Sermon for October 28, 2012--Reformation Sunday

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Holy See announced that the Pope has granted a plenary indulgence for the Year of Faith.

The decree announcing the indulgence was signed by the Cardinal Major Penitentiary, and Bishop Regent, of the Apostolic Penitentiary. The penitentiary is the part of the Roman Curia responsible for indulgences and governing the sacrament of confession.

One plenary indulgence per day may be gained by an individual, which they can use for themselves or apply to a soul in purgatory. Since the primary objective is to develop sanctity of life to the highest degree possible on this earth, and thus to attain the most sublime level of pureness of soul, immense benefit may be derived from the great gift of Indulgences which, by virtue of the power conferred upon her by Christ, the Church offers to everyone who, following the due norms, undertakes the special prescripts to obtain them. During the Year of Faith, Plenary Indulgence for the temporal punishment of sins, imparted by the mercy of God and applicable also to the souls of deceased faithful, may be obtained by all faithful who, truly penitent, take Sacramental Confession and the Eucharist and pray in accordance with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff.

During the Year of Faith, there are four means of gaining an indulgence.

"(A) Each time they attend at least three sermons during the Holy Missions, or at least three lessons on the Acts of the Council or the articles of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in church or any other suitable location.
"(B) Each time they visit, in the course of a pilgrimage, a papal basilica, a Christian catacomb, a cathedral church or a holy site designated by the local ordinary for the Year of Faith (for example, minor basilicas and shrines dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Apostles or patron saints), and there participate in a sacred celebration, or at least remain for a congruous period of time in prayer and pious meditation, concluding with the recitation of the Our Father, the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form, and invocations to the Blessed Virgin Mary and, depending on the circumstances, to the Holy Apostles and patron saints.
"(C) Each time that, on the days designated by the local ordinary for the Year of Faith, ... in any sacred place, they participate in a solemn celebration of the Eucharist or the Liturgy of the Hours, adding thereto the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form.
"(D) On any day they chose, during the Year of Faith, if they make a pious visit to the baptistery, or other place in which they received the Sacrament of Baptism, and there renew their baptismal promises in any legitimate form.
"Diocesan or Eastern Christian Church bishops, and those who enjoy the same status in law, on the most appropriate day during that period or on the occasion of the main celebrations, ... may impart the papal blessing with the Plenary Indulgence".

Faithful who, due to illness or other legitimate cause, are unable to leave their place of adobe, may still obtain Plenary Indulgence "if, united in spirit and thought with other faithful, and especially at the times when the words of the Supreme Pontiff are heard, they recite ... the Our Father, the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form, and other prayers that concord with the objectives of the Year of Faith, offering up the suffering and discomfort of their lives". A plenary indulgence also requires that the individual be in the state of grace, have complete detachment from sin, and pray for the Pope's intentions. The person must also sacramentally confess their sins and receive Communion up to about 20 days before or after completing the other acts.

The Year of Faith is meant to “recall the precious gift of faith” and “its correct interpretation.”

Martin Luther was appalled when, five hundred years ago, the German Dominican monk Johann Tetzel, papal commissioner for indulgences, was sent from the
Vatican to peddle indulgences to the faithful. Luther insisted that, since forgiveness was God's alone to grant, those who claimed that indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments and granted them salvation were in error. Yet Tetzel’s teachings on indulgences for the living, at least, were in line with Catholic dogma of the time.

You know the rest of the story. Indulgences were being sold, not granted for free; it was actually a fundraising scheme by Pope Leo, the Medici pope, to build St. Peter’s Basilica, the one we know in Vatican City today.

But what you may not know is that the granting of indulgences for both the living or a soul in purgatory that I described during the Year of Faith, was actually an announcement from the Vatican last month, by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. It seems we have not come as far or enjoy as much unity of spirit in the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church as we like to think. Pope Benedict is not asking for money for these indulgences, but there is a requirement of works in order for the indulgence to be granted.

Remember the old saying, brothers and sisters, Those who do not remember their history are doomed to repeat it. Once again, we have a German Catholic, this time Pope Benedict, offering indulgences for both the living and the dead. It may not be relevant to this subject, but I might mention here that before being elected pope, Benedict was Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, another good old Catholic institution that was instituted late in the 16^th century, responsible for prosecuting individuals accused of committing offences relating to heresy, including Protestantism,sorcery, immorality, blasphemy, Judaizing and witchcraft, as well for censorship of printed literature.

It seems that I’m focusing on what we think of as the errors of the Roman Catholic Church, and that is true to some extent. After all, the Reformation was about Luther reforming the Church, and Catholicism was the only show in town back then. And the essential doctrine of justification by faith alone, the cornerstone of our Lutheran doctrine, is apparently still in direct contrast to a church that still believes and practices the granting of indulgences for the remission of the temporal punishment due to sins.

Luther said, "This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification," he wrote, "is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness." He explained in the Smalcald Articles, “The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification. He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood. This is necessary to believe. This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us ... Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls.”

I can’t elaborate or add to Luther’s words. Justification by faith, the one and firm rock, the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine. Both our Gospel and Epistle lesson today attest to this. There is nothing so important; nothing so urgent. This is who we are.

And this is why we’re here. We are heirs of a great Reformation, a great movement in the church, when, like in the early church, a brave few were willing to oppose the religious and political leaders of the time, and became witnesses to the truth. We have a responsibility to continue that witness, to speak the truth in love to those around us, in this time and in this place, where God has put us.

Amen.

Sermon for October 7, 2012--Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Brothers and sisters, the last six weeks or so I’ve embarked upon what for me is a huge challenge, a growing edge. My home congregation has started a two day a week mother’s day out program—something, it turns out, that is a very needed service in the community. Being the diaconal person that I am, I felt that this was something in which I should be involved. And after praying about it at length, I said that I would work for the program as the infant room “teacher.” Now the reason that this is such a growing edge for me is that, for years, I have resisted, you might even say fought tooth and nail, being involved with children’s ministry. I spent three years studying in a program that trained one to teach bible studies to adults, and a further three years in formation to become a consecrated deaconess, and I did not think that my training and talent should be wasted on teaching three year old Sunday school . . . or in working in mother’s day out. I have always seen my gifts as lying in a different direction.

I’m not convinced yet that my talents don’t lie in a different direction. I can’t say that this has been a revelation about what I’m supposed to be doing for the kingdom. Five infants, aged four to ten months, in a small room together, can be challenging. However, as is usually the case when one is involved in ministry of any kind, it isn’t about me. It is about the children, about what Jesus said here in Mark 10. Let the little children come to me. I’ve realized that taking care of five infants in mother’s day out isn’t a lot different than being a hospital chaplain. Being a chaplain wasn’t about what I had to offer patients and families and staff, it was about meeting them where they were, about walking sometimes a hard, and sometimes a joyful, path with them.

So how does one do that with infants? One would think that caring for infants would be a snap. They eat, they sleep, they get their diapers changed, they play, and they cry—a lot. To be honest, that’s kind of what I thought when I said I’d do this . . . but I should have read Mark a little bit more closely. Jesus took the children in his arms, put his hands on them, and blessed them.

It’s been a long time since I was the parent of small children, much less infants. I’d forgotten how important touch is to children.  It took me aback when a five month old was fussing in her swing, waving her little arms around, and I thought maybe she was hungry, so I grabbed her bottle, thinking to quiet her. But what was really going on was that waving her little arms around was her five month old way of lifting her arms to me to be picked up, which, when I did so, quieted her immediately, and won me one of those priceless baby smiles.

And I’m just Jane, a lowly, sort of bumbling, deaconess. I can barely imagine this scene from Mark, when Jesus himself took the children into his arms. The text says that he put his hands on them and blessed them, and we church people I think automatically imagine that Jesus was putting his hands on their heads and pronouncing a blessing on them, something like what might happen during communion, when the presider blesses small children who don’t receive the elements. But I wonder if we’re missing the point, reading too much into it. Could it be that just the act of touching conveys blessing? Harking back to the chaplain experience, people are often calmed when they are touched. Not sit and hold someone’s hand or give them a hearty pat on the back, but just gently, lightly, touch them.  It is amazingly comforting. It offers the gift, the blessing if you will, of presence. We humans need that as infants and we need it still as adults.

In this scene from the gospel, the disciples were preventing people from bringing their children to Jesus, which is another example of the disciples just not getting it. They considered children too immature to need Jesus. But then Jesus says about the children that it is of such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Last Thursday afternoon, I watched a group of toddlers sitting with the pastor in “chapel”—children from 11 months to 18 months. They have learned the sign of the cross. They have learned Jesus Loves Me, and a couple of other gospel songs. When one sees this, one understands that the kingdom of God truly does belong to them. But Jesus also went on to say that anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will not enter it. So does that mean that if one doesn’t learn about Jesus and the kingdom at a very young age, there is no hope of entering the kingdom? The other thing that I observed during this “chapel” session was a very young mother of 21, who was volunteering that day, listening. She didn’t make the sign of the cross. She didn’t know the gospel songs. Or if she did, she chose not to participate. Maybe her heart had been hardened by past experience, or maybe this was new information to her. I don’t know, but she was listening, just exactly like the toddlers were listening. What an amazing thing, if this were the first she’d heard of the gospel, offered in a loving, safe environment with no judgment and no expectations.

This, I think, is truly fulfilling the great commission. And as Jesus demonstrates here, the great commission is not just to go and troll for adults. The fact is this gospel that is entrusted to us exists on the edge of extinction. And I’m not talking about our sinful secular culture that’s killing Christianity. No, Christianity, the gospel,  is always, and has always been just one generation away from disappearing from the face of the earth. To kill the message of Jesus, all you have to do is simply not tell it to your children. The disciples, it seems, are momentarily, at least, unaware of this truth. Our primary responsibility as Christians is to testify to the power of Jesus; not to argue about Christian faith, but to simply tell the things that we have seen Christ do in our lives. As if we were talking to a little child, because after all, the kingdom is not something we can earn by our works or our exemplary life. All of us, no matter what our age, receive the kingdom as a gift, a blessing, of God’s grace.

Amen.

Sermon for September 16, 2012--Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Gospel for today: Mark 9:15-29

¹⁴When they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them. ¹⁵When the whole crowd saw him, they were immediately overcome with awe, and they ran forward to greet him. ¹⁶He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” ¹⁷Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak;¹⁸and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.” ¹⁹He answered them, “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.” ²⁰And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. ²¹Jesus asked the father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. ²²It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.” ²³Jesus said to him, “If you are able! —All things can be done for the one who believes.” ²⁴Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” ²⁵When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!” ²⁶After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” ²⁷But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand. ²⁸When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” ²⁹He said to them, “This kind can come out only through prayer.”

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our savior Jesus Christ.

You all probably know that John and I love movies. We sort of have different taste in movies, kind of a Mars/Venus thing, but there are many that we both enjoy, and we purchase DVDs of those to enjoy at home for a second or third or subsequent viewing as the mood strikes us. At any rate, one of the movies we both enjoyed a lot from the last ten years or so was the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Me, because like most people my age, I’d read the books years before and just thought they were wonderful, and John because he likes action movies. So, in anticipation of The Hobbit coming out at the end of this year, we’ve watched the Lord of the Rings movies again lately.

As we were watching The Return of the King, the last one of the trilogy, I being an English major watched it in the light of the classic Hero’s Journey plot. And I wondered, what might a movie of Jesus’ life and ministry look like? We’ve all seen the old classics—the 1960s King of Kings comes to mind. It seems to me that the Hollywood versions of biblical stories have usually depicted Jesus as sort of a wimpy, otherworldly sort of guy. Really, that’s understandable, considering that he was God and all—you would expect him to be kind of otherworldly. But I do wonder what someone like Peter Jackson, the masterful director of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, would do with a great, epic story like the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Today’s gospel story is one that would be a perfect movie scene. It’s pure drama . . . Jesus walking into the scene of a bunch of people arguing. A man begging for healing for his son, who is possessed of a demon who throws him into the fire and into the water. Conventional wisdom says this boy was probably epileptic, but in our movie version, we’d go with the demon. The father begs “help my unbelief” and Jesus calls the demon out, the demon shrieks, the boy falls down as if dead . . . can you imagine it, as filmed by Peter Jackson? The dirt and the grime, the demon looks like an Orc . . . What a great movie.

Imagining that leads us to the very logical question, why not? Why wouldn’t someone like Peter Jackson get hold of the story of Jesus and film it? This is great stuff! It’s exciting! I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’m betting that film is never going to be made, at least not by Peter Jackson. But it’s an exciting thought.

Which leads me to the next question: Why aren’t we Christians more excited about this stuff? If we actually read the story of Jesus of Nazareth in a way other than in bits and pieces on Sunday mornings, I’ll bet that we’d find it’s a great story. A child whose birth was foretold, sought by magi, wise beyond his years, growing up in a backwater, then a young man with an itinerant ministry full of healings and resuscitations, walking on water, and finally the drama of the crucifixion and resurrection. And to top it all off, the very best part, it’s a true story. We should be excited about this. Instead, what do we do? We read the scriptures and say the prayers in this draggy monotone, we put tradition and religiosity in place of a true, living faith, and we don’t ever stop to think about the reason we’re here.

The life and ministry of Jesus was the most radical event in history. Not just religious history, not just Christian history, or church history. I’m talking history, from the Big Bang to this second. Jesus was Immanuel, God with us, the incarnation, and his life, his ministry, his death, and most importantly, his resurrection, was for us. For you, for me, for humankind. He came because there was no other way for us humans to enter the kingdom of heaven, the presence of God, to be cleansed of our sinful human nature. And the continuing miracle, the one we take for granted, don’t even think about, is that through the means of grace, through the water of baptism and the eucharist, and through the word, he continues to come to us, over and over again.

Are we excited about that? Doesn’t seem like it, does it? We should be. We should be so excited about it that fulfilling the great commission is as simple as waking up in the morning. Go ye therefore and tell everyone. I am as guilty or even more guilty of not doing that than anyone. I could say that my spiritual background hinders me, and that’s probably true to an extent, and I am the first to admit that evangelism, if that’s what you want to call it, is NOT my gift. But the real problem is, I as much as anyone, lose the fire, the passion, the excitement, about Jesus all too easily. And when that excitement is gone, the proverbial light goes under the bushel, and the reason we do any of this stuff that we do in the name of Christ becomes duty and drudgery rather than joy. We come to church out of duty and a vague sense of guilt. We visit the sick because we feel like we “should”. We volunteer for various worthy causes because that’s what Christians do. And even though we may not be telling people about Jesus, like the song says, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

Okay, so the point of all this is not to induce guilt. It’s to challenge everyone here, including myself, to recapture that excitement about Jesus, or maybe find it for the first time. It may not be the easiest thing to do, but Jesus always recommends prayer to bring a thing about, as he mentioned in the gospel today. Delve into the Bible, drag out whatever devotional books you might have, and pray for the excitement about Jesus, and for the boldness to share that with others.

Make no mistake, we are at a crossroads in history. We Christians have been far too complacent for far too long. It's easy for us to blame the decline of Christianity on the rise of secularism, the liberal media, the government which outlawed prayer in schools, but to find those really responsible, we should look in the mirror. I will repeat: We Christians have been far too complacent for far too long. If we continue in this vein, we are in real danger of the most important event in human history, the most important person to ever walk this earth, being completely forgotten by those he came to save.

Amen.

Long time gone . . .

Okay, it's been three months and one day since I posted anything on my blog. Not that I've forgotten about it, but each time I think I should, I am stopped by negative thoughts. I tell myself  that no one is interested (I don't have any followers, so actually, no one is) because I am too (pick one):

• negative
• boring 
• depressed
• old
• ungifted
• untalented
• uninteresting
• broke
• unemployed
• lazy
• tired
• chronically ill

Much of that is true. But here is what I'm working on:

I'm trying hard to get a job. So far, no luck. I believe I'm fighting ageism. The best shot I've had at a position is one I didn't get because I am "so overqualified." Yes, I am, but I did show an interest, didn't I? That means I'm willing to do the work, doesn't it?

I am actually doing things to fill the days so that I won't dwell on being broke and unemployed. I'm doing some craft projects that I've been wanting to do for a while. (I know, lame, but I like doing that stuff.) I've been reading a lot. Mostly trash fiction (NO Shades of Gray), mystery, fantasy, paranormal junk. Genre fiction is like a drug; once you're hooked, you can't seem to get enough. Anyway, I'm dabbling in writing again, after a hiatus of many years. That's also something I've wanted to do for a long time. I've grocery shopped and cooked. I'd grocery shop and cook more if I had any stinking money, but that's an entirely different story.

What I'm not doing that I should, is cleaning out closets, shampooing carpets, all that stuff that needs doing that I just despise. I don't mind cleaning in little bits and pieces. It's just so mind-numbingly boring that I can't do a lot of it at once.

And, I am trying to keep in contact with the few friends that I have. If I don't do that, I'm afraid I am going to just barricade myself in the house. I am afraid that I am a prime candidate for agoraphobia; sometimes I have to stop and think about when the last time was that I actually left the house. Often, the answer is, days ago.

I've discovered all kinds of ways to waste time, too. Netflix--OMG, where to start? I'm watching old friends like Rosemary and Thyme and Midsomer Murders and am discovering cable shows, like Eureka and Warehouse 13 and Dresden Files. Too bad the only one still in production is Warehouse 13, but since I don't have cable, it doesn't matter anyway. I can rely on the internet to keep up with it. Who knew I would be interested in shows on the Syfy channel? Okay, I've had the secret vice of Ghost Hunters--so hokey--for years, but I can sort of justify that because ghosts, in my opinion and experience, are real.

Warehouse 13, if such a thing existed, reminds me of a human mind. So vast, with so many locked spaces, scary things, useful information that's hard to access--but the Warehouse has the means to store unlimited items and a complex system of retrieval.

Enough with the stream of consciousness. Signing off now. I'll be back sooner and more positive, I promise.

Lent is almost over . . .

Palm Sunday afternoon. This is the second Sunday in a row that I could actually attend church, that I wasn't obligated to lead worship elsewhere. It was a gift of time. Time to stop on the way home and pick up something delicious for lunch. (Even if my family didn't appreciate it. DD had other plans, DH just shoveled it in as if it was a McDonald's burger.) Time to prepare food, experiment with all that lovely cooking they do on PBS. Time to read a few pages of a book while I eat.

I so want to be able to live life at a slower pace, partially because I'm getting older and slower is more natural now. I admit it, I'm just tired. Working part-time sounds so good to me, if I have to continue to do something other than what I am called to do. What really sounds good is to derive energy from actually working at my vocation, but the chances of doing that seem more remote than ever.

So going slower sounds good. But how does one accomplish that in this society? How does one just drop out, and still accomplish one's dreams? For I still have dreams, still have things I want to do. Is that just ridiculous at my age? I don't want to be defeated by life.

My Lenten journey hasn't been a profound one, or necessarily spiritual. Every year, I say, this is the year that I'm going to make a real effort, that I'm going to check out of the world as far as possible and just be and let the Spirit move me. It's like those housekeeping magazines at the checkout line at the grocery store in the fall, the ones with the covers that scream, "How To Have the Biggest, BEST Christmas Ever!!!" So one buys the magazine and runs out of time to try all the tricks and ends up disappointed. I am disappointed in myself, and I don't know if God is disappointed in me . . . I imagine God has better things to do than worry about my experience of Lent.

If I had time to go more slowly, would I have concentrated more on Lent? Possibly. But all I can do, all any of us can do, is go forward from this point. There is a blessing in that, being here right now in whatever place, listening for God's voice right now, and looking for a future, for however long God cares to grant me.

Hosanna!

The Gift of Solitude

     As the rhythms in the house change, I find myself alone more than I have in the last few years. There is silence to savor, peace in which I can unwind, time for uninterrupted reading. The animals surround me. The house can be as warm or as cool as I like.
     Would I want to live alone? I look back on my life and think of the brief times that I actually have lived alone. I don't remember disliking being alone. But at the time, I was young enough to anticipate finding that one person to share my life, so I suppose I fretted, not appreciating being alone.
     People like me probably should not try to share space with others. I'm an introvert. I like quiet. I like to be able to put my hand on an object in the place I last laid it. I like room for creating art if I like, diving into a research project just for fun, and watching my choice of movies or TV. Often, if I've nothing scheduled for the weekend, I don't even leave the house. Sometimes I don't even go outdoors.
     But I love my family. And I love our pets. Lately, though, I'm enjoying the gift of solitude. This, I have discovered, is what a person needs so that they can live with others the rest of the time.

February

     February is the worst month. The holidays are long past, and spring is not near enough. All there is to look forward to is Lent (bleah). I'm sure that Valentine's Day is an invention just to improve February, to stem the tides of depression.
     The Month of Letters Challenge has done more for me than Valentine's Day. It's nice to look forward to going to the mailbox rather than putting it off because of the bills, or the packages containing the regrettable late-night Ebay purchases.

     Did I say regrettable? Not all of them. Not too long ago, I mentioned my favorite second-grade library book here. Well, guess what? You're right! I found it on Ebay! And for only 99 cents (really wish keyboards had a cent symbol on them! If you know where it is, let me know.) plus shipping I could own it, like I wished to all those years ago. So, yesterday was an especially wonderful mail day, bringing me all those cards and postcards and my very own copy of The Blue-Nosed Witch. Do not ask me why I loved that little book so much, but finally, fifty-plus years after second grade, it's finally mine.
     Time for me to go and finish my correspondence for the day--a letter to a Dear Friend in Georgia, and a postcrossing postcard.  One more photo to post here--an envelope I decorated to send another Dear Friend, this one in Maryland, her promised "handmade" item. I hope you enjoy both, Emily!  (I think I want to get into "mail art.")