Kingdom Relationships

Fifty years ago last Friday, Nellie Connelly, riding in a motorcade sitting next to her husband, Governor John Connelly, took in the joyous crowds that lined the streets, turned in her seat, and addressed John F. Kennedy: “You certainly can’t say the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome, Mr. President.”  “No, you certainly can’t,” he replied.  Those were the last four words spoken by a man whose speeches moved nations and molded generations.

Famous last words.  The last thing Conrad Hilton said was this: “Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub.”  Bob Hope’s sister asked him where he wanted to be buried.  The comedian’s response became his last words, “Surprise me.”  The last thing a long-time writer for a television soap opera named Charles Gussman said was,  “And now for a final word from our sponsor.”  James French, sitting in the electric chair, turned to gathered reporters and said, “Hey boy, I’ve got tomorrow’s headline for you: ‘French Fries!’”

Famous last words.  See if you can guess who said this:

·   “I found Rome brick, I leave it marble.” – Emperor Augustus.

·   “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” – Nathan Hale.

·   “Strike the tent.” – Robert E. Lee

·   “Don’t give up the ship.” – James Lawrence

·   “Roger, go at throttle-up.” – Dick Scobee, pilot of the space shuttle Challenger

·   “Oh wow.  Oh wow.  Oh wow.” – Steve Jobs

On this final Sunday in the Church Year – a day when we acknowledge and celebrate the Kingship of Christ – we hear two of our Lord’s final ‘seven words’:

·   Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.

·   Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

Off all the things we have heard Jesus say, of all his teachings and parables recorded in Luke’s Gospel that we have read over the span of this liturgical year, these are the last two things we hear Jesus say.  Remembering dying words hardly seems like a fitting way to celebrate kingship, does it.  But these words, so intentionally spoken, reveal something significant about the Kingdom over which our Lord reigns.  First and foremost, it is not a kingdom marked by geographical boundaries nor is it controlled by money or by might.  It is a Kingdom of relationships.  “You will be with me,” Jesus tells the thief.  “We will be in relationship with one another this day and forever.”  Wherever and whenever a person is in relationship with God there is the Kingdom.  Whenever and wherever two or more people who are in relationship with God are in relationship with one another, there is the Kingdom of God we call the Church.

“Father, forgive them” – for any relationship to survive and thrive there has to be forgiveness because at some point or another, and then over and over again, we hurt one another.  By forgiving those who put him to death, Jesus highlights that Kingdom relationships are to be resilient and should always rise above anything any of us does to harm or destroy them.  The hardest work we are called to do as followers of Jesus is the work of reconciliation – the work of restoring and repairing broken relationships. 

When a person is ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church, he or she promises to preach the Word of God and to administer the Sacraments in such as way that the reconciling love of Christ is made know.  This vow – which goes far beyond preaching and liturgical practice – is perhaps the most difficult to keep.  We in the priesthood are not called to be perfect.  We make mistakes.  We hurt people.  People hurt us.  We are just like everyone else in this regard.  What sets us apart is the vow we take to seek reconciliation; to make healed and whole and healthy Kingdom relationships our utmost priority.  It is a vow not rooted in good behavior, you know the “I’ll be a bigger person and be the one to bury the hatchet first.”  It is rooted in the essence and life of our King.

What do you know about the life of Elizabeth Barrett, the famous Victorian era poet?  Her first books were published when she was just twelve years old.  At age fifteen, she injured her spine and, as a result of complications during her recovery, was considered to be an invalid.  After a family tragedy, her father refused to allow any of his children to marry and as a result Elizabeth became a recluse.  And still she continued to write.  At the age of 39, one of her publications caught the attention of another writer, Robert Browning.  He visited Elizabeth and wrote to her frequently.  He encouraged her to get out of bed and to resume a normal life, but his efforts were met with strong resistance from her parents.  They refused to let Browning see their daughter, but love would not be denied.  Eventually Robert helped Elizabeth break free from her domineering family.  The two were married and moved to Italy where the sunny, warm climate helped Elizabeth to make a complete recovery from her long-time maladies.

None of this mattered to her parents.  They disowned her and cut off all ties.  Elizabeth persevered, writing a letter to her parents every week for over ten years.  She told them over and over how much she loved them and longed to be reconciled.  One day she received a huge box in the mail from them.  It contained every letter she wrote to home and not a single one had been opened and read.  These “love letters” now comprise a precious part of English literature that have touched the lives of countless many, but it is sobering to think that the people for whom they were intended closed their hearts to their author, their daughter.

I’ll say it again:  Kingdom relationships are to be resilient and should always rise above anything any of us does to harm or destroy them.

Let me tell you another story, this one with a different ending.  Two brothers lived on adjoining farms.  One day they had a deep quarrel and ended all contact with each other.  The feud became so bitter that one brother dammed up the creek that provided water for both farms, cutting off a vital resource for his brother’s livelihood.  Well, that brother became so disgusted at the sight of the growing pond on his brother’s farm that he hired a carpenter to build a fence so the he would not have to look at his brother’s property.  The carpenter worked tirelessly all day, but rather than build a fence along the water, he built a bridge over it.  When the other brother saw it he was so moved by what he supposed to be a gesture of goodwill that he walked halfway across the bridge.  The brother who hired the carpenter, on seeing his brother on the bridge, walked out to meet him.  The two embraced and made tearful, heartfelt amends.  After a while they noticed that the carpenter was packing up his tools and getting ready to leave.  The brothers implored him to stay, but the carpenter refused, saying, “I still have other bridges to build.”

One of the most impressive structures ever created is the Golden Gate Bridge.  It is a 1.7 mile expanse of that spans the bay between San Francisco and Marin County.  Construction lasted over four years.  The bridge is built of 83,000 tons of steel, 80,000 miles of wire bundled together, and at least 600,000 rivets in each of the two main towers.  At its opening, the bridge’s chief engineer said the Golden Gate Bridge is built to last forever.   Imagine the work and materials that went into spanning a gap of less than two miles.  Now imagine this: the gap of brokenness between us and God, and the gap of brokenness between individuals and groups within the human family, was spanned by Jesus Christ with just two pieces of wood and three nails.  It is a bridge we can walk to be reconciled with God and one another, or it is a bridge we can avoid.  The choice is ours.

Think about the flow of today’s liturgy.  We move from hearing God’s word to making a confession as we become aware of the ways we have fallen short.  Confession gives way to contrition, forgiveness, the restoration of broken relationships, and ultimately to communion together at our Lord’s Table.  This is the deep desire of Christ the King.  It is the culmination of his life and work.  His reign is found whenever and wherever Kingdom relationships are found.

Idleness, Margin, Overlaod, & Sabbath

There was a priest who preached long, rambling sermons.  One Sunday the Senior Warden had enough.  Twenty minutes into the sermon, he stood up, walked to the back of the church, and left.  Forty-five minutes later he returned just as the priest was wrapping up.  In front of the entire congregation the priest asked the warden why he had left.  The warden replied, “I went to get my hair cut.”  Incredulous, the priest responded, “Why didn’t you get a haircut before the service started?” “Well,” said the warden, “I didn’t need one then.”  I rewrote today’s sermon five times in order to avoid a moment like that!

This morning’s New Testament reading features one of Paul’s most down-to-earth pieces of writing.  It addresses a concrete problem and a specific issue in the life of a particular faith community:

“You are to avoid believers who are living in idleness…  If you will not work, you will not eat… We hear that some are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.” 

Now, let me just say this: it is nearly impossible to hear this passage and not think about those people who (at least to our way of thinking) are abusing our country’s social programs.  Are there people collecting benefits who could work, but don’t?  Absolutely.  Do these verses have something to say about it?  Definitely.  But if we only focus on this aspect of the passage, we will miss what Paul would say to us, not them. 

The core of his thought is contained in his own example:

“You ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not be a burden to any of you.” 

Elsewhere we learn that Paul supported himself by making tents.  While it did not make him wealthy, it made it possible for him to be self-supporting.  It also enabled him the freedom to do the missionary work God called him to do: planting churches, preaching, teaching, and writing letters.  In addition, it gave him the time he needed to pursue the spiritual dimension of life: praying, worshipping, gathering in fellowship with others.  Paul presents his life as a model of balance: labor, service, and rest all in right relationship.  It is this balance that he holds up against the extreme of idleness.  If Paul were to write a letter to you in which he lifts up his witness, what would he attack in your life that is out of balance?  For most of us it would not be idleness, but the other extreme – overload.

I draw the word ‘overload’ very intentionally from two books by Richard Swenson, M.D. titled Margin and The Overload Syndrome.  There is an old Finnish proverb that teaches, God did not create hurry.  Each of us here knows what it is like to have ‘more on our plate’ than we can handle.  For some of us it is a chronic condition.  By driving ourselves to the edge of our limits and beyond, we find ourselves in a constant state of motion, but ultimately not getting any place we want to be. 

Swenson writes,

“If you are travelling from Chicago to New York and instead find yourself in Houston, the sensible thing to do is to stop the car, consult the map, and turn in the right direction.  In the same way, if we have travelled down the road of progress and now find ourselves in a situation where relational, emotional, and spiritual pain are pandemic, where stress and overload rule our daily lives… we do not need to apologize for stopping and redirecting ourselves.”

Swenson’s method of redirecting is to create more margin.  The margins on a piece of paper prevent the writing from consuming the entire page.  This open space actually makes reading easier.  “Margin,” writes Swenson, “is the leeway we once had between ourselves and our limits.”  An example of overload is “being thirty minutes late to the doctor’s office because you were twenty minutes late dropping the children off at school because the car ran out of gas two blocks from the gas station – and you forgot your purse.”  “Margin… is having breath left at the top of the staircase, money left at the end of the month, and sanity left at the end of [the day]”.  If overload is your reality then margin is the remedy.

Do you ever get the feeling that there is no time to think, no place to heal, and no room to breathe?  Does it ever feel like what is good in life is being peeled away by the sheer velocity at which we live and move and have our being?  “The conditions of modern-day living,” says Swenson, “devour margin.”

These conditions place such a high value on technology, material acquisition, educational accolades, and personal notoriety that there is little room left to develop those things which are essential in life, but much harder to quantify: things like emotional contentment, right relationships, and spiritual awareness.  As margin erodes from our lives the time we have to invest in these essential areas diminishes with it. 

It doesn’t take much imagination to translate Swenson’s thinking into the Biblical language of the Sabbath.  I find many people have little understanding of what the Sabbath is and why it is important.  When asked, most people say that the keeping the Sabbath means going to church on Sundays.  When asked, most people say you should keep the Sabbath because God wants us to stop and remember God.  Neither response is grounded in Scripture.  The Bible gives two primary theological reasons for keeping the Sabbath: one is rooted in the story of creation, the other in the experience of captivity in Egypt. 

The first few chapters of the Book of Genesis paint a wonderfully rich picture of God’s nature.  God creates.  God allows what is created to respond, to develop, and to grow.  God interacts with what is unfolding.  God reflects on it before naming it.  God evaluates before pronouncing its goodness.  God shares a mandate to create with the human race.  And God rests.  The Creation story does not describe so much a series of chronological events as it reveals a set of Divine personality traits.  Creating, reflecting, evaluating, sharing, and resting are intertwined throughout the story because they are essential elements of God’s nature.

And because we are created in God’s image, they are essential human traits as well.  Resting, Sabbath, margin – whatever you want to call it – is not something we do for God, it is something we do because it is an essential component of who we are.  It is not an hour we ‘sacrifice’ on Sunday morning; it is something that needs to be built into our daily round with added emphasis one day of the week.  It is a mistake to think that God is pro-exhaustion for six days, with one day of pause at the end.  Our lives, like the letters we write on a piece of paper, need margin… open space that allows for personal time, social growth, and spiritual enlightenment.

The second biblical reason for observing the Sabbath comes from Israel’s enslavement in Egypt where they were forced to work seven days a week.  Slavery deprived them of the opportunity to worship God, to observe Sabbath, and to have margin in their lives.  Once freed, God reminds them (and us) to observe the Sabbath as a sign of our freedom.

More and more it seems that people do not come to church on a regular basis because Sunday is their only day to sleep in, to get things done around the house, or just plain to relax.  The effort to get to church, especially for parents, feels like the same kind of work they have to do every other day.  On one hand, people (and parents in particular) are desperate to find some margin.  On the other hand, could there be a clearer sign that once again God’s people are in slavery, only this time it is a voluntary bondage to the demands of the cultural climate in which we live. 

Today’s lifestyle demands so much of our time that we opt out of regular worship so that we have some semblance of margin in our lives.  It demands every ounce of our financial resources so that our Sunday contribution more closely resembles a tip to a friendly waiter than a biblical tithe given in gratitude to God.  It takes so much out of us that worship feels more like a gathering of the emotionally drained than a community of faith victoriously celebrating our Lord’s glorious Resurrection.  It is a lifestyle that gives back less than it takes from us.  It creates a kind of bondage that would have caused our enslaved ancestors in Egypt to cry out to the Lord for deliverance.

I think if Paul were writing to us today his message would be this:

“You ought to imitate us; we were not overloaded when we were with you.  We worked as much as we needed to get by.  We ministered to those in need.  We had time to do God’s work and we had time to rest and pray.  We hear that some of you are in constant motion, pushing yourselves well beyond human limits in order to have it all.  You need to stop and consider what it costs you and those you love.  You are pursuing a lie.  It is not worth it.  Consider again how we lived.  Follow our example.  Be who God created you to be, not who the culture says you ought to be.”

Swenson says the benefits of margin include a deep sense of joy, the ability to serve others, better health, time to nourish relationships, and a sense of being available to moments of unexpected and unplanned grace.  If you find these things to be in short order in your life, then perhaps you might consider how you ended up in Houston when you were trying to get to New York.

What You Look At & What You See

Several years ago a Washington newspaper set up a social experiment by getting the world renown violinist Joshua Bell to dress up like a street musician and with his three million dollar instrument to play incredibly intricate pieces of music in a crowded metro station during rush hour.  The results have been widely disseminated and discussed.  No one recognized Bell, even though he has played for audiences all around the world.  And though his music was of the highest quality, very few people seemed to notice or stopped to listen.  Those who dropped money into Bell’s basket as they walked by never realized that a ticket to hear him play the same music at the symphony would cost at least one hundred dollars.  One child stopped to listen, but was yanked away by his impatient mother who did not want to miss the next train.

I am not critical of all those commuters because in life there is way too much reality for us to take in.  Even now in this place at this moment more is happening than our conscious mind can assimilate.  The human brain has developed fascinating ways to filter out what it deems unimportant so that it can hone in on what is significant.  Most of the time this works very well for us, but sometimes it betrays us.  Magicians are keenly aware of how the brain perceives reality and they use this knowledge to manipulate events in order to create the illusion of magic.  Ultimately what they do is nothing more than harmless entertainment.  

The Joshua Bell experiment points to something more significant.  It suggests that we see what we expect to see.  We expect one thing of a person standing on stage dressed in a tuxedo surrounded by a full orchestra but something totally different from a starving street artist.  We have a lot of different words to describe this: pigeon-holing, stereotyping, labeling, profiling, snap judgments.  The challenge comes when this process migrates from the head to the heart; when it deeply infiltrates the human soul; when it moves from perceptions to value judgments based on superficial qualities.  Over time other people can become little more than caricatures of our own creation based on quick, limited observations.  Some of our caricatures elevate people far higher than warranted.  Others reek of a contemptuousness no human being deserves.  

This morning we encounter another one of Jesus’ parables.  It is a story about two individuals who go to the Temple to pray.  One is an esteemed religious professional, the other a dreaded tax collector.  You know the details – how the Pharisee stands before God and proudly announces in his prayer his gratitude that he is better than other people and how the tax collector begs for mercy on his many sins.  

The Pharisee is a prime example of a person who sees what he expects to see.  He takes in outward, visual clues about another person and then makes negative assumptions about the morality and worth of that person.  If any one of you was preaching this sermon and I was in the pew listening, at this point I would be thinking, “you don’t have to go into great detail describing this because I know just what it is like.  I do it all the time!”  It is that process whereby we feel better about ourselves by being judgmental and critical about another person.  If we take Jesus at his word, then this is not how we are supposed to be.

During my typically copious sermon research, I came across this little ditty:

I was shocked, confused, bewildered

as I entered Heaven’s door,

Not by the beauty of it all,

nor the lights or its decor.

But it was the folks in Heaven

who made me sputter and gasp--

the thieves, the liars, the sinners,

the alcoholics, the trash.

There stood the kid from seventh grade

who swiped my lunch money twice.

Next to him was my old neighbor

who never said anything nice.

Herb, who I always thought

was rotting away in hell,

was sitting pretty on cloud nine,

looking incredibly well.

I nudged Jesus, “What’s the deal?

I would love to hear Your take.

How’d all these sinners get up here?

God must’ve made a mistake.”

“And why’s everyone so quiet,

so somber?  Give me a clue.”

“Hush, child,” said He, “they’re all in shock.

No one thought they’d be seeing you!

The journalist Sydney J. Harris summed it up pretty well when he wrote, “We evaluate others with a Godlike justice, but we want them to evaluate us with a Godlike compassion.”

Henry David Thoreau famously wrote that in life it’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.  That is what the DC commuters and the Pharisee didn’t understand.  They looked, but they did not see.  In a few moments we will renew our own Baptismal Covenant.  As we do so take special notice of these promises:

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you… respect the dignity of every human being?

And noitice the prayers who offer for the baptismal candidate; prayers which were offered on our behalf at our own baptism:

Teach him to love others in the power of the Spirit.

Send him into the world in witness to your love.

Give him an inquiring and discerning heart… and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.

Theses prayers and promises, at least with regard to how we approach others, call and commit us to be more than lookers – people who make snap-judgements based on superficiallities and generalities.  They call and commit us to be people who see others as they truly are.

I came across this piece by Sam Bristow on a blogsite called Higher Powered:

You have not walked in my shoes

You have not been down my road.

You have not cried my tears.

You have not carried my load.

Why do you judge me?

You think you know my story.

You think you know my pain.

You think you know my future.

You don’t even know my name.

Why do you judge me?

You were not there to see me stumble.

You were not there to see me fall.

You were not there to pick me up.

You were not there at all.

Why do you judge me?

Did you know there is a website that gives advice to writers about how to be better at people watching?  It suggests that this activity can help them discover and develop characters for their material.  It offers tips on such common things as how to choose a good location, how to observe a person without being spotted, and how to record your thoughts and observations.  What intrigued me most was this insight:

“People watching is not about feeling superior to others or judging them; more than anything, you’re a non-judgmental observer with a penchant for unearthing life’s stories as an art of love and empathy.”

The site counsels that every person has a story to tell and encourages writers to look for the infinite worth and wealth in common, everyday people.

I think the parable we hear this morning suggests two very important spiritual truths: one I have explored at length, the other I will only mention in closing.  What I have explored is this: When we make shallow and superficial judgments about other people we fail to recognize the complexity of their lives, the richness they have to offer, and the basic dignity they carry by virtue of being God’s child.  It is common sense, but it is true: if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.  When you seek the presence of Christ in another you will begin to see that person in a new way.

What I have not explored with you, but will note for you to ponder, is this: if you continually measure yourself against the negative impressions you formulate about others, you release yourself from doing the work you need to do on yourself.  When we hear the Pharisee’s prayer we realize something he does not.  We realize that he is far from perfect.  But he doesn’t realize it because he is so preoccupied with looking at thieves, rouges, adulterers and tax collectors that he never looks at himself.  Sage advice says don’t compare yourself to others – either positively or negatively.  Compare yourself to the person you were yesterday and work toward the person you hope to be tomorrow.  

Two people went to the Temple to pray.  One was justified through his prayers, the other was not.  The one who was justified looked at himself and saw himself for who he was.  The other person scanned those at prayer, but never really saw them and certainly never really saw himself. 

So If It's Not Okay...

The reading we just heard from the Gospel of Luke, like so many gospel readings, comes to us without a specific context.  What motivated Jesus to tell this story at this time?  The text offers no clues.  But keep in mind the nature of that society.  It was an age when the many were onerously burdened to the benefit of a privileged few.  For those many, of which Jesus was one, the longing for justice would have been intense.  And it would have been frustrating.  And it would have been infuriating.  And it would have been disheartening. 

So Jesus tells one of his stories to emphasize why it is important not to get discouraged and why it is important to keep praying.  Look at this miserable, rotten, no good judge, Jesus says.  If a scoundrel like that relents because the widow refuses to give up, how much more will our loving God respond to our prayers?

Who is our God?  What is our God like?  In my readings this week I came across this beautiful passage from a homily delivered by 4^th century bishop Gregory of Nyssa:

Charity lives in the intimacy of God and it is God who by his hands shaped the first works of love and philanthropy in creating everything that is.  For God is the first and foremost lover of good deeds who nourishes the starving, waters the thirsty, and clothes those who are naked.

That is who God is and what God is like.  God cares about injustice and God cares about our suffering.  This concern is rooted in the very heart of God and the call for justice in the Name of God permeates all of Scripture.  Still, we are left with a nagging question: if God cares so deeply about injustice, and if God loves us deeply, why do our prayers for justice – prayers for our entire social order as well as prayer about the specific wrongs we endure – why do these prayers seem to go unanswered?

An American tourist sat at a table at an outdoor café near Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall.  As he sipped a coffee he observed a man praying at the wall.  While others came and went, this particular person prayed all morning long.  After what seemed like hours, the man left the wall, walked over to the café, and sat at a table next to the tourist.  The American decided to strike up a conversation: “I saw you praying at the wall all morning.  Do you mind me asking what you were praying for?”  “Not at all,” the man answered.  “For the first hour I pray for peace around the world; that goodwill might rule in every human heart.  For the second hour I pray for people who are hungry or naked or homeless; that no person should ever have to go without the basic necessities of life.  For the third hour I pray for the sick and hurting; that there might be an end to disease and suffering.”  “May I ask how long you have been coming to the wall to pray?”  “Every day for twenty-five years.”  “That is incredible,” the tourist said.  “What does it feel like to offer such important prayers day in and day out for that many years?”  “Well,” the man said, taking in a deep breath, reflecting, and then letting out a sigh, “Sometimes it feels like I am talking to a wall.”

Surely you know that feeling.  Surly each one of us here, at one time or another, has felt as if our prayers not only go unanswered, but, even worse, go unheard.  Pray all you want, work for justice as hard as you can, and still nothing seems to change.  This, I think, is the experience Jesus encountered in some folks that motivated him to tell the parable we heard this morning.  It is tough, he says, but you must not give up and you must not give in.  You are never praying just to a wall.

It strikes me that praying for justice is very different from other kinds of prayer.  When you pray for forgiveness, your prayer hinges largely on your own ability to accept the forgiveness God extends.  When you pray for healing – either for yourself or for another – the answer depends on many factors; some we can control and others we can’t.  With healing prayers, ultimately, either we are encouraged by what we see or we resign ourselves to another path of prayer.  But when we pray for justice, we are praying for a change of heart that leads to a change in action and behavior.  Whoever or whatever is perpetrating injustice must undergo deep, spiritual transformation before the wrong can be righted. 

Changing a cold human heart takes time.  Pharaoh endured ten horrific plagues before he reached a point where he could let the Hebrews go.  In today’s Old Testament reading, we heard the prophet Jeremiah’s vision of a time when God’s covenant with the human family would be written on the human heart.  It is a vision of a time when right behavior is not dictated and directed by external laws, but rather emanates from within; of a time when God’s very life would so dwell within each of us that we would know and do what is right and just. 

Christians believe that some six hundred years later this vision found its fulfillment on Pentecost Day with the coming of the Holy Spirit.  But even we admit that it is at best a partial reality.  Because God honors the freewill of every human being the quest for justice can be a very long haul indeed.  That is not good news for us who are more and more the product of a short-term, quick fix world of instant gratification because the quest for justice is not a short-term, quick fix kind of problem. 

So here are two things you can do.

First, do not give up.  Stay at it.  Persevere.  That is what Yvonne Pierre did.  As a child she endured terrible, unspeakable abuses and the murder of her father.  As a result she fell into self-destructive behavior, but eventually determined to turn around her life.  She graduated from an alternative school and, over time, earned four undergrad and graduate degrees.  She has written a play, a film, and a book.  The mother of two children, one who has Downs Syndrome, Pierre works tirelessly with the special needs community.  Thinking about all she has endured and overcome, listen to this passage from her book, The Day My Soul Cried:

For every person who closed the door in my face, thank you.  For every person who told me I wasn’t good enough, thank you.  For every person who laughed and told me that I was wasting my time going to college, because I was going to fail, thank you.  For every person who tried to break me, thank you.  For every person who took my kindness for weakness, thank you.  For every person who told me I was wasting time chasing my dreams because I would fail, thank you.  It could of broke me.  From the core of my heart, I thank you.  I truly mean it, because if it weren’t for each of you I wouldn’t be who I am today.  I wouldn’t of spend hours and loss sleep studying.  I wouldn’t developed tough skin.  You pushed me to think about what I “really” want out of life.  You pushed me to master my craft.  You helped me develop the drive, passion and determination.  You pushed me to not wait for someone to believe in my vision, but to find a way to make things happen.  I know you didn’t “intend” to, but I thank you for teaching me to believe in myself!  AND you taught me to TRUST in God and lean on my faith, not man.  Thank You!

Yvonne Pierre is a present-day widow from Jesus’ parable, isn’t she!  Her life, with all of its challenges and struggles, gives witness to the fact that when we pray more than a wall hears us.  With faith and determination, she overcame her challenges.  If she could do it so can you.

Here is the second thing you can do while you wait for justice: examine your own heart and your own actions and your own life.  Where are you a perpetrator of injustice?  When are you the very thing you detest?  While you hunger and thirst for a wrong to be made right, allow God’s covenant to be written on your heart.  The easiest heart for God to change is yours.  There is much to be said for being the person you are praying for another to become.

There is an anonymous quote that says “Everything will be okay in the end, so if it’s not OK, then it’s not the end.”  And we Christians would add, if it’s not okay then we still have work to do; work on our knees, work in our heart, and work marked by determination and perseverance that one day will get us to the ‘okay end’ we long for and know will come.

Present Yourself to God

A man with a terrible stuttering problem applied for a job selling bibles door-to-door.  The boss was not sure the candidate would be at all successful, but decided to give him chance so he sent off the stuttering man with a case of bibles.   A few hours later, the salesman returned and asked for a second case.  Two hours after that he was back for a third.  By the end of the day he has set a company record for most bibles sold in a single day.  “How did you do it,” the boss asked?  “Weeellll,” said the stuttering salesman, “IIIII assskkked iffff theyyyy wanttttted toooo buuuuyyy aaaa bibbbbleee orrrr havvveee mmmeee rrrread itttt toooo themmmmm.”

The church where I grew up gave a bible to each youngster in the third grade.  I still have mine.  It is the Revised Standard Version.  On the cover is printed “Holy Bible” and my name is engraved in the lower right hand corner.  The second page is a fancy looking certificate on which is printed:

The Holy Bible

presented to

Someone took the time to fill in a dedication.  It reads,

Keith Emerson

by Westminster Presbyterian Church

II Timothy 2:15

May 25, 1969

II Timothy 2:15 reads, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed.”  I suppose whoever filled in the page on my personalized bible could have cited any other number of verses, but because he or she chose this one it has always been one of my favorite in scripture.  Ever since third grade, it has served as my personal mission statement.  I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out what it means to present myself to God.  Here are a few things I have learned over the years.

Early on I figured out that it is important to present yourself to God by going to church.  That seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it!  I was fortunate as a young person and as a college student in that I enjoyed Sunday worship.  Ever since graduation I have worked in a church in some capacity, so I have had a little more incentive to show up than most people.  But even when I am on vacation I try to find a church to attend.  Since being given that bible I have not gone more than three weeks in a row without going to church. 

As a boy I remember absolutely hating two things about Sunday mornings: having my father put a tie on me and then brushing back my hair.  He was a little rough doing both, probably because he enjoyed it even less than I did.  I am not sure when “dressing up” for church began to wane as a practice, but certainly it has.  The old standard was that you presented yourself to God by putting on your “Sunday best.”  By the time I joined the Episcopal Church I realized some other standard was in play.  It was easy to spot the folks who only attended at Christmas and Easter because the women wore mink coats.  Church, I learned, was not a place to show off.

Today I say that if you want to present yourself to God, the best way to do it – at least in terms of what you wear – is to dress neatly and modestly.  Several years ago I was a chaplain for a senior high youth conference.  One chaplain’s session we got into a very interesting discussion about clothes as it relates to living out the faith.  A very attractive young woman wearing a very tight fitting spaghetti-strap t-shirt announced that she was proud of her body and wanted to show it off through what she wore.  I pointed out that tight-fitting and revealing clothes had a certain affect on the opposite sex.  “Well, boys just need to get their minds out of the gutter,” she said.  “Young woman,” I replied, “that is not how the male brain works.”  If you want to present yourself to God, the best way to dress is neatly and modestly.

So, one thing I did from an early age to present myself to God was to go to church.  Another thing I did was to read the bible.  Our church’s youth minister offered a weekly bible study, which I attended faithfully.  In addition, I read the bible on my own every day, and I mean every day!  I think I went something like 12 years without missing a single day.  Don’t get me wrong, there were times that I just went through the motions, but at least I had a consistent discipline.  It is a discipline I maintain even to this day, although there is usually a day or two each week that my schedule overtakes the time I try to set aside.

Very few things nurture the Christian faith and life like reading the bible on your own and in a group setting.  I am particularly pleased that so many of you attend the monthly women’s study group, the weekly Wednesday bible study, or have expressed an interest in the upcoming Alpha course.  I am excited to hear stories about how our children are taking to the weekly bible stories they are learning in the Godly Play class.  Scripture and prayer are like oxygen for of a healthy, vital, dynamic faith community.  Without them as a consistent and substantive part of our common life, we are just running on fumes. 

Today’s Gospel reading highlights another important aspect of presenting yourself to God – gratitude.  Are you thankful for what you have?  Are you even aware of the many blessings in your life?  No poetry today, but I continue to enjoy reading Mary Oliver’s poems.  She has an amazing ability to notice everything that is going on around her and to take it into her soul: poems about turtles and moths and oak trees and a cup of tea.  Nothing is too small or innocuous to escape her notice and all of it elicits in her a sense of gratitude. 

Perhaps her witness was with me on Thursday.  It was my 54^th birthday and I spent the entire day at an exhausting meeting in Williamsburg.  I lost count of the people who wished me a happy birthday and then asked what I was going to do to celebrate.  “Well,” I said, “I am going to go home and collapse.”  And that is what I did.  To be honest, there was a part of me that was very sad I was not going to do something special, and as a result I was nursing a good case of the blues.  Well, when I got home I found waiting for me multiple birthday cards handmade by the children in our Sunday School class.  One had handprints and names of all the children and it now graces my refrigerator.  Holly pulled this off and told me how excited the kids were to make cards when they found out it was my birthday.  I have to tell you I felt like the luckiest person on the planet!  What a blessing it is to have children in our parish who want to do something special for me.  So today – like every day – I bring to God my gratitude for life’s many blessings.

As I have grown in the Episcopal tradition I have come to appreciate how the Baptismal Covenant articulates what it means to present yourself to God as a worker who has no need to be ashamed.  Through the covenant we turn away from Satan, the evils of this world, and our own sinful desires and pledge our allegiance to Jesus Christ as our Savior, our Lord, and our Guide.  We commit ourselves to a Christian community – its worship, prayer, and study, to being an ambassador of the faith wherever we are, and to serving the needs of others.  If we live into this covenant than we will have no need to be ashamed when we present ourselves to God.

The problem is we often miss the mark.  The Greek word for sin comes from a term used to describe an archer shooting an arrow.  Sin has to do with missing the target.  Sometimes we simply aim at something other than the bull’s-eye, other times we miss what we aim at; our actions, while well-intentioned, have unintended consequences.  But there is another way to miss the mark.  You can draw back the bowstring part way, but not enough to get the arrow all the way there.  You aimed at the target, but you really didn’t try all that hard to hit it.  You did it half-hearted.  You just went through the motions.  Your effort was not your best, not even close.

Do you remember how II Timothy 2:15 begins?  “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved.”  We in the Christian tradition hold that we are saved by grace apart from works.  It is comforting to know that, rather than standing or falling on our own merits, we rest in God’s love and mercy.  Doing your best is not about earning a heavenly reward, but rather a reflection of what you want to offer to God in response to who God is and what God has done for you.  When Paul tells Timothy to do his best he is saying don’t let the arrow fall short of the mark.  Miss high, miss wide, but don’t miss because you really didn’t try.

What are some things you think are important in presenting yourself to God and are you doing your best to do them?