St. Michael and All Angels
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – June 30, 2013
I Kings 19:15-16, 19-21 and Luke 9:51-62

Nearly twenty years ago I participated in a two-year Spiritual Formation program. One our teachers for the week ended each of her sessions with a guided meditation. Each day she would begin by asking us to invite Christ to join us. Each day, my mind would turn to the blonde, blue-eyed Jesus on many church walls. Then I would say to myself, “we know that isn’t what Jesus looked like, but what does the risen Christ look like?” I would follow that rabbit path for a while and realize at some point that I had missed the whole meditation because I couldn’t figure out what Christ looks like. By day five, I was frustrated. She took us into the upper room and said the same words, “invite the Christ to join you.” I thought, “Here we go again” and started to check out when something very strange happened…my grandmother appeared. My grandmother had died the summer before and I adored her. She was a unique person who read the newspaper cover to cover because she wanted to know what was happening in the stock exchange, in the world, and with her beloved Dallas Cowboys. She loved the color purple so much that she drove a purple car. She was opinionated and never shy about expressing her opinions. She was very generous and quietly helped several people who were struggling. She was an officer in the Pilot Club International, a women’s service organization. She was very independent. She married my grandfather when she was in her thirties and never had children of her own. Her father was a minister and she loved that I went to seminary, but she died the year before I was ordained. I went to seminary to be faithful to a powerful call I experienced in high school, but I couldn’t imagine serving a church. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the highly coveted Master of Divinity degree; I just knew it was the next step in my journey.

In the meditation, my grandmother appeared and she was dancing. (She had been in a wheelchair the last years of her life.) She seemed so vibrant. She was laughing, and then she placed a purple stole over my shoulders. I knew she was passing her mantle on to me. After years of struggling with the United Methodist’s exclusion of very talented gays and lesbians, I decided I needed to do something with my MDiv and take a chance that serving a church was right for me. I was going to be ordained the following month. Receiving the mantle from my beloved grandmother was a powerful moment on my journey. The following month, I stood to be ordained as we sang, “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.” I could feel her with me as a stole was placed over my shoulders and I took vows.

There is a lot in our readings this morning about mantles being passed, following, and being guided by the Spirit. Neither Kings nor Luke glosses over the cost of discipleship and tries to make it look easy. Saying yes is only the beginning of faith. Stewardship is often defined as “everything we do after we say ‘I believe’”. Saying yes is the easy part; it is everything that comes afterward that is difficult. I have been reflecting on marriage as I work with some couples preparing to take those vows to one another. Anyone in a committed relationship understands that the vows are only the first step. Everything we do after we say, “I do” defines our relationship. As we are blessing various ministries this summer, we are asking for a commitment from those we commission. When the words, “I will” are said, those being commissioned turn and face outward to prepare for what comes after the words.

Jesus is preparing to leave his disciples. When the Samaritans do not welcome Jesus, the disciples generously offer to “command fire to come down from heaven and consume them.” Boy, if we did that every time things didn’t go our way, there would be no one left in the world! I do have to admit some curiosity about how we “command fire to come down from heaven” but not enough to pursue it. Jesus has already warned them when he sent them out that this would not always be pleasant. He told the disciples to shake the dust from their feet and move on to the next place. In this text, he describes foxes and birds as having homes, but that he is essentially homeless. Jesus is completely dependent on the hospitality of strangers throughout his ministry. He is telling his disciples that this is what following him looks like. These are not pleasant words for those of us who like our comforts. My first outdoor experience included a low-tech backpack, a heavy sleeping bag that wasn’t very warm and a tent. I have since graduated to a pop-up camper and it’s really hard to think of traveling without EVERYTHING I need. Yet the reality is that life will push us all out of our comfort zones. We all find ourselves depending on the care of others at times in our lives. Sometimes this has to do with an illness or an accident that leaves us relying on the goodness of others to get us through. When we are grieving the loss of someone we love, we need the care of those around us to help us take the next steps.

This morning, our adult formation offers us the chance to hear the story of Stephanie Johnson and her work with ABQ Heading Home. It is powerful to witness the love Stephanie’s team has shown the family they are serving. The mother and her children are in a home thanks to the generosity and commitment of a small team of people. It’s a great reminder that we depend on each other to survive…some of us are just more aware of that than others.

There are some folks in the gospel who want to follow Jesus. They tell him that they are committed, but… Ah, yes. We all know the “but” that goes with yes. Frankly, I think burying one’s father is a fairly legitimate “but”. I don’t think the point is to abandon everyone you know. I do think Jesus wants us to understand that this will cost us. It won’t cost us a little. It will cost us a lot. In the end, it will cost us everything. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it very clearly, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Doesn’t that make you want to ask for another option? Can we do this differently? Is there an easier way? Is there any other way?

Jesus ends by telling his followers that they must look ahead. He uses the image of a plow, knowing that looking back means the plow doesn’t move ahead. It seems to me that these are interesting words for us today. They may hit you where you are personally, but they certainly speak to us as a community. There is so much here in this text for us. I haven’t really heard much looking back, except to gratefully acknowledge the many gifts of 30 years of leadership from Brian. Brian was very intentional in passing the mantle on to all of us. We are well equipped for the journey ahead.

We are looking forward as we search for an interim. The search was delayed when our two candidates accepted other positions, but we are continuing to look ahead. We are standing among a great cloud of witnesses in this place at this time. Jesus tells us we must depend on one another and we are. We are showing up in powerful ways and the way will open as we continue to do so.

I was reading a piece by George Mason this week about his being called to Wilshire Baptist Church twenty-four years ago. Some worried that he was too young and too inexperienced. What if he couldn’t handle the challenge of this large church? A deacon in the congregation said, “It’s not whether he is up to the challenge. It’s whether we are. Great pastors don’t make great congregations. Great congregations make great pastors.” (www.alban.org) None of us can deny the breadth and depth we received from Brian. But it is true that that happened because the community called forth those things from him, received them, and grew with him.

In times of transition, we wonder what our next steps should be and we like to make plans. It has been a joy to be part of this amazing body of Christ and trust in the spirit together. In Galatians, we are called to live by the Spirit and be guided by the Spirit. That requires that we prayerfully listen and trust. We are called to do one thing in the reading from Galatians…to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” The life of faith is about loving and following. Neither of those is easy all the time, but both lead us into unexpected places.

Gordon Cosby was the founding pastor of the Church of the Savior in Washington, DC. When it was founded in the 1940’s it was one of the first interracial churches in that segregated area. Gordon became a chaplain and at Normandy he witnessed young men dying completely unequipped to reflect on life, death, and faith. He decided that if he lived, he would return to the states and start a church that would help people form deep faith. One of the tenets of membership at Church of the Savior is a requirement to serve. As the church grew, Gordon kept his commitment to form disciples and wouldn’t support the church simply getting larger. Instead, he encouraged people to form ministries that served the community. Thirty-seven ministries have grown from this small, but powerful faith community. Gordon said he was sometimes afraid to enter his prayer closet for fear that God would command him to do one more apparently impossible thing. But he went, listened, and obeyed and the “impossible thing” became the next ministry of Church of the Savior. (taken from Christian Century June 26, 2013 and npr.org 4/14/13)

Sometimes I wonder if being called to do the impossible isn’t the whole point of faith. If everything God wanted us to do looked doable, we wouldn’t need God. It is in those places beyond our comfort zone, in those places where we don’t think we have what it takes, in those places where we are lost and waiting for the way to appear that we discover the Spirit sustaining us and calling us forward. It isn’t exactly comfortable to be between rectors, but we keep loving one another and listening for God. We are wearing this beautiful mantle and standing on the shoulders of many wonderful people. Sometimes during communion, I imagine one incredibly long continuous line of all who have come to this table and I see that long line streaming out into the world carrying all this love to each person they meet. It is breathtaking to think of all who walk with us. We are not alone. We wear the mantle together and God is showing us the way, one step at a time.

30 June, 2013 / Proper 8C
St. Michael and All Angels, Albuquerque
The Rev. Carolyn w. Metzler+

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

Of all the lessons I have preached on that make me squirm—and there are lots of them—today’s make me the squirmiest. The distance between what I will say to you today, and the security of my own life—is downright embarrassing. My journey of authenticity is about closing the gap.

Let me tell you about the day I was seized by this journey. I was 16. Having been bored out of my mind by the church we had attended, I had been flirting with the Baha’i faith. They did community REAL GOOD and if the theology was a little sketchy—hey, at least they had enthusiastic prayer. After announcing to my parents that I had wanted to convert, they—almost speechless with sorrow, asked me to wait a season. I agreed. My family was on vacation in North Truro, Massachusetts at Lloyd’s Cabins, a series of rustic, somewhat dilapidated cabins high on a sand dune overlooking Cape Cod Bay. Earlier in the evening that summer day we had gone to see a play about Jesus’ second coming and his outrage at our treatment of the earth. Christ reached through the play, pierced my heart and laid claim to my life. Numb with shock, I spent all night sitting on the creaky wooden steps which led down to the ocean, its rhythm of waves crashing under infinite stars. Overhead the Milky Way whirled mirroring the giant turning of my soul back to Christianity and, as Eliot would say, “Knowing it for the first time.”

The thing was it was the physical Jesus I wanted to follow. I wanted to be one of the twelve. I wanted to walk those dusty roads, stand within sound of his voice, smirk at his banter with Pharisees, be handed a piece of dried bread from his beloved hand. I did not know how to do that from my 16 year old life in northern New Jersey. More than anything I wanted to BE there. I can tell you that longing has never left me. It is why I am Anglican. Our incarnational theology defines my yearning to this day. Everything I have done and chosen since then has been in the hope that I am following Jesus in the flesh, him perhaps just around the next corner.

So today’s lessons live in my gut. I am so there it hurts. Elisha, a man of some means, had not been in the synagogue reading Jewish mystical writings when the revered and hated (depending on where you stood in the political spectrum) prophet Elijah showed up. He was in the fields, working the earth with 12 yoke of oxen. He was dirty, smelled bad, and the sweat ran down into his eyes. Suddenly a shadow crossed his path and there stood the man of God with eyes like flame. Elisha—with some effort—pulled the oxen to a stop and wiped his brow. The prophet did not speak. They locked eyes. Elijah slowly removed his mantle, a cloak made of animal hair and held it before him. Elisha hardly breathed as he slowly began to understand. With one quick move the mantle had filled with air and settled on his own broad shoulders. In that moment Elisha understood nothing would ever be the same. Elijah spun on his heel and started to walk away quickly. Recovering his power of speech, Elisha ran after him. He said Yes. And had to bring his old life to a close. Elijah’s response in essence says “Think hard about this. It is God who is calling you, not me. Do not respond lightly. Consider the cost.” But the decision has been made and Elisha quickly did what he needed to make a complete break from his old life. The oxen were sacrificed and burned with the yoke, his family and neighbors fed, his bridges burned with the wooden yokes. He had chosen freely and was now a disciple and servant of the Man of God.

The call of Elisha is unique in all the calls of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is the only one which is passed down from the older generation, the only one to use the mantle, that ancient symbol of authority. All the other prophets are called directly by God. Elisha is mentored into his full authority. He shares the hardships of the prophet, the dangers, deprivations, the confrontation with the powers and principalities of his age. He doesn’t get it all at once. It is a journey.

Our Gospel today begins what’s known as Jesus’ traveling stories. For Luke, discipleship is always a journey and discipleship is usually linked with hardship and rejection. Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem, the place where he will be abandoned, suffer, and die. Jesus is on the move. All we will hear from now on will be in the context of this journey to Jerusalem. Jesus becomes increasingly impatient with the quibbles and power mongering of those around him. His time is getting short. They don’t GET IT yet, and if they don’t GET IT by the time he reaches Jerusalem, it may all be for naught.

So Jesus sends messengers ahead to those heretical, hated Samaritans. The promise of rejection is immediately lived out. The Samaritans will have nothing to do with him—and that curious line—“because his face was set toward Jerusalem.” It is a strange connection, to reject someone now because of where he is headed. Perhaps they understood that this is a hopeless Messiah, a failed mission which cannot possibly end well and we want nothing to do with it. Those poor slobs who associate with Jesus will probably regret it. Losers. And they closed and barred their doors.

So this ragged little band continue on their way. Jesus never imposes himself where he is not wanted. As they walk, three people run up to him. The first, not called or invited, offers to come. Jesus’ response tells it like it is. “Honey, you have NO idea what you are asking. You cannot possibly understand that following me means you belong nowhere, that you own nothing, that you have no security except in God. No one can volunteer for that life without being called.”

But then Jesus turns to the second person and calls him. “Well, OK, but first I have to bury my father.” Of course that is the legal obligation of the son. We are not totally sure if the father has actually died yet! Jesus shakes his head and turns away. There is no room in discipleship for people who are consumed with the obligations of the law. We are not saved by the law. We are saved by grace. The call of Jesus takes precedence over everything else. Nothing is more sacred than our full-hearted acceptance of this call. But-but-but--Elisha said the same thing and Elijah allowed it! Yes. But the mission of Jesus is even more urgent. Nothing can come between us and that.

A third would-be disciple steps in Jesus’ path and offers to come but only after first finishing his own agenda. Jesus steps around him and goes on. Discipleship is not a career choice, not a job, not a possibility only after his own terms have been met. The man probably expected a clap on the back and a welcome to the little band of disciples, maybe even a membership card. But instead he threw up a barrier between himself and Jesus, a barrier which disqualified him from full participation in the Kingdom. Now some might see Jesus’ response to these would-be followers to be harsh and uncompromising, and they would be right. Discipleship costs us everything. Christianity is not for wimps.

Shortly before his martyrdom at the hands of the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about the difference between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” I quote him:

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline ...absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field...the pearl of great price... Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man may knock.... It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life... Costly grace is the Incarnation of God... Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus; it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Luke never identifies the three people who would meet Jesus on his way to Jerusalem and so there is a universality to these people. I am quite sure one of them is named Carolyn. Perhaps one of them carries your name also. In belonging nowhere, Christ belongs everywhere. In belonging to no one, Christ belongs to all people, and all who respond to his call belong to him. We are sealed with the cross of oil at our baptism, marked as Christ’s own forever.

I think it is both easier and harder for us 2000 years later to follow the call of our Lord. It’s easier because most of us here, anyway, have a comfy bed, a sufficiency of food, a relatively safe place to close our eyes. But the rest of it is harder to nail down. I remember that night on Cape Cod Bay when my soul exploded with yearning to trudge along behind Jesus no matter where he went. Have I in fact done that? Do I put this first in the midst of all the other things I do, ostensibly for God? Or have I made it into a career, a set of expectations and obligations I must follow? Do I slip into cheap grace? Do I sneak into that Samaritan village on occasion and put the “Gone fishin’” sign on the door and hide in the broom closet while Jesus passes by? I must admit, it is never totally clear to me when I am following Jesus and when I am following my own holy agenda.

And you? What have you paid to be on this journey? Do you feel it to be a great sacrifice, or do you count it nothing for the joy of belonging to Christ? We have the freedom to choose, but the irony is that in being set free of our own petty little legalistic lives, we are freed to a life of service to Christ through each other. What do you need to be freed from? What do you need to be freed for? Our lessons invite us to wrestle with both those questions. So the next time you are plowing the fields and a man with fire in his eyes stands before you and says “Follow me,” what will you say?

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Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship, pp. 64-66

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St. Michael and All Angels
Third Sunday after Pentecost – June 9, 2013
I Kings 17:17-24 and Luke 7:11-17

There are times that the lectionary seems to be repeating itself. In case you missed the first reading today, you have the opportunity to hear a similar story in the Gospel lesson. They are very much alike. One of the Bible commentaries I read placed the two stories side by side to illustrate all the similarities in them. Both include widows who are grieving the death of their son. Elijah and Jesus raise these sons from the dead and give them back to their mother. Each of the resurrected sons elicits a strong proclamation of faith from those standing by.

To be a widow with no heir in that day was something like a death sentence. Widows had no means to support themselves. Without children they would certainly be destitute. The women in these stories had lost everything. It is into that tender place of vulnerability that Elijah and Jesus step bringing new life to both mothers and sons. Upon first glance it may seem that it is the sons who have been raised from the dead…and they have. But their mothers have as well. The restoration of life to their sons means life and hope for the mothers. These stories aren’t just glimpses into history, they are also invitations for us today. What in you needs to be raised from the dead? Is there something that needs to die so that resurrection can happen?

We talk about death and resurrection on Good Friday and Easter. Then we check them off the list and move onto other things. But death and new life are happening all the time. Many of us carry deep grief because we have lost those that we love. The Service of Loss on Tuesday is for all who are experiencing any kind of loss. Brian’s leaving is a great loss for St. Michael’s. But loss is not the last word. We are also witnessing powerful leadership throughout the parish. The Vestry and many, many others are standing in the gap and offering their gifts. There is new life growing among us. Today, we welcome 33 new members. This concept of death and resurrection really hits home for us right now, but it is with us all the time, sometimes in much more subtle ways.

Philip Newell wrote a blog called “The Wildness of God”. In it, he talks about the Archangel Michael. Michael’s name means “one who resembles God.” It was particularly at times of great transition, that the aid of Michael was invoked. Perhaps rather than waiting until our feast day on September 29th, we can look to our patron saint now for wisdom and guidance in our own time of transition. Newell says, “One of the most striking features of the [Celtic] tradition was its love of wandering or peregrination. In its more extreme form, the peregrini, as they were called, would set sail in a boat without a rudder to be blown wherever the elements might take them. The ideal of the peregrini in the old Celtic Church was defined as 'seeking the place of one's resurrection'.' It consisted of a willingness to let go of or die to one's home, or the place that was comfortably familiar, in order to find new life. The impression given is that the gospel of Christ leads us not into what we already know but into what we do not yet know.” (http://www.salvaterravision.org/jpn-blog/item/202-the-wildness-of-god)

Maybe that explains our tendency to avoid themes of death and resurrection. They take us into the unknown, into places far beyond our comfort zone. Our scriptures describe a God who comes to us in our darkest moments. God meets us when we are lost and alone and stays with us whether we are aware or not. In the gospel lesson, the woman doesn’t ask Jesus for help. He sees her pain and responds. One commentary said, “If religion has nothing to say to a grieving widow, it has nothing to say.” (New Interpreters Bible, p. 159) God meets us in our vulnerability and takes our hand as we make our way through it. I wonder if those who gathered on the street saw the woman following her son through the crowd or did they avert their eyes afraid to acknowledge the depth of her suffering? Jesus sees her and speaks to her. Then he brings her son back to life and gives him to his mother.

I keep finding myself drawn to the words of Nadia Bolz-Weber. Nadia is a Lutheran pastor in Denver. She has the entire Christian year tattooed on her arm. She speaks honestly about faith and she doesn’t water it down or make it easy. One of her sermons confesses that the church will disappoint people. She guarantees that it will happen. Rather than seeking a church that won’t disappoint us, Nadia encourages people to hope in a God who will “reach down into the graves we dig ourselves and each other and love us back to life.” (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2013/05/sermon-on-why-hope-and-vapid-optimism-are-not-the-same-thing/)

The scriptures don’t call us to trust in our own ability to do everything right, but instead to trust in God who is there when we don’t. How many times a day do we encounter our own inadequacy? Every time, we have the opportunity to turn to the God whose grace is greater than our human messiness. Nadia encourages people to stay with the community even when they have been disappointed because if they leave, they will “miss the way God’s grace fills in the cracks left behind from our brokenness.” (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2013/05/sermon-on-why-hope-and-vapid-optimism-are-not-the-same-thing/)

It is human nature to flee when we are disappointed or in pain. But that is the place where God’s care is stunning. It touches us so tenderly that we feel like our hearts will break in the face of such goodness. This same God weaves our lives together and creates a container where we are held until we are strong enough to stand on our own again. Then we take one another’s hands and become the face of love and hope. We offer ourselves and allow God to flow through us so that we are surprised when we speak words of compassion that we didn’t know we had. Maybe that is what resurrection looks like.

Listen carefully to the words you will say this morning. We do this as a community. We pray for the new members who join us today. For some that means leaving behind a tradition that has been important to them for many years. They do not make this commitment alone. We all remember our baptismal vows, not in a nostalgic way, but as an active promise to be God’s beloved for one another and for our world. Notice what you are promising to do – supporting our new members, proclaiming the Good News, serving Christ in each person you meet, striving for justice and peace for all and respecting the dignity of each person. These words are important. We say them several times a year. Listen to what you are promising. These words will require you to open your heart to allow God’s grace to fill you so that you can be faithful to the vows you are taking. We aren’t simply mumbling along as a nod in the direction of our new members, we are powerfully remembering who we are as God’s own children. We are claiming our place in the community and that will mean trusting in God’s goodness to make it possible for us to be faithful to these vows. Remember as we renew each part of the baptismal covenant we say, “With God’s help”. It is never up to us alone to live this life we call faith.

We can’t be faithful to the vows we take if we don’t remind ourselves of our commitment. It is reported that when Martin Luther felt afraid, doubtful, or was unsure that he had what he needed, he would remind himself with the words, “I am baptized.” We renew our vows periodically so we can ground ourselves in them and live them wholeheartedly. A life of wholeheartedness grows in response to a God who breathes new life into places of death and despair. That is where hope begins.

Hope is found in the yes of new members. They cast their lot with this beautiful, imperfect community. Here we will listen to the stories of a God who will heal places we didn’t even know were broken. Here we will pray for those who are suffering. Here we will acknowledge our faults and ask for forgiveness. Here we will come to the table to be fed and sustained to be faithful to the vows that we take. Here we will listen for God’s call to serve those who are the most vulnerable. Here we will become faithful, falling down and getting back up. Here we will speak words of faith and we will put flesh and bones on those words. Here we discover God’s grace bringing us back to life and empowering us to do things we never thought possible.

Both stories end with proclamations of faith. Luke often ends stories of healing with the crowd responding with awe and praise. I have been thinking of us as the crowd. We have witnessed God’s healing love in our midst over and over again. Now the camera shifts its gaze in our direction. How do we dare respond to a God whose love is raising us from the dead, a God who is healing us, a God who is forgiving us over and over again, and a God who is walking with us every step of the way? We live the vows we take here again today. We say yes with all that we have and we seek to be true to our yes.

Saying yes doesn’t mean we know where we are going. It simply means we are willing to trust the one who calls us beyond our comfort zone, the one who leads us to our place of resurrection, and who shows us that there is more to a life of faith than we ever imagined.

St. Michael and All Angels
Second Sunday after Pentecost – June 2, 2013
Luke 7:1-10

Leonard Sweet is an unorthodox theologian who begins lectures with the greeting: “Good morning saints! Good morning sinners!” The first time I heard him do this, I was taken aback and didn’t respond to the saints greeting. But when he followed that by greeting us as sinners, I understood what he was doing. We are both…all of us. It is human nature to file people away into categories, but we simply cannot be reduced to one or the other. The centurion in the story this morning is an interesting guy. His slave is ill. We could talk a lot about the evils of slavery, but I’ll save that for another time. What is curious is the way the story introduces this man. First, the centurion sends some Jewish elders to Jesus to vouch for him. He wants Jesus to heal this slave and he isn’t sure he has the clout to do so. Fortunately, the elders are big fans and explain that he is worthy. That is interesting language to use. The proof that they offer is that he loves the people and that he built a synagogue for them. Jesus seems easily convinced and starts toward the man’s home. I’m wondering if the man panicked at the thought of having Jesus come to his home because he quickly sends his friends to say that he is not worthy to have Jesus come into his house.

Which is it? Is he worthy or not worthy? The answer of course, is yes. He is both. How many of us remember the prayer of humble access? 
“We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy.” (1928 Book of Common Prayer)

I grew up saying those same words in the United Methodist Church. Many of us were taught that humility was key to following Jesus. If we grew up in the south, we may have gotten a false sense of what humility is. I spent my first twenty-five years in the south and I grew to understand a southern phenomenon of something that resembles humility but isn’t actually humility. My aunt made quilts for many of our extended family members. They were beautiful! When we complimented her on it, she would be very self-deprecating and talk about how it really wasn’t much or it was full of flaws. She knew that her work was beautiful and she knew that she had invested too many hours to count in these precious gifts that she gave so freely, but she also knew that she wasn’t supposed to take credit for anything or be proud of her work; so she would act like it wasn’t worth much. She was well trained by the culture to be something that looks like humble and maybe smells like humble, but it isn’t actually humble.

Humility isn’t something many of us aspire to in our culture. In an era that emphasizes good self esteem, we don’t want to spend energy thinking less of ourselves. But that isn’t humility. Humility is not minimizing who we are. It is acknowledging who we are…all of it. True humility is an honest understanding of ourselves. It is standing in the balance between saint and sinner as we look in the mirror.

So, true humility invites us to believe the truth about ourselves, no matter how beautiful it is! (Macrina Wiederkehr) There is another truth to this centurion. He is a good man who loves the people and cares for them in concrete and generous ways. He is a man of power and he uses his power to bring goodness into others’ lives.

When we think of power, we often think of situations where it has been abused. We see key players in big corporations stealing and lying to feed their inflated egos. They too, have no real sense of who they are, but are living a lie that tells them it’s ok to take advantage of people.

We tend to think of those who live without resources and struggle to survive as humble or we think of those who are in positions of prominence as powerful. Separating these two as if they are opposites doesn’t tell the truth of either one. Power is defined as the ability to act or do something. That’s pretty generic. Power is not something that belongs to some and not others. We all have power to share God’s love with one another. That has nothing to do with our position in society.

It seems to me that the invitation in this text is to take an honest look at ourselves and embrace all of who we are. There is great freedom that comes in knowing who we are and who we are not.

I finally watched the movie Lincoln. I’m struck by the depth of his humility and his commitment to using his power to abolish slavery through the 13th Amendment. He knew it was the right thing to do. He gave everything he had to do the right thing. He never lost sight of who he was and his simple beginnings. It was a long, arduous process. It required tapping into the fullness of who he was and it cost him his life. His sacrifice set God’s beloved children free.

It’s interesting that while the church has often paid little attention to humility and its own power, the business world perked up and recognized the marriage of these two. Jim Collins’ bestselling book Good to Great describes the difference between good leaders and great leaders. Great leaders are classified as level 5. Collins says, “Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless. To quickly grasp this concept, think of United States President Abraham Lincoln (one of the few Level 5 presidents in United States history), who never let his ego get in the way of his primary ambition for the larger cause of an enduring great nation.” (p. 22)

None of us are here because of our own perfection and accomplishments. We all stand on the shoulders of many others. As a woman, I would not stand here if others hadn’t gone before and taken risks or spoken out on my behalf. We all have the opportunity to offer ourselves for the wholeness of others. In order to do that, we must be the people God created us to be. When we recognize and claim our power; we can humbly be channels of God’s healing in ways we can’t even conceive. It has happened over and over throughout history. It is desperately needed today.

Who are those living in bondage today? Perhaps they are living next door to us. What can we do to help release one another? It is interesting that in the story of Lazarus, Jesus arrives when Lazarus has been dead for four days and calls him forth from the tomb. It is Jesus who calls him back to life, but he calls the community to “unbind him and and let him go.” (John 11:44 NRSV) The centurion is a man of great power. His slave is ill. The centurion cannot heal him. He requires the community to intercede. None of us are solo enterprises. We do this together.

It seems that the church has too often sidestepped humility and been less than cognizant of its power. Throughout history, the church has used its power for transformation and for destruction. The church has funded schools and hospitals. It has started a multitude of nonprofits and ministries that serve the greater community. St. Michael’s is helping people into housing through the ABQ Heading Home project. We are using our power for good every time we create a safe space for someone to share their story, when we feed those who come to the food pantry, and through the day school. Through the centuries, the church has abused its power and caused great devastation through the inquisition, the Salem witch trials, justifying slavery, and more recently the sex abuse scandals. Many people have been wounded or rejected by the church and the church has often justified that saying they are acting on God’s behalf. Power can be a source of healing or hurt – in ways that are both small and widespread. We are called to be aware of the power that we hold and to use it in ways that enable healing.

The church has huge potential to be a vessel of God’s healing for the world, but too often, it misses the call to boldly step out as a channel of hope. I know how easy it is to get caught up in the everyday stuff and miss the larger opportunity to transform the world. I’m not saying we should ignore the everyday details…sometimes those simple moments are the place where we are most aware of God. I just know my tendency to get stuck in my calendar rather than looking up at the bigger picture. Perhaps you know what I mean. I see that in committees when we are so eager to check things off our agenda, that we may miss some greater sign of God in our midst. From time to time, I will stop a meeting and ask people to simply listen to what is happening. Perhaps this can be a form of corporate humility…taking stock of who we are in any given moment. Perhaps God is waiting for the pause to appear and show us the next step.

It seems that this interim time is pregnant with moments like that. We are not expected to know everything, but we are expected to be open so that we can follow the Spirit’s lead. Somehow this interim time is calling us to humility and asking us to rely on God in new ways. It is also asking us to claim our power to be God’s people now. We aren’t passively waiting for a priest in charge or a new rector to arrive so that we can start being St. Michael’s. We are living into it each day and I am excited to see where the Spirit is taking us.

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Thanksgiving, Year C            St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church
Deuteronomy 26:  1-11        Albuquerque, NM
Philippians 4:  4-9            November 24, 2010

Remembering God’s Goodness; Re-membering God’s People
A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch

It is so good to be here in this place on the eve of Thanksgiving. Gathered together singing  God’s blessing.  Giving thanks together.  So good to be hearing the old stories of God’s goodness—in fat times and in lean.  It’s so good to be here with you tonight.

We gather here tonight, you and I, with so much pressing on our minds—lists of things yet to do, lists of things left undone, memories of Thanksgivings past,  hopes for Thanksgivings to come, expectations about tomorrow.  I imagine some of us approach Thanksgiving Day filled with joyful anticipation as we remember the warm glow of Thanksgivings past; I imagine some of us come to the day with a measure of dread or resignation or even fear—determined just to get through the meal and get on our way.  There are so many different takes on the day.   And so much work that goes into it.

Sometimes you just need to press the pause button.  This is one of those moments.  Time to pause.  Time to take a deep breath.  Time to breathe in the goodness of God.  Time to linger in the memories of God’s grace at work in our lives.

After all, Thanksgiving is a day for remembering.  A day for telling and retelling the old family stories. A day for remembering quirks and healed hurts and the hurts that have yet to heal. A day for remembering and giving thanks for those who are no longer at the table.  A day for remembering God’s goodness in our lives.  

Yet for most of us Thanksgiving is not a private, individual meditative kind of a day.  It’s not a day of silent prayer.  How could it be?  It begins with a parade and ends with a game.  Thanksgiving is a communal feast.   A day of remembering in community.  The kind of remembering that leads to re-membering, re-forming community.   The glue of community—shared story, shared meal, shared laughter, and shared tears are all part of the day. Re-membering—it’s at the heart of Thanksgiving.

Remembering and re-membering are at the core of the scripture we hear today.  The Deuteronomist draws people’s attention to their past—to Abraham, their ancient forebearer, receiving an outlandish promise from God; to their ancestor Jacob, the wandering Aramean; to the good times and the harsh times in Egypt; and to the time in the Wilderness.  Through it all we see signs of God’s faithfulness to God’s promise and God’s people.   

But listen closely to this remembering.  The milk and honey part does not come until the end.  Remembering at it’s best embraces the pain along side the joy.  The light of God’s goodness shines most brightly against the darkness in our lives.  The darkness is there lurking in the background of this story the Deuteronomist tells.  It’s there in the despair of a childless couple long past child-bearing age; there in the ache of husband for his wife and a father for his favorite son; there in the hunger and thirst and bickering and faithlessness that serve as a backdrop for God’s signs and wonders in the Wilderness.  It’s in the despair, the ache, the hunger and the thirst that we encounter signs of God’s goodness and are reminded of God’s faithfulness.  

This is a truth that those Pilgrims understood on that first Feast of Thanksgiving in December  1621.  That was a feast celebrated not in a time of plenty but in a time of scarcity.  Only one of their three crops produced any fruit worth harvesting and not nearly enough to sustain a community over the winter ahead.  As they looked around the table, the people gathered could not help but count the losses—half their community dead.  And yet in the midst of all of that, those Pilgrims remembered the gifts of God and gave thanks for God’s goodness.  

Perhaps in getting there they followed Paul’s advice:  ‘Whatever is true, what ever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” I like to believe that in the midst of their fear, in the midst of their grief, they looked for the true, the honorable, the just and the pure and in so doing they found the hand of God.  I suspect that in their remembering, they re-membered their community.  

Re-membering—it’s at the heart of our Thanksgiving feast as well.  Remember and re-member—that’s what we do as we gather at this table.  As we remember Jesus at table with his friends—the lost and the lonely, the hapless and the hungry—we re-member  
the community gathered around the table.  We become a people forgiven, healed and renewed.  And as we do, we become the body of Christ sent forth to heal the wounds of those we meet in the world beyond the table.  

Shall we gather at the table?

St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church   
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sunday November 21, 2010 Christ the King
Text: Colossians 1: 11-20 / Luke 23: 33-43
Preacher: Christopher McLaren
Theme: Christ plays in 10,000 places

Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King - the last Sunday of the Church year. As we come to the end of our yearly cycle and begin to anticipate the coming of Mary’s child and child of God at Bethlehem, we are given an opportunity to consider the deep mystery of Christ in creation and the foolishness of the cross-shattered God.  

Many approach Christ the King Sunday with severe caution. There has simply been too much damage done, in the heady Triumphalism of Christianity throughout history. Too often Empire and conquest found a willing partner in the church baptizing their moral failings with a cocksure sense of God’s blessings on their greed, domination and violence. If celebrating Christ the King means the marriage of coercion and spirituality we would rather pass. We are not interested in a return to crusades and inquisitions or pogroms and genocides.

For women this feast carries with it the sexism of the Christian tradition. We are not so sure about this obviously male, hierarchical, patriarchal holy day.  Jesus was a sensitive guy, liked talking theology with women, and counted them among his disciples. This Jesus we can deal with but thrones and scepters and “yes my Lord” is a little much for democratic Christians, especially those who have suffered in a male dominated world with glass ceilings and much too elusive equality.

In Seminary my history professor playfully suggested that we were all monarchists at heart. I bristled at the idea. But, then again, what do we mean when we say, “Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Isn’t this an admission that there is a kind of king we’re willing to embrace? And isn’t it a way of saying that the kingdoms of this world are not what they are meant to me? Is this prayer in fact an overtly political prayer, calling down the ways of God in judgment upon our own flawed and failing systems? To pray “Your kingdom come,” is an invitation to see the world as God sees it, not just as it is. It is a way of saying that faith in Jesus is not just simply an idea or an emotion. It is a concrete reality in which we are invited to become part of, to participate in, if we are to become part of the adventure now that God has come into the world in Jesus.  

In our Epistle lesson today Paul wrote to the Christians living in cosmopolitan city of Colosse, a town in what is now modern day Turkey. Paul had never visited this faith community but he is writing to encourage them and to warn them. Paul is writing to counter something akin to Gnosticism in the church at Colosse. Gnosticism was an early theological challenge to Christianity, and for Paul theology was not an intellectual game but a matter of life and death because it had the power to shape the understanding of human life and destiny.

Gnosticism began with two basic assumptions about matter. First, it believed that spirit alone was good and that matter was essentially evil.  Second, it believed that matter was eternal and that the universe was not created out of nothing but rather out of this flawed matter. This way of thinking had several inevitable consequences.

If God was spirit, then he was altogether good and could not possibly work with this evil matter.  Therefore God was not the creator of the world.  God put out a series of emanations, each of which was a little more distant from God until at the end of the series there was an emanation so distant that it could handle matter; and it was this emanation that created the world.

Gnosticism had a significant effect on understanding the person of Jesus.  If matter was altogether evil and if Jesus was the Son of God, then Jesus could not have had a flesh and blood body.  This of course removed Jesus entirely from humanity and made it impossible for him to sympathize with suffering humanity or get anywhere close to them in a saving way.  Now lest you think that that Gnosticism is long gone, I want you to give you an example from my own Gnostic childhood. When I was a child I had a red-letter edition of the bible, where all of the words of Jesus were printed in red. This is a Gnostic idea, that somehow the words, the ideas of Jesus are more important than the actions of Jesus.  What Jesus does in his bodily life is just as important as what he says or teaches.

Ultimately Gnosticism was a highly intellectual way of life and thought. There exited this long chain of emanations between humans and God. Humans must fight their way up this long ladder to God and in order to do that one needed all kinds of secret knowledge and esoteric learning and hidden passwords, and clubhouse handshakes. Consequently the higher realms of spirituality were for an elite few.  This kind of theology was creating a kind of religious aristocracy in Colosse and threatening the hospitality and openness of the emerging church there. So Paul writes his letter to the Colossians. At the center of Paul’s letter encouraging the church at Colosse is a beautiful piece of Liturgical poetry that scholars believe to be an early baptismal hymn to Christ.

In college I had a philosophy professor that one day confessed that although he was an agnostic most of the time, when he sang the great Christian hymns in church he believed while he was singing. To which I responded, then you should sing more often.  Paul knew the power of music and he used it to carry his argument for understanding the saving work of Christ.  

“He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation:
For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.  (Col. 1:15-20)”

In the face of Gnosticism’s rejection of creation as evil, Christian theology proclaims that the “image of the invisible God” the one in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” is intimately involved with creation. This was and is radical theology, while both Jewish and Greek thinkers had ideas of Wisdom and the Logos as the instrument by which the world came into being and by which it was sustained, no philosopher ever thought of Wisdom or Logos as the goal of creation. But the apostle Paul articulates Christian theology in such a beautiful way that we realize that not only is Christ the King because everything has coming into being “through him” but that creation is also, “for him.” Creation not only belongs to God but also is God’s delight. God continues to be involved with the materiality of the world because he made if for himself.

One of the featured attractions of Gnosticism is that one no longer has to take seriously or to care about the material world, namely things or people. It leads to a strict divide between the spiritual and the material world, the sacred and the secular. If matter is indeed evil and God is spirit, then the whole of creation is devalued. All of a sudden one does not need to take seriously the care of the earth as our home because we are trying to escape it or see it as unrelated to the divine life. Thinking through a Gnostic lens means that the “spiritual needs” of humanity become more important than any physical needs as if the two are not connected. Thus it becomes possible to give a starving person a bible instead of a meal. Gnosticism enables one to push the material world, what you can touch, see, taste and smell into an inferior realm. If we consider our own history, following the Gnostic way the church would never have created hospitals, child labor laws would not have mattered, the abolition of slavery would never have animated our lives, women would not have been given the vote, we would not be trying to honor the bodies of or GLBT brothers and sisters. When you think about it our current conversation about healthcare has strong Gnostic overtones, as only some people’s bodies deserve care, only some bodies are important and worthy of healing.

Ultimately Gnostic theology offers a spirituality without the inconvenience of people we don’t like or who aren’t our kind or who are self-sufficient or don’t seem as enlightened as us. Thus Gnostic strains of spirituality exist almost everywhere. In fact no church is safe from its influence. It is much too easy to believe that having a church full of people just like you is the perfect mix, but Christian spirituality is a bit messier than that, a bit more inclusive, for the arms of Jesus’ are wide open to all of humankind.

But our ancient Christian hymn will have none of this distaste for humanity and materiality. Against the Gnostic assertion that Jesus was not truly flesh and blood, but only temporarily entered a human body to give us the inside story on God and initiate us into the secrets of the spiritual life, Paul uses the powerful phrase, “the first born from the dead” thus proclaiming the messiness of the incarnation, the real humanity of Christ, the word made flesh as God’s full and complete revelation of God himself. Christ is king not only because he has created all that is but because he is also the one who has entered his own creation and suffered in order to save it.  Christian life is not found in spiritual elitism in which only a precious few can obtain the necessary secret knowledge to escape the world. The Christian story is that because God so honored human flesh by entering into it, the spiritual path is to be found in the midst of the human condition and through its dark waters. The spiritual life is not found in trying to escape our humanity but by embracing life as a pilgrimage in the company of the saints and by following the way of Jesus.

For Paul the real proof that Christ is King of the Universe is seen in the everyday lives of those who love him and attempt in their faltering ways to follow the way of Jesus in the sacred ordinary. The only Christ the King anyone will ever see, is the reconciling community that Christ has begun in his followers. We are quite literally, my apologies to the Gnostics, the hands and feet of Jesus. The church, Christ’s body, is a community that is first and foremost a forgiven people, brought into right relationship with God. From this place of deep acceptance and love the people of God are able to demonstrate that the Kingdom has come near. Not in some overbearing hard to take, we’re always right kind of way but rather by shaping themselves into a cruciform people, facing their fears, seeking their own healing and making of themselves the shape of the cross in the way they live for and with each other.

For Paul this hymn is a song of praise for the crucified Christ. It is by the cross, through the self-giving love of Christ that humanity is salvaged and offered a new beginning. It is this mind-bending condescension of God, this wild idea that the maker of heaven and earth could die at the hands of flawed humanity that is the antidote to Gnosticism of any kind.

How is Christ the king?  In love, in forgiving, in showing mercy. How is Christ King? In teaching us to face our fears, to acknowledge our needs, and to accept the generous grace of God filling us up everyday if we are willing to empty ourselves. How is Christ king? In the unexpected way of a suffering servant, through humility not entitlement. Christ is enthroned, but not in kingly raiment with the accoutrements of power. Christ is enthroned in the everyday love and service of humanity. Christ the king is found among the wounded and the lost. Christ the king is standing in the unemployment line. Christ is king in the father struggling to control his anger with his children. Christ the king is in the businessman wrestling with being honest instead of making a killing. Christ the king is in the woman finding her strength to lead in a man’s world with compassion and vision and toughness. Christ the king is reigning everywhere, everywhere the human heart is willing to be filled by the abundance of his grace. Christ plays in 10,000 places.  

The fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Jesus of Nazareth that we too might know the fullness of God in our very lives, not as some fanciful idea but as the life-giving grace of relationship with God that can transform us into people whose lives are shaped by the cross, made cruciform by the stories and life and love of God in Christ. Christ is king when the love and sacrifice and self-giving of the cross invades your life and mine.

What does it mean to be a people of HOPE?

This morning’s gospel reading about the walls of the temple being leveled reminded me of the first time I had ever heard about this kind of doomsday message:  One summer morning in my mid school days, my friend Carolyn and I were sitting on the wall outside her house, trying to decide just what to do with our day, when two visitors approached us.  Inquiring if “the parents” were home, -- they were assured that they weren’t -- and so they decided to trust two girls with their “very important message.”

“We are finding rooms for our members,” they said, “who will gather in Albuquerque later this summer in order to prepare for the end of times and we would like to give you an opportunity to provide room and board for the five conference days here.”

Wide – eyed and a little overwhelmed with the news that we were to be preparing for the last days, Carolyn informed our visitors politely that they would be leaving shortly to spend the summer away at the lake and so their home wouldn’t be available.  She smiled sweetly, obviously relieved that using their home as a base for this ominous get together wouldn’t be possible.

To this turn down, one of the visitors responded.  “Oh that’s no problem - your family can turn over the keys for the house to us and great will be your reward when the end time comes.” Then the other visitor added this: “If we don’t find the necessary rooms we will surround the city and our trumpets will sound as in the days of Jericho and the walls of this city will fall down – and this will be a sign of what is to come”!!!!!!

The visitors then left and Carolyn and I giggled a bit at the thought of the walls falling down admitting to each other that what these “Witnesses” had said just didn’t sound right at all!  Fortunately for us, the humor of it saved us from falling into the fear and despair of what sounded terribly hopeless!

 – Jesus predicts that this temple was to be destroyed.  This temple that Josephus described as having its entire face and sides covered with massive plates of gold.  Imagine the outer walls of the Temple which were constructed with extremely large stones weighing 2-3 tons each.  The walls towered over Jerusalem, 400 feet in one area.  Inside the four walls were 45 acres of bedrock mountain -shaved flat – and during Jesus’ day a quarter of a million people could fit comfortably within the structure. It’s been said that “No sports structure in America today comes close”!!!

Jesus’ prediction that a structure so immense would be leveled to the ground seemed implausible.  But the listeners pressed Jesus for more information.  They wanted to know when this would happen.  What would be the sign that this was about to take place?  In their voice was fear -  fear of the unknown  -- fear that this structure in which they placed their hope and their security - might be taken away..

The first temple had lasted four hundred years until it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 Before the Common Era (BCE).  Jesus’ prediction that the Temple would be destroyed did actually come true in 70 of the Common Era (CE) when the Temple was destroyed by Rome?

So what message was Jesus trying to convey in this prediction?  A temple on 45 acres of bedrock mountain - shaved flat ----a temple that appeared so secure –leveled to the ground--
Perhaps this was the key to their fear – they were putting their hope, their sense of security in the wrong place!
Perhaps the message is: that the bedrock of  our HOPE is not in TEMPLES -- is not in SIGNS!  Rather the bedrock of our real HOPE – IS IN THE  LIVING CHRIST!!!!!!!

I have heard that there were those on the islands of Japan who gave up their new found Christian faith when the bombs of Hiroshima were dropped during the war.  They couldn’t find the hope of the gospel in the midst of the devastation.

In the 14th century, in the midst of the impact of the Black Death, the Plague that swept across Europe, much theological optimism was devastated in the Western and Christian world.

A man that I greatly respect, Bishop William Frey, has said that TRUE HOPE HAS THE POWER TO DIMINISH THE EFFECTS OF ADVERSITY.

In the INFERNO, Dante tells us that the sign above the gates of hell says, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”
    ABANDON HOPE – can anyone here today remember a time when they were at     least tempted to abandon hope?  
    TO GIVE UP -  TO forget Paul’s reminder:  “to rejoice in hope, to be patient in     suffering, and to persevere in prayer. (Romans 12:12

Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us and take it seriously so that it can grow and become stronger in all of us.

Christian community is the place where we can live into the Gospel Message which is grounded in HOPE -- a place where we can live with courage, trusting that there is a spiritual power within us when we are together -that allows us to live in this world without surrendering to the powerful forces constantly seducing us toward despair.

And as Father Christopher reminded me this week:  “the idea of Hope allows us to live into a future where we can see God’s triumph and the tearing down of that which impoverishes humanity, in the form of greed, the abuse of power, the hoarding of resources, and the inequity of care and education.  HOPE for the Christian is a practice, something that we all need to cultivate and live into!   

I think that we are being invited this day to take a fresh look at what it means to BE A PEOPLE OF HOPE  -- A PEOPLE OF HOPE REGARDLESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!!!!

What would it mean to take a fresh look at the GOSPEL OF HOPE through a different lens ---- from a fresh perspective.  Are we willing to have a fresh encounter with the LIVING GOD?

Miller Williams, a young assistant curator at the Hermitage in Leningrad (now known as St. Petersburg), tells this story about a group of people who saw through a different lens.

They knew the Germans would come and so they had boxes precisely built to every size of canvas in that great art museum, the Hermitage,.  The boxes were then sent from Leningrad in less than a week and stored somewhere in southern Russia.

But they left the frames hanging, so that after the war it would be a simple thing to put the paintings right back where they belonged.

Each day the staff stayed on to clean the rubble after the daily bombardments which lasted nine hundred days.  Much of roof was lost and snow would lie at times a foot deep on the floor, but the walls stood firm and hardly a frame fell.

Then one dark December morning, Miller Williams tells, three young soldiers were seen waiting outside, pacing and swinging their arms against the cold.  They were from far away they explained, but all had dreamed of one day coming to Leningrad to see the Hermitage.  Now they were here to defend the city and couldn’t believe their good fortune.

Sadly the young soldiers were told that there was nothing to see but hundreds and hundreds of frames, hanging where the paintings had hung.

“Please sir,” one of then said, “let us see them.”

And so they were led around to most of the major rooms, allowing them to take their time as the staff tried to tell them part of what they would see if they could view the paintings.

The next day a dozen more waited to see the “frames” and then more and more visitors came as the staff pointed to even more details as the days passed – and so it came to be called the “UNSEEN COLLECTION.”

Miller Williams ventured to say that before the war the staff didn’t pay much attention to what they were telling.  In fact, he says, it probably sounded more like a memorized speech and they weren’t even looking at the very paintings they were describing.

Then something else began to happen.  Blind people began to come.  They listened, cocking their heads - and they even seemed to shift their eyes, those that had them, so that they could better see what was being described for them.

After the siege was over, and the Germans left and the roof was fixed, and the paintings were back in their places, the blind never came again. “It might seem strange,” says the young curator, “but what I think is that they couldn’t any longer SEE the paintings.  They might have listened, but then the lectures had become rather matter of fact again.”  There was no passion or life in the stories.  The lens had become dull once more..

It is in choosing to hope that something happens for us that is far beyond our own imaginings.  It is in giving up the control over our future and letting God define our lives   that we are able to allow” the God of HOPE to fill us with all joy and peace in believing.  …So that We can abound in HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  (Romans 15:13)

Let us not be negligent “in holding fast to the confession of our hope without wavering” because  WE ARE A PEOPLE OF HOPE – A RESURRECTION PEOPLE. Like the Unseen Collection we know that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  Christian hopes should include the ability -- an interior ability to laugh, perhaps even to  giggle at what looks so insurmountable, so devastating that only the power, love, and tenancity of God can overcome it  ---   to see those moments as something to smile about, or to giggle about because after all:  THE END OF TIME IS ALL IN GOD’S HANDS.                                               
AMEN