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sermon, the rev. susan allison hatch, march 22

3/25/2015

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Yesterday, I found myself taking my annual “search for signs of spring” walk. It’s a walk I take every year at this time of year. You might say –and in a sense you’d be right—“Susan, you’re a bit late. In New Mexico we look for signs of Spring in late January or at the latest—early February.” But I wait until Spring has come officially to take my “search for signs of spring walk.” When I was living in Minnesota, I looked for crocus shooting up through the snow, clear ice puddles forming over long dead leaves and maybe even a little patch of green grass. But that was then and this is now. Yesterday I looked for kids playing basketball after supper, sand hill cranes making their way north, trees budding out, and dandelions in full bloom. The chill of winter was still in the air. I could feel it yesterday and throughout the week—not so much in my face but in my heart.

This week has felt a lot like winter to me—not the winter of shortened days and colder nights, but the winter of hardened hearts, brittle souls and world-weary spirits. I sometimes think we’re living in a wintery kind of a world:

*flames of discord fanned in the Middle East with words designed to  quash the hopes of a conquered people

*worshippers killed—over a hundred—as they bowed in prayer in Shiite mosques

*here, in our country politicians preying on peoples’ fears while failing to exert the kind of leadership that demonstrates the “attentiveness to the poor and needy” that the prophet Jeremiah called for

*a black man found hanging dead from a tree in the deep South

*closer to home, in Dallas, Texas, signs appearing in businesses-- “authentically for white people”

*and here in Albuquerque two more tent cities closed and homeless campers forced to search for yet another home.

 Sometimes it feels that we live in a world not unlike the world the prophet Jeremiah knew—a world of people held captive by empires of greed and politics of power serving not the needs of the poor and needy but those of the wealthy and privileged. A world of hardened hearts and heedless words and hate-filled acts.   Indeed, if you were to open a newspaper or click on your internet browser or even skim the articles people post on Facebook, you might see as I saw this week, a host of bad news, evidence that we live in discouraging times. A wintery kind of week. A wintery kind of world.

 To people living in that wintery world of Jeremiah’s Jerusalem, to people carried off into captivity in Babylon, to people who witnessed their neighbors killed, their city destroyed, their family members sent into exile, the prophet points to signs of spring and offers promises of hope.

Jeremiah reminds God’s people of God’s words of consolation:

*I have loved you with an everlasting love

*I will satisfy the weary, and all who are faint I will replenish

*I will bring (my people) home....with consolations I will lead them back

*They shall come and sing aloud

*They shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord

 These are the words of God—the words God writes on human hearts.

This is the law of God—the law of love God writes on her people’s hearts.

It’s a law written gently, tenderly.

Words of promise, words of hope,

Not words stamped or burned or chiseled or emblazoned on human hearts

But words traced with the lightest of touch.

Signs of God’s faithfulness and loving-kindness--

Signs of Spring.

In this wintery world in which we find ourselves signs of spring abound. Sometimes they’re hidden under the melting snow; sometimes they’re to be found outside our normal field of vision; sometimes they pop up in the oddest of places. But they are there. God’s consolations appearing in human lives:

*Often in the little kindnesses that mark our days—a call from a distant friend, a story shared, a quiet pat on the hand

*Sometimes those consolations, those signs of God’s spring, appear in acts of reconciliation—a friendship rekindled, a hurt released, a grievance forgiven, a love affirmed, an apology made and accepted

*You find them even in the living of a life—like that teacher at Lew Wallace school who recently was recognized for how she lives out God’s law of loving kindness by sometimes providing breakfast or a set of clothes to the  kids she teaches and even taking into her home two of her students who had lost their home

*Those consolations are there, too, when people taught to hate one another  come together in solidarity—like the Muslims who recently stood guard while Jews worshipped at on a Friday night or the Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland who helped a British soldier injured and abandoned in the streets of  Belfast

All moments of hope. All harbingers of Spring.

The night before he died, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. shared a vision with his people. Speaking to the poor and oppressed in Memphis, Tennessee, and to the poor and the oppressed throughout our country, King said:


            I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I'm happy tonight; I'm not worried about anything; I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

You and I, we, too, can say with confidence, “We have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” We’ve seen that glory in the consolations of our God. We know what we will see as Easter dawns in our lives once again. We will see God’s new covenant at work in the Eastering of our days and of our lives. Alleluia. Alleulia. Alleluia.

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sermon, the very rev. doug travis, march 15

3/16/2015

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sermon, The Rev. Kristin Schultz, March 1

3/2/2015

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Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia

 This is the song that came into my mind as I was working with today’s gospel lesson.
To really understand this lesson,
           it is helpful to go back a few verses.


Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”

ding ding ding!

You are right, Peter!
But Jesus’ response is strange.
He asks them not to tell anyone.
Then Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that they are going to Jerusalem . . . 

So Peter speaks up – “No way, Jesus! That can’t happen to you, of all people.”
Why, Jesus has just confirmed that he is the Messiah,
            the savior they have waited for.
Surely God wouldn’t let such a thing happen to God’s own, beloved Son?

But Jesus’ response to Peter is immediate, and harsh.
“Get behind me, Satan” he says.

 Satan – the sa-tan – is the adversary, the tempter.
Satan is any force which seeks to deflect us from the way of God,
and that is what Peter is doing –
trying to deflect Jesus from his God-given path. 

Last week we heard that Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness for 40 days. Satan tried to persuade Jesus to grasp worldly power and take the easy way 
(You know you’re hungry, Jesus - turn these stones into bread –
make a spectacular display of yourself so all will worship you –
bow down before me and I will give you the world),
In a similar way, Peter wants Jesus to be the super-hero Messiah he has expected .

Peter is letting his own expectations and desires for himself and for Jesus get in the way of hearing what Jesus is saying –
            and in the way of following where Jesus is going.
When he rebukes Peter, Jesus says that Peter is looking not from God’s perspective,
but from a human perspective.

Jesus turns to his disciples and begins to explain to them what kind of Messiah he will be – so different from what they expect –
and what he expects of them.

If you want to follow me, Jesus says, you must also be willing to take up a cross,
if that is where serving God will lead you.

If you try to hold on to your life, Jesus says –
            to your power, your security, your happiness, your rights, your things –
you will lose the life that really matters.

 But if you are willing to give of yourself –
           following the way Jesus leads
then you will know abundant life, lived in the grace of God’s love.

 Fr Doug reminded me this morning that the Greek word Jesus uses here translated “Life” is the word psuche – our psyche,
           as in psychology, psychiatric, psycho-somatic
It means the soul, or the ego – or we might call it the “self”
And here is where Jesus invites a new perspective.
Our culture is pretty focused on the self:
            self-esteem, self-love, self-indulgence, self-giving
Our culture is not very big on self-denial.
But the self-denial to which Jesus calls us
            is not the opposite of self-fulfillment or self-esteem.
It is not a demand for asceticism or self-hate.
Just giving up things will not make one Christian.

What is difficult for our culture to understand, 
is an orientation to one's life that is not focused on self at all,
either as self-esteem or self-abasement, as self-fulfillment or self-emptying.

But that may be just the life Jesus models for us.
Maybe following Jesus means not focusing on the self at all –
             not self-love, not self-esteem, not self-denial or self-hatred –
but focusing one’s attention fully on God,
            as Jesus always did.

This is not easy, by any means.
I sure don’t know how to do very well.
But as I hear Jesus’s words today I wonder if that is the way he is trying to lead –
            to focus fully on God and God’s work of love in the world.


Take up your cross.
Give up your life.
These are not easy words to hear.
I am glad Jesus says them in the middle of this story about Peter
            because Peter is a disciple a lot like us, with good days and bad days,
            full of faith and full of doubt.
Peter jumped out of a boat and walked on water –
            then sank like a stone as doubts overtook him.
But Jesus lifted him out of the water before it closed over his head –
            that time and many others.

Part of being human is that our attention falters,
            we lose focus and begin to sink.
But always we are invited to return – to look again to Jesus,
            to be lifted up again and follow where he leads.

Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia
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