Crochet

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

November 3, 2019

All Saints Sunday

Miss Minnie Lee was my grandmother’s closest and dearest friend.

Their friendship spanned at least 6 decades. They were the best of friends, raising their children together, and sharing celebrations, heartaches, meals, some really dreadful wine, and pretty much everything else.

When Miss Minnie Lee was well into her 80's, or maybe her 90's, she crocheted an afghan for me. The afghan is navy blue, tightly crocheted, in a pattern that looks something like a net, but with larger, tight knots much closer together than a real net. I know nothing about crochet, so describing the piece in more detail is a bit like trying to speak a foreign language. The afghan is a treasure not only because my grandmother’s dearest friend made it for me, but because Miss Minnie Lee was completely blind when she crocheted the piece. She had totally lost her sight when she made this queen size, perfectly and intricately hooked, afghan.

How on earth could Miss Minnie Lee crochet without sight?     

     

After pondering this great mystery for many years, finally the answer dawned on me. After she lost her sight, Miss Minnie Lee could still crochet simply because she had crocheted her entire life. Her hands knew exactly what to do, how the yarn felt, how the hooks moved. Of course, sight was a plus, but her brain and her hands were really doing the work, not her eyes. She had practiced over and over again, over the course of many decades, until she got to the point where she really did not have to see in order to create beauty.

Today is All Saints Sunday, a major and favorite feast day of the church. The hymns are some of the most beloved hymns in the hymnal. The candles stir up powerful memories and emotions. The sound of the names of our loved ones bypasses our brains and goes straight to our hearts. So, you might think that the story of Miss Minnie Lee and her afghan is the story of an ordinary saint, an ordinary person, overcoming disability to do something creative and beautiful. And you would be partially correct. But only partially. The story of Miss Minnie Lee is really the story about a woman who practiced and practiced a skill over and over again, over years and decades, until when the time came that she could no longer see, she had embodied the skill and could continue on without her sight. The saints of God practiced their faith in exactly the same way. They practiced Bible study, prayer, worship, Christian fellowship, generosity, hospitality, and acts of mercy over and over again through the course of their lives. My guess is that sometimes that work was joyful and sometimes that work was tedious, even boring. But when put to the test, as the saints of God all were, their faith had become so embodied within them through the constant practice that they were able to live that faith to respond to the darkness they encountered. The scripture they needed for strength was imprinted on their minds. Their relationship with God which had been strengthened by years and years of prayer, sustained them. Perhaps even a great hymn or two dwelled within them to give them hope and courage. The saints of God were able to stand up to injustice, love their enemies, practice radical generosity, care for the poor and the sick, or proclaim the gospel in the face of persecution.  The saints could be the light that shines in the darkness because their lives embodied the faith they had practiced.

This morning, we hear Jesus say "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh." What makes the poor, the hungry, and those who weep blessed? And why would Jesus call woe upon the rich, the full, and those who laugh? I do not think Jesus is talking about the reversal of blessings and woes in the next life. I think Jesus is talking about blessings and woes now. What the poor, the hungry, and those who weep know, that sometimes I forget, is that we cannot make it in this world alone. We are all dependent on each other and on the goodness of others in order to survive. The poor know that we are all connected, as do those who mourn.  Those of us who are neither poor nor hungry tend to think that our success is our own and we forget that we are all connected. On All Saints Day, we do not celebrate the achievements of individual Saints. On All Saints Day, we celebrate that great body we call the communion of Saints. In the opening collect, we prayed "Almighty God, you have knit together the elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Jesus Christ, our Lord."    This All Saints Sunday, we will baptize Maisie O’Sullivan.  In baptism, she will become part of the communion and fellowship that we celebrate this day.  We promise to help Maisie practice the faith, day in and day out, so that her faith is embodied within her.  We promise to model for her the vows of the baptismal covenant which are the concrete ways that we embody our faith and recognize our connection with all humankind. That is the work of the saints and that is the work to which we commit ourselves in baptism.

As we remember those who have gone before us, their deep faith and their impact on our own lives, All Saints Day calls us to practice our faith the way Miss Minnie Lee practiced her crochet-over and over again until, when the light was gone, she could crochet in the darkness. All Saints calls us to be as connected to each other as we feel this day towards those who have gone before us, because faith is first practiced in community. And, in the midst of the candles, our prayers, the music and emotion of this day, All Saints calls us to go out into the world as people who embody our faith and be the light that shines in the darkness.                                                                 

 Amen.

Proud

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 27, 2019

25 Proper C

          Next Sunday, we celebrate All Saints’ Sunday with glorious music and a baptism at the later service, and the reading of the names of our loved ones who have gone before us at both services.  We sing some of the best hymns in our hymnal and we light candles as we remember the pain of loss and the hope of resurrection.  All Saints is my favorite feast day, bar none.

          Next Sunday, we also celebrate the success of our Capital Campaign.  While some might say that we are celebrating the raising of enough funds to make some substantial improvements to our building, I believe we are celebrating something much more valuable.  We are celebrating the abundant generosity and unrelenting tenacity of this parish.  We are celebrating our commitment to offer the best possible gospel welcome to all who come here, whether for Sunday services, or a support group, or any of the host of other community groups that meet here.  As I have told anyone who asks, and some who haven’t asked, I am extraordinarily proud of the work we have done together, from the cottage meetings two years ago where we dreamed about our future, to the many meetings of both committees and the whole parish to finesse those dreams and make a plan to bring them to fruition, to all the work that has gone into the campaign by so many people over the past months.  I have often found that when a church takes on a rather audacious goal, larger than what the church could reasonably hope to accomplish, the result is renewed spirit and vibrant energy.

          So, I am caught short by this morning’s gospel reading.  I believe I am justifiably proud of the work of this parish.  I believe that what we have done together has been faithful work.  But do I sound like the Pharisee in today’s parable, who feels justified by his faithful works?  Should we not be proud of what we have accomplished and strictly humble ourselves?  What are we to do with our sense of accomplishment?

          The audience of Jesus’ parable is those who trust in themselves that they are righteous and regard others with contempt.  The Pharisee is being obedient to the Law.  He fasts twice a week and gives a tenth of all of his income.  These are admirable acts of faith.  Thieves, rogues, adulterers, and tax collector were, in various ways, all violating the 10 commandments.  The Pharisee does not want to be like them. The Pharisee works hard to live a faithful life and he is doing quite well.  Should he not be proud of that?

          On the other hand, we have the tax collector.  Tax collectors were despised because they made their living by collecting the taxes due the government plus whatever else they could extort out of people to pay themselves.  There was no IRS to pay them a salary.  The tax collector cannot even make himself look up to heaven, he is so aware of his sinfulness.  He can only beat his breast and say “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” 

          Then we are told that the tax collector went home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.  Clearly, we are to imitate the behavior of the tax collector rather than the Pharisee.

          But what, exactly, are we to imitate?  Does God not want us to do good works like the Pharisee?  And wouldn’t God rather us not work at jobs that exploit other people, like the tax collector?

          The reading from Joel reminds us that the rain and the grain, the wine and the oil, all come from God.  Everything we have comes from God.  Then Joel tells us that God will pour out God’s spirit on all flesh, and sons and daughters will prophesy, old men will dream dreams and young men will see visions.  All the good that we do comes from God’s spirit working within us.  That, I believe, is the difference between the Pharisee and the tax collector.  The Pharisee has everything under control. He is making a report of his good works.  He asks nothing of God and seems to need nothing from God.  His identity comes from his acts of piety and not being like the thieves, rogues, adulterers, and tax collectors.  The tax collector, on the other hand, makes a request of God.  “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”  The tax collector has no good works to fall back on and he is, well, a tax collector.  He knows he needs God and asks for God’s mercy.  His identity comes from his relationship with God and the gift of God’s mercy.    

          Jesus is speaking to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.  If I am proud of all that we have accomplished at Christ Church and think our accomplishments make us better than others and secure our relationship with God, then I am sadly mistaken and I am behaving like the Pharisee.  But the career choice of the tax collector is not what Jesus holds before us this morning, either.  What Jesus holds before us is the knowledge that our identity comes, not from our accomplishments, however amazing those might be, but from our relationship with God, which is rooted in God’s mercy.  All that we accomplish is God working through us.  And one of the things we have learned at Christ Church is that, in the words of a passage from the letter to the Ephesians, God working through us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.  As long as we put our trust in God working through us, I believe this rector and all of us can be both proud and humbled by the work God is doing in and through Christ Church!

                                                                             Amen.

Potential

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 13, 2019

23 Proper C

          Helen Myers was a 90 plus year old parishioner in my former parish when she called about 12 years ago and asked me to come visit her.  I was a little surprised, since I had just visited Helen the week before.  But she was an absolute delight and time spent with her was always a treat.  We set a date for the following week.

          After exchanging pleasantries, Helen got right to business.  She had an investment account with $103,000 in it.  That money was not doing anyone any good sitting in that account and she wondered what the church might do that sum.  On the one hand, the church had a wonderful, historic organ with two divisions still in need of restoration.  Helen had contributed generously to the restoration of the first three divisions of the organ, so perhaps she would be interested in that project.  On the other hand, the roof on the church was at least 10 years past its prime and the vestry hoped to replace the asphalt shingles with a slate roof to restore the historic integrity of the 1870’s building.  Helen thought about these options for about a nano-second before reminding me that her husband had been an engineer and that he would want to take care of the roof.  What was the point of having a fine organ if the roof could not keep the water off the instrument?

          And so, we had the advance gift for a capital campaign that put a beautiful slate roof on our historic building.  But there is more to this story than simply abundant generosity.

Helen was born in 1916 and attended a small Presbyterian church. She grew up poor, even before the Great Depression when everyone in Springfield, Ohio was poor.   She married her high school sweetheart, Charles, who grew up in the Episcopal Church in Springfield and sang in the choir as a young boy. After they married, Helen and Charles moved to Pennsylvania and Connecticut and other places before returning to retire in Springfield.  Charles died suddenly shortly after retiring and at some point thereafter Helen joined the church where her husband had been raised, going to the Wednesday morning Eucharist until she could no longer drive, sending out reminder cards for various ministries for many years, and consuming every issue of the newsletter as soon as the newsletter came out.  However, she was only rarely able to set foot in the church building and knew very few of the people in the parish other than what she read about them in the newsletter.

So, you might wonder what inspired such generous love for a church that Helen really never attended.   

When Charles, Helen’s husband, was a young boy growing up as an Episcopalian in Springfield, his father died.  His mother worked hard to raise Charles, but times were difficult financially and life was a struggle for them.  The people of that church stepped in and made sure Charles stayed in school and the family had what they needed.  Those folks mentored Charles, encouraged him, and saw that he finished high school.  When Charles graduated, the general expectation of family and friends was that Charles would get a job and support his mother.  But the people of the church stepped in again and prevailed.  They saw potential in Charles and made sure he had the resources to go college and reach his goal to become an engineer.  When he graduated from Ohio State with his degree in engineering and had a job, he and Helen married after having dated for about 8 years, and they began their moves around the country.  Charles’ career as an engineer was long and quite lucrative.

To her dying breath, Helen was extraordinarily grateful for what the church had done for her husband, and thus her family, some 90 years prior.  Helen considered her generosity to be simply an expression of her gratitude to a church that transformed the life and the potential of one child and that child’s future family.  Her deep love for the church was born of that gratitude.  Her generosity was gratitude in action.

This morning, we hear the story of Jesus and the 10 lepers.  Nine of the lepers are, in my opinion, unfairly criticized for failing to return and thank Jesus.  They were only doing exactly what Jesus told them to do.  “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”  While the 10th leper’s act of gratitude may be a little demonstrative for us reserved Episcopalians, obviously the point is that the healed man understood the magnitude of what had been done for him and was filled with such gratitude that he could do nothing but return to give thanks.  The parallel between the story of the healed man and Helen’s story is clear.  Helen also understood the magnitude of the difference God, through the church, had made in her husband’s life and in her own, and she acted on that gratitude.

Gratitude and generosity are both commendable and well worth imitating.  But I think there is a challenge in Helen’s story that runs even deeper than the challenge to think about how our own lives reflect our gratitude for all God has done for us.

Helen’s gratitude in the last decades of her life was for what a church had done for her husband when he was a child in the 1920’s. What are we doing as a parish, both as individuals within a parish and as a parish as a whole, that 90 years from now will cause someone to look back with the kind of gratitude Helen had for her church?  How are we working to be a community of faith that will inspire that kind of gratitude?  My hunch is that there was no vestry resolution to take care of Charles, no sermon from the rector, and no committee or Ministry Team got involved.  My guess is that some folks got together, saw a need and recognized potential, and made something happen that transformed a life.  In the story of the 10 lepers, Jesus saw a need, had the ability, recognized potential and made something happen, too.  Where do we see need, recognize potential, and have the ability to make something happen?  The reading from Jeremiah reminds us that we are called to take action now, where we are presently located, in the current circumstances of our lives, and not wait until our life situation changes to something more suitable for doing the work of God.  Jesus calls us to see need, recognize potential, and use our abilities to make amazing things happen now.  Our response to that call will transform both our lives and the lives of others.  Both the story of the 10 lepers and the story of Helen Myers call us to gratitude and generosity, no doubt about that.  But these stories also remind us of Jesus’ call to see need, to recognize potential, and to be generous with our abilities.  Such faith is the stewardship of our lives in action.                                                 

                            

Amen.

Gap

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 29, 2019

21 Proper C

          “Mind the gap” is a phrase used in England to remind people to be careful as they step off the subway onto the platform.  “Mind the gap” is a lovely British way of saying “watch your step.” However, “mind the gap” seems to have implications beyond getting off the train.  I am reminded of phrases like “Mind your manners.”  “Mind the gap” seems to ask us to tend to the gap, or pay attention to the gap, or be mindful of where we put our feet.  The request is a call to attentiveness more than a warning.  Being mindful of the gap allows us to bridge the distance between one surface and another, to overcome the gap rather than ignoring the distance and suffering the consequences.

          Both the reading from Jeremiah and Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus seem to be about minding a gap. In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus spent his days lying at the gate of the rich man’s house, covered with sores, hungry and humiliated. The rich man spent his days dressed in purple and fine linen and feasting sumptuously. When they both die, the roles are reversed and Lazarus has the far better life in Hades than does the rich man, who wants Lazarus to wait on him. When the rich man can get no relief for his misery, he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house to warn his five brothers of their fate. But Abraham says no. "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." The rich man’s sin was that he ignored Lazarus lying at his gate, if he ever really saw him to begin with. The rich man ignored the vast gap between himself and Lazarus.  Moses and the prophets have a good bit to say about how the poor are to be treated. The book of Deuteronomy makes numerous provisions for the poor, and the Psalms are full of references to the way God will lift up the poor and crush the oppressor. The rich man may have ignored Lazarus and the gap between the two men, but God was most certainly aware of both Lazarus and the distance of that gap.

           This morning, in the passage from Jeremiah, we hear Jeremiah make what appears to be a run of the mill real estate agreement. The details of the agreement are a bit foreign to us. Jeremiah has the right of redemption by purchase to the land being sold by his cousin Hanamel. The right of redemption is something like first right of refusal, although in the case of right of redemption the land stays in the family. We are given every little detail of the transaction, so between those details and the fact that God endorses this transaction, this real estate agreement looks to be in Jeremiah’s best interest.  However, the property is a very bad piece of real estate and Jeremiah is actually in prison. Jeremiah has told the people of Judah, his own people, that God is using the Babylonians, the enemy, to punish the people of Judah for their sins. Those sins were things like worshiping foreign gods and ignoring the poor in their midst.  For his efforts, Jeremiah has landed in jail.  The real estate is a bad investment because the Babylonians will soon invade Judah and completely destroy Jerusalem. Jeremiah’s property will be destroyed, abandoned, and worthless. But God tells Jeremiah to put the deeds to the land in an earthenware jar where they will last a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land." Despite all evidence to the contrary, and in the midst of impending disaster, God calls Jeremiah and the people to hope in a future that is better than their current situation or the immediate future. 

What do Jeremiah’s real estate transaction, and the story of Lazarus and the rich man have to do with minding the gap? In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, and through out the gospels, Jesus calls us to see those whom the world ignores or simply does not see. Jesus calls us to open our eyes to see the need around us. Sometimes that need is obvious, like a man lying at the gate, covered with flies and having his wounds licked by wild dogs seeking blood. Other times the need is less obvious and far easier to ignore.  Who, in our own community, does not feel like a fully valued participant?  Who has needs that we cannot see because we do not look?  Or on a larger scale, have we become so numb to gun violence that we no longer hear the cries of those who have been wounded and see the tears of those who have lost loved ones?  When we mind the gap, we see the people God sees, and create a bridge to travel the gap. 

Jeremiah’s real estate transaction reminds us that God sees hope where we see disaster. Just as God saw hope in Jeremiah’s purchase of land that would soon be destroyed, God calls us to mind the gap between the hope God sees and places where the world sees failure and would give up. We mind the gap when we invest time and resources in children who struggle to learn, or those who feel totally overwhelmed by life, or when we, like Greta Thunberg, decide there is something one person can do to make a difference in the enormous problem of climate change.  God calls us to see and work for hope where the world sees disaster or refuses to look at all.   

Who do we not see because we are afraid to look?  Where do we fail to mind the gap between despair and hope?  Today we hear God call us to open our eyes and look carefully at the world around us. God challenges us to see those that God sees but the world does not, and, despite any impending disaster, to invest in God’s hope for the future. God calls us to mind the gap.

                                                          Amen

Appreciate

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 22, 2019

20 Proper C

          Whenever Jesus leaves me completely baffled, as he does this morning, and the commentaries offer no help, I often turn to one of the great 20^th century theologians for help.  That theologian is Fred Rogers.  Mister Rogers, ordained in the Presbyterian Church, invited us into his neighborhood where we were told that we are all appreciated and loved, just the way we are.  He reminded us of the goodness in the world when times were hard and called us to be our very best selves for others.  One of my favorite Fred Roger’s quotes is from his commencement address at Middlebury College in 2001. “I believe that appreciation is a holy thing, that when we look for what’s best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does; so in appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something truly sacred.”

          What, you might reasonably wonder, does this quote have to do with a parable in which Jesus seems to commend dishonesty, embezzlement, laziness, and self-interest?

          One way to look at the parable is this: The rich man fires the manager for squandering his property.  The manager’s options going forward are limited.  He could dig, but he is too lazy, or he could beg, but he is too proud.  So he decides to put the employers’ customers in his own debt by reducing their bills so they will give him a place to stay once he is homeless.  Since he has already squandered his employers’ property, cooking the books is not a great moral leap for the guy.  Now, the manager has squandered the master's property, and taken 50 or 80 cents on the dollar as payment for debt owed the master.  But then the scoundrel is told that he will be welcomed into the eternal homes.   This makes no sense whatsoever.

          But, suppose there is another way to look at the story.  What if, rather, than assuming the worst about the manager’s character and actions, we approach the parable looking for the best.  What if the manager has so badly squandered the master's property that getting back 50 or 80 percent of what is owed to the master is actually a great bargain?  Instead of looking at a total loss, the rich man is actually getting back 50- 80% of what he is owed, thanks to the manager’s shrewdness.  Given that the manager has squandered the rich man's property, now we have a win-win.  The master is happy to get something back.  The manager is happy because now he has friends to stay with.  The clients are happy because their debt load is now lower.  Jesus follows the parable by saying "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful in very much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much."  In some admittedly bizarre way, the manager has actually been faithful in a very little and will be welcomed into the eternal homes.

Scripture is full of stories about people who find themselves in tight spots, often of their own making.  In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve are evicted from the garden for disobedience.  Cain, the first born of Adam and Eve, killed his brother Abel in the first act of sibling rivalry.  Jacob, the trickster, stole his brother’s birthright. In each of these cases, where humans had made a complete mess of things, God could have judged and seen only what was wrong.  But instead, God saw what was good and used each of them to further the story of salvation history.  Jesus called tax collectors and sinners to follow him, despite their dishonorable ways.  So, perhaps we should not be surprised at this parable in which Jesus commends the dishonest manager and calls out something good from his life.  Jesus could see the capacity for something good to come even from a crook, which brings me back to the Mister Roger’s quote.  Perhaps Jesus looked for the best in the manager, seeing the manager as God sees, and experiencing something holy in the man’s shrewdness. 

Jesus follows the parable by saying "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful in very much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much." 

          Jesus tells many parables throughout the gospels about the potential for something small to become something large.  The mustard seed becomes the greatest of all shrubs.  The yeast leavens a mind-boggling amount of dough.  A small bit of bread and fish become enough to feed thousands of people.  I wonder if the manager in Jesus’ parable this morning was faithful in very little, but Jesus is telling us that the smallest amount of faith can grow into something larger, even in a lazy, dishonest, embezzling manager. 

          Perhaps Jesus is using this bizarre parable to teach us something about what it means to live a faithful life.  Perhaps living a faithful life means living like people who believe that God will take the little bit of faith we have and grow that faith into something larger.  Or perhaps living a faithful life means living as people who know that God will take our messed up lives and help us be creative if not shrewd in finding gospel ways forward.  Or perhaps, living a faithful life means seeing ourselves and all people as God sees us, even those with whom we disagree, or who are different from us, or who are dishonest scoundrels, looking for the best rather than the worst, and appreciating the holy.  Only God knows the gospel difference a bunch of messed up people with a little bit of faith can make in this world.

                                                                                      Amen.

Whole

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 15, 2019

19 Proper C

          Whenever I hear the parables Jesus tells this morning, I am reminded of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”  The first words of that hymn are “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”  In my experience, people either love or hate this hymn, and I have a love/hate relationship with the words myself.  On the one hand, as humans we are made in the image of God and redeemed in Christ.  So, while we may do some wretched things, we are not wretches.  But on the other hand, the feeling of being lost then found, whether vocationally, relationally, spiritually, or in many other ways is a common human experience, as is being metaphorically blind, again in many different ways, and suddenly seeing the light.

          The joy of finding something that was once lost is also common, whether something of great value, or the car keys or cell phone.  The sweet relief that comes after being lost on an unlit road at night and finally realizing where I am is a phenomenon I am all to familiar with.  This week, we marked the 18^th anniversary of 9/11, a day of tremendous loss.  And in the past year, we, both as a parish and as individuals, have experienced great loss. 

          So, when we hear Jesus’s parables this morning about a lost sheep and a lost coin, we understand both being lost and losing.  That there is great joy when the lost sheep and the lost coin are found is a no brainer.  The leap to God rejoicing when one person returns to the fold is an easy leap to make and I love the thought of God rejoicing.  So, for once, Jesus seems to make sense.

          However, there is a lot about these two parables that does not make sense if we look closely.  First, how do these parables respond to the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes who say about Jesus “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  Secondly, the answer to “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” is probably no one.  No one is their right mind would leave 99 sheep to their own devices and go after the one because then there would be 99 additional lost sheep.  Thirdly, Jesus seems to be making a rather large leap from the finding of a lost sheep or coin to the rejoicing in heaven over a sinner who repents. After all, neither a sheep nor a coin is capable of repentance. The sheep just wandered off, as sheep are prone to do, and no telling how the coin got lost, but it obviously wasn’t the coins’ fault.  And lastly, we can think that the shepherd and the woman represent God looking for the lost, but the reality is that we are never lost to God. We might feel lost, but God always knows where we are.  In the reading from Jeremiah, God’s people are quite lost, having strayed far from God and apparently not knowing their way home. They are lost in a wilderness of their own making.  But God knows exactly where they are and God’s displeasure with where the people are is evident.  Even when we feel lost, we are not lost to God.

          So what on earth is Jesus up to this morning?  Here is a thought.  Both the sheep and the coin were part of a larger whole. There were 100 sheep and 10 coins, both nice round numbers that indicate completeness. When the sheep goes missing and the coin turns up lost, that whole is fractured. It is not just that the sheep is missing, but that the community is broken. It is not just that one little coin is missing, but that the nine are not complete without it. When the sheep is returned and the coin is found and restored to the others, the 100 and the 10 are complete again. And there is great rejoicing, both on earth and in heaven, rejoicing not only that the individual sheep and coin were found, but rejoicing that what was broken is now whole.

This morning/in a few minutes we will baptize Ellie and Ethan Calkins.  We could easily think that we have brought lost little sheep into the fold, and we will say “We receive you into the household of God.  Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.”  So, yes, on the one hand, we do welcome Ellie and Ethan into the fold.  But on the other hand, we welcome them into the household of God where our work is to make the broken whole.  Our work is to work for justice and peace, to proclaim the gospel in word and action, and to respect the dignity of every human being, bringing wholeness to this broken world, and to rejoice when whatever is broken is made whole.

          How do Jesus’ parables respond to the Pharisees and scribes who say “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them?”  Jesus parables remind us that we cannot create unity by fostering division.  We cannot fix what is broken by breaking it more.  We cannot find what is lost by losing more.  We cannot create love by hating.  The work of the gospel, and the work of baptism, is to restore the broken to wholeness, to work for unity where there is division, and to proclaim our faith that love wins by showing that love to the world.

                                                                             Amen

Mutual love

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 1, 2019

17 Proper C

          In June, when I was doing Learning from London, one of the Sundays I worshipped at St. James, Piccadilly.  The people were welcoming, the sermon was good, the congregational singing was wonderful, and the experience was enough to make me believe that if I lived in London, St. James would be my church.

          One particular aspect of the worship sticks out in my mind, however.  For the Great Thanksgiving, the prayer over the bread and wine asking Jesus to be present in them, the entire congregation was invited to gather around the altar.  The space was large and level with the rest of the floor so totally accessible.  However, there were probably 200 people in the congregation that June morning.  We all fit around the altar, some closer than others, obviously, but how on earth was communion going to be served to this huddled mass of people?  This looked to me like organized chaos at best.

          However, St. James celebrates communion with all the people around the altar every Sunday.  And what happened was a lesson in what happens when each person is more concerned that the person next to them is fed than that they are fed.  The experience was actually quite orderly as everyone was patiently making sure that everyone received the bread and the wine.  Did this take a little longer than if there had been a nice, orderly line?  Probably.  Was it a little chaotic at times?  Yes.  But the distribution of communion totally worked because everyone was concerned for everyone else.

          Both the reading from Hebrews and the parable Jesus tells this morning remind me of my experience at St. James.  In the parable, Jesus seems to be giving common sense advice about seating arrangements at a banquet. Do not chose a place of honor for yourself in case someone more important arrives and you are booted to a seat of less honor.  Instead, seat yourself at the lowest place so the host can invite you to a higher place.  On the surface, this looks like common sense.  However, Jesus ends the parable by saying “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  This is not common sense.  As a general rule, those who exalt themselves seem to be exalted and those who humble themselves seem to be humbled. But in the upside down, inside out world of gospel values, Jesus’ instructions are not common-sense advice about how to keep from being disgraced at a dinner party.  Jesus’s advice is about how to live in such a way that our lives reflect gospel values, where others are put before ourselves and the goal is that everyone is fed.

          In the reading from Hebrews, we hear the admonition to “Let mutual love continue.”  Your vestry wrestled with this passage on Tuesday night at the vestry meeting.  What does mutual love look like?  However, Hebrews answers that question in the next verses.  Mutual love looks like showing hospitality to strangers and recognizing the angel in our midst, and  remembering those in prison, or those who are being tortured.  In other words, mutual love looks like caring for those with no one else to care for them.  Mutual love looks like being faithful in our covenanted relationships and being free from the love of money, so that our focus can be on others and not ourselves. 

          What, we might reasonably ask, is mutual about extending hospitality to those who are unlikely to return the gesture, or remembering those in prison who are unlikely to reciprocate? 

          The letter to the Hebrews was likely written in the mid to late first century to encourage Christians who were being persecuted.  The mutual love they are to let continue is their mutual love for each other.  However, mutual love is not love that turns in on itself.  The persecuted first century Christians would be very tempted to circle the wagons. Instead, mutual love is love that spills over into love for people they do not even know.  The author is reminding the faithful of the story in Genesis 18 where God appears to Abraham in the form of three strangers and Abraham offers them hospitality.  The Christians who were being persecuted were understandably suspicious of anyone they did not know.  But Hebrews encourages them to let their mutual love spill over to hospitality to strangers who may be God in their midst.  Our baptismal covenant calls that “Seeking and serving Christ in all people.” 

          The prophet Jeremiah reminds us this morning of the hospitality God offered the Hebrew people as God led them out of Egypt and through the wilderness, into a plentiful land to eat its fruit and other good things.  The people, however, did not respond to God’s hospitality with hospitality of their own and God is livid.  The people are not caring for the widow and orphan.  They have put themselves first at the expense of others. They are worshiping gods who promise temporary security and prosperity, forsaking the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob, Rachel, and Leah.  God expects the mutual love between God and the people to spill over into love that cares for others.

          Let mutual love continue.   My experience at St. James, Piccadilly is a parable for me of what real mutual love looks like in action, where everyone is concerned that everyone else is fed, trusting that there is always plenty, and living like there are angels in their midst.  Gospel hospitality is not worrying about where we will sit at the table but recognizing that there is a place for everyone.  Our work is to make sure that everyone has a seat.  Gospel hospitality remembers the hospitality God has shown us.  Our work is to offer that same hospitality to everyone. 

                                                                                                Amen.