Walking the Way

Are you looking for fresh materials, ideas, or conversation starters for the upcoming annual commitment season? TENS: The Episcopal Network for Stewardship offer some wonderful, flexible tools as part of its Walking the Way 2014 stewardship program. Because Maine is a Diocesan Member of TENS, these materials area available to all Maine congregations, free of charge!

Some congregations find the materials most useful as a complete set–letterhead, stationary, sample letters, pledge cards, and bulletin inserts–creating a theme and framework for the annual appeal. Others prefer to pick and choose, taking ideas from the sample letters, using the introductory material and evaluation material, then filling in locally appropriate tools or adapting the ideas to fit lectionary weeks other than those covered by the bulletin inserts. If your committee–and perhaps your congregation–is ready for a break from the personal testimony style of appeal, perhaps use the bulletin inserts as starting points for small group discussion, or as a basis for lectionary-based Bible study or adult forum. This year’s material also offers special bulletin inserts for the Feast of St. Francis and All Saints, adding even more flexibility to an already rich resource.

The complete Walking the Way toolkit is available via the links below in PDF, Word, and Excel formats. If you have any trouble with these attachments, please e-mail me directly at mainestewards@yahoo.com and I will be happy to provide you with an alternative for fool-proof access.

 

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Something (B)old, Something New

Whenever I talk about the gift of prophecy, someone inevitably walks up to me later and says, “So, let’s hear a prophecy.”

So let me begin by dispelling a myth: prophets are not fortune tellers. They are not oracles. They are not soothsayers or magicians. Prophets hear the word of the God and speak truth to power. Prophets speak bluntly in the court of public opinion. Prophets say out loud what everyone else is thinking.

It’s no surprise, then, that prophecy is the spiritual gift that no one wants. Prophets may be summoned for an audience with the king, but they are rarely invited to the after-party. They aren’t known for their extensive social networks. In fact, if scripture is to be believed, their lives are a constant stream of insult, misery, and rejection.

For quite a few weeks Jeremiah has been trying to tell us about new beginnings, about opportunity in what appears to be defeat, about looking at things in a bold and creative light.

Back in September when God told Jeremiah to go down to the potter’s house, he saw the potter at the wheel and watched as he formed the clay into something lovely, yet imperfect. He saw the potter mash the clay back into a lump, wet it a little, and try again.

My first reaction to this scene was, “What?! But the rainbow…the promise…God wasn’t going to do that again!” Yet as I reflected on this reading, I came to understand that while it was true that God had promised he would never destroy creation again, God never ruled out the possibility of a do-over.

In mashing up the clay and beginning again, the potter does not destroy the clay. The potter reuses the same clay, reshaping and redirecting the material at hand through new beginning.

This is a wonderful metaphor for our congregations facing decline, whether the “clay” of ministry resources available for renewal comes from within the bounds of the congregation or, increasingly, through regional ministry partnerships. But because this is a lengthy processes, it will inevitably overlap with at least one cycle of annual financial commitment. The prophets who serve on our planning teams will worry that members will opt not to pledge this year because they aren’t sure what’s going on, or they don’t trust the process, or they’re confused about the future. People may be hearing rumors, or may just assume that the church is going to close.

How can we, as leaders, keep everyone on board?

Jeremiah has some suggestions.

First, it’s OK to be angry. Jeremiah is very clear that we do have the option of not liking what we hear. We can eat all the sour grapes we want. Grief and anger are a normal part of adaptive change. Through our baptism we live as stewards of one another’s hopes and dreams, fears and worries. So if a members needs to set their teeth on edge for a while, we must assure them that they will be met with the love, the compassion, and the prayers of the congregation.

The second option Jeremiah offers is to go “all in.” Jeremiah challenges the people of Israel to move from an external covenant confined to a tabernacle, and move toward an internal covenant that lives within their being, a covenant that is part of who they are. Jeremiah challenges us likewise to move toward being the people of god in a new way, grounded in the baptismal covenant that lives within our being, always present as part of who we are.

In calling the people of Israel to a new covenant, there is one option that Jeremiah explicitly takes off the table: We’re not going to sit and do nothing. We’re not going to ride it out, wait for the crisis to pass so we can get back to where we were.

No. Jeremiah is very clear that above all, the people of Israel—and by extension, we—are called to live in the now. Through baptism, the Great I Am—the god whose very name is the present tense—calls us to radical relevance in mission and ministry.

That is Jeremiah’s call to each and all of us, not just to our diocesan leaders, or clergy, or vestry, or planning committee. In the coming weeks many of us will be invited to make a pledge in support of our congregations—in support of the congregation that is, the congregation of the here and now.

I encourage all members of every congregation not to think of letter and pledge card that you receive as merely a request for money. Think of it as an invitation to partnership in the radical relevance of mission and ministry. The future is a work in progress. The present calls us to make offerings of prayer, of effort, and of dedication; offerings brought forth from the first fruits of our life and labor, in the name of the one whose covenant is written on our hearts.

Amen

Here and Now

Wherever you are, be there. Peter Jennings

So often in my work with congregational leaders I hear a longing for the way things used to be. This longing is not simply for the financial stability of the past, though that is certainly a component, but for the ways of a by-gone era—a time of identity, of security, of assurance; a time that seemed to have an infinite future, grounded in recognized and predictable social patterns.

Though today’s congregations can hardly claim the overt hostilities known to the exiles in Jeremiah’s day, the less tangible enemies of indifference and perceived irrelevance can be just as formidable.

While the false prophets trade on feel-good predictions, assurances that it will all be over soon, and easy answers for making it all OK, Jeremiah speaks a raw truth of presence: The Lord has put you here. The Lord has put you now. The Great I Am, the God whose very name is in the present tense, wants you to be the light in this darkness, the unfailing strength in this chaos, the place of refuge in this storm.

Jeremiah speaks for a God who calls us not to radical hospitality, but to radical relevance. Jeremiah tells us bluntly to stop treating our Episcopal identity, our baptism, our commitment to felt-need ministry as constraints, but rather to understand them as the very “roots and wings” which allow us to thrive.

Does doing church in a new way throw out history? Does moving the frontline abandon the matriarchs and patriarchs who brought us to this moment? Does radical relevance mean caving in to popular culture? Heavens no!

Jeremiah never tells the Israelites, “Stop being so Jewish; tone it down and you’ll get on better.” Instead he tells them to live life to the fullest in this place where they happen to be: Get married. Have babies. Buy a house. Settle in and get used to one another. Make it work and watch what happens.

OK, so maybe that’s not the exact approach that we are likely to take with our communities, but you get the point.

It’s a point worth getting. It’s a question worth taking to the next vestry retreat, the next planning meeting, the next women’s fellowship or youth weekend: How do we answer the call to radical relevance? How do we live as The Church of the Here and Now?

Proper Behavior

It happens every year: At some point in Ordinary Time, I lose track of where we are.

Never mind that the family’s master planner is a liturgical appointment book…and that I have bookmarked a lectionary web site that automatically goes to the coming Sunday’s readings…and that I read not one, but two, lectionary-based resources every week.

Every year, at some point, I lose my place.

In my defense, some years really do have a very long green season. One of my colleagues once confessed, “It gets a little old. All the parables start to run together and we run out of sermon ideas: It’s a mustard seed. It’s small. But it’s enough. We get it.”

This year I am finding an unexpected grace, an intangible abundance, and the gift of being able to laugh at myself in something that I normally interpret as a failure.

Last Sunday I went to church because it was where I needed to be. I had spent the weekend on an emotional roller coast. I needed grounding. Plus there was a summer person I wanted to see before she headed south. I drove in wondering if those gorgeous words of Eucharistic Prayer C were negotiable…

Could I come to the table for both solace and strength? Could I get a little bigger share of renewal, maybe let the pardon slide this week?

Because I had lost my track, I had no clue what the readings were; my mind wasn’t cluttered with “how I would have preached it.” I was open to the gathered community. And somewhere across the span of gathering, sermon, table, and announcements I was indeed blessed with those offerings that, together, provided the very solace, strength, renewal, and pardon that for which I so deeply hungered.

There has also been an unexpected abundance of reflection in losing track of time. I have caught myself accidentally lingering on a passage, letting it stay in my head for another week. I’ve sat down to write and discovered that the harvest wasn’t ready. I’ve given myself permission to let some readings go. (They’ll come back around in three years anyway.) There is a certain joy in wandering through the readings without the pressure of preparing, arriving, being ready…

As for being able to laugh at myself…. I’m pretty sure my parish read the prior week’s readings last Sunday. (I double-checked when I got home, given my history.) It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one.

Hosts, Feasts, and Angels Unaware

Twenty years ago a middle-aged couple fell in love with a house on the edge of a lake—and on the edge of their price range. In wrestling with the purchase of this beautiful house, they made a covenant that, should Providence deem this to be their home, it would be dedicated as a place of hospitality. They did indeed purchase the home and six weeks later, barely unpacked, they gathered for Thanksgiving dinner with family, friends, and those who were alone.

Among the “strays” gathered for that first Thanksgiving were a foreign graduate student and a young administrator from the local university. Today, that graduate student is a US citizen, father of a lively seventh grader. His career has taken a serpentine course through multiple relocations, landing him back in the community where he started. (The former university administrator now writes a stewardship blog.) In the intervening years, neither has forgotten the gift of hospitality that this couple embodied. Their example has been multiplied many times over, not because their guests paid them back, but because their partners in baptism have each paid the original offerings forward in their own understanding of the Kingdom of God.

Another banquet story tells a less noble tale. In fact, it is the story of one of my least baptismal moments.

Mallory and I were struggling to fill a quiet Sunday—we had managed to do fun things on Saturday, and Monday would send us back to school and work, but the long Sabbath of a Sunday was daunting. We decided to spend the day in Pretoria—the drive alone was three hours round trip, add a visit with my in-laws, lunch, maybe a movie, and we’re set.

Nestled into our favorite lunch spot, all was going beautifully until our food arrived. She took one look at her beloved seafood pizza, piled with scallops, mussels, and assorted other delicacies, and her face fell: I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t know that the reason I like this pizza is because I share it with Daddy. It isn’t the same when he’s not here.

It’s OK. I get it. We’ll box it up so it doesn’t go to waste.

Now, here’s something that might surprise you about life in South Africa: It’s incredibly difficult to find someone in need on a Sunday afternoon. I did eventually find an older man, clearly malnourished and living in poverty, seated on the sidewalk outside a small general store, hoping for mercy from the few people who were out and about. I approached, greeted him, and offered him the untouched pizza. He accepted it, thanked me, and immediately began to enjoy this unexpected feast. As I got back in my car, I turned to see two or three clearly affluent young boys on bicycles speak to him, reach into the box, and happily pedal away, laughing and enjoying their “score.”

I was furious. So furious, in fact that I caught up with them, rolled down my car window and told them exactly what I thought of their behavior. Without missing a beat, their leader called back tauntingly, “He said we could have some.”

I was furious. However….

What if he did choose to share his abundance? What if this homeless man was no different from my previous hosts? What if he, too, carried a deep baptismal understanding of Providence, of our very need to bless, break, and share in celebration of unexpected abundance?

Second, with whom was I actually furious? Don’t you think Jesus would have gotten a kick out of a destitute homeless man schooling Lady Bountiful in hospitality? I am so grateful to him for the gift of humility that day, for the gift of allowing me to see an angel in disguise as he hosted those above his station at a banquet on the sidewalk.

I am grateful to both of these hosts for enacting the simplest of sermons, the most elegant of Gospel admonitions: Go, and do likewise.

Amen

Twin Peaks

I’ve had a song stuck in my head all week. It’s a favorite hymn from my United Methodist upbringing that is sadly not included in the Episcopal hymnal. Evoking Hebrews 12:22, we sing:

Come, we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known;

Join in a song with sweet accord, Join in a song with sweet accord

And thus surround the throne, and thus surround the throne.

 

Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God;

But children of the heavenly King, but children of the heavenly King

May speak their joys abroad, may speak their joys abroad.

 

Then let our songs abound and every tear be dry;

We’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground; we’re marching thru Emmanuel’s ground

To fairer worlds on high, to fairer worlds on high.

 

(With each verse followed by a rousing chorus)

We’re marching to Zion, Beautiful, beautiful Zion;

We’re marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God.[i]

If we’re lucky, the preacher calls for an extra chorus

While I was humming my way through the week, it struck me that I couldn’t think of a single hymn about God’s other mountain in the Epistle assigned for this week—the mountain of God’s wrath, the mountain of fear and trembling and death.

The more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder: Of the many conversations I’ve had over the years with companions in my spiritual journey, I have shared and heard countless struggles and joys, wilderness times, mountaintop experiences, moments of knowing and deserts of doubt. But I can’t remember a single conversation around a time when “God just grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shook me like a puppy.”

Why is that? Why do we resist this other mountaintop, this other face of God? Does it somehow feel un-resurrection-like to embrace God’s wrath and righteous anger?

That is where I lapse into what Gray Temple calls “the somewhat dishonorable Christian habit”:

Christians who … seek to contrast the Old Testament’s God of wrath with the New Testament’s God of grace … betray ignorance of both testaments. If the New Testament God’s mercy is always close to the Hebrew surface, something like judgment is near to Christian texts too.[ii]

In other words, Temple continues, “we cannot escape that fire by leaving the synagogue and crossing over to the church.” Jesus himself knew this truth when he said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17)

Perhaps a better way to wrestle, then is in what Lanny Peters sees as the invitation in this text:

What is the pastoral word for (those) who are honest enough to name what they see in biblical texts? Does God have schizoid tendencies? Is God…sometimes really kind and loving and forgiving, while at others God gets all angry and wants to punish and even hurt people? Or might this question instead bear witness to our human ambivalence about the nature of God? Texts like this provide a great opportunity for honest dialogue within faith communities.[iii]

When has your spiritual journey taken you to Sinai…or to Zion…or even to both at once? What songs do you sing in these fairer worlds on high?

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[i] Watts, Isaac and Robert Lowry. Marching to Zion.

[ii] Temple, Gray, in Bartlett, David L. and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the

Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Volume 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. P. 376.

[iii]Ibid., Lanny Peters. P. 378.

Hiatus

I can’t put it off any longer. It’s Saturday night. I have to face this week’s readings.

I’ve put off writing for so long because I really enjoyed my hiatus, my month away from my desk, my month of getting out of my head and into Martha time. It started with the fulfillment of a cherished fantasy: I rented a dumpster. The family thought I was joking. I had been threatening since winter that our vacation this year would consist of a week at home with a dumpster. It turned out to be a month. And it was great.

First went the obvious stuff: The broken down sofa, the vacuum cleaner that made scary smoke smells, the off-cuts of plywood and random chunks of insulation from walling-in the upstairs of the barn. We were having fun, and feeling very freed.

As we moved into the finer layers of our various rooms, the pace slowed. It wasn’t that our energy was waning, far from it. It was our engagement in the process. We began to offer one another quiet gifts of time and presence. I first noticed it when I pulled out two big boxes of old photographs. I began to sort through them, tossing some into a trash box and others into a keep pile. Before long Robert started reaching into the trash box, retrieving things, asking questions, encouraging me to keep more than I really wanted. Mallory curled herself up beside me. She wanted to hear about pieces of my life so far removed in time and space; she drew out stories of people long dead or estranged.

One was a picture of my great-aunt Elsie, the patron whose voice had been my constant companion through the purge, her wise and gentle voice saying, “We keep things for a certain amount of time.” I remember her saying that to my mother, and I take comfort in its permission, both permission to keep and permission to toss. In one simple phrase, Aunt Elsie taught me the essence of stewardship.

Last Monday the dumpster was rolled off. Four cubic yards of junk…three packed carloads to the thrift shop…four trips to the recycling center…and priceless time with my family and its artifacts. It felt good.

It was in that lighter state of mind that I returned to my desk this week. After a month of sorting, tossing, donating, scrubbing, clearing, shop-vaccing, and power-washing, I returned to life inside my head. As I moved back into the more familiar Mary mode, I was greeted by a lectionary reading from Ecclesiastes:

Pointless. It’s all a pointless waste of time. Whoever buys your house is just going to change everything any way. Your paint job might help you sell the house, but after that, who cares? And when you die? She’s never going to remember which stories go with which heirlooms; she probably won’t even keep most of them. No matter how carefully you provide for her, at some point she’s going to cash out her trust fund and live her own life. It’s all pointless.

You can understand why I’ve put off writing….

How do I reconcile the words of Ecclesiastes with the stewardship of abundance? Where’s the good news? I followed Jesus’ advice to the rich young ruler—I got rid of all the clutter, all the stuff that was clogging my life and getting in the way of my family’s wholeness. I gave anything usable to a thrift shop ministry that serves an impoverished rural area, with the proceeds supporting the vicar’s care for individuals in crisis. I recycled the materials that can be reused to tread a bit more gently on the resources of creation. How could it all have been in vain?

The answer, of course and as always, lies in our baptism. Through baptism, we are called to live not just as stewards of our stuff, but as stewards of one another. We are called to care for one another’s hopes, and dreams, and prayers…and memories, and stories, and artifacts.

The fellowship of family time and the passing of wisdom and memory across generations is just as spiritually formative at home as it is at church. The early church, after, broke its bread in homes, around the tables of its members. And what better way to live out Christ’s teachings by word and example than to sit with my child while she sorts her own belongings for donation, nurturing her love of neighbor and care for those in need?

In the end, it’s a both/and: The new homeowners will undo a fair chunk of my work. Mallory will consign a fair chunk of my belongings when they pass into her care. In the meantime, however, I am the steward of so many good gifts—tangible and intangible—in this time, and in this place. That’s where I find the good news this week: Whether it matters or not, it matters to me.

For that I am truly thankful.

Risky Business

What more does Elijah want?!

Just the other week he was moaning that he was the last of the prophets of Israel…the last of his kind…the end of an era. Who was left to speak the truth of the goodness of Lord to the people? Who would challenge power and authority with the eternal truths of a God so great as ours? What would happen after he was gone?

When he meets Elisha, when he finds the one whom God would favor with the gift of prophesy, he’s absolutely thrilled—he throws his cloak over Elisha, symbolizing that he would be the chosen one. But then Elijah seems to pull back. Elisha becomes a servant rather than a student; his commitment is tested at every turn.

And when Elisha does reveal his discernment of vocation, does Elijah embrace him? Does he express joy and gladness at seeing his own vocation pass into capable hands? NO! He builds in yet more conditions, yet another test. And in the end, even Elisha doesn’t know if he’s “passed” until he strikes the water with Elijah’s mantle.

Does anyone else feel incredibly frustrated by all of this? Does anybody else want to shout, “Come on Elijah, mentor the kid! You need to raise up the one who will come after you. Your work needs continuity. Give the guy a chance.”

But if I step back and really look at it, I see Elijah as incredibly human. I suspect that if we are honest with ourselves, we can all relate to that sense of worry about our life’s work, our community involvement, or some aspect of our baptism. I don’t blame Elijah for sending mixed signals: It’s hard to think about “when I’m not able to do it anymore.”

I can tell you honestly that in my ministry with congregations, the one thing that I hear even more often than “Where will the money come from?” is “Where can we find new people? How can we raise up new leaders? On whom can we throw the mantles of our baptism?”

And so in this morning’s reading from Second Kings, I hear a reminder that part of our own spiritual discipline must be the discipleship of others who might assume our mantles.[i]  By taking joy in mentoring others in the faith, we make one of our most precious offerings: The offering of invitation.

So let’s look at what we can learn from Elijah and Elisha.

First, where do we even find people who would be open to a deeper life in Christ?

Those who study congregational development tell us that most Seekers do not know that they are seeking. Think about that: Most Seekers do not know that they are seeking. That makes them a little hard to reach, don’t you think?

Elijah would completely understand this conundrum. It’s not like Elisha just walked up and said, “I’m thinking about becoming a prophet of YHWH. Do you have any thoughts on how I go about that?” No! Elisha was out plowing his field, minding his own business, when Elijah ran up and threw his mantle on him. That’s exactly the risk that we are called to take when we talk about “doing church differently.” It’s hard. It’s awkward. It feels funny. I’m sure to an on-looker Elijah looked like a nut case. And we know that Elisha was completely caught off guard—“At least let me tie up some loose ends at home! I need to let my parents know I’m leaving!”

But they both took the risk…one reached out and took a chance on a possible apprentice…the other allowed himself to be surprised by joy…and we live today as heirs to the history they shaped.

Second is the invitation itself. We don’t run around throwing cloaks over people any more. Such grand gestures are not particularly suited to “the way Episcopalians behave.” But invitation is nonetheless a powerful—and intimate—offering.

In her book Christianity Beyond Religion, Diana Butler Bass tells the story of being invited to join the Altar Guild of her local parish.[ii] They asked her because they knew she liked to arrange flowers.

Instead of saying yes or no, she asked, “Why?” Here’s what transpired, in Butler Bass’s own words:

“Because I’ve been doing it for thirty-five years,” (the woman) said impatiently, “And I’m really tired. It is time for someone else to do it instead.”

Not exactly an appealing invitation. I turned the offer down.

I suspect that the woman had a rich faith life. I always wondered what might have happened if she had answered the question this way:

You know, I’ve been serving on the altar guild for thirty-five years. Every Sunday, I awake before dawn and come down here to the church. It is so quiet. I come into the building and unlock the sacristy. I open the drawers and take out that altar cloths and laces, so beautifully embroidered with all the colors of the seasons. I unfold them, iron them, and drape them on the altar. Then I go to the closet and take out the silver, making sure it is cleaned and polished. I pour water and wine. While I set the table for the Lord’s Supper, I’ve often wondered what it would have been like to set the table for Jesus and his friends. I’ve meditated on what it must have been like to be there with him. I’ve considered what it will be like when we eat with him in heaven. And I’ve learned a thing or two about service and beauty and community. You know, I’d like to share that with you. I’d like you to learn that too.

I know I would have responded, “Sign me up!”

Invitation is a powerful—and intimate—connection. Offered from a place of faith and discipleship, it invokes the Holy Spirit and strengthens the fabric of community across all that would divide us in time and space.

It is in that presence of the Holy Spirit that we find our third lesson from Elijah’s example.

Of course Elijah knew that Elisha would be his successor. He also knew that the moment of clarity and affirmation was not his to give. Elisha had to claim his mantle. YHWH had to bestow the gift.

And yet, I have to believe that Elijah smiled as we was caught up in the whirlwind. I have to believe that over the roar of chariots and horses of fire his heart was glad when Elisha cried out. I have to believe that Elijah was at peace as his life’s work passed into Elisha’s hands.

So let’s take the risk. Let’s find those people who least expect to be called. Let’s invited them into the joy of discipleship through our baptismal lives. I have to believe that our hearts—and theirs—will be glad.

Let us pray:

Beckoning God,
as you moved in the lives of Elijah and Elisha,
move in our lives,
inviting us to journey to unknown territory,
to listen for your voice,
and to speak your prophetic word
in a world that does not want to hear.
Empowered by your Spirit,
grant us the courage we need
to journey, trust, listen, speak,
and accept your commission
to be your faithful servant people.[iii]

Amen.

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[i] Mitchell, Carrie N. In Bartlett, David and Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p. 176.

[ii] Butler Bass, Diana. Christianity Beyond Religion. Harper One, 2012. p. 153

[iii] http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/prayers.php?id=268

Word Gets Around

This week’s readings present two very similar scenes—Jesus comes upon a burial procession. The deceased is the only son of a widow, leaving her among the most vulnerable in her society. Like Elijah, Jesus calls upon God to revive the son, and returns him to his mother.

As he does in so many of the familiar Gospel stories, Jesus extends the words of the prophet that would have been familiar to those around him.

But there is one key difference: In the reading from Kings, we know a great deal about the widow, her son, and her relationship with Elijah. We know that there is a long history of faith and trust between them. In fact, the raising of the widow’s son is the third in a quick succession of events that give us a sense of the big picture: First, having spoken truth to power, Elijah found himself on the run. When hiding out and letting big scary birds bring him food proved to be unsustainable, God gave him Plan B: Walk straight into Jezebel’s home town and introduce yourself to a random widow. Trust me; it’s fine. And things are, indeed, fine…for a while. But then the son dies. Now Elijah is stuck: The widow trusted him and his god, choosing Elijah’s words over what would likely have been her own trust in Baal. And where did it get them? She ends up just as vulnerable as she was when the reading began. Elijah needed this miracle as much for his own credibility as she needed it to ensure her social and economic safety.

In the Gospel reading, however, we don’t know anything about the widow, or about the son, or about any prior encounters they might have had with Jesus. We are permitted to assume that the widow has done nothing to “earn” Jesus’ favor. Jesus doesn’t owe her a good turn, nor does he have anything at stake. He simply “looks on her with compassion.” And in addressing the immediate grief of her loss, he also meets the deeper need of her circumstances. Jesus  models mercy and justice.

….and word gets around.

As Jesus’ ministry spreads, people hear of him; they are drawn to him. And they come not just because his miracles of feeding and healing meet a practical need, but because he feeds a deeper hunger, heals a more profound kind of hurt.

I believe that in these passages from Kings and from the ministry of Jesus, we are offered a model for our congregations and our communities in our lives together.

In this long green season, the visions we develop for mission and ministry that will later be expressed as a budget proposal will probably not include raising the dead and returning them to their families. It is likely, however, that such vision will call each of us to look more deeply into our own baptismal ministries.

It will call us to bring fresh energy and resources to renewing ourselves as a community that proclaims by word and example the Good New of God in Christ; seeks and serves Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves; and strives for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being….

It will call us to find the joy in giving, offering a proportional gift or tithe as a symbol of God’s abundance in our lives…

It will call us to see our congregation as a place where people look with compassion not just on one another, but on those beyond our walls, beyond our community, and even beyond our understanding….

…and word will get around.

People who may be more inclined to place their trust in other things, or who may know themselves to be vaguely seeking something that they can’t quite put their finger on will see that we don’t just worship on the surface of our Sunday morning lives. Word will get around that we gather in a place where deeper hungers are fed and more profound hurts are healed. Word will get around We follow Jesus’ example, building on Elijah’s model of speaking mercy to those who grieve and restoring justice to the most vulnerable.

Word will get around.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia, Alleluia!

Carrying the News

Poet Laureate Billy Collins writes:

It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenberg Bible required the skins of 300 sheep.

I can see them

squeezed into the holding pen

behind the stone building

where the printing press is  housed.

All of them squirming around

to find a little room

and looking so much alike

it would be nearly impossible to count them.

And there is no telling which one of them

will carry the news

that the Lord is a Shepherd,

one of the few things

they already know.

I am drawn to this poem certainly because of its imagery, but more so because it compels me to think about the nature of God as we approach this Trinity Sunday, and to consider my response as one who loves and seeks to serve the Lord.

In the readings from Isaiah and from Revelation, we have this incredible imagery of the God of splendor, the Holy One seated on the throne, worthy of unending praise. I love this image of the magnificent God that I was taught to worship as a child. I learned to read from the United Methodist hymnal. And I still know by heart so many of those “big hymns” that we sing to the immortal, invisible, God only wise.

How might we respond to this image of God in our lives?

This is where I start to get a little silly and let my mind wander into the world of the poem.

If sheep were a little smarter, a little higher order, would some be eager? “Ooh! Ooh! Print it on me! I want one of the good pages.” How many of them—how many of us—would be like Isaiah: humbled by our acknowledgement of sin and eager to carry the Word of the Lord among the people?

But sheep are rather docile, so maybe another response would be “yeah, whatever, I’ll take a page.” Though I do not doubt for a moment that the revelation to John was a deeply spiritual experience for him, there is a part of me that sees something rather passive in his role—dutifully recording the vision he is given, then mailing it out in seven directions and letting the readers take it from there. I’m ashamed to admit that there have certainly been times when I’ve settled for delivering a message when I could have witnessed to the Word in my life.

The poet reminds us, however, that the Lord is a Shepherd, and that the sheep are secure in knowing this. And it is from that image that I find the example of the disciples to be the most comfortable, and indeed the most compelling, response.

I like the disciples. They give me hope. The Gospels aren’t particularly kind to them and Jesus himself gets impatient with their lack of understanding on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes when I read the Gospels I can’t help but think, “Bless their hearts, they’re just not very bright.”

But they do have one thing that gets me excited—they are the ones called to be the messengers and witnesses of the triune God we worship and celebrate this day.

As practicing Jews, the disciples were of course familiar with God the Father, maker of heaven and earth. They were faithful companions of his only son our Lord. And as we heard last week, it was through them that the Holy Spirit revealed itself on the Day of Pentecost.

It was only when all three pieces of the puzzle came together in their experience of the one true and living God that they really understood how they were called to be in the world. It was only then that they became the apostles whose teaching and fellowship we commit to continuing in our baptismal covenant, in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers.

And don’t you love the way this comes full circle?

When we proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, when we seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves…isn’t that just another way of saying, with the prophet Isaiah, “Here am I, send me?”

When we commit to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being, aren’t we too sharing a vision of a new heaven and a new earth, as surely as John saw all things new in the revelation on Patmos?

There’s no telling which one of us will carry the news that the Lord is a Shepherd. That’s not ours to decide, or even to know. It is for us to decide, however, that we will embrace the call to discipleship—discipleship infused with the fullness of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Amen