an interesting grammar lesson

Lesson 102 from dailygrammar.com teaches this handy lesson:

Parts of the Sentence - Predicate Nominative
A predicate nominative or predicate noun completes a linking verb and renames the subject. It is a complement or completer because it completes the verb. Predicate nominatives complete only linking verbs. The linking verbs include the following: the helping verbs is, am, are, was, were, be, being, and been; the sense verbs look, taste, smell, feel, and sound; and verbs like become, seem, appear, grow, continue, stay, and turn.

The verb in a sentence having a predicate nominative can always be replaced by the word equals. Examples: Mr. Johanson is a teacher. Mr. Johanson equals a teacher. Mr. Johanson is a father. Mr. Johanson equals a father. Mr. Johanson is my neighbor. Mr. Johanson equals my neighbor.

I find this inetesting because the Collect for Sunday starts out with, "Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life"  Now if my eighth grade grammar is right (which is doubtful)  then one could infer the following theological statement from this Collect.

Knowing God equals everlasting life

Notice what it does not say - knowing God brings/gives/offers/makes possible everlasting life - but instead knowing God equals everlasting life.

This has huge ramifications for the saved for a future time and place theology that is rampant in American Christianity today.  It means that if we know God then we living in the midst of everlasting life right here, right now despite all the ugliness, messiness, hurt, sin, etc. that still exists.  It means that God's Creation is still good and it is possible even in this sinful flesh to live as a part of the Kingdom of God.

Life may change and our perception of the life everlasting will most certainly be altered upon death, but though it is changed, it does not end.

The question is, am I living into the everlasting life?  Or am I existing in the life of scarcity ignoring the gifts of God that are all around?

Not my Job

The gospel passage for Sunday is another of those "well-known-pericopes" in scripture.  The "I am the vine, you are the branches" passage is oft quoted in sermons, Bible studies, and prayers.  But I'm noticing this morning that we get the whole vine/branch relationship backwards.

How many times have you heard someone say, "you must bear fruit to be a follower of Jesus"?  The more I think about it the more I realize that we always assume that the branches (that is, we) are the ones bearing fruit.  But as we all know, a branch not connected to the vine, not connected to the root system, dies.  Fruit might grow on the branches, but it is by no means the result of the branches productive abilities - it is only because the vine provides nourishment.

So then, what is required of us?  To remain connected to the vine in prayer, in community, in study, and, as Micah 6.8 tells us by doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.

Growing fruit isn't my job.  I spend most of my time struggling against myriad outside forces just to stay connected to the vine.

Conviction

I've gotten better, but I still find myself starting the occasional conversation with the question, "do you know what I hate?"  The answer is usually related to how another's actions based on their own self-interest/stupidity negatively affects my day.  Things like; people who wait for a parking space before the exiting cars trunk is full, people who stop at the top of stairs, people who start conversations with "do you know what I hate."

True to form, God has once again found a way to challenge my self-satisfying pride by reminding me that it is only in love that I am able to abide in him and remain a part of his vine.

"Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters are liars."

Dang it.  Convicted again.

It is funny how my dislike of their careless self-focus is always related to how it negatively impacts my own self-focus.  I now have to sit in the Wal*Mart parking lot just a little bit longer.  I now have to walk around your group while you decide whether to hit up the Yankee Candle Store or Brookstone first.  I now have to listen to you gripe about another human being (or group thereof).

As I prepare to head north for a baptism and to make promises about "seeking and serving Christ in all persons", "respecting the dignity of every human being", "strive for justice and peace" my little habit of "do you know what I hate" seems to have a bright line shining upon it.

I hate that.

Sermon for Easter 4B

>WWJD?

    Do you remember those four letters?  The buzz that surrounded them a decade ago?  Long before Lance Armstrong and Nike were reminding us the "Live Strong" the Christian Marketing Gurus were selling us bracelets, lanyards, license plate covers, anything they thought we'd buy that would remind us of what seems to be a very simple question - What Would Jesus Do?

    If you promise to not tell anyone I went to seminary with, I'll admit that I remember walking into Provident Bookstore in Lancaster with my lawn mowing money ready to buy a polyester knit bracelet that would forever call me to task - What Would Jesus Do?

    The question is a valid one.  Having it on your wrist or around your neck on on your car makes you pause and think, how am I acting?  How would Jesus act?  It is a question worth thinking about.

    The question, however, seems to be tensed incorrectly.  As it stands it is a highly speculative question.  We don't know what Jesus would do about Stem Cell Research.  We have no idea how he would tip a bad waiter at a fancy restaurant.  Forward looking questions are only as helpful as the history underlying them.  We need not necessarily wonder about the future, what would Jesus do.  Instead, for the question to really be informative, it ought to be backward looking, What Did Jesus Do? And the answer to that question, Jesus tells us and the author of First John reminds us, is that he laid down his life out of his unfailing love for us.  What did Jesus do?  He stooped down from his seat at the right hand of God and was born into first century Palestine.  He lived as a man and worked as a carpenter and taught as a Rabbi and died as the traitor.  He did all of that so we might know God's love for us.  What did Jesus do?  He loved.

    But the questioning cannot end there.  Knowing what God did in the person of Jesus is not enough because in every word and action of Jesus he called his disciples and he calls us to do what he did.  While it is a valid question to wonder of Jesus did, it is of more importance to ask, What would Jesus have me do?  What would Jesus have us do?  As you might guess, the answer to both questions is the same.  Jesus loved and Jesus calls us to love.

    So what is love?  John tells us that Jesus' love was made perfect in his death.  He died for us that we might live.  So too, our love can only be made perfect in death.  Our love must be willing to go the whole way to the grave.  We die that he might live through us.  But death is not often required of Jesus' followers in 21st century America.  What loves means for us here and now is to love actively - in truth and action.  It means reaching out to family, friend, neighbor, stranger, and enemy alike.  At the very least it means laying down our own lifestyle so another might have bread on their table.  In the end, it means laying down our lives for the Kingdom which Christ himself offers.

    "Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."  John writes this almost matter-of-factly to his community.  It is obvious to him - if you have love and you have resources then you offer help to those who are in need.  Love means, as far as you are able, never allowing a brother or a sister go without shelter.  Love means giving a child the chance to learn to read even if whoever is at home is too busy trying to keep food on the table to help.  Love means a phone call of encouragement to a neighbor who has been struggling.  Love means a prayer shawl mailed halfway across the globe to a stranger battling cancer.  This isn't difficult stuff, and yet it is so counter-cultural that it often feels strange, often elicits fear, often goes undone.  

    Yet I believe that here at St. Paul's we are living out the commandment to love.  From Family Promise to Foley Elementary school.  From the Episcopal Church Women to Coastal Cleanup.  St. Paul's Foley reaches beyond itself and loves, and for that, today and everyday, I give thanks.  Thank you for being willing to stretch outside your comfort zone.  Thank you for allowing God to use you in ways you never thought possible.  Thank you for listening for his voice, knowing when he calls, and following where he leads.

    I believe that your willingness to reach out has resulted in God pouring out his blessings upon us.  If you look at our budget, you know that outpouring of blessings is not in the way of great material riches, but instead, He has allowed us to know with clarity that we are his.  It is by his blessing that we come to know, without a doubt, that we abide in his love as he abides in us.  And because of that blessing, we are able to proclaim with boldness in our community that the love of God can be found here.  We can offer his love because we experience it every single day.  We receive it as the affirmation of our faith.

    On the Sunday's when I lead the liturgy, I always introduce the Nicene Creed by saying, "let us stand and affirm our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed."  This week, however, I've been convicted.  What these words from First John have taught me is that our faith is not affirmed our allegiance is not professed in words about God, but in service toward God.  We stand and affirm our faith in the dismissal when we vow to go in peace to love [pause] and serve the Lord.

    So, this Sunday, I ask that we be sure that we don't affirm our faith in words, but in deed.  I pray that we might choose love.  I hope that we are empowered to proclaim the love which we know so well - love that lays down ones life for another.

    On Saturday, May 16th in Foley Park St. Paul's will have a booth at Foley's Community Resource Expo.  I believe that the love of God is a resource that Foley can always use more of.  From 10am until 2pm that Saturday, I hope many of you will come out and spend some time at the St. Paul's booth sharing the love of God, not in word and speech, but in action and truth.  We will, of course, have pictures and bulletin boards and handouts that tell about what we do, and I hope you will help me make these, because mine is terrible thus far.  These will, no doubt, be helpful.  But, it will be the real stories, your stories of how God has made his love known to you, how you have seen his love alive in your community, and how others might come to know that same life giving love that will make the real difference.  To paraphrase John, "Who has the richness of God's grace and sees another brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?"

So maybe WWJD? is the wrong question.

Maybe even WDJD? What did Jesus do? isn't quite it.

WDJCUTD? What does Jesus call us to do?  He calls us to share his love indescrimantly and with wreckless abandon.  My friends, let us love, not in word and speech but in truth and action.  Amen.

Readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B

loving tangibly

"We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?"

In 21st century America, laying down ones life for another is very rarely literal.  Laying down ones lifestyle for another, well that's a different story.  Even with SHW not working, we sit in the top 0.95% of the richest people in the world - on one income - and if we are to take the call of 1 John (and quite frankly of the whole of Jesus' ministry) seriously, we should be looking for people whose need calls us to lay down our own lifestyle.

As my faithful readers know, I have a love/hate relationship with my own calling.  Full-time, professional, paid clergy seem so hard to justify.  When half the church budget goes to the priest's stipend, it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for helping those who have need.  Buildings with high ceilings and poor insulation don't help either.  So how is it that the church has returned so closely to the old model of Temple worship that Jesus was so upset about?  How do we change the model so that those with excess and those with need are closer to each other?

Loving tangibly, and by that I mean addressing needs in the name of Christ, is a calling for all disciples, but the Church has made it difficult.  In making me the 57,476,149th richest person in the world, we have made it all the harder for those who pay my stipend to live the calling of laying down their lifestyle for one in need.

Any thoughts?

Cheerleading

There are times when it feels like all I do from he pulpit is nag.  Jesus calls us to do this, so do it.  Paul says don't do that, so don't do it.  Do this, don't do that, can't you read the signs...

Then there comes a point where even I am sick of hearing myself nag because, quite frankly, St. Paul's Foley does a whole lot of Kingdom building stuff.  So, from time to time, I put on my smiley face and play cheerleader.  I think this Sunday will be one of those cheerleading days.

"Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."

St. Paul's loves in truth and action.  On Saturday, May 16th Foley will hold a civic fair, where, if we do it right, St. Paul's will have a booth to share the good news that Christ is Risen and we, his people, are doing our best to follow his voice.  We do that by

• Volunteering at Foley Elementary School
• Hosting Family Promise of Baldwin County
• Donating food to the EMI pantry
• Sending cards to the infirm and mourning
• Cooking meals for the same
• Writing checks to various charities
• etc.
• etc.

We do a bunch of good stuff.  And for that I give thanks.

Of course, there is always more to be done.  Recently, one of our number has called us to account.  He notes that "churches are good a charity, but are often lacking on justice."  And I think he's right, but even there we are trying.

• Giving our kindergarteners, especially those of families new to America, a head start means that their chance at education is vastly improved.
• Giving our space (and some, though not a lot of our time) to the folks with ACTII who are working toward Homeowner's Insurance Reform

Hooray to you St. Paul's!  Keep up the good work(s).  As John promises in his letter, "All who obey [God's] commandemnts abide in him, and he in them."

Too Well Known

The longer I work in the Church the more I realize that there are sacred cows everywhere.  One, which I happen to like, is the reading of Psalm 23 in the King's English at funerals, burials, and memorial services.  It seems a peculiar tradition, though it is a beautiful Psalm, I hope Dr. Prichard reads this and can tell me the history behind it.

What gets lost, however, in the rote recitation of Psalm 23 (KJV) is what a great promise it is to those who are living in the Lord.  It is kind of the second half of yesterday's post; if you listen, know, and follow, here's what the Lord offers you.

He offers rest in green pastures

He leads beside still waters

He revives souls

He guides along the right path (if we listen, know and follow)

He offers a great banquet even in the midst of trouble

He anoints with oil

He fills to overflowing

His goodness and mercy are everlasting

It takes reading Psalm 23 outside of its normal context for me to remember the great promises contained therein.  It is almost too well known for me to remember any other way.  When I hear it in the King's English, all I can hear is "ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."  But today I hear a word for the living; life in the Lord is good, enjoy it.

hear, know, follow

The Collect of the Day for this coming Sunday is deep.  It wades through the Gospel lesson with it convulted dying and rising stuff rather well and, I think, breaks down discipleship into three easy to swollow steps.  (Of course each step is life changing and hugely dangerous).

1) Hear - Romans 10.14 asks the obvious quesiton - how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard.  The first step toward the kingdom of God is hearing about the kingdom of God from the King of Kings himself.  This can happen by way of the still small voice of God, the booming tenor of a preacher, or the word of scripture - among other ways.  This step 1 is also, kind of, step 4 - as the hearer becomes the speaker who tells the Good News.

2) Know - with Pentecost comes the Spirit and with the Spirit comes the ability to discern between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world.  With that ability we are able to hear what God has in mind for us over and above the tempations of power, wealth, etc. that the world offers readily (with a price, of course).

3) Follow - once the Spirit has helped us determine which door is opened and which path we should persue, it is up to us to get up and walk.  To follow the Lord down the path of his choosing by doing good works, by telling the good news, by continuing to listen, know, and follow down a new road when the time comes for change.

Three easy steps that take a lifetime to perfect and an open heart to even begin.  Easy, yes.  Simple, not at all.

Sermon for Easter 3, Year B

People have asked Cassie a lot in the past weeks, "Can you believe its been x days since the baby was born?"

    To which she responds, "I haven't had x days, I've had one long very long day."

    This morning is our third week of that first Easter Day, it has been one long and one very good day.

    Two weeks ago, when we first heard the story of resurrection by way of an empty tomb, I argued that God is in the business of rolling stones away.  Does that ring a bell?  Saying that God is in the business of rolling stones away is a clever Easter-y way of saying that God opens doors.  God is in the business of opening things up, and He does so in two very different ways.

    The first way God opens doors can be thought of quite literally, like opening the tomb.  The Greek word for this type of opening is Anoigo and is used by Luke seven times in his gospel, all in the first thirteen chapters, mostly in parables by Jesus about entrance into the kingdom of God.  The other side of this type of opening, which is clear in Jesus' parables, is that sometimes God closes doors.  We experience this type of opening all the time, one door opens and another closes. The work, then of followers of Christ is to discern in community what doors are opened and what doors are closed.

    In January of 2001 I had one of those life changing moments - deciding where to spend my spring break.  The door that seemed open to me had me spending my spring break in Germany. A good friend of mine from High School was studying abroad in Munich that year, and she invited me to spend a week enjoying all the sites and sounds I had missed during my first trip there in 11th grade. I was working and saving and planning in order to walk through that door, but for some reason, and I can't even remember why, it shut. I was disappointed, but within a few weeks I found a new opening, and ended up spending spring break in Pittsburgh where I met Cassie for the first time. One door closed, but another door - a much much better door was wide open.
    Decisions about where to spend spring break aside, the work of discerning the real choices in life is difficult.  Knowing which doors are really open and which are really closed is often hard to really know.  We can spend a whole lot of time forcing doors opened that are, in reality, closed.  It requires the help of prayer, scripture, and the community of the faithful to test and retest our intuitions, but it is fruitful work; be it a new job, a new relationship, a college decision, what-have-you, finding the opened door is infinitely more rewarding and ultimately a whole lot easier that pushing your way through a door that is closed.

    But, as I said, God opens things up in two ways.  A couple of weeks ago, one of our EYC kids asked me, "do you think Eliza June is going to negatively affect your preaching?"  I didn't really have an answer, but I thought to myself, "yeah, for a while, Eliza might affect my preaching."  I learned this week, as I prepared through bleary eyes and prayed while trying to not fall asleep that perhaps the self-sufficient way in which I prepare sermons might be closing.  So on Monday I reached out for help and set my facebook status and asked my online friends for help.  A door opened at 1:30pm that afternoon when John Talbert called me and said, "I've got something that might help your sermon."

    He pointed out that when Jesus opens the minds of his disciples, he does something different Anoigo opening; He opens them such that they might be closed again, and then he opens things by dividing them in two, or to use that great line from the marriage ceremony, to put asunder.  This type of opening, dianoigo in Greek, happens once and that which is opened remains that way forever.  This particular type of opening, Luke only describes four times in his gospel, three of which come in chapter 24 in post-resurrection stories.

    In our Collect for Today there is a clear reference made to the well-known story of Jesus' encounter with Clopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus.  After their long walk and talk Cleopas and his friend still did not recognize Jesus.  It was getting late, so the disciples invited the stranger they thought they were walking with to have dinner with them, and he obliged.  He took some bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and as he gave it to them, their eyes were opened, dianoigo, and they recognized Jesus.

    Their eyes were opened, and would never again be closed.

    In the gospel lesson for today, we hear of Jesus appearing in the middle of the room while the disciples were still discussing the crazy events of that first Easter Day - a room filled with fear and trembling.  After once again explaining to them the story of salvation; from the law of Moses to the Psalms to every word of the prophets pointed to him and the work he had done on the cross, Luke tells us he opened, dianoigo, their minds.  He ripped apart the old understanding they had carried for so long, and replaced it with a new understanding, and they would never again misunderstand his message and his mission.

    Jesus blew their minds, (hand gesture of mind blowing) and replaced it with the knowledge that he was the anointed one of God and he had risen from the dead to give new life through repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

    The funny thing about mind blowing experiences is that it often takes quite a while to figure out what actually happened.  We stand, slack-jawed, awe-struck, dumb-founded for some time trying to put words around the amazing events that took place.

    It will take the disciples 50 days for the disciples to figure out what this new knowledge means.  It will require the help of the Holy Spirit to turn spinning thoughts into concrete actions, to turn gibberish into words for all nations to hear, but as evening drew near on that first Easter Day the disciples gathered together in awe would finally open their minds to the plan Jesus had been trying to tell them all along.

    We prayed just a few minutes ago that God would open, dianoigo, the eyes of our faith.  This is one of those "be careful what you pray for" prayers.  Are you willing to have your eyes open to the will of God so that they can never be closed again?  Are you ready to see the pain and the heartbreak that God sees every day?  Are you capable of the compassion required to see with the eyes of God?  Do you want to see Christ in all persons, even your nosy neighbor or your annoying boss or your worst enemy?

    God is in the business of rolling back stones and leading us along the path of his desires.  In the resurrection, God is also in the business of blowing our eyes and our ears and our minds wide open so that we see and hear and know only as a part of the body of Christ.  Are you ready to have that kind of life changing experience?  Be careful what you pray for, it might just happen.

Readings for Easter 4, Year B

Earth Day 2009 Sermon

While I was in seminary I served a church in a small hamlet called Potomac, Maryland.  I couldn't begin to guess the average home price in Potomac, but in my two years there a several hundred unit townhouse neighborhood was developed with a price-tag starting at $700k.  A half mile in the other direction was a cul-de-sac of McMansions that had a banner espousing their 6 bedrooms, 6 baths, and elevators.  The people who lived and played in Potomac were comfortable, to say the least.

    One of the members of that church, Andrew, was a British national who worked, as most people there did, for the Federal Government.  He and his Romanian wife, were living the American dream in the DC Suburb of Potomac.  One Sunday, after I had preached a sermon openly wondering why an able bodied family in need of a six bedroom house would need an elevator Andrew and I got talking about the excess of materialism.

    "I don't mind people having second or even third homes," he said to me, "I just wish everybody could have a first home first."

    I've thought a lot about that statement in the four years since Andrew said it to me.  And it has been in the front of my mind for the past week as I've wrestled with the narrative we heard from Acts.

    It is hard for us, in 21st century, capitalistic America to fathom the life of the early church.  No one held any personal possessions, everything was held in a common purse.  It conjures up images, for me, of hippies living in communes in the 1960s.  Mostly getting high, but occasionally doing enough work to cultivate some string beans or goat's milk.  The lifestyle seems awfully difficult to reproduce in our time and place.  But there is a standard toward which I think we can strive, "there was not a needy person among them."

    We prayed, in the Collect for Today, to our God who in the Easter mystery established a new covenant of reconciliation.  And I think that if we take that quality of God seriously, and really mean it when we pray that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then we, as the Church and as individual followers of Jesus must strive for a world where there is not a needy person among us.

    To be reconciled to all people is to understand how our lifestyle impacts the life of all of God's creation; from our neighbors, to the coral reefs off the coast of Australia.  I believe that in our baptismal covenant God calls us to take seriously the basic needs of all people.  By promising to respect the dignity of every human being, we say that we will do all in our power to allow every person to be fully human.

    Today is International Earth Day, a day on which our attention is turned to the impact we are having on the environment.  As Christians, Earth Day should mean so much more.  Today, and everyday, should be days in which we ponder the impact we are having on the whole world and every living creature contained there-in.  How do our consumption habits further complicate the drought-fed famines in Sub-Saharan Africa.  How does our sex obsessed Western culture feed the HIV/AIDS pandemic?  How does the American philosophy of scarcity lead to over production, over spending, and pollution?

    Help us to show forth in our lives what we profess by our faith, O Father, that the world which you created might return to its brilliance and bring you honor and glory.  Amen.

a constant reminder

Ever since FBC was born two weeks ago, I've noticed that my short-term memory is shot.  I  answer the phone having already forgotten what the caller id said.  I walk down the stairs from my office only to return again having forgotten what I set forth to do.  I feed one dog but forget what I'm doing before the second bowl gets filled.

My current state of sleep deprevation and complete life alteration means that I need ways to be constantly reminded of the little things.   So I set alarms, I make to-do lists, and I write down just about everything somebody says to me.

This morning, my reminder came not from a to-do list or a hungry dog at my feet, but in the words of St. Peter in his second speech in the book of acts, "as though by our own power or piety we made him walk..."

One of my several character flaws is my ego.  I have, from time to time, been accused, and rightfully so, of being arrogant.  As a priest, the possibility of ego-inflation is ever present.  "Thank you for your wise advice."  "What a great sermon."  "You need to stay here forever."  "Are you sure you're not the second coming of Christ?"  I mean the accolades can flow down hill quickly and the temptation is to say, "it is all about me, my power, and my piety."

But it isn't.  It is all about Jesus.  It is about the Word who brings light to the world.  It is about the God who wants nothing more than to turn the world right-side-up again.  It is about the Holy Spirit whose words pour forth from our lips even when we have no idea what we're saying.

I need a constant reminder that, well, "I got nothin", and today it came in the form of Acts 3.12-19.  Thanks be to God.

I Heart Facebook

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Facebook (and social networking sites in general) are changing the way we do ministry, forever.

My twitter/facebook status yesterday read, "Steve thinks the lessons for Easter 3 are tough for preaching."  At about 1pm, I got a phone call from my rector's son, a youth minister in Birgmingham, who wanted to let me know that he had found that the word "opened" found in Luke 26.45 was not the word one would normally use to say that a door had been opened.  Instead, the Greek carries a meaning like, "the old has been torn to shreads so that a new can be put in its place."

In the context from Luke's gospel it seems to mean, "Jesus spoke to them, torn out their old brains and gave them new minds, the mind of Christ."  Or as my friend said it, "they had a baby in their brain."

This realization has great preaching opportunity for me in light of the lesson from 2Luke (Acts) when Peter tells the crowd of Jews that he "knows they acted in ignorance" because, it seems to me, that he too acted in ignorance prior to "having a baby in his brain" as Jesus opened the scriptures to the disciples on that first Easter Day.

St. Paul's hasn't had Greek dropped on them in a few months.  Maybe the time has come again.

Great Post @ Church for Starving Artists

Jan is at it again.  This time she is pondering, and ivites you to do the same, what 10 things we should throw out of the 21st century church.  There are some great ideas, and the comments sections is ripe with conversation starters.  And, much to Marcus Borg's surprise, the empty tomb is not on the list.

Read it here.