"We are people of the choice" - a sermon for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday June 26, 2016.

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you. Amen.

We who believe in Jesus. We who would dare to say we want to follow Jesus are people of the choice.

And what we choose makes all the difference.

Most of you have heard the story. But maybe you haven’t heard the whole story.

It was the mid 1980s, and the “Reagan Revolution” was in full swing … a broad-ranging movement that cut crucial services to the poor and marginalized, and that cut taxes, further consolidating wealth in the hands of the already wealthy and privileged.

The mid 1980s also saw the rise of an epidemic and a movement. The epidemic was HIV/AIDS, which began to sweep across the American gay community with genocidal force. The movement was the rise of the religious right as a core constituency of the Reagan Revolution and one of the most powerful political forces in America.

And so played out a great national and spiritual tragedy. At the moment where gay Americans were most vulnerable, most in need of compassion, most in need of the kind of servant love that Jesus tells us is the hallmark of true greatness, the loudest voices in the name of Jesus shouted hate, preached God’s rejection and in the name of Jesus called on what they called a Christian nation to do the same.

Now the love of Jesus was not dead. It was powerfully alive. It was alive as men cradled their lovers’ heads in their laps as they died, as they wiped away one anothers’ tears. The love of Christ was alive as cities like St. Louis began Pride festivals and parades and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons began to come out of hiding and claim their right to walk in the sun, claim the liberating love of God and the right to basic human dignity for themselves and for one other.

The love of Jesus was not dead, far from it. But it was on life support in many if not most of our churches who either through our apathy or antipathy to the cries of the dying were choosing crowd over cross and respectability over justice.

And it was a choice.

We who believe in Jesus. We who would dare to say we want to follow Jesus are people of the choice.

And what we choose makes all the difference.

The Dean of Christ Church Cathedral at the time was a man named Michael Allen. Many of you knew him. Like all people and all Deans, myself included, Dean Allen was a mixed bag of virtue and vice, wonderfully imperfectly struggling to live, as are we all, into God’s dreams for each and for everyone.

Dean Allen knew that we who would dare to say we follow Jesus are people of the choice, and that there was a choice not only in front of him but in front of this Cathedral.

At a time when people in the name of Jesus were preaching a false Gospel of hate, would we join in, stay silent or would we stand up and say, “In the name of Jesus, No More?”

At a time when churches in the name of Jesus would not bury people who had died of AIDS, much less let people who were living with the disease in their doors, would we join in, stay silent or would we stand up and say, “In the name of Jesus, No More?”

Dean Allen and the people of this Cathedral … some of the very people who are sitting in this room today…. stared that choice full in the face. Stared the costs of standing up and the costs of staying silent. Stared at the cost to their souls of choosing the crowd and the costs of friendship and finance of choosing the cross.

And in the end, God gave the people of Christ Church Cathedral both the vision to behold Jesus’ call and the grace and power to choose it.

And so this Cathedral made a banner … a huge banner that said “Our Church Has AIDS.” And on a day like this about 30 years ago this Cathedral marched behind that banner in one of the early St. Louis Pride Parades.

In the midst of a national movement that appealed to our worst, this Cathedral stood up and proclaimed that following Jesus was not joining the race to the lowest common denominator of prejudice and self-interest. That following Jesus was realizing and proclaiming that Jesus stands as, stands with and stands for those among us who are most marginalized, oppressed, targeted and afflicted.

In the midst of a national groundswell to demonize images of God who were poor, black, brown, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender and even to do so in the name of Jesus, this Cathedral made a different choice. A choice that recognized that following Jesus is not maintaining a place of comfort, respectability and security but casting our lot with the Son of God who has nowhere to lay his head.

Most of you have heard the story. But maybe you haven’t heard the whole story.

Because there was someone else in that Pride Parade that day. A young rabbi who saw other Jewish congregations leaving the city and gathered with a small group of Jewish families to make a different choice. To keep a vibrant Jewish presence in the city “to be on the front line of fighting the racism and poverty plaguing the urban center.”

That rabbi’s name was Susan Talve. And last August, as Susan and I and hundreds of others poured out of this Nave with some of you in this room today and marched to the Department of Justice building on the first anniversary of Michael Brown’s death to demand an end to racially biased policing in this nation, Susan told me the story of that day.

She said she saw that banner. And she saw Dean Allen and the people of Christ Church Cathedral marching behind it. And she said, “in that moment I knew … that was what I wanted our congregation to be like. I wanted us to be like Christ Church Cathedral.”

Central Reform Congregation was barely a dream that day about thirty years ago. Today, Central Reform Congregation is one of the greatest forces for the love of God and tikkun olam, the repair of the world, we have in St. Louis. And among their foundational inspirations was this Cathedral. Among their foundational inspirations was YOU.

Not because of our beautiful building.

Not because of our long institutional history.

Not because of the preaching from this pulpit or the teaching from our classrooms or the stunningly beautiful music that resonates from this holy space.

What inspired Rabbi Susan that day and what continues to inspire people in this city to this day to choose love over hate, to choose justice over respectability, to choose the cross over the crowd is the grace and power of God working through YOU, the people of Christ Church Cathedral.

You, in the face of fears and demonization of those of us who are struggling with poverty, hunger and homelessness, through God’s grace and power making the choice not to join with the crowd but to pick up the cross and throw open the doors of this Cathedral every day saying ALL are welcome here.

You, in the face of widespread white apathy and antipathy to the cries of young, black queer images of God on the streets of Ferguson and north St. Louis, through God’s grace and power making the choice not to stand with the crowd but to pick up the cross and invite those prophets in and let those prophets lead us out.

You, in the face of a growing national backlash movement of misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, Islamophobia, and on and on and on, through God’s grace and power making the choice not to stand with the crowd but to pick up the cross and be a voice for the Gospel in this community that says love is love is love is love is love and the gifts of ALL God’s children will be embraced.

So it was, so it is now, and so it will be again.

It’s not the mid 1980s anymore, but we are at a similar place.

In America, a backlash movement against both the liberation movements of today and against the economic legacy of that Reagan Revolution of 30 years ago. A backlash movement of which the candidacy of Donald Trump is but a symptom is preaching a false Gospel of division and hate, appealing to that lowest common denominator of prejudice and self-interest, and taking even our best impulses – the desire of everyone to love and protect their families – and twisting them in fear to serve economic interests that continue to line the pockets of the uberwealthy and privileged at the continuing expense of those who have the least.

And that movement has company in other nations as the fear- and racism-based movement that led to the Brexit vote in England this past week has shown.

As much as we might wish that there really isn’t a choice. As much as the idea of choosing a side seems contrary to the Gospel of niceness and respectability that seems to govern so many of the churches of those of us who live in relative comfort. As much as we might want to cry out like Rodney King, “Can’t we just all get along?” the truth is there is a choice before us. And hearing this morning’s Gospel, we hear that it has always been this way.

Not a choice that would demonize those we might call our enemy but a choice to stand with Jesus and against the evil that would convince any of God’s children to choose fear and hate over love and compassion. The evil that would convince any of God’s children that preserving the privilege and comfort of some is justification for the oppression and enslavement of others.

As we hear in this morning’s Gospel reading, it is not a choice that asks God to have fire to come down from heaven and consume but it is a choice that demands we rebuke the forces of evil in this world and that we let Christ rebuke them in us. That I let Christ rebuke the evil in me. It is a choice that demands we choose proclamation over silence, justice over respectability and cross over crowd.

We who believe in Jesus. We who would dare to say we want to follow Jesus are people of the choice.

And what we choose makes all the difference.

Over the past seven years, I have seen you choose so bravely, so lovingly and so well, and you have given me the courage to try to do the same. And as I reflect not only on our time together but on the history of this incredible Cathedral, I know deep in my heart that, through God’s grace and power, you will continue to choose proclamation over silence, justice over respectability and cross over crowd.

Those choices were never about me. My job and my joy as your priest was merely to hold up who you have always been and challenge you to make the choice to lay your lives on the table with Christ as a new generation of choices were laid before us.

In the weeks, months and years to come you will face and make these choices as this Cathedral has made them for generations. Boldly, bravely, with God’s grace and power and with glorious song.

But there is one difference.

It is no longer an option to make these choices alone.

You have heard me say over and over again that God dreams us for one another. That following Jesus is too hard to do by ourselves and too good to keep to ourselves. I will say and believe that to my dying day.

As a Cathedral, this church is the physical representation of the bishop’s role as the guardian of the faith, unity and discipline of the whole church. That is why I am grateful, Bishop Smith, that you are here with us today. As you reminded our Chapter at our workday in February, Christ Church Cathedral is not just the mother church of this diocese but the mother church of every Episcopal congregation West of the Mississippi.

What we were for Central Reform Congregation was nothing new. It is who we always have been. It is in our DNA.

For generations you as the people of Christ Church Cathedral have steadfastly remained in the heart of the city while so many others have fled. You have strived to be the Beloved Community of Christ, a community dedicated to embracing the presence of Jesus particularly in those among us who are most marginalized, targeted and oppressed.

You have done it as each successive generation identifies less with and contributes less financially to denominational religion.

You have done it as our downtown neighborhood has more and more become an object of fear and derision in the St. Louis metro area and those of us in whom we believe Jesus is most profoundly present have become increasingly criminalized.

You have done it as these magnificent buildings are literally crumbling under the weight of time.

Every year, you are asked to meet rising challenges with fewer resources. You have gone from four full time priests to two full time priests and now to one and the question on all our hearts this morning is, “Dear God, what is next?”

We who believe in Jesus. We who would dare to say we want to follow Jesus are people of the choice.

And what we choose makes all the difference.

And this Diocese of Missouri has the gift of a choice before it.

Is this going to be forty some odd loosely affiliated congregations … or is this going to be one Diocese, united in mission, ministry and proclamation of the Gospel.

Will this diocese choose to imitate the social Darwinism that has long infected our region and that has led to massive inequalities of education, housing, economic opportunity and life expectancy not just in St. Louis but throughout this state and across this nation and choose to preach a Gospel of every congregation for themselves?

Or will this diocese choose to embrace the incredible opportunity truly of being the Body of Christ that breaks through church walls and bridge our many divides. Will this diocese choose not merely to see our mission field as the beautiful ministries that are happening in our own individual neighborhoods but as Jesus’ call to travel to the undiscovered countries of our own region, laboring, loving and living beside images of God far different from and less comfortable to us than our own?

Will this diocese choose truly to have and support a Cathedral – one from which it reaps the transformative benefits of interconnection, diversity and meeting and standing with Christ in the most vulnerable places, but also one for which it proudly and sacrificially claims deep responsibility both in financially sustaining and actively participating in that transformative work that springs from these glorious yet rapidly aging buildings.

Will these congregational banners that grace our Nave be mere relics of days past wistfully remembered, or will they be a sign of a renewed and united commitment to sustain the presence of Christ’s church in the heart of the city. A renewed and united commitment to make this Cathedral an instrument, as we prayed in the Collect this morning, to join us together in unity of Spirit by Christ’s teaching that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to God.

This is a phenomenal diocese with wonderful people and an incredible missionary history. The transformation in the name of Jesus that will happen from this place if this congregation, this diocese and this city come together to build on what God has done here and re-imagine it for the years to come truly knows no bounds.

The challenge and the gift is you will have to do it together.

We who believe in Jesus. We who would dare to say we want to follow Jesus are people of the choice.

And what we choose makes all the difference.

It has been a joy like no other to be your Dean for these past seven years.

To be able to gather you and invite you to lay your lives on the table with Jesus not just in here but out there and together struggling so mightily and honestly and bravely with that incredible call.

To be among you as you wrestled with the choice of following Jesus and often wrestled with me.

To be among those of you for whom the choices we made were like an oasis in the desert and especially to be among those of you who took issue with me the most but whose love for Jesus and this community was so great that you refused to leave.

I have said that I have not been your friend but that I have been your priest, and because of that I must fully leave so that another can take my place. I know that has been hard for some of you to hear, and I promise you it is no less hard for me to say. The prayer I have prayed every day since my first as your provost is “God, please love them through me.”

For the ways in which I been able to let that happen, I praise God and thank you, because your loved showed me how. For the ways in which I have fallen short, I beg God’s forgiveness and yours.

I hope during our time together you have come to know Jesus even a little better and to feel Jesus’ loving presence by your side and Jesus’ courage in your heart. To meet Jesus in unexpected places and to feel the holy discomfort of Jesus’ call on the choices of your life. I can only assure you that you have done the same for me and for that and for you I am and will always be deeply, profoundly and eternally thankful.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And know that I will pray for you, I will love you and I will carry you on my heart forever. Amen.

"Our name is Legion. A story of pain, anger, fear ... and love" - a sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral at 8 and 10 am on Sunday June 19, 2016.

Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"
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What is your pain?

What is your anger?

What is your fear?

Notice I didn’t say “Are you hurting? Are you angry? Are you afraid?” That’s because pain, anger and fear are part of the human condition. Rene Descartes said “I think, therefore I am” but he could just as easily have said “I feel, therefore I am.” In fact, that might have been closer to the truth.

So what is your pain?

Your anger?

Your fear?

What are you doing to it?

What is it doing to you?

We are created in God’s image as creatures of deep feeling. Our feelings are so deep – not just pain, anger and fear, but love, pride, joy and more – that often those feelings are overwhelming… overpowering our rational selves and with them our illusions of security, of control over our lives.

There is a rawness to human emotion. There is a rawness to our pain, our anger, our fear. They can scare us in ourselves and they can scare us in each other. They are so scary that often, far too often, we try to pretend they aren’t there. We bury them deep, deep down inside. Shove them deep into a closet. Pretend that everything is just fine … and when we do that, we create a lie that imprisons all of us. Because we look at everyone else … and they seem to have it all together.

No pain.

No anger.

No fear.

We look at everyone else … and they seem to have it all together. And we begin to believe a lie … that something is wrong with us. That our pain. Our anger. Our fear. That we’re the only one who has them.

And we don’t want to be different.

We don’t want to be weak – which is what it feels like.

And so we pretend.

We pretend for each other and we pretend for ourselves.

We pretend that we’ve got it all together.

We pretend that the pain. The anger. The fear. We pretend that they aren’t there.

We pretend because we don’t want to be different.

We pretend because we don’t want to be cast out.

We try to bury them deep.

But they don’t go away.

They become the untreated wound that never heals.

The loneliness that never feels a loving touch.

The chasm between us that is never bridged.

The awful truth that is never told.

We try to bury them deep.

But they don’t go away.

And sometimes when we are too tired to keep them down, they burst out, attaching themselves to whatever has brought them out.

Sometimes when we are confronted with a person or action or situation that triggers that pain, that anger, that fear in us, those feelings burst out.

They burst out in ways that divide us one from another, building walls and casting out.

They burst out in ways that turn us against one another, preemptive strikes against these reminders of our own hidden humanity.

They can burst out in a sharp word or a caustic email.

They can burst out in fight, and they can burst out in flight.

In the extreme, the pain, the anger, the fear can burst out as they did at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando a week ago this morning.

And always, when they burst out, they divide and they multiply.

The outbursts, large and small. The demonizations and spewing of venom. They divide us one from other. They multiply the pain, the anger, the fear.

And they perpetuate the lie that we’re on our own, that we’re not all in this together. They perpetuate the lie that indeed we are not made for one another. That we do not need one another. That indeed we are not each other’s salvation.

What is our pain?

What is our anger?

What is our fear?

What are we doing to it?

What is it doing to us?

Do we dare to name it?

Do we dare to feel it?

Do we dare to believe that it could be healed?

This morning, we hear the story of Jesus meeting a man who had “many demons.” We are not told what they are, but it is clear from his cries that he is in deep, deep pain. It is clear from his broken shackles that he was incredibly angry. It is clear from how he had been cast out of his community – sent to live in the tombs -- that he was someone of whom everyone was very, very afraid.

And Jesus, God made human, the love of the divine come to be with us, to live with us, to feel with us, approaches him. And at first Jesus is too much for the man to bear. In the face of great pain, great anger, great fear, love or even the possibility of love is often too much for us to bear because love demands we look our pain, our anger, our fear full in the face. Love demands that we drag them out of their closet and pull them out of their depths. Love demands that we acknowledge them. That we feel them. That we give them their due.

Love demands that we confront the lies that our pain, our anger, and our fear so often convince us to believe. Terrible lies about our own unlovability. But lies that nonetheless have become the country we have grown so accustomed to inhabiting.

Jesus, the love of all loves, walks up to this man of pain, of anger, the man who inspires such great fear not because he is the only one with demons but because he reminds others of their own.

Jesus, the love of all loves, walks up to this man and asks him one question:

“What is your name?”

When Jesus walks up to the man and says “What is your name?” he is really asking:

What is your pain?

What is your anger?

What is your fear?

And the man says the name.

Legion.

Many.

I have so much pain.

I have so much anger.

I have so much fear.

My name … is Legion.

In saying that one word, “Legion,” this naked, outcast man shows himself to be a person of deep courage.

For in saying that one word, “Legion,” he is owning and naming his pain, his anger and his fear.

In saying that one word, “Legion,” he allows the process of liberation to begin.

We are in a time of great changes – and we’ve been there for quite a while. The pace of technological, social and political change in our lifetimes has perhaps been greater than any time in human history.

In our nation and around the world, the past decade and particularly the past several years have seen movements of liberation that are blessedly taking structures of society that have long imprisoned people underprivileged because of skin color, gender, sexual orientation and countless other categories and breaking those structures apart … but not without backlashes that in their pain, anger and fear try to refasten those chains even more tightly.

Not only in this Cathedral but throughout mainline American Christianity, so much of what we have held dear for our entire lives is changing as well. Changing as it becomes unsustainable in a world that no longer flocks to church on Sunday mornings, and as beautiful buildings and huge institutions erected a century ago to the glory of God begin to crumble under their own weight.

And the truth is we are hurting. And we are angry. And we are afraid.

And it is not unreasonable. We have legitimately done things to wound and anger each other. The massacre of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender siblings in a place that was supposed to be a sanctuary has wounded and angered us. I know some of you feel wounded by me and by some of the changes that are happening here at Christ Church Cathedral. There’s nothing I can say to change that, and the last thing I want to do is tell you that you shouldn’t feel that way. That’s the opposite of what I want to tell you this morning.

The change before us is deeply unsettling and fear is not unexpected. The pain. The anger. The fear….They are incredibly natural. They are incredibly human. We feel therefore we are. The last thing I want to do is tell you that you shouldn’t feel. For if I have learned one thing from our time together, it’s that we have to feel to heal.

But I do know that feeling is hard. I do know that we feel so deeply that it sometimes is too much. So deeply that we are tempted to pretend we don’t feel at all and hope that the feelings just go away. So deeply that we are tempted to turn against one another. So deeply that we are tempted to build walls and fire arrows – hoping that if we can cast out or defeat an enemy that the pain, the anger and the fear will depart as well. And that road leads nowhere good. That road leads to the tombs where the man with his demons raged and moaned. That road leads to nothing but death.

But there is good news. Because as much as we are tempted to shrink away or lash out, in the midst of our pain, our anger and our fear, Jesus does not shrink away from or lash out at us. Jesus walks right up to us – seeing the pain, the anger and the fear, impervious to our attempts to conceal it from one another, from Jesus and even from ourselves. Jesus walks right up to us and asks us a question that is three in one.

What is your name?

What is your pain? Your anger? Your fear?

Can we name it? Can we have the courage of the man who had been relegated to the place of the dead? Can we have the courage to name our pain? To name our anger? To name our fear?

Can we have the courage to look not just Jesus but one another full in the face and instead of building walls and firing arrows to say:

I’m hurting.

I’m angry.

I’m afraid.

And I’m wondering if maybe you are, too.

The pain, the anger, the fear can be so overpowering. But in Christ, can we meet in that place and feel them together? Not shrinking away from feeling deeply ourselves but also holding each other gently as we each do the same? Not turning against each other but turning toward each other? In Christ and through Christ, can we have that grace, that power, that courage?

Today’s Gospel tells us … yes, we can.

There were so many responses to the massacre at Pulse that moved my heart this week, but among them were two I want to share with you because they each speak to how much we struggle with the rawness and depth of what we are feeling right now and how hard it is to live together in the midst of it.

One was from Jarek Steele, a beautiful transgender man and co-owner of Left Bank Books. Jarek wrote:

“It's as if every human in every group is screaming "recognize my pain" right now. And it's so hard to recognize and care for someone else's pain when you're in it too. Let's all be gentle and patient with each other, and when we're not able to be patient and gentle let's recognize that as a reaction to pain - not an indictment of our character.”

In my language of faith, I hear the word Jarek describing as “grace” … it is holding one another with unmerited love. Loving whether or not that love is returned. And with that on my heart, I read these words from the Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh, Dorsey McConnell, that reminded me that the grace of which Jarek sings is not something we need to wish for … it is already ours in Jesus. Bishop McConnell writes:

We would understand that The Problem is this: We fear our own death more than we love the lives of others. 

Because we fear, we put our sins on someone else’s head. We push them away. We kill in the hope we will finally find peace.

But the saints, in their silence, know what we can only believe: the peace we are looking for has been won in the Cross of Christ. No further sacrifice is needed or allowed. No scapegoat. No enemy.

(Read Bishop McConnell's whole reflection piece here)

This morning’s Gospel reading is not a story about some poor soul. It is not a story of “there but for the grace of God go I.” The story of the Gerasene demoniac is our story. Each of us and all of us.

What is our name?

Our name is Legion.

And this story is the story of our pain.

Our anger.

Our fear.

It is the story of the power of that pain, anger and fear to tear us apart inside and to rip us apart from one another.

But ultimately, it is the story of how Jesus, the love beyond all love, meets us in the midst of it, invites us to name it, stands with us as we feel it, turns us not away from each other but draws us toward each other and meets all of us together in a loving, healing embrace.

What is our pain?

What is our anger?

What is our fear?

What are you doing to it?

What is it doing to you?

Do we dare to name it?

Do we dare to feel it?

Do we dare to believe that, in Christ, it – and all of us -- can be healed? Amen.

"Saying Goodbye, Rejecting Shame, and Choosing Extravagant Love" - a sermon for the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost

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The Very Rev. Mike Kinman, who has faithfully led Christ Church Cathedral in downtown St. Louis since 2009, announced Sunday, June 12 that he has accepted a call to be the new rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif. Dean Kinman shared the news with the congregation during Sunday services. He will preach his last sermon as Dean of the Cathedral on June 26; his final day in the office will be June 30. After that, he will resume his Cathedral-granted sabbatical until it ends in September.

Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral at 8 and 10 am on Sunday June 12, 2016.

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion. Amen.

OK … what’s he doing here?

Whatever suspense there is, I want to end right away. I’ve come back early from my sabbatical to begin the process of saying goodbye.

Earlier this week, I accepted a call to become the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California. Other than a couple days this week where I’ll be taking Schroedter on a college visit, I’ll be back here through the end of June so we can say goodbye and do some of the work of transition. I’ll then take the rest of my sabbatical before beginning at All Saints later in the fall. Robin, Schroedter and Hayden will spend the next school year in St. Louis before moving out to join me next summer.

For some of you this will be a shock. Others of you may have sensed this coming. I expect you now and in the days to come to have feelings across the emotional spectrum including some of you having no feelings at all. That’s natural.

I know my feelings about this are all over the place. I am excited about this opportunity and this genuine and unexpected sense of God’s call on my life. I am also grieving having to leave a diocese that has been my home for 30 years, a city that I’ve called home for 20 and where Robin and I have raised our family, and a Cathedral that truly is the most extraordinary, diverse, kooky and beautiful Christian community I have ever known.

You have shown me Jesus. Over and over and over again. I am the person and priest I am today because of you. I will carry you in my heart forever. I love you and I will miss you terribly.

I first shared this possibility of this call with your Chapter in January and I am grateful for how they, your wardens and your vicar, Amy Cortright, have led this Cathedral with grace and power through this period of uncertainty. After the service we’re going to have an On the Table forum here in the Nave where I want to hear from you, what is on your hearts and minds … and where we will answer every question the best that we can.

I would love to meet with as many of you as wish it before I leave at the end of this month so I can listen to you and express my deep gratitude for how important you have been in my life and the life of this Cathedral.

This schedule leaves me with three final opportunities to stand before you and preach the Gospel. And even though your brain might not register anything after me saying that I have come back to say goodbye … you know me, I can’t let any opportunity to open my mouth and preach the Gospel go by unheeded.

Before I left on sabbatical, I talked about this being a time of reflection for all of us … and certainly that is even more so now. We have spent seven years together and they have not been dull. There has been a tremendous amount of change and not a small amount of controversy. Many of you have come to Christ Church Cathedral during that time, others have left and some of you have been here the whole time and even long before reminding us that clergy come and clergy go but the people of God and the Holy Spirit of Christ that sustains us endures. That this has been but one more season in the nearly two centuries’ long life of this community and that others surely will follow.

And so for a few more minutes this Sunday, I want to look back on our time together through the lens of this morning’s readings. And as the lectionary so often does, it could not have provided us with a better story through which to view our seven years together and the transition now before us. Because it is a story of radical, liberating, extravagant love that takes place at the center of a power that tries to deny it.

Jesus has been invited to eat with the Pharisees. And so the first question we have to ask ourselves is: “Why?” Probably several reasons. Some of it is probably curiosity. Some of it is probably reconnaissance, scoping him out so they can assess the threat. But some of it is assuredly trying to co-opt him into respectability.

Our friend Pastor Starsky Wilson has said you have to be careful when the powers that be start giving you awards because what they’re often hoping is that you will start to care more about getting the awards, care more about keeping the seat at the table of power than about continuing to work for justice, liberation and the peace of Christ. That what looks like support is actually a graduation certificate from relevance and into the back pocket of those with power.

And history has shown it works really, really well. But not so much with Jesus. Because immediately after he sits down we hear that someone only identified as “a woman in the city, who was a sinner” enters the room.

Respectability demands that Jesus have nothing to do with her. In fact, respectability demands that Jesus judge her and judge her harshly. After all, she already has two strikes against her.

First of all, she is a woman … and what business does a woman have in conversations where authority was being exercised? Power is for men. She does not belong.

Second, the Gospel euphemistically tells us that she is “a sinner.” But it’s clear what the text was talking about. This woman had dared to have sex outside the very strict male-authority-dominated purity codes the law set on women. Whether this was the result of her being compelled by physical force or economic necessity or her daring to claim agency over her own body, we are not told and frankly it does not matter. What is clear is that because of either what she had done or what was done to her, the Pharisees and truthfully all of society see her as other, see her as less than, see her as shameful and to be despised.

This woman is one of my greatest heroes in all of scripture. Because she is everything the Pharisees say she is not and she is everything the Pharisees are not.

She is bold and brave, she is proud and powerful. Because she not only dares to enter the room, right in the face of the Pharisees, she doubles down on every shaming criticism they would have against her.

She brings an alabaster jar of ointment and she drops to Jesus’ feet and begins to express her love for him incredibly intimately, even erotically and certainly scandalously. She begins to cry, tears borne of the pain of her rejection, tears borne of the pain that women and all shamed and marginalized images of God carry with them. She begins to cry and she caresses those tears of pain into Jesus’ feet – feet being not only an intimate part of the body but themselves a sexual euphemism throughout scripture. Then sensuously she takes her hair and dries his feet …and then just in case anyone somehow was missing the message she begins to kiss Jesus’ feet and she breaks open the jar of fragrant ointment and begins to give him a deep, tender foot massage.

“You try to shame me?” this incredible woman says. “You try to shame me for my body? This body that God created in God’s own image? This body that God created out of love for love? You try to shame me?”

“Well shame this.”

“Shame you.”

And then there is this pause. And the world stops. And waits. Waits to see how Jesus will react. Surely, the Pharisees say to themselves, Jesus will “do the right thing.” Surely, he will choose the way of respectability. Surely he will join us in shaming this disgraceful woman who dares actually to assert power over her own body and use it as she wants to express love. Surely he will join us in shaming this woman who dares to behave so brazenly, so scandalously, who dares to behave so much like … a man.

There is this pause. And when Jesus speaks it is to name a sinner, but it is not the woman he names but the Pharisees themselves. For what the Pharisees see as shameful, Jesus knows is beautiful. What the Pharisees see as a scandalous breach of respectability, Jesus knows is the height of extravagant hospitality and love – hospitality and love offered by this amazing woman and not by the hosts of the house. Extravagant hospitality and love that judge her worthy and the Pharisees wanting.

Jesus embraces the woman. Jesus does what he does with all of us … meets us in the place of tears and meets us there in love. The woman’s sins – whatever they are – are forgiven. The Pharisees receive no such absolution.

Five years ago, when Chapter voted to call me as dean after two years of my being provost, we talked about how to celebrate this new stage in our life together. Traditionally in the Episcopal church we have what are called “celebrations of new ministry” … which end up looking more like coronations of individuals and which I am convinced make Jesus alternately chuckle and weep.

We decided that didn’t work for us. That this wasn’t about me but about the whole Cathedral and our life in and for the city of St. Louis. So instead we had a “celebration of the Cathedral in the City.”

We talked about the Cathedral being a Eucharistic table not just for our own private gathering on Sunday mornings but a place where we gather the entire city around whatever looks like Jesus, invite everyone to lay their lives on the table with it and then watch as God takes all that life mixed together and creates something new not just for us but for the life of the world.

And what did we decide to gather this city around and invite them to lay their lives on the table with? What looked like Jesus?

It was a community of extravagant love and hospitality. A community that embraced women who were most despised, shamed and rejected and helped them name themselves bold and brave, proud and powerful.

It was a community of heroic women like this one. It was Magdalene.

And so we brought in Becca Stevens and Katrina Robertson and Shelia McClain and they told their stories of power and survival. Of extravagant love and hospitality. And we as Christ Church Cathedral gathered the city of St. Louis around and said “if this looks like Jesus to you, even if you wouldn’t use that language, we invite you to lay your lives on the table with the lives of these amazing, bold, brave, proud and powerful women who sure look like Jesus to us.” And St. Louis did. And a year ago, because of the Eucharistic leadership of this Cathedral community, Magdalene St. Louis opened and right now in that house just north of here there are bold, brave, proud and powerful women who are giving and receiving extravagant love and hospitality. Women who are saying to a world that would shame, despise and reject them:

Shame this.

Shame you.

And you have not stopped. As this city has continued its sinful and dehumanizing treatment of those among us struggling with homelessness, you as Christ Church Cathedral asked that simple question yet again … what does extravagant love and hospitality look like? And we are learning that it looks like dismantling the sinful structures of us and them, of “parishioner” and “downtown neighbor” and of recognizing that we are all one beloved community and all of our job and joy is to make it a community of equity and justice for all … and from the simple act of nametags for everyone to the bold act of a housing partnership that gives the dignity and the basic human right of a home, you chose the side of Jesus over the side of the Pharisee.

When after Michael Brown was killed and his body left in the street for four and a half hours, young people took to the streets rejecting the respectability politics of our time, shouting in language that was profane but not half as profane as the conditions they had been living in. When there was a pause as the powers that be waited to see how the church would react, you chose side of Jesus over the side of the Pharisee, some of you joining the young people out in the streets and all of you opening up this Cathedral, giving away power and saying “this house is yours.”

Over and over again in our seven years together you have found new ways to live into what Christ Church Cathedral has been about for generations in the past and I pray will continue to be about for generations to come. Choosing extravagant love and hospitality over respectability. Choosing Jesus over the Pharisee. Choosing liberation, joy and love over shame, despair and fear.

Over and over again in our seven years together you have lived the words of this morning’s collect. You have proclaimed Christ’s truth with boldness and ministered Christ’s justice with compassion. And that must and will continue. We only have to hear the news this morning of more than 50 people massacred early this morning at a nightclub popular with the LGBT community in Orlando to know that we are so far away from Christ’s beloved community. That there is much truth left to be boldly told. There is much justice left to be compassionately and powerfully ministered.

God have mercy.
God have mercy.
God have mercy.

And God, use us to do so.

Christ Church Cathedral has not been an easy place to go to church. It has not been an easy community to be the church. And thank God. Easy is siding with the Pharisee. Easy is going along with the crowd. Easy is avoiding the conflict, playing it safe, and thinking diversity ends by just having a few token others in the room.

I have come back this Sunday to begin to say goodbye. And that means things will change here at Christ Church Cathedral. But what will remain the same is Christ’s call on us – on you and on me. And that is a call wherever we are to bring those of us who are most on the margins into the center and to let those voices be the church’s teachers and leaders. To reject this pervasive culture of coercive shame and embrace a life of extravagant love, liberation and hospitality for all. To choose justice over respectability. The way of Jesus over the way of the Pharisee.

This mission did not begin with my arrival and does not end with my departure.

This message I offer to you this morning is nothing more than a reflection back of what you have shown me these past seven years. You have lived this. You are living this. You have shown me Jesus in ways I can never forget. In ways that have changed me forever. And from the bottom of my heart and the depths of my soul all I can say is I thank you, and I love you. Amen.

"Say Her Name" -- a sermon for Easter Sunday

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral at 8 am on Easter Sunday March 27, 2016.

Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!”

In the name of the risen Christ, Amen.

Jesus said her name.

Mary.

There is something powerful about saying the name.

Names are about identity. Names are about value.

Names help us honor people but more than that they make it harder for us to dismiss people. They make it harder to turn people into faceless statistics or anecdotes.

Not, “someone got killed last night” but “Mary got killed last night.”

“Someone” is anonymous, not worthy of our attention or care.

Mary is somebody’s mother, daughter, sister, lover, friend.

When we baptize, we say the name.

Mary, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

When we bury, we say the name.

We commend to Almighty God our sister Mary, and we commit her body to the ground.

When Jesus calls us, he says the name.

Mary stood weeping at the tomb.

At first, Jesus said “Woman.” And she did not recognize him. She did not recognize him because she knew that Jesus saw her as more than just “woman.” More than just one interchangeable part among legions.

Jesus said, “Woman” – a functional label and then asked a functional question “whom are you looking for” to which she gave a functional answer “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him.”

And then Jesus said her name.

Mary.

Mary.

Mary.

And she saw that it was Jesus.

And the tears stopped. Or maybe they continued all the more.

And she dove into Jesus’ arms.

And she knew that Jesus who was lost was not lost at all.

She knew that Jesus who had died had risen again.

She knew that against all hope, against all odds, against all possibilities that she had seen the Lord. and that the hope, the light, the life he brought was for her.

All because Jesus said her name.

Mary.

Mary.

Mary.

We can believe in the joy of Easter. We can believe that Jesus died on the cross. That his body was laid in the tomb. We can believe that on Sunday morning, the stone was rolled away, and the body was gone. We can believe that he appeared to his disciples, and that he really did rise from the dead.

We can believe everything about Easter, and still it doesn’t matter unless we believe it is for us.

Unless we believe that the love that was so powerful that even death couldn’t kill it is for us.

Unless we believe that Jesus says our name, too.

Now I can tell you that he does.

I can tell you that as you stand weeping. As you wonder if it’s all been worth it. As you wonder if any of your life means anything. I can tell you that as you grieve over loss and pain and death in your own life that Jesus is standing there with you calling your name.

I can tell you that Easter means that Jesus is standing with you in your tears and saying:

Keith

Kris

Elizabeth.

Sharole.

I can tell you that, and I absolutely believe it. And maybe me saying it will help. Maybe you will even believe it, maybe you will even trust it, too.

But Jesus didn’t think that was enough. Jesus told Mary to go and tell the other disciples what she had seen. But he didn’t leave it there. He appeared to the disciples and said “as the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” He appeared to Peter on the beach and said “Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

Being Easter people isn’t just believing a proposition. It isn’t just saying “Christ is risen, Alleluia!”

Being Easter people is being sent as Jesus is sent – into a world full of people sure they are being forgotten. It is loving as Jesus loves – deeply, passionately, individually.

Being Jesus is about saying her name.

This glorious morning, I hope you hear Jesus saying your name. I hope in whatever state you came into this space, you hear Jesus meeting you right where you are and calling you by name. Not only in the Gospel reading or in the prayers or in the smell of the lilies … but in this community.

I hope you hear Jesus saying your name because you have taken the time to share it and someone here has taken the time to learn it.

I hope you leave this place having heard Jesus say your name and remembering how that felt. Remembering how it feels to be honored by your name and not dismissed as faceless or anonymous.

And having heard Jesus say our names, I hope we take this Easter joy out into the streets, out into our lives. I hope we are sent as God sent Jesus. I hope out of love for Christ we feed Christ’s sheep.

I hope we remember the power of the name.

And that when we meet someone in pain, we say her name.

And when we see someone in poverty, we say her name.

And when we see someone sitting in brutal loneliness, we say her name.

And when we see someone abused, when we see someone who has been profiled and targeted, someone who has rejected and defamed, someone who has been reduced to a class, a gender or a color we say her name.

When we hear someone has died, we do not let her pass anonymously into the arms of God, we say her name.

There is something powerful about saying the name.

Names are about identity. Names are about value.

Mary stood outside the empty tomb. But Easter didn’t begin until Jesus said her name.

Remember the power of the name.

The power of the name to make the invisible visible.

The power of the name to bring the hopeless hope.

The power of the name to turn a faceless them into an exquisite us.

Jesus said her name.

Jesus says your name.

And if we are to be the body of the Risen Christ, we must say each other’s names as well.

So that when we do, each person, named and loved, will know that against all hope, against all odds, against all possibilities that she has seen the Lord. Amen.

"Our defiant cry: 'The Light of Christ'" -- a sermon for the Great Vigil of Easter

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral at the Easter Vigil, March 26, 2016.

The light of Christ! Thanks be to God.

We began this night – about six or seven hours ago – on the steps of this Cathedral.

The steps of Christ Church Cathedral are a threshold. They are a hinge. They are the place where the world meets the church and the church meets the world.

If what we do in here has no relation to what happens out there – then there is no point to any of it.

If what happens out there has no relation to what happens in here – then there is no hope for any of it.

Standing on that threshold, that hinge between the church and the world, we can see the glorious $70 million renovation of Central Library, the $110 million renovation of the Park Pacific. We can see a refurbished Lucas Park with a great shiny playground, and we can hear the activity of the restaurants and street life on Washington Avenue.

We can also see evidence of the deteriorating infrastructure of St. Louis, where the water main outside the Cathedral has broken three times already this year. We see a sign we put up asking people not to congregate on those same Cathedral steps when we are not open because they had become a place where people were meeting at night to sell K2, the newest cheapest street drug. We see where members of this community who have nowhere else to lay their heads curl themselves into the alcoves of the Cathedral for makeshift shelter at night.

Standing on our Cathedral steps, we can gaze up at a penthouse apartment and gaze down on a concrete cot.

Standing on our Cathedral steps, we can hear the glorious sound of organ and the sweet sound of choir and the shrill sound of sirens and the sharp sounds of street arguments.

Standing on our Cathedral steps we see and hear and even smell the entire spectrum of humanity. All our glory and all our shame. All our success and all our failure. All our wonder and all our brokenness.

And standing in the midst of it, the words we sing this night are the words this Cathedral proclaims every day and every night.

The light of Christ. Thanks be to God.

For nearly 150 years, Christ Church Cathedral has stood on this space. When the cornerstone was first laid, this was a place for the wealthy and powerful. Lucas Place, the first private neighborhood in St. Louis, extended west along Locust Street. But by the end of the 19th century, the neighborhood had changed and St. Louis with it. The wealthy and powerful had moved west and most of the neighborhood churches had moved with them.

Except Christ Church Cathedral. We stayed.

We stayed in the heart of this city because the Gospel doesn’t follow the path of comfort. We stayed because as this neighborhood changed, one thing didn’t change – the need for Christ’s presence in it. The need for a place and a people to proclaim:

The light of Christ. Thanks be to God.

This is the night, we sing. God, this is the night when you brought our fathers and mothers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell and rose victorious from the grave.

How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and we are reconciled to God.

As darkness falls this night, we sing:

May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning – he who gives his light to all creation and who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

The light of Christ. Thanks be to God.

St. Louis is in trouble. We are in a Lent, a deep desert time, that seems to have no end. We are being called the most dangerous city in America. For decades and more we have been one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in this nation. For the past two years, our deep racial divides have been broadcast for all the world to see and yet so many in our own city still refuse to open our eyes to see them ourselves.

Our schools are failing. Food deserts are expanding. Drugs and guns are everywhere. And we spent nearly $17 million on a plan to build a stadium for a team that didn’t even want to be here and a mount a campaign to repeal a tax that provides more than a third of this struggling city’s budget.

There is an appalling lack of leadership and vision in this city. An appalling unwillingness to come together to do anything but cheer for the Cardinals and refurbish the Arch grounds. An appalling unwillingness to come together and let basic human decency and care for the common good trump political expediency and the grab for the quick vote or the quick buck.

It is especially appalling because there are amazing, wonderful people in this city. Compassionate people. Brilliant people. But we have allowed ourselves to become hostage to our own parochialism. We have allowed ourselves to let a social Darwinism run amok become the defining and driving economic and cultural force. Our approach to our deepest problems increasingly is for those of us with power and wealth to try move away from the problems or move the problems away from us. To say not “we’re all in this together” but instead “Hey, I’ve got my own problems … that race, crime, poverty, education, unemployment, deteriorating buildings thing you all have in the city … good luck with that.”

It is not worthy of us. It is not worthy of a great city. It is not worthy of a great people. It is not worthy of us as images of the living God.

We began this night on the steps of this Cathedral.

The steps of Christ Church Cathedral are a threshold. They are a hinge. They are the place where the world meets the church and the church meets the world.

If what we do in here has no relation to what happens out there – then there is no point to any of it.

If what happens out there has no relation to what happens in here – then there is no hope for any of it.

The salvation history we hear this night is the story of God never giving up on the people even in our darkest hours. It is the story – OUR story – of triumph. Of liberation in the face of slavery. Of life in the face of death.

St. Louis is in trouble. We are in a Lent, a deep desert time that seems to have no end. And yet after we hear the long story of God’s faithfulness, as sirens wail outside, we throw on the lights and we cry "Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!"

St. Louis is in trouble. And this is the night. It has to be. I don’t know how many nights we have left to keep these lights on.

This is the night when we rededicate ourselves to doing what Christ Church Cathedral at our best has always done –

defiantly standing against self-interest and parochialism,

defiantly standing against the clamor for the easy vote and the quick buck,

defiantly standing with those who are most oppressed, most targeted, most ridiculed, most marginalized

calling all people to come together for the common good

working together to solve our problems and not just pushing them around so they are out of sight and out of mind of those of us who could actually do something about them, not just pushing drug dealers away from our steps but actually addressing the underlying issues of hopelessness, mental illness and poverty that create the demand for drugs.

Not waiting for leadership to somehow emerge from somewhere else to name our inequities and injustices and call us to a greater justice, a greater equity, a greater common purpose but taking that mantle of leadership on ourselves.

Standing on those Cathedral steps – joining heaven to earth and earth to heaven -- staring into the darkness this is the night we with one voice defiantly cry “The light of Christ. Thanks be to God!”

The salvation history we hear this night is the story of God never giving up on the people even in our darkest hours. It is the story – OUR story – of triumph. Of liberation in the face of slavery. Of life in the face of death.

It is the story that reminds us that there is no darkness so deep that the light of Christ shining through us can’t dispel.

It is the story that reminds us that there are no bonds so strong that the victory of Christ cannot break.

It is the story that reminds us that there is no despair so great that the hope of Christ cannot dissolve.

This is the night when we – not just the congregation that gathers here on Sunday, but all of us in this city and around this diocese -- continue to write the next chapter of that story. When in the midst of darkness we ask God once again to send God’s saving power into our lives, to liberate us from all that binds us, to heal all that wounds us and to shine a light from this place and from each one of us that will touch the hearts of all St. Louis.

Not just any light.

But THE light.

The light of Christ.

Thanks be to God.

"You Can't Stop the Revolution" - a sermon for Blues at the Crossroads of Good Friday

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Repeat after me.

You.

Can’t.

Stop.

The Revolution.

Louder.

You.

Can’t.

Stop.

The Revolution.

Now clap.

You. * Can’t. * Stop. The * Revolution.*

You. * Can’t. * Stop. The * Revolution.*

You. * Can’t. * Stop. The * Revolution.*

You. * Can’t. * Stop. The * Revolution.*

You. * Can’t. * Stop. The * Revolution.*

You. * Can’t. * Stop. The * Revolution.*

Amen.

Please be seated.

Sisters and brothers, we are here tonight to commit a revolutionary act.

We are here to stand up when we are told to lie down.

We are here to sing in the face of terror.

We are here to weep when we are told to smile.

We are here to lament when we are told to just shut up and go away already.

We are here to claim a story that was meant to end us, a story that was meant to kill us, a story that was meant to terrify us into submission – we are here to claim it as our life, our strength and our victory over the very forces that would see us cower before them.

Friends, just by coming together in this place, we are committing an act of resistance, an act of revolution.

And the revolution will not be stopped.

This Good Friday night, we hear the story of how Jesus was executed by the state in an act of terrorism. That’s what it was, you know. Crucifixion was state sponsored terrorism. It wasn’t just about killing someone. If you were a Roman citizen and the state decided it wanted to kill you, there were quicker, more private, more humane ways it was done. No, crucifixion was reserved for the oppressed and occupied people. Crucifixion was reserved for the people who needed to be kept in line, who needed to be put in their place.

The purpose of crucifixion was not just state sponsored murder but state sponsored terrorism. To kill someone so horribly, so publically, so gruesomely, so terrifyingly that nobody else would dream of raising their voice or anything else against the empire. Crucifixion was torturous death on the grandest public stage. And the message of crucifixion to the masses was clear and unambiguous:

We have the power. You have none.
Be very afraid. Because you are next.

The purpose of crucifixion was to terrorize the people.

The purpose of crucifixion was to stop the revolution.

And Jesus? Well Jesus was a revolutionary. Jesus was a revolutionary because he took those most on the margins, those most abandoned, most despised, most oppressed, and he put them in the center and said “What would you have me do for you?”

Jesus was a revolutionary because he spoke truth to power and not just any truth but truth that exposed the lies and frauds of the powerful. Truth that set the powerless free.

Jesus was a revolutionary because he tore down the idols and false gods that were set up to control and enslave the people and lifted up the militant nonviolent love of the one, true God whose only dream is to liberate the people.

Jesus was a revolutionary because he loved in the face of hate, he embraced in the face of exclusion, he brought life in the face of death.

Jesus was a revolutionary and revolutionaries are dangerous. Revolutionaries are a threat. Revolutionaries can change hearts with a touch, can topple empires with a word. Revolutionaries can bring down the mighty from their seats and exalt the humble and meek.

Jesus was a revolutionary.

He reminded people that even though Caesar’s image was on the coin, that God’s image was on them.

That even though the state told them their lives didn’t matter, that God said their lives mattered more than could be measured.

Jesus turned his face toward Jerusalem, toward the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and the centurions and proclaimed in a loud voice that the whole damn system was guilty as hell but that he knew that they would win because the people united would never be defeated. Jesus was a revolutionary.

And Jesus did what revolutionaries do – he took to the streets. That’s right. Jesus and his followers shut down a highway … one of the main roads heading into Jerusalem. And they shouted Hosanna! Hosanna! Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? Our streets? Jesus was a revolutionary.

And Jesus did what revolutionaries do – he went to the center of power.

That’s right.

He went right into the temple and said, “How dare you take this place, this place that belongs to the people. This place where the very presence of God meets the people on whom God’s image rests. How dare you take this and use it for your own power and privilege. How dare you use it to oppress and imprison God’s very image. And knowing that people matter far more than property, that economic damage is insignificant compared with the horror of the oppression of an entire race of people, he overturned the tables and made a whip of cords and drove the moneychangers out of the house of God. Jesus was a revolutionary.

Jesus was a revolutionary, and revolutionaries are dangerous. Revolutionaries must be made an example of. Revolutionaries must not only be killed, they must be killed so horribly, so publicly, so gruesomely, so terrifyingly that nobody else would dream of raising their voice or anything else against the empire.

Jesus was a revolutionary, and so he was crucified because that’s how you stop a revolution.

Or so they thought.

But the revolution did not end.

They turned the crowds against him and had them shout: “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

And the revolution did not end.

They whipped him and they beat him and they spat on him.

And the revolution did not end.

They strapped a beam to his back and made him walk with his last ounce of strength to his own public execution.

And still the revolution did not end.

They pierced his hands and his feet with nails and his side with a spear. They gave him vinegar to drink and put a mocking sign over his head. They scared his disciples, other than a few incredibly brave and faithful women, into cowering in the shadows. And when they were done, when they had finally killed him, they sealed his broken, lifeless body in a tomb, rolled a stone over it and put a guard outside it just to be sure.

And still the revolution

did

not

end.

Why?

Why didn’t it end? The state did everything right. They beat him. They pierced him. They humiliated him. They drove the people in terror into hiding. It should have worked. Why didn’t it end?

Because the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Why didn’t it end?

Because instead of fearing a crucified Christ, we proclaim a crucified Christ… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Why didn’t it end?

Because You. Can’t. Stop. The Revolution.

Friends, the revolution continues. And the powers of hell will never prevail against it. And the truth we proclaim tonight. The truth that has always been true since that terrible day on Calvary. The truth that can set us free. The truth that will either loose our chains or bind them tighter is this:

The only thing that can stop this revolution is us.

The only thing that can stop this revolution is if we abandon the Gospel and cross of Jesus the Christ.

The only thing that can stop this revolution is if we decide we care more about respectability than justice.

The only thing that can stop this revolution is if we decide we care more about being a friend of the state than being a prophet to the state.

The only thing that can stop this revolution is if we decide we care more about safety and survival than standing with Jesus.

And whom does Jesus stand with? Whoever is most oppressed. Whoever is most targeted. Whoever is most ridiculed. Whoever is most marginalized.

That’s where Jesus is. That’s where Jesus is right now. And the question before us this night. The question before us this night where we hear this story that is supposed to terrify us but instead inspires us. The question before us this night is if that is where Jesus is, with the oppressed, the targeted, the ridiculed, the marginalized.

If that is where Jesus is…

Where.

Are.

We?

We gather tonight to sing the blues at this crossroads of Good Friday. And it is well that we should. It is well that we should because there is much to lament.

In the words of our sister, Traci Blackmon, "we lament the acceptable invisibility of black children, of black babies.

"We lament the criminalization of poverty and of people who do not have access to excessive resources.

"We lament that we live in a nation and a city where it is acceptable for many to have a whole lot and for many more to not have enough

"We lament that black girls and black boys get a substandard education and then get blamed for not being able to get a job.

"We lament that neighborhoods are criminalized and villainized because they are populated by black people.

"We lament that black boys and black girls living in poverty are not able to have recreational resources and facilities, and then because they are still brilliant and ingenious, they create their own collaboratives on street corners and in alleys and in streetways, and then have those areas victimized and villainized and criminalized."

And that's not all...

We lament that we support a rabidly insane culture in this nation that sells power to black people and fear to white people in the form of a gun.

We lament that state sponsored terrorism is alive and well in the mass incarceration and extrajudicial killing of young black women and men.

We lament that economic slavery is alive and well as people and municipalities with power and privilege squeeze the labor out of black bodies through suppressing minimum wages and through balancing municipal budgets on their backs.

We gather tonight to sing the blues at this crossroads of Good Friday. And it is well that we should. But not only because there is much to lament, but because we as the church are at a crossroads. And the question before us is the old blues question of the crossroads:

Will we make a deal with the devil or will we stand with the Christ?

When the killing of Michael Brown and his body lying in the streets for four and half hours finally drove me out into the streets – and I say finally because I went out there much, much, much too late. But when I did, I met incredible young black women and men who got in my face.

They were not impressed with my color or with my collar.

They told me that my talk was cheap. And they had had enough of that.

They told me that I had been in my church praying while they were out there dying. And they had had enough of that.

They told me that I had been caring more about preserving my respectability and policing their profane language than about working for justice and ending the profane conditions in which they had been living. And they had certainly had enough of that.

They said, “You want to help? Then don’t come out here and preach at us. Come out here and stand with us. Stand against the tear gas and the rubber bullets. Stand against the pepper spray and the riot gear. Stand up and speak out. Amplify our voices. Do your white folk work. Give away your power and let us lead.”

We gather tonight to sing the blues at this crossroads of Good Friday because we as the church are at a crossroads. And the question before us is the old blues question of the crossroads:

Will we make a deal with the devil or will we stand with the Christ?

Jesus is a revolutionary … and he is alive and well. He is out in the streets right now. He is standing up and he is shutting it down. And he is waiting for his church to get it together. He is waiting for his church to leave the comfort of our buildings and to get out there and join him. To toss Caesar’s coins back in his face, overturn tables and start making whips of cords. To meet oppression with militant nonviolent love.

Jesus is a revolutionary … and he is alive and well. And he is standing where he always stands, with the oppressed, the targeted, the ridiculed and the marginalized.

Jesus is a revolutionary … and he is leading the fight for freedom. And he bids us to get out of our comfortable pews and join him.

The devil is telling us to play it safe. The devil is telling us that if we play it safe we can keep our buildings and our reputations. That people in high places will say nice things about us. That we can keep our seats of honor at banquets and places of privilege in the public square.

Jesus is telling us those things are nothing but finely gilded prisons and they have been keeping us bound for far too long – and that we need to have had enough of that.

Jesus is a revolutionary … and he is telling us that we need to lay it all on the line because truly we have nothing to lose but our chains.

We gather tonight to sing the blues at this crossroads of Good Friday because we as the church are at a crossroads.

As we tell the story of the cross, will we celebrate that together we can leave everything behind and carry that cross with him and with each other, counting all things as loss compared with the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord?

As we hear the nails pounded into his flesh, will we celebrate that the worst the world could offer could not stop the revolution then, and that the baton is being passed to us?

As we see his body laid in the tomb will we proclaim with one voice that that body is us, that the tomb is not the end, and that this party is just getting started?

As we leave this place will we go not to the comfort of our homes but into the streets. Will we not hoard power for ourselves but give it away to a new generation of young, black, queer, profane leaders. Will we live in such away that even agents of the empire will, like the centurion, look on us and say “truly this is the Son of God?”

Because, friends, that is who we are.

We are the Body of Christ.

We are the revolution.

And as long as we remember that, the revolution will never be stopped.

"Table manners" -- a sermon for Maundy Thursday

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Maundy Thursday, March 24, 2016.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

From our earliest moments, almost all of us know how to do two things.

We know how to breathe and we know how to eat.

The first we do on our own. We suck in great lungfulls of air and then let out loud cries, still traumatized and fearful from the transition from the womb into the outside world.

The second we can’t do on our own. We need someone else. A mother. A father. A nurse. A midwife. Someone who can put us to the breast or to the bottle and then almost always, instinct takes over. We begin to suckle. We begin to feed.

For most of us, feeding – and the sensations that come with it – being held securely and womblike, the warmth of skin on skin – are our first experience of love, of acceptance, of safety. More powerful than any words, we get the message – this is for you. You are not alone. There is another to sustain you.

To protect you.

To love you.

Or alternately, not.

Feeding and being fed is the central act of being human in community. It is why every major celebration, be it a birthday or a wedding or a funeral or a graduation, involves communal eating. It is why families eating together are directly correlated to them living well together. It is why Thanksgiving dinner can be a glorious celebration or a treacherous minefield. And it is why eating disorders and the body shaming that so often accompanies them are so destructive.

Because eating cuts to the heart not just of how we survive but our very feelings of worthiness to survive.

Feeding and being fed is how we include.

Feeding and being fed is how we exclude as well.

Our earliest and most deeply ingrained purity codes revolve around sex and food – two acts that are about intimacy, biological drive, creation, sustenance and even deep celebration and joy. Two acts that that can be used to wound and destroy as much as they can be used to heal and restore. Just as historically human beings have included and excluded based on sexual norms, we also include and exclude based on what foods we eat and on whom we allow to sit at table.

Feeding and being fed are what defines who “the us” is. Because on a primal, embodied level, feeding and being fed are how we say not just “this (an item of food) is for you” but “this (the community) is for you” as well.

The table defines the community. The community is defined by the table.

What is eaten. Who is served.

What is not eaten. Who is not served.

Who is embraced. Who is shamed.

We see this today here at Christ Church Cathedral. Before we gather at table for the Eucharistic prayer this evening, I will remind us that “this is Christ’s table and all may approach.” Some may choose to approach to partake in the food. Some may choose to approach and receive a blessing. But all may approach.

We make a powerful statement by this invitation. One that is rooted in our scripture and the historic faith of the church that God so loved the WHOLE WORLD that God became human in Jesus the Christ and gave himself up not just for some of us but for all.

Tonight, we hear one of the earliest pieces of Christian scripture – the account of the last supper in Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth. Paul hands on to the community what he received from the risen Christ, “that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”

It is one of the most profound and defining pieces of theology in all of history. Jesus as the host of the table saying that he is both the server and the meal. Both the one that provides and the sustenance itself. Both the giver and what is given.

This is my body that is for you, you plural. All of you.

This cup is the new covenant in my blood. No longer the blood of the Passover lamb for the liberation of just the people of Israel, but as Paul knows as much as anyone the blood of the lamb of God for the liberation of all people, Jew and Gentile, woman and man, slave and free.

The Eucharist is the great equalizer. The great unifier. That all may be one as the Christ and the Father are one through the power of the Holy Spirit. Not just a meal, not even just a liturgy but the very ground of our being.

As St. Augustine said to those gazing on these holy gifts: “Be what you see, receive who you are.”

If only it were that easy.

If only it were as easy as saying all may approach.

If only it were as easy as all of us coming together around this table like Dr. Seuss’ Whos down in Whoville singing on Christmas morn.

If only it were as easy as just saying “here, lay your life on this table and receive new life in return.”

If only it were as easy as just saying “be what you see, receive who you are.”

But it’s not. It isn’t now and it wasn’t then.

Paul relays these words about the Eucharist to the Corinthians not because they are doing it right but because they are getting it wrong. The Corinthian church is a struggling church. They are struggling with division and diversity. They are struggling with competing agendas. They are struggling with strong appetites and preferences and the powerful gravitational pull of human frailty.

Just before the reading we heard this evening, just before Paul hands on this story of the meal that he received from the Lord, Paul writes this:

“Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!”

There are some bad table manners going on in Corinth. Because the people of the church in Corinth are forgetting. They are forgetting that this meal is not about them, not about the individual, the needs and wants of the one. They are forgetting that like the love of Christ itself, this meal is always about the love that is always reaching outward, always giving of itself, always caring more for the other than for itself.

The Corinthians are forgetting that when they eat of this bread and drink of this cup, they not only remember Christ they are re-membered – literally knit together as the body of Christ themselves. That they are given for the life of the world. That, as former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams preached, when you are receiving the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, you must have excellent peripheral vision. You must see the people being fed on either side of you and ask Jesus not just to feed you but to make you a part of feeding them as well.

The Corinthians are forgetting that the bread and the wine were just one part of that meal. That “after supper, Jesus got up from table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. And that when he was done he said, ‘So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet” you also ought to wash one another’s feet…. I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you’ – intimately, passionately, with my body, with my blood, touching the dirt on your feet and caressing them with love – ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’”

There are some bad table manners going on at Corinth because they are forgetting not only that Jesus is both server and meal. Both the one that provides and the sustenance itself. They are forgetting not only that Jesus is both the giver and what is given … but that as the Body of Christ…

So. Are. They.

And so we gather together this night to do the most primal act of human community. To share a meal. But not just any meal. A meal where Jesus offers us bread and wine and says “this is for you. I am for you.” A meal where we are bid to have excellent peripheral vision and to gaze on our sisters and brothers and be what we see and receive who we are and say one to another “this is for you. I am for you.”

And like the Corinthian church we are struggling church. We are struggling with division and diversity. We are struggling with competing agendas. We are struggling with strong appetites and preferences and the powerful gravitational pull of human frailty.

And, thankfully God is infinitely patient.

Because like those Corinthians, we struggle with our table manners. We struggle because we are so human. We struggle because we forget. We forget that this meal is not about us, not about the individual, the needs and wants of the one. We forget that, like the love of Christ itself, this meal is always about the love that is always reaching outward, always giving of itself, always caring more for the other than for itself.

Like those Corinthians, we forget that when we eat of this bread and drink of this cup, we not only remember Christ, we are re-membered – literally knit together as the Body of Christ ourselves. And that we need the full diversity of all God’s children truly to become that Body. And that as that body, we do not exist for ourselves but we are, just like Christ, given for the life of the world.

Tonight we commit a revolutionary act. Tonight we remember and are remembered. Tonight we invite all to the table and say “This is for you. I am for you.” Tonight we are what we see. We receive who we are. Tonight we wash each other’s feet and touch and caress and love the long, hard journeys we each have traveled.

Tonight we hear the story, and break the bread and share the cup and we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Tonight we remember that Jesus is both server and meal. Both the one that provides and the sustenance itself. That Jesus is both the giver and what is given. And that as the Body of Christ…

So.

Are.

We.

"Betrayal" - a sermon for Wednesday in Holy Week

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Wednesday in Holy Week, March 23, 2016.

Very truly I tell you. One of you will betray me.

I wonder if this wasn’t the most painful part of the passion for Jesus.

More than the nails.

More than the spear.

More than the fear.

Betrayal.

Betrayal is a pain like no other.

Betrayal is deep and searing.

Betrayal is crushing and disorienting.

Betrayal turns us inside out and upside down. It takes that which we trusted most and turns it against us. Takes the warmest embrace of safety and turns it into the coldest steel blade piercing our heart.

Judas was one of Jesus’ closest friends, one of Jesus’ most intimate confidants. 

Jesus had said “follow me” and Judas had followed. When things got rough and others had left, Judas had stayed.

In all the world, there were only a handful  of people that Jesus truly trusted, and Judas was one of them.

And Judas betrayed him.

Not some nameless informant.

Not his traditional nemeses the chief priest and the Pharisees.

But Judas.

His friend.

The betrayal is perhaps not only the most painful but the most overlooked part of the passion.  We are drawn to and repulsed by the horror of the nails and the spear, but we are also removed from that. Most of us will never know that horror. For most of us, the cross is symbol and metaphor.

But betrayal?

Betrayal is one of our greatest fears. Betrayal is one of our deepest pains.

Betrayal is what keeps us up at night.

Images of our lover in another’s embrace.

Sounds of a treasured friend whispering against us across a restaurant table.

The moment of revelation that that supportive hand on your back was actually holding a knife.

Betrayal leaves scars that run more deeply and heal more slowly than any other wound.

Betrayal robs us of trust.

Betrayal makes us question our lovability, our worthiness, our very sanity.

Jesus was betrayed. Betrayed by one of his own.

And because of that, for us this Holy Week, there are at least two truths of which we can be sure.

The first is that Jesus knows that pain. That means if you have been betrayed. If you have known that pain. If you are haunted by those images and voices, you can know that you are not alone. That you share that pain with the one who bears all our pain, Jesus the Christ.

That doesn’t make the pain go away. It doesn’t even make it hurt less. But it does mean even in the searing pain of betrayal, you will never be alone.

The second is that Jesus didn’t stop loving.

Betrayal makes us ultimately vulnerable … and so betrayal tempts us to close up. To not let anyone else in. To not give anyone else the opportunity ever to hurt us again.

Betrayal tempts us to close ourselves off. To not trust anyone else with our love lest that love get turned against us in betrayal once more.

Jesus was betrayed with a kiss. And he responded with a kiss. He felt the pain, bore it all, and continued to love, loved all the way to death, even death on a cross.

Today as we prepare for the end.

Today as we prepare for the final meal, the washing of the feet, the loneliness of the garden and the agony of the cross.

Today as we stand on the precipice of the great three days, let us hear this story and remember.

Remember that Jesus was betrayed.

That Jesus was betrayed and stands with us bearing the pain of all our betrayals.

That Jesus was betrayed and pleads with us to stand with him in all our vulnerability.

That Jesus was betrayed and it was not the end. It was only the beginning. Amen.