ALL SAINTS CHURCH

Easter occurred this year April 24^th, the next to last possible day it can occur in our calendar.  That means that Pentecost is happening much later than usual, this Sunday June 12^th.

What is the big deal about Pentecost?  It is that period or moment of transition from gazing at or remembering the earthly Jesus and being transformed by the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit.  On this day the disciples, who were waiting for something to happen, experienced a presence like a mighty wind that engulfed them and helped them gain a language that could unite the various peoples of the earth.

Spirit and Word; patience and presence: heaven on earth, sacred and empowered.  The church was born out of this experience of God’s Holy Spirit that breathed new life into women and men who had been dying under the weight of oppression, both external and internal.  This oppression can be economic and political, but it can also be psychological and spiritual.  It could be slavery or it could be social ostracism.   Our oppression is found in systems that our designed to contain us and anesthetize us with merchandise and drugs.  It is also found in debilitating depression, guilt, shame and addiction, to name but a few of the world’s deadening methods.

The Spirit, which came at Pentecost, is a Spirit of liberation and new life.  It is that Spirit that empowers us to carry on the work of Jesus, e.g. forgiving sins, healing the sick, visiting the widow and orphan, preaching hope and good news to those who have been cast down.  Without this Spirit, we are dead men and women walking, walking through the motions, conforming to nameless powers and principalities.

This Sunday, come to Church expectantly.  Without expectation there is no answer.  Without asking there are no answers and without seeking there is no finding.  We have been entrusted with a perfect set of gifts and sacraments to give us all we need to start and continue a journey of discovery, healing and compassion.  As Saint Paul told the Corinthians, to those on the outside it may look like foolishness, but to those of faith, it is the wisdom that leads to all spiritual benediction and joy.

**************************************

On the first Sundays of July, August and September our Sunday Eucharist will be more like our Agape Meal, that is a Eucharist around a meal table.  We will conduct the liturgy sitting together and then share a meal together as Jesus liked to do with his disciples and friends.  For those who want a traditional service, we will conduct one in the chapel at 8:30 am on those Sundays.

Dear Friends and Parishioners,

The psalmist  writes, “Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” (Psalms 90:12)  We number things we value.  “How many?” correlates with how valuable.  Infinite days, dramatically represented in Leoš Janáček’s opera, The Makropulos Affair, lead to a kind of desperation and ennui, basically a loss of meaning.  The numbering of our days, although potentially a morbid exercise, is in fact the beginning of spiritual wisdom.  It is why in some cultures, youth is thought of as frivolous, while age (e.g. gray hair, a long beard or lines in the face) connotes wisdom.  I believe we pretend to live forever at the risk of losing our souls.

Our job in life is to join Jacob, who was later called Israel, as he wrestles blessing and meaning out of life in his struggle with the divine.  We are meaning seeking and meaning making creatures.  Frequently we abdicate this responsibility and allow the collective and the economy to do it for us.  We count dollars, we count jewelry and academic degrees, but we are loath to count our days.  We let others create our meaning and we ride along.

How does the Lord teach us to number our days?  I think we learn it through prayerful reflection.  This is actually more pious than it sounds.  What I mean by prayerful reflection is the discipline and capacity to step outside of our own perspective and allow our selves to see the events and circumstances of our lives through the perspective of the other or perhaps, the Wholly Other.

When I am the victim of circumstances beyond my control, when my body fails me, when I behave in ways that are perplexing or inconsistent, I have some choices to make.  I can choose to ignore or repress unpleasant information.  I can choose to seek comfort in the collective, such as the media or shopping, etc.  Or I can choose to wrestle with the disturbing information through prayerful reflection.  This wrestling is an honest encounter with the facts of my life and the world around me and exposing these facts to my critical faculties.  But it is even more.

Usually, in my analysis, I find that I come to the same conclusions, i.e. conclusions that support my claim on my right to my own existence.  I find like St. Paul that I am in a trap, a trap that justifies what is and rejects what has not yet been considered.  I am either consumed with self-punishing guilt or raging with vengeance against the perpetrators of those things that threaten my autonomy, personal, political and natural.  It is hard to see the pattern, it is hard to see myself as the operative agent in need of change.

Prayerful reflection follows in the footsteps of Jesus, and all the Prophets before and after.  It is a commitment to bring the stuff of existence into the light of revelation.  It is a pursuit of wisdom in the midst of suffering and mortality.  Prayerful reflection is at the heart of every liturgy, it is at the heart of every scripture reading and it is at the heart of our common life of faith.  Our faith teaches us, that if we bring our lives to God in prayerful reflection, we will begin to wrestle meaning out of life.  This meaning, it is promised will lead to the blessing of a deep understanding of forgiveness and love and will help us to know our place and purpose in the universe.

Holy Week is the Church’s effort to help her members focus their minds in prayerful reflection.  We use those things that people have found helpful through the centuries, music, scripture, symbols sacraments, processions, etc.  Holy Week is that week where the Church calls its people to dig deep, think hard, pray intensely, in short to feel the passion in their lives as they struggle to find meaning in a world that is filled with de-humanizing forces that seduce and control the masses.

I invite you to join us this Holy Week and participate in our liturgies.  Use them as a time to do that which we should always be about, i.e. seeking wisdom and the divine perspective on our lives.  In fact it is a wonderful preparation for entering into the mysterious and transformative power of the Resurrection on Easter that has been promised to us since our baptisms.

Seek wisdom and blessing and the transformation of your souls into the likeness of God’s anointed one.

Many blessings to all of you,

Thoughts in season, with some rhyme and reason:

“But I don’t want to repent!” said the man to the child inside.  He hummed some Billy Joel and opined “I like my life just the way it is….”  “But,” cried the little boy, “Don’t you remember what we agreed to at the start?”  Don’t you remember staring up into the clouds and seeing new worlds and knowing we were going to be different and that we were going to make a difference?  Don’t you still imagine?”

And so the argument proceeded, as Lent lumbered and loomed like an El Nino spawned cumulus, both ominous and ethereal.  I don’t need this, I am fine, really fine, I am busy, I can’t be bothered by these fancies, the adult chided.  Yet from somewhere within came the ancient plea: Look at yourself!  You have lost your joy of discovery; you have donned a metal jacket, so numb, like dead man walking.  Where is the art? Where is your driving compassion for people? Where is your thirst for justice?  Where is your joy?  Yes, Oh Mortal, where is your joy?

But just remember this, a kiss is still a kiss; a sigh is still a sigh.  What fundamental things apply?   The Eucharist?  A Eucharist is still a Eucharist; a Mass is still a Mass!  But what does it mean to me now?  How is it going to keep me safe and warm, how is it going to get along with my Intel-CPU-IBM-Watsonized brain.  Nobody gets in to to see the Wizard, not nobody not no how!”  I’ve seen the man behind the curtain and thank-you but no thanks, I like my house just the way I am!

I thought I told you to never play that song again.  But here we are, and it’s time to get the fat out, oh Mardi Gras of days gone by.  And to be honest, there is too much gras on this wobbly frame and in this tired head.  I await my end, and there are letters to send and steps to ascend and thoughts to extend.  Ashes to ashes, we all fall down.  Yet even at this grave and gate of death, we make our song, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!  Oh really? YES, Really!

In deep reflection we explore what is and how it became our is-ness and where it is leading.  Is it mutable?  If not mutable, redeemable?  These are the Lenten mysteries.  What is this human drama and how does it play-out against the sacred drama and how does it coincide with the drama that is ours?

The nominees for the award for Best Life Lived as a Real Human Being are?   Our task this Lent is to explore the depths of the tradition, but really this is a euphemism, a language tool, for exploring our own depths and dramas.  Our life, our birth our death, God knows the rest.  To paraphrase Jiminy Cricket, let the sacred liturgy be your guide and bring in your conscience for a spring-ride.  Find the arc of the covenant as inscribed inside.  It’s a terrible thing to live a life and not discover its essence or to know it’s operating code.

And I dreamed I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the former things had passed away…

What a perfect day!  At least that’s the way it appears to me on our street.  The laconic pace of pedestrians, the insouciance of the bicyclist, the rustling young leaves of spring responding to the fresh morning breeze.  One could easily imagine, “All is right with the world.” And isn’t it uplifting to have this thought.

Indeed, it is healthy to imagine that perfection, for from the imagination comes the impetus and resolve for action.  As I dream it, so may it be.  If you build it they will come.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  One pure thought cleanses the world.  On earth as it is in heaven.  For behold I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

Our faith is born from the idea of a perfect day, a perfect age, a perfect world, a realized humanity, not only living in harmony, but in active reciprocal love.  The idea may seem distant and even naïve, but scratch a little and you will find it lying dormant but unscathed.  It is as ancient as the first human consciousness and as foundational as the first breath of each life.

Yes, we know it isn’t here, yet.  We know we have not even realized a small percentage of that perfection.  St. Paul said he had not yet achieved it, but pressed forward for the prize.  Soren Kierkegaard, said, “I do not call myself a Christian, but one who is trying to be a Christian.”   Perhaps few of us will get as close as the great saints of ages past, but that should not keep us from starting the process by honoring the hope.

Karl Barth wrote that the Christian should have the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  When I have only the newspaper, I am filled with despair.  From oil spilling into our coastal waters, to bombs in Times Square, disasters both natural and human threaten on every side.  But in my soul and in my church and in my bible and sometimes even on my street, I see intimations of immortality, promises of redemption, causes for hope, strength to press on to the upward calling: A call to leave my narcissistic cage and as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, follow Christ out into the world.

We begin from a simple hope, a remembrance that the world was meant to be a paradise and that we were meant to be royal children in perfect communion and fulfillment.  It is no doubt a fantastic vision.  But this hope becomes the basis for our ethics and our actions.  It is why we sing praises in Church, it is why we feed the poor and visit the sick.  In the very act of hoping I experience the thing itself.

Can we afford to have these positive thoughts?  Can we step this far away from the news of the day to embrace the news of eternity?  To ignore these childlike dreams is to do violence to our soul and to abandon our world to powers of greed and corruption.

Next Thursday we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension.  As Christ ascends to heaven, we prepare to do the work of heaven on earth.  These are fantastic times and ours is a fantastic hope, but salvation is at hand for those who choose to embrace the ancient hope, found in all the forgotten places of our lives.

The psalmist urges God to teach us to number our days.  It’s easy to think of all the things we number or count.  As a child I can remember counting silver dollars, baseball cards, the money I made from mowing lawns, etc.  Each time I would carefully lay out my valuable assets, careful not to lose any or confuse any of the counted with the uncounted.  At the end of counting, I always had both a sense of accomplishment for what I had gained and a goal for what I still wanted to achieve.

At that time the idea of counting my days occurred on two occasions; “How many days left until vacation?” And, “How many days of vacation until school began again?”  In the act of counting I temporarily stepped outside of time.   I was no longer in school when I was counting the days and I am sure my teachers could attest to that!  And I was not on vacation when I was counting the days left.  It is as if we have the capacity to step outside of ourselves and outside of time in the act of making assessments.  As I become the observer, I no longer merely experience life, I reflect upon it by using my God given ability to use logic.

The word logic comes from the Greek word Logos.  In the beginning was the Word.  The Word is that ordering logic to life and the universe.  The Word is Wisdom. The Word is Timeless. The Word is God’s way, God’s Path.  The Word we are taught is God’s logic and God’s logic is manifest to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

To number our days is to begin to see and value our lives from the perspective of the Eternal Word, the Logic that undergirds the universe.  To number our days is to see ourselves the way God sees us.  It is looking backwards with appreciation and regret.  It is looking forward with either faith or fear.

After all we are created in the image of God, as such we have the Logos, the divine word, the divine logic within us.  It is no wonder we are people who learn how to count at an early age.  It is however incumbent upon us to take these God given skills and assess our lives.  We are called upon to learn how to value each and every moment, each and every experience and to make adjustments so that the remainder of our lives can more closely conform to our divine calling.

As we begin a new year in our church life, we are called to be religious.  Not merely by rote repetition.  We are not called to keep church going because we think it is the right thing to do.  We are called to this deeper task of understanding ourselves and from the perspective of the Eternal.  We are called to rediscover what it means to be created in the image of God, agents of love, forgiveness and healing.  Our liturgy and our life together is a sacred calling to manifest the Kingdom of God in this lifetime.

As your priest I call upon you to number your days; discover your life anew and to strive to have the mind of Christ within you.  All our work and play is designed to make the Word, come alive in our words, in our relationships and in our actions. Join in this sacred pilgrimage and drink from the well of eternal life.