Rev Rock Hill

Advent: Your invitation to be a part of God's generosity

2011-11-27T17:47:00.000-08:00

1 Advent, Sunday, November 27, 2011
Preached by The Rev. Mary Catherine Young
Chaplain for Campus Ministry, Canterbury Downtown
Diocese of New York

Which would you prefer? A store-bought cookie, made by "elves," or something hand-made by someone you know, and who knows you? (Well, maybe your answer depends on who baked those cookies...) but still, there is nothing like a homemade cookie made with intention for another's enjoyment,
brought, fresh from the oven, and warm in your belly.
When the urge hits me, I love to make cookies.
The preparation for this activity begins with the inspiration, the desire to create something good, for me to enjoy, and to share: what kind of cookies shall I make? Who are they made for? How many will a batch yield?

I then gather the proper ingredients, get out the my bowls (my favorite multicolor Pyrex mixing bowls, of course), measure out the amounts of flower, sugar and vanilla extract, crack the eggs, melt the butter, grease the cookie sheets, and most importantly, call forth some good old elbow grease. Once everything has been mixed together in its proper order, its time to separate out the serving sizes - will they be small bite-size, or human head sized cookies? (Each has their benefit). Then they must be placed in the oven to bake. Time goes by, the timer dings, the trays are removed, and the cookies need to be placed on a cooling rack for at least a few moments, because tasting one too quickly out of the oven can mean a burned mouth, ruining the ability to enjoy another taste! And of course, a cold glass of milk has to be poured to accompany the special delivery to the mouth.

That's where the real payoff is - receiving the delicious joyful mouth full of freshly made cookie goodness, and handing them over to those you made them for - to share the joy with them. After all, I've never known a batch of cookies to be in an number sized just for one - in fact, my experience of baking cookies is always an abundance, that just seems to keep on giving.

Now there are all kinds of easy ways to get a cookie into your mouth - especially in this city filled with pastry shops, cupcake carts and of course, grocery stores with good ol' Oreos. But the satisfaction of taking the time to prepare something for yourself, and for someone else, the mixing and the batter tasting, the preheating of the oven and waiting for the right time to pass before pulling the tray out, the taste of that classic, love imbedded treat when it melts in your mouth...there's so much more to that, than to the experience of buying a box of cookies, opening the package, and having one on the street. There is purpose that pays off immensely, when we allow ourselves to experience something over the course of time, like the season of Advent.

Today we enter together, a new year in the church calendar. In our faith tradition its is not Christmas where the story begins, though it is a story of new birth, but as with the story of creation, there is always a story that comes before... The season of Advent is about what came before. Who was there? How do their stories impact our identity? What must we learn from them, so that we do not make the same mistakes? It's a time of journey toward, not only the cresch of the Christ child, but toward the in-breaking of God into human history in a way that surprised and so rewarded us with the gift of God's grace, God's abundant love, God's renewed covenant of his call to his people to know him... So many gifts, in fact, that we celebrate that story with an event rooted in generosity - the season of Christmas that is the reward at the end of the Advent journey -- that is the cookie that comes after the inspiration, the preparation, the waiting and the moment of joy at its fruition.

But ,remember the Christmas we have noted, comes at the end of Advent, it comes after a season of preparation, of getting ourselves, our families, our homes, our hearts, our lives ready of the in-breaking of Christ. In the Gospel today, we receive a glimpse of apocalyptic storytelling - from Mark we hear Jesus, speaking of preparedness for the end times - the time when the Lord will break into our human story once again, the time when judgement will come, the judgement described in last week's Gospel, the separation of the sheep from the goats, the judgment of how we spent our lives, our hearts, our generosity on those whom Jesus called his sheep, his children, himself as the one in need being served.

In this week's Gospel, we hear the instruction - keep alert, keep awake, for you do not know when the master will return and truly we continue to be on call, on the line, on watch for that moment, and in the meantime we are about the business of being God's people in the world.

This Advent, this season of preparation, I call on you to consider how you are preparing for the feast of thanksgiving and celebration of Christ's entry into the world. How will your celebration honor and reflect the gifts that God has given us? The gifts of grace, love, healing, hope, reconciliation, resurrection? Will your time be sent waiting in line to get the best price on a new digital camera, or will you consider new ways to reflect the generosity you are capable of? Will you find the opportunity to give thanks to those you care the most about in a way that is meaningful, hope-filled, and allows you to see Christ in others, and other to see Christ in you? Or will you say it with a gift card?

The season of Advent is not a stressful countdown to the great disappointment that your tight budget and empty wallet has to offer to you, but a reminder to walk toward the gift of Christ's presence in the world, with humility, honor, hope, love, and a desire to be a part of making God's gifts of peace and reconciliation possible in this world, today. The season of Advent puts us in the practice of bringing together the elements that, when stirred together in a bowl, placed in the oven and allowed to bake and to become, ultimately results in a creation we too played a hand in, and is much more satisfying than the one that can be bought in a store.

Let this Advent slow you down, allow you to consider how you want to be a part of God's generosity, and set your gaze beyond the relief of December 26, and toward the invitation to be awake and ready for God's next in-breaking into our story. Amen.

Proper 23, Year C, RCL

2010-10-11T05:32:00.000-07:00

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Psalm 66:1-11
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19

Diseased. Outcast. There is something terribly wrong with them. So wrong that they may not be in community with everyone else. Their only refuge? The mercy, alms, and cast-offs of passersby who take pity on their pathetic lot in life.

They groan and sigh, and hunger, and wait, together. They are isolated from the ability to support themselves and their family, from the ability to worship in the temple, from the opportunity to eat the food they desire – available only in places they may not go. They are victims of their own society’s prejudice against them, and they have no recourse.

Though the nuances are subtly different, the same experience of isolation from community exists in our contemporary context. Children and high school students struggle with social labels that result in extreme bullying. Young adults experience it as they transition from the educational environment into the work force. Single adults face it as they intermingle in coupled social circles. Family bread winners struggle with it when employment status changes and the implications of an unplanned early retirement or a job search at a later stage in life than expected. Family members experience this as they or a loved one faces a major health issue limiting energy, and opportunity for social interaction.

At some point everyone feels the impact of isolation, of separation from the “pack.” Everyone feels alone in their struggle and their own pain. At some point everyone thinks, “You don’t know how I feel.” Many of us grow in the experience of coping with the pain, and manage to not only survive, but even let go of or escape the things that cause the pain. Some, however, experience this isolation to the point of no return – with no hope for what lies beyond the struggle of today, having no skills, or adequate coping methods, they shut down entirely – completing their isolation, and the opportunity for recovery, giving up on the possibility of healing. Lately we have been surrounded by stories of the loss of life resulting from this kind of personal isolation, exacerbated by stories of intentional targeting of those in pain.

I’m speaking to you of course about the number of young people who have taken their own lives as a final resort to escape the constant pain caused by the bullying of their peers regarding their perceived (whether claimed or not) sexual orientation. These young people, were scared, struggling, targeted, abused, and in need of community -- just like all of us. Just like the lepers Jesus saw as he walked toward Jerusalem.

Jesus saw the need, a need that was apparent to anyone who walked by these lepers every single day. He saw their isolation, their affliction, he saw their need and he responded to it. He didn’t ignore it. He didn’t walk by. He didn’t leave it to someone else. He put an end to their isolation by healing that which separated them out from the community that rejected them. And he sent them on their way to receive permission to return to society.

The isolation that we are familiar with, that we struggle with ourselves, or that is taking place in the world around us is not always so obvious, nor is the gap between hurt and healing so easily bridged. We can’t wave our hands and make that which separates us from one another disappear. But there are some things we can do. There are some steps we can take. There are some bridges we can build, together, over time.

We can start by begin honest with one another. There are things we do not agree on. There are thoughtful reasons on every side of every issue, and we simply do not, and cannot and will not always agree on everything.
But it is not adequate to avoid the conversation. We have to talk about it. We have to be willing to face the things that are hurting us together. Violence hurts us. Violence that is committed in word and deed – in things done, and things left undone. When a child is tormented day in and day out – it hurts us. When a child feels that it is okay to torment another day in and day out – they do this because they learned it somewhere. It is not adequate to say children are cruel. Adults are cruel. Adults constantly criticize and attack and communicate with violent words and actions shouting over blue lines and red lines, shouting from pulpits, and press conferences. Where do children learn these attitudes and behaviors that belittle and dehumanize and demean? They learn it from us. They learn it from they way we talk at our dinner tables and in public forums about those who are other – those who are not worthy, those who have something so wrong with them they should be cast out, and left alone to die of the disease they are afflicted with.

My job here is to preach the Gospel. To point to the hope that we share in the resurrection of Jesus Christ – that what he taught, and called on us to live by and to pass on were the deepest truths about how we might come to know God, and to know his love for us. One thing I know for certain – the Jesus we receive through the Gospel believed in community. Believed that no one should be left out of community. Believed there should be none who are outcast

We are not called to agree with one another. We are called to be in community with one another. To allow ourselves to learn from one another. To listen to one another and to speak honestly with one another. We must look at that which ails us, and we must respond. What ails us today is not the fact that there are people in the world who identify themselves as Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/and Transgendered. What ails us is the fact that to admit, with vulnerability, this truth in the world is to place a target on ones head. What harms us, is not just the horror of the violence that is being done through verbal assault, physical abuse, and much worse, but the fact that there are people who are so desperately in need of something that they resort to these deathly measures. What they need – what they all need – those being harmed, and those committing the acts of violence – is community – a place where they belong, where they are heard, and where they have the opportunity to learn from those around them.

We live in a complex time and a complex place. There are so many different experiences and values and stories and teachings that shape who we are as individuals. In the Gospel this morning 10 people afflicted with disease are healed. The term leper here is a general term, one that does not necessarily refer only to a person with leprosy. 10 suffered from something, possibly 10 different ailments. And 10 were healed, and quite possibly responded with 10 different responses – only one of which was to turn and give thanks and praise to God. But it didn’t matter. Each was seen, each was in need, and each was healed, regardless of how they responded. Each was given the gift of being returned to community.

On this day, in the wake of the pain and suffering that has been inflicted on us, and on those who are so isolated, violence against themselves and this world is their only cause of action – let us pray, let us see, and let us respond to those in need of healing.

Don’t move on. Don’t ignore. Face one another. Listen. Learn. And may our faith, in the Lord Jesus Christ make us well. Amen.

Delivered Sunday, October 10, 2011
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour

5 Easter, Year C, RCL

2010-05-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35

Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

It’s been a while since I’ve been here in the pulpit on a Sunday morning! There have been Cinnamon Roll breakfasts with Youth Mission Sundays, Holy Week events, a trip to Washington D.C. with our Senior High Youth Group, and most recently I have returned from a Jr. High Spring Retreat called New Beginnings: an event that gathers youth leaders and participants from around the diocese for a weekend of conversation about Jesus, about where and how their faith life is practiced in their day-to-day life, and how they might show and share the gifts of faith, hope and love with their friends and family.

New Beginnings is a place where young people age 11-14 are challenged to take a fresh look at the things they have learned as children and think about them in a new way – the way that an adolescent ought to explore them – with questions, with curiosity, with friends, with songs, with the voices of fellow young people who are also asking questions, and naming convictions of the truth that Jesus is the Lord of Love, the Prince of Peace.

When you think about spending time with 90 Middle School aged youth – you probably think of gawky bodies, boys yeh high and girls yeh high, gossip and drama, gross jokes and grosser smells. Add in a fairly rainy weekend this time around, and my guess is you wouldn’t be looking forward to it.

But the thing that is amazing to me about these youth events, and it happens every time – the young people who lead them are motivated by the positive experience they have had in that place before, and they want share that with the young people who are gathered, this time around. And those youth leaders, in their words, and actions, express that love in their small groups, in the skits they put on, in the talks they give, and in the way that during the Saturday night talent show where everyone cheers and cheers for every single person or group that is willing to stand before the community and offer their talent, their vulnerable self, really, to the community. They cheered equally for an air band as they did for an ensemble of musicians who put together an impromptu performance incorporating clarinets, box drums, guitars, violin and saxophone. They cheered for the young man who sang along to a popular radio song and for another young man who was so nervous he could barely get his impression of Darth Vadar out – that’s right: “Luke, I am your father,” is apparently a talent 

The thing that these Middle School Youth model, and do so well, so much better than adults is that same pronouncement that Jesus made to his disciples in our Gospel text this morning.

Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Middle schoolers who are going through so many changes, physically, emotionally, socially, young people who are anxious about the adolescent community – will they accept me? Will I have a place to sit at lunch tomorrow? Will I ever get to the illustrious goal of being a teenager and the ultimate freedom – a driver’s license? For one weekend, these young people who are in the midst of so much change and inner and social turmoil, come to a place where everyone is welcomed like an old friend. A place where everyone is invited to share what they are thinking in their own words. A place where the joys and the struggles of being a Christian, whether a baby baptized or someone new to the whole church thing – all of this is shared, is honored, is recognized as having value, and is made clear that we would not have been whole without their presence with us.

Just imagine if every time you came to your church community – you had that feeling. The feeling of being a place where you were valued, not because of your paycheck, or your home value, or your activity as a citizen, but simply because we would not be whole without you being here.

Jesus was no fool. We human beings come in as many varieties of personality, culture, flavor, style as there are stars in the universe. We are bound to disagree. We are bound to have struggles with one another – and sadly we sometimes allow those struggles to lead us to build walls around ourselves, to work very hard to separate us from them – to be a people that sanctify our identity over our communal life – we are American individualists, after all, we enjoy the gift of the freedom of self expression. Jesus knew that his disciples would not always be on the same page, they would not always agree, they would not always desire to work together, to listen to one another… But, he makes it very clear, that at the root of our relationship with Christ, and therefore our relationship with one another must always be love. Not fear. Not walls. Not personal gain. But love. Love for one another that attempts to reflect the slightest glimmer of the brilliant spotlight that is God’s love for us.

At New Beginnings the way that we show this to one another is with a special little something called a Warm Fuzzy. A Warm Fuzzy is a symbol of the love that belongs to each one of us as a result of God’s love for us. It is made to be given away. Without being given away it becomes cold and shrivels up and turns into a cold prickly, as the story goes. At the closing Eucharist of New Beginnings, youth turn to one another and offer a warm fuzzy saying this is a warm fuzzy and it means I love you. They don’t just offer one to the person on their left or right. They move about passing fuzzies and hugs to people they have met, gotten to know, and have learned they are free to share in the love that has been shown to them and that they too want to pass on.

As our community attempts to follow the command that Jesus gave his disciples, love one another as I have loved you, may we be followers of the example shown to us by our youth. May we welcome one another, and welcome the stranger. May we seek to listen to one another, honoring our differences. May we be so drawn to the center of Christ’s love that we seek others with whom to share that love, with all our hearts, and hugs, and warm fuzzies. Amen.

Delivered: Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC

Proper 27, Year B, RCL

2009-11-10T13:52:00.001-08:00

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Cat Young
November 8, 2009
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44

Before I begin, let me share with you a quick story about how this little item came into my possession. During my seminary days I lived right next to Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One night, while on a walk with a friend we were standing on a street corner talking about NPR’s show Car Talk (Cah Tawlk). A man overheard us and mentioned that the studio they broadcast from was across the hall from his business, along with the law offices of “Dewey, Cheatem and Howe.” My companion and I laughed and accepted his invitation to come up and see the doors to the studio.
As we walked up the stairs he asked us about ourselves. When he heard that I was a seminarian he said, “I’d like to give you something.” The man shared with us that he was Jewish and his business was dealing in rare coins and collectibles. He gave me this little square coin holder which holds a “Widow’s Mite,” a small copper coin dated from the time of Herodias Antipas, and thus the kind of coin like the one’s spoken of in our Gospel story this morning. He wanted me to have it, and though I tried to refuse, his gift of kindness to me was of greater value him than the coin itself. It was a friendly gesture – and one that cost him very little, but showed his genuine desire for the coin to serve a purpose of goodness in my future work. And that is how this widow’s mite came into my possession.
To see it, is to see what nothing looks like. The insignificance of a coin such as the one the widow gave is obvious when you have it in your hand. Less than a penny was the value, and yet to a woman of her time and place, a woman who had no regular means of income, no one’s protection, no one to fend for her in the world, this little nothing was literally everything.
The faith she invested in this coin, and the way that she used it is commendable. She knew that giving to the temple was a means of participating in the relationship she had with God – participating in the ritual, not only with her prayers, but with what little she had in her pockets.
The tragedy here is that as Jesus watched her do this, he lamented that her giving was to a corrupt house that would not return the care to her that she so desperately needed. He saw the giving of her heart, and yet wept at the injustice that she would not properly be cared for in the way she deserved. Jesus pointed to a flawed system that allowed its most vulnerable member give all that she had in the name of God. He knew that she would not reap the benefits of the care that she deserved after literally giving her life away with a contribution that was worth practically nothing. But it was hers to give, and she gave it willingly.
The converse image is shown to us as well; that of the boasting, flashy, prideful giver – a leader in the synagogue, well dressed, well statured, and making it well known that their giving was worthy of notice. And yet, despite the monetary value of the giving of the rich, that which is given out of arrogance is less valuable than the gift of the widow’s mite.
When considering what we have to offer, what we can afford to give, and who we should share our resources and financial gifts with, the question: “How much is enough?” is often posed. We live in tough economic times. Pensions that were invested in the stock-market have been reduced. Job security is questionable on a day-to-day basis in some fields. College educations are to be funded, mortgage payments to be kept up, and health expenses to be paid or prepared for. Everyone is at risk. Everyone is vulnerable. And despite the fine clothing, and the privilege of climate-controlled home environments, we all feel as though we have more in common with the widow than the scribe described in the story. “Enough” is a question that comes out of a place of scarcity, a place of fear. What is the acceptable offering? What can I do to fulfill my obligation and be done with it?
“Enough” does not encompass the abundant gift of giving with love. Truly, the greatest difference between the widow and scribe is the fact that what she gave was not only a monetary gift, but one of faith, a gift of the heart. Her own well-being, her own necessity for simple things were not at stake – because for her, she was giving her love.
The same was true of the man who gave me the gift of the widow’s mite. Surely some monetary value is attached to this tiny little piece of nothing, certainly more now than when it was currency in its own time and place. But the value of sharing a conversation with others on a lonely night, the value of knowing that this would be put to use by someone to whom it did matter, the value of doing a Mitzvah, or a simple act of human kindness was worth more to this man in the simple act of giving it away than any cash value he might receive upon achieving a bill of sale.
As you open yourself to the season of discernment that is inevitable at this time in the church year – the time of contemplating how your gifts, how your time, how your talent might be given to participate in the needs of others, the needs of this community and the needs of the world, I remind you of the importance of allowing your heart to enter the process. What and how you give of yourself does not rely on the question of “how much is enough.” Because when your heart is in it, the abundance and generosity of the spirit within you allows you to do amazing things.
Certainly there are the real life, hard numbers that need to happen in terms of the upkeep and maintenance of the building where we gather – but our life together, our community of care for one another, the sense of commitment to one another that makes us want to give a helping hand in the garden, to volunteer with the youth activities, to host a family of promise dinner, to be in conversation through Sunday school classes, and to face the needs of the poor who are not only just outside our doors, but in our Garth, and in our parish hall, and in the presence of our community, these are the ways that this building calls our hearts and hands and our financial resources in to action – into the business of building the kingdom of God right here, and right now. These things are priceless.
Just as Christ’s giving of himself for us, even to the point of death on the cross… his gift for the world was of a value that meant nothing to him – he was God – he could die a thousand times and it would not mean anything because of the power he possessed to overcome death. And yet, the gift that it was for us, the gift of the promise of eternal life, the gift of redemption from our sins, that no matter who we are or how we struggle with this life, there is a love and forgiveness and resurrection that belongs to us through Jesus Christ, that gift to us is priceless. How much is enough? Is this the community where you choose to invest yourself, where you invest your children and families, where you give your heart away to those who, without you would not be cared for? If you give your whole heart, then you’ve just begun. For “where your heart is, there will your treasure be also.” (Matthew 6:21 author paraphrase) Amen.

Proper 23, Year B, RCL

2009-11-10T13:39:00.001-08:00

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Psalm 90:12-17
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31

The Bible is a funny thing. Though we receive it in our contemporary context as one volume that can easily be accessed, carried around, handled like any other book, we often overlook the fact that rather than it being one book, it is a library of texts. A collection of over 70 history books, letters, gospels, wisdom sayings, songs, poems, law references and stories written by as many or more authors, not to mention editors, redactors, translators, and the number of hands that adjusted, corrected and enhanced the words delivered to us, collected and formatted into one cozy little volume.

In other words, the writings that we listen to, the words we remind ourselves of, the saying and stories that we hear when we gather as a community to learn together, have come a long way to get into our hands, and to be heard by our ears.

William Tyndale, a determined protestant reformer and minister of the 16th Century made it the focus of his life to ensure that English speaking Christians gained access to the privilege of hearing scripture spoken in their language. His work to directly translate the Old and New Testaments from their Hebrew and Greek written forms were directly opposed by authorities of Roman Catholicism and the Royal Court. His commitment to this cause allowed him to be responsible for writing almost 90% of the King James Version of the Bible. Tyndale is attributed with coining the phrases: “let there be light,” “my brother’s keeper,” “salt of the earth,” and “fight the good fight” to name a few. This week we remembered William Tyndale on October 6, the anniversary of his death nearly 500 years ago.

There is no record of why Tyndale was so committed to translating scripture – but it is clear from his life’s story that he would not rest, and did not allow the danger of this business to keep him from accomplishing this task, even though it cost him his life. Perhaps he was a poetic writer and enjoyed the challenge. Perhaps he was a lover of the church and of the Word, and recognized the challenge and the promise that lay within the texts he devoted his life to. Perhaps he simply believed that the message found in scripture again and again that the law of love is truly the greatest commandment should be spoken to men and women on the street in their own language, so that those who needed to hear that message most could do so and understand immediately.

Regardless of his motivations, William Tyndale’s work grants us access to the wisdom and the challenge that lies in our scripture readings each week. And it is our duty as faithful bearers of this library to take on the challenging task of wrestling with scripture – in our own lives and in our life as a community.

In seminary I had the opportunity to take a scripture course titled: Texts of Terror, named for a book of the same title that explores some of the hardest passages of the Bible. Stories of misogyny, of unjustifiable violence, of wrathful vengeance, and of Biblical teachings that may be difficult to consider, all that exist within the canon of the texts we hold sacred. So sacred in fact, that at the ordination of deacons, priests and the consecration of bishops, ordinands not only vow to devote themselves to the study of scripture, but also sign a commitment that states that we believe all things necessary for salvation are contained in holy scripture. When it came time for me to preach in that class, today’s Gospel was my chosen “text of terror.”

As a person who has benefitted from privileges being a middle class Caucasian raised in the Western world, I have had good reason to fear and disparage at the hearing of this text. After all, like the rich man, I have followed the commandments, I have committed myself to a faith life and practice that is devoted to proclaiming Jesus as my savior, and I too, have many possessions. Isn’t my faith enough? Isn’t my desire to follow enough? Isn’t it my right that I should enjoy the earnings that I have worked hard for, that I have given time and talent to produce, and thus collect my rightful compensation, and enjoy life in the here and now? Does the question sound familiar?

And yet here we have a Gospel text that says, not so fast.

You may lead a life that is good and righteous. You may not waste your sins on murder and slander. But if your own piety is solely devoted to the perfection of your own soul, if your desire to fulfill your own need to be faultless allows you ignore the obvious needs of those around you, then you have missed the point completely.

The rich man seeks to possess something he cannot buy – eternal life. Jesus looks with compassion upon the rich man. But he also speaks a hard truth to him. Those commandments that you live by, you do with ease. For you are in a position that allows you rise above those challenges. Your wealth allows a freedom and a privilege in the way you live your life that is only known to a small fraction of the community in which you live. And yet, that wealth is not a means of grace. It is not a means of receiving the immeasurable gift of the assurance of God’s love for you for all time. In fact, if that material wealth is what provides your only sense of self-value and your only means of judging your position in the world, then it will actually hinder you from the ability to receive the grace of God. If you wish to follow me, if you wish to uphold my teaching, then you should not allow yourself to be bound by your belongings. To be possessed by your possessions. Let them go, and let yourself understand what it is to live like those who live only by the grace of God and by the kindness of their community. When you are ready to do this, you will be in a position to understand and receive eternal life.

The rich man was discouraged by this, and rightfully so. After all, sacrifice is not about giving offerings that mean nothing to you. There is no challenge in that. The challenge for the wealthy is the opportunity to let go of some privilege, some of the freedom that wealth provides, so that others might benefit from it – those who would have no way of experiencing certain freedoms, like the living without fear of the next medical bill that will arrive in the mail, or the inability to cover the cost to educate your child so that they might have opportunities that you did not. I wonder if the rich young man was being challenged to experience the world in a new way, so that he might gain a deeper understanding of the capacity of kindness he could offer his community as a result of his position of wealth.

I wonder if he didn’t leave Jesus’ side and consider how he might change the way he used his riches in the world around him. I wonder if he allowed Jesus’ words to enter in – or if it was similar to the difficulty of allowing a camel through the eye of a needle.

It’s a funny thing scripture, there is not just one mention of a rich young man. There are other stories in the old and new testament of rich men using their wealth unjustly – to seek power over others, to allow their privilege to supersede that of poor men under their care – to take unfair advantage of the position of power that their wealth granted them in the here and now. And there are wisdom sayings and psalms, warning the rich man to make right choices with their treasure, for despite their power and privilege today, they will perish and those riches will not travel with them. This is not a new message, but it is a challenge that scripture poses to us today.

In our contemporary context, most of us live in relative comfort, some more than others, but generally speaking, we live with the security of income, comfortable housing, and access to discretionary spending – that is, income that does not go to providing food, shelter and basic necessities. How we, as wielders of discretionary spending choose to use our wealth – where we choose to live and the lifestyle we choose to pursue all play into this challenge posed by Jesus.
How will you allow these words of scripture, this challenging story of Jesus and the rich young man to enter in as you consider the wealth, and its power and privilege that is at your fingertips? Does this story pose itself as a text of terror for you? Do you find yourself wondering how a camel makes its way through the eye of a needle?

As we give thanks for the access that we have for scripture in our lives, we must also take up the challenges it poses. We must also accept the responsibility that we have received as hearers of the word – as ones who wish to follow, but must do so with the burden of wealth and privilege that our contemporary society provides.

When last I preached on this text I was weighed down by many possessions. Things that surrounded me, but had little purpose, nor provided insight into the life I was being called to lead. Many things have changed for me, and though many of those possessions are gone, there are new ones that have found their way into my life and my home. With each return to this piece of scripture I must take up for myself the question that Jesus has for the rich young man. Upon hearing it today, I am reminded that Jesus loved the man, and then challenged him again. I call on you to know that Jesus loves you, and challenges you to consider these things today as well.

For Jesus said,
"Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life…” Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Young
October 11, 2009
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour

"Hunger is here too..."

2009-09-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Proper 18, Year B, RCL

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Psalm 125
James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17
Mark 7:24-37

On Wednesday night, a member of our Senior High Youth group and I were standing on the sidewalk outside the doors of our church. It was getting late in the evening and we were waiting for a ride from a parent. While there, we were approached by a woman who obviously needed some help. She was poorly dressed, and half mumbled to herself as she addressed us, asking for some food. She was hungry, and as she was speaking to us, she was saying, please Jesus, asking for something to eat, some sort of assistance. It was one of those moments where several thoughts ran through my mind at the same time.

Are we safe? Is this woman alright? How will this youth react? How can we help? What does she really need? What is she really asking for? Do I have anything to give? How do I respond?

This is not a new experience for me, but it surprises me every time. I think because I can’t imagine what it would be like to be hungry, and to have no resources with which to feed myself. I can’t imagine how hard it must be, and what kind of life experience it has taken to get to a point where you are willing to ask anyone on the street if they can help you.

Even with all of those questions happening at once, the response was immediate. You say that you are hungry? I know that we have some food. We had leftovers from our dinner, all wrapped up and waiting in the kitchen. Of course we can help with some food. You wait here, and we’ll be right back.

I could tell there was fear in the eyes of the woman as we said, “wait here.” And I wondered how many times she had heard that before, never to be helped, never to be returned to. I thought to myself, I have no way of knowing what this woman has been through, or how she has come to this place in her life, and at our doorstep. All I know is that she is here, and we have food. And our only option was obvious. We would feed her.

The youth who experienced this with me, Jessica Taylor, wrote about this experience on her facebook page this week. She titled her note: Hunger is here too. In it she wrote,

i feel lucky to have been in the right place at the right moment to help someone out, and i can only pray that her life gets better. it's just one of those things that you can't get out of your mind, the look of relief on the woman's face when she had finally found food, and the satisfaction of knowing, that one more person in the world will have a meal tonight because i was just waiting on a ride.

The moment was there and then over in an instant, and yet, it had the impact of a lifetime – a lifetime of prayerful thoughts for those who are hungry – those right here in our midst, a reminder of thankfulness for the sources of stability in our own lives, and hope that this small act will lead to a greater understanding of the importance to always remember we have neighbors in need.

In our scripture text James challenges his listeners to keep this important and difficult task. Challenging the community not to give preferential treatment to those whose clothing obviously points to a status of a member of a higher class. It’s an easy sin to commit – the desire to separate one’s self from the rif-raff, to keep our hands from getting dirty by staying in places where we feel safe, and comfortable. But the comfort and stability that is known to us, the restfulness that is found in our individual and family homes should not be taken for granted, or taken as a shelter from the harsh realities of the world around us. Rather in appreciation for what we have, in thanksgiving for the benefits of security and prosperity, a desire to make that sense of safety and freedom known to others should come, should be the response.

I’m not saying that one ought to trade in their homestead for a cardboard box – though there is a lot to learn from such an experience, and it has been done before. But I am saying that even though we have a place to come home to at night, there are those who do not, and our rest should be uneasy. Our hope in the kingdom of heaven, of bringing about that kingdom here on earth is tied to the truth that our faith in Jesus calls us to action.

--If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2:16-17)

As individuals, as a community, as Christians, our call is to share in work of feeding our faith by feeding our neighbors. We come together in this place to share in a sacred meal, and to put ourselves in the position of awareness of those around us in need of a share in our daily bread. Our sleep may be uneasy, and our prayer lists long, but as our awareness and our willingness to face these needs in the world around us, and to stand together in community and take action, we have the power to bring about that kingdom. We have a faith that is alive and well. And we have to ability to move mountains.

But the work is hard. The message doesn’t change much. And we can grow weary and irritable, and distracted along the way. We sometimes lose focus on the need that we are called to respond to due to our own needs, our own lives, our understandable desire to close the doors of our private homes and let the weight of the world rest on someone else’s shoulders tonight.

Jesus himself had a moment of weakness, a desire to rest from responding to the needs of others. In our Gospel text we learn of his attempt to hide himself, if only for a brief respite, even in a foreign place so that he might find some rest. Yet a woman recognized him, a woman outside of his ethnic and religious group, and therefore, one who had no business approaching him, called on Jesus to heal her child; to respond to her need.

His first response is one that seems surprising to we the hearers, as he seems to brush her off and even compare her people, her need to those of dogs. And yet she rebuts his comment, challenging him to remember that even the dogs, even those for whom the meal was not first prepared, are deserving of their share too, even if it is merely the crumbs of the children. Her lesson to Jesus was a reminder to him of the law of love – a reminder that he took in stride and even learned from. He noted her faith in the teaching that all deserve to be loved, to know the good life. He told her that her daughter was healed and awaited her return at home.

Perhaps this was a moment of Jesus’ own theological perspective being expanded – a moment of realization that his message, his teaching, his love was not just for the chosen ones but for all people who came to him, for all who proclaimed his name. As carriers of that love, as doers of Jesus’ word, we must remind ourselves and one another that– even in the dark moments when we ask ourselves – Is this safe? Do I have anything to give? Why are you asking me? Jesus is with us, even when we’re just standing around, waiting for a ride home. Amen.

Delivered: Sunday, September 6, 2009

Food Challenge

2009-08-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

Proper 9, Year B, RCL

1 Kings 19:4-8
Psalm 34:1-8
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51

If you don’t have cable TV or haven’t watched the Travel Channel recently, you may have missed out on a great little show my husband and I enjoy called Man vs. Food. On this show, the chummy host Adam Richman, visits restaurants in cities around the country specifically tasting and describing not-to-be-missed specialties, and the incredible food challenges some of these places have. By food challenge I mean: attempting to drink 16 milkshakes in one sitting, eating a plate covered in burger and fries that weighs over 5 lbs., devouring a 72 oz. steak, with salad and sides to boot. All for the chance to have his name and face immortalized on the wall, and a prized food-challenge winner t-shirt. My husband and I have been to a few of the places our friendly host has showcased, and we have enjoyed participating in the spoils of his great food reporting. Rather than the bread of life, Adam seems to find salvation in a cheeseburger in paradise.

Recently while watching the show, and as a frequent restaurant consumer, I have been struck by the sheer size of the portions and expected consumption delivered to patrons – exemplified to the extreme by the food challenges – but still a concern in the real world day-to-day of health-conscious American diners. Food is a constant and abundant resource in the American lifestyle – food of every variety, ethnicity, seasoning, and style. And yet there are hungry people in our midst.

Perhaps I should speak to you of spiritual hunger, the kind that Jesus was pointing to in his words to the disciples, and the woman at the well – those who believe will never hunger or thirst again… and I will get to that, but the fact of the matter is – Jesus didn’t just talk about ethereal things. Before he focused on his message of hope and salvation, Jesus fed people. Our Gospel selections from John have showed us this throughout the summer. Jesus fed thousands who were hungry, and when they were satisfied, he taught them.

His first work, his first response to the crowds were to their most basic need – providing an abundance of resources that allowed the weak to be made strong, the poor to be satisfied, placing those who could not afford lunch on a level playing field with those who could. Fish, bread, wine, water. These tangible, necessary, life-giving resources were first and foremost components of Jesus ministry to the people he met in his days here on earth. It was after he fed those who were hungry that he spoke them of the bread of life – the gift of abundant life that comes from the experience of knowing Jesus and caring for and feeding others. As faithful followers of Christ, we have a legacy to uphold alongside of the fulfillment of our own spiritual hunger.

Spiritual hunger is real – and there are many ways to seek satisfaction in the face of this need. Many of you come here to be fed by the communities that gather through our parish life – communal worship and Holy Eucharist, fellowship time at coffee hour, Sunday school, children and youth ministry projects, musical endeavors, even the very real practice of feeding others through our relationship with IHN, Pilgrim’s Inn and other community outreach organizations.
If your need for spiritual practice and fulfillment has brought you here – I hope that it is being satisfied in a way that is truly, life-giving, challenging, active and reflective in the process of developing your faith and spiritual life.

But also know that our life here is not only about creating a space of spiritual sanctuary, a resting place from the busyness of the world out there – it is a place that serves as a constant reminder of Christ’s love for you – for YOU – and this body of Christ that we recognize when we gather here has an agenda, a mission. As members of the body, we open our doors inviting others into a relationship with God in Christ, inviting others to feed on the Bread of Life. But in the midst of that, in the life we proclaim as doers of the Word, as followers of Christ, our call to action is clear:

It is that of a gentle hand that points to those standing outside of our doors, reminding you that the choices you make with your time, your talent and your treasure is tied to the needs of those surrounding you – those for whom the source of the next meal is not certain. We, who have consistent access to basic resources: clean drinkable water, grocery stores, pantries and refrigerators filled to meet our every day needs, we have a responsibility to our God and to our neighbors.

We, who are fed by the gifts of bread and wine, we who find spiritual edification in the faith that when we gather in Christ’s name he is with us, we are called upon to get the message – if you love me, if you know me, if you follow my actions, you will feed my people. Their hunger is real too.

How do we do this? How do we live this? At every meal in which you partake – pray – give thanks for the food you are about to receive, and remember those who are hungry. There is a saying in the way our Anglican prayer book was developed: lex orandi, lex credenda: Praying shapes believing. If your constant prayer is that you might taste the bread of life, that you might know the one in whom there is no hunger, then your ears may become more attuned to those in need in your community. Your budget may become more flexible when you are given an opportunity to give to another. Your basket may become a little more full at the grocery store when you find an extra dollar or two to pick up the cost of some basic meal provisions. Your decision to find a way to volunteer some of your time and talent may lead you to the door of Pilgrim’s Inn. Prayers have many ways of working, the first being that you open yourself to the possibility that God may be at work in you, and that you may be able to serve as the hands and feet of God in this world.

Adam Richman of Man vs. Food faces one kind of food challenge on his show – one of consumption and entertaining physical comedy. Today I give to you a food challenge of your own. I challenge you to consider your own desire to be fulfilled – to be nourished physically and spiritually. Consider the possibility that these two things are tied together, not only that your own hunger is satisfied, but that your spiritual hunger to know Christ, to taste the Bread of Life may be fulfilled in following the actions of Jesus: May you eat and be satisfied and may you share your next meal with God and your neighbor. Amen.

Delivered: Sunday, August 9, 2009

Summer of Service

2009-08-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Proper 11, Year B, RCL

Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 23
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

"The Lord is my shepherd I’ll walk with him always. He leads by still waters, I’ll walk with him always."

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Like sheep without a shepherd. Lost, confused, unsure, seeking any means of comfort to grab onto.

Jesus saw this condition in the people his apostles had sought to bring Good News to. They had gotten the word that someone did care for them, that someone did have a helping hand, that someone had come who would change things. The people, seeking a shepherd, came in hopes that this man Jesus could fulfill all those needs and more. Were they convinced? Were they certain? Did they know what they were getting themselves into? Probably not.

More likely they were hungry, hurting, and desperate for some sort of hope to reach out and cling to – even if it only meant touching the fringe of his clothes. Maybe, just that, would be enough.

Like many of you, I have not known this kind of desperation. I have not had to struggle with the question – where will my next meal come from? Where will I lay my head to rest tonight, how will I make the next car payment, and the one after that? The closest I’ve come was an experience I had last fall, when I drove to 3 different gas stations on a near empty tank, and wondering if I was going to be left stranded at any moment. I didn’t like the feeling – I didn’t like that something as simple as the fuel that I rely on, that I take for granted day in and day out, was suddenly not as accessible to me as it always had been. I did not want to drive to yet another gas station and face disappointment, and frustration, and walk away empty handed yet again.

But my brief experience of “desperation” does not compare to the concerns I was approached with this week, hands in need reaching toward me and toward Our Saviour in times of very real and immediate need. This week those hands came in the form a family seeking work so that they could pay their rent, a financial need in the midst of a difficult lawsuit, a phone message asking for prayers for loved ones struggling with addiction, a letter requesting funds to pay for a transplant operation in Uganda, support for grieving friends of an unexpected infant death in the Rock Hill community, a request for communion with a family whose loved one is dying. I didn’t realize how many needs I had encountered this week until I began to list them here, and it is amazing how many and how diverse these needs are, this just in one week. It would be easy to overwhelmed by the amount of need and the struggles that are being faced by just these few people who came forth this week. It gives new meaning to the imagery of the sheep without their shepherd in need of compassion, and care.

Our passage of scripture shows Jesus as one looked upon his people with compassion and reached back toward them with a power to heal their wounds – those visible and those invisible. He did this by choosing to be present with them. Choosing to make his place amongst the crowd, even in his own desire to step back and take a rest. The need was still there, and his response to that need was to love these people – to fulfill the Good News that had been promised to them. He reached out his hands toward theirs and allowed them to know healing.

The need for healing in the world has not gone away. The brokenness that we see in the reported news, and in our own families are very real. We are people in need of healing as well. But where do we reach out and feel that healing power? Where is the fringe for us to touch that holds that kind of power, that kind of transformation?

I began to wonder about where we reach for help in our times of sadness and struggle. For some it is in the bottle, a means of numbing the pain, and separating oneself from the reality of the situation they are faced with. For some I think it is in the magazines we reach for in line at the grocery store, where one can read of our contemporary “celebrities” and make judgments about others’ choices, rather than focus on our own disappointments and dissatisfaction in the way things have turned out. It would seem that another place we hope to disappear from ourselves and get caught up in the moment of another is in the distraction of sports – reaching our hands high in an attempt to collect an artifact of “glory.”

These temporal activities have their entertainment value, and certainly have their place in moments of leisure, and rest – we all must rest – but the more of us who use them as methods of escape, as methods of distraction from the real life struggles of our own and of others, the less present we are to the needs of the community that surrounds us, the needs of our brother and sister.
Rather than pushing away the hurts, rather than ignoring the need for healing – for ourselves, and for others, how might we reach forth our hands and put them into action, rather than distraction?

The theme for our Summer of Service youth program has been: God’s work, our hands. Each week youth from Our Saviour and Grace Lutheran put our minds and hearts and hands to work getting to know the needs of the community, and the ways in which our hands might be useful in serving the needs of others. Through this work we have sought to see Christ in others, reaching forward and serving others, so that they might see Christ in us. The result is a collection of young people creating pockets of healing in the world around them – and growing a deeper understanding that with loving hands reaching out toward one another we can be a people of transforming action in the world.

That transformation is found in the hands that reach out and touch the shoulder of the grieving woman whose husband is preparing to die – it can be found at Hospice and Community Care. That healing power is felt as arms of a small child reaches out to hug you—a child for whom touch has changed from source of pain, and to an expression of love – it can be found at York Place and the Children’s Attention Home. That curative force comes as hands clasped in prayer, call upon the name of Jesus to be present in the act of being a community together, through song and storytelling, and we experienced it as we played and learned together in Vacation Bible School this week. The hand is at work in the kitchen preparing meals, and hospitality for our Interfaith Hospitality Network guests. There are many other places where our own hands can be put to use as sources of healing for others and for ourselves. But the power comes in the act of giving it away, of allowing your hands to be strength for others, and allowing others touch your life as well.

We are called upon through the example of our teacher Jesus to see our neighbors in need, and to be the Good News to them, that healing comes, through relationship, through a community in action, through each of us being a source of healing in our world. The people who come looking for Good News, they have gotten the word that someone does care for them, that someone does have a helping hand, that someone will change things.

That someone is you, if you’ll let it be. Amen.

Delivered: Sunday, July 19, 2009

Baptism and Story

2009-08-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

Proper 10, Year B, RCL

Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29

I was born on a hot summer day in Little Rock, Arkansas 31 years ago. About a month later I was baptized by an Episcopal priest. The only pictures I have of this event are from the picnic style backyard party that was held that afternoon – including one of the priest holding me and wearing a shirt that said, “bionic padre.”
I was surrounded by people who loved me, and a community of witnesses who agreed that they would, with God’s help, raise me up in the faith tradition and practice that they shared in.

I don’t remember the first time I heard the story of my baptism, short as it is, or how many times it was talked about over the years. The pictures are what strengthen the memory and give it a tangible feeling. I’m lucky to have those pictures in my mind, because as my own faith life has grown, I have an image from the very start of loving arms enfolding me, and caring members of my faith community there at my side. The story of my faith journey begins with those images and those truths, but the story itself is what knits that experience into the fabric of my being.

The sharing of stories within families and amongst our community is central to who we are. Gathering with family members for a meal, or just a moment, we ask “How was your day” in hopes of catching a glimpse through the anecdote shared, of the story of here and now. A grandchild visiting with Grandparents invites the exchange of stories from Grandma’s childhood, stories of the parent’s childhood, (especially of the times when Mom or Dad got into trouble!) This is how we uncover and collect our family history and identity.

Here in church, with our own liturgy of the word we participate in each Sunday, is a study in scripture; an invitation into the stories of our heritage of faithfulness – faithfulness to God and to the teachings of Jesus. As a community or family of faith, we choose the stories that we will emphasize, the teachings that we will most promote and emulate, we discover that there are new truths to be found in these stories as we hear them again for the first time at different ages and stages of life.

The stories that we tell about ourselves, and our understanding of the world shape the way others see us, the facets of our life that they get to know. They are also to places where we can excavate a deeper understanding of ourselves – looking back on the way things were, the way we responded to something at a certain point in our development, allowing ourselves to see into the past things we did well, and moments when we could have made different or better choices. We can learn from our own stories, as can others.

(At the 10:30 a.m. service) Today we (will) have the joy of witnessing the making of a family story. Today we will celebrate our call to community as we baptize and welcome two new members into the body of Christ. In this story a child is born to a family, and loving parents who are members of an active church community who wish to celebrate and incorporate their child into that life, taking on the responsibility of raising that child to know that God’s deep love for them, and for all of creation, which calls all of us to a life of gratitude and service.

A grown man, a devoted husband and loving father, one who has found a church home, but has not made his own commitment of faith chooses to stand with his child and allow the waters of baptism to wash over him as well, claiming his birthright into the community of faith, and action that surrounds him. We, as members of this community have much to celebrate and much to be thankful for. We, as witnesses and participants in this sacramental act will have a story to tell as we depart from this place today, having renewed our own baptismal vows, our own baptismal covenant with God and with one another.

Today, I urge you to recall the story of your baptism. To recall the story of your own moment of standing up to affirm your faith in the community. I invite you to delve into your own story of your walk with Jesus, be that through scripture, through prayer, or through relationship with members of your faith community, and the work of serving others in need. Where in your story did your faith-life “take off’ as it were, into a deep understanding of God’s loving presence in all things?

For me this took place at different stops along the way through my involvement in youth ministry experiences, and through the discernment process in preparation for ordination. The bionic padre is still kicking around, and thanks to an internet search and the technology of email received word that 28 years after my baptism I was taking on a new set of vows as a transitional deacon, and priest in the Episcopal Church. It was important to share with him the continuation of that story – because he was there at the beginning, and various church communities and priests carried me along the way.

What are the stories that you live by, that you love by, that you need to share with someone else? Someone who is hurting, and is in need of a boost in faith and comfort now… someone who has had an impact on your walk in faith… someone who has challenged you along the way, and from whom you have taken life lessons that they could not, or would not otherwise know?

Today, as we renew our commitment to a life in Christ with this child and this father, as we renew our commitment as a community of faith, I challenge you to remember your stories, to tell someone a story, to invite another to share their story with you, so that we may continue to deepen our relationships with one another, as we continue to knit together the fabric of our community in Christ. Amen.

Delivered: Sunday, July 13, 2009

Summer 2009 Youth Mission

2009-08-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

Proper 9, Year B, RCL

Ezekiel 2:1-5
Psalm 123
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13

The journey began with a small carload of 4 people and all of their stuff – sleeping bags, work clothes, bug spray, a deck of cards, cameras. The destination: a gathering point with a larger group of people who would fill up 4 larger vans with more of the same, as well as music, work gloves, sunglasses, snacks, and open hands, and open hearts to the needs of people still putting their lives back together 4 years after a hurricane of unfathomable power and destruction turned their lives upside down.

The place we stayed, the things we saw, the stories we heard and the people we served – each of these aspects of the Senior High Youth Mission Trip played a significant role in the experience we shared in together. It was the backdrop to the prophetic voices that spoke to us as individuals and as a group who travelled to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi in hopes of seeing and serving Christ.

Bay St. Louis is a town that has seen and survived hurricanes and tough weather before – but the winds and waters that struck the area in August of 2005 were overwhelming. At its height, the waters that flooded and washed away Christ Episcopal Church, all but its bell tower, were 32 feet high. Mission on the Bay is a ministry of the Lutheran Episcopal Services of Mississippi, and the host site for over 8000 volunteers who have come to serve the needs of the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It resides on the property of Christ Episcopal Church and faces Mississippi Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico.

Our housing, meals, tools, and worship space were provided on this property because where there was once a church, there would continue to be a place of ministry. The community of Christ Episcopal, under the leadership of an amazing rector, one who had agreed to serve the congregation just weeks before the flood waters came, discovered a new call to be a center of hospitality and serving the needs of others and the community. As the flood waters receded, the vision of a housing and volunteer deployment center came into reality.

Joined by youth from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida, our group of 130 youth volunteers and their leaders descended upon this place and allowed ourselves, not only to be put to work, but to be witnesses to the members of the community whose homes we worked on, whose stories we heard, whose project organizers we worked alongside, whose musicians and storytellers we listened too.

As I’ve weighed the experiences of our week in Mississippi alongside the Gospel for today, I see a series of connections and contrasts. The first is the fact that rather than wait for a prophet to come to us, and share their story, we went into the world, into this new and foreign place, to learn from those living in this strange and difficult reality. We went to serve, but we also went to listen and to learn from those who are surviving, those who are rebuilding and those who are struggling and succeeding in creating their communities once again. We went to the hometown of the prophets in order to be preached to, in order to be taught the lessons of God’s presence, even in the midst of destruction, grief, loss, and seemingly insurmountable difficulties.

What we found there were others who have given their life in service to the people and the community of Bay St. Louis; people who have committed their expertise, time and talent to help rebuild this community. Mission on the Bay hosts, trains, and sends volunteers who come from near and far to be witnesses and active helpers in the face of the needs that are still there. It is also a place where prophets who have seen the harsh realities and experienced the faithful commitment of God’s love even in the darkest hours are willing and able to share their story – over a shrimp boil, or a hammer and a nail. Prophets speak the truth, despite the discomfort it may cause, despite the sadness it displays, these prophets are gifts to us, and gifts to the church.

There were other contrasts between Jesus’ sending words to his disciples and our experience as mission-ers.

Take nothing with you, only the clothes on your back, and staff that may serve to protect you from wild animals. Remain in the first home that invites you in, so that you will not be tempted to seek a better arrangement or finer accommodations as you learn the lay of the land. Share the faithful story of which you are a part, that Good News has come in Christ, and do not allow those who would dismiss you to discourage or keep you from the next leg of your journey.

What we learned from our prophetic hosts, what we heard again and again, and what was hard to imagine or understand was that we brought something with us that none of us could have imagined or assumed. Yes, we came to serve, yes, we came to build roofs, to tile floors, to hang drywall, to do yard work, to pick up trash to clean up items still untouched after 4 years, to give our time and our sweat so that some things that could not and would not be afforded, or attended to, could be taken care of. We brought many things with us, but the most important thing that came with each of our shining faces was the gift of hope.

Time and again, homeowners, residents, store clerks, and others told us that even the smallest act of being present and being willing to serve was an empowering reminder that the people of the Gulf Coast are not forgotten, and they are not alone. We came to hear the voice of God in the words spoken by these hometown prophets, and the word that they had for us was the fact that we brought with us a gift we could not have imagined.

I struggled the most with this truth on the day that our work groups had the unexpected opportunity to travel into New Orleans and receive a tour of the 9th Ward, a district that was severely flooded, severely damaged, and felt the pains of abandonment. As we gathered in the parking lot of a building that was once a Walgreens, and now serves as a community center and Episcopal Church, we were called to prayer through song.

“Joyful, joyful Lord we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love” the words reverberated around us, and the call to see our surroundings with eyes of hope in healing and resurrection was placed upon us. This was not an easy task, but it was work that was given to us to do. As we moved through the neighborhood we saw re-built homes standing next to empty lots where only the foundation of a building remained, in some cases, just a brick outline or a cement slab. Some houses were marked with spray paint from those who searched for survivors, and the dead. Some were marked with the words: Do not Bulldoze. “Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, drive the dark of doubt away.”

The prophets of Bay St. Louis and the 9th Ward have lived this reality, have walked far more than a mile in these shoes – having only the clothes on their back and if they were lucky, the companionship of their family member at their side. And as they have made their way back, as they have made a commitment to become a community once again, they have called others to see, and to hear and to participate in that work – allowing us to bring hope for the future, hope for healing, hope for the attention and care of their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and in community, that their homes may one day be rebuilt and their community thrive again.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina new pathways to God’s prophetic witness to his people were created. This is not to say that it is God’s will that so many should suffer in order for us to better know God’s love in the world. But these communities could have died. They could have been left as ashes and abandoned by their people. And they have chosen a path of resurrection. They have chosen to seek a new way, even though they are forever changed. They have chosen to speak their truth, to share that truth with us, and to invite us to return again and again to participate in the new life that comes after the storms have stilled.

As we say prayers and give offerings to the ongoing ministry of the Gulf Coast resources, as we send members of our community to fulfill this call to mission and ministry, and as we welcome back the prophetic witness that has been seen and heard in these places, remember our work as people of hope, and as receivers of the word and as agents of healing not only in what we do for others but in our way of being for and with others. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, our companion on all paths of the journey. Amen.

Delivered: July 5, 2009

Of Sheep and Men

2009-08-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

4 Easter, Year B, RCL

Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

In this day an age, who among us really wants to be compared to a sheep? I mean, after all, sheep are smelly, disorganized, animals, prone to wander off and stumble into a bramble patch, or meet a hungry wild animal, or otherwise generally get themselves into trouble. When we hear people compared to sheep today, they are usually described as blindly following anyone who will take them on the garden path, or of someone getting “fleeced. Perhaps we imagine the sad tale of lambs being led to the slaughter, or, the simplest, and most common image of someone unable to fall asleep counting sheep, what good are they otherwise? No, to be compared to a sheep, is to be considered helpless, hopeless, and has little or no value or meaning for us in this day and age.

But in their day, sheep were actually a life source for families, particularly in nomadic communities. Many smaller family units would have at least few sheep around as a provider of some of the most basic needs of life support – milk, meat, wool. These animals in small numbers provided an abundance of resources, and required little more than to be watered each day, and a sparse grassy diet, allowing them to be easily maintained in the near desert setting of the rural Mediterranean. And interestingly, they are also smart enough to recognize the distinct calling or voice of their particular shepherd, and thus able to separate themselves out from a combined heard, to follow their care-giving and protective shepherds. So as it turns out, sheep actually played a vital role in the perpetuation of the family and of everyday life in the era when Jesus used sheep as a way to describe our human relationship to the “Good Shepherd.”

In this morning’s Gospel we hear Jesus describe himself to the people as the Good Shepherd. The one whose voice would be recognized by his followers, a voice that would even be followed by some sheep from other folds, eventually calling all to follow the lead of one shepherd as members of one flock. Again, the depth of the imagery available to us in the metaphor of Jesus as the good shepherd is perhaps not as deeply understood to us as it would have been to his hearers at that time. In some of my reading for this I came across descriptions of shepherds and their tools, and the words of the 23rd Psalm rung in my ear:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.”

“Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

The rod of the shepherd was literally a weapon, a long stick with nails stuck in the end to fend off threatening wild animals. The staff, which you might realize is a symbol used in traditional bishop’s garb, is a crosier – A long walking stick with a hook at the end, created to pull a sheep back into the fold, or rescue them from a tight spot where they may have gotten themselves in, but were unable to get themselves out. What a comfort to think of God as having that hook ready and willing to wrap it around our bodies, to enfold us in protective love and assurance of safety when the path becomes rocky, uncertain, dangerous.

The image of the sheep and the shepherd are beautiful and meaningful when you take a closer look. And upon reflection they do have lessons for us in our contemporary hearing. Knowing what we know now about sheep and shepherds, let me share with you some of my own reflections on these symbolic offerings.

To be a sheep means that you belong to a flock – it means that you have ties to a larger community; one that is made up of others like yourself, others with the same needs, others who have the same potential to give of themselves in order to meet the needs of others. There are many kinds of sheep, from many flocks, but as the story goes, they recognize the voice of the one who calls them, the one who calls them into a community that is one flock, one body, united under one voice. To be a member of that community, to be a sheep amongst the fold also means that there is one who watches over you – one who knows his sheep by name, has the tools to protect them, and the will to provide for their needs each day, to keep them safe from harm.

To know a shepherd is to know that there is one who does call us – who does not forget us, even when we find ourselves exploring new places, intermingling with other flocks. There is a voice that we know to follow – and others will join us when we follow that call.

As a diocese we are entering a time when our own bishop is preparing to lay down his staff and we have the work, the duty, to call another shepherd to be our leader, our protector, our caregiver. What a challenge, and what a privilege to be a body of people, a flock, that will elect the next shepherd who will call us into mission, point us in the direction of the voice of the Good Shepherd. But how does that bishop know recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd here in our community, and in our state?

We, the sheep, have the authority to speak to the needs of the sheep that surround us. Those whose needs are like ours, or are greater than ours. Our shepherd, our leader will be given the tools, and the authority to use them to lead us into a new decade of ministry – one that will be present through the changes in our economy, and our increasingly modern world. But your prayers and your participation in our local community, your knowledge of the needs of the sheep of Upper South Carolina will be the touchstones for our next shepherd, our next bishop to recognize the voice of Christ and where our ministry is needed.

As sheep in the fold of the body of Christ, I remind you that your ears know the voice of the shepherd. The call comes to you – and your response, your action, your purpose is to follow that call, and to share it with others – to share it with this community, and with our diocese as we call forth our next leader. So today, as we reflect on sheep and shepherds, I challenge you to live up to your role – not to blindly follow whoever it is that calls out, but to listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd, to hear the needs of those in our community shouting out for the mercy of God, for the healing touch of Christ, for the simplicity of having the most basis needs met – food, shelter, clothing – so that, when the Good Shepherd calls us home, we may stand alongside of our brothers and sisters of the flock, having done all that we could to participate in and meet the needs of the family. Like faithful sheep, with thankful hearts, listen for and respond to the call of our Good Shepherd. Bahhhhhmen.

Delivered: Sunday, May 3, 2009

Jesus "Kitsch"

2009-08-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

3 Easter, Year B, RCL

Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48

If you haven’t been to my office, or spent much time there, you might not know that I have a small, but growing collection of “Jesus kitsch” sitting on one of my window shelves. Jesus kitsch, if you don’t know, is a growing industry of not-so-serious, but seriously funny Christian collectibles. Some of you may have come across some Jesus kitsch on your own – and perhaps have contemplated an inspirational, Jesus themed gift for a faithful friend or clergyperson along the way. Beware, however, that there is a fine line between thoughtful faith-inspired gift ideas, and things that fall into the kitsch category.

My collection is mostly of the poking-fun category. It includes a Jesus action figure, a “last supper lunch box,” and a glow in the dark cross – perfect for Christian rave dancing. It also has a special, dominant figure, a shockingly hot-pink statue of Jesus that has a unique feature. If you ask a question of Jesus, shake it and turn it over, you’ll receive an “answer” such as: “I died for this?” and “Let me ask my Dad, and I’ll get back to you…”

Thoroughly entertaining, and a little bit irreverent, I do wonder sometimes, just how perplexed and frightened I might be if Jesus were to appear in my office, as tangible as the images of him that rest there day in and day out, offering the familiar phrase, “Peace be with you.” Would I recognize him? Would I believe it was really happening in the moment? How might I respond to this companion and friend that I have looked to and known for so much of my life through scripture and community, through word and action...?

In the wake of Easter, gathered together in our familiar setting, with familiar faces, and hearing words, once again, of Jesus’ friends and followers, perplexed at what was being revealed to them by their teacher, Jesus himself appearing in the flesh, even after they had witnessed and known for certain that he had died. There they were, excited at the story of Jesus’ appearance to a fellow disciple, and yet frightened and doubtful at his sudden, solid, tangible presence amongst them.

I’m not going to spend time with you trying to explain how exactly Jesus did this. I don’t imagine I could comprehend the physics, or the biological or mystical concepts or means by which this event took place in the lives of our faithful brothers and gospel writers. But I’d like to imagine with you why Jesus appeared, and why it matters to us. The transcendental concepts of the situation, that is, those things that are not experienced, but perhaps are knowable – much like faith – that which is believed, but cannot be proven.

Jesus, spent his years of ministry walking alongside fellow men and women. As a man, he saw all the pains and hurts of this life. The horrors of disease and death, the use of the temple, a house of prayer for the God of creation, taken advantage of, and allowed to be a place of marketing and transaction. He saw women abused and trapped in an oppressive station of life, and children kept away from the center of the community. He was intimately aware that pain, and death were consistent with the human life.

And where was God in all of this? God, had called his people into a covenant, called upon the Israelites to be the chosen ones, the ones who would lead a path of righteousness for all to see, through prayer, sacrifice and pilgrimage, this family within all of creation would develop a relationship with God that would reflect God’s unconditional love for all of God’s children.
But time had gone by, and practices and closeness to the stories and understanding of them by the people and the leadership waned. The words of prophets spoken through the ages were still taught and passed down, pointing to a Messiah who would one day come. But complacency within the practice of the faith had taken its hold as well.

Aware of this, and aware of the impact Jesus had on his companions in life – the invitation to follow him and fish for people, the willingness he showed to open his arms and embrace all of God’s children – those diseased, those foreign, those deemed untouchable, his parable after parable, story after story of housing the stranger, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, forgiving the sinner…

Jesus lived into the unconditional love for all that God’s covenant tried to express. Jesus made clear again and again, what the scriptures themselves said, again and again: love God, love your neighbor, serve God by serving others, I am here to serve, not to be served… Jesus so fully lived and taught these truths of his own faith story, his own understanding and awareness of the one holy and living God that his story is still told today. The story of his life and the story of his death.

But his story didn’t end there. As frightening as it all was, what he was doing, how he turned society and all that was assumed about class and the status quo upside down, he managed to do the same thing with death. The death that his friends watched him die – the death of a criminal: tried, convicted, crucified… it was thought to be the end – but there he stood, reaching out his hands to touch them, eating a piece of fish before them, offering once again words of Peace, words of love, words of commissioning to his disciples that their work was not yet done – for they had a message to pass on, and a faith story to share – one that perhaps could not be proven, but was to be believed in.

The faith story that was given to me, is the faith story of the disciples. One that they did not know how to tell, or what to do with when it first happened, when they first found themselves in that moment with Jesus. In the next few verses of the gospel text the close of the Gospel according to Luke lets us know that after receiving this commission the disciples spent much time in prayer, were often found at the temple praying.

Considering it took more than 30 years for the Gospel stories to be written down, I’m certain its authors spent many years contemplating what they had experienced, what they had witnessed, in Jesus’ life, his death, and in his appearance amongst them.

So why did he do this, in this way? Why such a distant time and distant place did the incarnation of Christ take place in Jesus of Nazareth? I wonder, I imagine, perhaps Jesus gave himself to them, to touch, to feel, to experience in a tangible way, yet again, so that they might know that he meant what he said, that he would be with them always, even to the end of the age, he was truly there… really and truly.

Just as we have faith, that gathered here, gathered in this place, we can see and touch and taste and experience the life and love of Christ when we gather as a community, when we serve God by serving one another, when we look into the face of our neighbor in need and reach out a helping hand, when we open our hands and our lips and our hearts with songs of praise, and in the act of seeking and receiving holy communion – communion with one another and with God.

Perhaps the deepest truth of this story, of our faith story, is that it is a story of faith. Something that we carry on in our lives, in our actions, in our choices as members of a family and as members of a community – to have faith in the action of God to show us through Jesus that covenant we share, that promise of unconditional love, strong enough even to defeat the bonds of death – a love that strong, is a love that I am proud to have faith in, to know is true, to know that Jesus’ life, Jesus death and Jesus resurrection is where I place my faith. I wonder, where do you place yours? Amen.

Delivered: Sunday, April 26, 2009

5 Lent

2009-04-07T11:33:00.001-07:00

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-13
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

“I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”

“No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Show up. Be Yourself. Love your neighbor. Know that God loves you. These four categories are the basics of the covenant community that I use when working with our youth in our Middle School and High School youth gatherings.

The first aspect of developing a relationship with another is to Show Up – to be there – one cannot be in relationship alone. We cannot be a community without each other. We are better when you are here with us, and we are a worthy place to bring your gifts and skills into fulfillment.

Next, Be Yourself. Who you are, who you are becoming, you are created in the image of God, and you are amazing. We want to know you, not the person everyone says you should be, or who you think you are supposed to be, but the you that is right there at your center – that’s who we want to know, and that is who we want you to know how to be.

Love your neighbor. In order to be a community where it is safe to be yourself, to be vulnerable, it is important that you respect your neighbor, their personhood, their ideas; their ways of being that may be different than your own. Living up to this expectation of others means expecting that they will treat you with the same respect. Remember too, that your neighbor may also be in need, and so when the opportunity to help another comes along, remember your invitation, your command, to love your neighbor, and to serve them as you are able, again, having faith that they would help you in your time of need, given the opportunity and the means.

Finally, in all that we do, in all that we teach, in all that we live by as a community of faith, we are to live by the following truth: Know that God loves you. As a Christian community, we are called together in confidence that when we gather together, Christ is among us, God loves us, and we are to love God, in our prayers, and in our interactions with one another.

Show up, be yourself, love your neighbor, know that God loves you. These established covenant agreements are based on God’s invitation again and again to his people that we are called into relationship with God and one another. As a church community, a people of faith, these covenant agreements aren’t bad directives to live by as we interact with one another, and with our Rock Hill community.
After all, if we remember to love our neighbor, we’ll introduce ourselves to those who are visiting our church on a Sunday morning, or invite a friend in need into this community that is at its best when caring for its brothers and sisters in Christ.

If we remember to be ourselves, we’ll give people an authentic look at who we are, what we care about, and what we need from one another.

If we remember that we are loved by God, we will remember the covenant relationship that God has renewed with us again and again – not of our doing, not of our reaching out and asking, but of God’s own self-giving through the incarnation, the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The indications of this kind of simple community covenant is the reminder that we are loved, that who we are matters, that we have work to do, and even if we are not perfect, even if we make mistakes, God’s love for us, and forgiveness of us is real.

The new covenant that came into being through Jesus’ life, ministry and death and resurrection is what he is suggesting to those gathered around in our Gospel reading – those who were his closest companions, and those strangers outside of the circle who came seeking to know this Jesus they had heard of.

"Sir, we wish to see Jesus."

Jesus’ response to this, through our Gospel writer John’s telling, is the foretelling of a path towards a new covenant that is unexpected – a path that begins in the growth of something new, the passing away of that new thing, thus allowing yet more new life to spring up for the many. Jesus, the man, would pass away into death, so that new life, and hope of the resurrection, and thus, eternal life in Christ would come into the world. We share this story of covenant and of that new life in our gathering here as a covenant community. We nourish ourselves with the fruit that was born out of it through our communal gathering at the table, and our community relationship with one another. And each week as we gather for our sacramental living out of that covenant, the words on our lips, and on our hearts are, “we wish to see Jesus.”

So how are we to see Jesus?

His words follow:

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

To follow Jesus means to go into the difficult places – the places where the most need is in the world.

Sometimes the difficult places are inside of us, inside our own hearts and lives – seeing the sin and sadness that keeps us from drawing nearer to God. And thus we are called to reconcile ourselves to God – to face our sin, to ask for forgiveness and to allow ourselves to be forgiven. For if we stay in those dark places, we will be of no use to ourselves, or to our world in need.

By following the invitation to show up – to be ourselves, to love our neighbor, and to know that God loves us, we build the strength to go to those places where we may see Jesus. As we draw near the end of Lent, and reflect on the opportunity the season has offered us, to allow the old things to pass away, and new things to take root in our lives and in our practices, I invite you to wonder if that new thing may mean letting go of the idea that “I’m too busy to “do” anything else, and to consider those things that we have let go of, and whether they still have a place in our lives when the season of Lent comes to an end.

I invite you to consider going to the places where Jesus is, to meet and be in relationship with the people in our community who serve their neighbors, not just in kind, but by Showing Up. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Go to these places. Open your eyes, open your hearts and open your hands to the real presence of Christ in those who are served, and those who serve. Jesus is there. I invite you to go there too. And when you do, remember:

Show up, be yourself, love your neighbor, know that God loves you. Amen.

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC

2 Lent, Year B, RCL

2009-03-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

This sermon was preached in association with a campus ministry Sunday at Grace Lutheran Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina. I serve as chaplain to the Episcopal-Lutheran student group that meets weekly during the school year and is associated with Winthrop University. MC+

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

Jesus said, “If they want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

As a young person, I was certain that going to church would always be an important part of my life. I was raised in a family that was active in the Episcopal life and faith. I participated in Sunday school, youth group, Vacation Bible School… I did all the things that teach a young person that church is a happy, fun, caring place to be, where we like to sing songs, and have snacks, we serve God by being nice to each other, and our parents, and by loving our neighbor.

As a young person, these were all things I could relate to, and I developed that sense of safety, of having a place, and even of the ability to serve the community, both as an acolyte and as a mission trip participant. As a youth in confirmation class, and participating as a leader at diocesan events and gatherings, I even began to see the possibility that I might continue down this leadership track and that maybe someday I would be a priest in the church.

The church for me was a place where I was known and loved, and knew and loved others… a place where I could sense the warmth and the closeness of God with every person who greeted me with a smile, and let me know that they were glad I was there. It wasn’t until I was a freshman in college, in fact when I felt my first major sense of separateness from the idea of church as I had always known it.

I’m from the Midwest, and when I went off to college I found myself in a very small town, at a very small school two states away from my home in Minnesota. And I was pleased that there was an Episcopal Church there, because I knew that was “my” church, and that, if nothing else I would find a Book of Common Prayer in the pews, and in some way have access to church as I knew it. So on my first Sunday I entered a tiny little room with a few pews and a few people who looked up, saw that I was not someone they knew, and looked back in the direction their eyes had come from. I was young, nervous, and far from home, and I felt incredibly alone.

During the announcements I was asked to stand up and introduce myself. When I returned the following week I was welcomed like the first time, with a few quick glances, and an invitation to introduce myself…again. The energy and enthusiasm that I had about being a member of a church community, and further developing the call that was tugging at me to consider ordination began to sink, and along with it, my desire to know and be known in this community that didn’t seem to remember me from one week to the next.

My challenge was to find a church home where I felt connected, loved, cared about, remembered… Over the next four years as a college student that need was never fulfilled at the Episcopal Churches in the two places where I completed my associate and bachelor’s degrees. Rather it was in a consistent campus ministry that I came to know and love. One that I visited each time I was home for a school break.

The University Episcopal Center was a building on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota that I could walk into and be greeted by, and worship with people my age, with a common commitment to maintaining and further developing their faith life as students, and as followers of Christ in the world. A community of students and a consistent chaplain who challenged, and supported the students who walked through those doors – those seen on a weekly basis, and those, like me, who were present as the season permitted, that was where I found a spiritual home that kept me anchored in my faith life and practice as a student riding the waves of early young adulthood.

The challenges that I faced as a young person, one who was strong in my faith commitment, one who continued to seek out a place in the church to call my own led me to the realization that, had I not been the one so committed to finding a faith community, the faith communities I tried to enter would not have come looking for me, they would have lost me completely. It was then that my commitment to campus ministry, my “cross to bear” was forged, and it is that commitment that has led me to be amongst you here today.

I am privileged with the work of being the chaplain to the group of students, Lutheran and Episcopal, who meet for regular meals, fellowship, service projects, discussion/study group and worship at the White House next door. I am honored with the trust of this community, and of the students to be a cross-bearer in their midst, and to draw students closer to the heart of God through their relationships with one another, and their actions in response to the gift of God’s love enacted through their hands at work in the world.

Many of you know that the history of this congregation is tied directly to the mission of being a Christian community that supports and cares for students of Winthrop University. Having grown far beyond that to a community that houses generations of grandparents, parents, youth, children, grand-children, you are also aware that you often have other things in mind when you walk through the doors of this space.

You come to worship, to sing, to be in community with one another, and to grow in your own commitment to follow the call of Christ, to be servants of the scriptural mandates that you love God, and love your neighbor, to pass on the faith from one generation to the next. But you must not forget that who you are, the identity of this church is rooted in the work of looking outward, of looking to those who are not yet incorporated into the community, of seeing, and responding to the students who live across the street, and down the road, and around the corner, and recognizing that they too have a place here. They too, are invited to be full members of the body of Christ.

Today I shared with you a story of isolation. A feeling that I’m sure I’m not the only one to have experienced in a church at one time or another. In the Gospel today, I wonder if this story of Jesus’ experience with the disciples points to that feeling. Here he is, a leader among them, and speaking the truth of the difficult path that has been set before him. He knows that the road will be long, and hard, and he knows what lies at the end – that he will suffer, and die. And his disciple Peter tries to stop him – tries to take him aside and claim, “This is not the Lord that I know, that I have faith in. This is not what the path is supposed to look like; this is not the path that must be taken. I do not recognize this story and I do not recognize you.”

I wonder if Jesus felt alone, misunderstood, lost in that moment before he pushed Peter’s response away, and drew in all who would listen. This was supposed to be the place where he was known, recognized, remembered, and yet they were getting it wrong.

And we know how the story ends. We know that Jesus was telling the truth, and that in the end, Peter still didn’t want to face the truth, didn’t want to let go of the image he had of a conquering king who could not be defeated by death…and we know that at the end of our Lenten season we celebrate the light at the end of the tunnel, the truth that the gift of Christ for the world does triumph over death, and does call us to a renewed commitment as followers of Christ to live in that way, seeking the light, and seeking others to share that light with.

This community is called to share that light with the students of Winthrop University. Remember who you are. Open your eyes to those sitting beside you, those seeking to come in. Open your hearts to the adventure of learning new things about who God is, and can be in your midst, by experiencing a community with the young adults who walk through those doors. Be bearers of that light, as you bear the cross that has been give to you, as you follow Jesus. Amen.

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson
Sunday, March 8
At Grace Lutheran Church, Rock Hill, SC

1 Lent, Year B, RCL

2009-03-06T09:07:00.000-08:00

Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

“I invite you, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

These words were spoken in churches around the world on Ash Wednesday, marking the first of forty days of Lent. This season of penitence and preparation sets us to the work of intentionally taking on spiritual disciplines, such as study of scripture so that we might come to know better the stories of our faith tradition, and what they have to teach us about God.

Another is to that of an additional prayer practice, such as the one our rector has called us to, in observance of the deep need for a place to pray and be prayed over in these times of uncertainty.

During the season of Lent the church also invites us to the discipline of fasting. Some do this by giving up a favorite food or denying oneself of an indulgence that one has a tendency to give themselves over to in excess.

The purpose behind each of these practices is to be about the work of drawing ourselves nearer to God, so that we might discover new ways of showing forth thankfulness for the gift of our own lives and of God’s love for his creation. Our lectionary texts for today point us to this important awareness.

This is exemplified first through the telling of the conclusion of the story of Noah, and the great flood. A terrifying text for some, this story ends with the promise of a covenant; an agreement between God and humankind that proclaims that such an act of vengeance will never be done again with the intention of the near total destruction of all creation.

Faithfulness, follow through and the fulfillment of that promise are the deeper truths that this story offers to those seeking a greater understanding of God.

Noah was faithful in his execution of the crazy, outrageous, unexpected and difficult thing that he was called to do – “Build a boat, you’re gonna need it.”

God followed through on the threat that he made to a people who turned their back on their creator, and the symbol of water washes those sins (and sinners) away.

Finally the story concludes with an offering of a covenant from God to his creation – one that promised not retaliation, but reconciliation, forgiveness, and the opportunity for a fresh start, even in the face of the most divisive actions on the part of the people.

In our Gospel text we find ourselves next to John the Baptist and Jesus surrounded by the waters of baptism. In that moment the presence of the Holy Spirit is described as descending like the appearance of a dove and the voice of God declares, “You are my Son the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The beginning of Jesus’ ministry has been marked by water, and the Holy Spirit. Following in this example, this is a symbolic and sacramental act that we too utilize to mark our call to community as members and ministers in our faith community.

As we explore scripture together, as we seek to understand the meaning of these stories in our contemporary context, our invitation is to know, not only the meaning behind them for the first communities who passed them on from one generation to the next, but also to allow ourselves to hear God’s promise to us through the ages.

God is creative. God is present. God offers the gift of washing away that which is old and dead, and allows new life to come into being in our communities and in ourselves. Now is the time to let God give that gift to you. Now is the time to let go of those parts of ourselves, those excesses that we grip so tightly, let them pass away, so that the cleansing waters of the gift of forgiveness and new life may wash over you.

The dusty, dirty, gritty ashes that marked our foreheads on Wednesday are reminders of our finiteness as members of the human family. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust [your body] shall return.” In our baptismal covenant, in our agreement with God and the community of faith, and the faithful departed who have gone before us, we remember the mark of the cross made with water, and oil and the Holy Spirit – that proclaims the new life that awaits us when we let the old pass away; new life in our way of being, as we live and move and have our being this world – in the here and now – in the way we interact with one another and the way we respond to the needs of our neighbors, and new life when this bodily form passes away, and we enter into the eternal peace which we shall truly come to know in God.

Lent is our season of preparation. Lenten disciplines are our invitation to let the old pass away, so that we might have room for the new to be born in our hearts. Clear away the clutter. Let go of those things, those indulgences, those practices that we put into play in order to fulfill our need to be loved. Let the abundance of God’s love take hold of you, as you take the time to draw near, to listen and to learn where God is calling you this day.

Are you being called to action? Are you being called to respond to a need in your community? Are you being called to de-clutter your life so that when the time comes, something new may be born there, or something that once was may be resurrected?

You were called to this community, to this faith, to this practice by virtue of your baptism. Use this season of Lent to draw yourself closer to the heart of God, so that you might come to know that which God has in store for the world through you. Prepare yourselves. For the beloved Son of God was sent to this world to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near, and there is good news to hear. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour

Last Epiphany, Year B, RCL

2009-02-23T05:32:00.000-08:00

On Friday, February 13th, Senior High youth from the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Rock Hill, SC gathered at 8 p.m. for a different kind of church overnight. Instead of a lock-in, we planned a lock-out. We created Valentines and thank you's to be delivered to the Police Station, the Hospital and other places where people are at work all night long. Prayers were said at Midnight and 3 a.m. in the morning, and our event concluded with breakfast at 4 a.m. The following sermon was preached on the next Sunday, describing the event, and the experiences we had.

2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9

Theological reflection is difficult at 4 a.m. in the morning, especially after being awake and active for 22 hours. I know this because last Friday night I was sitting at a Waffle House with several members of our youth group and youth volunteers trying to think theologically about the experiences we had shared during the previous 8 hours.

The plan was to have a lock-out – a youth event that would take us out into the world that is at work at the time that most of us are safe in our beds, fast asleep. Our mission was to look, and see and give thanks for the people who do their work at all hours of the night. Police, medical workers, etc. Our experiences were surprising, energizing, comforting, challenging, and tiring.

The first stop was to the emergency shelter for women and children at the Pilgrim’s Inn. A night-worker greeted us with a giant smile and warm hugs, sincerely thankful that we had decided to engage in this unusual kind of ministry. She has been working there for 10 years, keeping watch, prepared to respond to a guest’s need in the middle of the night, there to answer the door should an abused mother or child knock in need of a place to stay. Never in her time there had anyone come by just to say thank you to her.

To the outside world, asleep or at work, or just driving by in the wee hours of the morning, the shelter at Pilgrim’s Inn is perhaps, just a porch light left on. But to those for whom it is there to serve, that light is a beacon of hope, a ray of light in the darkness, and this woman, the ambassador of that hope. We saw her, we opened our eyes to her, and gave thanks for her ministry. She was, to us, the face of Christ, seen in a new light.

Our next stop was York Place, another ministry that our parish supports financially and through volunteers and projects. Again we were faced with person after person who greeted us with smiles and surprise at the thought that youth from a church in Rock Hill had decided to offer them a special Valentine. At one of the cottages the energy from our youth as they greeted the night workers resulted in a burst of song! There was a mutual deep joy that was exchanged between those who are called to serve, and our group that decided to serve those who give their time and talent to care for those with such great need.

One of the workers reminded us that they did not do this work for their own “glory” (after all, it is largely invisible to a world that sleeps at night), but that it was a call and a commitment to care for those in need in response to the gift of Christ’s love for the whole world. Another worker challenged our youth to consider the real need of these, and other children being watched over in their sleep, and encouraged all of us to be open to the possibility that we might be the hands and hearts at this kind of work one day. Being a part of the world at work at night opened our eyes to see Christ at work in the world in an unexpected, brilliantly bright way.

In our Gospel this morning we join some of the disciples as they follow Jesus to a private place and in a moment of dazzling light and wonder, the Jesus they know is transfigured, transformed into something unrecognizable, but breathtakingly beautiful. This story of the Transfiguration of Jesus is rapt in mystery, wonder, awe. Housed almost at the center of Mark’s Gospel, it is connected with Jesus’ first pronouncement of the path that has been set before him – one that we know as the passion – Jesus’ trial at the hands of human judgment, and his impending death on a cross. Here this beautiful vision of glory beyond anything imaginable, followed by the word of the difficult road still ahead.

These themes are familiar to me in the story of our lock-out experience last weekend. We decided to see the world as it is, surprised by its beauty, and grounded by the deep need and hurt that exists alongside of that. But there is light in the darkness, and we found it right here in Rock Hill.

As people of faith, we are called to proclaim the light of Christ – to let it shine in our hearts, and through our response to the needs of those in our community, and the world around us. Jesus made his way to the cross. He accepted the challenge of suffering and death, so that we might be freed from the suffering that we inflict on ourselves and on one another. Love God. Love your neighbor. It’s that simple.
I offer the same challenge to you that was put to us. Know that the Gospel truth that God’s great love has been revealed to you. Open your eyes to the world around you, look for those places where the love of God is needed. Open your hands and your hearts to the reality that you are being called to serve. And let your light shine in the darkness. Amen.

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson
at the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC
Sunday, February 22, 2009

3 Epiphany, Year B, RCL

2009-02-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62: 6-14
1 Corinthians 7: 29-31
Mark 1:14-20

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

I speak to you in the name of the one true and living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I love the story of Jonah. Jonah is a name that immediately brings to mind for many people an image of a giant whale, and a man reluctantly being delivered to fulfill a task asked of him by God. I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life when I have grudgingly approached a task that has been asked of me, and whether I wanted to do it or not, it had to be done, and it was my job to do it. Dreaded household chores, making a phone call I really don’t want to make, finishing a task that I just don’t enjoy, but that cannot be ignored, forgotten about, or put off any longer… Perhaps you’ve been there too?

Jonah was given a task that he did not want to do. He was called upon by God himself, so running away was futile, though he still tried to do it. But in the end, the task was his to complete and he did what was expected of him.

We only get a snippet of Jonah’s story in the reading this morning, so let me recount some parts of the story in this very, very short book housed amongst the prophets of the Old Testament. Many of you will remember the part about Jonah hearing God’s call to go to the city of Nineveh, and rather than saying yes and going to that place, Jonah rejects it, and gets on a ship heading to another city in the opposite direction. While on that boat, a storm comes up and the superstitious crew seeks to determine who has caused the wrath of such a storm to come upon them. They do this by casting lots. The lots point to Jonah, who admits that he is a Hebrew whose God is the creator of all, including the sea. The men of that crew, fearing their life prayed to Jonah’s god, seeking protection from the storm, through the promise of a sacrifice of his own servant Jonah, and so they threw him overboard and the seas calmed.

The story continues with Jonah in the sea who, as the story goes, is swallowed by a large fish, and rides in the belly of this “whale” for three days. When this time of trial is over, Jonah has been delivered to the city of Nineveh, where he is again commissioned to proclaim to the people a message of repentance – one that they desperately need to hear.

Now, if this story hasn’t been amazing enough already, something even more incredible and surprising happens next. The people of Nineveh not only heard Jonah, but they listened to what he was saying. They got the message. They were a people sorely in need of repentance, and rather than ignore this person who was sent to offer them one last chance – they stopped what they were doing, they declared a fast for all the people, and they asked for God’s great mercy. And then, and then, and then… they received it!

Their town did not come to a calamitous end! God’s wrath and vengeance, eloquently described in so many stories from the Old Testament, was not wrought down upon them! They received God’s mercy and forgiveness, and they were a changed people.

So what happened with Jonah, after all that drama? Well guess what. Jonah was still upset about his mission to go to the people of Nineveh. And he was even more upset that they received a reprieve from God’s anger when they followed through on what was being asked of them. Jonah said, “O Lord, Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning: for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.”

Jonah did not agree with God that such a city as this, such a people as these were deserving of forgiveness, of salvation. Jonah knew that he believed in a loving God, and that such a god would not ignore the imploring of people who truly repented. So if he were to go to that city, and offer an opportunity to change to those people, and they accepted the challenge and reconciled themselves to God, they would receive God’s mercy. And so, when Jonah fulfilled the task that was given to him, and the people did what was asked of them, God was loving and compassionate and forgiving, and Jonah – Jonah was royally “upset” at God.

The things I learn from this story: Change happens. God will be there. Not everyone will agree with God’s response. God will be there, still.

You hear it said a lot, “people don’t change.” And the truth in that is that I cannot change another person, and you cannot change another person. But I am a person of hope and I believe in resurrection. And what that means to me is that each person has the ability to look at themselves, to take in the landscape of good and bad that resides within the self, AND each person has the ability to seek to make right, to cleanse, to reconcile that which separates them from loving God, and loving their neighbor.

Sin comes in all forms and fashions, and we love and loathe our sins, don’t we? They are the indulgences that sooth in the immediacy of instant gratification, and they are the cause of the guilt that plagues the soul in the aftermath of over-indulgence.

Addiction, selfishness, lack of compassion, misplaced passion, coveting, lying, apathy...

When we take the time to stop acting and doing and being all the things that we assume society expects of us, and reflect on our day to day actions, reflect on the impact that our choices each day have on our local community, on our nation, and on people in distant lands who share our planet earth, we will most certainly find sin there.

Reconciliation comes as a result of recognizing those things that are wrong – those passions that are misplaced, those things that widen the gap between ourselves and a loving God who calls on us to do what is right, to follow a path of righteousness that has been set for us, to love and care for all God’s people – even those whom we wish we could forget about, ignore, pass by.

In order for resurrection to happen those old sins, those old ways of doing things, those old complacencies must wither and die and pass away; for you cannot have the new life that comes with resurrection, without the end of those things that stand in the way. Change can happen. But not without letting go of the old in order to embrace the possibility of the new.

God will be there. God is there. God is calling you by name, so that you will know and be able to live a life that shares the Good News. The good news that sins can pass away and we are forgiven. The good news that the work of reconciliation, of owing up to those painful things that keeps us from fully loving God, from fully loving our neighbor in need, can result in the promise of new life – through resurrection. The good news that God calls each one of us by name, calls us to action, calls us to respond to a need in someone’s life, in our community, in our world – and even if we enter into that work with reluctance, even if we’re not certain that God is right – the good news that we are forgiven of our sins and can ourselves change, is the good news for others as well. We can be bearers of that good news, and the world will be changed.

There are tasks that we all face with reluctance. Some of those are the tasks that we most dread because we know they will be difficult, they will not be “fun” and we’re not always sure just how it will benefit us. But the fact of the matter is: we are called to the task because it needs to be done. Jesus called his fishermen to be bearers of the good news, long before the gospels were written down to be read and shared in that way. They were called to be witnesses of the good news of God in Christ in the way they lived their lives. Jonah too was called upon to complete a task. One that he approached with reluctance because he had so little faith in the possibility that such sinners as those found in Nineveh could be changed. But God had faith in those people. And God had faith in Jonah. And the result of Jonah’s work was the resurrection of a people.

What task have you been putting off? What message have you been ignoring? What challenge have you been reluctant to stand up and take your place? Take a look at those things that may be keeping you from following an invitation by God into reconciliation, into something new… Consider the possibility that even though you’re not sure you want to go someplace new – change can happen, and God is there, faithfully, from the beginning, to the end, to the new beginning. Amen.

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, South Carolina

The Epiphany 2009

2009-01-05T14:57:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:1-12
Psalm 72:1-7,10-14
Matthew 2:1-12

Pilgrimage, Arrival, Epiphany

All kings shall bow down before him, *
and all the nations do him service.
For he shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, *
and the oppressed who has no helper.
--Psalm 72: 11-12

The faith story that we Christians live by, the story of our community, and of our God is ultimately one of pilgrimage; of journeying from one place to another, and allowing something new, something amazing and unexpected to come out of the most simple, mundane, routine surroundings. In the stories that we tell on this day of the church year, the Epiphany, we mark the transition from the Christmas season that we have been wrapped up in, the celebration of the gift of Christ’s incarnation through his birth into humanity, to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the work of bringing about the Kingdom of God here on earth. The first story of which, is the arrival of wise ones who have come unexpectedly from a foreign land, and from a different, non-Jewish religious background, to recognize the arrival of one who would be called the king of the Jews, the Messiah, Immanuel, God-with-us. Their arrival comes after a long journey – one that leads them to witness something so simple, so common, so plain as the birth of yet another child into the world, and yet, it is a birth that was foretold by prophets, one marked by a unique constellation in the sky, one that fulfills for us the cry, “Come thou long expected Jesus, born a child and yet a king.”

My own story of pilgrimage is one that caught me by surprise. It is from a time in my life when I stood on the precipice of great change – as one season of my life was coming to an end, and something new was on the horizon. The day after I graduated from high school, several very good friends, and I travelled to Washington D.C. We were members of a group history project that had won 1st place in our state competition and would now be competing at the National History Day competition. We were traveling with more than 40 high school students, parents and teachers, which, if you’ve ever traveled with a large group, you can imagine the kind of stress that might accompany such a trip. But still, it was my first chance to go to Washington D.C., and I was very proud of our team’s accomplishment and looked forward to the national contest ahead.

Now, you may be surprised to know this, but as a young teenager I was not particularly “proud to be an American.” I was concerned with dangers of extreme patriotism and the horrors that war was still considered a necessary evil in my lifetime. I was extremely concerned with the environment and was an active environmentalist at my school. And most of all, strong in my faith in a loving creator God, I struggled with the lack of compassion that my fellow Christian Americans would express toward members of our community – the fact that discrimination against women, minorities and the gay and lesbian members of our society was considered a norm, something that could not be overcome, and was simply a fact of life. I hated the feeling of hypocrisy that came with recitation of the words “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” when there were so many times that it felt more truthful to recognize that there was only “liberty and justice for some.” I never expected that a visit to the nation’s capital would have an effect on me. Or that it would provide such a “significant moral insight” as a planned spiritual pilgrimage is intended to bring about.

Our group spent a few days touring the monuments and the various places of pilgrimage that our Nation’s capital provides. We met our state Senator, Paul Wellstone, toured the capital building, viewed the Constitution, visited the National Museum of American History, and finally, after days of walking, snapping pictures, riding on buses and getting a little Washington D.C.’d out… we came to the Lincoln Memorial.

It was evening, and lights were turning on as the sky quickly darkened. I was only with a small number of our larger group, and the monument, for the moment was not overwhelmed with too many people. If you haven’t been there yourself, you must also try to understand just how high the stone marble stretches above your head. The interior ceiling of the monument is 99 feet tall, and the Lincoln statue that sits on a large pedestal is 19 feet tall (so as not to be dwarfed by its majestic surroundings.) The inscription above Lincoln’s head reads: “In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”

“In this temple…” this sacred place where people who believe in the words liberty and justice for all have come again and again over the years to make their voices heard, to let their presence be known, to participate in the necessity of standing up for what they believe to be right, and true, this was a place that spoke to my heart, and unearthed a deep, unrealized hope and optimism for all the possibilities this nation is capable of achieving in the world around me. It served as a reminder that as a citizen, born of this nation, I too am called to act.

I had never felt so much patriotism and such a deep connection between my heritage as an American citizen and my call to act as a faithful Christian, as I did standing at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. I stood there imagining the number of Americans who have made a pilgrimage to that place over the years striving for civil rights, for equal opportunity and justice in the eyes of the law, and of the country we live in.

Millions of people taking a stand for what they believe in, and striving to call our nation to set a path of righteousness. People from all walks of life, making their way to bear witness to the hopes and desires that inspire a nation to act. I found myself as one among many, on a pilgrimage that I didn’t even know I was called to be a part of. Yet, there I was, in this historic place looking back with awe at our nation’s history, and looking forward with eyes wide open in hopes of seeing a world changed for the better in my future.

At that moment I had an epiphany experience, a deep insight as a result of something that had become as normal and anticipated as going to see yet another monument. My journey as a high school student had come to a close, and my anticipated entrance into adulthood as an 18 year old with the privilege of voting in that years’ election, was about to begin. And something new and fresh was awakened in me – a sense of my faith being bound to my actions as a citizen of this nation, and a deep abiding hope that in my lifetime I would see true change in the world around me by being a part of building up of God’s kingdom.

More than 10 years have passed since that day. Our nation still struggles with war, violence, environmental health, and issues related to discrimination. And yet, we have come so far once again. On January 20, 2009, Americans from all walks of life will make pilgrimage to be witnesses to the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama in the same year as Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday. All politics aside, one cannot look upon these historical events in our nation’s history, without a deep hope that we as a people, as a nation, under God have entered into a new world. And my hope holds strong that God being in the midst of this shift is calling upon each of us to do our part as kingdom builders.

As a priest I am called to preach the equality of all God’s children in the name of Christ Jesus. As an Episcopalian I am called to strive for justice and freedom for all people. As an American I am called to believe that liberty and justice for all is a possibility and a value of this nation. My unexpected pilgrimage ignited in me the hope that my faith, and my citizenship could work hand in hand to strive to bring about the wonder of God’s kingdom, and the hope for God’s people in this world.

Paul’s words to the Ephesians speak to the Gentiles – those who have not yet come to know as deep a faith in Christ, and yet they speak filled with hope that they too will known through the work of the church the richness and the wisdom of God’s presence in the world by coming to know Christ.

The wise ones, too, whose pilgrimage brought them to Bethlehem to pay homage to a newborn child, one who would be a shepherd to the people to Israel, whose life’s work they would not see in their lifetime; their place in the story is one the reminds us that the Christ-child came, not for us alone, but for the whole world.

And as we enter the year 2009, our journey, and our pilgrimage of faith continues – as a people of God, as a nation striving to live into new things, as individuals seeking solace, pardon, strength and renewal through our journey to the holy table that is set for us here. May your journey to that table be one that opens you up to the possibility that God will meet you in the most unexpected, mundane, simple places. May it reveal to you the depth of Christ’s love, so that as your pilgrimage continues, you may be ignited to stand up and do your part to be about the work of building God’s kingdom. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson
Sunday, January 4, 2009
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour

Christmas Eve Message 2008 (Children's Sermon)

2009-01-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas II, RCL

Isaiah 62:6-12
Titus 3:4-7
Psalm 97

Luke 2:(1-7)8-20

Listening to stories and telling stories – these are some of my favorite parts of going to church. They are also one of the very best parts of the season of Advent and getting ready for Christmas. Telling stories is such an important part of our tradition as Christians that we do it every time we gather for worship. Tonight I’m going to share a story that many of you might recognize – and you might think it’s surprising to hear it in church, but I think it has a lot to say to us.

Once there was a little boy who did not have a lot of friends. He knew lots of kids at school, but he was kind of awkward and shy, and sometimes the kids teased him, calling him a “blockhead.” One Christmas one of the kids at school said that he should be the one to pick out the Christmas tree for the class. This little boy thought, “Me? You want me to do this? If I’m going to do this, then I better do it right!” So the little boy went to pick out a tree. And he looked at trees big and tall, shiny and sparkly, trees with all different sorts of branches, and when he found the very perfect one he brought it show all the kids.

But the tree that this little boy had picked out – well, it was a pretty sad looking tree. Just putting one ornament on it and it wilted almost to the ground. When the kids at school saw this they teased the little boy, and made the tree droop even more. The little boy decided to give up and took his little tree home with him.

Then, after he left, something unexpected happened. Someone told a story, about a little baby being born, and how this strange and unexpected birth story brought much rejoicing and singing, because that baby was born for the mere purpose of loving all people in the whole world – no matter who they were, that little tiny baby had enough love for everyone. When the other kids from the class heard that story, they began to think about the joy that such a tiny baby was able to bring into the world… and they started to think that maybe that tiny little unimpressive tree wasn’t so bad after all. So they decided to welcome it, to love it, to celebrate its arrival. And when they did this, something beautiful happened – the people were transformed and the tree revealed its true beauty.

The little boy had drawn their attention to this new thing, full of possibility in the world, and even though they rejected it at first, the community gathered around, joined in the celebration, and participated in the transformation, re-creation, resurrection of what was once a small, simple, humble tree that had come into their lives. And a whole new story came about to be told.

One story takes place inside of another. In the middle of the story of this little boy – the story of a birth announcement was re-told – of a tiny baby came into the world over 2,000 years ago. A child wrapped only in rags, born in the humblest of places – a manger, a barn, a baby, born to an unmarried couple, Joseph and Mary.

And yet, others came to see this child – shepherds were called upon to witness this humble birth, angels and heavenly hosts sang songs to the glory of God, something truly amazing happened.

And today we adorn our churches, sing songs, make special foods, gather for stories and gift giving – so that we too can be a part of that story, so that we can pass it on to our children, and our friends, and those who need to be reminded, that the simplest, most unexpected story, can ignite a passion and a love in people that can change the world.

A little boy loves a tree and shares it with his friends, and those friends are changed – they feel that love and decide to give it back, and new life grows: there in their hearts and in the world around them.

This Christmas, as you gather and tell your stories – listen for the places where something new has come from something old; where something or someone has been transformed – rarely does it happen alone, or without something deep inside igniting a passion to respond to the world with a heart of love.

Think of your own stories as they relate to those of our ancestors, the people of the Bible who have all been there before, and been through the same kinds of difficulties and the same kinds of joys that we face live with in our world today.

Love one another, love God, and know that your story matters. Know that God is there, and that Christ’s love for each of his children – the children that gather at our feet, and the children that we are in our hearts, can be broken open, and live our lives as the gifts of love that we are to the world. And don’t forget to tell the story. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC.

2 Advent, RCL, Year B

2008-12-16T18:57:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

“Prepare ye, the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

These words have been my facebook status for the past week, along with an invitation into a blessed Advent. The words did not come from a casual glance at the lectionary readings upon which I am preaching, on this, the 2^nd Sunday of Advent. But rather they came from a place inside of me that awakens when the season of Advent begins – the “liturgical bone in my body” if you will, that reminds me to pay attention, to keep watch, to remember that a season of preparation has begun.

Doing the groundwork. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing when we say that as a church, as a people, we observe the season of Advent. It’s not just that we are fussy about the color of ribbons we put on our wreaths (though we are – notice the purple ribbons on your ways out – no red until Christmas!) It’s not that we are humbugs by abstaining from offering “Merry Christmases” so early in December – opting for a plea of ‘happy Advent,” to which some politely nod, and then walk away shaking their heads, and it’s not so strange that even at the end of ChristmasVille, a weekend event filled with the fantasy of Santa hats, and gingerbread men, that we invite the community to join us for a service of Advent Lessons and Carols (tonight at 6 p.m.).

What’s important about our traditional season of Advent is that we don’t just jump to the wonder and joy of gifts and goodies intended to be feasted upon on during the twelve days of Christmas: December 25 through January 6^th. It’s the fact that we have expectations to fulfill before we get there. We have ground to cover, we have a path to follow – we have work to do. Because no matter how generous we have been, and will be in our gift-giving, cookie-making, and holiday shopping for loved ones, there are still children and adults who will be hungry on December 26^th. There are still families, and orphans, who will have to live with the devastating realities of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. There are still those who will mourn, those who will be alone, those who will not know the gift of God’s deep and abiding love. We still have ground to cover. We still have preparations to make. There is more to December than the grand and beautiful celebration that is scheduled to take place at the end of it. There is the season of Advent that reminds us to be about the business of following God’s call, and doing the work of God’s hands in the world around us.

This week I learned the story of a family in Rock Hill. One that has known the joy of raising children who are now adults in the world. The parents of this family learned of the work of the Children’s Attention Home and decided to volunteer the gift of time, and care to some of the neglected, lost children of the world. This family was touched by the deep need of children who have no family, and the idea that adopting such a child into their own home, might be something they should consider came upon them, as though God had laid it on their very hearts. Preparation for something new began that day in that family. Two years later, after much discernment as a family, reading, praying, hoping, seeking an answer to the questions – Is this who we are? Is this something we can do? God, is this really what you have in store for us? Two years later, this family has entered this season of Advent with the preparations taking place in their lives for a new family member to enter their home early in 2009. God truly is doing something new for these regular people, right here in Rock Hill. God has been at work in their lives and in the life of this child who will be forever changed by this family’s wiliness to make room, allowing a child to enter in.

This story teaches me that Advent, and that seasons of preparation in our lives, can happen at any time. But only if we’re paying attention, only if we’re open to hearing God’s call, and saying “Yes, I will follow, I will seek your path, I will look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.”

In my own life I am well practiced at this work of listening for God, discerning with God, asking the questions and faithfully responding to the possibility that God might be doing a new thing in me and the communities around me. I have followed God’s call into ministry, to seminary, and to South Carolina. And now, as a person engaged to be married I have entered a new season of preparation for God to be at work in me and my partner who intend to create a new family together in our marriage. Our work of preparation has endured through time, challenge, anticipation and commitment. Our hope is that the relationship will benefit from the preparations that are being made now, fully aware of the brokenness and reconciliation that comes with any relationship. Our prayer is that this new thing that God is doing with us will reflect the strength of God’s covenant relationship with God’s people.

Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Just as John was called upon to proclaim to the people – I challenge you to hear these words, and mark your Advent journey with their decree:

Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

The season of Advent is here – and we are called to a journey that includes prayer, reflection, listening, and responding to God’s call on our lives. To follow in the path, we must seek it out – we must discern where God is calling us, what new things God is inviting us into as we prepare to celebrate the anniversary of Jesus’ entrance into the world.

What are you doing to make room in your lives for Christ’s invitation to be loved, and love others in response? Though we live in a context that seems incredibly focused on one day of gift-giving, and feasting, we, as Christians are called to open ourselves to the possibility of new life, new light, to resurrection in our own lives, every day that we proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior.

As we continue in this season of Advent, I invite you into the work of preparation – of making room for the new things that Christ has in store for you, for others whose lives will be touched by yours, and for the whole world that is in need of the gift and hope of resurrection. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

Sunday, December 7, 2008

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC.

Proper 27, Year A, RCL

2008-11-17T14:38:00.000-08:00

Amos 5:18-24
Wisdom of Solomon 6:17-20
Psalm 70
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

Good Morning. I had looked forward to greeting you all this morning from the pulpit in the church – but as you can see we find ourselves back in the wilderness, but at least now these are familiar surroundings. Because the floors of our newly restored church were not properly sealed, they were damaged in our first days back in the church. Our zeal and excitement at getting back into our old and beloved worship space has given us a perfect example of the importance of being fully prepared when the time comes to face our maker.

This morning we hear two very striking statements about the importance of being prepared to face God, and our own life’s work at the end of the age. In the Episcopal Church we are not known for preaching on the end times much – and I am not going to give you a recap of the popular christian fictions novels of the Left Behind series – the ones that describe in detail visions from Revelation and the ultimate battle between good and evil. But I do want to talk with you about the messages these scripture passages have for us, and how we might be better prepared at the end of our times here on earth to face the day of the Lord.

From The Book of Amos, we hear an excerpt of one of the lesser prophets as he speaks to the people of the nation of Israel – a people that have not done as they were instructed. Amos’s message to Israel is not one of prophetic witness, or calling of his community to a new truth or a new understanding. No, Amos is calling the people back to what had been revealed from the beginning of history – that the Lord expects justice and righteousness.

Amos is reminding the people of Israel that they were given a command – to love and care for the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, and the unprotected members of their society (those without property or rights.) This is not new information; rather Amos is holding the people accountable for their lack of movement on their long-known assignment. Amos is not a reformer or historical revisionist, but one who calls to question a justice system that fails, and thus results in continued poverty and injustice for the oppressed. Members of this community were suffering unnecessarily, while prayers of righteousness were prayed by the faithful religious community.

“Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!” he calls out. “Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?”

The people have not done their task, and therefore, the day of the Lord is not something to look forward to with excitement, but rather as those who must face a teacher with no homework in hand, a missed deadline, a question that they should know the answer to, they find themselves coming up short. They are not prepared for such a day.

“Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them…Take away from me the noise of your songs… but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”

This righteousness Amos speaks of? What of that? It is defined as that quality of life-giving relationship with others in community that gives rise to justice. It is when individuals feel connected to the needs of others present in their community – and whether they are related to them or not, or know them or not, they reach out a hand and share what resources they have so that that person may know the love of a God in whose eyes all people are created equal and are deserving of at least the basic means of life.

Today’s Gospel takes us down a related road in line with Matthean themes: do one’s own good works, dedicate one’s life to Jesus, and be prepared for the end time.

In this parable we are introduced to characters that are wise, and characters that are foolish. The wise women are those who are prepared to wait for any length of time for the expected bridegroom. They are wise because they know that sometimes the road is difficult and it can take longer than expected to get from one place to another. They have made provisions for their lamps so that when the bridegrooms arrive their lamps will shine a bright light of welcome.

The foolish, however, prepared their lamps based on an assumed arrival time. And as the evening wore on, and the bridegroom was delayed, oil in their lamps burned down. All of the bridesmaids fell asleep, five slept with no concern or anxiety, for they had done the necessary preparation that allowed them to sleep soundly, awaiting the bridegroom’s return. But the foolish maids, also drowsy discovered that in the late hour their lamps would no longer burn to provide the welcome. In their scramble to complete the task they missed the entrance of the bridegroom, and their opportunity to enter in to the wedding banquet.

The kingdom of heaven is like this? Some will be left out in the dark and the cold?

Some will be forced to worship in the fellowship hall and not in the newly restored beautiful church?

This is not a parable about haves and have nots, or about those who are good enough, or not good enough to get into heaven – but rather it is about those have lived a life in a way that prepares them for the moment of truth, the time of reconciling the life you have lived, the person you have been, with the mandate that has been given through your call to discipleship, your commitment to your baptismal vows, your life as a faithful witness of Christ to the world.

Some of us are baptized into the Christian community early in life and the values and expectations are passed on from parent and Godparent to child at the earliest ages. Others encounter the depth of God’s abundant love later in life and are transformed by it, taking on the call of discipleship as adults, and faithfully taking on the challenges and the duties that go along with the commandments to love God and love your neighbor. But many of us live into our call to be faithful Christians on winding and meandering paths. Paths that ask really important, and difficult and worthy questions, sometimes leading to deeper wisdom, and other times leaving us to wonder, what foolishness is all of this?

From Matthew’s gospel we gather that the wise and the foolish share the same outward appearances. You cannot tell by looking at the 10 bridesmaids which are foolish and which are wise – they all are dressed properly and carry the right tools. But it is the ones who are committed and faithful to the task of awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom that are prepared for his arrival. In our call as faithful Christians, we share baptism as the common marking of our faith. But baptism alone does not guarantee our entrance into the banquet. It is not a magic moment that results in protection – but rather, the mark of a path that we must undertake, an active life of seeking the good, doing what is right, and pursuing justice for all – the same justice Amos spoke of to Israel.

In our experience as a Christian community, the urgency of the coming of the kingdom has dissipated over the centuries. And yet, we may be closer to that day than any generation before us. We have tasks set before us that could be accomplished if we do our homework. If we respond to God’s call to justice.

Justice is described in the New Interpreter’s Bible commentary as: the establishment of the right, and of the person in the right, through fair legal procedures in accordance with the will of the Lord.

In our day, in our time we have systems in place that attempt to provide justice to those in need – fair wages so that workers can support themselves and their families, protective services for children who have been neglected and abused, community centers that seek to provide stable structures in the lives of young people who don’t know that stability in their own homes… and yet, these issues persist in our community and in the lives of Americans and individuals around the world. Hunger, child mortality, disease, pollution, hopelessness… we may not be doing a much better job at this than the generations that have gone before us. And we too will be called to face our maker, to face the day of the Lord.

Who in this community is served by the gift of your time, your talent, your treasure? How are you seeking not only to pray that the needs of others be met, but to ensure that hands, and hearts strive for that justice for all of God’s people? Where does your daily vocation, livelihood, recreation lead you as a minister – as one who serves as Christ’s hands and feet in this world? I call you a minister because we are reminded by virtue of our baptism we are all called ministers of the church. In our Outline of Faith, found on page 855 of the prayer book, the question is asked: Q. What is the ministry of the laity?

The answer follow:

A. The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.

We too have an assignment; we have our work to do in the world. How might Amos applaud or critique us for our work as a community? Where might we as the community of the Church of Our Saviour in Rock Hill, South Carolina find ourselves being called to grow, and to stretch? Now that we have a beautifully restored church, one that we restored for the future generations, one that, when it is fully prepared we will be able to return to for our worship space, what is our next call as a community, striving to Celebrate Christ, Serve Christ and Share Christ? AMEN.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

Sunday, November 9, 2008

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC.

17 Pentecost, Year A, RCL

2008-09-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

Proper 18

Ezekiel 33:7-11
Psalm 119:33-40
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20

Good Morning. It is wonderful to see SOOO many of you here today. It’s the beginning of a new year (a new school year, a new program year.) Many of us have been far and near over the summer months, but today is a high holy day in the life of the church year – it’s the first day of Sunday school! And many among us who have been away have found their way back to this gathering place. I’m glad you’re all here. Welcome.

September marks the cultural end of summertime, and the return to “normal life,” back to the school year, back to business as usual, and that means coming back to church – getting back into the routine of seeing friends and family on Sunday morning and re-forming this community that we call the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour. Welcome home.

It is a cultural truth that summer vacation often includes taking a break from church. I am not naming this with the intention to make you feel bad for missing a Sunday here and there. I know as well as you all that many of you have had family to visit, weddings to attend, and rest-time and vacation/Sabbath that you have needed to take for yourselves and your families. I’ve had Sundays when I’ve been away too, and for many of those I am grateful – both for the opportunity to rest and learn from other places. Being away also means enjoying that wonderful feeling of returning home, returning to the familiar. It feels good to come into a place and be greeted by familiar faces, and a setting where you know your place, you know your way around, you know where you are going. Welcome back.

But of course, as this community re-gathers, re-forms, we are still in a bit of a wilderness – we are still worshipping here in the hall, and so those long memories of the way we do things around here, the way we’ve always done it, have been shaken up, and set aside for awhile as we continue looking forward to the completion of our church’s building restoration, renewal and return. [We welcome your call please hold.]

And of course, as some of you have been gone and have now returned – there have been other changes in the community – new faces can be seen at coffee hour as people new to Rock Hill, or the Episcopal Church, or to the Christian faith have joined us along the way, both those who have found us over the summer, and over the years: new babies, new students, new families, new companions who have gathered here with us today – and those who will find us in the coming months and years. The church is after all an institution made for those who are not yet members. Welcome to this community – it is newly re-formed today – because you are here, and we’re glad you’re here with us.

As a community it is important to remember that gathering is what we do – it is who we are. Though we go out in many different directions, experiencing the world in as many ways as we are in number, we remain connected in this place, through this tradition, through the relationships that are woven together in the fabric of our life together. We gather with purpose : to worship God, to giving thanks for our lives and all of creation, to share stories from scripture and our lives, to invite and welcome others into our fold, to grow together through the years as we laugh, give birth to new things, and weep and say goodbye. We gather to share meals – some that nourishes our bodies, others that nourish our souls. We are a diverse community, but there is one light that gathers us in – that draws us close to one another and to God and that which is at the center of our life together is Christ.

In our Gospel for today we are reminded of the fact that even in Christian community, there is, inevitably, conflict. As in your own family lives, as in your office, as your school hallways, as in traffic jams, there are tiny annoyances and great hurts that separate us from one another, from our community and from God. How do we live in peaceful community together when one has been wronged by the other? How do I pretend that what separates me from you can be ignored? The truth is – it cannot. The truth is we do and we will hurt one another, whether it’s intentional, accidental, thoughtless, or premeditated. We are absolutely capable and in all likelihood going to hurt others and be hurt by others in this community.

When a hurt has been perpetrated we will react. Just as when a hurt or injustice has taken place on a large scale and entire communities are motivated to respond, so will we on the most intimate level in one way or another respond to a hurt that has been done to us. And when it happens close to home, in our church home, that is the worst kind. But if we believe in community, and we believe that Christ is at the center of our community – then truly we have consolation in that. The Gospel describes a method of conflict resolution – one that is not easy – one that takes time and honesty. One that takes both sides listening to one another – and remembering that despite all that separates us from one another it is Christ’s love for all of that unites us still.

As we re-gather and re-form as a community, we have the opportunity to meet one another, to listen to one another, to hear where we have been, and to see how we have grown and changed. Who will we be as a community? How will we move forward together in this new year as we embrace the challenges that will face our community? And how will we forgive ourselves and one another for the conflicts of the past? You are here – and that is the first step – you are here, and we are glad, because we cannot be this community without you. And showing up – facing the questions, facing the challenges: that is the first step in resolving conflict and moving forward.

Allowing others to hear your heart, your need, your hurt, your hope, that is the second step – sharing who you are with those around you and asking for their help to stand and face the unknown – standing together to face that which separates you from your neighbor. How else will conflict be resolved if it is never brought into the light?

Finally, as a community gathered, the church at large is called to embrace both the one who has been hurt and the one who has brought that hurt to the other. Being a community – being this people gathered means being present to both parties, and living as witnesses to Christ’s love all sinners. When the community answers this call it acts as the body of Christ.

This does mean that we are called to judge one another as to who is right or wrong – but rather to allow both sides the space to be loved so that they might willingly face what they are accountable for. Alone it is hard not to feel justified – self-righteous. But in a community that seeks to be whole, neither side should be left alone. For it is in our time gathered that Christ’s presence dwells in our community, and its actions. It is in our actions of faithful worship, of returning and welcoming one another, of embracing and listening to one another in times of conflict and in times of celebration that we live into our call to faithful, Christ centered community.

You are here: welcome.

We are here: together.

Christ is with us.

In times of peace, in times of conflict, in times of wilderness and waiting, in times of return to the old and growing into the new: See each other, hear each other, embrace each other, for when we are gathered in community, Christ is with us. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

Sunday, September 7, 2008, The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC.

“God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’”

2008-09-03T15:12:00.001-07:00

16 Pentecost

Proper 17, RCL, Year A

Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28

How many times do we come to church and hear stories of call? Hear stories of great men and women of the Bible who were called by God to act as leaders, as prophets, as care-givers, as companions. When we stand in the cloud of witnesses that is offered to us in scripture we learn the stories of those who are called to act and whose actions have led to their story being shared with the forthcoming generations. We hear these stories to teach us about call and to learn about what it means to follow.

Moses was called. Moses was given a pathway to ministry that would be long and hard, but would ultimately serve the purpose of release for the captives and delivery of the Israelites from their oppressors into the Promised Land. There were times in Moses’ story when the people grumbled and disagreed and even fell away from their faith and tested Moses and tested God, but ultimately Moses answered the call to be their leader – and followed God through the wilderness and ultimately delivered on God’s promise to those who followed him.

Moses was lucky, though. He was given a lot of very clear, very specific directions. Spend a little time perusing “The Book Exodus, and you’ll see what I mean. Moses was given the floor plans, the building specs, the costume and set designs, and a lot of cubits to keep track of. He was also given sign after sign to show the people that he truly was called by God to be their leader. He answered that call from God with “here I am.” And the rest is history.

Many of the call stories that we have from the Hebrew Bible are like this – we hear tell of a conversation with God, or an angel’s pronouncement that “you – yes you – are being called – being sent to do God’s work.” And we oft times learn of those persons’ initial reaction: fear (Fear not!), incredulity (this can’t really be happening, can it?), reluctance (not me Lord, you must have meant someone else), and ultimately acceptance (Here I am).

For me the story of Jonah often comes to mind – he was one of those who required a little more convincing than most that it was really him that God was looking towards to do some work! And I’d say that DESPITE the fact that he ended up in the belly of a very large fish in order to get him started on his path to ministry, Jonah did what he was called to do, and did it well. “Here I am Lord, covered in whale spit; I hope they listen to me - now that I’m here…” And of course, they did.

(At this point I shared a bit of my own story, speaking to the fact that as I arrived at seminary I felt a lot like Jonah in the belly of the whale. I was surrounded by barriers that I wasn’t ready to let go of, keeping me from truly arriving in the new community. It took time and patience with myself and with God before I was willing to step out of that whale that had gotten me to seminary, and to walk on my own two feet on solid ground, allowing myself to truly arrive, and really do what I was there to do.)

In our readings from Matthew these past several weeks we’ve had the chance to get to know Simon Peter, one who answered Jesus’ call to follow, to be a companion, to be a disciple.

In Peter, unlike Moses or Jonah, we see a more intimate picture of the combination of great faith, and of human frailty. It was Peter who stepped out on the water and attempted to greet the Lord – but fear overcame him, and he began to sink. And Peter, along with the other disciples who knew their resources were limited, was amazed to carry baskets of leftovers when Jesus fed the masses. It was Peter, whose proclamation of Jesus as Messiah, leading Jesus to proclaim that Peter would be the rock on which his church was to be built. And today we hear the story of Peter rebuking Jesus, and Peter, that “rock,” is called a stumbling block, for his response to hearing the hard words of Jesus’ impending trials. And for those of you who know the story well, you will remember that it is Peter who, on the night of Jesus trial denies knowing him, denies the one in whom he had so much faith.

Peter’s story is an important one, because it is a story of call, but also the struggle to follow that call. It is a story of great faith, and speaks the truth that great faith can sometimes falter. Peter was a good disciple – he was present, he was willing, he was constantly learning, and he didn’t always get it right, or live up to the kind of disciple he wanted to be. But he knew he was called, and he did all that was in his power to follow that call. After each challenge, each disappointment, each doubt, Peter persevered in his call to follow Jesus. He took up his cross and followed him.

We too are called. We too are a generation of Christ followers who gather here to hear the stories of our ancestors passed down to us, so that we might be led and hear our own call to follow.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Follow me. (Here I am.)

Moses had directions. Jonah had a whale. (I had a discernment committee.) Peter had Jesus. And we have the cloud of witnesses, a community of faith that has passed on these stories of call through centuries. We have many examples to learn from, and we have our own call to listen for. There is much work to be done here – and in this time of extremely fast communication and opportunity, there is great possibility of God’s good work being accomplished.

When have you, like Moses, said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up."

When have you, like Jonah heard a call and tried to refuse it’s powerful effects on your life, only to learn that you really weren’t as in control of your destiny as you thought.

And when have you, like Peter, realized that you’ve made mistakes along the way – that you’ve tried to be faithful, but your own fear, your own frailty, your own need has separated you from the will of God?

To be a follower of Christ is not always easy – because it means sacrifice. It means being willing to give something up, in order to allow something new to take place. Take up your cross does mean being willing to die to something – but the promise of being a Christ follower is that where there is death, there is also resurrection. Where there is sacrifice a new thing will be given in return.

Listen for the call. Listen for the invitation to let go of things that keep you from following in the footsteps of the cloud of witnesses that have gone before you. And have faith that all that you need, and all that you are being called to be and to do will reward you in ways you never imagined. Here we are. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

Sunday, August 31, 2008, The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC.

I have a gospel to proclaim...

2008-07-20T06:36:00.000-07:00

The Lessons Appointed for Saint Mary Magdalene

Judith 9:1,11-14
Psalm 42:1-72
Corinthians 5:14-18
John 20:11-18

It was unfinished.
We stayed there, fixed until the end,
women waiting for the body that we loved;
and then it was unfinished.
There was no time to cherish, cleanse, anoint;
no time to handle him with love,
no farewell.
Since then my hands have waited,
aching to touch even his deadness,
smoothe oil into bruises that no longer hurt,
offer his silent flesh my finished act of love.

The opening lines of this poem, titled, “They have taken away my Lord” by Janet Morley*, draws the reader immediately into the mourning and ritual that Mary of Magdala and her companions were jolted from early on the day they went to visit Jesus’ body in the tomb. This morning we remember Mary Magdalene whose saint day is July 22. In preparation for a baptism this morning, and in events throughout the week I have found Mary to be a worthy companion in the work of saying good-bye – and preaching a gospel of hope and resurrection in the face of death.

Facing the loss of a loved one is one of the burdens that we all have to bear at one time or another. In our physical, bodily nature we are not invincible – addiction, accident, suicide, violence, disease – our bodies are susceptible to failure, and finitude. And with the inevitability of our own death – we must face it each time we witness the loss of another. The ritual of saying good-bye is an important part of that. For Mary, as voiced by the poet, the momentary grief at the thought that this final act of love might have to go “unfinished” - was too much to bear.

Her assumption of course, was that some person had done this – some person had played a terrible prank, had taken a jeering attitude too far. Someone had stolen the body that she had come to anoint, and bid farewell to and this is cause to weep. And in the Gospel there are others there who heard her weeping, who heard her despair. The words were spoken to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

In the words of the poet, she replies,

“They have taken away my Lord – where is his corpse?
Where is the body that is mine to greet?
He is not gone
I am not ready yet, I am not finished—
I cannot let him go
I am not whole.”

“I am not ready yet.” These are words that many of us can relate to when the time to say good-bye is upon us. Even when given the opportunity to prepare for death, even if we are in agreement that the fight is too much to bear anymore, even after an unexpected loss, where things seemed to have happened in a certain way for some cosmic reason – the human experience of having to say good-bye to those who have left us behind leaves in its wake sadness, mourning, loss. All that could have been, all that should have been, grieving those future events that will not be shared, realized awareness that what once was normal, will never be the same again. These realities we must face sooner or later, for they do not disappear – whether we are ready or not – we must let go, and we must persevere in the belief that wholeness is still there for us to seek.

The life and witness of Mary Magdalene at Jesus’ tomb that day is one of the reasons we believe in that wholeness – in its possibility, in its promise. Death is in fact the entry point into our life in Christ – as described in the words of our baptismal prayer: [Words that we will hear again as we participate in the baptism of Reagan Leigh, one of our newest members of the parish.]

“We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” From the Book of Common Prayer pg. 306

But Mary was not there the face the joy of resurrection – she was not there in anticipation of being greeted or recognized, or spoken to by the man she followed, the healer who had relieved her of the burdens she bore in life before he came along. No, she came to say goodbye – and as the story goes, her good-bye was interrupted by an unexpected greeting.

I have been a witness to the unexpected too. I met a man this week who is facing a terminal disease and who came to discuss his own memorial service – one that will likely take place in the next year. He is preparing himself and his family for a death that he knows will come – and to meet the need to say good-bye for those he will leave behind. In times like this I am thankful for gift of community – of baptism and of the hope of the resurrection. Again from our prayer book are these words:

“The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all its meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised.

The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn.”
From the Book of Common Prayer pg. 507

Saying good-bye, is a holy act – and it is one that, for the closest mourner does not take place in one day – it takes place over time, in the daily awareness of what is now missing. But the promise of the resurrection, the hope that we bear as a community that joins in Christ’s story through our baptism, and through our life together, is in our perseverance of that wholeness – our belief that even in saying good-bye – we have not lost the love that was present in relationship those we no longer see.

I have one last story that took me by surprise this week, and reflects the joy and wholeness that saying good-bye brings. If you listen to the National Public Radio station you may have heard some of your favorite newscasters and hosts giving tributes to a man you would otherwise never have known or heard of. Gary Smith was a doorman in a building that houses NPR. He had a way of greeting each person as they came and went – a greeting that let each person know that he saw them, that he cared – even if just for that instant, that they were passing by.

Why do I know this? Why did I hear of this person? Because in the wake of his death, the truth that his presence affected more lives than one might ever have expected was expressed again and again, by different hosts and members of the NPR staff. And the resounding story that was told of this man – was in many ways a tribute to a love he had for all people.

Hmm. A simple man, touching the lives of many through his love and compassion, and inspiring others to carry on his message, to carry on the love he embodied in his everyday living. Seems a familiar story. It brings me back to the close of the poem I began with – as Mary who came to say good-bye, and is faced with another opportunity to grasp on to the one she loved – instead she is told – do not hold onto me – go and tell the others. And so, like “Mary, I, have a gospel to proclaim.” Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson
Sunday, July 20, 2008, The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC.

*They have taken away my Lord
by Janet Morely

It was unfinished.
We stayed there, fixed until the end,
women waiting for the body that we loved;
and then it was unfinished.
There was no time to cherish, cleans, anoint;
no time to handle him with love,
no farewell.
Since then my hands have waited,
aching to touch even his deadness,
smoothe oil into bruises that no longer hurt,
offer his silent flesh my finished act of love.
I came early, as the darkness lifted,
to find the grave ripped open and his body gone;
container of my grief smashed, looted,
leaving my hands still empty.
I turned on the man who came:
“They have taken away my Lord – where is his corpse?
Where is the body that is mine to greet?
He is not gone
I am not ready yet, I am not finished—
I cannot let him go
I am not whole.”
And he spoke, no corpse,
and breathed, and offered me my name.
My hands rushed to grasp him;
to hold and hug and grip his body close;
to give myself again, to cling to him,
and lose my self in love.
“Don’t touch me now.”
I stopped, and waited, my rejected passion
hovering between us like some dying thing.
I, Mary, stood and grieved and then departed.
I have a gospel to proclaim.

7th Sunday After Easter, RCL

2008-05-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
John 17:1-11

Why I am a Christian Part II – I am a person of prayer.

Perhaps you can tell from my sermons, or my articles in The Acorn, but if you haven’t figured it out, I am a writer. I feel the most clear, and the most freedom to express myself, my thoughts and feelings with a pen in my hand and a notebook in my lap.

Clearing out a bookshelf in my bedroom this week I put together an entire box of journals and notebooks. I started this habit of carrying thoughts, ideas, song lyrics, definitions, poems in a notebook the summer I turned 14. I probably got the idea from the book Harriet the Spy – where the main character’s goal was to write down everything that she observed in the whole world – though as a 10 year old, she mostly focused on her unusual neighbors. There was always something comforting to me about having my pen and paper – ready to capture my real life moments.

I guess that’s probably where I discovered the practice of writing my prayers –I liked the idea the time capsule of a moment – and sharing that self with is older wiser, later me. but I’ll say more about that in a minute.

I would journal too, sporadically at times, chronicling the events of boys I was interested in, trips I had gone on, or experiences I had been through. And that practice, of looking back in reflection, sometimes elicited new ideas and understandings of a situation. Certainly looking at these old journals now, it is a wonder to read and know both my intimate and obvious thoughts based on statements and recorded actions.

One thing I have learned as I have read through these old entries is that I have always had a strong sense of self, and though I have learned and grown and matured, I have almost always been authentically me. My thoughts, ideas, actions – fairly straightforward, and clear – though not always outward or public – I have been known to be pretty introverted at times – shocking I know – but true.

I think this is why I have kept so many written papers and assignments from as far back as Jr. High school – because to read my own words – I am reminded that I am who I am and somehow I have always known that.

Perhaps that is how I came to be a writer of my most intimate prayers. Littered throughout notebooks, journals, scratch paper, things floating around in the midst of my memorabilia are letters that start, “Dear God.”

Some are more simple than others: just lists of names – of loved ones and lost ones. Some are poetic words, prepared for a toast or blessing for a friend. Some are copies or drafts of letters written to dear friends – for a graduation, for their wedding, at the birth of a child, the loss of a grandparent…

The art of writing a prayer is not in the high caliber of language used, “thee’s & thou’s,” “shalts” and “shalt nots”… but in the connection of deep resonance with what is being offered. Here is the part of my heart, my sprit, my depths that is calling out to you God – in joy, in grief, in thanksgiving, in sorrow, in praise, in confession, in hope, in love, in my most authentic voice.

Dear God, I am here. Let my words, actions, deeds, deepest love and deepest disappointments be in line with your will, your call in my life.

My letters, my prayers to God – they are my authentic offering to God – and that is how I know they are holy, and they are heard.

In today’s Gospel, we hear the voice of Jesus – praying. We hear the fourth evangelist John speaks in the first person voice of Jesus in his prayer for his disciples and his followers – Jesus’ prayer for us.

The author of John was a writer as well and one whose voice is complex and sometimes difficult to comprehend – on a first hearing, rather than studied. I wanted to hear Jesus voice as I waded through the Gospel today, so I did what I know how to do in my prayers and in my way. I listened to John, and I wrote Jesus’ prayer as a letter to God. This is what I heard.

Dear God,

My time is up.

I’ve done what I came here to do – to share the promise of eternal life with your people. And eternal life, God, is the gift of knowing you and me.

I finished the work you sent me here to do – and glorified your name.

I have given them the words you gave me.

They know you because they know me.

And they believe what is true – that I cam from you.

You have entrusted them to me – and I have been glorified in them.

Now that I am coming to you, you who gave me to them, and them to me,

I ask that your protection be upon them

So that they may be one, as we are one.

Jesus prayed. In each gospel we have very different voices that give us an experience of our teacher’s words, wisdom and prayers. Jesus didn’t write down his own words – and so the authenticity of voice is not the same when written by the author of John, or by me… but the message is the same.

Jesus came into this world, not to condemn it, but to save sinners. And in our deepest, most authentic voices, we are called to pray just as Jesus did. Our prayers, when they come from our depths, when they are spoken, or breathed, or sung, or kept hidden – even from our selves, they belong to God, just as we belong to God. Jesus was entrusted to us, just as we who follow him were entrusted with his message of truth – of life beyond this world, and to live a life of thanksgiving – trusting in the truth that our brothers and sisters the disciples received, and that truth which has been passed on to us through experiences of community and relationships. God is in our midst. God hears and answers our prayers.

When I write my prayers – they come from the very deepest part of myself – parts that I sometimes don’t want to see, don’t want to look at, don’t want to read. But I write them because I must, because not only are they mine, they are also God’s. And I trust that that is the place where I can truly give them over to God. How do you pray? When and where do you pray? And is it your deepest most authentic voice that calls out to God in your prayers? May our prayers as a people, as individuals and as a community, be spoken in our most authentic voice – giving to God what is God’s, and being God’s people in this world – so that we may be one, as the Lord our God and Christ Jesus our Saviour, and the Holy Spirit, are one. Amen.

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

Sunday, May 4, 2008, The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC.

New Beginnings: Middle School Spring Retreat

2008-04-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Prayer: a talk for youth grades 6-8
Delivered Sunday, April 27, 2008, Gravatt Camp and Conference Center

Our Father, who are in heaven…

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…

Dear God,

Now I lay me down to sleep…

(singing) Oh God, you are my God, and I will ever praise you…

Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God…

Sound familiar?

Prayer is an important part of our life and practice as individual Christians, and as Christians in community. But what is it? What is the purpose? What does it do?

Our prayer book describes prayer as “responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.”

What? I though the only way to pray was on my knees on Sunday morning hands together, eyes closed, memorized or otherwise…

Prayer makes itself present in many ways and in many places in our lives.

Some of you have memorized morning and bedtime prayers that you say each night before bed. Some of you pray on Sunday mornings with your congregation. Some of you might pray when you are doing other things like running, or knitting, singing playing an instrument, or a favorite sport, or working on a piece of art…there are many, many ways to pray.

What makes something prayerful, according to the definition that I said just a moment ago – is that it is about intentional – intended communication with God.

That can mean – starting an initial gathering with a prayer – to name to fact that God is present with us and we as a community wish to offer the joy and the learning that comes from being together to the creator who allowed us to gather.

It can mean taking time to be quiet, especially in times of high stress, or grief, or uncertainty – to be quiet and to listen for God, to give a little of yourself – your time, your attention to allow God to speak to you – your life your questions – your concerns.

It can mean flipping through the prayer book, or another resource and reading prayers in your head or aloud.

It can mean taking a pen and paper and writing a letter or journal entry in conversation with God.

Anytime that you take a moment to remember and recognize God’s presence in your world – in your life – in your gathering of friends and family – you are praying. Think about that the next time we sing the Johnny Appleseed song for a meal at grace – am I doing this for my own benefit, or am I doing this to honor God in thanksgiving for his presence at this meal and the food from creation that will nourish me today?

There specific types of prayer – and if you know the one that is most common to us, the one Jesus taught us to pray – the Lord’s Prayer – then you’ve got a great guide book to remembering the kinds of prayers that can be offered.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name… God – you are amazing, and your name is worthy of praise – of being honored above all names – because you are the creator God – source of light and life. Way to go! Good job! - that is called praise – giving God the thumbs up. (praise)

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven… God, you created us and you want us to live in the way that is best for us – help us to let your will for our lives and our relationships be the one that we follow – and not just our own – because following our own will gets us in trouble sometimes. Help us Lord to follow your will. This is a prayer of oblation – making our purpose to be in line with God’s. (oblation)

Give us this day our daily bread… God – we have needs – we need to be nourished, we need shelter and to be cared for – we thank you for providing us with those needs and ask that you help us remember the needs of others – after all – some of us have more than we need, and others don’t have as much as we do…help us to only take and use what we need, and help us to remember to share with others when we realize that they don’t have all they need. (thanksgiving)

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us… God, sometimes we mess up – BIG TIME – be with us in the times when we make mistakes – when we let our desires get in the way of how you would have a be in the world – how you would have us care for one another. When our actions hurt someone we love, or someone we find very difficult to love – help us to make amends – and help us to do it better next time.

And God, when someone hurts us, when someone hurts a friend, when someone hurts you, help us to find a way to forgive them too. It’s hard lord – especially – when they don’t even know how much we are hurting, or we feel powerless to stop them from hurting us and others again – give us patience, and the strength to face them and to forgive them for the mistakes they are making – because we know that we too have made mistakes, and we too will make them again. (Confession/reconciliation/forgiveness)

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

God, sometimes I have the chance to do something that I know you would not like. Sometimes my friends pressure me to do the things and sometimes I catch myself pressuring friends to do these things. Help me to make good choices, to walk a path that keeps me safe from hurting other people and from being hurt by others. (intercession/petition)

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.

God, sometimes I am amazed at how great you are – that you aer with me in all things, in all times and in all places. Help me to always remember that you are here for me and that I can share that love with others who do not know you, or how present you are in all things. (adoration)

The Lord’s Prayer, the pray that Jesus taught us, reminds us to be thankful, to seek forgiveness, to forgive others, to praise god, to adore Gods’ greatness and to form our own lives according to God’s will.

There are many ways to pray – you may have been a person of prayer in many ways all along without even realizing it. When you think of a friend in need and then reach out to them, offer their name to god. When you are hurting or sad, ask for God’s presence – remember God is there with you, always. All you have to do to pray is remember that and respond to god’s presence in your thoughts, words or deeds.

Amen.

I am the way and the truth and the life...

2008-04-21T15:01:00.000-07:00

5 Easter, Year A, RCL

Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14

I am the way and the truth and the life.

Anytime I hear a passage from the Gospel of John I am amazed at how this evangelist is able to pack a theological punch in just a few short verses. In this mornings passage alone – line after line of scripture challenges, the hearer to reflect on what it means to be a follower of Jesus – what it means to be a Christian.

Have you been with me all this time and still you do not know me?

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

If you know me, you know my Father also.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

My reflections on this passage led me to the realization that though I have been serving the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour for almost two years now – I have preached the gospel, celebrated the Eucharist, baptized children, and walked among you as a person of faith, a person of prayer, a follower of Jesus; but I don’t believe that I have told my story – the story of why I am a Christian.

Like many of you, I was raised in a church-going home – my family is Episcopalian and I attended several different Episcopal Churches through my childhood and high school years. I was trained and well practiced in the ways of Episc-aerobics – stand up to pray, kneel to pray, stand to sing, sit down in between, pick up the hymnal, pick up the prayer book, hands up, hands across the chest, hands together, etc. etc. etc.

Now, I’ll admit, my earliest memories of church as a child were of very, very cold air conditioning – (remember I lived in Arkansas until I was nine,) short sleeved dresses, and leaning into the warmth of my mother’s body. I also remember singing hymns – even before I could read – but thanks to the organ, always feeling the pitch in the center of my chest.

As a child I was formed to be an Episcopalian – so much so that when I visited other churches where communion was not the norm, and remaining seated – even during prayer, and the Gospel – things just didn’t feel right. I wasn’t sure I had “done church” not having received communion.

From the beginning being in church was a full body experience, and one that made sense – that fit me quite well. Much of my earliest formation was about being a part of a community, and its practices, so that I felt I had a place there; I knew how to act and respond to the cues of the liturgy. It had little to do with actual faith in God, or understanding who Jesus was – though I’m certain that I heard countless sermons and Sunday school lessons about Jesus – mostly I just knew I belonged there.

Have you been with me all this time and still you do not know me?

When I was nine years old my family moved from the home I had always known in Arkansas to a suburb of the twin cities in Minnesota. For both of my parents the move was right for their careers, education and a return to the upper Midwest where both of them were born and raised and where both sets of my grandparents were within an easily drivable distance from our new home. My older brother struggled more than any of us with the move – particularly as a Jr. High school student, dealing with adolescence and a new community, making new friends, trying to understand his place and way of being in an unfamiliar culture, and climate. We had a new Episcopal Church – and the worship experience and practices were enough the same that we knew what to do, how to act, how to function in that place. At least that experience was stable; there we knew how to be.

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

By the time I entered Jr. High school my brother had been in a downward spiral for several years – drugs, alcohol, you name it, my brother was into it. I lived in a house that was rarely peaceful, or happy. My parents worked, my brother partied, and I took long rides on my bike when the weather permitted my escape.

As with any child growing up – what I knew was normal – it was far from perfect, but it was my house, my family, and my situation to live with until something or someone changed.

My best defense-mechanism was invisibility – I would just disappear, and let the rest of them battle it out – it rarely had anything to do with me anyway.

I assumed that I was invisible to everyone… I assumed that no one could see or hear all that was taking place in my house – the struggle my parents had to care for and discipline their rebellious child – the difficulty of keeping up appearances, even when things seemed to be at their worst, and the fear of what it might mean to let a child fall hard enough that they might take responsibility for their own self, their own actions.

Meanwhile – I kept myself together reading books and being an escape artist. Until one day, someone invited me out to lunch. It was the youth minister at my church – someone who I knew through acolyting and some youth events that I had attended. It was summer time and we met up at a little restaurant in downtown.

Lord we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?

I thought we were just going for lunch. I thought we were just saying hello over the summer. I thought nothing much of it at all – until she asked me how I was doing… until she let me know that she could see me, and could see that things were not so great at home. I thought I was fine – but I wasn’t.

If you know me, you know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.

The day that I was saved, the day that I met Jesus, was the day that I realized I could be seen – and not only was I seen – and made real, special, important on that day – but I was seen for the simple fact I was a child of God.

And on that day a follower of Jesus, one who knew God’s love deeper than anyone else I knew at the time, did one very simple thing. She had faith in the Jesus’ words, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Responding to those words on that day for her meant doing the work that Jesus would have done – reaching out to the lonely, the hurting, the vulnerable.

I don’t think we spoke a word about Jesus that day – except perhaps when we gave thanks for the meal that was before us. But as I have reflected over the years on how and why I follow Jesus – why I can stand here and uphold Jesus’ words, “I am the way and the truth and the life” it relates back to that day – that moment in my life when I met Jesus at the supper table.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

On that day, through a deep connection with another human being, I was seen by and I saw Christ. I understood the words, “I am the way” because it was exemplified to me in the words and actions of one who reached out to me in my greatest need. As members of a Christian community, we are called to bear that story not only on our lips but in our lives. As followers of Jesus, we are called to care for one another and for those in need by being Christ for others, by being companions, and sometimes vessels on the way.

In theological terms we can discuss this passage by reflecting on it’s placement in the Gospel of John – conversation the Jesus had with his disciples at the last supper – described as the farewell discourse. Jesus’ laying the groundwork for our Trinitarian understanding of God as he describes the mutual indwelling of God in Christ, and Christ in God, followed by the next verses that describe third party of the trinity with the impending arrival of the Holy Spirit…

But in reality – in day to day language – in relationship with one another… the words, I am the way and the truth and the life – these words are alive in my life because someone who had faith in their strength, and meaning lived up to them. At my greatest moment of need – one spoke the truth, one valued my life and one invited me to join them on the way as a fellow member of the family of Christ, a community that was there for me outside of my small and struggling family system. On that day I claimed the birthright that I received at my baptism and began to own the teachings and the ways of a life of Christian faith and practice. My preparation as a church-goer was complete. My life as a faithful participant in the Christian community had just begun.

When the Christian Community is at its best – it has faith in and reflects these things in its words and deeds. When we as Christians are at our best – we know ourselves well-enough to know why we are here, why we do what we do, and as a result we are motivated to share that part of ourselves with others – through our words, through our actions, through our lives as they are lived out in the world.

Today I shared with you a portion of my faith story. This week as members of our congregation take the final steps to affirm their commitment to be active members of the Christian community through confirmation in the Episcopal Church, let us each reflect on why we are here, why we are called to follow Jesus, and are committed and practicing Christians – when did you find yourself on “the way” and where is it calling you to go? Who is it calling you to be, how are you articulating and sharing the parts of your story that allow you to have faith in the words of Jesus, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

April 20, 2008, The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC

Lent 2, Year A, RCL

2008-03-05T18:34:00.001-08:00

Genesis 12:1-4a
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17
Psalm 121

It is the second Sunday of Lent, and we have gathered once again to hear the voice of our ancestors through the traditional scriptures, the traditional words of our liturgy, and to engage in the traditional practice of receiving the body of Christ through the Holy Communion as we gather together at the table.

But as a congregation under construction, we are in the midst of a many new practices. We have the new practice of using our prayer books (though not new in the grand scheme of things, it’s something we have to get used to again as a community.) We have to get used to sitting in these chairs – sometimes a little closer to our neighbors than we are accustomed to – we can see each other a little closer up – see the altar from a new perspective – see one another’s faces up close and personal. We have had to come up with new solutions to having coffee hour and parish hall events in this space and we’ll continue to live with the newness that occurs in the midst of transition.

I have been contemplating all of the newness in the midst of that which is very traditional, the many and wonderful preserved traditions that our Episcopal church upholds, and that ultimately our restoration work is committed to. We are updating those things that are old, worn out and in need of repair or replacement, but we are doing so by returning them to their original beauty, their traditional look, their historic impression.

When we return to our worship space – it will ultimately look like the same church – and yet, it will have undergone a major transformation – one that new members down the road or visitors or young people a generation away from now won’t be able to see in the same way that we will, those of us who knew the church before the restoration, who see how it looks without the walls and floors that we are accustomed to, and who will have to grow accustomed to the newness of that traditional place upon returning to our old worship space.

Old and new, traditions preserved, transitions restored, death into rebirth.

The story that we are in the midst of is a living breathing example and reflection of the Gospel that we received this morning.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee – a priest – active in the Jewish community – active enough to know the traditions, to know that his people were awaiting the one who would come in the name of God and change everything. And he was aware enough of this Jesus of Nazareth that he had to go and see for himself if this could really be the one.

He also knew that he might want to keep his inquiry under wraps – at least for now – and so he made his visit in the night, maintaining a cloak of secrecy. After all – with the new – with change – whether impending, hoped for, necessary – there is much work required, and if this was going to be it – if this was the beginning of such a transition, then Nicodemus wanted to be prepared – he wanted to know for himself if this already powerful figure was going to change the whole world he knew.

He posed his introduction to Jesus saying, “Rabbi, we know that your are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

You may have noticed – he did not ask a question here – merely introduced an address.

And Jesus replied – “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” – or, as our Greek scholars will inform us – being born anew or again.

In other words, you will not know that which is from God without having new eyes with which to see it – that transition – those changes – that newness that you have perceived and are here to verify – it’s coming – it is very real – and it is going to change things – but the changes in the world may not be as overt, outward and obvious as you might imagine.

Nicodemus replies with an incredulous response to the physical idea of being born anew – “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” (How can such a new thing take place – for our bodies are what they are – they are only capable of so much in the way of new physical experiences…)

Don’t be so quick to blame Nicodemus for missing the metaphor – we have 2000 years of Christian tradition, catechism and Baptismal preaching and practice to clue us in to what he doesn’t get. This concept of being born of the Spirit, of being born anew – this was radical stuff. And it sounds to me like not everyone would be able to understand, to accept, to perceive of that which was being made new in the world. Those who knew it to be true – would know it to be true – even if they couldn’t see it in the physical world around them.

In fact, for those of you who have already cringed in recognition of the words “born again,” the bigger danger that we have in this day and age is getting caught our own culture’s definition of what that means.

In our cultural context the term “born-again” is derived from this passage and is often used in evangelical Christian circles to reference one’s – individual action – of accepting Jesus as one’s “personal” Lord and Savior. It reflects a different kind of confusion regarding this metaphor because it seems to assume that this new birth is something that is done by the individual – it precludes God’s action in the process entirely.

By claiming to choose God – to choose Jesus and thus to call that an experience of being “born again” is to take God’s deep and astounding love and action out of the equation. It is not our action that allows God to transform us, but rather it is God’s transforming power that allows us – invites us, calls us into change, into new life, even though our physical self may not reflect that experience.

In our own baptismal vows the candidate for baptism or his/her sponsors are asked if they accept Jesus Christ as savior, to put trust in his love and grace and to obey his command as Lord – but it is not a personal act – it is a communal act of worship and commitment. It is a question asked in community – with the child, the parents, the godparents, and the congregation as witnesses and fellow participants in the covenant agreement.

The change that follows – though marked with physical symbols of water and oil – it is not visible to the human eye – it is not a change that can be seen or detected in the physical world. Rather, the transformation, at its onset has a greater impact on the community gathered than on the child who has received the sacrament. It is through a life of discovery of God’s love for the baptized, of the communities’ participation in nurturing an active faith-life and supporting a child’s hands as they reach out for God, as they seek that grace and mercy that the power of this spiritual re-birth is developed and experienced.

Understanding God’s action, recognizing God’s presence, allowing one’s self to be born anew is not always something that is done so willingly or so willfully as to be left up to human choice. Responding to that call, responding to that deep love, responding to that “ahah” moment – that is where the faithful begin to take responsibility for the gift of new life that has been given them.

And the though the newness may be obvious to you, though the change in how you see the world, how you see your place in it and perceive what it is to live as a Christian through it may have completely changed – perhaps your neighbors sitting so close will not be able to tell – because it is not a physical change that has manifested through your return to the birth canal in your mother’s womb – as Nicodemus so absurdly suggested.

Looking at this passage through our lens as Anglicans and as post-resurrection Christians – we can hear these words knowing what Jesus is pointing to – not only as we reflect on our own Baptismal Covenant and the role that baptism plays in our life as a community – as the sacramental marking of God’s invitation into a new life in Christ – but we understand that Jesus’ own life was on a path to the cross – he called for a deeper understanding of new life, and of renewal or rebirth as he was moving toward the death that would allow him to resurrect – to be born anew.

Newness in the midst of old – transformation of the spirit – leaving the physical world to be the physical world – and allowing the spirit to do its work on us – for… “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

As you hear and speak the traditional words of our liturgy, of our scriptures and of our faith practices, may you be a witness and an active participant in the newness of the spirit at work in all things and in all places. May your eyes be open to the changes in yourself and in your neighbors, despite the lack of physical evidence, and may you respond to the spirit at work in you – recognizing God’s deepest love for you and the abundant life in Christ that is ours.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

Amen.

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

February 17, 2007, The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC.

The Baptism of Our Lord

2008-01-14T07:59:00.000-08:00

First Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A, RCL

Isaiah 42:1-9
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17
Psalm 29

Like most of the people present here today, I have no memory of my own baptism. I know that I was about a month old, and that means it was probably a very hot day in an Arkansas August.

I know that Barbara, my Godmother, makes the best biscuits and gravy I’ve ever eaten and roots whole heartedly for the Arkansas Razorbacks. (Woo-pig-sooey – sorry Carolina/Clemson fans, my football loyalties were a birthright!)

I know that my Godfather, Carl, met my mother and dad while studying literature and writing at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and that as a quadriplegic, he never really had the opportunity to hold me as a baby.

I know that the priest who baptized me (Charlie Chatham) wore a t-shirt to the after-church get together that said “bionic padre.” And he’s still in active ministry and serving an Episcopal Church in Arizona. We corresponded just a year ago and he was glad to know that I had been ordained to the priesthood. Though he claims to have no recollection of the bionic padre t-shirt – I have photographic evidence J

Other than those few facts, mostly based on the some backyard pictures taken after the “event,” I have no memories of my own baptism; no personal recollection of my own initiation into the faith practice. And yet, the actions of my parents, my godparents and the faith community that I was invited into that day was the beginning of my journey on a path toward vocation, livelihood, ministry and praxis.

I offer this story of my own baptism on the same day that our scriptures tells of Jesus’ baptism – a day I’m sure he remembered, probably quite vividly – throughout his three years of ministry. The scripture tells us that Jesus was about thirty years old and that he went to the river to meet John in order to be baptized by him. I’ve tried to imagine what this day might have been like, what thoughts may have been going through his head.

Did he know that this was going to be a significant event – that when the baptism would occur the skies would open up and this world would never be the same? Was he already fully aware of all that was expected of him, all that would occur in his life here on earth – or did he embark on his mission with questions, yet answering a call to step out on faith.

Our own baptismal covenant, our own call to a life of mission and ministry as baptized Christians is made up of questions asked, and responses made by stepping out on faith.

My baptism did not elicit an event as significant as God’s pronouncement as, “this is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased”. And yet, as I continue to walk in a path of ministry, as my years of lay ministry (nearly 30) and my years of ordained ministry, well, one year of ordained ministry, I am thankful for the Baptismal Covenant that invites me to step out on faith – to strive to be a faithful believer, to seek out a faith community and practice, to seek those in need of God’s tender care, and humanity’s conscious attempt to care.

Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness."

What is significant about this moment, this exchange as it is recorded in Matthew, is that Jesus accepts John’s baptism, and accepts the mark of the renunciation of evil and sin, just as each of us renounces this darkness in our own baptism.

Immediately following this passage Jesus will be sent to face temptation – the first challenge to his authority, strength and ability to lead. Most of us will not face the kind of temptation experience that scripture tells us Jesus went through, but we are empowered through the community, through the network of faith practitioners and partners around us to face whatever evils, whatever hardships, whatever fears we must face.

Our baptism is not merely a magical kind of protection that we place over our heads and offer on our children. It is an initiation into a faith community, a new family of brothers and sisters, connected not through blood relationship, but through a community of care and active relationship building.

And so this morning, as we stand together and renew our own baptismal covenants individuals and as a community, I invite you to think of the faith communities that baptized you that raised you that fed and nourished you along your path to this place. I invite you to reflect on your baptism in relation to that of Jesus, and what it means to embrace his baptism and your own as a mark of a path to ministry, as a call to respond to the needs of the world and to face your fears as a child of God. Step out on faith, and know that you do so in the midst of community, therefore you do so not alone, but with God’s help. Amen.

Delivered Sunday, January 13, 2007

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC

A very brief response to John 1:1-118

2008-01-02T06:25:00.002-08:00

Christmas 1, Year A RCL

Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7
John 1:1-18
Psalm 147 or 147:13-21

"In the beginning was the word, and he word was with God, and the word was God." (John 1:1)

"And the word became flesh and lived among us." (John 1:14)

The beauty and richness of John’s Gospel prologue does not need my voice to reinforce is message. One only needs to sit and reflect on the ever widening reach of Christ’s presence as it is described here. A presence that stretches from the beginning of time into the moment of incarnation – in-fleshment and dwelling among us and into a time beyond our knowledge toward which we are always moving.

In this Christmas season for this is still a season of Christmas, one that began on Christmas day, rather than ended, I invite you to hear John’s words as a reminder that God came into this world as an act and offering of love; a love so deep and so strong that its presence was with us from the beginning and will remain with us until the very end.

And may that great love feed you, nurture you and bless you throughout this new calendar year – so that you might turn to one another and know the Christ, in flesh, dwelling among us.

“No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” Amen.

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC
December 30, 2007

Christmas Eve Children's Sermon

2008-01-02T06:22:00.000-08:00

At this time of year we are confronted everywhere we go with all sorts of Christmas stories. There are so many Christmas stories – White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, The Santa Clause, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer…

With all of these stories that you hear from Mom & Dad, on TV and at the movies, it’s hard to see past all the glitter and ribbon and blinking lights and to remember a story of a much simpler time, a long, long time ago. The first Christmas story is a very simple one.

Do you know the story of Jesus, the one that we tell at Christmastime?

It is the story of Jesus’ birth.

And the great thing about all the stories we hear about Jesus all year long is that they are stories about God’s great love for each of us.

Every story that we hear about the life of Jesus, when he walked the earth as a human being is grounded and surround in God’s great big huge holy love for us.

Some of these stories are of Jesus talking with friends and eating and drinking together.

Some are stories of those who touched Jesus and were touched by Jesus and received healing.

Some stories talk about the Jesus telling stories, and teaching lessons to the people.

In some we hear about Jesus praying to God, asking for strength and help to do the work he was sent here to do.

In all of these stories we hear about Jesus’ life and ministry here on earth he was pointing again and again to God’s great big love for us throughout time and throughout history.

Today’s story is about the day Jesus was born, and even this story tells us about God’s love for us.

God loved us so much that a long, long time ago he asked Mary to make room in her life and in our world for a baby that she was not expecting.

God asked Joseph to make room in his life for this baby is well.

They both agreed to take on the responsibility of caring for this child – to love it, to foster it, to give it a good home and a good upbringing – the best they could offer – which wasn’t much, considering Joseph was just a carpenter.

You would think that if God wanted a child to be cared for, one as special as Jesus, that he might ask a great queen and king, or a strong and powerful soldier, or a highly educated priest or professor to care for it.

But no, God believed in Mary and Joseph, and God knew what he was doing.

Mary and Joseph did care for the baby as best they could – with what little they had – so little that the baby was born in a barn with all sorts of animals around.

And the baby was greeted by shepherds – a despised, lowly group of young men – equivalent power and privilege in this day and age to a custodian, or a cleaning lady.

Regular everyday folks were there to greet this newborn baby that God had sent into the world – a child born so that God himself might know what it is like to live in the human world as one of us.

No one was wearing a special Christmas dress. There were no Christmas cookies yet; no shiny wrapped packages placed them under a decorated tree. There were no blinking lights – except for the beautiful stars shining in the night sky.

All of the wonderful things that we do to get ourselves ready for Christmas, to remember the day of Jesus birth, those traditions didn’t even exist yet. Just a mother and father and their newborn child, and God’s great big love born into the world in a brand new way.

Most of the stories we hear in the world around us are full of action – big picture, big adventure. But the story of the birth of our faith tradition, it’s just a simple little quiet one. One that we can remember and be reminded of by looking up at the stars at night, by looking into each other’s eyes and saying I love you; one that we can remember and enact by saying to someone, “I forgive you” because I have received forgiveness.

That baby that God asked Mary and Joseph to care for, the Jesus whose stories we tell again and again, they are reminders to us that we are loved with the great big heart of God, and that even when we get upset with a friend, or with our parents, or with our children, we are still made to give and receive love.

Just like Mary and Joseph, God asks each one of us to allow love to be born into the world. How do we do that? By remembering the importance of learning and living Jesus’ story and stories all year round. By being willing to give away the kind of love that God has for us, and by sharing that love, expecting it and seeking it from those who have nothing to give back – not those with great power, but those who are the most vulnerable and in need of love in the world.

To all of you who are here tonight, my Christmas prayer for you and for your new year is that you will remember that God’s love was born into the world in the same way that we all came into this world. That love can be born in us again and again, all we have to do is give it away, by seeking out those in the greatest need, and those with the least amount to give.

Because that is how God did it, and faithfully, God, and the world, received the most wonderful gift of all. The life, and love and resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

December 24, 2007, The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC

Are you the one who is to come...

2007-12-17T13:40:00.000-08:00

Advent 3, Year A RCL

Isaiah 35:1-10
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Psalm 146:4-9

Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?

On this, the third Sunday of Advent 2007, still early in our church’s newest year, we hear the voice of John the Baptist – the prophet, the one who proclaimed the coming of one who would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. John poses a question as to the authenticity of the (then) new ministry of Jesus. His question reveals an attribute of doubt that is not often associated with this person’s story in the life of Jesus. It is an unexpected and yet understandable perspective from his point of view.

John’s role is, perhaps, a minor one in most of our conception’s of the Christian Story – though he certainly wasn’t a minor figure then. John was, as I said, a prophet, an ascetic who lived on simple foods, wore simple clothing, and preached of the coming of the Lord – that one day, one would come forth who would overturn the oppressors of God’s people, who would bring healing to those who are sick, make the blind see, make the lame walk.

He had a message for the world – to make straight their paths so that they might be ready to receive this mighty king who would bring good news to the poor. Talk about preaching for Advent! John’s message was one of anticipation – of waiting and of preparation. His was a message was both of great hope, and of great warning – that those who were not ready for this king would be in for it when he arrived on the scene.

John had a ministry of his own, he had a following of his own and disciples of his own. He was baptizing those who would listen and those who needed the hope in his message, that good news was being preached to them, that they had a place in God’s kingdom and it was a place higher than that of their own oppressors, those in power who ignored the obvious needs of community members (and outcasts) within plain sight.

So, knowing that John was expecting a powerful and mighty Messiah, one might understand a little more when John asked the question of Jesus – are you the one? Are you here to do all the things that I have been proclaiming – the pronouncements that I was born to make as a prophet of God, as one following in the footsteps of Elijah… Are you him? Are you here? Is my work complete? Have I fulfilled my mission?

John questioned Jesus’ authenticity as the one to fulfill all that he had proclaimed – because Jesus’ way of being in the world did not match up with what John expected – Jesus did not look, or act, or sound like the Messiah that John had been proclaiming all those years – so he had cause to question.

John’s expectation’s of what to look for came from a place of biblical proportions. The same God that was poetically described in our Hebrew text – one who would make fruitful the deserts, make tender the wild beasts, make a Holy path for the righteous to walk on – that same expectant savior was described in the passages prior to that as one who would bring vengeance and judgment down on those who ignored the needs of the poor, and oppressed those who were victims of poverty and economic and societal injustice. This Jesus, this new bearer of John’s prophetic witness, this one being proclaimed as the one greater than John that would follow – he did not seem to wield the kind of power that John was waiting for.

Though his words may have stated, “I have come to bring, not peace, but a sword,” his way of doing this was through preaching a message of love – a commandment of love – but not reaping the kind of “eye for an eye” justice that perhaps John was certain he would see, or at least might begin to hear of through the walls of his imprisonment.

Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.”

John’s expectations of how the Messiah might live out his ministry were unmet – Jesus’ words, his message back to John, was that all that he had proclaimed would come was being fulfilled. And the teaching that he turned this interaction to was for the crowds and for us as well. God does not always enter our lives in the way that we expect, in the way that we assume, in the way that we desire. God’s movement, incarnation, presence and practice among us is God’s work, not ours. Our work, like John’s, is to discern where God is present, where God is calling us to be present, and to do as Jesus told John, to see and hear God’s work in the world.

Our own presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori speaks to this truth in her address to the church in this Advent season. “Advent is both a time to ready our eyes to see God in unlikely guises, and to put our hope in God's ultimate graciousness.”

– PB Katharine Jefferts Shori

Unlike John, we stand on the other side of the story of Jesus’ life. We have the opportunity to respond differently than John did. Remember – he was a prophet, and Jesus’ ministry was newly on the scene when John’s ministry was phased out – and by phased out I mean, when John met his untimely demise. We hear these scriptural stories from a place of hind-sight – both from the writer’s point of view and from our own experience of having heard the Jesus’ story in church, in Sunday School, at the movies, on Broadway, on the street corner, etc. etc. etc.

John did not have access to all that we have in the teachings and practices of the church that tell us that Jesus’ way of being did not live up to expectation, that it was a surprising, vulnerable entry into the world. Hearing John’s doubt we have some insight into what it might have been like to be a first century Jew, hearing the stories of Jesus’ words and actions for the first time as they spread by word of mouth throughout the synagogue and the streets. John believed in the impact that the Messiah was meant to have on the world he lived in every day – but unlike us, he had to have faith without knowing – what was to come.

So where does that leave us? 3^rd millennium Christians, who have the history, who have the insight, who have the rest of the story – that Jesus’ way of overturning the oppressors, of changing the world that we live in was fulfilled in light of his death on a cross – a cross that proclaimed him King of the Jews – death to the human shell that housed God’s incarnate presence as one of us, so that we might be set free from those things that separate us from the love of God – our own sin and sadness that separates us from one another and keeps us from fulfilling the Greatest Commandment, that we love one another.

In this season of Advent, of expectation, perhaps you find yourselves questioning with John, “Are you the one who was to come, or are we to wait for another?” The answer my friends, is that Jesus was the one to come and the “another” whom John wondered that the world is waiting for is you. If John were here today, I believe he might offer prophetic words and witness in response to Jesus message in an email marked “reply all.” He might sound a little something like this – let anyone who has ears listen.

You are the bearers of this story, and of this season. You are the ones, who know and are called to practice the love of God, and love for one another. You are called to see those who are blind to truth, and offer them a new vision for what the world could be. You are called to respond to those who are deafened by the sound of their own voices and the chaos of consumption and to offer them a new sound – one of quiet and peacefulness. You are called to offer safe passage to those who cannot bring themselves to the foot of the altar because they are kept distant from their own fear, their own doubt, their own entrapments of the need for control. Heed to word of God – and look forward with hope and awareness that the Messiah is coming, and you have work to do to prepare. This message is marked reply all. SEND. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC, December 16, 2007

Endings and Beginnings...

2007-11-25T17:48:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 23:1-6
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:35-43
Psalm 46

Today we heard the readings for the last Sunday after Pentecost – the end of the long lectionary season that stretches through the summer and the fall and brings us to the doorstep of Advent, a new year in the church calendar.

Today we heard a Gospel that brings us to the foot of the cross – the last moments before the death of Jesus in his earthly life. Soon the readings, through the voices of the prophets, will begin once again to point us toward the impending birth of the anointed one, Emmanuel, the one who would enter into the world to redeem and release Israel. Endings and beginnings.

This week I have been faced with a wide variety ending moments and beginning moments – all facets of the depths of experiences life in this world has to offer.

On Friday night I received word of a tragic and unexpected death of a young man, a Rock-Hillian who entered into paradise, many would say, long before his time was due.

And in the same week I heard the joyful news of a new life, growing inside of a young mother, whose family will welcome its newest member next year.

These are the most basic, the most obvious examples of the end and the beginning – the loss and birth of life itself…

I asked myself, “Where have I seen Christ this week?” I have seen Christ in the hands of loved ones reaching out to comfort the grieving—in the sharing of stories, and the strength that a family must find to lose a loved one and to have to say goodbye. This week, for me, Christ was found in the image of death, and in the strength that we are given to make it to the next day.

I also asked myself, “Where have I come face to face with the cross this week?” I have faced the cross in the wonder that I always experience at the news that a friend will have a baby soon and that new life will grow in the world that we live in. For to me, the cross is ultimately a reminder to us that our human body is finite in this world, but again, that there is hope in the words expressed by another man who hung on a cross, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” For we too have received the promise of paradise, by virtue of our death and rebirth acted out in the waters of baptism.

This week I met a woman, one of many, who have come to our church office seeking assistance with her utility bills this month. And on the same day I learned of a new program of the United Way, and the state of South Carolina that will provide more consistent assistance for those kinds of needs here in our community.

At the juxtaposition of these two events – I cannot help but realize that we are faced with the needs of those around us every day – we may choose to see those needs and respond, or we may choose to look the other way – to allow ourselves to be busied with our own lives, and our own needs and concerns and to leave others to fend for themselves.

This woman was not the first, and certainly will not be the last to seek and need the help of her community to provide for the needs of her family. Her struggle, to me, reflects the polarization of wanting to help the individual in need, but knowing it is only a symptom of a larger system that needs help, that needs true change.

Our reading from Jeremiah points to those in authority who will be judged based on the way they have dealt with those in their care with the greatest need. To do justice is to do the will of God – justice, in this case, might mean working as a community to understand why so many people are overextended on their utility bills, either due to lack of effective skills in budgeting, or cost-effective practices, or lack of efficiently insulated housing options for people of all socio-economic statuses…

Organizations like the United Way are seeking to provide appropriate and accessible resources so that emergency assistance might be available, reducing the number of individuals who go out seeking donations and handouts. But again, that is only an attempt to treat the symptom what seems like a much bigger problem.

The beginning of action marks the ending of complicity – as we are faced with the growing needs of the community – will we as a congregation choose to see Christ in our neighbors in need, and face the cross – one that will demand a change in us change and our way of being, so that new life may begin with our actions, our striving to do justice in this world?

Where did you see Christ this week? And where did you face the cross?

Today, as a community, we will have the opportunity to witness together the achievement of an Eagle Scout Award – an honor that marks the end of a boyhood practice of setting and achieving goals and the beginning of a manhood of living up to those characteristics associated with the rank of Eagle Scout. Today we will also witness the presentation of a young boy scouts’ God and Family badge – marking an earlier stage in that process of setting goals and striving to achieve them.

Endings and the beginnings...

These moments surround us. They are our moments of transcendence. Some will talk of the day their childhood ended and their adulthood began. But those turning points can only be seen and be understood in retrospect

When we are in the midst of these moments, it is not always that clear just what is happening – though awarded an Eagle Scout today, an accomplishment to be sure, this moment does not in and of itself mark the “true onset” of adulthood, nor does turning 18, nor does participation in the rite of Confirmation – make one immediately an adult. Rather, these beginnings and endings are transcendent; they are markers along the way within a process of development, a process of growing into adulthood.

Our call as a community is to journey together throughout these moments – to give strength, support and kindness to our loved ones who are dying and who have died, and to our newest community members whose arrival and presence we anxiously await.

Our call as a Christian community is to see and hear and respond to the needs of those around us. To remember that Jesus’ life and ministry was spent bringing hope and healing to the lowest of the low – even in his death he was in the company of criminals. And his words to the man who called out to him, seeking sanctuary, seeking a place in God’s eternal kingdom were to grant such glory as the promise of paradise.

And finally, our call as a community, bound together by that mystery that we share in, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, it is to witness the transcendence of our own experiences and those beginnings and endings that happen each day, so that we might capture a glimpse of the eternal power of the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End that is the love of Christ stretched out beyond time, enfolding us, inviting us and enveloping us in life together as a community.

I invite you to spend this week – in the final days of the season after Pentecost, to look through the ending, and as we enter a new season of Advent, to look through the beginning, to discover where you see Christ, to discover where you see the cross, and to know that offering the prayer, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, so that when your time of ending comes you will know it to be yet another beginning as you receive the promise that today you will see paradise. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC

Sunday, November 25, 2007

16 Pentecost (Proper 19) Year C

2007-09-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

Exodus 32:1,7-14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10
Psalm 51:1-18

We all do it – at one time or another – we all do it. We all ask, why me? Why me Lord? Why must it be me – who has to do all the work? Why do I have to deal with all the hurt? Why do I have to be the grown up? Why do I have to be the one who makes all the sacrifices? Why Lord? Why me?

At one time or another we all catch ourselves in the act of self-righteousness. Now, to be righteous, is not a bad thing – to be righteous is to walk in a way that is honorable, virtuous, moral, exemplary – in religious terms one might liken it to walking in the path that God has set before us, thus, something that does not come easily, but with hard work, dedication and commitment, it is something to strive for.

But when the internal self expectations, or the external “God’s expectations” are taken to the extreme, and one’s own sense of righteousness leads to taking the actions and experiences of others for granted, then we begin to have a problem. “For there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

In our reading from the Hebrew text, Exodus, we encounter the Israelites as they wait at the foot of the Mt. Sinai. They wait for Moses to come down from the mountaintop, where he had conferred with God for forty days and forty nights. And as they wait, they become impatient. They have followed Moses this far. They have seen the miraculous work of God’s hand along the pathway – but now – they have grown impatient awaiting the unknown. And despite their identity as a people, a people of the one God, they have decided to take it upon themselves to focus their time and energy and attention elsewhere, toward something more captivating, more apparent. They decide to form an idol to a false God. It is out of their own need for self-assurance and self-reliance that the Israelite people create this token idol to meet their need, and inevitably find themselves looking for trouble.

God’s wrath and indignation is an unknown threat to the many – but it is soothed, and stopped by the one. Moses invites God to have patience with his fickle people – and by doing so, gives the followers the opportunity to repent, to change their ways, and to be patient as they await the fulfillment of their needs – and wants. In this first text, God learns something about the people – and though this part of the story is not written, I believe God learns something about forgiveness – our Psalm reflects on this truth. God knows something of having his own heart broken again and again by the sins and hurts that we cause to ourselves and others when we approach our lives and our work, not with humility and openness to transformation, but with a haughty sense of self-importance and ownership – self-righteousness.

The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; *
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

God learns that the experience of a repentant people turning to him, and the ability to forgive those sins is one that satisfies, and it is a gift that we, as a broken and inescapably sinful people, cannot help but offer again and again our repentance as a sacrifice to God.

Our Gospel text reflects a different version of the story – a flip of it, really. Jesus is being watched, seen by the Pharisees as he shares a table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners. They grumble at the sight of this and he responds with a few parables, a few stories that might shed some light on the situation at hand, and on a new way of thinking through the needs of the individual and the needs of the community.

Asking the Pharisees to put themselves in the place of a lowly shepherd, he entreats them to see life from a new perspective – that of one who is not so certain that all their good works will be sufficient to get them into heaven. In his story there are many well-behaved and “righteous” sheep, which have done their duty, stayed with the flock, managed to keep from getting lost, either by their good decision-making, or like most sheep, their good following along with the community allowing the shepherds & dogs to do their work herding.

But one sheep has lost its way, thus calling upon one shepherd to leave and go in search of it. (In a herd of this size there were likely several shepherds caring for the flock of 99 left behind.) The one sheep is likened to the one who sins, the one who does not, cannot bring themselves to the altar of forgiveness, and thus the one who loves the sheep and cares for the needs of the community at large seeks out to find it, and rejoices at the finding of that individual. Upon its return, its restoration to the community, and thus the completion of the whole, there is to be much rejoicing. The economic sanctity of the community at large is returned to a position of health and wealth, and the assurance that each community member is needed and wanted is assured. Yes, the repentant sinner is needed and wanted and desired to be returned to its place at the table with the righteous.

If you have been following the Gospel texts for the past few weeks, and have looked ahead you might see a pattern that is forming. A few weeks ago, Jesus told the parable of a banquet where he warns that one ought not take a place of honor, but a place of humility in the seating arrangement, because it is the host who will bestow that place of honor, and in God’s eyes it is the poor and those in the greatest need in this life who will receive that place in the kingdom. In the coming weeks we will hear the story of poor Lazarus, who is given that seat in God’s heavenly kingdom, while the one who unrepentantly walked past him every day, did nothing more than offer the crumbs from his abundant table, and the consequences of that lack of repentance.

Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees, and as I see it to us, is one that truly does cause grumbling. “Why not me, Lord? Why not put me at the head of the table, in the place of honor for all the good that I have done?” It is one that challenges us to remember that we are called upon to be both the righteous, living in the way that God has set forth for us, caring for those who need it most, and the repentant sinner – to recognize our own role as the sheep who has lost it’s way, and the loving voice of the shepherd is calling to us to bring us back into the fold.

One way that we enact this righteousness, and this repentance is in our time gathered here. As a righteous people we bring ourselves to the house of God to learn in community, in practice, in fellowship and in opportunities to teach and learn here where God is in action in our lives, and where God is calling us into action on his behalf. And as we gather for communion, we reflect on the places where we have lost our way, where we have hurt ourselves and others, and where we are in need of God’s wholeness, healing and forgiveness to bring us back into the fold of the community at large.

So which of these stories do you and I fit into?

Are we the righteous – annoyed that God doesn’t give us great kudos for all the good that we are doing?

Are we the bored, impatient, stiff-necked people, tired of waiting and looking for something else to capture our attention?

Are we one of those lost and being sought by God?

Are we like Moses/Jesus, point to those in the greatest need of God’s loving-kindness and saying, “Go there, to them, they need God.”?

Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners because they needed him. He criticized those who assumed God’s favor shone upon them because they were so Good and fulfilling of their duties. On this commissioning Sunday, as you leaders and participants in the life of the community approach your call to follow God, you who are commissioned in your ministries, you who are leaders in the community: do you do so with an expectation of praise?

It is not self-righteousness, displayed for the benefit of others that we are called into. But as one amongst the many, we are called to celebrate with those who have found their way back to the fold, and to rejoice with the one whom having lost the irreplaceable, has found it again.

Why me Lord? Why must it always be me?

Because the only gifts that I have to offer you are my sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, my righteous attempt to follow your path, and my heart seeking forgiveness when I fall short of it. Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC, September, 16, 2007.

11 Pentecost (Proper 14) Year C

2007-08-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

Genesis 15:1-6
Psalm 33
Hebrews 11:1-3(4-7)8-16
Luke 12:32-40

In the beginning there was faith, for faith is a gift that humanity has been given that there is a place where we come from and there is a place toward which we are moving.

Scripture offers us countless examples of the faithful, those who wrestled with a call to faithfulness in the most laughable places – such as the birth of a child from the body of a woman long barren, and far too old to now bear a child – and yet, by faith, that child came, and that legacy, that inheritance of Abraham and his descendants outnumbering the stars was borne.

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.” (Hebrews 11:8)

Abraham stepped out on faith, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1)

These quotes from the Hebrews passage are both frightening and reassuring. They are frightening because it is not always easy to be a believer. It is not always easy to trust the faith that has been entrusted to us through the church, from our ancestors, from our friends and companions along the way who have reminded us that God calls to be in relationship with Him and with one another.

At times our faith is tested, our ability to accept the hurts of the world and the hurts in our personal lives such as devastating poverty, and the devastation of the loss of a loved one – young or old – it is always too soon, and it is always too much to bear. And our faith in a loving God is challenged as we ask the question, “Why?” “Where are you?” “Where are we going?”

“The assurance of things hoped for” is the response that we are given to these difficult questions, these painful experiences that lead us to challenge the faith we have been given.

We hope that we are moving in the right direction. We hope that we are doing the work that has been set forth for us to do. We hope that our action, our choices, our way of being conforms to the way that God would want to see us engage with one another. We hope that Christ’s teachings would shape and lead us in the ways we interact with one another, and with those in need around us.

We are not always successful at these. We are not always perfect and complete in our response to the things that hurt us, and the experiences that cause us to want to hurt others. We are fallible.

And yet, the gift of faith, the gift of hope instills in us a desire to do better next time, to grow and change and learn from the times where we have not lived up to our call to follow Jesus’ example. And when our own faith fails, it is the faith of the community that surrounds us and upholds us that invites us, encourages us, and calls us to carry on, to continue walking together, not always knowing where we are going.

In the beginning there was faith, and in the meantime there was living in the real world.

Faith and hope are wonderful things – but if we rely on them alone, then we are not responding to the call that is given alongside of them. “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

But there is work to be done in the meantime. Like the watchful slaves, we too must do our work to be prepared for the impending return of the Master. We don’t know when it will be and we don’t know what it will look like. But all we have to do is open our eyes to the hurts of the world, the hurts of our neighbors in need to see that there is much to be done before we rest. There is much to be done in preparation for our own arrival at the unexpected hour.

Every week we gather here as a community and you are given opportunity upon opportunity to give to various causes, groups, offerings to people doing the work of enacting God’s love for his people. There is a simplicity to the kind of giving that you are invited into with our weekly offering baskets – giving a dollar, five dollars, twenty dollars to the work that our diocese supports through medical and educational mission work in Cange, Haiti, to the relief work that is still the focus of Episcopal Relief and Development from the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, and the support that goes to York Place, a ministry and social outreach to children survivors of emotional and physical abuse.

In one way we are reminded that that which we have been given, is not ours completely. And as stewards of the wealth that we have control over, we have the opportunity to learn the difference between having enough, and having enough to share with others.

But beyond mere giving of our economic resources, we are called, challenged to extend our giving beyond the almighty dollar.

“Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke12: 33)

Giving one dollar or one thousand dollars at a time is a wonderful thing – it enables others to combine the resources of many so that higher goals of helping others might be achieved. The Millennium Development Goals have been put to us as a means of wrapping our minds and hands around tangible goals that can and will lead to the betterment of the world. Children receive life-saving vaccinations, infrastructure in developing and underdeveloped countries is improved, much needed school supplies and tuition grants are given to allow girls an equal opportunity to be educated in places where the family can only afford to send the male child to school. These are the kinds of incredible programs and supports that we are invited to be aware of and to invest in.

I do not begrudge the simplicity of generosity that invites you to place what you can in our offering baskets. But my question for you, and the challenge of the gospel is not only about material giving and possessions – but where do you invest your heart? Where do you invest the faith that has been entrusted to you?

Perhaps there will come a time when the simplicity of giving a dollar does not satisfy the complexity of the problems of the world. Perhaps there will come a time when our faith in things yet unseen, will allow us to see the possibility of a world where all people, have access to resources to meet their most basic needs. And perhaps our call to action as a people of faith will lead us to invest ourselves in the work of bringing about those changes – of challenging the status quo and of committing ourselves to the possibility of change, so that we might be agents of change in a world that so desperately needs it.

Followers of Jesus are exhorted to place their greatest faith, the strength of their heart into those places where the greatest needs have not yet been met. Is there a need within the goals that have been put to us that your heart yearns to invest in – to see it through to see real change in the world?

One metaphor that the gospel offers today is the idea of seek a purse that does not wear out to hold one’s treasure. How does one make a purse that does not wear out? One sews it with compassion for others. One fashions it from materials of integrity and awareness. One marks it with reminders that the abundance at our fingertips is not ours alone. And one fills it with investments of the heart… where neither rust nor moth may destroy.

Today I ask you, people of faith, will you follow a call on a path that leads to your inheritance, but at what end you do not and cannot know? Will you step out on faith, and allow yourselves and as a result your world to be changed? Will you store up your treasures, the investments of your heart in things hoped for, but not yet seen? My hope, and my prayer for you, for us, is that we will answer, “We will with God’s help.” Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC. August 12, 2007

Apostle to the Apostles

2007-07-22T18:08:00.000-07:00

Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, July 22

Judith 9:1,11-14
2 Corinthians 5:14-18
John 20:11-18
Psalm 42:1-7

“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.” John 20:18

In the name of one God: Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Amen.

Today we celebrate the church’s feast day for Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles. The story of Mary Magdalene and her witness to the disciples of Jesus’ resurrection, his appearance to her at the place of empty tomb is the root of her title as Apostle to the Apostles.

But this is probably not the part of Mary’s story that you know best, nor is it the aspect of her relationship to Jesus that you and I hear about the most in our contemporary context.

Thanks to a history of distortion by church fathers who have confused and conflated this Mary of Magdala with other Mary’s and unnamed female “sinners” in the Gospels, the first word you probably think of when you hear her name is prostitute… maybe repentant. Or, even more recently than that, the phenomenon of Dan Brown’s popular novel and film The Da Vinci Code, has put into the mainstream an image of this Mary as, perhaps, Jesus’ secret lover, wife, the mother of his child. Could it be that Mary Magdalene represents the elusive Holy Grail, a divine bloodline that might mean that descendants of Jesus walk among us?

Of course Dan Brown is not the only one to have purported these images of Mary. Medieval folklore exists that describes Mary as a woman banished to the South of France, who spent her life in prayer, fed by angels, and raising a child believed to be the progeny of Jesus. The 1960 novel and 1988 film, The Last Temptation of Christ questions whether Jesus made a choice between a life with

Mary Magdalene as a husband and parent, or death on the cross. And even Broadway has had its crack at the story with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, capturing an image of Mary Magdalene singing to herself: “I don’t know how to love him.” Caught between his presence as a human man, and the divinity that exuded from him, this Mary struggles with how to relate to Jesus – an ongoing question in Christian theology – how to understand and hold onto one who is wholly human and wholly divine?

These versions of the Magdalene story that are best known can be a lesson in the reality that oftentimes women are spoken of only in their relationship to the male counterpart in scripture. “Joanna, wife of Herod’s steward Chuza” (Luke 8:3), Jeptha’s daughter (1 Kings), etc.

So many of the images used when discussing Mary Magdalene describe her in relationship to Jesus in light of her bodily self– be it as the repentant prostitute whose body was a source of revenue or as the potential partner in marriage and motherhood – whose body was the vessel of growth and new life - reproduction.

Though vastly different images, they are both very body-centered images of femininity. Again, her work, and her companionship amongst the followers of Jesus are overshadowed, and we do not think of her first as Mary Magdalene: Apostle to the Apostles.

Given this new awareness, this new understanding that there is more to her story than we may have thought about before, how might we open ourselves to all that Mary Magdalene has to teach us? What other words might we begin to associate with Mary Magdalene and her ministry? Today I would suggest to you: Commitment, and Leadership.

Mary is first described in the Gospel of Luke as one of several women traveling with Jesus and his twelve apostles. The women are noted as providing for this group out of their own resources. Mary and these women were present with Jesus at the foot of the cross and committed to the care of his body after it had been placed in the tomb. Their loyalty and presence amidst his disciples from the beginning to the bitter end of their journey sets a powerful example for us.

It causes me to wonder, where are the moments in your lives, in your experiences, in your hearts, where you met Jesus and knew that you would follow Him throughout the journey of your life? Some of you have made commitments similar to this in relationships such as marriage, parenthood, partnership, and in the various personal commitments that you have made to one cause or another. Something burned in your heart and you knew that you would work every day, in some way to work toward the betterment of that relationship, or that need of the world.

Mary Magdalene’s moment of transition, of knowing that she would follow Jesus is told in the context of a healing experience, having 7 demons removed from her. It resulted in her commitment to follow, to learn, to be in community with Jesus, the Apostles and the others whose lives were changed by Jesus’ words and actions. Following Mary’s example, of loyalty and commitment, how are you being called to respond to Jesus in this community, this country, this world in need?

As a congregation we do this through our financial commitments to support diocesan and national church ministry funds, as well as the variety of offerings that we take each month – ERD, York Place, the Day School, RAIN, Christians Feed the Hungry, Cange, Haiti, etc. This week members of this congregation will host a group of diocesan youth and young adults traveling to Ecuador to bring the Happening program to that diocese. What commitments of time, talent and treasure are you adhering to in your call to follow Jesus?

Leadership. Mary Magdalene is an example to us of the presence and importance of female leadership from the earliest Christian community. There is an important piece of history that goes along with the misconceptions about who Mary Magdalene was, and how women’s leadership in Christian history has had to be recovered.

The fact that a woman was the one who first shared the message of Jesus’ triumph over death is another example of God’s work taking place in an unexpected vessel. She was given the commission to go and tell, she was given a voice to speak the truth: that Jesus’ love for God’s people had allowed him to take the fear out of death – that what he had said all along really was the truth. She was the first, sent to proclaim this Good News to Jesus’ followers.

This question was posed to me recently, “Where does it say in the Bible that women should not be leaders in church?” It was a woman calling from another denomination, not with malice in her heart, but with a true and real desire to reconcile the teachings that had been rooted in her religious education as a child, that women ought not take places of leadership in the church, pitted against the fact that a woman pastor had been called to serve at the congregation she now attends. In the same week I responded to a phone call requesting a pastoral visit with a female clergy-person.

The witness of female leadership that this church provides, both in this community of Rock Hill, and as the Episcopal Church at large is an incredibly meaningful and important one to men and women alike. Following in the example of Mary Magdalene, both men and women in the world have something to hear and learn from the unique place of the female voice.

Each of us sees, hears, experiences and tells the stories of our experience of Jesus in the voice and understanding that is unique to our context, our understanding of the world. Following in the example of Mary of Magdala, what witness will you make to the life changing experience of knowing the risen Christ, of being fed by the worship and sacred meal that we share together as followers of Christ, of the work and commitments that we make as a community and as individuals as living examples of God’s love in the world?

Mary Magdalene: Apostle to the Apostles, a loyal, committed and faithful leader. How will her story nourish yours? And to whom will you go and tell, “I have seen the Lord!” Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC. July 22, 2007

I will follow...

2007-07-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

5 Pentecost (Proper 8) Year C

1 Kings 19:15-16,19-21
Galatians 5:1,13-25
Psalm 16:5-11
Luke 9:51-62

“And as they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’” Luke 9:57

“Go after, pursue, chase, tag along, go behind.” To agree to follow is to allow another to lead. To commit one’s self to following another is to let the life and example of that one be your guide. It is to step back from yourself, and your desire to be in charge, to be in the know, to be the one with the answers, and to trust in another to provide for your needs, to be your teacher, and to bring you into a way of being that is not of your own desire and your own creation, but of their desire and their hope and dream for your life.

To follow Christ is to allow the presence, leadership and teachings of Jesus to shape and direct your life, your choices and your way of being in this world. It is to pursue the hopes that Christ has for the safety and health of all of God’s children in this world. It is to challenge the status quo that allows extreme economic disparity to continue day in and day out. To follow Christ is to remember that he spent time with the undesirables that lived on the margins of society – the poor, the sick, the unclean, the outcast.

I will follow you wherever you go, one person proclaimed as Jesus and his entourage passed by, but did he really know what he was committing to? Was he really prepared to follow Jesus, whose face was set toward Jerusalem; whose path was leading to his death on the cross? To agree to follow one must consider the consequences – the cost they will have to bear with the choice they make. In the readings for today we are given some examples of the consequences that come when making the decision to follow.

I will follow you Lord, but can you assure me that I will be able to live my life the way that I want to?

No, that cannot be assured. From the passage we learn that to follow Jesus was to face rejection from people’s homes, like the disciples’ experience in Samaria. They were not given a place to rest; they were not assured the security and safety of a home, a place to lay their heads.

My guess is that not many people in this room have ever faced the question – where will I lay my head tonight? Where am I going to make my home? But maybe some of you have opened your doors to strangers, allowed people into your lives from whom you didn’t always know what to expect, and you learned something new from those experiences. To follow Christ is to open ourselves to the possibility of change, to allow ourselves to learn from unexpected places and unexpected people.

We open the doors of this church 4 times a year to the families of the Interfaith Hospitality Network, hosting parents and children who are struggling to remain together as a family through the hardship of homelessness. We open our doors and our hearts to them in hope and faith that they might know something of the security a home. In doing this we offer what we can in a way of support, and we hope that new life might arise where there was no hope before. We do so, not knowing how it will end, or if each family will succeed. But we offer what we can.

And in doing this we make ourselves vulnerable. We learn to be honest with ourselves about our own needs, and wants, and to open ourselves to the possibility that others may have needs that are greater than our wants. When IHN is present with us we commit to giving a part of ourselves to them. We do not know what we will receive, but more often than not, we are changed by the experience of having them here. We make ourselves vulnerable to change when we open our eyes to the fact that there are people in Rock Hill who struggle to survive every day. We make ourselves vulnerable when we agree to be in relationship with people who live on the margins of our community, and whose presence is rejected by society at large.

I will follow you Lord, and I do so knowing that it will change me, and it will change the way that I live my life.

I will follow you Lord, but I can’t leave my home until my duties are done here. I must finish my work in the field. Then Lord, I can follow you.

There is always work to be done. There is always fun to be had. There is always family to be cared for. There are always things that are a natural part of our lives that can interrupt or distract us from our call to follow Christ. As Americans our lives are filled with endless possibilities of how to use our time, talent and treasure: weddings, birthdays, baptisms, funerals, sporting events, dinner parties, ski trips, beach trips, family reunions… To follow Christ is to recognize that at all times and in all places we are called to be disciples.

To follow Christ is to balance those times and places where we do the work we need to do, and to give ourselves the rest that we need to have while recognizing the needs of our community and how our gifts, talents, time and treasure might make a difference for someone in need.

Our Junior High Youth Missioners followed a call to leave their comfortable homes and surroundings, to join with youth from 7 Episcopal congregations from Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. They agreed to give 5 days of their time and energy, to rest their head on the floor of the library and the cafeteria of the Episcopal Day School in Augusts Georgia. They did so by lending their hands and their hearts to a variety of work projects that will contribute to improved education of children from a lower socio-economic class. They did so by volunteering at a food bank, sorting and packing hundreds of pounds of food: food that will go to families that can’t always afford a trip to the grocery store at the end of the month. Food that will be available to local groups that provide monthly, weekly or daily meal programs for people who have no place to rest their head, no security of a home of their own.

As the work week progressed we asked the youth to consider why they had agreed say, “Here I am, Lord, send me,” to give of their time and join in the work. We asked them to share with one another where they saw Christ on the weekend, and how they might continue to do the work of ministry through the Holy Spirit. Again and again we heard young people say, I saw Christ in the people we helped, I saw Christ in the friendships that I made, I saw Christ in the work we did with our hands, I saw Christ in this community.

To follow Christ is to take ourselves out of our own lives and busy schedules, to step back and to see the needs of others, and how we might be able to have an impact.

I will follow you Lord, and the responsibilities of my daily life will not keep me from doing your work in the world as well.

I will follow you, but I must take care of my parents, for they are old, and when they die I must be here to bury them. And I must say goodbye to my friends one last time. Then Lord, then I will follow you.

One year ago, I left my family and friends, I left my home state, I left the school that I had attended for three years and the community that I was a part of there. I set my face toward South Carolina, and I followed a call to come here to Rock Hill.

“South Carolina, God? Really? Me? Okay, if you say so.”

I discerned, I prayed, I contemplated, and I made the decision to come here, and you all invited me to come here as well. But the real reason that I made it here in the first place, and the reason that I am so glad to be with you here today, and gladly face the year and years to come, the real reason for this is the fact that I was called to be here. And even though it seemed like a shot into left field, I knew that it was a call that I needed to respond to. I was being called to follow Christ, to come into your midst and to become a part of this family. It does not mean that I am no longer connected to my family of origin, it does not mean that they matter less to me. But when my call came, I listened and I followed.

“Go after, pursue, chase, tag along, go behind.”

When we listen for and follow the call of Christ we are challenged, we are vulnerable, we have much to learn, and we learn that we have much to offer.

When we follow the call of Christ we may find ourselves in new and unexpected places, but we often find ourselves right in the place we were meant to be. Where is Christ calling you today? And are you ready and willing to say, “I will follow you, wherever you go”? Amen.

Delivered by The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC July 1, 2007

3 Pentecost (Proper 6) Year C

2007-06-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

2 Samuel 11:26-12:10,13-15
Psalm 32 or 32:1-8
Galatians 2:11-21
Luke 7:36-50

“Your sins are forgiven... Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7: 49-50

In our reading from 2^nd Samuel, we hear of a confrontation between Nathan, a prophet, and King David, THE King David, the greatly venerated ruler over Israel, beloved by the people.

Now, before we get to that confrontation, one from which David himself can draw no other conclusion but the fact that he truly man who had sinned greatly and that he has acted against God, we ought to know what David is guilty of. And we find this answer in the passages immediately preceding the lectionary reading for this morning.

As the story goes, David saw, from his rooftop, a beautiful woman whose name was Bathsheba, Her husband, Uriah, was a soldier in David’s deployed army. Despite the fact that she was married, King David sent for this woman and lay with her. He, in fact, impregnated her on that occasion. He then attempted to cover for his adultery, for he was the one who coveted his neighbors wife, and took her for his own pleasure. He called Uriah back from the battlefront and attempted to create an atmosphere that would entice Uriah to lay with his own wife.

Uriah was a strict and pious man, and despite the king’s attempt to sway his thinking with food, drink, and the comforts of home, Uriah refused to step out of solidarity with his fellow soldiers and returned the battlefield. David, knowing that Bathsheba would soon begin to show her pregnancy not made by the marriage-bed then made arrangements so that on the battlefield, Uriah would be put in a position of certain death. This would allow the king to hide his transgressions, take Uriah’s wife as his own, and legitimize the birth of his own child with her. Hearing this, it sounds like something you might see on Jerry Springer, or maybe even Dr. Phil, if the couple at some point decided to seek counseling.

This is why I love the Bible. These stories that we see splashed in tabloids and on television talk-shows, and gossiped about in our own local grocery stores are as real and true today as they were then. People sin. At one time or another we have all fallen into the trap of putting our agenda, our desires, our expectations before God and the needs of others, separating ourselves from one another and harming ourselves, our community and our God.

People make bad choices. People make mistakes – sometimes we make HUGE mistakes. Sometimes we try to run away from those mistakes, or try to sweep them under the rug, attempting with all our might to pretend that nothing happened, or that we don’t have to deal with our own blunders, and lapses in judgment... But the reality is – we all make them – our most beloved (and detested) leaders make them, sometimes our community makes them, and we as individual certainly make them.

In the case of David, Bathsheba and Uriah, we have the story of a man who has blatantly sinned, and sinned grossly! He didn’t just make a little mistake – he made choices – very bad choices that hurt many people. David sinned, not only against the soldier Uriah, the wife Bathsheba, the institution of their marriage, but against the Lord God himself. And in the Bible, one does not often sin against God without hearing about it – thus resulting in his visitation from Nathan!

Nathan’s story of the stingy land-owner, who would not give out of his own abundance, but took from the meager means of his servant catches the attention of King David. In the story David recognizes the obvious sin of the man, but Nathan must point out to him that it is his own wrongdoings of the same nature that has brought them together, and brought the condemnation of God!

Realizing that he was guilty of ignoring his own abundance, so that he might take for himself what was the center of Uriah’s household David repents. His punishment is not as severe, as it might have been, but he experiences the loss of a child in the wake of his own inappropriate behavior. I do not read the scripture in such a way that affirms that God took that child from him in response to his sin, but what a torment and painful experience to have following the realization that David’s own actions led to the disruption of his own life, and the destruction of the life that Uriah and Bathsheba had begun together.

Again, we can see this in our own reality, as we are shown that even a most beloved and upheld citizens are guilty of sin, guilty of trespassing against God and their neighbor. We have seen this time and again as televangelists, are caught stealing money from their own contributing supporters, as sports heroes are caught using illegal drugs to assist in their performance, as teachers are accused of sexual misconduct with young people, as honor students are caught plagiarizing… The reality that people make mistakes and thus the individual and the community are both harmed – this has not disappeared from the human experience.

But who needs to be reminded of the fact that we are sinners, the fact that we are all broken in one way or another. We know that we are not perfect beings that are bound to make mistakes, and that forgiveness is real and available to us in our time of need…

I wonder, how many of us are willing and able to be that honest with ourselves…

I wonder, how many of us do the work of taking account of our own transgressions, our own sins against one another, and against God… Sure we do this corporately when we say a confession as a community in preparation for our shared meal together in Holy Communion. And perhaps in preparation for church, or immediately after a service that includes a thought provoking sermon we are moved to consider what and how we might need change, healing, and forgiveness in our lives…

Or perhaps we have more things in common with David, for whom a visitation from one of God’s prophets is necessary to bring about self-awareness of the need for confession and forgiveness of his sins. Or Simon, the Pharisee who invited Jesus to his home for dinner one night.

A dinner that was unexpectedly interrupted by the actions of a woman whose reputation preceded her – a woman who was known to be a sinner, thus letting us know that her sin was public enough that it was likely one of promiscuity or prostitution. Her presence was an interruption because of the overwhelming display of tenderness, and acknowledgement of the unique presence of Jesus in that place that it drew tears to her eyes. Tears that washed the feet of this man. Tears that were wiped away by the woman’s own unbound hair.

What a display! What a distraction! What an obscene public display of affection – by a woman – one whose sins against the community clearly marked her as unclean, and thus her touch and her expression of intimacy with this man made him unclean as well.

Simon, like any of us who has seen, even a brief clip of a television talk show can and does easily point out the fact that this behavior is unacceptable –that this touching and crying and allowing of a woman of this kind to even have access to Jesus in this way is grossly out of order…

But Jesus is quick to correct Simon’s way of thinking – just as Nathan told a parable to David, Jesus tells the parable of one who forgives equally the debts of two debtors – without question, and without comparison. And yet, which of the two receives the greater experience of forgiveness? Obviously the one for whom the greater debt has been forgiven?

The woman who weeps at the feet of Jesus, who cleans them with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints them with the contents of an alabaster jar, she knows the sins from which she needs forgiveness. She knows the great chasm that exists between her broken self, and her desire to be in the presence and holiness of the Lord Jesus, and of the God whose forgiveness she seeks.

It is Simon, so caught up in the act of pointing out her sins that he does not see his own need for forgiveness. It is Simon who is not able to reflect on the places and times in his life, in his heart, in his relationship with God and his community where that chasm exists as well. And it is Simon who is made aware that his sins too are to be forgiven, equally and without comparison.

But the depth of the experience of forgiveness and the acknowledgement of it in the tears of this woman, that is something that is not Jesus’ to give. For that experience of the depth of forgiveness, comes from the one seeking the healing forgiveness of God. With Jesus’ words, “You are forgiven,” the chasm of her self-knowledge of having sinned was filled to overflowing with healing.

On this day when we participate in the confession of sin together, let us remember that we are called to bring our whole selves to the Lord God, our whole selves to worship.

We are broken. We have all sinned. And we are all invited to let the God who puts away our sin call us to the Holy Table. So that, like the woman with the alabaster jar, we too might know and accept the depth of God’s great forgiveness, and live free from the bondage of sin, allowing each of us to go in peace. Amen.

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC. June 17, 2007

Set Our Hearts on Fire

2007-06-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

June 1-5, 2007 I was traveling with 5 youth and another adult on a Mission trip. To read more about the trip itself, check out OurSaviourYouth.blogspot.com - the link is on the left-hand sidebar.

It was so invigorating and life-giving to be present at a youth event of this size and energy again. When we arrived on Friday night I felt my heart lift with the realization that I've missed being a part of events like this. Youth events and camp were my life-blood in Jr. High and High School. I would see camp friends for one week over the summer and a couple of times during the year at events like these. I always met new people and was re-acquainted with old friends. It felt great to be planting the seeds of similar experiences in the hearts and lives of the youth from Our Saviour.

It was challenging too. The work we did was at times frustrating, seemingly insignificant, redundant, and labor intensive. Our youth worked hard though, and were always willing to do what was asked of them. I hoped that they would meet new people, but as introverts that is sometimes challenging. I was particularly glad to hear all of their voices talking, laughing and teasing one another on the ride home - this was a marked difference from when we drove down to Augusta and I was at work trying to get their voices in action.

During the event I wrote the following prayer/reflection.

Gracious God,
Standing in prayer in the midst of so many of your children from diverse and distant places, yet speaking the same language, sharing common experiences and learning about you in the midst of community, I am once again and eternally in awe.

In the same way it is described in theater, that “the show must go on,” the love, prayer, preparation, study, hope and care that you inspire in your servants, your ministers, your baptized covenantal members, leads to the amazing creation and re-creation of community in your name. My heart is ablaze with the joy of what it is to stand in your midst in this place and to feel your presence amongst this generation of youth.

Jr. High is a scary and uncertain time. You can see the physical differences of these young people when so many are gathered and their budding and developing social networking skills and uncertainties.

“Who sees me? Will they like me? Am I good enough?”

The desires of their hearts are not far from the surface. Frustration, annoyance, boredom, anxiety, tears, laughter, defiance, they are all here and ready to be expressed at a moment’s notice. And they are valid feelings. I hope that each young person here discovers a place where who they are, and what they have to offer is upheld, loved, and shown as part of Your beautiful and beloved creation.

All these things, these moments, that I see and am thankful for, I offer up in the name of your son Jesus, whose love is for them to receive and to reflect to one another and the world. Amen.

Being a participant in the lives of young people as a caring and responsible adult is one of the greatest gifts that I have to give back in response to the gift of youth ministry that was given to me as a young person. I am honored and privileged to be present and working side by side with these young people and the family and community members who love them.

National Young Adult Ministry - and great friendship

2007-05-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend I traveled to the nation's capital city to attend a dear friend's wedding. This dear friend is someone I know only because of Young Adult Ministry and the Episcopal Church at large.

I met Uchenna at an ESMHE (Episcopal Society for Ministry in Higher Education) conference in the summer of 2000 in Denver, CO. We were both recent college graduates - her from Princeton, me from Morningside College. I attended on behalf of the University of Minnesota, as it was my touchstone campus ministry throughout 4 years of college out of state in the Midwest. (On a side note, that particular conference featured the Rev. Bill Countryman as the main speaker, and took place just before the General Convention that elected the first young adult to the national Executive Council - Sara Hart.)

The following December Uchenna and I were roommates at yet another National Gathering of college students (NAT GAT) and became reacquainted, in fact, truly began a great friendship that has meant a lot to both of us the last 7 years. We discovered that despite obvious differences in our geographic and cultural upbringing - she a Nigerian/American woman raised in Miami & Philadelphia, and me a Midwestern to the bone, of Swedish/English/American heritage - we had many similar family, life and church experiences that took place at a very similar pace and timeframe. As we learned more about one another, we recognized ourselves and in each other - an almost, soul-mate recognition led us to tease friends - calling ourselves twins.

We decided to stay in touch, and specifically to be prayer partners for one another. For the next year or so we had semi-regular Tuesday night phone calls/check-in. (Uchenna was living in Chicago, IL and I was in Rochester, MN at the time.) We'd talk about our favorite TV shows, and we talk about our families, jobs, vocational questions, and those places in our lives where we needed support of a spiritual depth. Sometimes we would end a phone call praying for one another. Sometimes we would commit to saying the daily office at the same time later that evening. Every time we spoke our friendship grew deeper and our support of one another's faith and ministry was heard and upheld.

We managed to see each other periodically the first few years - me visiting Chicago, Uchenna visiting the twin cities and Rochester. In 2002-2003 Uchenna and I had the opportunity to work on a team together to plan the Young Adult Festival at General Convention 2003 - an event that would take place in Minneapolis, MN. Throughout the year we met with the rest of the team and shared many great meals, laughs and liturgies together. Our friendship was grounded in our connection to one another as children of God and as faithful members of the Episcopal Church.

Uchenna entered graduate school a year before I began seminary. We we both students, and as long distance friendships can go, there were long periods of time when we didn't talk with one another -- too many other commitments had long taken the place of our regular chats - though those were a great support to both of us at a time in our lives that we needed it. As our various relationships with other people ebbed and flowed, this friendship, even though relying on phone calls that were fewer and farther between continued to be strong. Uchenna is someone I will always be friends with, and always be glad to know.

I was proud to have her stand with priests, friends and family as a presenter at my ordination to the priesthood in January - and I was proud to be a participant in her wedding this last weekend. As the hours drew closer toward the ceremony that would celebrate her commitment to love honor and be loved and honored by the man she is creating a new family with, my joy at finally meeting her mother, and seeing her transition into this new station in life was overwhelming. Uchenna's friends and family, danced and sang, shouted and rejoiced in traditional American and Nigerian ways throughout the wedding weekend.

As I spoke with various friend groups of the bride and groom- those who had known them in high school, or college or grad school - I realized that I did not fall into any of these categories. Uchenna and I never lived in the same place - never shared a day to day common experience of being in class together, or working together. Our friendship was born out of the workings of the national offices of the Episcopal Church in New York City: the idea that Episcopalians from around the country should get to know each other, that we should learn each others stories, and live into our commonalities and differences. Because ultimately, what we share is a faith and a practice of that faith that connects us to one another.

Anglicans are connected through centuries of worship, conversation, and hope that we can do good in the world that we have been given to live in. Geography, culture, ethnicity, gender, economics, sexuality, time, interest... the barriers are easy to spot, to claim, to allow to divide us. But in seeing each other, and in being committed to friendship and a common cause, we can grow infinitely in our relationships with one another and with God.

I am so thankful to know Uchenna, and I am so thankful to be known by her. Thank you Episcopal Church - and the office for Young Adult Ministries for bringing Uchenna and I together in friendship in family and in the ministry of growing together in Christ and community. Amen.

5 Easter, Year C

2007-05-08T14:58:00.000-07:00

Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18
Psalm 145 or 145:1-9
Revelation 19:1,4-9
John 13:31-35

On a day with a Gospel text like this – it should be easy to preach – the topic and the statement are so clear so simple so direct – love one another, as I have loved you.

What more can you say? Love each other. The end.

But of course, it’s never that simple, is it?

What kind of love is Jesus challenging the disciples to have for one another? How is that alike or different from other commandments that have been given to God’s people before this night? Such as, the 10 commandments given to Moses and the Israelites… and the Shema, or the greatest commandment, also given to the Jewish people and reiterated by Jesus that “you shall love the lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.”

What is it that makes this commandment “new,” as it is described in today’s passage?

The commandment and our call to respond to it are just not that simple.

First one must address the use of the word love – a word that we use today over and over again – I love you, I love ice cream, he loves Clemson or she loves Carolina... (In case you were wondering, I love the Boston Red Sox) Our word for love in the English language gets a workout – and is used to describe a care or affection for all kinds of things. Perhaps it is used so much, and for such a variety of things that the complexity of the statement, love one another, in its English translation, is lost on us.

In the Greek language, the original language in which the Gospel according to John was written, there are four words that are used to describe different kinds of love. There is philios – which describes the kind of love between close friends or companions – you’ve heard of Philadelphia, “the city of brotherly love.” There is a word that describes the love of a parent for their child – storge. And another familiar sounding Greek word for love is eros – a love that is rooted in desire – sometimes referred to as romantic love – and perhaps also related to the way we say we love objects in our lives – such as a love of cars – love that comes out of desire.

Each of these kinds of love has a place in our lives – each of them is relational – embedded in a connection between individuals in community with one another. Love for a friend, love for a child, love for a partner and companion in life. Each is valid and we gain much from each of these types of love. But none of these Greek words is the word used by Jesus with his disciples in this passage.

The love that he showed his followers, and the love that he commanded they show to one another is defined in a completely new and different way. This is why this love commandment was new. This was agape love – a godly love, one that is unconditional without judgment or personal gain; a sacrificial love, enacted by Jesus in the ultimate sacrifice of his own life. This was Jesus’ final commandment given to his disciples – that they love one another as he had loved them – unconditionally.

This commandment to love one another as we are loved by God is passed down to us through the words of this Gospel, and hopefully through our experiences together in Christian community.

How do we love one another so that others might see Christ’s love for us, within us, within our community? How do we allow ourselves to love and be loved in such a way that we are truly changed, that we are truly transformed, that we are truly able to experience the resurrection of Christ in our lives and in the life of this community?

I believe that where we see resurrection, there we see Christ. Where we are participants in the need for transformation in the world, there we are reflecting the love that Christ taught us, commanded us to give to one another. Where we can be a people of resurrection and hope for others, there we can be the presence of Christ with and for one another – so that wherever two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, Christ is present.

The question, then, that I have in this Christian community, is do we have that agape love for one another here. If the answer is yes, then again you’ve made my job very easy, “love one another as Jesus commanded – and you do. Good Job. Amen.”

But of course, is just not that simple. What is unconditional love? What impact does that have on the way that we relate to one another, the way that we talk with one another, the way that we respond to the needs of those in this and in our surrounding community? I have seen glimpses of it here – I have seen reflections of that love lived out in this parish community and it is a powerful gift to all who give it and all who receive it.

The power of this love is what enables us to give freely of ourselves to one another, and to give with generosity to our neighbors in need. The power of this love is what calls us to be a place of hospitality striving to meet the needs of those who have little or nothing to their name in this world. To give the loving support that our friends need when they are mourning the loss of a spouse to death or divorce, the loss of a child to addiction or to tragedy, or facing struggles with mental illness, depression, and fear.

And it is this love that draws us close and to desire to celebrate with one another the joyful moments in life – as children are born and baptized, as those children transition into adolescence and adulthood, as relationships between two life partners mature and leads them to a mature commitment in marriage, and as the life cycle continues through another generation of children and grandchildren being born into this world, borne into our lives and community.

It is a love that is here, but it is not always an easy love to give, or to receive. The reason for this difficulty is the level of vulnerability that one must submit to in order to enact this love. Unlike the love of a parent or of a friend or of a spouse, this agape love is not dependant upon a reciprocal relationship – it is a love that is ultimately about sacrifice – because there is no guarantee that when you give love of this kind, of this magnitude, that it will be returned.

Though I believe God’s love is forever present, in the constancy of creation, in the relationships that we share with one another, there is no guarantee that we will love God back – we are free to respond to that love at our own will. By giving the gift of agape, unconditional love to his disciples, and to us, Jesus opened himself up to rejection, and betrayal, and still he loved his companions, his friends, to the end. We practice making ourselves vulnerable in the other expressions of love, but we do so in hopes of reciprocity, we hope to receive something in return – we hope to be loved back by our spouse, we hope that our children will care for us in our old age, we hope – and some of us demand – a winning season from the teams we are devoted to.

God’s self-giving love, through his Son, and Christ’s love for his companions as he walked with them, instructed them, and ate with them, that love was given, freely, without expectation of return – it was simply a gift given to God’s people, shown through the life and actions of the one who came to show us how to love one another.

And the Good News, the Great News, is that love is given in abundance, it is yours to receive and to carry with you. It is is the love that welcomes you home each time you turn to God and ask for forgiveness. It is yours whether you want it or not – because God is love – and when you have that love, know that love, can allow yourself to be loved fully and completely by God, then you too can give the gift of that love – the same love given to the disciples by Jesus – the same love given to us by Christ, and asked of us to give to one another. It is not easy, it is not simple, but it is ours to receive: our greatest gift and commandment from God.

And so, as we gather together at that table and share in the symbol of that love in the bread and the wine, let us be reminded of our call to love one another – not simply – but as Christ loved us, unconditionally, and without expectation of a return; for he gave of himself an offering and sacrifice to God. Amen.

Delivered by: The Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC, May 6, 2007