Being born from above. May 30, 2021. The Rev. David M. Stoddart

John 3:1-17

We’ve all heard the old adage, “If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.” If there’s any truth to that saying, then there’s been plenty of mirth in heaven recently. For the past year and a half, everyone’s plans have been upended. Our lives have been disrupted, in ways ranging from the mundane to the monumental. Certainly nothing in our parish has gone according to plan: just two weeks ago we had a completely different approach to our summer schedule all nicely laid out and ready to go, and that plan got thrown out the window when the bishop unexpectedly and significantly altered our diocesan guidelines. I want to tell you that what we are doing today is what we are going to do for the next three months, but I don’t know. Meanwhile, COVID is not done with us: the economic and social damage has been huge, and most importantly, three and a half million people around the world have died from it, with more dying everyday. It’s all very serious and unsettling, and yet I don’t want to let go of that idea of God laughing.

I’ve recently been reading Natalie Sudman’s book, The Application of Impossible Things. Natalie was working for the Army Corps of Engineers when she was blown up by an IED in Iraq in 2007 and had a remarkable near death experience. She found herself floating above the carnage and could see her horribly wounded body. And there were two heavenly beings with her, and as they surveyed the whole scene and where it would lead her in life, all of them, Natalie included, laughed. They laughed! It was startling to read. It wasn’t a malicious laugh at all: quite the opposite. It came, she said, from a deep awareness that this physical world, this life as we currently know it, is not all that there is. And that all we experience, even the worst suffering, just leads to greater love and greater wholeness. It was laughter born of joy. And whatever we might think about near death experiences, that’s an extraordinary epiphany. It reminds me of some mystics in our tradition, people like Julian of Norwich. Julian almost died from a severe illness at the age of thirty. She lived in the fourteenth century, an age rife with plague, sickness, and violence. But after encountering Christ during her illness, she is unrelenting in her cheerfulness. No sin, no suffering can overcome it. It’s not that sin isn’t strong, it’s just that God’s mercy is stronger. It’s not that suffering isn’t real, it’s just that God’s love is far more real. She can laugh and rejoice because she sees everything within the context of God’s utter and eternal goodness. All shall be well, she says with irrepressible assurance. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Somehow, in the pain and craziness of this pandemic time, I want us to experience that sense of divine lightness and laughter. And I feel convicted that Jesus wants that for us. He certainly wants it for Nicodemus. I mean, talk about a serious guy! Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, the high Jewish council. He is extremely well-educated, a pillar of the establishment, and, by the norms of his society, super religious — but he’s missing something crucial. Jesus sees this solemn and somber man, and talks about being born from above, being born again, with the vision and wonder of a child. He tells him about the Spirit of God blowing everywhere like the wind. And Nicodemus is completely thrown: he cannot grasp it. How can these things be? And Jesus, I’m sure with a smile on his face, says to him “You are a leader, a teacher of the people of Israel! How can you not get this?” There’s no judgment in his words. The passage makes it abundantly clear that Jesus hasn’t come to condemn anybody: he’s come to save everybody. And salvation comes from seeing the healing and life-giving love of God flowing through all of creation, in all times and in all circumstances, a love which Jesus so beautifully embodies and so generously shares, a love not even death can conquer.

Do we get it? We need to, now more than ever. As we re-organize our daily lives and re-assemble our parish, as we stand for economic and racial justice, as we offer witness and help to a hurting, COVID-stricken world, we need the lightness that comes from being born from above. And the world needs it. God knows the world doesn’t need more dour and judgmental religion: that kind of religion is literally killing people every day. And the world certainly doesn’t need more angry, self-righteous screamers. What the world desperately needs is more lovers, people who have experienced the mercy of God, people who see the Holy Spirit blowing around them and who allow the Holy Spirit to blow through them.

The world needs us. God needs us. It’s not somebody else’s job or somebody else’s mission: it’s ours. But lest we get too angsty about it and take ourselves too seriously, let me remind all of us that Jesus’s yoke is easy and his burden is light. It comes down to allowing ourselves to be loved, and then loving in return. Yes, we are flawed and fallible people, but God is quite happy to work through us anyway. We don't have to do it perfectly: we just have to do it at all. Maybe like Nicodemus, we just need to let ourselves be born anew, need to let ourselves be spiritual toddlers: we take a few steps and fall down, but when we fall, God laughs, not in malice but in joy, and then lifts us up to take more steps until we get stronger and more confident. As Jesus sees it, in fact, it is far better for us to be like  children who depend on God’s grace and forgiveness than to be pseudo-adults who think they can do it on their own, who have lost all sense of wonder and have become hardened to the basic realities of love and mercy. This week, in all the strife and struggle of our time, find reasons to smile and find ways to remind yourself that God is smiling. No sin, no suffering, no pandemic will ultimately thwart God’s love. Even if we die, we will live.  Weeping may spend the night, says the Psalmist, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:6). We have reason to smile and to laugh, even now. Do not let anything harden your heart to it. 

COOS Sunday Worship 5/30/21

 

COOS Sunday Worship

May 30, 2021

Order of Worship

(may be printed)

Pentecost 2021. Filled with the Holy Spirit. The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. This is the beginning of our reading from the book of Acts, and I have to confess, it makes me a bit sad because unlike that first Pentecost and the many Pentecost Sundays that we’ve celebrated in years past we are not yet able to be all together in one place, at least not physically. But in another sense, though, we have experienced being in one place for some time now. For more than a year now we’ve all been living together in a hard place. It’s not over, but thank God, things are changing for the better as we responsibly move out and beyond the walls of our homes and back into the world. It is a very good thing and something to celebrate.

But back in March of last year it was a very different story. Over the days and weeks of that month life as we knew it shut down - schools, businesses, and, of course, church. It was a Wednesday afternoon when we were suddenly and unexpectedly cast out of our church buildings. We were forced, whether we liked it or not, to embrace change. The experience made us redefine how church both is and is not a destination. And in the months that followed we found new ways of worshipping, new ways of being together, and new ways to serve the world around us.

Which makes me think that perhaps our story is not so different and far removed from the story of those first believers. Because even though they begin their day being all together in one place that is not where they end up. It was sometime before 9 o’clock in the morning when suddenly and unexpectedly they experienced being cast out of the safety and security of the place in which they were in. It started with the sound of a violent wind. Then tongues of fire appeared. People were filled with the Holy Spirit. And evidently, all that blowing of wind and noise and hazardous pyrotechnics seems to move everyone outdoors into the world. A world filled with all kinds of people from all kinds of places speaking all kinds of languages. And then, when the followers are out in the world it is then that the Spirit empowers them to speak the good news of God so that all the people can hear. And that’s what everyone finds so amazing. It’s not the wind or the fire or even that locals are speaking international languages that dazzle. It’s the experience of hearing and really understanding the message of God’s great deeds of love. That’s what makes an impression. Such an impression that 3,000 people are baptized into the community of faith by the end of the day.

And the Church is born. Not the Church as a building. But the Church as God’s people. God’s people out in the world filled with the Holy Spirit.

So it is today, with our streamers and our red hangings and our special music, that we celebrate the birth of God’s Church on the day of Pentecost. But, more importantly, we also celebrate that this was not just a one and done event. The Holy Spirit has never stopped blowing like the wind. She is always calling God’s Church, God’s people into new life. Empowering us - or sometimes just plain prodding us - to grow, to change, to move beyond the familiar so that we might find new languages, new ways to communicate the good news of God’s deeds of love to that everyone might really hear.

Now I don’t think that any of us believe that God caused Covid-19 and the pandemic. But that’s not to say that God is sitting this one out. This time has not been wasted. Yes, we have all been living in a hard place - and for some it’s been harder than for others - but even in that place God’s Spirit has been at work. The disruption of our lives has made room for the Spirit to move in new ways. Calling us to new life. Many of us have used this time to deepen relationships. Others have taken on new practices and ways to serve. Probably all of us have grown in appreciation for simple pleasures. And in the COOS community being forced out of our buildings prompted us to become more present in the digital world. Our weekly Compline and Noonday Prayer services - that never existed before this crisis - are thriving. Bible study and fellowship groups have added members, some who are even long distance. Older and shut-in parishioners, ironically, are feeling more connected than ever with online worship opportunities. I wonder, as we go forward, how we will be changed, both as individuals and as a church community. What former things will we cherish more than ever? What things will we chose to let go of because we’ve discovered they really don’t matter so much? What new things will we want to hold onto as we live into this new life?

The Holy Spirit is moving. Pentecost is happening - but not just on this Sunday only. We get to live into a whole season of Pentecost which starts now and goes all the way to the end of November. The end of November...who knows what the world will look like then? But whatever the future holds, what we do know is that God’s Spirit will be with us, present and at work - empowering us to stretch, to change, to grow, to live into the new life of Christ and into new ways of being the Church in the world and for the world. Today is just the beginning. So let’s celebrate!

Midweek message from Fr. David 5/19/21

 

Midweek message from Fr. David

May 19, 2021

COOS Sunday Worship 5/16/21

 

COOS Sunday Worship

May 16, 2021

Order of Worship

(may be printed off)

A new state of being. May 16, 2021. The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Ascension Sunday 

Acts 1:1-11 

Have you ever seen “Where’s Waldo?” It’s a children’s cartoon puzzle book. Waldo is a little guy, about a half an inch tall, who wears a red-and-white striped shirt, a ski cap of the same design, and big round glasses. He’s very distinctive and easy to spot all on his own, but what makes it a puzzle is that Waldo is always found in the midst of a massive and minutely detailed crowd scene that stretches over two large pages. Which makes answering the question “Where’s Waldo?” no easy task. It can involve hours of fun or frustration, depending on how you look at it. 

But instead of puzzling over, “Where’s Waldo?”, our question may be more along the lines of, “Where’s Jesus?”, especially given that today we celebrate the resurrected Jesus ascending into heaven. The way the book of Acts describes it is that after Jesus said his final words to the disciples he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. Which has given rise to countless artists depicting this significant, transcendent moment in a rather hokey way - the disciples standing on the grounds gazing (or gaping) upward toward Jesus awkwardly floating over their heads. To our modern sensibilities it seems rather ridiculous. The notion of a bodily Jesus hanging out in the clouds above looking down on us is such an easy target to poke fun at. So it’s really no surprise that in 1961 when a Soviet cosmonaut became the first person to enter outer space and orbit the earth he confirmed for anyone who might be wondering, “I [didn’t] see any God up [there].” 

But, of course, the story of Jesus ascending into heaven isn’t supposed to be read as a news report that is focused on locating the personal body of Jesus of Nazareth. Because the ascension is not at all about a location but about a new state of being - a new state of being for Jesus, for us, for the whole relationship between God and human beings. Jesus’ ascension is not about his absence but about his presence. He disappears beyond the clouds not into some geographical position that can be found on a map. Rather with the ascension, Jesus enters into the heart of all creation. Christ is still present but in a different way, an interior way. He is no longer physically in front of his disciples. Rather he is now within them - and within us. The grace of the ascension is that, as Colossians puts it, Christ is all and in all! 

This presence, this fullness, this relationship of Christ being all in all is likely what lies behind the question of the mysterious men in white who ask, Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? It’s as if they are saying, don’t miss this by looking in the wrong direction. Don’t deny yourselves the gift that is being given to you. The gift that brings the resurrection to it’s full completion. The resurrection is victory over death. The ascension lifts humanity up to heaven. Jesus’ ascension seats our human flesh at the right hand of God the Father which means that we now partake of God’s glory and divinity. God in us and we in God. It is a sacred union.

And because of this union there is work for us to be doing here on earth. We are not to stand around looking up toward heaven waiting for Jesus to come down and fix things. Waiting for God alone to heal all that is broken, to right all that is wrong, to do all the work. God needs us to be Christ’s body in this world. Right before Jesus' ascension he acknowledges to the disciples that they will be living without having all of their questions answered, but even so that should not deter them. Through the union with God with the coming of the Holy Spirit, You, says Jesus, you will be my witnesses. 

We are witnesses to the love of God made known to us in Jesus the Christ. Which begs the question, what kind of witness are you as you go through your daily life and work? Do you witness to people that suffering will not have the final word? Do you witness that no brokenness, no loss, no pain is beyond the healing love of God? Do you witness that God invites people in? Do you invite people in? What sort of witness are you? Though you may fear that you are not wise enough, not strong enough, not good enough, you do not witness to God’s love on your own. We all do this in relationship with God. Just as Jesus assured his disciples, he also assures us - the power and presence and fullness of God is indeed poured into our hearts always. 

In the hunt for “Where’s Waldo?” what makes it so difficult is that Waldo is always in a crowd of distractions. Sometimes it may feel the same for us. The distractions of our lives can make it seem as if finding the answer to “Where’s Jesus?” or “Where’s God?” is no easy task. But perhaps that’s because we miss it because we are looking in the wrong direction. Jesus’ ascension means that we start our search not by looking up or by looking out, but by looking within for it is there that we will surely find the divine.

Midweek message from Fr. David 5/12/21

 

Midweek message from Fr. David

May 12, 2021

He is us and we are Him. May 9, 2021. The Rev. David M. Stoddart

John 15:9-17

So . . . Can I make you love me? I don’t think so. In fact, if I went around trying to force people to love me I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have any friends at all. I know I cannot make you all love each other. And none of us can make rich people love poor people, or white people love black people, or — God forbid — make Republicans and Democrats love each other. Love as that Greek word agape expresses it involves a level of self-emptying that can only be freely given. That kind of love cannot be forced. And yet in the Gospel today Jesus commands us to love. In this very short passage some form of the word command occurs five times. Can Christ do that? Can he make us love?

I suppose we could say that love is an action, not a feeling, and that we can do loving actions regardless of how we feel. And we could come up with a long list of such actions that Jesus wants us to do: turn the other cheek, give money to the poor, show hospitality to strangers, care for the sick, and so on. And we could assert that Jesus orders us to do these things, so we should do them. The problem with that approach is that it just puts us back into a religion of rules. And we don’t need Jesus for that: we already have plenty of laws in the Old Testament — 613 of them to be exact. So whether we view Jesus’s commandments as adding to them or replacing them, we still end up in the same place: faith means following the rules — or else.

But I am convinced that is not the way we should hear this Gospel. The commandment to love can only be understood in light of what Jesus has already told his disciples, that he will abide in them, and they will abide in him, that their love will be his love, and his love will be their love. The key to this passage is that amazing statement: abide in my love. Live in my love. It’s not even enough to behave like Jesus. The only way to comprehend the commandment to love others as Jesus loves us is to grasp in the deepest possible way that he is us and we are him. I like the way the Jesuit writer Anthony de Mello puts it:

You know, sometimes people want to imitate Christ, but when a monkey plays a saxophone, that doesn’t make him a musician. You can’t imitate Christ by imitating his external behavior. You’ve got to be Christ. Then you’ll know exactly what to do in a particular situation, given your temperament, your character, and the character and temperament of the person you’re dealing with. No one has to tell you. But to do that, you must be what Christ was. An external imitation will get you nowhere. 

You are my friends; I chose you, I lay down my life for you; I breathe my Spirit into you; I will live in you. Abide in my love. That is the way. 

When we abide in Christ, it’s no longer about rules and commandments. When his love is our love, then the only commandment that matters is to love like he does. But that commandment doesn’t function like any other: it’s not a negative prohibition or an added responsibility, one more thing to do. It is more like that great commandment God gives to all creatures in Genesis: Be fruitful and multiply. It’s like God commanding Mozart to compose music or God commanding Einstein to think or God commanding Sojourner Truth to speak out for justice . The commandment to love is God saying to us, “Fulfill your destiny. Be who I created you to be.” This is why our epistle reading today says that the commandment of Jesus to love is not burdensome, because it’s just a call to drop our defenses and be our truest selves.

Be our truest selves. The same love which draws quarks and atoms together to form grass, trees, clouds, sun, and moon, the same love which fills the universe and holds 2 trillion galaxies together is in us. That love is fully realized in Jesus Christ, but only so that we can share in it, too. John’s Gospel pushes the limits of language to describe this: we are enfolded in the love that Jesus has for his Father and the Father has for him, we are filled with the Spirit of Christ, we abide in love. But the words are just words unless they help us experience the truth for ourselves. We are love. The energy of love is the core of our being. We can ignore it or we can resist it, and all too often we do, but doing so just denies the truth of who we are.

Years ago, in the first church I served in as a priest, I had a parishioner who was a school nurse. She was always surrounded by children, and of course dealt with lots of sick and upset kids. But she just loved doing it, loved caring for those children. And she was good at it. I’m sure she had hard days, but her ability to do what she did with such warmth and good humor really touched me. I commented on it one day, and she just smiled and said, “I was born to do this.”

It is our joy, each in our own unique way, to manifest the love of Christ which is the love of God which is the love that flows through all of us. John’s Gospel doesn’t lay out a program for that, because there is no program, no method, no set of rules. What matters is that we abide in love. So we worship and we pray and we remind each other of who we are. Deeper than the busyness and distractions of life, deeper than our selfish concerns and ambitions, deeper than our frail and demanding egos, we are love. When Jesus commands us to love, he is telling us to be our truest selves. Everything else flows from that.

COOS Sunday Worship 5/9/21

 

COOS Sunday Worship

May 9, 2021 ~ 10:30am

Order of Worship

(may be printed)

COOS Sunday Worship 5/2/21

 

COOS Sunday Worship

May 2, 2021

Order of Worship

(may be printed)

Connect and abide in love. May 2, 2021. The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

 John 15:1-8

Author and blogger, Sarah Bessey, tells a story about her son Joe when he was quite young. Young enough to be in a Sunday School class where the project was to draw a picture of whatever you think prayer is. At the end of class the teacher found Sarah and asked if she could talk to her for a moment which, of course, any seasoned parent knows that such a conversation can go a lot of different ways. So Sarah sat down with the teacher feeling a bit apprehensive. The teacher began by showing Sarah some of the pictures that the other children had drawn about prayer. These pictures included images of people saying grace around a table, leaders praying at the front of a congregation, a parent praying with a child at bedtime. A few of the submissions included images of what the child was praying for, like one kid drew a picture of an iPad, just in case this assignment turned out to be some kind of vehicle of getting what you wanted. Then finally the teacher showed Sarah one last drawing. The one her son Joe had done - and she breathed a sigh of relief. He had drawn a picture of himself sitting in a chair on his back deck. Sitting right next to him Joe had drawn Jesus. Above each of their heads was a cartoon bubble like in a comic strip when people are talking to each other. And in the bubble above Joe’s head he had written, “I love you, Jesus,” and in the bubble above Jesus’ it said, “I love you, Joe.” And then Joe had drawn arrows going back and forth to signal that they were saying it to each other over and over again: “I love you, Jesus;” “I love you, Joe.” “I love you, Jesus;” “I love you, Joe.” At the bottom of the page was written, “This is how we pray together.”

Although this is about prayer it seems to me that this image really communicates what Jesus is talking about when he says, Abide in me as I abide in you. Because what Jesus is doing is offering us an invitation to experience the fullness of God’s love for us and then for us to respond to that love in kind. To open ourselves up to the reality of Love that pulsates through all of life for God’s love is the source of all creation. It is God’s love that provides the central meaning to our lives. Love is the very reason why God made us. We were created out of love so that we might know the fulfillment of being loved and loving others. Abiding is the way to live life as we were created to live, that is, rooted, connected, and nourished in love.

But how do we do that? How exactly does one abide? Well, there’s no single way to do it. For some of us it may look similar to the boy, Joe’s, drawing as we sit quietly with a sense of Jesus sitting next to us exchanging words of love back and forth. For others it may take a more active form, connecting to God’s love by going the extra mile, so to speak, and serving in a sacrificial way for the benefit of another. Still others may experience a sense of being filled with love when they are taking in the beauty of a spring day or gathering with friends or becoming immersed in a project. There are so many ways to connect and abide in love, but with all of the differences what is at the core of every experience is being present to whatever moment you are experiencing in an open and honest way.

And when we do that, when we are open to the boundless love of God what naturally happens is that very love is produced in our lives. Jesus speaks of this when he says, I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit. The fruit, of course, of which he speaks is love. Acts of love that seek the well-being of others, both others as individuals and others as communities. The fruit is not forced, but it comes naturally from the connection.

But one aspect that is particularly remarkable about this metaphor that Jesus uses of God as vine and we as branches is the interconnectedness, the mutuality that it suggests. When we go to church it’s probably not surprising to hear a message about how we need and depend on God for life itself. But what may be surprising is that God, in great love and humility, chooses to need and depend on us. For God as the vine cannot produce fruit on its own. The vine needs the branches to make that happen. Only when the vine and branches are connected and abiding together that there can there be fruit. God depends on us to embody the fruit of love in this world. St. Theresa of Avila probably put it best, “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.”

So how might God be depending on your hands, your feet, your eyes to bless the world? The answer is found in abiding. Abide in me as I abide in you. As we abide in God and God abides in us the fruit of that abiding love will indeed be sweet, plentiful, and a blessing to the world.