Lenten wilderness.  On top of whatever personal wilderness we might find ourselves in, fears and mixed messages about the coronavirus are spreading like wildfire as we all begin to be more diligent about protecting ourselves and our loved ones in case, or when, the virus spreads in this country or in our own community.  The stock market has taken a beating as the effects of the coronavirus are felt on the economy.  There are talks of school closings, event cancellations, quarantines, and other measures that may have to be taken to curtail the spread of the disease.   This is a new kind of wilderness, which seems to create a new kind of fear.

          This morning, we hear about Jesus’ time in the wilderness.  When the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, Jesus is still wet from his baptism.  He can still hear the voice from heaven that says: “This is my Son, the beloved.”  In the wilderness, after being alone and fasting for 40 days, Jesus hears the voice of the devil taunt him with the words “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread,” and “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from this mountain,” and “All of the kingdoms of the world, I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 

          Jesus has gone into the wilderness to figure out what it means to be the Son of God.  We learn from the story of his time in the wilderness that whatever it means to be the Son of God, it does not mean special power, like turning stones into bread to satisfy his own hunger, or special protection to keep him from injury if he throws himself off a mountain, or special privilege like owning all the kingdoms of the world.  When the devil departs, presumably in frustration, the angels, messengers of God, come and wait on Jesus. 

          Each time Jesus is tempted, each time the devil taunts him with “If you are the Son of God,” Jesus replies with a passage of scripture that shows Jesus’ deep trust in God.  “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,” and “Do not put the Lord your God to the test,” and “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”  Jesus is grounded in his relationship with God, which includes his knowledge of scripture, and that relationship sustains him for both his 40 days in the wilderness and during his trials with the devil.

          In the current wilderness, we, too will be tempted.  We will be tempted to place our trust in material goods, to which Jesus says “One does not live by bread or the stock market, or stockpiles of hand sanitizer alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  We will be tempted to make decisions based only on our own well being and not the well being of everyone, seeking special privilege for ourselves, to which Jesus says “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”  We will be tempted to worship at the altar of safety and security, to which Jesus says “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”  The wilderness, especially one not of our own choosing and out of our control, is a time to wrestle what it means to be a child of God, to allow ourselves to be grounded and sustained by that relationship, and to trust that the God who sent angels to minister to Jesus is present with us as well. 

                                                                            Amen.

Connections

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

February 26, 2020

Ash Wednesday

          Every year on Ash Wednesday, Jesus tells us to beware of practicing our piety before others, just as we prepare to go out into the world with ashes on our foreheads.  Then, Jesus gives us three spiritual practices we are to practice in the privacy of our homes.  Give alms, or offerings, pray, and fast or practice self-denial but do not let anyone other than God see what we are doing.  On the one hand, Jesus seems to be telling us that we are going about Ash Wednesday all wrong with our ashes and public litany of penitence.  On the other hand, quite honestly, Jesus seems to be setting the bar rather low in terms of Lenten disciplines.  We make offerings of our time, our gifts, and our resources all year long.  We pray daily, at least.  And while we may fast from different food groups or habits during Lent, we are always called to fast from behaviors the draw us from God or each other. 

          Rather than setting a low bar for Lent, however, Jesus is actually calling us to a much deeper way to be in relationship with each other, all of humankind, and God.  Almsgiving is a tangible way to recognize our deep and undeniable connection with those who have little in the way of resources for food, shelter, medical care, education or other provisions that satisfy basic human needs.  When we are intentional about making our offerings, and give sacrificially, we also recognize our own dependence on God for everything in life that matters. 

          Prayer sets us in deeper relationship with God, clearly.   But prayer also deepens our relationship with those for whom we pray, whether we know them or not.  When we pray, we are connected-with those we know, those we don’t know, those we like, those with whom perhaps we have significant disagreement.  We pray for people in Australia suffering the effects of fire, people battling the coronavirus, friends of friends and countless others, not as empty words or as a magic formula, but because prayer connects us with God and with people beyond our own circle of friends and acquaintances.  The power in that connection changes lives.  Prayer broadens our connection with the whole human family.

          Fasting seems pretty personal, denying myself a pleasure large or small to remind myself of my dependence on God.  But the reading from Isaiah reminds us of the fast God chooses for us: “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed to free, and to break every yoke, to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house.”  All of a sudden, fasting sounds a bit like the baptismal covenant where we promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, to work for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being.   On Ash Wednesday, as Jesus calls us to such a fast, and to deepen the promises we made in baptism.  We are reminded in the Litany of Penitence of all the ways we fail to keep those promises-the ways we fail to live as people who are deeply connected with each other.

          Jesus is not criticizing the actions of this day, whether the ashes themselves or the disciplines we take on.  Rather, Jesus is calling us to deepen our practices and the relationships they enhance.  Jesus is criticizing practices that call attention to ourselves rather than God, and actions we take to make us look good in the eyes of others.  We are marked this day with the cross of Christ as we were marked at our baptisms with the cross of Christ.  That cross tells the world that we belong to God, not to ourselves, and connects us with the whole human family.  On Ash Wednesday, Jesus calls us to spiritual practices that deepen those connections.

                                                                   Amen.