Changing Direction

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 Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
1B Lent, February 18, 2018
St. Alban’s, Simsbury, CT
Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15; Psalm 25:1-9

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

My dad has an amazingly good sense of direction. He has been known to say, “Wait, stop. We need to turn around. We are going northeast, and we should be going southwest.” Mind you he can say this on a two lane road in the middle of the New England woods. Once he has driven or walked or ridden his bike to a place he could return there without any directions or a GPS.

Nowadays most of us don’t have to rely on our internal sense of direction, we merely need to type the address into our smartphones or our car’s GPS and start driving. We do not need to cultivate our own internal sense of where we are in the world and whether or not we are going in the right direction.

But I wonder if we do need to cultivate that internal compass of ours? Perhaps not in the literal sense, but in the metaphorical. Lent is an opportunity to do just that. To pause and reflect. To be aware of our sins and our transgressions. To be reminded of our mortality. Yes, all of that. And it is an opportunity to also ask the hope-filled, possibility-opening questions about whether or not our whole lives are going in the right direction? Our time is precious, our lives are a gift. Are we using the days we have in a way that is life-giving and fulfilling? As the poet Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

At the close of our Gospel reading today, Jesus says: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” There we have it. Repent and believe in the good news. What does it mean to repent? It means to change direction. To change our thoughts, our behaviors. Our Rite I language is helpful here, where we talk about “amendment of life.”

This is the invitation to us today, in our readings, in our litany, in this season of Lent. Of what do we need to repent? Or what in our life needs to change?

Many of you may already have a Lenten discipline. Something you are giving up or a new practice you are taking on during this holy season. That is wonderful! And I hope you might consider the broader invitation in this season to reflect on your life and to hear the call for repentance, for a change of heart, a change of behavior.

Clearly we as a nation are in need of repentance. Something needs to change, so that we are no longer seeing headlines of children gunned down in schools. In schools. Places where all children should be safe. Places that should be filled with hope and possibility, not with gunfire and death. My heart broke on Wednesday evening as news broke of the horrors of the the shooting in Parkland, FL. Those horrors are all too familiar to us here in CT.

I hope that none of us are dealing with something so tragic or heart wrenching in our own lives. And yet we do not have to wait for tragedy to happen to make a change in our lives.

In fact, it is tragedies like Parkland that remind us how important it is to make changes in our lives, to ensure we have our priorities straight, to ensure that we are living into who God calls us to be. Life is short. We never know how long we have.

No doubt there are things in our lives that are not going the way we would like them to go. No doubt there are things in the world and in our own communities that are not going the way we would like them to go. The invitation in our readings and in this season is to identify those things and to take ownership of what is in our power to change.

A number of years ago, the parish I was in at the time read a book called A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen. We read it during the season of Lent, and one of the great lessons I took away from it was the invitation to notice how we can fall into the habit of complaining about the state of our lives or the state of our communities or the state of the world in a rather detached way as though it was all someone else’s responsibility to fix. The book invited me to catch myself when I did that and to ask myself what I could be doing in my own heart and mind, in my own community to address the problems about which I was so eager to complain.

I found that to be a very helpful and hopeful reminder. I have power. We have power. We can make a difference. We can change things, in our own hearts and in the world around us. It reminds me of that wonderful Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

So, this Lenten season can be a time for giving up something that we will go back to on Easter. That is a good and holy spiritual practice. It can also be a time to try on a new practice that we might very well keep for the rest of our lives.

In this holy season, I invite you to reflect, to pay attention to that inner voice that nudges you when you are going in the wrong direction. I invite you to feel empowered by your baptism, by the fact that you are a beloved child of God, to be a force for good in your community and in the world. Jesus is inviting all of us to repent and believe the Good News. And if we believe that Good News. If we believe that we are called to be agents of God’s reconciling, redeeming love in the world, then we know that there is much work for us to do - in our own hearts and beyond these doors.

AMEN.

2018 Ash Wednesday Homily

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Ash Wednesday 2018

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Joel 2:1-2,12-17; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word by heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

As some of you know, I get up early in the morning multiple times a week to go to CrossFit, which is a fitness program that combines weight lifting and gymnastics. And in lots of ways, CrossFit is like Church. We all have our usual spots in the gym. My spot means that I spend a lot of time looking at poster of “Fitness in 100 words” by Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit. There is one sentence that stands out on this poster. And it is meant to. It is in a different color than all the rest of the text. It says, “Routine is the enemy.” I have been thinking about that sentence this week, as I have been reflecting on the fact that we are about to enter Lent, and on this Ash Wednesday, to be reminded of our mortality.

At first this statement, “Routine is the enemy” could seem completely counter to our common life as Episcopalians. We are, after all, people of the book, the BCP. Our worship is meant to follow a set pattern each time we gather. That is part of our shared identity. We could say that our worship follows a “routine,” but I think that would be missing the point. The point of Glassman’s statement about avoiding a routine is to avoid doing the same thing over and over again. It is to keep the act of caring for our bodies from becoming rote, merely routine, something we do without thinking about it. Our worship is not, and should never be, rote. Even if we are following the book, each time we worship it is different in someway - the readings, the prayers, who is present, what is going on in the world or in our own lives. And if we ever find that worship feels rote, as though we are merely going through the motions without any thought for what we are doing, it is time for a session with our therapist and our spiritual director, because something is missing in our lives.

For me, the statement, “Routine is the enemy” is really about embracing change. And actually, I think that is what Ash Wednesday is about. It is about coming to terms with the finite nature of human existence. We are mortal beings. At some point our bodies will give out. Nothing in this world lasts forever. Everything changes.

Now, change is tricky. I think many of us don’t really like it. It can certainly produce anxiety and fear. I know for myself, as someone who likes to plan, that I can get grumpy and frustrated when things don’t go according to plan. I try (and sometimes I even succeed) to remember how many wonderful blessings have come to me in my life when things have not gone the way I planned. No doubt those of you here from St. Andrew’s know all too well the challenges and multitude of emotions that can come with change. You are have had to change a lot this past month as you have been out of your building.

There is no way around it. Change is hard. AND (and this is a very important AND) change is a blessing. The fact that things do not stay the same is what adds richness and texture, depth and meaning to our lives. As many of you know, my children used to be wearable. They fit right here, between my chin and my belly button. Now they talk in paragraphs and do all kinds of things for themselves. Are there moments when I wish they still fit here? Of course. But now I can have conversations with them and do things with them that were never possible when they were infants.

Change gives us something for comparison. I can marvel at Katherine’s performance in her swim meet this past weekend precisely because I remember when she was an infant.

Or perhaps it helps to think about other rhythms in our lives. Think about how much we savor a vacation or even a sabbath day, when we have been working for many days straight. If everyday were a vacation, we would cease to value it so highly.

Or think of the act of fasting (fitting for this holy day and season). Part of the point of giving something up or choosing not to eat for a particular time is so that we will appreciate it all the more when we do. And the richness of that appreciation is because we know what it is like to be without.

In a few minutes you will come forward to receive ashes and will hear the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Yes, that can seem a morbid reminder of the fact that you too will change, but I hope you will see it as in invitation to find joy in the richness of life. Yes, I am suggesting that you find joy on Ash Wednesday, and I do not think that is contradiction.

I think the joy comes in having our priorities straight. In remembering that nothing lasts forever. We are dust and to dust we shall return. This is temporary. We never know how long we will have. May the knowledge that nothing lasts forever be a source of hope for us in the midst of challenges. May it inspire us to savor all the blessings of our lives.

While the ashes too will soon disappear from your forehead, may their memory linger throughout Lent. May you find this to be a season in which you can slow down and pay attention. Savor today. Remember that nothing lasts forever and there is always joy to be found, even in the midst of all the challenges and all the changes.

AMEN.

Sacred Meals

On my wish in 1993

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford, CT

4B Epiphany, January 28, 2018

Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Psalm 111, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:1-28

May God’s Word be Spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

As many of your know, I am a cancer survivor. I had bone cancer when I was a teenager. One of the blessings that came in the midst of that very challenging year was the opportunity to be granted a wish by the Make-A-Wish foundation. For my wish I went to New York City to see Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables on stage. I was flown there in a private jet and driven around in a limo. We got to go shopping and go backstage. It was a lot of fun. The absolute highlight of the weekend was an amazing dinner at an Italian restaurant just south of Central Park. We had a private dining room in which they fed us a multi-course feast. It was an amazing and delicious meal. There was perfectly cooked pasta and some of the the most tender and succulent fish and meat I have ever eaten. And then it was all capped off by an amazing assortment of desserts! That dinner was 25 years ago, and my family still talks about it!

I couldn’t help but think of that meal when reading our Epistle for today. St. Paul writes that “food does not bring us closer to God.” Hmm. I find myself wanting to argue with him on that point. That dinner was a spiritual experience. It was a moment of great hope and joy in the midst of a year that had tested my family. Our daily life had been dictated by my chemotherapy treatments and their side effects. And that meal provided an escape, an opportunity to enjoy the simple pleasures of good food and time together. For a few hours at least, we could leave all the worries and stress behind us. There is no doubt in my mind that meal brought us closer to each other and closer to God. It was a true gift.

Now St. Paul is talking to the Church in Corinth, to a community of people where there are divisions and disagreements. Some people have been focusing on whether or not they can eat food sacrificed to idols. Paul is concerned that people are losing their priorities. He seems to be writing to them to say, “Hey you all. Pay attention! It is not about the food. It is about how you are in relationship with each other and with God. If you get lost in the minutiae of rules and regulations and think it is your job to tell each other what to do, you are missing the point. What matters is how you care for one another and having meals that are an act of Thanksgiving.”

When I take his remark about food in context, I can understand it better. It is not that Paul is dissing food all together, and no doubt he would agree that eating can be a spiritual experience - he was a big fan of the Eucharist after all. What Paul is really concerned with is the potential for us to let food get in the way of building up relationship.

I think that is really the crux of the matter. If I think back to that amazing dinner, it was not really about the food (although that still remains some of the best food I have eaten), it was about the meal itself. It was about having time with my family in a beautiful place away from the stress and strain of our life at that particular moment. The meal provided an opportunity for us to be together and to enjoy that time together. So, I think I can end up agreeing with St. Paul that food, in and of itself, does not bring us closer to God. But meals do. Sharing our food, being in relationship with each other, taking time to cherish each other’s company and to have conversation that brings us closer to God.

As Paul says in this same passage, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Indeed it does. What sustains us in our faith? What holds us up in the midst of trials and tribulations? Is it our ability to ace a bible trivia game or recite the names of the major and minor prophets? Probably not, although kudos to you if you can do those things. What sustains us? It is love. It is the love of God made manifest in Jesus and at work in the world through the Holy Spirit. It is the love we feel in community. It is the relationships with people who know us fully and love us all the more.

So, it seems to me that the question we are left with is how are we building up each other in love. How are we ensuring that we are not a stumbling block to those with whom we are in relationship? Are we taking time to share a meal and break bread in the communities that matter to us?

You all are. You are here, so that we can do that very thing together this morning. I hope you will take an extra moment as we share Eucharist this morning to look around at the community gathered here, to say a prayer of Thanksgiving for the gift of this community and the way we build each other up.

I also hope that you will take some time this week to think about how you do your meals and whether anything needs to change? Are your meals providing nourishment for your soul as well as your body? Are they providing you opportunities to build relationship and community? If so, wonderful - celebrate that fact! If not, what might you need to do differently? Eat lunch at a table with colleagues rather than solo at your desk? Make a promise to yourself to sit down and savor at least one, if not all three meals, in a day? Establish a family dinner night when everyone is home and sits together? Meet an old friend, who you don’t see nearly enough, for breakfast?

Meals are sacred time, and in the busy-ness of our everyday lives we can lose sight of that. So, I invite you to reclaim them as an opportunity for building relationships, for connecting with God and with each other. No doubt we all have challenges ahead of us, and so we need sustenance for the journey. We need to eat well, and we need companions along the way too!

Today may we give thanks to God for the myriad of ways we are sustained on our journey.

AMEN.

A Young Scholar Priest Reflects on General Convention

This post originally appeared on the blog of the Society of Scholar Priests in 2016.

One of my favorite moments at General Convention was when the President of the House of Deputies invited all the deputies who were born in the 1990’s to come forward. I stayed in my seat, being a child of the 80s, and smiled. I was at a church meeting, and I was not the youngest person in the room. Even though I have been ordained for ten years, my relative youth is often still a novelty in the Church. It was, therefore, quite exciting to see that beginning to change. That moment when there was a crowd of people under 30 on the stage was, for me, an emblematic moment of our 78th General Convention. It was a Convention that was forward looking and one that exuded a theology of abundance.

Forward Looking

It could have been a Convention of looking back. It could have been a Convention full of lament on the decline of membership and the end of Christendom. It could have been a Convention full of gloom and doom. But it was not that. In fact, in so many ways it was a time of celebration and a time of hope. The 78th General Convention looked to the future with hope. Many of the resolutions we enacted were ones that focused on the promise of a new day and a new way of being Church. Perhaps most significantly for our tradition, we passed resolutions that authorized the beginning stages of revising our current Book of Common Prayer and our current Hymnal. Following on my reflections on youth above, it was interesting to note that those who sounded notes of caution about BCP and Hymnal revision were mostly people under the age of forty. Now, you could chalk this up to our own fear and anxiety, or those of us who are under forty have never known anything other than the 1979 BCP nor the 1982 Hymnal. We have never been through a process of Prayer Book revision and what is unknown can be anxiety-provoking. That may be part of it, but I do not think it is all of it. Many of the young people who spoke up sounded words of caution around being too cavalier or quick to jettison pieces of our tradition.

Those words of caution spoken by our younger people – in the House of Deputies and in the Twittersphere – are important. Given the collective anxiety in our system and the fear of the future, we should not be quick to jettison our tradition in the hopes that doing so will somehow make us more relevant or appealing to the masses. On occasion there has been a perception that having a rock band or hymnody that sounds like the Top 40 will somehow make Church more appealing to young people. That maybe true for some, but for me and many other “young” people that I know that is not at all the case. We would rather hear Bach or Rutter. We love ritual and tradition. We love saying prayers that have been said for centuries. Some of us even like Rite I. That is our word of caution about revision. Let us not lose the heart of our tradition of common prayer in our desire to be contemporary and relevant. Are we in need of updating our liturgical resources to be more inclusive of the diversity of who we are – racially, culturally, linguistically, etc – as The Episcopal Church? Absolutely. Are we in need of language that helps to undo centuries of patriarchy? Of course. It’s my hope and belief that the tremendously gifted and skilled individuals on the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music can do that and can do so in a way that maintains the beautiful essence of our tradition. The wonders of digital technology mean that our next BCP need not be a literal “book” at all. It can be a library of liturgical resources from which we can draw the appropriate liturgies and music for the contexts in which we find ourselves – to provide familiarity and new ideas. How Anglican to allow the contexts we serve to shape our practice of common prayer.

The other resolutions that I found to be particularly forward looking were those that funded Latino Ministries, Church Planting and Evangelism efforts. The Episcopal Church has much to offer the world, and so it was tremendously exciting to see the support and enthusiasm for these resolutions. The fact that additional funding for Evangelism was added to the budget from an additional endowment draw was particularly notable. It is my understanding that it has been many decades (if ever) since an amendment to the budget actually passed. How wonderfully emblematic of what we can be going forward to be willing to risk a bit more of our treasure to share the gift of our tradition with future generations.

Then there were incarnational moments in which it felt as though we were not just looking forward or planning for the next triennium; we were actually living into our new vision of the future. This was evident on the Saturday afternoon that we elected and confirmed a “Chief Evangelism Officer” as our next Presiding Bishop. We elected a remarkable leader who is going to share the fire of the Holy Spirit, who will share his passion and bring others into this Jesus Movement. His passion is joyfully infectious, and he incarnates the joy and hope for the future that was palpable in the halls of Convention. Bishop Curry’s election was also, of course, a historic moment as he will be our first black Presiding Bishop – another barrier, another vestige of the great sin of racial discrimination has come down. We have a tangible, visible reminder that racial reconciliation is possible.

Finally, the other moment in which we lived out our hope for a new future was the march against gun violence on Sunday morning. Hundreds of people came out at 8am on a Sunday morning to worship, walk, witness and pray for an end to the epidemic of gun violence that is plaguing our country. That march showed us the pervasive and horrific effects of gun violence on the lives of so many millions of our brothers and sisters. That march also allowed us to live in hope, to live in the hope that together we can make a difference, that it might actually be possible to create a future where innocent lives are not tragically cut short by gun violence.

Theology of Abundance

One of the challenges I sometimes encounter in my ministry is that we can operate from a theology of scarcity. We can get caught up in the cultural message that we do not have enough, that we are only valuable if we buy more and do more. Yet our faith teaches the opposite. We have and we are enough. God is with us. God’s love is abundant and overflowing. There is more than enough to go around. We need not fight with each other. We need not fear each other. We can see the world through a lens of abundance, not scarcity.

I saw this theology of abundance manifest in a number of ways, particularly in some significant resolutions. While it is certainly true that many of the sweeping changes recommended by TREC did not happen, we did pass a number of resolutions that make more room for and begin the process for some substantive changes in how we govern ourselves. We provided a clearer articulation of the purposes of Provinces and established a Task Force to study them and to come back to the 79th General Convention with recommendations of alternative mechanisms for networking at pan-diocesan level. As those involved in Acts8 have noted, one of the great blessings of the 21st century is that we have many ways of connecting and collaborating with each other, and social media can help us to bridge vast geographical distances. So, our churchwide structures ought not to be limited by geography and ought to be flexible enough to allow a variety of ways of networking.

Secondly, General Convention passed a constitutional change that (if approved in 2018) would allow for joint deliberative sessions with the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies debating and voting together. The Legislative Committee on Governance and Structure heard a fascinating presentation from our friends in The Anglican Church of Canada on their fifty year process of moving from a bi-cameras to a uni-cameral system. It remains to be seen if we will go all that distance, but we have at least begun the work of creating structures with more flexibility and more room for collaboration as we do our legislative business.

A third structural change was the elimination of all but two of the Standing Commissions. Now, astute observers will note that many were replaced with Task Forces and that other new Task Forces were also created . . . So what has really changed? Well, for one thing, Task Forces are not permanently enshrined in our canons. They are short term bodies that exist only for a triennium, unless renewed. In theory at least, this allows for a more responsive governance structure and will save us from having groups that continue to meet long after their work has been accomplished because no one knows how to acknowledge that they are no longer needed.

It is interesting to note that one of the ways we lived out a theology of abundance was in what we decided not to do. We did not shrink the size of a diocesan deputation to General Convention. Now it may seem as though I am labeling that as an act of abundance because we simply maintained our status as giant parliamentary body of over a thousand people. No, abundance is not just about numbers. Maintaining our size also helps to ensure an essential breadth of voices at the table. The Legislative Commission on Governance and Structure heard powerful testimony from those representing racial and ethnic minorities. Statistically, a deputy of color is often the 3 or 4th deputy. If we shrunk the size of the deputation, it might very well mean that we would be undoing the excellent work of recent years that has helped the House of Deputies more accurately reflect the marvelous diversity of The Episcopal Church. Of course, the other house at General Convention also has much work to do in terms of accurately reflecting the marvelous breadth of humanity in The Episcopal Church, but that is a topic for another day.

One of the most challenging and most beautiful expressions of a theology of abundance was in the changes to the marriage canon. Challenging because the legislation that was passed does not reflect the view of everyone in The Episcopal Church. Beautiful because no one walked out of Convention. Those who disagreed had a place to make their views heard and they were listened to with love and respect. Provisions were made to honor the diversity of views. There was a palpable sense of abundance, not just in the fact that our rites of marriage were made accessible to couples who had been desirous of change for so long, but in the fact that we lived out the profound truth that we are all in this together and are better for our diversity. You could have heard a pin drop as the results of the vote were announced. Our collective respect for each other was such that we were able to honor our Christian commitment to one another more than our own feelings of joy or sorrow.

Finally, as noted above we added money to the budget for Evangelism and racial reconciliation. Let me say that again. We added money to the budget. In a time when fear and anxiety are often the dominant emotions in church meetings. When scarcity seems systemic and we who have had so much historical privilege are being challenged by our move to the margins in so many ways, it was a great act of collective faith to to chose to draw more from our endowment. It would have been easy to let that narrative of fear and scarcity win out. To think that we must save our resources because we do not know what the future holds. It would have been easy to stay inwardly focused. But we did not. We stepped out in faith. We made a bold statement that said we were more interested in investing in the future. For some it might seem that we were acting out of our own fears of our increasing irrelevancy, but I prefer to see it as a step toward living out the belief that we, The Episcopal Church, have unique and desperately needed gifts to offer the world. And I don’t just mean our money. We may be the most historically powerful and privileged mainline denomination, and we are blessed with tremendous financial assets. Yet what we have to offer the world is not just cash. It is a deep and abiding faith in Jesus. A faith that testifies to God’s presence, to God being with us, even in the incredible messiness and painful realities of the human experience. It is a faith that takes seriously the intellectual life and does not shy away from the challenges of our faith or our lives. It is a faith that is complex, nuanced and unwavering in its affirmation that God is with us. The future is bright because our God is a God of abundance.

A Covenant works both ways: reflecting on Baptism

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
St. Peter’s, Cheshire, CT
Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, January 7, 2018
Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

May God's Word be spoken. May God's Word be heard. May that point us to the Living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord. This is one of my favorite celebrations for many reasons. Not the least of which is that our own daughter Katherine was baptized on this feast. And now today, I get to have a new reason to cherish this day, as I have the privilege of being with you all and celebrating the baptism of Jacob Bourn [at the 10:30 service]. I serve on our Bishop’s staff as the Dean of Formation, training future clergy for the Episcopal Church in CT. Since I am not responsible for a parish, I do not often have the opportunity to join in the celebrations of rites of passage: baptisms, weddings or funerals. I had the blessing of officiating at the marriage of Jacob’s parents, Kathryn and Tyler, when I was a parish priest, and so it is particular joy to be here with you all as we welcome Jacob into the household of God.

Even if we do not have any personal connections to this feast day, it is truly a gift for all of us because it affords us an opportunity to renew our own life in Christ. It is an opportunity for us to reflect on what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It is an opportunity to let the old be washed away to begin anew. We are just seven days into a new calendar year. We have the opportunity, through our readings to reflect on what Baptism means and [as we celebrate the baptism of Jacob,] to reflect on how we might deepen and strengthen the covenant we made at our own baptisms.  [And even those of you gathered at 8:15 are a part of the community that is welcoming Jacob, and to honor that we will be saying our Baptismal Covenant in place of the Creed this morning.]

It is important to note that our baptismal vows are referred to as the Baptismal Covenant. This word Covenant is matters. Covenant means a mutual agreement, a mutual promise. Just talking about them as our baptismal promises or vows is a little bit risky as it means that we might get stuck thinking of them as one sided - as a checklist of what we have to do or believe, when in fact they are a part of a covenant. There are promises we make AND there are promises that God makes.

We start the covenant with the Apostle's Creed. We start with our statements of what we believe about who God is. While these are familiar words, they should not be hurried through. They matter a great deal. We believe in God, who created heaven and earth. We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died and rose again. We believe that God is present with us and at work in the world through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Then we get to the questions, which are about how we will live out our faith. We promise to continue in the Apostle’s teaching, in the fellowship and the prayers. We
promise to do just what we are doing right here and right now. We promise to gather together, to show up, to be in Christian community, so that we might be fed in Word and Sacrament to go forth and be God’s people in the World.

Then we promise to renounce the forces of evil and to return to Jesus whenever we fall into sin. There is a lot packed into this question. That phrase "return to Jesus" is really the heart of it because that phrase is meant to remind us of the promise we make at Baptism. We promise to turn to Jesus and accept him as our savior. This is the part where it is easy to think it is all about us. It is about us, and it is no small thing to turn to Jesus and accept him as our Savior. It means a willingness to turn our lives over. It means a willingness to trust in God. But note that we are accepting Jesus as our SAVIOR - not our friend, not as a nice guy, not as our advisor, not as our personal assistant (although he can sometimes serve those roles in our lives). We are accepting him as our SAVIOR and that makes all the difference. It means that Jesus is God. It means that he has a presence and a power in our lives that no one else can have.

The words of the prophet Isaiah provide a beautiful description of what it means to have Jesus as our Savior - a beautiful description of the promises God makes as a part of our Baptismal Covenant. In Isaiah, the Lord says, "I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” (Isaiah 42:6-7)

There we have it. That is what God promises us. God promises to be with us through it all. Note that God does not promise us an easy or carefree life. There is hard work ahead of us, to be that light in the world and to never let the darkness overwhelm us. BUT, and this is the most important BUT. God promises that we will NOT be overwhelmed. We will survive. We will even thrive, because God has taken us by the hand, God has kept us, and God will be with us, every step of the way.

This is the promise that God offers all of us. Baptism is our opportunity to say yes to that promise - to accept Jesus as our Savior. Baptism is our opportunity to accept that offer and to promise to live our lives in such a way that the whole world might come to know the reconciling, redeeming love of God.

And that is why we move on to the rest of the questions. The other questions are about how we live into the reality of God's promise, God's presence in our lives. Being a Christian is about believing in God, in Christ, in the Holy Spirit - it is about saying yes to God's promises AND it is about living in such a way that we share that promise - that abiding love of God- with the world. Note that these questions are not just personal, individually focused questions. They are questions about what it means to live in community.

Will we proclaim the Good News as we have known it in our own lives? We all have stories to share. Stories of the way God's love has been made manifest in our lives, and lives of those we love. The world needs these stories. Especially when the news is full of violence and betrayal, of people behaving in selfish and harmful ways. We need the stories that remind us that reconciliation is possible, that love is stronger than hate. So share your story- with your family, with your friends or even with someone you just met. The world needs to hear your story.

And then we are asked if we will be about the work of justice and peace? Will we seek and serve Christ in others? Will we respect the dignity of every human being? I don't know about you, but I think these questions are the hardest. I think they are the hardest because they truly call us to be our best selves. They call us to live a more selfless life, as Jesus did. They call us out of the easy comfortable place where we get to put our own needs first, where we get to spend our time with people we like and people who agree with us. Those questions ask us to go out into the world - out into the places and into the lives of people who annoy us or whose opinions and experiences differ from ours. They ask us to take a risk and to bring the reconciling love of Christ with us.

So, I hope that today, [as we welcome Jacob into our midst, into the household of God,] we can take to heart the promises of God and God's redeeming love. I hope that we feel invigorated and inspired to live more fully into our promises as followers of Jesus. I hope that each of us is inspired to go from this place to share our stories and to do our part to help make this a world a place where the dignity of every human being is respected.

AMEN.

Life isn’t always orderly

Embed from Getty Images

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford, CT
Advent IV, December 24, 2017
2 Samuel 7:1-11,16; Canticle 15; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s farm house. One of our favorite evening activities was to watch old films, and yes I do mean films-  the kind that required a projector. Of course, she had family ones from when she or my dad were young, but our favorites were the Charlie Chaplin ones. We thought they were so funny, especially when we got to watch them go backwards. When the ice cream magically went up out of the women’s dress and back up on to Charlie’s cone on the balcony above. We also thought it was really funny when the projector was set too fast and everything happened in double or triple time. Today might feel a little bit as though someone set the projector on high speed and is running it backwards and forwards on us.

Here we are on the fourth Sunday in Advent, at least for a few more hours. In our Gospel reading today we hear of the Angel Gabriel telling Mary that she will be Jesus’ mother. But before we even heard that Gospel, in the place of the psalm, we said the Magnificat, that wonderful passage from Luke that is Mary’s song when she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth during the sixth month of her pregnancy. For those of who return in about 12 or 14 hours, we will be celebrating the birth of Jesus. Feel like you have liturgical whiplash yet? Exhausted yet?

I don’t know about you, but I find myself wanting to know where the pause button is. Wait, I cry. How is it already the fourth Sunday of Advent. It feels like we have barely started. How can we possibly go from a not yet pregnant Mary to the birth of Jesus in a 24 hour period. Isn’t Advent supposed to be about contemplation and preparation? I find myself wanting to protest and argue with the lectionary committee and with our calendar. Why did we have to have two Sundays of John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry and then only get to hear about Mary and the Angel Gabriel the morning before we celebrate the birth of Jesus? But then I stop and take a breath, and I laugh. I laugh because it is like real life. How often have we had days or weeks or even months in our lives where things felt backwards and upside down or like they were moving too fast? Turns out it is far more like real life to have things a bit mixed up and out of order as they are today.

Ultimately, I find it comforting. If we are feeling as though life is mixed up or out of order or things are not at all going the way we planned, we are not alone. In fact we are in remarkable company. Do you think Mary was planning on having a baby that year? Considering she and Joseph weren’t even married yet, it is not likely. She had not expected an Angel to appear to her and inform that she was going to have a baby, and not just any baby, God’s Son. And she certainly wasn’t planning on giving birth in a stable miles and miles from her family.

We are in good company when things are not going as we had hoped. And there is an invitation here, today, in our story of Mary and the Angel Gabriel. It is an invitation of acceptance. Invitation to be alert to the ways God shows up unexpectedly in our lives, and to pay attention when that happens. An invitation to go with the flow and trust that there is more at work than we can know. An invitation to believe the Angels who show up in our lives and invite us to follow God on paths that seem far different from what we had planned. Today we are invited to be like Mary, and to say “Yes” to God. It is an invitation to take a deep breath and to be present in the moment. An invitation to pay attention.

There is another invitation in our texts today. It is an invitation to action. It is an invitation to be about living out lives that reflect the desires of God. It is the invitation to bring the world and our own lives more in line with the Magnificat. A world where the proud are scattered, where the mighty are cast down, and the rich sent away empty. A world where the lowly are lifted up, the hungry are filled and the mercy of God is known everywhere.

I don’t know how many of you regularly pray the Daily Office or have the privilege of regularly attending Evening Prayer or Evensong services, but if you do, you will notice that the Magnificat shows up with great regularity. I don’t think that is an accident. Hearing, praying, saying, singing the Magnificat is always a good idea. We need it to be a centerpiece in our lives and in our faith. We need to always be reminded of God’s desires for the world and for those of us who follow Jesus. We need to be reminded that filling the hungry, lifting up our neighbors in need and promoting the mercy of God are what we are to be about each and every day.

As this day reminds us, things will not always happen the way we would like or in the particular order we would like. Sometimes it will feel as though things are moving far too fast or far too slow. Sometimes it will seem as though things are all mixed up. But that is okay. We are not alone. Some of the best stories started out in confusing and unexpected ways. Today’s readings are a prime example of that. And so we are invited to be like Mary, and to trust in the workings of the Holy Spirit. Even when we feel scared or uncertain. God is present. God is at work. The question for us is, will we be able to live more fully in the present moment, so that we might join with God in that holy work? I sure hope so.

AMEN.

Living Generously

The chapel at Christ Church Cathedral 

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford, CT
Christ the King, November 26, 2017
Matthew 25: 31-46

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I have a mug which has a picture of a small child and a motivational quote on it entitled “Priorities.” It reads: “A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, the sort of house I lived in, or the size of my bank account, but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.” I could not help but think of this quote when I read the gospel for today. Jesus tells his followers that the defining characteristic of their lives will be how they have cared for those on the margins, those who, like children, can be considered the “least.”

Yet again, as we were a few weeks ago, we are reminded that living a life of faith means living a life that is focused beyond ourselves. It means living a life where we are not focused on our own achievements or how much we might acquire in wealth and resources. It means living a life that is focused on how we might engage in relationship with each other and how we might be able to share our gifts and blessings in a way that enriches the lives of all.

There is a real invitation here for us to think about the ways that we have been too self-centered. Notice how the followers talk to Jesus. They say, “When was it that WE did this for you?” Notice that they still make it about themselves. They make it about what THEY did or did not do. They keep the focus on their own actions more than about helping someone else. They don’t ask Jesus about those who were served, they ask about themselves. They seem to be overly concerned with their own status and standing. How human!

As I think I have mentioned, I consider myself a recovering perfectionist, and so I can so relate to the followers in this passage who want to know exactly where they stand with Jesus. Please, Lord, tell me am I one of the righteous? I find myself quickly going to the place of fearing how I may have fallen short of being righteous. And this text sets us up to be fearful, because it shows us the reward for the righteous and the punishment for those who fail to care for others.

But even if we are behaving in a righteous manner, even if we are being generous with what we have, we need to also pay attention to our motivations. Notice something about the righteous . . . they ask the same question as the unrighteous. They ask when it was that they did these things, because they don’t remember seeing Jesus sick or in prison. Jesus rewards them precisely because they did something good and right for its own sake. They were not paying attention to who they were serving. They just saw someone in need and responded.

That is Church at its best: seeing a need and responding. Whether it be someone who needs food or clothing, someone who needs comfort and care while facing illness or other personal challenge, providing connection to those in prison. Someone who feels lonely and is looking for a community that will accept them as they are. Churches do this. This Church, this Cathedral community, does all these things. We do them because we know that it is the right thing to do. It is not about our own egos, about getting noticed or racking up some kind of personal reward. It is about being generous with what we have - with our material abundance and with the love in our hearts, because that is who we are and who God created us to be.

Someone need only spend a little time in this remarkable community to realize that it is one that exemplifies the life of generosity that the Lord calls us to in our Gospel today. The statistics about how many people have been fed and clothed because of the efforts of our Cathedral community are remarkable. Thousands of lives have been blessed by the generosity of this Cathedral community. Additionally, over the years this community has supported, in a variety of ways, ministry with those in prison and those newly released. And it says right at the top of our bulletins that wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you are welcome here. This is a house of prayer for all people.

If like me, you have some perfectionist tendencies, you can focus too quickly on what is missing or what you have not done. I do hope in this season of stewardship, as we all are reflecting on how we can live even more generous lives, that we are also taking the time to give thanks for myriad of ways in which we are already living beautiful, faithful, generous lives. Yes, we can, and we should, do more. And we can also celebrate all that is already happening.

I hope that in that celebration we will share the stories of this community out in the world. There are so many stories of hope here. Stories that embody our Gospel for today. Stories that tell of faithful people who love God and care for one another. The world needs tho

se stories. The other communities in which we live, work, go to school and volunteer, need our stories. You never know when someone might be seeking a community or seeking out resources for which they are afraid to ask. Our stories of hope and community, our stories of this remarkable Cathedral community might just be what they need to hear.  I might even be so bold as to modify the saying on my motivational mug to say that “the world might be different because I brought a friend to church or I shared a story of my faith community.”

There are many who are in need, in our midst and beyond these walls. May we give thanks for the myriad of ways this community already seeks to meet the needs of the world. And may we also be inspired to be even more bold in the ways in which we live generous and holy lives.

AMEN.