In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let’s talk about building houses. In the OT reading David wants to build God a house. After all, the Ark has been housed in a tent for long enough. But God says, no, I will first build you a house—a dynasty—and then your descendant will take care of that house for me.
Our reading from the Letter to the Ephesians asserts that God’s still at work building a house, which is made of all the people in the church, both Jews and Gentiles, male and female, slave and free. And the cornerstone—which holds it all together—is Jesus.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
One of the things I most enjoyed about the first Episcopal priest I knew was how he was down to earth and liked to laugh at himself. He used to tell a story about a Thanksgiving Day when he was a brand new priest. He was in charge of putting together the service for Thanksgiving, marking the readings, making sure the bulletin was correct--those kinds of things.
Everything was going as planned, when he found himself reading the gospel and he realized he had marked the wrong gospel. The numbers were right but it was the wrong gospel. So instead of reading about God’s taking care of the lilies of the field and taking care of us so beautifully—from Matthew, chapter 6—he instead read this passage from Mark, chapter 6. And on that Thanksgiving Day he read about John the Baptist’s head being served up to King Herod on a platter.
I think this story is really hilarious and one reason it’s so funny is that it takes the appalling story of the beheading of John and allows us to find a little humor in there. This story really IS appalling.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This week’s gospel is all about fledging.
Leaving the nest.
Going out to try your wings,
Driven by the faith that it’s time /
and that this is right.
The bluebird family in my backyard
has now hatched two sets of little ones.
And we’re watching for the second time this summer
How the gray-blue little birds
Leave the nest for the first few times.
They stick their heads out into the wide world
And make sure they really want to do this.
Their first flights are uncertain,
Wobbly, full of fear.
They can hardly make it 4 or 5 feet
to get to the nearest perch.
And we watch over the weeks
As they get bigger and more self confident.
And they get bluer as the weeks go on,
flashing cobalt
and fluttering down from the box
and up from the ground.
Fledging. The dictionary says it means
“growing the feathers necessary for flying.”
And I’m also using it to mean
Launching out from the nest
into the wide world.
Some of us here today will remember the shocking news of all the Romanian orphans when Romania was liberated from communist rule under Nicolai Ceausescu. Remember that this was the dictator who imposed the social policies that resulted in so many unwanted children, so many children who were raised in poorly run orphanages.
Back in 1990 we saw what happens when children are raised from infancy with little or no human contact—little or no human relationships. Some were raised “with no human touch at all.” [Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 3, page 192, hereinafter referred to as Feasting].
The results were tragic. The world watched aghast as children grew into “adults” who had no speech, or abilities to interact with other people, or abilities to give or receive human affection. [Ibid.]
In the name of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
In my years as a priest and a Christian educator I’ve heard a lot of people’s struggles with faith. So much so that it seems to me very odd when I meet someone who doesn’t struggle in some respect.
And over the years one of the doctrines that people seem to struggle with the most is the doctrine of the Trinity--the counter-intuitive teaching that our God is one, and our God is three. Huh?
One God in three persons, three aspects, three job descriptions, three modes. The early church came up with this doctrine, we know, in response to what’s in Scripture, and in response to what they knew to be true in their lives.
Open our hearts and our minds, O Holy Spirit, to hear your holy Word, and enkindle in us the fire of your love. Amen.
I remember that day as clearly
as I remember anything else in my long life.
I, Julia, wife of the merchant and trader in fine silks,
Marcus, citizen of Rome.
I remember our wedding trip,
How Marcus proposed we travel to the East, to Jerusalem,
to celebrate our wedding and to see the Orientals and their odd ways.
And, perhaps, to stumble upon some fine
blue and gold silks with a fine hand,
just come in from Oriental caravan
that we could bring home for sale.
In the name of the One who loves us so much that he died for us. Amen.
Again we’ve come round to the biggest paradox of the Christian life—the crucified God. (title of Jurgen Moltmann’s theological treatise) God was broken and mangled on a cross, enduring torture and shame, for our sake. God died. God died a death that no one should have to die.
And in Jesus’ broken body and broken spirit we can find healing and shelter. In his wounded heart we find relief and sanctuary. In the cross of Christ is our hope and our comfort. Our healing.
The cross has been associated with healing for a very long time. So much so that over the door of Holy Cross monastery just north of Poughkeepsie is an inscription—Crux mundi medicina est. In the Latin, the cross is the medicine—the healing—of the world.
Marilyn and her husband Barry love living in the Redding woods. Their daughters are officially out of the nest now. Emily is fearlessly hacking her way through the jungle of corporate market analysis... draining the swamp of high-budget advertising... reintroducing the long-extinct species of clear thought to the islands of poor product planning based on the DNA of rationality found in prehistoric mosquitoes trapped for millenia in the amber of design-by-committee...(thanks to her friend John, for this apt description).
Chloe graduated NYU in May 2010, with double majors in philosophy (logic) & sociology. She plans to teach English in Hungary next.
Marilyn graduated from the College of William and Mary in Virginia in the 1970’s. She holds a master’s degree in Geology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she studied the chemistry of ocean island lavas from the Azores. She graduated in 1998 magna-cum-laude from Yale Divinity School, with a Master of Divinity degree, and from General Seminary in New York City in 2000 with a Master of Sacred Theology degree in spiritual direction.
Marilyn loves ministry at Christ Church and is excited to see new families and lots of little children. Her favorite activity is visiting people who are confined to their homes in order to share Holy Communion with them. At home in the rectory, she loves to sit by the fire, play in the garden, and romp with her two cats.
Martha Meyer began her work with us as Music Minister at the end of October, 2007. She was for fifteen years the Music Director at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Bridgeport located in Stratford. Martha enjoys providing music in the Classical tradition on the organ, and she is looking forward to expanding our repertoire with our new digital piano. In her other life Martha is also a jazz pianist and teacher of piano students. She has four grown children and lives down the hill in Redding. Welcome, Martha!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
Another week, another prediction from Jesus about his death, another meditation on the cross.
Why do we dwell on it so much? It’s because the cross is central to the life of a Christian. It’s at the center of God’s work for the world. And the dying it affords us is what brings new life. That’s where we’re going today in this sermon.
In the gospel today we see some Greeks—some religious outsiders—coming to see Jesus. And by virtue of the outside seeking to be connected to the inside, Jesus knows that the revelation of God is now to be extended out to the whole world. Previously in the gospel we heard from Jesus time and again that his time had not yet come.
Marilyn and her husband Barry love living in the Redding woods. Their daughters are officially out of the nest now. Emily is fearlessly hacking her way through the jungle of corporate market analysis... draining the swamp of high-budget advertising... reintroducing the long-extinct species of clear thought to the islands of poor product planning based on the DNA of rationality found in prehistoric mosquitoes trapped for millenia in the amber of design-by-committee...(thanks to her friend John, for this apt description).
Martha Meyer began her work with us as Music Minister at the end of October, 2007. She was for fifteen years the Music Director at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Bridgeport located in Stratford. Martha enjoys providing music in the Classical tradition on the organ, and she is looking forward to expanding our repertoire with our new digital piano. In her other life Martha is also a jazz pianist and teacher of piano students. She has four grown children and lives down the hill in Redding. Welcome, Martha!