7 Easter - May 24, 2009

7 Easter B - Sunday after Ascension - 24 may 2009
Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53
The Rev. Miles Brandon

Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come. Take my lips and speak with them. Take our minds and think with them. Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you. In Christ's name, we ask it. Amen.

Today's in the life of the church we remember Jesus' ascension to heaven forty days after his resurrection from the dead that first Easter. This morning I want to focus, in particular, on the very important charge or mission that Jesus leaves with his disciples just before ascending to His Father in Heaven. In our lesson from Acts, Jesus says, "You [my followers] will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will he my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." This charge, this mission, to be a witness to God's love revealed in Jesus to the whole world, is not just for those people who loved and followed Jesus two thousand years ago. It remains ours as well. It is our sacred trust.

6 Easter - May 17, 2009

Easter 6-B May 17, 2009
Acts 10: 44-48; 1John 5: 1-6; John 15: 9-17
Marie Butterbaugh

I will change your name, you shall no longer be called wounded outcast lonely or afraid. I will change your name your new name shall be joyfulness, confidence, overcoming one, faithfulness, friend of God one who seeks my face.

Joyfulness, confidence, overcoming one, faithfulness, friend of God, one who seeks my face. After experiencing the shattering collapse of a hoped for private adoption, Tim and I arrived at Camp McDowell, in Jasper Alabama for our Cursillo weekend, not knowing what to expect. What we did know was this, friends who love us are entrusting us to God’s care. They told us we would have a wonderful experience, dropped us off suitcases in hand and said they would return that Sunday to pick us up. As Greg and Doll Bennett drove away that evening, inside I cried out, “Whoa come back! Don’t leave us!”

Caution against appeasement

I caution anyone against using the state/church approach to the controversy around 'gay marriage.  The  practical effect is appeasement, and I'm doubtful that you would have  countenanced appeasement as regards slavery versus abolition.  Although it's true that the Episcopal Church did, in fact, straddle the fence on that issue, unlike the Methodist Church which declared itself plainly opposed to slavery even though it cost them popularity in the South.   In their case, spiritual and moral truths were more important than membership retention. 

In addition, please note that TEC's attempt at appeasement regarding the ordination of called persons who are women has failed miserably.  TEC admitted a 'conscience clause' to General Convention's adoption of the canonical amendment that did away with discrimination based on a person's sex.  Yet, the appeasement simply gave time for those entrenched in their bigotry, the very bigotry that GC had just rejected, to dig themselves in more deeply.  All of us are now paying the price for TEC's lack of courage regarding our convictions. 

Misogynist bigotry has only strengthened, and now fuels official homophobia in these same dioceses, except of course where the bigots have finally recognized that they need not pretend to be Episcopalian in order to serve God as they believe themselves to be called.  The bigots are following their consciences, however warped their consciences may be.  TEC should do the same, without  reservation. 

If slavery was wrong, it was wrong everywhere.  If  discrimination against gay people is wrong and is sin anywhere, it is so  everywhere.  Appeasement is not an answer.

Jim  +

Still no Reason for convenant

Still no Reason for a covenant -

He has made himself abundantly clear: the Archbishop of Canterbury is intent on imposing a covenant upon the Churches of the Anglican Communion. One can only wonder why he is intent on this end, for he has offered no real purpose for it. The sum of all his apologetic is that a covenant is an end that justifies itself. He fails to offer a genuine and theological purpose for it. On the one hand he notes that the Churches do function and serve in effective partnership with one another. On the other hand, he implies that without a covenant the Churches will not be able to continue to do so. His reliance upon a false and implied logic exemplifies a plain truth of the matter: neither he nor anyone one has yet offered a serious reason for pursuing a covenant.

Many have offered justifications for the concept of covenant per se, but no one has offered anything that approaches a compelling inspiration for this particular effort. This effort was initiated bureaucratically through the Windsor Report (even though the Primates themselves meeting at Dromantine expressed reservations toward the pursuit of a covenant) which was itself a response to the use of parliamentary bullying and the socio-politcally 'conservative' propaganda by emerging-world primates who were then and are still being funded and manipulated by hard-right American money. The Archbishop of Canterbury, apparently possessed of a curious notion of his role as somehow the head of a single global Church, now seems intent upon imposing this view of his own rights and privileges upon the wider Anglican Communion.

Hand-wringing about leaving or staying

This hand-wringing over whether or not the Episcopal Church can or cannot be a place for all to be together is is unrealistic. In addition, I humbly suggest, it is based in an errant understanding of Church per se. The communion of saints is bigger than TEC. The mistake that I think many in TEC continue to make is to assume without thinking about it that TEC is the only Church in town.

We are a protestant Church, therefore it is inherent to our very being that we reject the notion that any Church can rightly claim to be the only true or single full expression of Christian faith. If we of TEC continue to straddle the fence on discrimination, a fence that is growing increasingly lonely, then we will end up with exactly what we deserve: an unprincipled community of people whose chief value and core identity has little to do with Christ Jesus and a great deal to with mediocre commitment to anything having to do with the gospel.

5 Easter - May 10, 2009

5 Easter B - 10 May 2009
Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8
Ryan Page

A couple of summers ago I had the unique opportunity to go on a two week canoeing trip with my boy scout troop. There was about five scouts and three adults in my crew plus a guide to help us navigate. We had a guide because we were canoeing the boundary waters of the United States and Canada.

On the trek we could only take what we needed and nothing else. We had to make sure that all of our personal equipment could fit in a waterproof bag in order to minimize space and weight. Looking at the bag that I had to put my stuff in I was worried that it wouldn’t all fit, but somehow I managed to squeeze everything in. Everything that we would take into the Canadian wilderness would be packed out, including trash.

"Liberal" interest in the proposed Anglican covenant

Regarding recent efforts at offering an apologetic for the anomaly of an "Anglican Covenant," it bears repeating that the assumption that our "Anglican roots" involve "re-affirming together the essential doctrines of Christianity" is thoroughly mistaken. If our official history is correct, there are no such things as Anglican roots. Yes, there are roots in the Church of England. But, again, if history is correct in the telling, the roots of the Churches that rose from the Church of England's colonial expansion had nothing to do with a desire to create a global allegiance of independent Churches. At this juncture, it seems to me of critical importance that we reflect upon the facts, not the myth.

Clearly, the embrace of the idea of covenant among so-called 'conservatives' is driven by hope for punitive powers that they can exercise against the Episcopal Church in the U.S., the Anglican Church of Canada, and eventually even the Church of England. There's little mystery about this anymore for anyone who is paying attention. I think it serves us also, though, to examine why it is that some so-called 'liberals' are embracing the notion of a Covenant. At the risk of being overly-simplistic, I suggest that much of the motivation for the their zeal is rooted in the myth of a unity that has never really existed amongst the Churches whose roots are 'Anglican,' i.e., Churches emerging from the Church of England. Evidence that this idealized unity is indeed myth is found in the fact that there is no such thing as a singular and distinct Anglican theology, or a singular Anglican ethos, common to all the independent and autocephalous Churches of the Anglican Communion.

4 Easter B - 3 May 2009

4 Easter B - 3 May 2009
Acts 4:5-12; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18
James V. Stockton

Given the current environment, with the flue scare, I think it especially meaningful that you are here today. I read a story about a priest who always did his best to be an excellent example and standard for those around him. The Reverend Hector Hanks is walking home one evening. Near his house he sees a number of little boys and girls sitting in a circle with a puppy in the middle of the group. “Hi, kids,” he says. “What are you doing here with the puppy?” “Aw, nothing, really,” answers one little boy named Joey. “We’re just having a contest. We’re sitting here telling lies, and whoever tells the biggest whopper gets to keep the dog.” The Rev. Hanks puffs up in his most righteously indignant manner. “What?” he exclaims. “I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked!” The children sit motionless, with their eyes and ears fixed upon the wrathful priest before them.

The image of an angry bombastic clergy person is one with which many people are familiar, maybe too many. The fictitious Elmer Gantry comes to mind, or figures from history: Jonathan Edwards, Lyman Beecher, George Finney, or Ellen White. I’ll leave it to people’s memories and imaginations to identify possible examples from more recent times. The point is not blithely to ridicule such folks, or blindly to approve of them. It is, instead, to suggest that when people consider the words and manner of such folks as these, they will notice a contrast between that image and experience and the one portrayed in the scriptures for this morning.

Matters of the Upcoming General Convention

Matters Concerning the Church
and the upcoming 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church

In the Church's seasons of controversy, taking no public position is sometimes the prudent and charitably Christian thing to do. But the Church is realizing that it is time for those who once spoke out with bold and godly clarity on behalf of others, whose voices were refused legitimacy, to lay aside polite diplomacy and speak up again. The Church has been wrestling over the past decade with discerning the time to take a clear position on the issues roiling the Church today, and freely to accept the consequences of speaking plainly the Truth of the Gospel. This is the process that we will soon witness at the Episcopal Church's General Convention in July. Here at Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, the community with whom I serve God, we are discerning ways that our own gift of hospitality has had us speaking the Gospel boldly in word and deed all along. Rightly, we may be humbly proud that this is so.

Currently, the precipitating concern over the last few General Conventions has been homosexuality, i.e. the question of what is the place, if any, of the gay person in the community of the Church? Around this controversial center, other matters of disagreement orbit: biblical interpretation and application of scripture, limits and privileges of constitutional authority, the meaning of communion in Christ, and the definition of Anglicanism. It is telling, I think, that most people concede that these other concerns are subject to legitimate differences of opinion. In addition, much could be said about what lies behind almost every controversy, namely: xenophobia (fear of difference); but homosexuality continues to orient the debate today.

Rector's Study May 2009

From the Rector's Study ~

A beautiful future is unfolding before us, this community of ECR. Our own Pentecost experience is happening right here in our midst. Not with the same sensational rush of a mighty wind, yet the same Holy Spirit, the same igniting of God’s Love and Power, the same blessing of surprise that accompanied the first Pentecost for Jesus’ first disciples are manifesting for us even now. The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection is welcoming a wider variety of voices, speaking of God’s Good News from a wider variety of backgrounds, each proclaiming the Gospel as only he or she can put it into action, can put it into words. Christ was raised for all, and here at the Church of his Resurrection, we are putting this miracle into action. This is part of how we got here:

In April of 2005, the Vestry and Ministry Leaders of ECR identified a need and claimed the desire to expand our campus with additional parking capacity and an additional building to provide more space for ministries, education, and fellowship. It has always been a priority with me as rector that our parish community would understand the reasons for such expansion, and to know that expansion for its own sake was not reason enough. This priority continues today and I am happy to note that it is a priority also amongst our Vestry and Ministry Leaders.

3 Easter B - 26 April 2009

3 Easter B - 26 April 2009
Acts 3:12-19; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24: 36b-48
James V. Stockton

It happens that I am not the person that perhaps many folks here today were expecting to hear and to see. Some of us here, myself included, were prepared to welcome the ministry of our guest preacher, but he called me Friday evening to let me know that he was unable to come. So, while I was prepared to come and participate in ECR’s Work Day yesterday, looking forward to a time of good fellowship, vigorous labor, and savory food, I needed to take yesterday to prepare a sermon, this sermon, in fact. I apologize for any disappointment at the absence of our scheduled guest preacher; and I pray that my preparations have been adequate.

Today I shall call upon my oath from my years in Scouting. Actually it’s the Boy Scout motto rather than the oath, which is much longer and which escapes my memory. As any of the Scouts from our own troop 1407 will tell us, it is the Scout motto that is quite appropriate today: “Be Prepared.”

2 Easter B - April 19, 2009

2 Easter B - 19 April 2009
Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 1:1-2:1; John 20:19-31
Marie Butterbaugh

The other day, standing outside Christ Chapel at the Seminary, I found myself watching as the Texas winds buffet the nearby tree limbs. Swaying hither and thither, the new green leaves swirl as they scatter about. Looking closely, one tree especially catches my eye. In its’ branches rests a rather large bird’s nest. Watching this nest swinging back and forth as the wind’s tempest continues, I begin to think about faith. Surely it is faith that initiates the building of such a nest. The faith that winter will turn to spring. The faith that believes from the depths of despair experienced on Good Friday comes new life through Jesus’ resurrection. I think about the faith of Thomas.

From the Easter narrative, we know that John, the other disciple, comes to tomb. He sees the linen cloths rolled up. Jesus is not there. He believes. Mary Magdalene hears the angels’ question, “Woman why are you weeping?” She encounters the risen Lord and at first she doesn’t recognize Him. Jesus speaks. Mary believes. She does as Jesus instructs. She goes to tell the disciples.

Easter Sunday B - April 12, 2009

Easter Sunday B - 12 April 2009
Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; John 20:1-18
James V. Stockton

What is so good about the Good News is Jesus himself. Christ is the Gospel. Not the author of the gospel, not the subject about whom it is written, Christ is the Gospel itself. Once people have this one simple but mysterious idea in place, the remainder of Scripture and the teachings of the Faith and the traditions of the Church really rather nicely fall into order behind it, or more accurately, rise up from it.

This is not to say that all the rest of it becomes easy or unimportant. Quite to the contrary, the questions of the Christian faith and religion are numerous and fascinating for many people. This is why some of them are in church today, just like you and me, still asking questions.

Easter Vigil B - 11 April 2009

Easter Vigil B - 11 April 2009
Matthew 28:1-10
James V. Stockton

That it still matters that Christ is risen, that he is risen indeed, is happily demonstrated in the presence of millions of people gathering in Churches this night and tomorrow morning. “His resurrection is God’s ‘Amen!’ upon the person of Jesus.” So writes theologian Edward Schillebeeckx in his book, Jesus: an Experiment in Christology. He goes on: “Jesus, who had announced the imminent reign of God,…despite the contradiction of his rejection and death, had not…been wrong. B]y raising him from the dead, God has now identified Himself… [w]ith him, who during his life had identified himself with…the coming rule of God [upon earth],…Jesus Christ is himself the [reign] of God.’

People today still celebrate God’s Amen upon the person of Jesus. Humanity still seeks the reign of God upon this earth and at this time. These truths are blessedly evident in the fact that people everywhere are gathering at the conclusion of the Way of the cross of Christ. And considering that, after all, what ends is the way of the cross, what a surprising conclusion it is! Through the introspective challenges of the season of Lent, through the poignancy of Holy Week, many have ventured into the experience of the first followers of Jesus.

Good Friday B - 10 April 2009

Good Friday B - 10 April 2009
Isaiah 51:13-53:12; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1-19:37
James V. Stockton

Pilate’s remark, maybe a question, maybe sarcasm, maybe resignation to a self-serving belief that truth is just for naïve do-gooders and political dupes: Pilate’s remark: ‘What is truth?’ It shows up on the one of the oldest fragments of scriptural texts ever found.

In fact the discovery of this little bit of ancient writing, small enough to hide in the palm of your hand, overturned the long-held assumption among biblical scholars that John’s gospel must surely have been composed much later in history than the other three. Its sophistication, its appreciation for mystery, it all seemed to generations of scholars that John’s gospel must have been written in the very late second century or early third. Then this bit of papyrus, this fragment of a piece of a page of a gospel, comes along, and challenges their assumption. And like good scholars, they ask, without sarcasm or resignation, what is the truth? Because the truth matters.

Palm Sunday B - 5 April 2009

Palm Sunday B - 5 April 2009
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 14:1-15:47
James V. Stockton

Of all the Sundays of the year, it is today that the challenges of being a follower of Jesus Christ rise up with plain and inescapable clarity. While each of the gospel writers tells the story, this year’s reading, today, from Mark the evangelist, tells it in a way that is the most straightforward. The truth is left to speak for itself. And perhaps ironically, the truth is found in Jesus’ decision to say nothing more. “But Jesus made no further reply,” the gospel tells us, “and Pilate was amazed.”

“The Passion is really the mystery of all mysteries the heart of the Christian faith experience.” So writes Episcopal priest and author Cynthia Bourgeault in her book titled The Wisdom Jesus. She goes on, “The spectacle of an innocent and good man destroyed by the powers of this world is an archetypal human experience. It elicits our deepest feelings of remorse and empathy (and, if we’re honest, our own deepest shadows as well).” As such, the Passion, as the Rev. Bourgeault notes, “has long been a popular subject of devotion…” as the literature and artwork attest that have grown up around it. “The Passion is quite manipulable,” she notes. It’s been used to stir anger and scapegoating… to fuel anti-Semitism, to induce [feelings of] personal guilt.”

Rector's Study April 2009

From the Rector's Study ~

“Live!” says God to the world. “Live! You are free, so live!” That inward journey upon which we entered some forty plus days ago has a destination. While we may rightly understand that we never really arrive there, yet it’s also true that the end point of our journey is always with us. Christ is alive, and so we too arrive at life. We live. Jesus has been raised beyond the finality of death itself. This Jesus Christ has made a journey from the glories of divinity to the struggles and joys of his own life among us as one of us. Christ’s journey has been always toward you and me and all humanity.

As trying as our forty days’ journey through Lent may have been, and as rewarding, Christ’s own journey has been far longer, far more challenging, and surely far more richly gratifying in the end. Our journey has taught us again that the journey inward to ourselves is a journey upward to God, for the more closely we draw to our true selves and to one another, the more closely we draw to God. Any soul-searching solitude, whether at Lent or any other time in our lives, will reveal to us that God is with us more surely than we’d ever supposed. Christ is raised from death and from everything that whispers of it.

3 Lent B - 15 March 2009

3 Lent B - 15 March 2009
Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22
James V. Stockton

“We come into the world into the middle of things to which we are indebted, things not of our own making, for whose repair we nevertheless become responsible.” So writes professor and theologian Paula Cooey in her book Willing the Good: Jesus, Dissent, and Desire." She continues, “We die in the middle of things, leaving the legacy of our shared but unique presence, including the effects of our mistake, to strangers we will never know.” From this she concludes that “Transfiguration of desire” becomes for many people “a way of life, a perpetual revolution, and as such, a gift to the future.”

What is it that people desire but to love and to be loved, to be appreciated to be remembered, to be safe and secure, to be happy, to be free? This is a list of guesses; and as such it is incomplete. Probably anyone could add to or edit it. Cooey’s point is that a relationship with God especially as disclosed in God’s self-expression, i.e., in Jesus Christ, God become one of them, people can find their most basic desires met and thus transformed, we might say ‘morphed,’ into something quite unexpected.

Rector's Study March 2009

From the Rector's Study ~

As a season that anticipates the conclusion of the shortened days and lengthened nights, the colder weeks and chillier months, Lent prepares people for the dawning of the springtime, the most literal translation of its name. And, by its spiritual definition, Lent prepares the heart and soul for the renewed dawn of the Light of Christ. The comparatively less hospitable weather of the season of our winter moves us to exercise a relative retreat into the refuge of our homes. So also Lent draws each of us to an inward spiritual retreat, an inward examination of our relationship of with God, of God’s relationship with you and me, personally.

The traditional practice of some sort of self-denial during this season exemplifies and supports this effort. For example, if one gives up his or her habitual Diet-Coke or coffee in the morning, then each time the habit ‘kicks in’ in, it reminds one powerfully of one’s intention to go deeper into the mystery of the knowledge and love of the Lord. Toward this end, and building upon the virtues of this tradition, I propose a new way for us together to engage this discipline here at ECR.

1 Lent B - 1 March 2009

1 Lent B - 1 March 2009
Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15
James V. Stockton

Each of the readings for today reminds people that Christianity is something robust and challenging. Noah and his family suffer the deluge of the world. They suffer the angst of trying to warn their neighbors and friends to turn from their selfish and silly ways and be reconciled with God, and of meeting only with disdain and ridicule, but knowing that there simply is nothing more that they can do. Peter reminds the early Church, particularly those about to be baptized into it, that Christ Jesus suffered persecution and death for their sakes personally as much as for the sake of the world. He reminds them that their continuing relationship with God in Christ means continuing to confront their own proclivity for getting it wrong even when they are trying to get it right. The gospel reading reminds people that Jesus himself must endure a time of testing in a wilderness both material and spiritual in nature; that he must endure the pain of knowing that when John, his cousin and fellow seeker after God’s truth, is imprisoned, the corruption of the authorities who put him there ensures the worst possible outcome. Lent continues today with these reminders that Christianity is a robust and challenging enterprise by which God challenges the people of God in order that the people of God may continue to express God’s challenge to the wider world around them.