"Love and Marriage. Couples and Cathedrals."

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, October 26, 2014, at the 10 am service with the blessing of the union of Daniel Wolf and Michael Gee.

They asked Jesus, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said: "`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
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Dan and Michael, when we met last Sunday to walk through the service, I told you something I tell every couple at every wedding rehearsal.

You were concerned about remembering where to stand and what to say. You were concerned, as we all are, about getting it right, about not making any mistakes, having it all be perfect … and if it wasn’t, at least not having it be your fault.

Do you remember what I said to you? I said you don’t have to worry about anything, you don’t have to remember anything. Any time you have to move or speak, I will let you know. You don’t even need to remember the words because I will feed them to you when it’s time.

The only thing you have to do is to be present to each other in love, to give your love to God and each other and to receive the love and support of God and your community. That’s all you have to do.

In this space, in these moments, you can let all the things you usually worry about … how you look, how you sound, if you get it right, everything … you can let all the things you usually worry about fall away and all you need to do … is love.

I say this to every couple because after 16 years, I’ve learned a thing or two about weddings.

The first thing is that the mistakes that couples fear are really nothing to be afraid of.

The reader who stumbles because she is choked up with emotion doesn’t spoil the service but moves us more deeply than words can say.

The groomsman who walks to the wrong place isn’t blowing it but when met with love, creating an opportunity for grace and mercy and even the gift of tension-breaking laughter, not at his expense but with the joy of all of the mistake-prone humanity we all share.

The couple who can’t even remember each other’s names because they are so nervous don’t ruin the wedding but create an endearing memory and inspiration for our own marriages and friendships as we watch them with deep love help each other through these first steps of their marriage together.

The lesson is that what makes deep beauty is not technical perfection. What makes deep beauty. What moves us and changes us is doing things with great love. Doing things with great love creates its own success – because “getting it right” is never really about having every foot hit its mark or every word come out perfectly. “Getting it right” is about doing everything with great care, great love and great joy.

So I tell every couple, don’t worry about where to stand, what to say, what to do. I’ve got you covered. The only thing you have to do is to be present to each other in love, to give your love to God and each other and to receive the love and support of God and your community. That’s all you have to do.

This morning, we hear the Pharisees ask Jesus what the most important commandment is, and he says Love. Just Love. That’s all you have to do.

Love God with all your heart, soul and mind.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Then he says, “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Jesus is telling us we don’t have to worry about anything. We don’t have to worry about getting it right. We don’t have to worry about not making any mistakes. We don’t have to worry about saying or doing the wrong thing. The only thing we have to do is to be present to each other in love, to give our love to each other and to receive the love and support of God and our community. That’s all we have to do.

Marriages like the one we celebrate today are a microcosm for the baptized life of the church. To be sure, there is a special intimacy for the married relationship that can’t and really shouldn’t be replicated throughout the entire community. But we actually are not called to love one another any less, give ourselves up for one another any less, treat one another with any less dignity, honor and high regard than Dan and Michael are pledging to each other for the rest of their lives.

And that means the words I said to Dan and Michael about this service apply to us … all of us … every time we gather.

Because we all are just like Dan and Michael. We are concerned about not saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. We’re concerned about what people will think about us, about getting it right, not making any mistakes, having it all be perfect … and if it isn’t, at least not having it be our fault.

We’re concerned about failing and being exposed. About being laughed at and cast out. We are scared that without intent we will accidentally do harm and that harm will be a sin that is beyond all forgiveness.

We are scared that even in the shadow of the cross that our vulnerability will be seen as weakness rather than strength. We are scared to death that especially in the shadow of the cross, we will screw up and it will reveal that maybe we aren’t good, maybe we aren’t lovable, maybe somehow we aren’t redeemable by that cross after all.

And Jesus gets it. And he stands right here in our midst, in the midst of all our concern and all our fear and he says what he always says, which is “be not afraid.” Don’t worry about getting it right. Don’t worry about what you will say or what you will eat or what you will wear. Don’t worry about making a wrong step or saying the wrong words.

The only thing you have to do is to be present to each other in love, to give your love to God and each other and to receive the love and support of God and your community. That’s all you have to do.

It’s not that there are no rules to follow or justice to be served. The law and the prophets are alive, well and incredibly important. The law and the prophets are the things that we are called to do and the stands we are called to make. The law and the prophets are the structure for how we live our lives together and how we are called to follow Jesus out in the world.

But by themselves, the law and the prophets are nothing but an arbitrary set of rules and one more political agenda. By themselves, the law and the prophets are nothing that will change our hearts much less change the world.

That’s why Jesus doesn’t just say “obey the law and the prophets.” He says, "`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' … `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Dan and Michael, your marriage will succeed not based on how you measure up to the law and the prophets. Your marriage will succeed not based on how few mistakes you make but on how deeply and consistently you hold each other with love through those mistakes. If your marriage is to thrive and be the life-giving force God and we all dream for it to be, it will be because you will realize that failure is your sacred teacher. That the words “all you have to do is be present to each other in love” is not just about this liturgy but about your lives, together, until you are parted by death.

And likewise we as Christ’s church are being offered the same message. We will become the Cathedral we and God are dreaming for us to be, a Cathedral where people, all people, can gather to seek God and to be present to each other while being a catalyst for change and growth within the wider community. We will become this Cathedral community not based on how few mistakes we make but on how deeply and consistently we hold each other with love through those mistakes.

If we as a Cathedral are not just to survive but to thrive and be the life-giving force God and we all dream for it to be, it will be because we realize that failure is our sacred teacher. That the words “all we have to do is be present to each other in love” are not just about this liturgy but about our lives, together, until we are parted by death.

And the stakes could not be higher – for all of us.

Dan and Michael, if you let the fear of failure and rejection tempt you to hide yourselves from one another. If you let the need to be right set you up against one another. If you let the aversion to risk mute your desire to be bold with one another, then either your marriage will not last or, perhaps worse, it will be at best an empty shell of what it could otherwise have been.

And for us as a Cathedral, if we do the same. If we let the fear of failure and rejection tempt us to hide ourselves from one another. If we let the need to be right divide and set us up against one another. If we let the aversion to risk consistently lead us down the roads of safety and least resistance than either this Cathedral will close or, worse, we will be one more shell of an American church slowly suffocating in our own fear and self-concern.

But I do not believe that is our future. I look at Dan and Michael and the love they have. And I look at all of us and, with God’s help, how far we have already come together, and I believe together we all will continue to follow a different path, a more difficult path … the path of the Great Commandment Jesus gives us today.

If we continue to follow Jesus’ Great Commandment, there is no conversation we will not have, no venture rightly discerned we will not boldly engage, no calling of Christ from which we will shrink in fear.

If we continue to follow Jesus’ Great Commandment, we will be freed from fear to joyfully embrace our failures and to reach for heights previous generations could only dream to touch.

If we continue to follow Jesus’ Great Commandment, we will demonstrate to a city in deep need of truth, reconciliation and healing that there is no truth so scary that in love it cannot be told, no wound so deep that love will not heal, no division so wide that love will not bridge.

Love God. Love each other.

Trust deeply. Live boldly.

Alleluia. Amen.

"We bear the image of God. We are beloved by God. We are God’s own."

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, October 19, 2014

Repeat after me.

I bear the image of God.
I am beloved by God.
I am God’s own.

Now turn to someone else and look them in the eye. If someone is unpaired next to you do a threesome and figure it out. Ready? Look in each other’s eyes and repeat after me.

You bear the image of God.
You are beloved by God.
You are God’s own.

Now everyone look forward. Look at Jesus on the cross. Now repeat after me, together.
We bear the image of God.
We are beloved by God.
We are God’s own.

You may be seated.

What we just experienced was not some feel-good, self-help, kum ba yah, Hallmark Card moment. What we just affirmed, what we just experienced is the deepest foundation of our faith. There is no more important or more profound truth.

Everything we say, everything we do, every breath we take as people of God and followers of Jesus is grounded in those words.

Let’s say them again.

We bear the image of God.
We are beloved by God.
We are God’s own.

Again, together
We bear the image of God.
We are beloved by God.
We are God’s own.

Again
We bear the image of God.
We are beloved by God.
We are God’s own.

We know these things are true from the very beginnings of our faith. In the very first chapter of the very first book of our scripture, Genesis 1, God says “let us make humankind in our image.” We bear the image of God. And we know we are beloved by God the same way we know that we love and are loved by others, because God could not bear to be separated from us, because the Word became flesh and lived with us, because the resurrected Christ promises us I am with you always even to the end of the age.

God put God’s image on us – each and every one of us. Bishop Hays Rockwell used to say the image of God is on every one … only on some it is in deep, deep disguise. But it is there. On every one. God loves us – each of us and all of us – beyond measure and beyond comprehension, loves us as God’s own not just then, not even just for now but for ever and ever and ever.

God loves you. We throw that phrase around like we’re adding fries to our order at the drive-thru. God loves you. God loves you. But stop and think for a moment that that is actually true.

It doesn’t matter whether you think you’re too fat or too thin or too tall or to short. It doesn’t matter whether your skin is white or black or brown. Whatever you think, whatever others think when they look at you… You bear the image of God.

It doesn’t matter if other people love you or even like you. It doesn’t matter how popular or unpopular you are. It doesn’t matter if you are adored or despised. It doesn’t matter that you might not even like yourself. …You are beloved by God

You are not what you eat or what political party you affiliate with. You are not owned by your mortgage or your student loans or even your addictions. No matter how trapped you feel by anything in your life, it doesn’t’ matter. … You are God’s own – and God delights in you.

Jesus came on a mission of liberation. To liberate us from lives of desperation and fear. I love that this pulpit is directly underneath this stained glass window up here. If you look at it you'll see that it bears two images. On one side is Moses leading the people of Israel out of bondage in Egypt and on the other is Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves. I love that we put our pulpit under this window because it's a reminder to us that the heart of our Gospel is liberation. That Jesus came on a mission of liberation. To liberate us from lives of desperation and fear.  And because of that, he bid us then and still bids us today to do extraordinary things. Things like loving our neighbor. Things like seeking and serving Christ in people who are incredibly different and even offensive to us. Things like giving up what we have for love of one another.

And Jesus bids us do these things not as a punishment or even as a trial, but so we can live into trusting these deep truths that have echoed through the cosmos since the moment of creation.

That we bear the image of God.
That we are beloved by God.
That we are God’s own.

In this morning’s Gospel, the Pharisees and Herodians are trying to trap Jesus with a question about taxes. Should you pay them. And Jesus takes the coin and says “whose image is on this?” They say “the emperor’s.” And Jesus says “give therefore to the emperor what is the emperor’s and to God what is God’s.”

And what is God’s? We are. Because we bear the image of God. We are beloved by God We are God’s own.

And because we are, we can give not just our money but our whole lives away in love. But that message of “give it away” doesn’t make any sense … in fact it seems downright crazy if we don’t trust the deep truth that makes it possible.

That we bear the image of God.
That we are beloved by God.
That we are God’s own.

I’m not sure there has been a more important time in recent memory for us to remember, to remind one another and to proclaim to the world these essential deep truths. Truths of how deeply we are loved.

We are in a time of incredible stress, trauma and division right now. A time where truths of our deep brokenness are being shouted from the streets. It is a time of fear and anxiety. It is a time where our city is literally bracing itself for the possibility of war. It is a time where some of us are feeling attacked and some of us who have felt under attack for years and years are finally feeling like the voices are starting to be heard.

And often when things are going hard in life we come to church for sanctuary, only this time when we come to church, I and others keep talking about it over and over and over again. And to top it off, it’s stewardship season, and you know how much we love to talk about money .. and to top that off, our church is changing and change is hard.

We’re all being asked to weather so much, and it is going to get harder before it gets easier, and this Cathedral will NOT be an escape from any of it. But this Cathedral will be the place where together we do not shrink in the face of any of it. This Cathedral will be the place where we turn toward one another and turn toward the cross because the only way through this is together, together gathering at the foot of the cross.

The only way through this is through all the pain and all the division and all the temptation to turn away, to keep turning to each other and saying these words over and over and over again. Words that remind us who and whose we are. Words that remind us that those who disagree with us, those even who have abused us and those even who hate us truly are our sisters and brothers. Words that remind us that Jesus doesn’t call us to hide from storms but to fix our eyes on him and together to boldly walk out into the middle of them.

So, if you leave here this morning with nothing else, leave here with these words on your lips and imprinted on your heart. Leave here trusting even a little bit more that they are true. True for you. True for us. True for this world.

So say them one more time.

I bear the image of God.
I am beloved by God.
I am God’s own.

Now turn to someone else and look them in the eyes. Now repeat after me.

You bear the image of God.
You are beloved by God.
You are God’s own.

Now everyone look forward. Look at Jesus on the cross. Now repeat after me.

We bear the image of God.
We are beloved by God.
We are God’s own.
Amen.

We Will, With God's Help - Stewardship at Christ Church Cathedral

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Dear CCC Family Members,

On Sunday, October 5th, Christ Church Cathedral kicked off our annual giving campaign, We Will, With God's Help. Our Baptismal vows of proclaiming the good news of Christ by example, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, striving for justice and peace among all people, and respecting the dignity of every human being is at the heart of Christ Church Cathedral's commitment to the greater community.  Day by day, week by week, people in and around Christ Church Cathedral experience their lives of faith in new and deeper ways through your commitment. Your generosity generates mission and changes lives.

From Sunday, October 5th, through Sunday, November 2nd, you will find reflections in the service bulletin, written by Episcopal stewardship leaders across the country, covering stewardship and faithful giving in connection with the Gospel reading of the day. They will be included in the Wednesday Weekly, too. You will also hear and read personal stories from our fellow parishioners and we ask that you prayerfully reflect on them over the next few weeks.

A giving form has been sent out to everyone in the Cathedral directory. For the following weeks, please pray over what your commitment will be for 2015. Then, bring your giving form to the ingathering on Sunday, November 2nd, during which you may offer it as an act of worship. Or, click on this link to inform the Cathedral office of your gift for 2015.

Your Chapter and Stewardship Team have set a goal of 100% participation in giving commitments from our entire Cathedral family. We will be in intentional prayer that all will remain open to letting the Holy Spirit lead and guide us in a faithful and joyful response. Every gift is valuable in proclaiming our commitment to serving Christ and, together, we have tremendous power to lift up those who are suffering, to welcome those who are seeking, and to actively work toward justice and peace.

We will pray that your giving will come from a deep abiding sense of gratitude for the gift of this community and the gift we have in Jesus Christ, who never leaves our side. Our faith comes alive when we give joyously from a grace-filled and grateful heart, and will provide us with strength and hope for the journey ahead.

Thank you for prayerfully considering your gift to Christ Church Cathedral. We Will, With God's Help!

Yours in Christ,

The Cathedral Chapter and Stewardship Team

Newtonian Baptism -- The Church in Motion Stays in Motion

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, October 5, 2014

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.
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We will, with God’s help.

I have a seriously brilliant 15-year old astrophysicist in my house, so every day is a crash course on how the universe works. Every day, he teaches me something new or reminds me of something I’ve long forgotten.

So I’ve been reminded recently that there are three laws of physics that govern how the universe moves. They are Newton’s Laws of Motion, and they’re beautiful in their simplicity.

First, a body at rest will remain at rest and a body in motion will remain in motion.

In other words, if we’re standing still, we’re going to keep standing still; and if we’re moving, we’re going to keep moving.

But what causes the motion to begin with? Well, that’s the second law:

Acceleration happens when a force acts upon a mass. We become in motion when a force acts on us.

I love physics because it pulls back the curtain on how God set all of creation into motion. It teaches us about how God works. These two laws of physics are not just about how the planets stay in their courses or how Matt Carpenter’s bat can send a Clayton Kershaw pitch 400 feet off the right field wall at Dodger Stadium – they are about us and how we exist as God’s people, how we exist as the Body of Christ.

They are about five words that are central to the Christian life we share.

We will, with God’s help.

Newton’s first law tells us that we are either inert or we are in motion – and, if all else remains the same, how we are is how we will stay. Well, the Body of Christ is never inert. The Body of Christ is always in motion.

In our baptism, we are asked five questions, and they are all about action. They are all about motion.

Will we gather in prayer, worship and study?

Will we actively resist evil and cling to God?

Will we boldly proclaim the Gospel?

Will we serve and love everyone?

Will we work for justice and peace in the world?

These are all about action. These are all about motion. That’s because the church on earth is never at rest. We are always moving.

And so when we are asked these questions in baptism, our answer is “we will.” If the choice is being a body at rest or a body in motion, then we choose to be a body in motion. Always moving, moving to shape this world into God’s dream. Moving to bring into being the kingdom of God.

But of course, “I will” or “we will” is not the whole answer. And that’s where Newton’s second law comes into play.

Newton’s second law says motion doesn’t just happen by itself. The acceleration of an object depends directly upon the net force acting upon the object and the mass of the object. The equation for this is Force = Mass x Acceleration. And so our answer to this amazing call to motion is not just “we will” … because that would never be enough. Our answer is:

We will, with God’s help.

That’s because, with apologies to George Lucas, in this equation, God is the Force, we are the Mass and our life and mission in Christ? Well, that’s acceleration. That’s the Body of Christ in motion! The only way we can live all the life- and world-changing promises of baptism is if God acts on us and in us and through us. There has to be a propulsion system, a force behind any body in motion, and ours is the Holy Spirit of Christ. And when we become the church in baptism, we are asking God to move us – to send us out into the world to love and serve and labor and proclaim.

As the Church, we move in the world at the speed of God. We move in the world with the force of God. It is why the Body of Christ has toppled empires, struck down unjust laws and transformed societies. It is why we are bold enough to pray each time we gather, “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” because nothing less than that is the goal of the Body of Christ in motion.

Of course, it’s not that simple. Because Newton had one more law of motion, his third.

Newton’s third law of motion is to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction. If you press a stone with your finger, the finger is also pressed by the stone.

In other words, there will always be resistance.

There will be resistance from within us when we feel the force of God acting on us, pushing us to move. Because being a body at rest is comfortable. Being a body at rest can feel like a well-deserved break from a world that itself is moving so fast.

And there will certainly be resistance from the world when we as the Body of Christ move into it and through it and sometimes against it. There will be resistance that will call us crazy and that will try to convince us that we should leave the world a body at rest, that we should not move the world forward because things are fine just the way they are.

There will be resistance like we hear in this morning’s Gospel reading where the tenants believe they own the produce of the vineyard and refuse to give it to the landowner. Resistance to producing the fruits of the kingdom.

And when we meet this resistance – the resistance inside ourselves and the resistance outside these walls, our call is to come closer together. Come closer together to one another and closer together to God. Our call is to repeat that mantra even more loudly.

We will, with God’s help.

We will with God’s help.

We will, with God’s help.

We will, with God’s help is who we are as Christians and it is who we are as Christ Church Cathedral. It is about us being a body in motion that will stay in motion because we are moved by the Holy Spirit of Christ. It is about us knowing that there will always be resistance both within us and without, but that together, with God’s help we can keep moving and produce the fruits of the kingdom.

Being the Body of Christ in motion is not just the call for some of us but for all. The WE in We will is every member of the body of Christ. That’s why as we begin our stewardship program this year our primary goal is not an amount but 100% participation. For everyone to be moved by the Holy Spirit of Christ to be a part of how the Body of Christ moves through giving.

Part of the “we” in the “we will, with God’s help” that will guide us through this month of commitment, this month of celebrating the history and imagining the possibilities of a Body of Christ Church Cathedral in motion is our stewardship team, co-chaired by Carlyn Katz and Michael Rohan. And so I’m going to step away now and, with God’s help, they will take it from here.