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Advent ~ Day 1

11/30/2014

Advent 2014 – Day 1
The Lesson
God creates man and woman to live in obedience to him in the Garden of Eden ~ Part I

In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up-- for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground-- then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ~ Genesis 2:4-9

The Carol
“Jesus Christ the Apple Tree,” text, anon.; composer, Elizabeth Poston. Sung by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPJBFYuUWvY

A Spiritual All-Nighter?

11/30/2014

Jesus said: Therefore, keep awake--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn Matthew 13:35

Keep awake! Be alert! That’s Jesus’ message in this morning’s Gospel.It is the First Sunday of Advent, the start of the new Church year, and the start of our spiritual preparation for Christmas – this is the ancient, familiar rallying cry for Advent. But keep awake for what? Be alert for what? Aren’t we sleep deprived enough as it is? Isn’t it spiritually and psychologically unhealthy to be “on” twenty-four-seven? There is certainly enough going on in our lives and in our culture all around us to drain us and make us feel like we are sleep-walking through our days. It is that very busyness and pressure and stress that makes us zone out, miss what is really important and good.

Of course, the important and good that is on the horizon is our celebration of the birth of Jesus – God come among us in human flesh – twenty-four days from now. And, in a far more ambiguous time frame, we also look for and prepare for the return of Christ to complete the work that was begun in his ministry, crucifixion and resurrection; it’s what we call Christ’s Second Coming or Second Advent, when we cannot know in what form or mode he will return, but it’s what we hope and long for so that God’s purposes for us and for all Creation may be brought to completion. But in the meantime, in the in-between-time, where does that leave us?

It’s too easy to get swept along with the prevailing cultural messages and make Christmas be all about the sweet little child in the manger “long, long ago” and about enjoying the warmth of family and friends (as good as that is) – and we absolutely should not put ourselves into a spiritual and emotional coma to get to the December 24th deadline. And then it’s even easier not make anything of the Second Coming, just leave it alone, and it will happen one day, someday, maybe……completely out of our consciousness.

So rather than thinking of Jesus’ injunction to keep awake as the equivalent of pulling an all-nighter – after which we will collapse – maybe it is better to think of Advent as a time of looking for Christ in all the ways he shows up in daily life, here and now. Think of it as a time of training – real work and practice for an event that is yet to take place.

If we play an instrument, or sing, or act we know how this goes: you practice your scales and your piece; you memorize your lines, along with their delivery and inflection and blocking; you go to rehearsal and practice with others until the scene or the sonata or anthem is almost second nature; and THEN you are able to be open and ready for the music or the art or the drama or the energy to happen.That is when those who hear or see you will be drawn into what you already know, and that trinity of composer or playwright, performer, and audience will create something much greater and truer than any of the individuals could create on their own – but it takes work and preparation.

Similarly with sports, you practice drills and skills; you work out for endurance and stamina; you get your frame of mind ready so that your head can be in the game on the day; you practice with your team so that each play, each turn, each hand-off can be executed seamlessly and you’ll be ready to face whatever comes at you from the opposing team.
Advent is spiritual training for recognizing and welcoming Christ at Christmas and at the Second Coming, and we train in two major ways.

First, we begin with a collective spiritual check-up by praying the Great Litany. For some people, I know, this is about as much fun as getting a booster shot or taking cod-liver oil – unpleasant, not enjoyable, let’s just get through it. For others, it that feeling of cleaning house, taking inventory, knowing where everything is and what needs to be mended or repaired or adjusted; it can be like taking a long cold drink of clean water that clears your head, as well as your soul.
I guess you can tell how I feel about it! But either way, we start our Advent training by getting true and accurate information about ourselves and where we are with God, and the Great Litany helps us to do that.

Second, during Advent we practice seeing Jesus all around us. We love and serve a God who has taken on human flesh and who, even now, is amongst us and within us; and so we should not be surprised to think that even as Jesus lives in our hearts, we might see him in the face of others. The fourth-century priest, preacher, and later Archbishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom said: “If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find him in the chalice”; nor, I would add, in our modern secular Christmas celebrations. It becomes an act of willing intention, to practice seeing Jesus in the face of others, particularly those who annoy us, challenge us, disagree with us, those we find off-putting in a variety of ways.

When I was growing up there was a hardware store right on our Main Street; it sold almost everything, and everyone in town shopped there. One of the employees was a man named John. He always seemed to be a difficult, unhappy person and he made the customers he waited on cranky, as well, and so everyone did their best to avoid him. Our rector, however, would intentionally stand on line at John’s register; he said that he was practicing being loving, seeing the face of Christ. For the priest that meant being kind, respectful, not letting John’s bad mood rub off on him, not returning crankiness for crankiness. I don’t know what effect that had on John, but I know it made a big impression on me; look, I’m still talking about it forty years later!

That’s one tiny example of how we might practicing seeing the presence of Christ, being alert and awake to the ways that God shows up in daily life. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you where you might seek the face of Jesus in your own daily routine. Because if we get practice doing that, then we’ll be able to see so much more clearly and profoundly the Christ who comes to us as Holy Child and the Christ who is yet to come in the fullness of God’s time.

So this Advent we keep awake, we practice, we wait, we prepare and look for the coming of God.

Let us pray.
Lord God, you promised in your tender mercy, the dayspring from on high shall break upon us, to give light to those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Open the eyes of our hearts to see you now, in this life, and in the last day at the fullness of your appearing. Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come. Amen

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
First Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2014

Eve of Advent

11/29/2014

Advent is, of course, the start of the new Church and our spiritual preparation for Christmas. This year’s daily Advent reflections will follow the outline of Advent Lessons and Carols: a passage of Scripture relating to the coming of Christ and a hymn or anthem You Tube link each day. I hope that these will be useful to you in your prayer life this Advent season.

A note about the definition of the word “carol.” In musical terms a carol is a song that has a refrain that repeats through each verse. Carols pre-1800 were associated with folk-dancing, especial with circle dances done by both men and women. The words to carols could be connected to any season of the year, not just Christmas, but they came to be thought of as Christmas songs because so much singing and dancing took place at all levels of society in the British Isles during the Twelve Days of the Christmas feast. Now, of course, “Christmas Carol” is applied far more widely, however I would say that the term really should be limited to songs that talk about the birth of Christ in some way; “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is not a Christmas carol!

Anyway, I hope and pray that this Advent time will be one of blessing and reflection as you prepare heart and mind to celebrate the birth of Our Lord twenty-five days from now.

+ + + + + + + + +
A Bidding Prayer
“Beloved in Christ, in this season of Advent, let it be our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the Angels, and in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem, to see the Babe lying in a manger. Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious Redemption brought us by his holy Child; and let us look forward to the yearly remembrance of his birth with hymns and songs of praise.

But first, let us pray for the needs of his whole world; for peace and goodwill over all the earth; for the mission and unity of the Church for which he died, and especially in this country and within this city.

And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us at this time remember in his name the poor and the helpless; the hungry and the oppressed; the sick and those who mourn; the lonely and the unloved; the aged and the little children; and all those who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.

Lastly, let us remember before God his pure and lowly Mother, and all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no one can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we for evermore are one.

These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the throne of heaven, in the words which Christ himself hath taught us:
Our Father . . . .
The Almighty God bless us with his grace; Christ give us the joys of everlasting life; and unto the fellowship of the citizens above may the King of Angels bring us all. Amen.”
~ Advent Lessons and Carols, Book of Occasional Services

The Advent Matins Responsory by Palestrina, sung by the Choir of Magdalene College, Oxford.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLeTryubtQs (copy and paste into your browser).

Blessings,
Vicki McGrath+

Reflection on Ferguson

11/25/2014

Dear Friends in Christ,

There is much to be thinking about, planning for, and celebrating, with Thanksgiving this Thursday, and the season of Advent and new Church year starting on Sunday, but I wanted to say something about the decision that was announced in Ferguson, MO last night, and the events that have followed the announcement.

Seeing images of violence and looting, and seeing images of anguished and angry people are never easy. Most of us are drawn in by these images, and we react to them viscerally. It is important to remember that what we see on television or news sites is what get covers or portrayed; it is never the whole story. It is also important to recognize that in a setting where passions and feelings are as inflamed as they are in Ferguson (on all sides), there will always be some who will take advantage and manipulate the situation for their own ends.

Frankly, I am not sure what to think or believe about the grand jury’s decision and the shooting back in August. I think there is some information we may not have. I do know, however, that tensions resulting from our national history of racial injustice and the ways that continues to show up, along with strong feelings about income inequality and many other factors, are a reality of American society. Conversation about institutionalized racism and civil rights can be difficult and uncomfortable, particularly when we don’t think those things touch us personally. Having said that, we know that violence and destruction is never the answer.

Here is an excerpt of a message the Right Rev. Wayne Smith, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, sent to his churches earlier this month: “...As people of God, we do well [to anticipate these likelihoods] by preparing spiritually. Corporate and personal prayer become crucial in times like these, and I know that some congregations expect to open their doors to be places of prayer for their neighborhoods. Their doing so encourages me, and I hope that you will publicize these invitations broadly. Now is a time to storm the throne of God.

Now is also a time for the renunciation of violence—not just physical violence, but the violence of words. The spiritual discipline of guarding what we say, out of anger or hurt, becomes immeasurably important in times like these. This discipline allows us actually to become instruments of peace.”

We Christians believe in prayer. We also believe that all people have been made in the image of God, and that each person is someone for whom Christ died – loved and valued beyond measure. We know, as well, that human beings are limited and fallible – that we can and do sin, fall short of God’s best for us. It is in the midst of this mixture of love and sin that we are called to work for the fullness of God’s Kingdom: “on earth as it is in heaven.”

So from here, the most important thing we can do is pray for God’s wisdom and peace, reaching for that peace within us, as well as looking for it in the midst of events and interactions: “O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” ~ Book of Common Prayer, In Times of Conflict

Blessings,
Vicki McGrath+

Spiritual AND Religious - Part III

11/23/2014

Jesus said: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Matthew 25:35-36

We have come to the last Sunday of the Church year;next week we’ll begin a new season and a new year. While this is the Last Sunday after Pentecost, we often refer to it as the Sunday of Christ the King, or the Reign of Christ, reminding ourselves through our Scripture readings and our hymns that, when all is said and done, it is Christ who is the Lord of all creation, humanity and space-time. The very same Jesus who lived and taught, and suffered and died, rose to new life and ascended into heaven before he sent the Holy Spirit, is the One we call Lord, Kyrios in Greek, the Christ, Anointed One, Messiah – the One whose judgment is for the good of all that God has created.

Today’s sermon is also the third and last in our series that has looked at the practices of Christian religion that the Church has given to us as a means of structuring and supporting our love of God and love of neighbor. True religion, remember, is never divorced from spirituality – which is our relationship with God - but holds and enhances it, and encourages us to grow in faith, trust, and action.If we separate religion from spirituality we eventually get two lesser entities: religious forms alone become dry and potentially legalistic;spirituality alone can become individualistic, formless and vague,disconnected from our neighbor and our actions towards him or her, and disconnected from the larger community of faith through history and throughout the world.

To remind ourselves, there are four basic practices that the Church has given us:

1. Corporate worship – the importance of gathering with other Christians on a regular basis to pray, listen to Scripture together, affirm our faith and trust in God, offer our thanks, celebrate the sacraments, and offer our praise in words and music.

2. Daily prayer and Bible reading – whether we use the Prayer Book, Forward Day by Day or some other devotional, or some other regular practice, we do well when we connect to God on a daily basis, bringing the concerns and joys of our hearts to God, and asking for guidance, wisdom, forgiveness and strength.

3. Stewardship – acknowledging that all we have and all that makes life worth living is a gift of our good and generous God, and that we are merely care-takers of what we have been given, and that it pleases God and brings him joy when we offer some of it back to him to be used for the work of God’s Kingdom.

4. And finally, works of mercy and justice.

We hear that laid out very clearly in the parable Jesus has told in today’s Gospel, which often gets called the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats; it’s also sometimes called the Judgment of the Nations. Just as in the other Gospel readings for the last three weeks, in Matthew’s narrative sequence we are in now Holy Week. Jesus has been teaching in the Temple and this is his final word to the crowds; the next day will be Maundy Thursday with the Last Supper and Jesus’ arrest. And he is saying to any who will listen that God’s judgment will be about what you do and why you do it; you can’t separate those two things, just like religion and spirituality can’t be separated.

The image of the king as shepherd sorting out the sheep and goats is deeply grounded in the Old Testament understanding of God as shepherd to God’s People, and of David as the human Shepherd-King who, for all his flaws, strove to be a faithful servant of Yahweh, who is the true King and Shepherd.

The criterion the king uses in the parable is mercy and works of compassion: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me… Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Jesus is saying that whenever we care for the poor, the needy, the oppressed, the powerless we are caring for Jesus himself; Mother Theresa used to call it “recognizing Christ in all his most distressing disguises.” Caring for others in their need is a way of ministering to God, of expressing our thanks and gratitude, a way of entering into Jesus’ own compassion for the world, which he expressed most fully in his Crucifixion. This is a fundamental Christian practice, one that the Church from the very beginning has identified as a healthy and authentic living out our Christian faith, and at the same time a vehicle for developing faith.

But let’s be clear; works of mercy and compassion are not about being Lord or Lady Bountiful, bestowing upon some lesser person something that really requires little of you. Compassion literally means “to suffer with;” compassionate action means that in some way you make yourself vulnerable to what the other person is going through, you don’t wall yourself off from their pain (but neither do you get lost in it), and you keep the door open to you being changed by your interaction –
allowing the Holy Spirit to flow between you.

That is, in part, what that element of surprise in the parable is all about – when the righteous ones were surprised by the king’s judgment of the worthiness of their actions; we never know in what ways the Holy Spirit will use what we do and the way we offer ourselves to bless others and to give glory to God.

The other aspect of this practice that the Church has given us as a fundamental structure of Christian religion is working for justice. It is the twin of works of mercy, which are often on a one-to-one, personal level. Justice is more often about working to create the kind of social fabric that reflects God’s goodness in the world, than it is something done for an individual.

While God’s justice sometimes doesn’t seem to equal fairness as we understand it on a secular level, it is deeper and broader than mere fairness. The prophets of the Old Testament consistently call the people, and especially their leaders, to the exercise of justice so that the poor, orphaned, widowed, and aliens in the land will not be trampled by the rich, the powerful, and the self-satisfied.

As we heard God say about his people in Ezekiel, using the imagery of a flock of sheep: “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice… I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.”

Justice is about creating and supporting the common good for all people, and justice and mercy are what we committed to in the Baptismal Covenant:“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” and “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” Our answer to those two questions is: I will, with God’s help.

Another way to think of works of justice and mercy is being God’s hands and feet in the world; Jesus is our heart and head, and we as the Body of Christ reach out to others, and make a difference in their lives, in the world, and for the Kingdom of God, knowing that what we do will be limited by our finite humanity, but will be a vehicle for all the goodness and fullness of God in ways that we may never know or even imagine.

So… corporate worship, daily prayer and Bible reading, stewardship, works of mercy and justice – these are the practices of our religion that are like the ligaments that hold us together as the Body of Christ and that provide both a container for and an expression of our personal relationship with the Living God, the Creator of the Universe, the Lord of heaven and earth, the Savior of humankind.

That’s what it means to be a Christian – loving God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves; we can do no less. Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.~ BCP, Prayer of St. Francis

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Last Sunday after Pentecost/Christ the King
November 23, 2014

Spiritual AND Religious - Part II

11/23/2014

His master said to him, "Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” Matthew 25:21

Last week we began a three-part sermon series on the meaning of religion – religion as a rule of life, religion as a way of ordering your faithful response to God, religion as a way of putting a helpful structure around your spirituality, a container for your experience of and relationship with God. We outlined four aspects of Christian religion that the Church, over time, has found to be most useful to us in our practice of faith. The four elements are corporate worship, daily prayer and Bible reading, stewardship, and works of mercy and justice. Last week we focused on corporate worship – gathering with other Christians as the Body of Christ (corpus) to praise God, be fed by Scripture and sacraments, and have our spiritual “reset” button pushed. Next week we’ll think about works of mercy and justice.

Today our topic is daily prayer and Bible reading, as well as stewardship.

But first I want to set the scene with the Gospel parable Jesus tells. It’s usually referred to as the Parable of the Talents, and right away we need to get something clear – this is one of those items that comes under the heading of “Things you want to ask a Biblical scholar.” A talent in the New Testament has nothing to do with abilities or things you are good at, like math or music or sports. A talent is a unit of money – in fact it’s a very large unit of money, equal to 15 years of a laborer’s wage. In modern-day terms, assuming the current New Jersey minimum wage of $8.25 an hour, one talent would be equal to $247, 00. That means we could say that the master gave one of his household servants $247,500; to another $455,000; and to another $1,037,500 – an incredible amount of money!

So right away we know that this is not some sort of morality tale or allegory that Jesus is telling; instead, he’s trying to get a point across about what the kingdom of God is like. For our purposes today, Jesus is saying that we each have been given resources – spiritual, personal, financial – that we will be asked to account for and return to God when the Kingdom comes in all its fullness.. Just like last week’s parable, this one bears a lot of study and digging and asking questions of; but for today I want us to reflect on what we do with the resources that God has given us – especially the resources of our faith.

We know that in traditional Islam, the faithful are told to pray five times daily; in Orthodox Judaism prayer is required three times a day. What about Christians? How often should we pray? When and how? There are lots of answers to that question, but for today I’ll give you the Episcopal answer: pray continually – that’s what St. Paul says just a few verses on from the end of our second reading (1 Thessalonians 5:16-17).

Whoah; how can I do that?! I don’t have that kind of time, or even inclination; not happening! OK, take a breath, and remember that there is a great stream of prayer that is going continually throughout the world from Christians and churches everywhere; somewhere, someone is always praying, whether formally or informally. And whenever we pray, we step into that great stream of faithful, continuous prayer; and our goal is to grow in awareness of that prayer and praise going on all the time.

Having said that, there are some very helpful, structured things we can do. At least twice each day, morning and evening, we should offer prayer to God and put ourselves in a position of listening to God by reading the Bible or some other spiritual writing.
When we wake, we give thanks to God for the day, we offer up what will be before us, we remember Jesus’ resurrection which took place in the early morning hours; we ask for strength, guidance and wisdom; we ask God to use us to be a blessing to others; we pray for the world and to remain aware of Christ’s presence always.

In the evening, we give thanks for what has been, even as we review our day and ask forgiveness for the places where we have fallen short; we remember that God is in charge, even as we sleep, and commend to God’s care all those we love, and all the things that worry us, remembering that Christ is always our light in the darkness.

Now there are lots of ways to do this, and many of you do it already – you can use Forward Day By Day, or some other devotional; you can follow the Prayer Book Daily Lectionary as printed in the back of the BCP or on-line. Some mix of using your own words as well as fixed forms of prayer probably works best – include the Lord’s Prayer, a Psalm, perhaps a favorite collect or canticle.
Take out the Prayer Book and turn to page 137, and you will see a very short form of structured prayer for morning, noontime, early evening, and bedtime; choose one this coming week and try it out for seven days: just what is printed there, nothing more besides your own particular prayer concerns.

The hardest thing, of course, is time, which most of us never seem to have enough of. If that is true for you, you can still pray: in the car, on the train, waiting on line at Shop-Rite, waiting to pick your child up from school, waiting for a doctor’s appointment, while you are doing yard work or washing the dishes. You already know the Lord’s Prayer, and you can easily add your own; and if your time is severely limited, here a prayer that anyone can say: “I praise my God this day. I give myself to God this day. I ask God to help me this day.”

What matters is that you find a way to connect to God each day, to step into that stream of continual prayer, and do it in a structured way that doesn’t leave you floundering on your own. Prayer is the way we recharge our batteries, that we refocus on God; it’s also the way we develop the spiritual resources that God has given us. It’s as though God has planted us seed in us that will grow, eventually and over time, but will be a much healthier, abundant and fruitful plant if we give it the sun and water of daily prayer and Bible reading.

As Christians we have another element to our structured religious practices that helps us to grown in our love of God and love of neighbor – and that is stewardship. There are two short definitions of stewardship: Stewardship is everything we do after we say “I believe”, AND Stewardship is all that we do, with all that we have, all, of the time. The point, of course, is that everything that we have has been given to us by a good and generous God, but that we don’t own it; it all belongs to God, and we are simply the caretakers, the stewards of what we have been given.

With that in mind, we need to use what we have wisely and well, and we also give some of it back to God for the work of God’s Kingdom. In part, it’s a structured way of sharing, of acknowledging that there are other people in the world besides ourselves, and that we live by God’s grace, not only by our own efforts.

Perhaps the most obvious or easily identifiable form of stewardship is the decision to set aside a percentage of your income to give back to God, and then offer it for God’s work – usually through the Church, but also for other ways and projects where you see the Spirit of God working to bring reconciliation, mercy and wholeness to the world. In these days of EFT and on-line giving, we are perhaps a little less connected to a weekly sense of offering than in the past, but every time and offering is made in Church – money, food, music, bread and wine – we remember that the most important thing we are offering is ourselves; as the Rite I Eucharistic Prayer says: “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.”

There are other forms of stewardship, as well. As a parish we have been trying to be good stewards of our buildings – to keep them safe and in good repair, so that they may continue to be good and useful resources for doing God’s work. That is true for any of our physical possessions; not to idolize them, but to use them for God’s glory and for the good of God’s people (and that includes us).

The natural world is another gift of God of which we are called to be good stewards. The beauty and inter-connected life that is all around us in trees, rivers, oceans, air, plants, animals, birds, swamps and mountains is God’s creation, and we Christians are engaged in a struggle (along with the rest of the people on Earth), about how we will care for it; what will be the costs; what will be the benefits; what are our responsibilities?

And then there is time, perhaps the most precious commodity of all. How do we use and apportion and order our time so that it reflects our gratitude to God? How can we be good stewards of our time – not just more efficient or effective, but how do we recognize that time is God-given? We start by recognizing that often there are choices to be made, that not everything that seems interesting is something that we will be able to do.

And it helps to remember that all of our electronic devices tell us 24/7 that there is always something else we could or should be doing if we want to be: fit, smart, successful, attractive, etc., etc. But that is, in fact, a lie – and Christian stewardship helps us to put life into perspective, to remember that we are limited, finite human beings; only God is infinite, and we make ourselves crazy when we forget that. But it is the temptation of our age, and I fall prey to it all the time: God is infinite, and I am not. Stewardship helps us to recall this in a structured, grateful way.

So…
Spiritual resources – daily prayer and Bible reading, and stewardship; these are two of the practices that the Church has laid out for us as a way to develop and deepen our faith.

When we do these things – however skilled or clumsy or half-hearted we may feel about them – we will be like the servant who has more talents to give to the master upon his return. And when we do so we surely share in God’s joy.

To be continued…..

Let us pray.
Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. ~ BCP

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
November 16, 2014

Spiritual AND Religious - Part I

11/23/2014

Jesus said: Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Matthew 25:13

I don’t know about you, but I feel like time is just rushing away from me. Hallowe’en has come and gone, last week the Chamber of Commerce in Chatham was already putting up Christmas lights, later this week we’ll hit the mid-month mark for November; where’s the stop button?

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells about a story about what the kingdom of heaven will be like…like bridesmaids waiting, according to first-century custom, for the bridegroom to arrive so they can usher him into the wedding festivities, but he is later than anticipated – much, much later – and so they wait. In fact, they wait so long that they fall asleep, and when the bridegroom finally does arrive in the dead of night, some of them are out of oil for the lamps they are carrying, lamps that will light the way to the party.

Now this is one of those parables that probably doesn’t seem fair to us, because the way Jesus tells it, the bridesmaids who don’t have enough oil he calls foolish, and the wise ones won’t share, and so only the wise ones get to go to the party, while the foolish ones get shut out – even though they have returned with oil for their lamps. Shouldn’t everyone be able to go to the party – particularly if the party is the kingdom of heaven? What is Jesus trying to say here?

A couple of caveats to start with: first of all, we would do well to remember that what Jesus says and does do not always fall into the category of “nice.” Second, this parable is one that could use a lot of digging into and examining from many different angles, and I hope that you will sit with this passage during the week to come and listen for what the Holy Spirit may be saying to you at this particular juncture in your life. Third thing to remember: this is not a story about fairness and justice; it’s a story about spiritual preparedness; Jesus counsels the disciples and those listening to him preach to keep awake so that they can be ready for the coming of the Messiah. Keeping awake, having enough oil in your lamp, having the spiritual resources and reserves to be ready to greet Christ when he shows up in your life that is what I want us to reflect on this morning.

We have all, I am sure, been in that place where we feel like our present circumstances are too much – too hard, too painful, too heavy, going on too long – and we just want the Lord to show up and make things right, or at least better. We know intellectually that God is always with us, that there is nowhere we can go to flee from God’s presence, and yet, it seems like God is taking his sweet time to help us or change things for the better.

All three of our readings today reflect that sense of waiting – of God’s time and our time not being the same.
Joshua addresses the Israelites after they have finally come into the Promised Land – after forty years of wandering in the desert after their initial freedom from slavery – and he calls them to choose which God they will worship, with whom they will make covenant.

Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, tries to allay some of their fears about waiting for the return of Christ, and whether or not those Christians who have already died while waiting will miss out when Christ does return. As a side note – the language that Paul uses here, of being caught up in the air, is highly metaphorical imagery that draws on both the Old Testament Book of Daniel and on the practice of the Roman emperor making a visit to a Roman city; we spent a lot of time on this in Bible study a few weeks ago, but if you’d like to ask me about it, catch me at coffee hour.

And then, of course, Jesus’ parable assumes that waiting for the kingdom of heaven is a built-in part of Christian faith and life.
But, of course, we live in an age and place where waiting for anything is anathema to us, and so we really don’t know how to do it; and further, we don’t know what to do with ourselves when we are waiting. We get kind of spiritually drowsy, we don’t know what voices to listen to, or how to judge if what we hear is really God’s truth. We need to replenish our oil, our spiritual reserves, and as Christians we do that most effectively when we can follow some combination of what the Church for centuries has taught – a spiritual prescription, if you will.

So what are those things?

Corporate worship; daily prayer and study; serving others who are in need; caring for ourselves and the world around us, and giving back to God a portion of what he has given us as an offering of praise and thanksgiving; taken together these elements form a rule of life – that what “religion” means – a rule, a pattern, a prescription that will engender spiritual well-being.

Several times last week I had people say to me, when they were explaining why they did not go to church or synagogue: “Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell; spirituality is for those who have already been there.” I’ve heard this saying lots of times, I understand where it comes from, and there is some truth to it; however, my response is “Yes, but.” Yes, if by “religion” you mean a form that is only about keeping the rules for a distant deity, by whom you will be punished if the rules are broken. But that kind of religion is not Christian faith.

Christianity is about coming into a life-giving and wholistic relationship with God through Jesus that changes us from the inside out and calls us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus has done this for us, opened the way, taken the initiative through his death and resurrection, and he hopes that we will respond with love and gratitude. But then we are faced with the project of ordering our lives in a way that reflects God’s love and care for us; that’s where the rule of life, the “religion” part comes in; it’s what we promised at our baptism and reaffirm every time we renewal our baptismal vows. This rule of life, this spiritual prescription, this infusion of holy oil is so important that today is part one of a three-part sermon series.

Corporate worship is first and foremost; that has nothing to do with businesses, and everything to do with who we are as the Body (the corpus) of Christ. We come together to worship God – the center of all that we are and all that we do – because we cannot be Christians without one another. Of course there are times when illness, travel, family events, work, and kids’ sports will get in the way, and at those times we can and should pray at home or wherever we are going, perhaps read the Sunday Scriptures (you can find a link to them on our website), hold in prayer not only those on your own personal prayer list, but the parish as well. Our default setting should be gathering with other Christians to worship God on Sunday, the day of resurrection, the Lord’s day.

When we come to church God doesn’t love us any more than he does when we stay away, but through our corporate worship we will begin to love God and our neighbor more and more. t’s a gradual, cumulative process – what the writer Eugene Peterson calls “a long obedience in the same direction” – this business of being formed, over time, more and more into the image of God. When we, as a body, spend time focused on God, hearing from the Bible, singing God’s praises, being fed by the Body and Blood of Christ we become more Christ-like; not better than anyone else, not holier, or wiser or more perfect – but more like Christ than we were before.
Worshiping together also saves from the trap of only praying our own prayers, or reading our favorite Bible passages, or listening to almost-truths that our culture offers us.

Worshiping jolts us out of our own personal rut, and puts us squarely into God’s path. Some Sundays we will leave church feeling uplifted and inspired; we may have a truly awe-some experience or vision of God; that’s great – I hope and pray that happens.
But just as often, probably even moreso, we will come to church tired and cranky; and we may leave tired and maybe a little less cranky – no guarantees – but we will have made room for Jesus in our minds and hearts.

And we’ll also have made room for our neighbor: our literal neighbor, the person sitting in the pew next to us or behind us; the newcomer or visitor who arrives at the door hesitantly, maybe a little fearfully wondering if he or she will find a welcome in this place of worship, let alone find God; what would happen if you or any of us we not here to welcome that newcomer, to offer the peace of Christ, the love of God?

The point here is that worship, and the community that worships together, forms us over time – shapes us, strengthens us, encourages us, helps us practice being Christian so that we can be conduits and agents of Jesus’ love and care out in the world God has made.

So as we wait for the return of Christ, as all Christians have since the Ascension, whenever we wait for God to act, as we wait for God’s time and out time to sync up – we worship, we encourage one another, we re-charge our lamps through Scripture and sacrament and song, we practice our religion, our rule of life, which puts worship front and center.

To be continued….

Let us pray.
Lord of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. ~ BCP

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
November 9, 2014

Family Reunion

11/2/2014

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:1-3

When I was in Connecticut this past week clearing out the garage and basement at my family’s house I came across books, letters, papers, other documents and photos that I had never seen before. One photo, in particular stood out. It was a group shot, a family reunion, taken in the 1880s on the lawn of a summer house, all those ladies with their lace blouses and parasols, the gentlemen with striped jackets, stiff collars and straw boaters. It seems so long ago, and yet as I looked at the picture more closely, I recognized some people – from other family photos, or I saw facial characteristics that my siblings and cousins still carry. Some names I knew, and others were strangers to me.

And yet I knew the stories of so many, because the stories had been told and retold at family gatherings: Aunt Mamie and Uncle Fred never had children because Fred had mumps as a child; William was a guest at a party and laid eyes on his host’s daughter Louisa for the first time and he said: “That’s the woman I’m going to marry” – and he did; David, Aunt Belle’s son, became a Grand Prix-winning race car driver and then died in a training crash; their identity as faithful members of a variety of Episcopal parishes.

All of the stories from my family shaped me, just as surely as the genes they passed down. Families are this way – whether you embrace the values and the stories that have been conveyed to you, or you have put as much distance between yourself and your family as you can, or eventually come to the place where you take your inherited values and traits and do something quite different with them; we all have a heritage that comes to us from the past – recent past or long past.

In many ways you could say that the Feast of All Saints’ is like a big family reunion. We gather with our own parish, mindful of the fact that millions of Christians throughout the world are also gathered for worship on this day, with the same intention, and we gather with the saints who have gone before us – to remember that we are all one family, the family of Christ, and that we worship God as one fellowship, one Body.

Some of the saints are known to us, either because they are our direct relatives - people we knew and loved in this life – or because their stories have been lifted up in Christian history, and told over and over again. These are the people we usually think of as Saints with a capital “S”, and most of us have our favorites: who is your favorite saint?

But then there are all those saints whose name and story we will never know – those who have lived faithful, good lives for Jesus’ sake, but our knowledge of them has been lost. And yet, we are all one family, we all follow Christ, we all bear the same
spiritual DNA of those who have been baptized. What does that DNA look like? Jesus lays it out pretty clearly in the Gospel we have just heard, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. He saw that his ministry had been drawing quite a crowd, and he went up onto a hillside to teach the disciples, the committed ones who were following him, and made it very plain what sort of characteristics of faith and life those who apprenticed themselves to him would have.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” he said. Not: “Try hard to give up all your possessions or have a low opinion of yourselves,” but “When you value God and following me before everything else, you will change your value system, and the kingdom of heaven – rather than the kingdoms of earth – will be open to you.”

Blessed are…. those who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst for justice, who are merciful, who are pure in heart…for they will be comforted, inherit the earth, be filled, receive mercy, see God. These are family traits, the result of knowing and loving God, following Jesus, living in and with the family of the baptized – all the saints.

And there are other traits, as well: peacemakers, suffering persecution for doing what is right, being ridiculed and derided for making God’s truth and goodness your priority. The last two may not sound much like states of blessedness, but they are all a result of living deeply in Christ’s family; they are the traits of Christian faith that come up again and again, and which we share with all the saints.

So think again about your favorite saint – famous or not – and consider how one or more of these traits is manifested in his or her life: poor in spirit, has the capacity to mourn, meek, hungering for justice, pure in heart, peacemaker, persecuted, reviled. What in that person’s life and faith appeals to you, draws you, helps you to see God more clearly and completely?

And then, think about the ways your life and faith might be an inspiration to someone else. That is not an invitation to being conceited, nor are you or the Church well-served by false humility. We each have our own relationship with Christ, our own experience of God; the light of the Holy Spirit shines through each one of us in a particular way. Most of the time we don’t notice it, but others do – and your particular light, your special way of being a follower of Jesus, your own brand of faithfulness may be just exactly what someone else needs to see and hear in order to draw closer to God, in order to reach for greater faithfulness themselves.

So, we are all one family of saints – the saints, the holy ones, the beloved of God; we need the prayers and example of those who have gone before us in the faith; and we need to stand ready for our lives to give testimony to someone else for the love of Christ, to take our place in God’s family, the whole Communion of Saints.

"O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia! Amen." ~ Hymn 287

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
All Saints’ Sunday
November 2, 2014