A declaration of love

A reflection shared on January 13th.

Let's take a look at Isaiah 43:1-7 - the text from the Hebrew Scripture for the first Sunday after Epiphany. You can find it right here:

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi1_RCL.html#OLDTEST

If you have ever truly loved someone - a partner, a child, a friend - if you have ever placed someone else's happiness and safety above your own, you can really grasp the profound meaning of this passage.Through the mouth of the Prophet, YHWH makes an amazing declaration of love to the people of Israel and by extension to all of us.

First of all, do not fear.

Do not worry about your faults, your weaknesses, your mistakes. No matter what you think of yourself, how you see yourself: I have redeemed you. You are free from all constraints; from everything that ties you up and keeps you from expressing your full potential; you are free from the bondage of sin - I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name, or better, I have named you.

We name people and things that are precious to us. We name our children, who in turn name their most special Teddy bear, their favorite doll, their imaginary friend. We give tender, secret  names to our beloved. We  carefully choose names for our pets and even for our homes.
Bestowing a name onto someone or something makes them different, special, makes them OURS.
And God here says it clearly: you are mine.
We belong to God. And because we belong to God, God promises to be with us always and everywhere, even in the trickiest times. God will be with us and water will not overwhelm us, and fire will not consume us. It will still burn, we may still get singed, but never consumed.
You are precious to me.
You are more precious than the exotic, beautiful, rich lands of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba. So much more precious, God says, that I will give them up for you, because I honor you and...
and here is the kicker, my brothers and sisters, here is where God flats out declares it...I love you.
I love you and I am with you and with everything you hold dear.
I love you and I will take care of you and yours.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find myself in need of hearing this. There are days when I am so painfully aware of my shortcomings, when I feel very tender in my heart and easily bruised by the unkindness of the world. Days in which I don't feel very loving, or very lovable.
But this...this changes everything.
That is what we need to remember. That is what will get us through the hard days.
God telling us in no uncertain terms: I love YOU.

I suggest we clip this off the order of service, we enlarge it, poster-size, and hang it somewhere we can see it. The fridge, the white board at the office...
Because it doesn't get any better than that: a love letter from God.
Also, we may also want to make small, business-card sized copies, to hand out to friends, neighbors, enemies, and strangers.
We all need to hear it. We all need to know it. Maybe in the exact same words that God used for the one Son at his baptism: You are my child, my beloved. With you I am well pleased.

Epiphany 2 - A variety of gifts...for all of us.

Yesterday was National Day of Service.
The theme of the day was “A day on, not a day off.”
People from all walks of life donated time, energy, money
to serve others in need.
I really wish we didn’t need such a day.
I really wish the world, or at least all Christians
would get it into their minds that service is our call every day,
not just once a year.
Christianity is not a passive religion.
It is also not an individualistic religion.
God calls us to love God and love our neighbor -
and that presupposes that we have neighbors,
other people around us, to love and to serve.
As Tertullian said at the end of the first century: one Christian is no Christian.

Only very few of us are called to spend their days in seclusion and contemplation,
and even when they are, their prayers are mainly in intercession,
lifting up others, the community, the world.
Or in the case of the Desert Elders, of Julian of Norwich and others,
they become teachers or writers,
sharing their experience of the divine for the benefit of others.

Christians are not called to only sit and look inward to know the light:
we are called to find Christ in other human beings, everywhere,
to hear the voice of the Father in their voices,
to discern the works of the Spirit in community.

Christians are called to action.
Go and tell. Feed the hungry. Heal the suffering.
Visit the prisoners. Show hospitality.
Serve!
The Bible is filled with exhortations - no, with commands!
We are followers of an itinerant Messiah
who didn’t seem to be able to sit still for more than two minutes,
who - as Dr. King aptly said - "didn't have much,
never wrote a book, never held an office, never had a family.
He never owned a house, never went to college.
He never went two hundred miles from where he was born.
He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness."
But he served: he used all the gifts at his disposal,
even the gift of his holy death, to make other lives whole.
And we are apostles, meaning that we are sent forth,
on a constant mission to share the Good News in words and deeds.

We are storytellers - reminding others of God’s role in our history;
We are PR agents - introducing others to Christ our Savior;
We are builders of the Kingdom of God for all people and for all times.
We are busy people.

In order to do all that, God,
who loves us very much and doesn’t want us to be unprepared,
is showering all of us, at all times, with an abundance of gifts.
Through the work of the Holy Spirit we are empowered and equipped
for the hard work of loving God and living up to God’s expectations
and to love our neighbor and live in community and serve the whole.

Look at us. I mean, seriously.
There is no way we could do all that without God’s help.
And so we get it.
If you don’t believe you can serve
because you think you have no gifts of the Spirit 
it is because you haven’t been paying attention.
Or because you are just plain lazy.
Or because you are scared.

It happens to me sometimes.
I see a need. It’s right there, under my nose.
God is clearly calling me to do something to meet that need.
And I tell myself I cannot do it. I don’t know how.
I am only one weak unprepared earthling. I am overwhelmed.
It’s probably best if someone else takes charge.
Someone with more experience, someone with more knowledge, someone younger
(oh yes, I have said that to myself but woe to you if you repeat that to me!)
Many a time I have told myself that I just don’t have the right gifts...
Hmmmm...
let me tell you what I have discovered:
I have discovered that when I am put in the position 
of noticing the need of the world,
of feeling the pain of my brothers and my sisters in Christ out there,
I can be sure that God is providing all the gifts I need to serve.
Maybe I will not solve the problem in its entirety,
but I can do my part.

Eight years ago, when people were telling me
that they could see for me a call to Holy Orders,

a call that for the life of me I really couldn’t see,

I confided to the head of my discernment committee
that I didn’t feel I was equipped for ministry -
how can Little Old Me do what they said God wanted me to do?
You know what she said? She said “Licia, the gifts will come when they are needed”.

I was scared of the responsibility placed on my shoulders,
I was afraid people would figure out quickly that I wasn’t good enough,
that I didn’t have what it takes;
but the gifts have always come,
gifts of patience and understanding, gifts of preaching and teaching,
gifts of prayer and peace.

Remember in The Sound of Music when Maria is sent out from the convent
into the big wide world that is Austria 
wearing a hideous dress and shaken to the core?
To find some courage she sings I have confidence in me.
Well, I don’t. I don’t have much confidence in ME.
But I have confidence in the Spirit.
I trust Paul who says to me and to all of us:
The Spirit allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
And since this is not a whimsical Spirit but a Spirit with a plan,
I know that
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

So there: we all have gifts,
we just need to recognize them,
figure out what we are supposed to do with them, and do it.
Sometimes it is very clear, right off the bat.
Sometimes God puts an urge in our hearts,
a desire to do something about something,
a call to action.
Most of the time we need help in discernment from those around us.
We need to talk it over with some friends, some mentors, even a clergy person.
Often, we think we are not ready, we think we are not trained,
not experienced enough.
It’s alright.
After all even Jesus needed a bit of prodding at Cana of Galilee.
He even sassed his mom: Woman, leave me alone, my time has not yet come.
But the Spirit has an odd way of gently harassing us
until the work gets done.
So Jesus started his ministry right then and there turning water into wine...
and if that is not good for the community I don’t know what is.
My brothers and sisters
There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
And the very same Spirit that pushed Jesus,
pushes us toward the need of the world
and gives us the power to turn it into joy.
So go in peace...to exhort and teach, to listen, to pray, to heal, to love and to serve.
Not just once a year, but every single day of your life.
You can do it because the Spirit is providing everything you need for the work.
And it is wonderful work indeed.
Amen

Christ the King

November 25 - Christ the King

Today is the last Sunday in the season of Pentecost.

Do you remember how it all started?

A bunch of frightened people in a room.People in mourning.

People who had lost their leader and with him their sense of direction.

And then, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit with the giving of gifts 

that would empower them and us

To create the Church, to make the dream of God come true.

The strength, the courage, the faith needed to build the kingdom of God.

What a glorious beginning.

26 weeks have gone by in the liturgical calendar,

As we remember Jesus teachings and wondrous acts of healing.

Two thousand years in which the people of God have gathered, and remembered, and shared, and worked, and prayed.

Today, once again, we celebrate the glorious King of the realm of Shalom,

the land of peace and justice and mercy, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

It is unfortunate that all in all

we are pretty much the same bunch of frightened people,

and the dream of God is still a dream.

I am not saying that we haven’t done anything.

I am not saying that we, in this very community,

haven’t prayed, and studied, and served,

and connected with others in a variety of ways.

I am not saying that we have dropped the ball entirely.

I mean, there is quite a lot to celebrate today in this community.

Between the day of Pentecost and today,

some of our children were baptized and other confirmed,

some of our senior members were gently laid to rest

in the arms of their celestial parent,

we have met to sing, to pray, to worship,

we have shared food, and laughter, and love.

And yet, as we pat ourselves and each other on the back

for a job well done – as we should –

we must be aware that we are still not there yet.

The world is still a mess.

People are still starving. Bombs are still being dropped.

Little girls are still not allowed into schools.

And we are still putting many other things and people

above God in our priority lists.

I hate to use a cliché

but if Jesus were to come in glory right here, right now,

I am afraid he wouldn’t be too impressed.

And we have worked hard.

We have given time, talent, and treasure to support the community;

we have tried to be less passive aggressive with our coworkers,

to be kinder with our dysfunctional family members,

and more welcoming of the strangers in our lives.

I know we have, because I have a bagful of success stories

accumulated in this season of Pentecost

at All Saints' Episcopal Church and Day School.

And yet….

Imagine a place where there is enough for everyone.
Enough of what? you ask?
Enough of everything.
Enough food for the hungry, enough compassion for the brokenhearted,

enough money, enough homes, enough moms and dads, and children,

enough medicine for the sick, enough shoes for people like me who love shoes,

enough music for the dancers and enough silence for the readers.

Enough.

Imagine a place where everyone gets along perfectly well with everybody else,

because where there is enough there is no need for envy, for fear,

no need to steal, to cheat, to slander, to threaten.
Imagine a place where everyone is content.

Happy even. Pretty, eh?
No, no that is not in fact Licialand where the sun always shines.

That’s Jesus.

That’s what Jesus wants. What Jesus represents.

What Jesus is pointing the finger to and saying let’s go there. Let’s all go there.

Now look at the world around you.

The one where there isn’t enough.

Not enough money, not enough power, not enough cake to go around.

The one where dog eats dog and fast, before a bigger dog comes.

The one where we need to know exactly who everyone around us is,

who is to be feared and who is to be served, and who is to be left alone 

and who is to be despised.
The world where we need large labels for everything to show

what is mine, what is yours, and what is for the taking.

That’s Pontius Pilate.

Pilate lives in a world like that.

Pilate who asks ten times the same question:

are you a king? Are you the King of the Jews?

Tell me now, because if you are a king and you can show me

that you are bigger and better than the roman emperor,

more powerful than Cesar –I can bow to you, accept you as my king, 

and even ask you for a job –

If not, I can destroy you as a threat to Rome and to everything it stands for.
Go ahead, make my day.

That, that Kingdom where Pilate lives in fear,

is still - in spite of all our efforts –

much closer to our reality than the other place,

the one that God envisions for us.

Therefore my brothers and sisters,

today, one week before the beginning of a new year in the Christian Church,

on the day in which we celebrate and renew our commitment to our life together as the community of the faithful today I invite you to continue to dream with God

of a world where there is enough for everyone

and to continue to pray, to serve, to love that world into existence.

Together.

Amen

Thanksgiving 2012 - a.k.a. the feast of St. Cecilia!

I am the proud mom of a ten year old child.
And from a very, very early age I have tried to teach her
what is good and what is right and what is true...
and even more importantly....decent manners.

As all parents will attest, one of the very first lessons we teach our children is to say please and thank you.
For days, months, years we remind our children –
and other people's children - of those two important words.
“What do you say?” we repeat and repeat and repeat
with that expectant intonation that means
“you know what to say, darn it, why can't you ever remember”????
But see, children not only are unaccustomed to the niceties of communal living  but are also mostly used to getting what they desire and tend to think that everything is due.
So we keep it up: “what do you say, honey?”
“what's the magic word?”, “don't forget to thank the lady”.
And so on.
And then one day something amazing happens.
The child moves from merely repeating words under duress
to the first spontaneous immensely parent-gratifying “thank you mom”. And we are undone.

The Greek noun eukharistia derives from eu- "well" + kharis "favor, grace". Eukharisteo is the usual verb for "to thank" in the Septuagint and New Testament.
Eucharestia is what we do when we come together as a community: we praise and give thanks to God. 
Which means that every Sunday is for us Christians Thanksgiving Day.

And as with the ever present “what do you say?”
the Eucharistic liturgy that we share is habit forming.
After the Nth “what do you say?” the child begins to understand the value of it. The meaning of it. The effect it has.
The child begins to recognize that nothing is due to her
and that everything is a gift.
The world around her changes: her relationships change.

The same happens with the Eucharist.
When we come together to celebrate the Eucharist
we enter a world of grace in which a particular sense of
gratitude toward God is formed.
In the liturgy we come to know God as creator, judge, redeemer,
sustainer, and consummate lover of all creation.
Christian liturgy – what we do together - is our response to the self-giving of God in, with, and through the One who leads us in prayer – Jesus Christ.

As we progressively understand ourselves and the whole human family as receiving the gifts of God's creation, sustaining mercy
and justice we change our attitude toward the world and other human beings.
We come to see the abundance we are surrounded with,
we come to see that there is no real need for fear,
we come to see that God's grace is everlasting
and that in spite of what the world tells us we are saved,
we are forgiven, we are loved.

In the liturgy, in the part of the liturgy we call the Eucharistic prayer, which is the one the priest prays from the altar on behalf of the community, we follow a clear pattern:
    we remember God' creation,
    we remember the covenant God made with the people,
    we remember the promises and exhortations of the prophets
    and we remember the greatest gift, the gift of God's self in Christ.
    We call upon the Holy Spirit grateful for her continued presence among us
    and finally we glorify God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit all together in a joyous “amen”.

Every Sunday we remember the past and share our hope for the future giving thanks for it all again and again.
And what we do doesn't deny pain and suffering,
rather in the midst of it all, the thanking is an act of hope and resistance to what is evil within and without the human heart.

And then the prayer becomes action.
As theologian Geoffrey Wainwright has observed,
in worship we receive the self-giving love of God
and the test of our thankfulness is whether
we reproduce that pattern of self-giving in our daily relationship with other people.

Which is why today many of us have chosen to do something
to show our gratitude in a practical tangible way.
Some have served breakfast to our less fortunate brothers and sisters; some will share a meal with each other right after this serviceand many have found other ways to show the gratitude they have in their hearts.
All of us, at the end of this time together will be charged to “go into the world” and serve – which is and will always be my favorite part of the liturgy.

Thanksgiving Day doesn't come only once a year.
For us Christians it happens at least once a week.
My hope for all of us, my heartfelt prayer,
is that slowly but surely the ‘Eucharestia’ we share
may become a habit for the soul.
That we may end up celebrating it at all times.
Remembering and giving thanks for Christ's ministry,
for his death and resurrection
and awaiting his coming in glory all days of our lives.

Amen.

Monday (to Saturday) Blues

 

My husband gets the Sunday Blues. Around 4 on Sunday afternoons he gets cranky and restless at the thought that the weekend is "beginning to end" and Monday will soon be back with its weekly share of work related stress. Sometimes he fights it by going to the gym for an hour, sometimes he and his favorite ten-year-old assistant bake a cake, and sometimes we all go out for a walk or some ice-cream.

Now and again, in our spiritual life, Christians get the Monday-to-Saturday Blues.

On Sunday we gather in God's presence, surrounded by a loving community of like-minded brothers and sisters and as we worship together the Creator, Reedemer, and Sanctifier of all life, we find ourselves lifted up, above the cares of the world and at peace with God and one another. Yet, when the weekdays come, we grow more and more distant from God, and loving our neighbor as ourselves becomes a chore.

How do we kick the Monday-to-Saturday Blues?

We get into a routine of soul-exercising a.k.a. prayer. Through prayer we keep our connection with God, we continue the conversation started on Sunday morning, we find the strength of pursuing God as God never tires of pursuing us.

We do something constructive a.k.a. service. Through service to others we model our life on Jesus life, we give of ourselves as He did and does for us in the Eucharistic bread and wine.

We meet our brothers and sisters in Christ a.k.a. fellowship and study. Through spending time with Scripture and other works of our Tradition we look at how others in the past (and in the present) have experienced and conquered the equivalent of "the Blues": those times in which God seemed distant and our neighbor unlovable.

And of course we look for our community, the other children of God who are our help and comfort at all times. The ones who may or may not be experiencing the same feelings, but who are open to listen and to share.

 

If all this doesn't work, of course, you can just give me a call. It doesn't happen EVERY Sunday, but if you are lucky, there may be cake...

Pentecost 17 - audio

http://wp.allsaints-phoenix.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/The-Rev-Licia-Affer-Pentecost-17-09-23-12.wma

Unlovable children

Pentecost XVII     Mark 9:30-37

Since the day she was born – no, since the moment her Dad and I knew she had been conceived – my child has been the center of my life.

Everything I do, everything I plan for, all of my hopes and dreams have her at their core: her health, her well being, her happiness.

Not simply because she is my heir and I hope she will take care of me as I grow old…

although I certainly DO hope so…but because I value her as a person 

and even though sometimes I may find it hard to like her…

I always love her with all my heart!

In contemporary Western society, we ascribe great value to our children

and we look at childhood as an extended time of sheltered nurturing,

in which we – the parents -  go to great lengths to provide for our children the protection, the benefits, the opportunities they need to grow into happy, healthy, and possibly wealthy individuals.

Yet, this view of childhood was practically invented by the Victorians and reserved to wealthy families. In first century Palestine, the mortality rate for young children was very high so it wouldn’t do to get too attached to them.

Added to this is the simple observation that children were viewed as “not adults.”

i.e. non-contributing members of society.

They had no rights, no voice. No one would ever ask for their preferences with regard to food, clothes, studies or play.

They might be valued for their future contribution to the family business, especially in an agricultural context, and as future caretakers of their aging parents, but otherwise they possessed little if any intrinsic value as human beings, being mainly just another mouth to feed.

We need to be aware of this as we look at Jesus placing a child in front of the disciples as an example. He could have just as easily placed a leper there, because his message is about welcoming the last, the least, and the lost.

Not the cute, the innocent, the hope for a better future.

The disciples are focused inward. They are interested in their reputations,

in how the amazing events that are happening around them will make them look.

They are wondering what the crowds and Jesus think of them.

Even when Jesus is sharing with them a preview of the radical role reversal that is to come. How the Messiah they are expecting will not in fact jump on his white horse and wage war against the Roman oppressor, but will instead be betrayed and killed (and by so doing bring about a new world).

Even then, the disciples are too busy comparing the number of tweets they are receiving, debating who among them deserves more honor and fame, who has the greatest authority.

These are the same guys that a handful of verses before the ones we read today, in Jesus’ absence had tried to cast a demon out of a boy but failed because they forgot to pray, they forgot to ask God to perform the deed, thinking,

I guess that they were great enough, to go about it on their own.

Arrogant idiots!

It turns out that to be great has nothing to do with impressing the crowds with displays of healing, and even less with trying to become teacher’s pet of a Teacher who refuses to play favorites. Jesus wants the 12 to start focusing outward: toward what is really important; hence the choice of the child.

Not intrinsically important in their eyes. Not a king, not a rabbi, not a Pharisee.

It turns out that greatness lies in welcoming one who is not viewed as great by the culture. One who is not deemed worthy of great love. One who is beyond the circle: cast out. The greatest is the one who shows greatest compassion, greatest understanding, greatest love for the unloved and the unlovable.

Thank God!

Because

we, the children of God, are often unlovable.

We are whiny, we throw plenty of temper tantrums. We are demanding, we don’t keep our promises, we make blunders, we talk back, we lie, and we cheat.

We argue with our brothers and sisters and we tend to think too much of ourselves,

boasting about our own greatness.

And nonetheless, God, father and mother of us all, constantly puts us at the center of creation. Forgiving us and taking us back. Kissing our booboos away. Ever present to us in a myriad of ways.

God loves all of us

Including the ones we place last in our human hierarchies.

Including the ones we leave behind.

Including the ones who get lost in the world.

 Can we do the same?

Can we model our lives on the one of our Lord?

Can we love everyone as we love our children?

I don’t know.

But

are we at least willing to try?