The Coming

1AdventB/StAndrew’s, Sullivan Park Care Center, November 30, 2014, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

                Today is the first Sunday of the new church year, the season of Advent.  When the first Sunday of Advent occurs is determined by the feast of St Andrew.  The first Sunday of Advent is the one closest to St Andrew’s Feast.  St Andrew was a very ordinary disciple, much like you and me.  He was overshadowed by the much more prominent brother, Simon Peter.  Advent is from the Latin meaning “coming” but has come to mean both a joyful and penitential waiting for the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day.  Watchfulness is an important aspect of that waiting.

Beware and keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come, St Mark’s gospel tells us.  Advent is a time of active anticipation.  We wait, especially when we are spiritually dry and do not sense God’s presence.

It has been a rather harried and tiring week for many.  The full impact of darker and darker days as well as the shorter and shorter days is being felt by many.  There is much rushing around.  Thanksgiving Day with all the trimmings and tone of giving thanks for what we have is completely overthrown by the mad rush to get to the stores to find and purchase that perfect gift for that special someone---something they just have to have.  The retailers have done it again rather successfully.  They have tugged at the heartstrings of unsuspecting, usually calm rational people and turned them into aggressive shopping robotic machines.  You might pinpoint the beginning of all this retail madness to that story and sweet innocent sounding song about Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer, written to increase profit. 

Robert L. May created Rudolph in 1939 as an assignment for Chicago based Montgomery Ward. The retailer had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year and it was decided that creating their own book would save money. May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, adapted the story of Rudolph into a song.[1]

For those of you who have noted that the retailers are targeting young children in their advertisements these days, you have likely forgotten that this began several years ago.  Pulling on the emotions and longings of the kids of this country has been going on since before the economy picked up after the Great Depression.

The Gospel text in Mark actually uses imagery borrowed from the book of Daniel, yet interprets it in light of the then current happenings of Mark’s time and culture.  Also for us, what Mark has to say to his generation equally applies to us.  When we read the thirteenth chapter of Mark, we will soon notice that it appears to be confusing and disjointed.  It is difficult to follow with our linear-thinking minds.  What the world teaches us in our culture is much different that perceived reality for other cultures.  The Jewish people noted long ago the almost repetitious cycle of things being the same, yet not the same.  With every cycle of events, what we actually see is a bit different.  Everyone handles that information differently.  One person complains about having to turn the lights on more because even during the day, there is sunlight filtered by fog and clouds or simply just not as bright as in the other months.  Another person doesn’t see the point of talking about it at all because it is nothing new; this happens every winter.  Still others mention it on the ride up the elevator that snow is in the forecast.  And then there are those who point out the extremes in weather and wars and rumors of wars trying to find answers to their cosmic questions.  Despite all our preoccupations with the world about us, our best answers still lie not outside of us, but with what the common threads of the Bible tell us.  We should be looking beyond the retail madness that has us by the tail and swings us to and fro.  We should be going beyond the signs above and below.  Whatever it is that threatens to overwhelm us and seeks to tear us away from focusing on God, we need to listen and listen carefully to what God has to teach us.  According to Mark, God has just two words for us and they are, “Keep Awake.”

Once again, Mark tells us a parable.  This time, the master of the house goes on a long journey, leaving his slaves and a doorkeeper in charge.  Jesus has returned to the heavenly abode and left us the responsibility of caretakers.  We are to take care of what God has given us on a day to day basis, ever faithful, never wavering in that duty.  God has given us all things, so therefore we are to give God our thanks and praise.  Therefore we are to keep alert to the deceptions and evil that corrupts our thinking and behavior, sometimes unknowingly.  We are urged by God to watch out for others and to contribute to their welfare and their well-being.  We are invited to become Christ’s body in the world, doing as he did to bring justice and healing to a broken world.  We are to be alert as we watch for Christ to be born anew in each of us as we once again contemplate his birth and what he accomplished here on earth.

Mark reminds us that there is hope.  There is more to come.  Jesus will gather us all to himself and our joy will truly be complete as we live into eternity, an eternity of everlasting peace.  What is it that you wait for in this advent season?  Is it your desire to be united with Jesus in everlasting life?  Do you long for a closer relationship with Jesus?  Do you ever wonder what eternity will be like?  I imagine it is similar to an inmate who is in prison who thinks about what it will be like when he is finally released from prison.  The world outside changes a lot as the years go by.  Many people are shocked when they see how much it has changed since they were free prior to imprisonment.  Although I am in agreement with Mark, that we ought to focus more on the present than the future, with Mark, I believe that we also should think about what is to come.  What lies in the future can be a motivation to take responsibility in the present.  It can help us in the transformation process to take our covenant with God seriously.  Advent can be a time to renew our commitment as disciples.  We don’t know much about Andrew, the average disciple, but we do know that he invited others to follow Jesus.  Even if that small thing is all that we do, that one small invitation can do much.  Andrew recruited one of the most effective apostles of early Christianity.  By doing a small thing, he did a great thing.  Not only is it a gift to be a good and effective disciple, it is also a gift to recognize those qualities in others.  Therefore, keep awake---for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.  What I say to you, I say to all: Keep awake.  Do not be deceived and do not let your guard down.  Live your lives knowing that Jesus will return and live them knowing that return can be at any time.  Amen.

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_the_Red-Nosed_Reindeer

Gone our Own Way

ChristtheKingSundayA, Sullivan Park Care Center, November23, 2014 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            The texts for today are a reminder that despite the injustices of the world, God seeks complete and abiding peace for all.  God always seeks to correct that which is out of sync with God’s will.  That correctness is what we find in the work that God has done in Jesus Christ which makes us right with God, righteous in God’s sight.  Like sheep, we are dependent on God, our shepherd, to steer us in the way we should go: to help us find green pasture, to seek us out when we have gone astray away from God, when we are simply lost, when we have been injured in any way, when we have become weak.  Most of all, God promises to feed us with justice.

            When I was a young student in seminary and it was our team’s turn to lead for the weekly Wednesday chapel, I volunteered to read the gospel lesson.  The gospel lesson was this, “…yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”  I looked at the notation at the bottom of the page in my Bible and saw that the parallel was in I Kings.  I Kings Chapter 10 explains what exactly Solomon and his glory were all about.  One of my professors piped up with the technical term for that type of pairing of the texts which instantly went over my head.  It seemed to me a more logical text to be matched with the gospel than the one appointed by a committee of the Church’s clergy on the textual committee, only a couple of whom I’d even met.  And here I come to that juncture again.  Why not pair this particular text with Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep and how the shepherd leaves the 99 to search for the 1 lost sheep?  It seems to me that it would more clearly make the point as to how the sheep story in Ezekiel, a book in the Old Testament is sharply contrasted with the New Testament version.  The Ezekiel passage is one of exclusivity, the New Testament is one of inclusivity.  In Ezekiel, God will do away with the fat and the strong.  Who are the fat and the strong?  If we look at this from the perspective of attitudes and behaviors as in last Sunday’s gospel, the fat and the strong could be the bullies of our society.  Recent history has identified even children who display this type of behavior and attitude.  There are children who identify and pick on people who are weaker than themselves.  They make it their mission to seek them out, to intimidate them and overpower them with their remarks and threats of violence.  Other times it does become an actual fist fight.  It can escalate even further, getting teachers, school counselors, and parents involved.  Later in life, these bullies, without proper and strong intervention, can become those who bend and break the rules of society simply to be on top of companies and organizations or scheming professional crooks.  They think about themselves first, at the expense of others.  The Ezekiel text paints us a picture that is the exact opposite.  In this text, God the shepherd rescues the weak, the injured, the strayed, and the lost.  This is God’s way of doing justice in the world.  One more thing: if you read the uncut version, reinserting the verses of chapter 34 that are missing from our reading, you will see a very violent image of what God will do to the bullies of the world.  It seems that the reason those verses were taken out of today’s reading is because with Jesus’ interpretation of what God wants, this is not what God actually does because it is not inclusive of God’s love for God’s people, it is exclusive.  God’s nature is not to destroy, but to show mercy.  And that is why I’d rather see a pairing with the gospel about the search of the shepherd for the 1 sheep that is lost.  The function of the priests and prophets of Israel was not solely to predict and deliver judgment as we may sometimes imagine.  It was to guide and nourish the people in the way of God.  God’s way is mercy; therefore God’s people also are to show mercy.  The problem comes when the definition of God’s people becomes more and more narrowed to become exclusive and God’s chosen people are the ones who follow this particular set of rules that seek to help you follow God’s law.  Whenever someone tells you that you must do this or you must believe that, consider carefully what that person is saying to you. It could be that that person has a personal agenda because God clearly loves all people, even those we perceive to be our enemies.

            The end will come for all of us, so we need to pay attention to ensure that we are not led astray or become lost.  We can be tested every day to go another direction.  We can choose to give up.  There are many references in the gospel according to Matthew about the lost sheep of Israel.  We are all capable of becoming lost and going astray and we pray that God will always be able to find us and rescue us from going so far down the road that we ignore God’s presence and readiness to help us along our life’s journey. 

            A shepherd is a common image used in the Bible to describe the function of a community leader.  A community leader is to seek out even the lowliest person.  There is a difference between God and humans although we are called to imitate God.  In the parable about the lost sheep, one of ninety-nine would be rare though because most of the other sheep tend to follow the one who goes through the fence first.  Because the parable speaks about one sheep, it should be interpreted to mean that God actually loves us so much that God will seek after every single person who wanders away from the flock.  We need reminders time and time again that God is not like us.  God does not hold grudges, have favorites, or prejudices because we are all part of God’s family.  We are God’s sheep and God is our shepherd.  Psalm 100 points out that God made us, we are his, we are his people and the sheep of his pasture therefore we should enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.  We should do these things because the Lord is good his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

            This is our heritage as Christians who adopted aspects of the Jewish faith and chose to follow the teachings of one of their prophets, Jesus. God always seeks to correct that which is out of sync with God’s will.  That correctness is what we find in the work that God has done in Jesus Christ which makes us right with God, righteous in God’s sight.  As Isaiah 53:6 states, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.”  Because of this, it was necessary to find a way for God to bring us all back into the flock, Jews and Gentiles together in one big family as well as all the peoples of the earth. Like sheep, we are dependent on God, our shepherd, to steer us in the way we should go: to help us find green pasture, to seek us out when we have gone astray away from God, when we are simply lost, when we have been injured in any way, when we have become weak.  God promises justice for all people, but especially the weak and vulnerable of our society.  God created us and will make all things right.  God will restore all people and all of the created order to the way it was always intended from the beginning.  To God be the glory as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.

Real Responsibility

Proper28A, Sullivan Park Care Center, November 16, 2014 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            Last Sunday was the parable about the ten virgins who were awaiting the coming of the bridegroom, five of whom brought extra oil with them and five who did not.  They are waiting for Jesus.  Half are prepared and half are not.  The women taking responsibility are those who were prepared with reserve oil. Those of us who see the second coming of Jesus as being that of our death realize that this could be interpreted that many are not prepared for death and yet death can come at any moment.  I think it is safe to say that most of us don’t receive a premonition as to our own time of death and if we do, it is more likely within a day or so, not ten years in advance.           

            This parable is along the same vein.  How do we respond to God, the master of all beings and things, before God comes to take us away from our home here on earth?  In this story, Jesus gives to each of his slaves or servants a specified number of talents.  Unlike our modern usage of this word, a talent is not a gift as in stating a person is a gifted singer, therefore sings like a songbird.  A talent is also not having a talent for being able to sell something.  Also, to put this in modern perspective, we would do much better to use employee as opposed to slave or servant---we are beholden to God, but we are not in any way abused or oppressed by God.  The term of slave or indentured servant may come to our thinking, but this term is relative to the specific culture of Jesus’ time.  I would contend that our relationship to God is more like an employee or volunteer.  We are certainly sons and daughters, but we are expected to take on responsibility given to us by God.  We are by nature, sons and daughters of God but at the same time called into relationship with God that causes us to continually consider the call to discipleship as well as the cost of discipleship.  As we more and more align ourselves with God’s will and seeking to do God’s will, we realize the risks involved in following that path.  There is a whole book with the title, “The Cost of Discipleship” by the late Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He knew well the cost and the immanence of his death.  He was imprisoned in a death camp during the Holocaust in Europe during the Second World War.  Not only was he a prisoner there, he was also part of an intricate plot to kill Adolph Hitler.  It was only a matter of time before he would be found out and the Hitler regime would snuff him out.  Just as the question was asked of him, so also the question is posed to each of us, “What will we do with what God gives us?”  But more specifically as it pertains to this gospel text, “What will we do with the money that God gives us?”  This text is about money because a talent is one of several ancient units of mass, a commercial weight, as well as corresponding units of value equivalent to these masses of a precious metal.  It was used to pay what was owed to someone.  A talent was the largest or heaviest measure weighing about 75 pounds.  For perspective, as related to this gospel, five talents were worth 30,000 denarii.  A Denarius was a day’s wage for a laborer. The greater the weight, the more it was worth.  The meaning implied in this is that the servants have the financial ability to manage the master’s wealth.  If you go with the thinking that perception is reality, perhaps what this is saying is that the servant who receives just the one talent is someone who feels they have little to give to the world.  This person feels small in the world, perhaps like the widow who has little, just a small, almost worthless coin called a mite.  The poor on earth remain the little ones, the forgotten, and the people who don’t seem to count for much in the big world of money. But the widow who gives all she has, little as it is, by this giving is doing as Jesus expects.  She takes responsibility in managing what she has been given by God.

            This parable, as well as the surrounding parables in the book of Matthew, is all about attitudes and behavior.  Of the first two servants, both are commended for what they did with their talents.  They invested their talents and the talents doubled in size.  The picture that comes to my mind when I look at this story is that of the stock market.  People invest their money in the stock market in hopes of a good return.  Unlike this story, the stock market can and has crashed more than once.  It is unpredictable for those of us who are dependent on it to supplement our retirement Social Security income.  Without investing, there is no return.  It is even, like putting your money under the mattress.  It doesn't grow or get bigger, it simply remains the same.  It is static. There is no growth, because no risk was taken.

            Now, to take this out of a very literal interpretation, let me re-tell the parable.  There was a very generous master, the Lord of all who spoiled his children with an abundance of resources, including the trees, flowers, the power of the intellect to problem-solve each potential problem as it appears.  The Lord did not hold anything back, but gave all freely, out of his own free will.  Then the Lord went away for a while, just to see what his children would do with what he’d given.  They were given free will to do as they saw fit.  To some, he gave the ocean which produced fish of many kinds, but also the danger of tsunamis and hurricanes.  To others, he gave the inland which produced great quantities of wheat, barley, and oats but also tornadoes.  To still others, he gave the desert, a place where the people rode on camels and traded with travelers from other countries, but had to fight off dangerous animals that might attack at any moment.  They were challenged by the extremes of heat and cold.  As these civilizations grew, they fought in battles in order to conquer.  There was always a winner and always a loser.  Those who won thrived.  Those who lost had possessions taken, lives threatened, lives taken.  The strife continued year after year and killing one another became a way of life.  The children questioned the elders, “Why do we go to war with our neighboring countries?”  “What makes us superior to other countries?”  For others, it is also a religious question, “What makes our religion superior to that of others?”  Instead of extending a welcome to the neighboring country, the people distrusted and were filled with fear.  Fear became a way of relating to others when others were perceived as being different.  Despite the generous divine love modeled by and extended by God, fear lived in the hearts of people and love was replaced by fear. Some of that fear became hatred.  Those that hated multiplied because the hating parents taught their children to hate instead of love.

            Think again about this parable non-literally.  It is about money, but it is also about everything in our lives.  It is about how we operate in our world.  It is about our attitudes and behavior.  Do we choose to walk in faith and love, reaching out to others or do we choose to turn our backs and do nothing at all.  We are the stewards of God’s creation.  We were created for the purpose of spreading that kingdom to all, with or without words, but most certainly by what we do.  Let us do good to all creatures and tend God’s earth.  Amen.

Between Heaven and Hell

Proper27A, November 9, 2014, Sullivan Park Care Center by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            If you were to read both the Amos text and that of the gospel without taking into consideration that they were written in a very different cultural context with a way different literary device, these passages should shock you.  Not only should they shock you, but they also should cause you to continually ask, just what do these bits of literature actually mean and what do they mean for me?  It is no secret that the church has been guilty in times past of shocking their parishioners into believing in God or else--- and you can fill in the blank.  I just know that in the Middle Ages and in some churches still today the threat is that if you do not believe in God, plainly and simply, you will go to hell.  I remember a couple of years ago a congregant came up to our Visitation Pastor and asked him quite bluntly, “Why does no one ever preach about hell anymore?”  The pastor avoided any such theological discussion at the time---time for coffee hour, and said nothing.  The problem with the concept of hell is that 1) it seems to have developed sometime after Jesus’ walk on earth, 2) its definition changed over the years, 3) preachers finally figured out that scaring people into believing in God was not a good thing, and 4) seminaries for over a hundred years now have decided that it isn’t a real place to which we go after death, period.  If you grew up thinking that to any extent as I also did, this question might still be in the back of your mind.  What is hell?  Dante said it was cold---I always thought it was hot.  Most people I know today would say that hell is at least partially what we create for ourselves on this earth when we choose to pay no attention to caring for the earth and its creatures.  Hell is the struggles we go through day to day and moment to moment.  It is what we go through when someone we love very much is suffering, because when we love someone, we also suffer with that person. Isn’t that what we feel when we contemplate Jesus’ dying on the cross?  Isn’t that a form of hell when he suffers there, yet it is a complete unconditional sacrifice, the living out of the forgiveness of sins?

            On the other hand, Christians, not just preachers are called to preach the gospel.  The gospel is what our lives should be about each and every moment.  We are charged with learning to live with the knowledge of that gospel no matter what problems we may go through in this world.  The focus needs to rightly be on today, right now, in the present moment.  We should be asking ourselves frequently, “How can I live the gospel in this moment?”  And what is the gospel you may ask?  According to Martin Luther, the pure gospel is this: the forgiveness of sins.  This is how we are to live into the kingdom of God.  We are the recipients of the forgiveness of sins.  We are recipients from God and from other people, however imperfect it may come from other people.  But that also implies that we are also the givers of forgiveness because that is how we live best with each other in God’s love.  We can choose to get mad or choose to forgive.  If we constantly choose to focus on the imperfections of others, we will be angry most of the time, because we are all humans who make mistakes.  Case in point, we have made our own hell; we have made ourselves miserable.  Keep in mind that the principle always remains that we may not be able to change others, but we can change ourselves.  Sometimes, things happen in others when we change ourselves by what we say and what we do.

            The gospel text is about saying and doing, but if we look at it from a literal point of view, it will seem quite confusing.  Even Lutherans no longer agree with Luther who said he thought the oil of the virgins was faith.  The oil, it is believed, now represents good deeds, those small things and big things that we do for each other.  We may offend others, rightly or wrongly with our actions and our words, but this is still our calling.  If we take the gospel text literally, we will accuse the wise virgins of being stingy with their oil.  They have extra, but are unwilling to share it with the foolish virgins.  That is why we need to see this from a different perspective.  None of us really fits the character of either foolish or wise virgins.  All of us carry with us a little of both. And some of those small things we do for others, in their minds are big things and mean a lot more than we imagine.

            The bridegroom is Jesus.  He will come and gather his children home to him, the pure virgins in this case.  But lest we get caught up in literalness again, the purity of the virgins is a symbol that really should extend to all of God’s people and we need reminders that God is the one who makes it possible for all of us to share in God’s wedding banquet. This text is not just about virgins nor is it just about women. We should not be interpreting from this text that only the wise virgins will be with God in eternal bliss and the foolish virgins will go to the fiery depths of hell.  It is never our prerogative to make judgments for God.  God is not about punishment, but mercy.  God’s justice is not our justice. The gospel of God is the forgiveness of sins.  When Jesus arrives, it will be a joyous occasion, not a cause for sorrow or weeping.  It will also not be a surprise, because we know that Jesus is coming to us and for us.  We are wise because we know that Jesus is coming to take us home to be with him forever, but we are foolish in that we remain students of our Lord in need of help to be more like God and less like our selfish selves, concerned with self-preservation.

            Just as our lives and our behaviors are on a continuum of joy to sorrow, happiness to struggle, perhaps we should also think of life with God as a continuum from hell to heaven.  We see a little of both in this life.  In this life, we await God’s transformation of us into God’s image, where we began.  We wait for a return to Eden because we believe that heaven in our future is much like the Eden of our past.  Amos points in that direction as well, but from a different angle.  Amos points out, that despite all the worship of God and the keeping of all the proper sacrifices in their seasons, only one thing is of real importance.  That one thing is justice and righteousness.  God expects more than keeping all the church feasts and commemorations.  God expects more than praying the hours.  God wants more than ritual; God wants action.

            During this past week, my phone rang at 8:00 in the morning, about a half hour before I usually get out of bed.  It was the dean of the cathedral.  He asked me to contact a particular person who requested that someone bring her Eucharist.  As I spoke with her over the phone, I realized that what she really wanted was someone she knew already to come to be with her.  However, I could not fill those shoes because she only knew me from a distance.  She knew I was in the choir, but said she couldn't put a name to a face.  She said that Communion meant more to her if it was given by someone she knew.  I felt sorry for her in her emotional pain, yet also knew that her request was not possible.  The people she most wanted by her side, you see, were unavailable momentarily because they were all involved in preparation for the annual holiday bazaar.  Her choice was either me or needing to wait till the bazaar was over.  Only one person on the committee I oversee fit the bill.  She would have to wait, but by waiting, just as in the gospel text, she would see Jesus in the Eucharist and she would have communion with someone who means the most to her.  Blessed be God who also waits patiently for us.

Humility vs. Hypocrisy

AllSaintsSundayA, November 2, 2014, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            A friend of mine from high school writes, “What kind of world do we live in? Kids killing each other at school, terrorists shooting little girls for wanting to get an education, parents torturing their children, men and women threatening to kill each other via texting, random shootings everywhere, child abductions, killing military folks while they are in uniform, police using extreme and abusive force on suspects, people sitting at tables while dining who are all on their phones not talking to each other, people of all ages bashing and bullying each other on social media, and just in general, people being rude and inconsiderate to each other......etc, etc, etc........sigh. My prayer today: Dear Creator of everything, Fill us with kindness towards each other and the world we live in. Help us to be gentle with each other, speak quietly, with peaceful intention. Help us to see others through your eyes of no judgment, with longing to put others before our own needs. Help us to live with humility. Help us to be strong enough to not always be right. We pray through your glorious name, Amen.”  Though extremely disappointing and humiliating, it is all too accurate a picture of the worst behavior that humans have and continue to display. This is not anything new, but the media has brought it forward for our every moment viewing by continuing to run the same incidents throughout the entire day.

            The world the earthly Jesus lived in and ours are thousands of years apart.  We are strongly influenced by a global media in which we are made aware of what’s taking place in every corner of the world. Jesus’ world was a tiny corner of walking distances, yet what he had to say about human nature stands to this day.  We have still to learn what it means to practice humility, rather than hypocrisy before others. There is no morally superior country, as many would say about the US, for all countries are guilty of mistreating and murdering its people.  We can have the best teachers and yet the flaws will eventually be seen; once again we lose our faith in humanity.  Many folks cite the reason that they no longer attend church is because of all the hypocrites there.  Truth be told, we are all hypocrites, every last one of us.  I suspect in some ways it’s like this: God puts out in creation all the resources and readily available food and says to us, “Help your selves.”  Some take that sentence literally and help only themselves, not others.  Others will help others by teaching them, but not observing that which they teach.  Still others live by jealousy—jealous that someone else has what they want, so they seek to obtain it either by stealing, working for it, or asking where they can get it. And then there are those who simply want attention, attention of any sort.  It doesn’t matter if it is positive or negative attention.  They just want to know that they are not forgotten, because they feel weak or somehow less than others.  They become withdrawn from God and others. The Psalmist writes of the poor, “Keep them alive and deliver them not unto their foes.” Their foes are those who have the perceived power around them. Likewise, according to Augustine, the most powerful of our society are usually guilty of the sin of pride.  He has this to say about pride: Pride is a perverted imitation of God because it hates a fellowship of equality under God, and seeks to impose its own domination on others, in the place of God’s rule.  This is a prominent idea expressed in the gospel text read today.  Jesus’ direction is direct and simple.  He says we are to follow the teaching of the Pharisees, but not what they do.  Follow what they teach, but not their behavior. Many of us as children have heard the paradoxical phrase, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  As a child, many behaviors of our older teachers and parents remain hidden until we are older.  Some of us were also taught about the lives of the saints in much the same way---that they could do no wrong.  But the reality is that saints are sinners and sinners are saints.  We are all a mixture of good and bad, misbehaved and properly behaved, full of ourselves and completely selfless.  We are all of this and every gradient in between.  We all have our own brand of sinning, our own way of living our lives in this world where sin and brokenness is ever before us.

            Today is All Saints Sunday, technically the day after All Saints Day and in the Catholic Church, today is All Souls Day.  They are essentially the same feast although the Catholics made a separate feast for the recognized, canonized saints and us ordinary folks.  How we honor this day can vary.  Some people will attend worship today and will hear the names of all in the parish that have died over the past year and a bell will be rung for each of them.  Some will remember those who died by partaking in the Eucharist or Holy Communion because they believe that they are closest to those in heaven when they do that.  They believe that they have fellowship with those who now see Jesus face to face.  Some recall their friends and relatives when they look into the faces of those still living who are directly related to those who have died.  Others will have these moments when they drive by a house where they lived or re-visit where they worshipped with that person.  Still other people will think about the relatives who died when they see their young relatives embarking on an entry to a prestigious college, something never even dreamed of a couple generations ago.  And some will donate altar flowers in memory of those who brought them into this world year after year.  In whatever way you remember the past generations, think especially on those who guided you and planted the seed of faith in your heart.  Thank God for those who steered you in the right direction, not my coercion, but gentle guiding, allowing you to form your own beliefs and your own set of values.  Thank God for those in your life, who taught you humility; especially be thankful for those who demonstrated it enough that you were able to see the light of Christ in their spiritual journey.

            For all of our faults, our misdeeds, our indiscretions, our fumbles in life, in spite of all our ugliness whether physical or emotional, forgive us Lord.  Forgive us, renew us, and heal us by your grace, dear Lord.  Dear Lord and Father of us all, remind us of your continued love for us day by day and moment by moment.  Fill us with your Holy Spirit so that we may remain faithful to you just as you are faithful to us.  And finally, may we rest in the knowledge that you have given to each of us the gifts and talents to support one another, not tear each other down.  Refresh our memories that you are always there to embrace us in your loving arms.  Do not abandon us to our own devices, for we are nothing without you.  Deliver us from our foes.  Help us choose humility over hypocrisy.  Amen.

On the Feast of Stephen

Proper23A, October 12, 2014, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

                Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen.  That is the first line of a popular Christmas song that I learned in my childhood.  Over the past week, one of my friends in Minnesota requested a list from which she could pick out Advent and Christmas songs or hymns to sing for a fundraiser with a holiday theme.  This is the one I picked because of a particular verse.  For those of you who are not familiar with this song or have forgotten much of it like I had, it is about a king who spies a poor man gathering wood for warmth in the middle of the winter.  He asks his page about him—where he lives and what is his dwelling.  The page answers that he lives at the foot of a mountain by the forest fence and a place called St Agnes’ fountain.  The king calls for wine and bread to take to him, assuring that he has food, not just warmth.  The king leads the way followed closely by the page, encouraging him along the way, as the journey is a good piece away and it is quite cold out with snow and ice as mentioned in verse 1.  But the best verse is one I don’t recall hearing before and what makes it a great choice for singing.  It goes like this: Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing; ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing. Yes, this was a real king, but I cannot verify the story to be historical.  However, that being said, this song talks about the initiative of a king who sees to it that a poor man gets what he needs to sustain himself in the bitter cold in the shadow of a mountain.  This story is quite similar to the one in the gospel text which also tells the story of a king who is even more widely generous with his resources.  Many of you may know Luke’s version which is a bit different in theology and what is emphasized.  Luke’s is a wedding feast whereas this is more specifically a wedding banquet for the son.  Tacked on to the end of this story is a curious little paragraph about a man who comes to the banquet improperly attired and we wonder just what that means in relation to the rest of this biblical passage. 

            I have always liked this particular friend from the first time I met her.  She was in my Systematic Theology class with Fr. Kevin.  Fr. Kevin died of cancer just a couple of years after I left the seminary.  This friend was always gracious and kind apart from the fact that she had a fabulous voice that came from such a small-framed person.  She would have made a far better cantor than I.  The quality I appreciated most was expressed when she helped me by giving me her notes from class.  I found it difficult to even write for exams due to having broken my wrist within a year.  She remains that person.  She asks her friends for different things, her friends respond, she never once tells others she doesn't like our ideas, but takes in silently each person’s contribution.  I don’t know about you, but I could not ask for a better friend than that.  Wisdom and respect is shared on both ends.  There is no “one upmanship,” we are equals with different gifts and we share as equals. She is a perfect example of the message of the King Wenceslas’ song.

            So what does this parable mean?  We are to go out.  If we are not able to go out physically, we are to go out of our comfort zone.  The page in the song actually does both.  He initially likes the idea of following in the king’s footsteps until he feels the bitter cold and the physical strain.  I have watched people struggle with doing the necessary exercise to remain strong enough to not be dependent on the aides physically.  Motivation can wane; both emotionally and physically.  As we age, we begin to question the purpose of our activity.  The closer we get to “the end” however perceived by our own assessment or the doctors of our life span, the more there is a temptation to give up and ask ourselves, what the point of it all is.  We are to go out, forgetting our own needs in order to reach out and to share what we have with others. It is one complete action.

            At the same time, we are to accept the invitation of God to God’s banquet in honor of God’s Son.  This parable is a direct parallel to the one from last Sunday.  God held a feast for the people of Israel, but they all went their separate ways and did not respond to God.  Instead, they went about their lives doing other things, some even persecuted God’s slaves and killed them.  The king actually responds with violence and killed those who killed others, burning their city. 

            God’s response to this is to send out the invitation to all, both the good and the bad.  God’s salvation is meant for everybody.  The king fills the wedding hall.  God’s covenant now extends to all people, not just the Jews because now the chosen people of God are not just the Jews, but the Gentiles as well.  God has opened the kingdom of heaven to all.  We are called to respond to that invitation, to feast with God, but as this parable reminds us, there is more.

            Just what does it mean to feast with God?  Certainly this could be thought to be an allusion to participation in the Lord’s Supper, considering that the Greek word for the supper means thanksgiving and is a celebration of the new life God gives us in Jesus.  It also means enjoyment of life in general, of all that God has given us which certainly includes food, shelter, and warmth.  It means having a thankful heart for each day.  One of the ways some people cope with bad days in their lives is to remind themselves that tomorrow is a new day, a new beginning.  I may have a difficult time making it through today.  Something terrible could happen, but tomorrow I can start fresh with a clean slate. 

            What of the man who shows up to the banquet without a wedding robe?  Scholars think that this may have originally been a separate parable about preparedness, possibly for the end times.  Another scholar suggests that this could be in reference to Romans 13:14 that we are to put on the Lord Christ or Galatians 3:27 because we are baptized into Christ, we are clothed with Christ.  Still another scholar interprets these verses to mean what it says in I Colossians 3:16 that this is a baptismal robe and we are to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly.  If we are to take Jesus’ words seriously, we are to be committed servants who will daily walk in the footsteps of Jesus, our master, who like King Wenceslas leads the way and encourages us and strengthens us to follow his lead.

            Therefore, Christian people, be sure, wealth or rank possessing; ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing. As with the parable of last Sunday, we are called to bear fruit.  We are called to be a blessing just as God also blesses us.  God calls us to more than simply contemplation, but action.  Sometimes, the blesser is the one who walks away the most blessed.  Our interactions are all potential blessings because of our maker and redeemer. Amen.

Be Who God calls us to Be

Proper22A, Sullivan Park Care Center, October 5, 2014 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            There are clearly times when I feel very alone, as I am sure is the case for most of you.  I feel alone emotionally as well as in my thinking.  There are two recent incidents that come to mind. As I watched and cared for the assisted living unit on which I am assigned this past Thursday, I had the rare opportunity to see my own priest come to visit one of our mutual residents.  I quickly explained to him as I spied him peering into this resident’s room that he was not there, but had gone downstairs for exercise.  I personally thought that this particular resident would have returned to the unit by then, not knowing that his delay was caused by another employee’s time with him.  As we passed through the hallway, he asked me a number of questions one of which was about where I worked, mentioning that he thought I was working in the skilled nursing unit.  I explained to him that actually, when on low census, I floated to virtually every other section of the building.  With a smile on his face, he then guessed correctly that was probably not something I particularly enjoyed.  I agreed that he was correct about that. This day was a low census day and I explained that I was alone on the unit until 6:30 tonight. He then inquired as to when I worked, the answer being 2 pm-10 pm.  Making the astute observation, he concluded that because of my schedule, I was able to help regularly with Wednesday morning Eucharist and hardly ever could make it to choir practice on Thursday nights.  “But you manage to sing in the choir?” He queried. Pondering this information, he thought a bit while I explained that I was a pretty good sight reader and that after a couple of years of difficulty, I learned most of the music.  The point is, there is always something to talk about, whether it is with a priest or a friend, or someone who is both. I feel lucky to claim him as a friend.

            The other incident that I think about at this time is the putting together of puzzles on our unit.  The Activities Department puts out puzzles on each floor as something for the residents to do.  Most of the puzzles take some time and skill to do, so the residents who put them together have decided by that assessment to put them together as a group, often three residents at any one moment.  This operation has involved employing even staff and visitors to the unit in an effort to facilitate the process.  One day, I pulled out a puzzle that I had never tried and proceeded to figure out the best way to begin.  It seemed that nobody wanted to help me until I complained enough that my fellow co-worker decided to attempt to put together the border pieces.  This is a known technique from the days of my childhood and probably back much further.  As I neared the edge with the other pieces, it became obvious that the time-honored way to do a puzzle did not, in fact, produce the most efficient way to put this particular puzzle together.  I needed the help of my other co-worker to rearrange the border pieces to fit with the inside pieces. There are clearly certain projects that we are unable to complete without help from others.  From my first illustration, friendship is a human need which may or may not involve something as complex as working together to complete a puzzle.  Secondly, the puzzle-making involved more than one person to accomplish the finished product.  Being friends is not a pre-requisite, but working together towards the intended goal is.

            In today’s gospel text, God is the landowner who builds a vineyard, later Jerusalem which is the center of worship for Israel. The tenants are the religious authorities like the Pharisees, chief priests and elders for example.  The slaves are the prophets and the son is Jesus himself.  During this time period, the tenants would contract to give the owner an agreed-upon portion of the crop, keeping for themselves what was left.  This parable is known as the Parable of the Wicked Tenants or Treacherous Tenants. God’s expectation of the tenants is that God and the tenants will enjoy the produce, but since this simply does not happen, God is ultimately disappointed. What will God do?  Notice the similarity to the Isaiah passage I read today.  This text asks the question, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?”  God is pleading the people to be faithful stewards, has even provided all the means to do it, yet the people continue to fail to bear fruit.  In Isaiah, the expected grapes are wild grapes.  In Matthew, God has a solution to the failure of the tenants.  God will take away the kingdom of God from Israel and give it to a people that produce the fruits of the kingdom.  Jesus will become a stumbling block for those who fall on him as well as will crush those whom he falls on.  Even if we skip over the words, “They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death,’” the concluding sentence remains: God will lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time. The idea is not that God is rejecting Israel; they are still the chosen people of God by way of covenant.  It is not that God is rejecting the leaders of Judaism, but their behavior.  God expects them to behave in a certain way. God wants people who produce fruit.  How do we produce fruit?  We do it by keeping the Great Commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your entire mind, all your soul, and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.

            St. Thomas Aquinas explains it this way: We love God for himself and everyone else as they are in God or capable of being in him.  We love God in loving our neighbor when we love others as they are related to him.  Love of God with our whole hearts does not diminish but should enhance our love of others because we will also want the greatest good for our friends and because the love of God enables us to be friends with others all the more, as it is the source of those feelings that are a part of friendship.[1]

            For the time of Jesus, it was a warning to the Jewish leadership, but during the time of Matthew’s writing, it was a warning to the early Christians to be the bearers of fruit.  The gospel of Matthew is full of these stories which served many Christian communities as a catechism or book of instruction designed to elucidate and articulate for Christians the components of what it means to lead a Christian life.  God claims us by way of creation and baptism to walk, not just talk as the people of God.  God expects and we are obligated when we profess to be Christians to live in such a manner that befits the name of Christian.  We are called upon daily in our walk with God to live as Christ has bidden us to do.  We are to make friends and we are to work together to build the kingdom of God even now here on earth.  We still have the power to make choices within our communities as well as with each election concerning the leadership of this country.  The best way to have a friend is to be one.  The best way to work together is to make friends with everyone as best as we are able.  If we are able to meet and speak with the candidates for office, the better we can make choices and the better our world will be.  Be who God calls us to be.

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[1] Selman, Francis, “Aquinas 101: A Basic Introduction to the Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas,” 2005.

Practicing Perfect Forgiveness

HolyCrossDay, September 14, 2012, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Sr. Annette Fricke, OP

            Today, the Church calendar reads that it is Holy Cross Day.  This is the actual day; it is not a transferred Christian Feast.  The Roman Catholic Church calls this day, The Triumph of the Cross.  Whatever title you should choose, I think we are talking about the same thing.  It is a festival of Christ’s passion and cross, giving opportunity for a joyous commemoration of his redeeming death with a festal emphasis not appropriate during Holy Week.  “The message about the cross, in reference to I Cor. 1:18, is the central affirmation of Christianity, demonstrating both the depth of human sin that made the death of Christ necessary and the infinite value of every human being that caused God to act to redeem the human race.  The cross is shorthand, symbolic language for the redemptive passion and death of Christ.”  This feast day of the cross is a celebration of the Gospel of John’s view of the crucifixion of Christ as the time of his glorification as opposed to his resurrection.  The moment of death is seen as Christ’s moment of triumph and victory.  This day was very important in Church history, being originally one of just three feasts, the others being Pentecost and St. Lucia, after which there were days of repentance, fasting and prayer—those days being the following Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. These days of repentance were meant to correspond to the changing seasons, being originally agricultural festivals.[1]

            The passage I mentioned above, I Cor. 1:18 reads, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  Basically, Paul’s argument is that in the wisdom of the world, the cross of Christ is foolishness.  Who wants to follow a Jesus that sacrifices for all, with no discrimination whatsoever?

            In our Bible Study on Wednesday mornings, we are currently studying the book of Revelation.  One thing that was pointed out about that book is the view of the early Christians.  The early Christians were not a bit about compromise. Being a Christian meant absolute loyalty to Jesus.  You were not to allow any pagan worship or adherence to the Roman Empire.  It was a time in which the Jewish community hated Christians to the point of turning them in to the Roman government, to be tortured, imprisoned, and killed.  We can see how early Christians became anti-Semitic, why they hated Jews. This anti-Semitism is spread throughout the gospel of John, which in other ways is highly revered.  Unfortunately, this hatred of Jews continued in the Christian community for several generations.

            Hatred in some form of various individuals or groups of people continues to this day.  We still have much to learn of what it means to be a Christian.  You can tell much about a person by the stories they tell.  It is not so much the details that are the giveaway, but the emotional content indicators.  One story I heard goes like this, “One night, on the way home from the football game, my dad was driving and the teenagers behind us kept tailgating, so he stomped his foot on the brake quickly and hard.”  For what purpose?  “To teach them a lesson.”  What lesson is that?  “That they shouldn’t tailgate.”  Another person kept telling me about all the things that bothered her and yet, not once did she try to see these situations in a different way or consider letting go of something that happened many years ago until she had gone through the whole litany in my presence one more time.  At that moment, she stopped.  At that point, she began a long healing process.  Prior to that, she was convinced that everyone else in her environment was an obstacle or hurdle.  Helping people through anger and grudges is a delicate task.  Sometimes serious counseling is needed to work through those feelings as well as learning to build relationships rather than being destructive or ignoring, moving on to so-called “better” things.  Forgiveness is about mending hurt feelings in the now, not holding onto angry and hurt feelings about that other person or interpersonal situation. It’s learning that the world does not revolve around me, but the people around me.  God made all of us and we are equally all God’s children.  The world around us wants us to believe that it is only about ourselves, but that is only 50% of the picture.  It is about the community in which we live and work; our relationships with our neighbors, our relationships one government to another government.  It is about taking care of our environment so that we can leave this earth with a good place for our children and our children’s children to live, work, and play.  We are not called to conquer others, to rape and pillage the land, to get all we can for ourselves.  Christianity is not about self-love and damning the rest of creation.

            There is no more of a logical conclusion to living and growing as a human being than to continually engage in loving and forgiving despite all that would have us say, think, or behave otherwise.  God accomplishes the fulfillment of forgiveness by transforming us into vehicles of forgiveness.  Think about all the people who have shown kindness to you in the past, even when you clearly felt you did not deserve it.  There are few other things that help to erase past injustices. Our baptisms unite us to God in such a way that we are to die to sin daily, and rise again to lead a Godly life.  Sin continues to get in our way, but we are to do what we can to brush that aside to be the forgiving people that God bought us back through Jesus Christ to be.  When St. Paul said to “Imitate me,” what he really meant was to imitate Christ.  In fact, there is a whole book with the title, “The Imitation of Christ” that I highly recommend.  Jesus is our model in all things.  Remember, but forgive; repeat that process every day.  Never tire of reminding yourself of God’s purpose for your life.  Live and breathe the words of forgiveness into every word and action, giving thanks to God for the forgiveness given so abundantly.

            How often are we to forgive?  Seventy times seven or seventy seven?  Seven is a perfect number.  What Peter is really asking is this, “Must I practice perfect forgiveness?”  Jesus implies that it is way more than a specified number of times; we must always forgive, not because it makes us feel better, but because God forgave us and expects us to do the same with others.

            Let us remember this: “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.  For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”  Do not pass judgment and do not despise your brothers and sisters because we are all accountable before God. Amen.

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[1] Pfatteicher, Philip H., New Book of Festivals and Commemorations: A Proposed Common Calendar of Saints, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2008, pp 443-448.

To Walk as Christ Walked

Proper18A, Sullivan Park Care Center, September 7, 2014 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. 

As St Thomas Aquinas would put it, because God is Love, we are created out of Love and for the purpose of love.  With that in mind, what is Paul saying to us about love?  There are some who look at this passage and immediately think about owing debts, in a monetary sense.  If any of you have ever borrowed money or items from another person and have struggled to pay them back, you know the agony of owing, especially if that person is a friend, someone who is quite dear to you.  Even if you don’t know to whom you owe, like financial debt for a mortgage, for example, there remains an albatross over your shoulders until that debt is paid in full.  It is a seemingly inescapable moral or emotional burden.  It carries with it a strong sense of guilt or enormous responsibility. It is something so burdensome that it impedes any action or progress.  In the world of finances, you simply need to say “no” to all other financial obligations until the one big debt in your life is paid off.  Most people cannot afford to owe for a house and a car at the same time without feeling totally buried, under extreme stress and pressure.  No one wants to deal with foreclosure or repossession.  Nobody likes the feeling of agony either in the present, nor the future.  Once house and car are paid off, and you no longer have need of them, there are still monthly bills of some sort. A recent visit to a new widow pointed this out to me.  The thing she misses the most about her husband is figuring out the finances and having him there for consultation on financial decisions.

I’ve been thinking lately about the way the Presbyterians pray the Lord’s Prayer.  In the Lord’s Prayer, we and many others pray “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  That very phrase which sounds so inclusive is a phrase not used by our brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian faith.  Instead, they say “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  I think about my fellow Presbyterians often because there are a couple of them in my care.  I often wonder if when they are gathered here for worship if there is a sense of alienation or feeling left out.  The other version in modern use is “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  Some pastors have mentioned to me that it really depends on the congregation they pastor as to the preferred wording used.  Although every single one of us may think to ourselves that our chosen way of saying it is the correct one, the truth of the matter is, in the original Greek text they are all valid translations. 

When we prayer the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father, we are always in that realization of knowing that our transformation in Christ is now, but not yet.  We continue to struggle with a sense of being both oppressor and the oppressed, the giver and the receiver, the one who hurts and feels hurt as we live our lives out day to day. We are the strong and the weak and everything in between in all our thoughts, verbal interactions, and behaviors. We question ourselves, “How can I turn a conflict into an understanding, a perceived enemy into a friend? Why must there be this painful aberration in our dealings with others?” We know of Christ’s presence in our daily lives, yet we also know that this bane of existence, what some still call a veil of tears, will someday become whole and complete again in Jesus.  We were created for love by Love.  We are to walk in that love day to day, allowing God to transform us into the loving beings that we were meant to be from our births and from the beginning of creation. 

But our lives are not always full of sorrow.  Life is both bane and blessing. There are many times of blessing, if we would only open our eyes to that which is good around us.  Take note of the song birds, the blossoms, and the colors of nature all around you.  There are children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews.  There are healthy relationships for which to give God thanks.  Whenever you get caught up in a conflict or struggle of some sort, think about all the good in your life.  Think about the loving relationships you have with others.  Dwelling on the negative will only drive you downward, possibly into a depressed or angry mood.  Allow God to work through you to be the initiator of reconciliation between you and your source of conflict.  Rules are rules, but we must look beyond them and be flexible, showing love and support to those we don’t always agree with. Even if we think they are wrong, they may still have some wisdom they can teach us.  We should not be quick to judge because from the perspective of others, we could be just as wrong as we perceive them to be.  This is the main point of both the Romans lesson as well as the lesson from Matthew.  Be slow to judge and quick to reconcile.

And how does Paul say we are to accomplish this task?  He says that we are to put on Christ.  Paul writes about the second coming of Jesus to be an event that is coming soon.  It hasn’t happened and we may even poke fun at Paul, just as people have done with the several groups that have predicted the end of the world we now also know to be wrong.  Think of it this way, what if we were to think of the end of our lives here on earth as Jesus’ second coming?  What if, as some believe, Jesus already came a second time by coming to us in the form of the Holy Spirit?  What if God’s restoring us in the end happens when we die?  If that is the case, we should be thinking about how we honor Christ in our daily lives, knowing that sometimes sudden death occurs.  There are some for whom it is difficult to predict or expect with any accuracy a date and time of death.  Both a second coming of Jesus and our own time of death remains a mystery.  We are unable to predict the future. 

The good news is that even though we sin, trespass, or are indebted daily, we are justified by the grace of God.  The good news is that our faith will count as righteousness just as it was for Abraham.  The good news is that in Christ, we have hope, having been included as God’s chosen ones and the ending to the story of Adam and Eve’s banishment is reversed.  The good news is that the law can be both a guide and a sword.  It informs us where we have gone astray and guides us into daily faithfulness.  We were created for love by Love. Because of God’s gracious and overflowing gift of abundant love towards us in Jesus, we can live in confidence knowing that as Jesus walked in love, we too have potential for that capacity.  We too can be shaped into and transformed by that love by putting on Christ. As in I John 2:5b-6, “By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.  

Where is Your Heart?

Proper22B, Trinity Lutheran Church, Tacoma, WA by Annette Fricke, MA Psychology, MA Theology

Reconciliation is a six syllable word and probably one of the most difficult things we are called to do as Christians.  What does reconciliation mean?  If I look it up in my electronic dictionary, the definition comes up as 1. Cause to be friendly again, 2. Adjust or settle, 3. Bring to acceptance.  A further definition comes in the thesaurus and states "establishment of harmony" with synonyms listed as "harmonizing; rapproachment; reconcilement.  The definition of rapproachment is the "state of having or establishment of cordial relations."

If we look at the first definition, "cause to be friendly again," we realize that it implies something other than a previous friendly state.  Indeed, prior to reconciliation, people often feel offended, incensed, angered, miffed, frustrated, disappointed, and a whole host of other feelings.  In definition number two, "adjust or settle" we may think of settling an argument or a disagreement possibly by adjusting our thinking, our feelings and our behavior.  Sometimes our hearts are in the wrong place.  Sometimes our hearts do not match our feelings and behavior.  Sometimes we simply have conflicting values.  We know that we should give to the ministry of our church, but we hesitate.  We hesitate with our money, we hesitate with our behavior, we allow our non-humble, non-sacrificing self to take over.  We even agree to vows in baptism and marriage and then break them.  We agree to accept the children of the world, the vulnerable, the weak, those who have different values than us; the people that society considers to be somehow "less than".  But our actions betray us.  We draw lines of inclusion and exclusion.  We are judgmental.  We sometimes fail to see the big picture and are encased in narrow-minded navel-gazing.  As in Mary Poppins, we can't see past the ends of our noses.  We want to help in the ministry of Trinity, but we are waiting for someone to ask us.  We don't want to volunteer because we already have too much on our plates.  Sometimes it is a matter of balancing our priorities and taking the initiative.  God has blessed us with many gifted people here at Trinity.  Whether you realize it or not, you are one of them.  You have gifts.

Where is your heart?  What do you value the most?  Jesus told the Pharisees that they were very hard hearted.  Jesus was pointing out that the original covenant of marriage as it was established by God from the beginning, was to be a lifelong commitment.  But it was replaced by allowing a writ of divorce.  And in the Jewish teaching of that day, only men were allowed to get a divorce.  Women were not.  Jesus goes on to explain that Moses gave this law because you (the Pharisees) were hard hearted.  The Greek work for this actually is one compound word and kardia is the second of the words used.  The heart is thought to be the seat of emotions.  People who have had heart transplants have reported taking on the personality of the donor.  We talk about people who have a good heart and wearing your heart on your sleeve.  When we talk about someone having a soft heart, we see that person as someone who is easily taken advantage of.  We think of people who show emotions, people who wear their hearts on their sleeves, as being weak and vulnerable.  So we hide our emotions from others for fear of rejection.  Yet, if we hold our emotions inside, we can be contributing to depression.  When children are abused by others, they are often told by the abuser to promise to not tell their parents.  They will often keep that promise.  Sometimes the demand of an abuser is coupled with the threat of death if the abuser is discovered.  That is why there is sometimes a delay of years before a child will speak up about the abuse.  Some children who don't feel they are heard or who are abused can and do turn to alcohol and drug use.  That's why talking about things openly and making a connection with your children is greatly needed.  Talking about everything, not just abuse, drugs, and alcohol.  We live in a busy world, but we must take the time to be involved with our children and our grandchildren.  We have a role in nurturing children into adulthood.  As a popular song from the Dixie Chicks states, "they are watching us."  Children see us as a role model.  If we want our children to be involved in the ministry of the church, we need to take ownership and be involved ourselves.  God values children and that is shown to us when Jesus blesses the children.  We should value them as much as God does.  We need to advocate for them because they are vulnerable and need our guidance.  One of the problems we see in mental health is the after effects of neglectful and abusive parenting.  We need to support preventive mental health as well as the treatment of adults and children who have been affected in or during their upbringing.  Those are issues that involve all of us, regardless of whether we are or were recipients of abuse or neglect, are or were perpetrators of abuse or neglect.  Some of us are or were neither.  Some of us do not have children, but that does not excuse us from the responsibility of caring for and advocating for children.

Families are important.  They make up the fabric of our communities.  Families are intergenerational.  People my age are what is called the "sandwich generation", taking care of both children and parents.  Many my age do not want to see our parents be placed in an institution because of all the stories we hear about the abuse and neglect that go on in these facilities.  We fear that if they are abused or neglected, we cannot help but feel guilty.  We fear that in our busy lives, if they are abused or neglected in a facility that we will not find our till the damage is done, so we try to do it all--children on the one hand and parents on the other, keeping them in home environments for as long as possible.  Often, parents live together until one of them dies.  After that, the oldest child is frequently called upon to take care of the living parent.  There are no easy answers.  Globally, in Africa, small children take care of their parents dying of Aids.

It is also common in today's world that grandparents are taking care of the children so the parents can be free to work.  It saves money, but sometimes it is a real burden for the grandparents who find it difficult to say "no" to their children.

There are no easy answers.  We all sin.  We are all broken people.  We have all grieved God over and over again.  We have all sinned against each other.  As God has provided reconciliation for us in Jesus, so we can start once again with a clean slate.  We are free to bring reconciliation to others, put aside our prejudices, our judgments, our dislikes.  Free to once again live in covenant with each other as with God as it was meant to be form the beginning of creation, when God created us male and female.  We are free to be servants of each other, to give blessing, not negative judgment.

Where is your heart?  Reconciliation is not an easy thing.  We need to admit that we could be wrong about things, about people, about various issues.  We need to set our egos and our "rightness" aside.  Our hearts need to be in the right place.  Just as Jesus was angry about the disciples' disallowing the children to be blessed, let our attitude be the same.  Let us be welcoming, supportive, and nurturing.  Let us stand up for the children in our midst, for the children of God young and old, large and small.  Let us seek justice for all people in our midst and in our community and our world.  May we use our gifts to that end.  May we be a blessing to others as God has blessed us, redeemed us, and forgiven us.  God strengthens us.  God heals our thinking, feeling and behavior to be God's people.  God goes with us in our ministry.  May we be united in that ministry, despite our differences and work together to spread the gospel of God's saving grace.

For Mental Health Sunday, Pentecost 18/Proper 22A

When our Faith Falters

Proper14A, Sullivan Park Care Center, August 10, 2014 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            The summer, for me, began at the beginning of July when the retired priest, now age 89 is taking his usual two months off before resuming his scheduled return in September.  He is our primary pastoral care provider as well as the pastoral visitor for his former parish. I am only seeing part of the list, so I know it’s long. This year, more than ever, his time off is very valuable.  His wife’s dementia is worsening and if life continues as expected for him, he will soon outlive their approximately 53 year old daughter.  She has pancreatic cancer, the same diagnosis as another even younger member of the congregation who just died yesterday at a hospice house on the South Hill. The task of providing pastoral care is a daunting one, especially for someone who is going through his own walk with grief and loss.  A person in this situation is a prime candidate for both administering excellent care as well as succumbing to the hurt that is within, ever in danger of leaking out at an inopportune moment.  Worst case scenario, this can occur when someone who is really struggling needs you to be strong the most.  No one is immune, if indeed you have any feeling at all for another’s pain in life.  This is why there are spiritual directors and why they also have spiritual directors.  There are certain predicaments in our journeys here on earth, which demand the assistance of others, most of which have an element of emotional pull. To put it bluntly, we are all vulnerable to the temperamental waves of life’s ocean.  Most of us are fearful of climbing out of the safety of the boat, because we fear the force of the wind and the waves.  We may not be aware, as children, but as mature adults, we do know what’s out there, beyond our comfortable seats in the boat. And if we don’t know, it is surely pretty close to our imaginations, based on our past experiences.

            Similarly, the crafting of a particular British television series makes the point of trying to balance one’s stressful work life amid the crises in one’s family.  The murder mystery series is known by the title, ‘Wallander,’ Kurt Wallander being the full name of the key performer.  He plays the part of a detective whose job description is to solve serial murder cases.  He is a devoted policeman who pours himself into his work one hundred percent.  He follows every lead till it is exhausted in pursuit of the truth of the identity of the killer in each case.  His character is that of a man who is absolutely driven by the quest to solve that murder as quickly as possible; a man who sits in a chair at night, unable to sleep, partially because of the alcohol he is convinced will in some way help him think.  “He notices every detail about a crime scene but cannot be bothered to notice when a loved one is suffering.  He is always on the edge of collapse.  The danger is not that he’ll torture or kill a suspect; it’s that his own life is always within an inch of falling apart.  [The] relentless pursuit of justice proves to be a demanding idol.”  He is single-minded and spends every waking moment of his time on duty relentlessly tracking the suspect, determined to heed his demanding desire for justice.[1] 

            Wallander finds himself torn between taking care of his own aging father and at the same time going about solving the murder cases of elderly men.  Further down the story line, he is investigating the murder of several young women while dealing with a conflicting relationship to his own daughter.  The fact of the matter is, like the title of this article in the magazine, Christians are “never off the clock.”  This is how life comes to us in reality.  The boundaries become blurred because at the same time that we are in process of comforting someone in their painful moments, we are going through our own conflicts, our own struggles, and our own monumental strife.  As much as we might like to give as a valid excuse for not being involved in the pastoral care of those around us, that we have our own problems, that simply will not cut it.  There are no credible reasons for not caring.  We are never off the clock because we are not called to compromise our caring for each other as well as the entire world if we indeed have decided to follow Jesus.  It is Jesus who commands us, like he did Peter, to come out of the boat.  Our attitude should be that of Peter’s: “Jesus, is that you?  I want to be where you are.  If that is you, command me to come to you.”

            When you feel God’s absence in your life, when it seems that everything is crashing down around you, when you are feeling totally abandoned, this gospel reading emphasizes that God’s presence is always there.  God is there even when we don’t feel that God is present.  God will do more for us than just be there in our joys and sorrows.  God will defend us and lift us up when our faith falters, just as he lifted Peter when Peter began to sink.  God raises our whole beings to a new level of faith when we become weak, when we unite our lives to Jesus.

            There is just one more thing that God illustrates for us in this gospel text and that is this: the importance of spending time in prayer.  If you follow the timeline, you will notice that it appears that Jesus sent the crowds away in the late afternoon.  We are told that Jesus was alone for most of the night.  He was there praying.  He does not come back to the boat where the disciples are until 4:00 am.  Prayer is our connection with God just as it was for Jesus while he was here on earth.  It is prayer that grounds us for ministry to and with others, allowing us to see that we are truly on equal terms with others.  There is no hierarchy of this or that person being of a higher spiritual plane, because we all have the potential, in our own lives, small as they may seem to the world, to help lift others when they are sinking from the turbulent waves of life.  Let the love of God in Jesus Christ be our sole motivator for our actions towards others.

            As in the words of Julie Hausmann, Lord, take my hand and lead me upon life’s way; direct, protect, and feed me from day to day.  Without your grace and favor I go astray; so take my hand, O Savior, and lead the way.  Lord, when the tempest rages, I need not fear; for you, the Rock of Ages, are always near.  Close by your side abiding, I fear no foe, for when your hand is guiding, in peace I go.  Lord, when the shadows lengthen and night has come, I know that you will strengthen my steps toward home, and nothing can impede me, O blessed Friend!  So, take my hand and lead me unto the end.[2]

            God is indeed there to sustain us to the end: in the midst of all that troubles us, in the ordinariness and in our joyful celebrations.  God never abandons us; and even though at times we sense that perhaps God is absent, help us in faith, to look up to you, Lord Jesus. 

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[1] Christian Century, June 11, 2014, p. 42

[2] Lutheran Book of Worship, Hymn #333