"The Lord is my shepherd: Unpacking the 23rd Psalm." - a sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Lord is my shepherd.

Is there any verse in the Bible that lowers our blood pressure more than this?

Hearing those words is like leaning back into a lover’s embrace and feeling their arms wrap around us and hold us close.

The Lord is my shepherd

There’s a reason we include the 23rd psalm in just about every funeral. It is comfort. As we are wearied by the changes and chances of this life, it invites us to rest in God’s eternal changelessness. It is safety. The 23rd psalm reminds us we are under the loving gaze of a God who gives rest to the weary, blesses the dying, soothes the suffering, takes pity on the afflicted and shields the joyous.

But it is so much more. Just as Jesus himself is so much more than comfort and safety, the 23rd psalm invites us, in the security of those loving arms, to dive deeply into what it means to be under the shepherdship of God.

And so that’s what we’re going to do for a few minutes this morning. We’re going to say these words, and we are going to lean back into God’s loving arms and feel them enfold us. As we welcome Ivy and Kyden into the Body of Christ, we are going to consider what it truly means to claim the Lord as our shepherd.

So pull out your service leaflet and find Psalm 23 at the top of the page … we’re going to take each of the six verses, one by one, starting with the first. Let’s say it together:

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not be in want.

That word “want” needs a little unpacking. Want doesn’t mean every desire of our heart will be fulfilled. Want doesn’t mean we will live in luxury or we won’t ever have to work hard. “We shall not be in want” means we will never lack the necessities of what we need to live.

“I shall not be in want” is our first hint that although this psalm is written in first person singular, it is not about us as individuals but as a community. Because we know plenty who are in want, including some of us in this very room. And scripture is the story of God providing not for the person but for the people. And a shepherd never only has one sheep … at least not a shepherd who is long for the job.

So “I shall not be in want” is the song not of you or me as a person but of us as a people … a people who were in the desert and each morning God gave us manna just enough for that day. It is the trust in the providence of God we echo each time we pray “give us this day our daily bread.”

“I shall not be in want” is the embracing of the sacred enough for each and for all. God will provide enough. Our daily bread. Enough for me. Enough for all.

“I shall not be in want” means our job and joy with the abundance of what God provides is not to hoard it but take just what we need, just what will keep us out of want, just that sacred enough, and with the rest experience the divine joy of sharing and providing for one another.

“I shall not be in want means” there is enough. It means as the church we stand as prophets against the false Gospels of acquisition and consumption and the fear that if we do not hoard we will be in want. It means as the church we take it upon ourselves to make sure we are providing that sacred enough for one another. It means as the church we meet the fear of scarcity and the reality of poverty with this simple verse:

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not be in want.

Second verse. Let’s say it together.

He makes me lie down in green pastures
and leads me beside still waters.

Being under the shepherdship of God means we are people of Sabbath. We lie down in green pastures and walk beside still waters. We breathe and smell the roses. We don’t let the speed of the internet dictate the pace of our lives. We appreciate and embrace the sacrament of the present moment.

Like the first verse, this verse leads us to prophetically preach that sacred enough --not in the face of fear of scarcity of stuff, but in the fear of scarcity of time.

For God’s flock, there is always enough time as long as we remember that time is not just measured in the ticking of the seconds but also in depth of time, what in Greek is called kairos. Kairos is how we can sit at a coffee shop lost in conversation with a friend and time seems to stop. Kairos is how we can spend a half hour stuck in traffic and a half hour walking at the Botanical Garden and they are two completely different amounts of time.

Kairos is the difference between how long the sermon is and how long the sermon feels.

This week, one of our first residents at Magdalene St. Louis, wrote a blogpost about her experience of getting out of prison and re-entering the world after being incarcerated for 12 years. Here is what she noticed about how we live today:

People are so wrapped up in their devices, there’s no eye contact and people are always in such a hurry they forget to “stop and smell the flowers.” We all look like walking zombies … it’s kind of creepy!

Being under the shepherdship of God is not that kind of life. It means there is enough time. It means God leads us into places where time is measured not in length but in depth and our response is to stop and breathe deeply. It means we can and even must take the time to lie down in the green pastures and bathe in the stillness of the waters.

And invite the world to do the same.

Third verse. Let’s say it together.

He revives my soul*
and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake.

Our Cathedral mission statement says “We seek a deeper relationship with God and each other in Jesus Christ.” It is God we seek … knowing that God is experienced both in the stillness of our hearts and in the love given one another in community.

We know that as humans we are prone to addiction and any manner of things we use to fill the emptiness inside or to self-medicate our trauma and loneliness. But as members of God’s flock, we strive to choose a different path. As members of God’s flock, we hold hands and together remind ourselves and one another that these are false gods and lies, that they will never give our hearts what we crave.

It is not the anesthetics of the world but God alone who revives our soul.

Together, in God’s flock, we sing to God with St. Augustine, that “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

And because we are seekers for God, we know our actions and words matter. We know that there is such a thing as right and wrong pathways, as loving and unloving.

As members of God’s flock, we not only seek the reviving presence of Christ, we submit to the authority of Christ. We are guided by the word of God in scripture, heard in prayer and discerned in community. We strive to go along the right pathways not for our own sake but for God’s sake … in gratitude for and for the sake of the one who gives us life itself.

Fourth verse. Let’s say it together

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; *
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

We do what is hard, and we do it without fear.

God does not just lead us beside still waters but through the most turbulent waters there are. Following Christ means we absolutely will pass through Good Friday on the way to Easter Sunday. We will walk right into that valley of the shadow of death. It will be the death of attachments, the death of relationships, the death of dreams and maybe even the death of life itself.

We will face deep loss.

But that’s not what makes us different. Everyone goes through the valley of the shadow of death. Everyone faces loss. As sheep of God’s flock, what makes us different is we shall fear no evil because we know God is with us. What makes us different as followers of Jesus is our absolute conviction with St. Paul that we are convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We walk fearlessly through the valley of the shadow of death. Not dodging it and living in denial of it, but naming it and even through tears and with trembling voice, singing Alleluia. And in those moments when each of us is tempted to despair, tempted not to trust the bonds of God’s love are forever, in those moments we are there for each other to believe when each other is in doubt, to hold each other up as we are prone to fall, and to wipe away every tear and steady every trembling voice.

Fifth verse. Let’s say it together.

You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; *
you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.

Unlike the rest of the world where we gather in self-reinforcing communities of common opinion and culture, in God’s flock, we share community intentionally and specifically with those who trouble us the most.

That’s what it means when we say in our Cathedral mission statement that part of how we seek that deeper relationship with God and each other in Jesus Christ is through “embracing diversity joyfully.”

These past weeks and months, there has been some pushback on that piece of our mission statement. Not the embracing diversity part … but do we have to do it joyfully?

I get it. This is hard. Embracing diversity is hard. Gathering at table in the presence of those who trouble us is hard. But again, the psalmist gives us truth. For God pulls us together in our deepest difference not for God’s amusement or for our punishment, but because God designs us for each other… and the more different we are from each other, the more necessary we are for each other’s and our common salvation.

And that’s why even though it is the hardest thing we ever do, when we gather at table in the presence of those who trouble us, it is blessing and it is joy and it is abundance of riches. The two parts of this verse cannot be separated. It is the very act of sharing table with those who trouble us that anoints our heads with oil and makes our cups run over.

Finally, the last verse. Let’s say it together.

Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, *
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

We are people of God’s forever.

We don’t trust forever. In marriage we say “until we are parted by death,” and then 50% of our unions end in divorce. Our cars don’t start and our heroes fail. Nations slip into history, and tower and temple fall to dust.

But God is the God of forever. In a world of broken promises and relationships that never live up to our hopes. In a world where we have been used and abused and where trust seems like it should be a four letter word, where the horizon of death can leap toward us with one doctor’s visit or phone call in the dark of night. In a world where the vision of a love that heals seems too good to be true, God looks passionately into our eyes and whispers in our ear:

Forever.

Forever.

Forever.

God’s forever is God’s promise that surely, certainly, absolutely God’s goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our life. That we are God’s own -- yesterday, today and tomorrow. That even when we leave this mortal coil, we need not fear for we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The Lord is my shepherd. And yours. And all of ours.

These are words of incredible comfort, but oh, so much more. They are an invitation into an extraordinary life together. The baptized life of Jesus Christ. The life of the shepherdship of God.

The Lord is our shepherd. And together as God’s flock we will rejoice in the sacred enough of things and time. We will drink deeply from God’s everlasting love and do what is hard without fear. We will embrace diversity joyfully and find in it blessing as abundant as oil dripping down our foreheads and cups overflowing with the finest wine. And together, always together, we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.

"Has This Been Doing This My Whole Life?!?" -- An Easter Sermon

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015

So they went out and fled from the tomb,

for terror and amazement had seized them.

On this Sunday of the resurrection, I always remember our friend Becca Stevens, the founder of Magdalene and Thistle Farms in Nashville, because Becca has seen more resurrection than anyone I know.

Becca has spent the last 20 years walking with women whose lives on the streets began with abuse they suffered as children. Women for whom trust has always been a four letter word and hope was a word they dared not utter at all.

Through the Magdalene community, Becca has seen these women make the transition from victim to survivor. To go from lives of pain to lives of power. To encounter love they never thought even existed, much less could be there for them, and find in it the power to heal and make them new.

One of these women is Dorris. Like the other women in Magdalene, Dorris had, as Becca puts it, experienced the underside of bridges, the short side of justice, the back side of anger and the inside of prison walls.

And so early one morning, when Becca and Dorris found themselves on the Florida coast, it was the first time Dorris had ever seen the ocean. And as the sun peaked over the distant horizon and she dipped her foot in the waves and for the first time ever felt the pull of the tide, she threw up her arms and asked:

“Has this been doing this my whole life?”

Can you imagine that joy? That joy not just of a whole new world opening up to you but realizing that it had been there all along? Realizing that the cool sands and the ocean breeze and the pounding of the surf were a gift of God’s grace and love? That this was the life God dreamed for you?

And that if this was real, what other wonders could be out there.

Dorris’ journey to the ocean was a long one. When Dorris was a child, she witnessed her own father’s murder and was repeatedly abused. She ended up walking a 10-block radius on the streets of Nashville for 26 years selling herself and being sold. Before Magdalene, that was her life, and those 10 blocks were her world. It was all she knew.

The ocean? That was for other people.

Love? Well, that was for other people, too.

I love Mark’s telling of the Easter story because it is raw and real. Three women, who had each been through different kinds of hell, show up at the tomb on Sunday morning. They are in deep pain and grief. They don’t even know how they will roll the stone away from the tomb and yet they stumble toward it anyway, knowing all that is left for them is to anoint Jesus’ body so that he -- and their hope with him -- can be buried in peace.

But when they find the tomb empty and a young man telling them the amazing news that Jesus was risen, their response was not to sing Alleluia as we do today. No … they ran away. Mark tells us “they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Terror and amazement. Silence and fear.

That was their response to this miraculous, powerful love that even death could not destroy.

Terror and amazement. Silence and fear.

How utterly … and completely … human.

Because when we are in grief and pain. When our whole world has been turned upside down and our heart has been torn out. When we have been rejected by the world and everything we ever hoped for has disappeared in a massive public shaming, the reality of love so strong, so deep, so wide is simply too much to bear.

We tell ourselves that our reaction to Easter, we tell ourselves that our reaction to this miraculous, incredible love should be Alleluias and rejoicing. But it’s not. It’s terror and amazement. It’s silence and fear. Because the experience of our life is so different from that love, we just can’t believe it’s real.

It can’t be real, can it? It can’t really be for me, can it?

Love? That’s for other people, right?

You see, we are those women at the tomb on Sunday morning. We are Dorris. For the past 40 days we have walked through the desert face to face. We have tried to take off our masks and learn how to speak clearly and listen deeply and have fierce conversations with one another. We have heard the voices of young people crying out in our streets and stared in the faces of other young people who tragically died there.

As a St. Louis region, as a church and as individuals, we are battered and conflicted. We are struggling and we are tired. And in that pain, we isolate ourselves from one another. We see asking for help as weakness, and we compulsively apologize for our tears. And we suffer in silence believing everyone else but us has it all together.

Whether our pain is us longing for the touch of the person who lies in bed next to us night after night and year after year or remembering the painful dark unwanted touch of years or sometimes even just hours before, the truth of this love seems too much to bear.

Whether our pain is the unreachable chasm of silence between parent and child or the echoes of the empty nest, the empty womb or the empty bed, the truth of this love seems too much to bear.

Whether our pain is being told our lives matter less because of the color of our skin or feeling pushed aside and useless with the passing of our years, the truth of this love seems too much to bear.

Whether our pain is the craving of addiction, the humbling of recovery or the helplessness of watching someone we love struggle with both, the truth of this love of God in Jesus Christ, a love more powerful than death, a love that is right here waiting for each and for all of us is just too much to bear.

It’s much easier to look away, to plaster on a smile and say, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen” with everyone else, and go back and suffer in silence.

But I hope we won’t. I pray we won’t. I pray this Easter we will risk the terror and amazement and look this love full in the face.

Because the love of God in Jesus Christ is real. It is real and it is terrifying and it is amazing. It is the single greatest force in the entire universe, and it is for each and every one of us.

It is the God of our weary years, the God of our silent tears bending down from heaven and kissing us powerfully but every so tenderly right where it hurts. It is a love that can help us all make the transition from victim to survivor. From lives of pain to lives of power. To encounter love we never thought even existed, much less could be there for us, and find in it the power to heal and make us new.

What those brave, heartbroken women found at the empty tomb and what we are offered this morning and every time we come together is an invitation to a love that will hold us and heal us and change our lives. A love that will break down the walls that divide us and bind us together as sisters and brothers for life. A love that will free us from the bonds not just of sin and death but also the paralyzing bonds of self-doubt and self-criticism and shame.

A love that will take our secret pain, all those stories of our lives we are barely able to tell ourselves much less someone else, all those pieces of ourselves we hide believing that if anyone ever knew about them they couldn’t possibly love us, a love that will take them and break their hold on us and set us free to sing and dance and to dip our feet into a thousand oceans and feel the pull of a thousand tides.

Like Dorris, our journey to this place has been a long one. And what the women that Easter and we this morning are greeted with as the sun peaks over the distant horizon is terrifying and amazing and beautiful and awesome. And if together we can trust enough to let ourselves believe it and feel it even a little bit we will lift up our arms and shout

“Has this been doing this my whole life?”

“Have I really been wonderfully made and beautiful my whole life?

“Has God really been loving me like this my whole life?”

And the answer, terrifying and amazing as it is, will be yes.

Yes.

Yes.

We are bringing Magdalene to St. Louis -- with our first house opening next month! 

To find out more go to www.magdalenestl.org. 

"Decision points: Following Jesus in a world of guns, gangs and violence." -- a sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Lent

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Preached by the Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows on Sunday, March 1, 2015

One of the faces of the "Faces Not Forgotten" project -
portraits of young people killed by gun violence
in St. Louis, now on display at
Christ Church Cathedral

Ever have one of those moments where you find yourself having an encounter that you’re not sure you want to be having because you fear it will demand something of you? Perhaps take you down a road you may not be prepared to go? I had such an experience recently—on Thursday, actually. I had been told by a clergy friend that there was someone I absolutely had to meet.

And so it was that I found myself having lunch with a former member of one of Chicago’s toughest gangs. And he was telling me what he tells his former gang member friends—He said, “You have to make a decision—each and every day, you have to decide.”

James Crockett, had been a member of the notorious Four Corner Hustlers gang on Chicago’s west side. On a day when the weather is 10 degrees, he and I and several other church folks are having lunch just north of Chicago in an Evanston café and he purposefully wears a t-shirt so we can see his gang tattoo. The tattoo, doo-rag, and jeans are part of his uniform to say to the other former—and soon to be former—gang members he encounters that his street cred is as real as walk with Jesus. On a good Sunday evening some 45 guys from the streets will gather with him for Bible Study and encouragement. He says, for guys transitioning off the streets, out of addiction, out of crime, each and every day presents an opportunity to decide—are they going to walk with Christ or are they going back to the path that may kill them. Faith is not an academic exercise—the stakes are high.

We had lunch that day so that we might make a decision—a decision to walk together and work together to help end violence on Chicago’s north side. James essentially said, look at me, hear my testimony and decide. He said, I need you to decide not to avert your eyes from the pain and violence in your very midst but walk with me into so we can pull some people out of it. I could barely eat my lunch. And James was asking us not just for a “one and done” experience or a donation of money. He was looking for a long-term relationship because he found that’s the only thing that seems to change things.

There are days when I can hardly believe that part of my job is helping people understand why they should care about gun violence in Chicago and the way in which it takes the lives of young people of color on nearly a daily basis. There are folks—good, well-meaning Christians, Episcopalians—who wonder why they have to keep hearing about it. What does it have to do with them? And it is a painful thing to talk about—in the way that racism, class and income inequality, and segregation are difficult to talk about. Because it reminds us that we are all impacted by the horrible and besetting sin and death that is too much a part of our lives and we don’t want to talk about it, acknowledge it, or have it interrupt the alternative narrative we are trying to build in our day to day lives—because life is already too hard.

So I get it—no one likes gun violence as dinner party chit chat. And yet, like so many other conversations that seem too overwhelming or polarizing or difficult—people of faith must find a way to talk about the violence that is all too prevalent in our lives and we must become, even if reluctantly, conversant in the vocabulary of trauma and tragedy that is part of the daily living and dying of too many of our young people.

Trying to disentangle the intersecting challenges of poverty, inadequate education, joblessness, and the feeling of daily desperation that makes for violence is hard, headache inducing work. But thankfully, we do have people working on it. We have a new generation of community organizers, leaders and agitators who won’t let us forget what is happening in the communities on the margins and who won’t let us forget about how those dynamics impact those of us with choices. What does gun violence on the west side of Chicago have to do with tony north shore suburbs like Winnetka? What does gun violence in north St. Louis have to do with the leafy streets of Clayton? Everything.

Children dying at the hands of other children or adults should break our hearts each and every time. But too often, we can’t bear to hear this news—it is just too much. We want things to be instantly different. Better. Less painful. But people are dying and we are being called to make some decisions.

Today’s gospel lesson highlights another one of those moments when the disciples find themselves on a journey that they said yes to and now are on a road they were not prepared to take—one that will demand things of them they were not prepared to give.

Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

You can just imagine what Peter and the disciples are thinking—they’ve decided to make Jesus their choice—they’ve decided to leave the old life behind and follow him. What is all this business about suffering and dying? Just a moment before they were talking that yes, Jesus, was the Messiah—so what is this business about suffering—that’s not supposed to happen to the Messiah. That is not how the story is supposed to go.

And when Peter points this out and protests Jesus silences him--You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. And Jesus basically says, you gotta truly be willing to lay down that old life, pick up your cross and follow so are you still with me? He’s asking his disciples not to avert their eyes from the pain and suffering but to walk with Jesus right into it.

That was hard for the disciples to do and it is hard for us too. We, like the disciples, have our minds set not on divine things but human things—which is kind of how we got here. Here, meaning a world so filled with violence that we ache to forget it. Here, meaning a sanctuary filled with the beautiful faces of the dead. Each and every day we struggle to see the divine in our fellow human beings. We forget. Too often our mind is set, focused, tuned into seeing the human and not enough of the divine. We forget that the fingerprints of the divine are on everything and everyone. We forget that the divine spark, the light that is Christ, shines in everyone. And at our worst, we not only deny the divine imprint but we deny their humanity.

Deciding to follow Jesus means being willing to give your life over and live for someone else. For James Crockett, the former gang member who skirted death more times than he can remember, it is his 5 children, the men in his Bible Study, and his love of Christ have given him something to live for—and not just live, but to really LIVE as one who understands what the God of second, third, and fourth chances can do. James’ life now makes resurrection real to young men of the streets who were counted good as dead. His life makes resurrection real to those of us who think that poor inner city streets are only filled with death and despair.

Most of us here today will not have a story as dramatic as James Crockett. But some of us here do know what its like to wake up each day and struggle with the lure of the streets. We do know what its like to wake up each day and decide to walk in the way that is life-giving instead of death-dealing. Each day we can wake up and decide to stay sober. Each day we can wake up and decide to love our partner or spouse. Each day we wake up and decide to not be fearful of the stranger. We can decide not to clutch our bag tighter when we see a black or latino man coming our way. We can decide to see the divinity and humanity in everyone we encounter. We can decide to give our life away just a little bit for the sake of another. We can decide to take up our cross and follow the messiah whose living, dying and rising proclaims that death never has the final word. Ever.

Following Jesus will demand something of us. Following Jesus will take us down roads we may never have expected to travel. But if we decide to follow and if we decide to stay not averting our gaze from the pain and violence, we may just find resurrection. We may just find life. Amen.

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The Desert Inside Us--A Sermon Preached at Christ Church Cathedral and The Church of St. Michael and St. George by The Reverend Canon John W. Kilgore, M.D. on 18 February 2015, Ash Wednesday

But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret…

In a few moments you will be invited to the observance of holy Lent, ‘by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.’ And you will, if you desire, have ashes imposed on your forehead. Ashes from palm fronds of last Palm Sunday, burned. The molecules of living things on this earth. Perhaps of ones you knew here, or your forbears. And in the future perhaps molecules of you will be imposed on someone else’s forehead. Lent, and the ashes, remind us of our transient nature and of our place in God’s universe. And the ashes go on the foreheads of all - wealthy and destitute, educated and ignorant, compassionate and cruel. All of us, without distinction. So how do we live into this holy season? What are we to ‘give up’ or ‘take on’?

There are three lines in our readings today that seem to inform us, our lives of faith, at tis juncture. ‘Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret,’ from Matthew’s gospel. ‘He redeems your life from the grave and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness,’ from the Psalm. And ‘Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near — a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!’ from the prophet Joel.

Our lives seem pretty good. But there is a lot of evil stuff going on in the world right now. ISIS is out there and has declared Christianity as one of their major targets. They seem to be attacking a major European capital every week. They have declared the fall of Christian Rome by the end of the year. And are very likely in America in full force soon. A fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel?

Maybe. But there has always been evil in the world. There have always been times of difficulty, of tension. We, in our life times, and especially here in America, have lived in a time of particular, peculiar, and privileged security. Almost everyone has enough to eat, while half the world goes to bed hungry every night. Our cities are secure, we don’t have rockets and IPG’s and suicide bombings going off every day in every market places and villages. And life expectancy is incredibly high. Until AIDS, almost all infectious disease were wiped out — smallpox, polio, TB. And the transient ones that killed, diphtheria, strep throat, meningitis, Neisseria, and others were treatable with antibiotics, discovered in the 20th century. We are privileged. We are fortunate. But it may not always be that way. Perhaps we have been lulled into a false sense of security. America is so much better than almost every other place in the world. By our world standards.

But do we know our need for God? Do we realize our transitory nature? And how are we to explore that during Lent, our appointed religious season for such exercise? Most of us will say, ‘Give something up!’ And that has been the traditional wisdom. Indeed I was with someone just a couple of days ago who said, ‘what is that old stuff about giving up for Lent? Aren’t we supposed to take something on? Giving up seems so wrong!’ Lent is not about giving up, or taking on. Lent is about knowing our need for God. About remembering that indeed ‘days of darkness and gloom…clouds and thick darkness’ are part of our earthly experience. While we might be lulled into a sense of false security, especially here in America, that is not guaranteed. Travail may come. And Lent is also about remembering that ‘we are dust and to dust we shall return…’ But the Psalm reminds us, ‘He redeems our life from the grave and crowns us with mercy and loving-kindness.’ But only if we know God. Which is why that first line is important. ‘Whenever you pray, go into your room, and shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret.’ If we don’t know God, we don’t know God’s salvation.

Which is why Lent is so important. Lent symbolizes Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness when he fasted and the angels tended to him. It reminds us of the forty years in the desert of the Israelites. And it is our yearly time to stop, slow down, consider our relationship with God, and work to improve it. It is not about giving up or taking on, but rather, about a time to get to know God better and to contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation and what Jesus did on the Cross for our salvation.
Brother Ronald Rolheiser writes, ‘Lent invites us to stop eating, so to speak, whatever protects us from having to face the desert that is inside of us. It invites us to feel our smallness, to feel our vulnerability, to feel our fears, and to open ourselves to the chaos of the desert so that we can finally give the angels a chance to feed us.’

So how do we do that? What do we do? It depends on you and on what you discern in prayer to be your Lenten discipline. Last week I gave a couple of tips for finding ways to pray in small snatches throughout the day. Perhaps that is your Lenten path this year. Certainly that is about knowing God better. Possibly Lent is indeed giving something up: tobacco, or alcohol, or chocolate, or meat, or lunch. But any giving up is to be combined with prayer, and with giving. As I was instructed years ago by a great priest and mentor, fasting is always accompanied by prayer! When I learned that, fasting became a very different experience for me. That little prayer when hunger pains strike, ‘Lord, fill up my emptiness with your presence’ (praying in little snatches through the day!) is an amazing salve to hunger pains, and a true spiritual lift. And giving up, likewise should be accompanied by giving. if you fast a meal, perhaps that money should go to feed someone hungrier than you. Last year I endeavored to, everyday in Lent, call a friend that I had not been in touch with in some time. It was wonderful and uplifting out of the blue to talk and catch up. It was uplifting to me and to them. I gave up some of my time to others. But I was the one fed. I have to confess that I missed a lot of days. And endeavor to do it again this year, more consistently, and to combine prayer for those I am calling, after I learn their life situations.

I don’t know what your Lenten discipline might be this year. But I urge you to adopt one that is a combination of giving up and taking on. But more importantly, to make Lent a time of knowing God better in prayer. Go into your room and shut the door and pray to our Father in secret. These admonitions and disciplines in Lent are only tools to shift our focus from our earthly lives to our relationship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A day of darkness and gloom may indeed be coming, but He, Jesus the Christ, redeems our life from the grave. That is the message of Easter, but it is difficult to see if we haven’t been in the desert of Lent. I wish you a blessed Lent.

Amen.

"Calling out the spirits" - A sermon for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, February 1, 2015

Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!"

It begins with calling out the spirits. So it was with Jesus. So it is with us.

Jesus always put first things first. And in Mark’s Gospel, this morning’s story of Jesus casting out the unclean spirit in the synagogue at Capernaum is the very first thing he did after calling the disciples.

Jesus doesn’t start by going out into the world. Jesus starts at home with his community of faith. Jesus, a Jew, looks in the mirror first – looks at the synagogue – and names its own uncleanness, its own dysfunction, its own evil, before going out into the world to name it there.

Naming unclean spirits is not about creating one more us vs. them, not about dividing a community into good people and evil people or picking a few scapegoats to self-righteously cast out. For Jesus and for us, naming unclean spirits is about calling out behavior and ways of being that hold us captive. About naming the ways we act and the systems in which we participate that keep us fully from becoming the Body of Christ.

Naming and casting out unclean spirits is about renouncing ways of life that divide, corrupt and destroy, and instead, putting our whole trust in Jesus and following his example in living lives of bold truth-telling, deep integrity, and radical hospitality and love.

What Jesus tells us by putting first things first and marching right into the synagogue and calling out the spirits is that unless we first name and cast out the spirits in our own community, we will never be able to be the church in the world in ways that will bring in the realm of God on earth as it is in heaven.

This work is Job One. And like everything about following Jesus, we never do it alone. Like everything else about following Jesus, we name the unclean spirits and cast them out together, looking each other deeply in the eyes all the way.

That’s why even though we Episcopalians don’t like to talk about evil and darkness because it sounds so superstitious, we do talk about it in one of the most important places – in our baptismal service.

Everyone pick up the red prayer books and turn to the bottom of page 302. This is a part of our baptismal service we don’t spend a lot of time on, and yet it’s one of the most ancient and important pieces of becoming part of the Body of Christ.

It’s called the renunciations and the adhesions. Six questions we answer before we are baptized: Three ways of life we reject and three sacred vows we make. It is the liturgical embodiment of what Jesus did in the synagogue at Capernaum. It is us gathering as the community of the faithful, naming the unclean spirits in our lives and in our life and saying “we are not going to be about this” … and then turning to Jesus and saying “we belong to you.”

Now take a deep breath. And let it out. And let’s answer these questions together:

Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?
I renounce them.

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
I do.

Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
I do.

Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?
I do.

I asked us to take a deep breath before answering these questions, because if these renunciations and adhesions don’t make us tremble, then we simply aren’t paying attention. In making these promises, we are staring the worst of the world right in the face and rejecting it. Even more, we are putting our whole trust in the grace and love of one who has shown us that his grace and love leads directly to the cross.

If you want to know who we are as a Christian community, it doesn’t get any plainer than this. We are a community that openly names and calls out the forces of evil, the powers which corrupt and destroy and the temptations that draw us from the love of God. And we do not do it in fear but trusting that because of the surpassing grace and love of Jesus Christ those powers which for years have silenced us in fear will they themselves be silenced and driven out.

And this morning, Jesus reminds us that first things are indeed first. That it begins with calling out the spirits. With letting them know they cannot hide from us. With naming them without fear. With trusting in the power of Jesus Christ to strip them of their power and cast them out.

This morning, Jesus reminds us it begins with calling out the spirits. And that means it begins with us. Right here. Right now. That is the challenge before us. And it means even as we go out into the world to transform the world’s ills, we cannot neglect the work we have to do right here in our community.

And so, together, with Jesus by our side, we have some hard looks to give ourselves and some hard questions to ask ourselves.

As we offer space for AA meetings and as we lobby for greater services for people struggling with addiction and mental illness in the St. Louis region, do we look at our own history of alcoholism and addiction both in this Cathedral community and in our diocese? Do we see the ways we still live into the addictive family system model of “Don’t talk. Don’t trust. Don’t feel.” Do we renounce that spirit and call it out with a renewed commitment to health in our relationships and in our communication with one another?

As we go out into the streets and proclaim that Black Lives Matter, as we demand justice and equality of opportunity for all regardless of race or class, do we look at the unwritten rules of the Nave of Christ Church Cathedral? The customs of where we sit when we’re in this room that perpetuate division in this community. That those of us of color tend to sit toward the back and those of us struggling with homelessness tend to sit on the margins? Do we renounce that spirit and call it out with a renewed commitment to dismantling our own “us vs. them” thinking and deepening our relationships with those who are most different from us?

As we go into the courtrooms and lobby our legislators to strike down laws that treat those of us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender as less than full members of society, do we look at how welcoming we truly are of people who are new and different to this Cathedral community once we get beyond the handshake and smile at the door. Do we hear that often the experience of people new to this Cathedral community is that we are initially warm and welcoming but then only talk to the people we already know? Do we renounce that spirit and call it out with a renewed commitment to treating the stranger as Christ and incorporating all people into the life of this community?

Addiction. Segregation. Inhospitality. These are powerful spirits to name. And undoubtably there are others. They are certainly not unique to Christ Church Cathedral but we can be unique in our resolve to face them head-on just as Jesus did that day in Capernaum.

And just as with this morning’s Gospel, we can be sure they will not go quietly. Like the man in the synagogue in Capernaum, they have been living among us for so long they have become our familiar friend. We will be tempted to deny that these spirits are among us because their existence does not fit with the image we have of ourselves. And as a body, we will convulse and cry out as we allow Jesus to name these spirits and drive them from us, so accustomed and even dependent have we become on them in our life together.

But that’s not all. There’s one thing more. For, just as with this morning’s Gospel, as we do this. As we with courage show ourselves and the world that we are not afraid to name the spirits in our community that corrupt, destroy and draw us from the love of God. As we with courage name them, look them full in the face and renounce them and instead embrace the bold truth-telling, deep integrity and radical hospitality of Jesus Christ. As we do this just as in Capernaum and the surrounding region of Galilee, the people will look at us with amazement. They will look at us and see Jesus. And there is no greater purpose for us than that.

And the good news is, with God’s help, we can do it. We can do it in here and we can do it out there. The spirits of addiction, segregation and inhospitality are strong. We have grown accustomed to living with them to the point where it is easy for us to deny they are even there. But they are nothing compared to the goodness of this Cathedral community. They are nothing compared to the past and present history of love in this Cathedral community. And most of all, they are nothing compared to the power of Jesus Christ.

The people marveled at Jesus because Jesus spoke with authority. And Jesus gives that authority to us. We have authority when, turning to Jesus and accepting him as our savior, we don’t just talk the talk but walk the walk. We have authority when, putting our whole trust in Christ’s grace and love, our integrity is beyond question and our motives are beyond reproach. We have authority when following and obeying Jesus as our Lord, in deep love for one another we simply name what we see, confess our own sin and proclaim our trust in the healing power of Christ to amend our lives.

And as it did with Jesus, it begins with calling out the spirits. With letting them know they cannot hide from us. With naming them without fear. With trusting in the power of Jesus Christ to strip them of their power and cast them out.

First things first. It begins with calling out the spirits. And that means it begins with us. AMEN.

Thoughts about transformation -- Sr. Warden's Remarks from the Annual Meeting Eucharist

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Sr. Warden Lorraine Kee addresses
the Annual Meeting Eucharist

I’ve been thinking a lot about transformation lately. I’m talking about Transformation, or change, in first, my personal and work life, and second, in the life of this Cathedral.

I’ll talk first about transformation in my personal and work life.

I earn a living as a digital project manager. I help people at SSM Health by maintaining and building their websites. And I spent all day yesterday at UMSL in a graduate-level class on search engine marketing.

I’m taking the class because I love learning. Learning is fun and liberating and empowering.

But, beyond that, I’m taking the class so I can survive and even thrive a few more years in the workplace. The talented, younger folks I work with are “digital natives.” They grew up in a world where computers were in their homes from the get-go. Posting in Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr come naturally to them.

I’m what they call a “digital immigrant” – someone who didn’t grow up like my colleagues. I can remember mobile phones the size of a shoe! I finally got rid of my landline phone two years ago. I have to keep up with the digital natives if I am to keep my standard of living for a few more years.

I don’t mind telling you I had mixed emotions sitting in that class for eight hours Saturday.

I felt:

Satisfaction. I was familiar with most of the material.

Exhilaration. I was energized at learning new things.

Fear. The teacher was moving through the material at a very fast pace, leaving me little time to process what he was saying. (You process a little slower as you get older or maybe it’s that I have much more information to process.)

I felt vulnerable. I’m 55 years old. Why was I putting myself through this? What if I failed?

So what does all that have to do with the Cathedral?

I feel many of those same emotions as I think about the future of our faith community and the transformation we are now facing.

I feel:

Satisfaction. I love this place. I love the familiar and the new faces. Our sacred space. That we are engaged with the world around us. That justice has returned, with renewed energy, to our conversations.

Exhilaration. I leave this place each Sunday energized and ready to meet the world, with everything it throws at me, head-on.

Frustrated. No matter how well we did with fundraising, we fell short of our goals for participation and dollars.

I feel fear and vulnerability. What will become of our faith community, our building, our downtown neighbors, our hopes and dreams?

When in doubt, I pray.

I pray for people, for vision. What and who is God calling us to be? Those thoughts ran through my head last Thursday when our Chapter, for the second straight meeting, was wrestling with that question during our budget deliberations. We are all trying to figure that out.

I’d like to share part of a reading from Romans that spoke to me last week.

From Romans:

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers,[a] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.[b] 2 Do not be conformed to this world,[c] but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.[d]”

The reading leaves me, after all the events of this week, feeling another emotion.

Mainly I feel Hope, at the opportunity for us all to transform this community and to be transformed by it. On behalf of the Chapter, I’d like to ask you to join us on this journey of transformation.

Along the way, we may alternately feel frustrated and exhilarated.

Still, for me, and I hope for you, our journey forward can be about hope. About not just surviving but thriving. About not fearing but forging ahead and imagining and living the possibilities.

Thank you for this opportunity to serve you. I will do my best as your senior warden.

"Follow Jesus -- or just keep fishing." -- A sermon for the 195th Annual Meeting of Christ Church Cathedral

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral at the Annual Meeting Eucharist on Sunday, January 18. 

The Eucharistic Annual Meeting of Christ Church Cathedral

Jesus found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”

Life is about choices. Most of them we don’t notice. We make them without thinking.

Paper or plastic?

Do you want fries with that?

Get up or stay in bed for just five more minutes.

And then there are choices that mean everything. Crossroads where we are asked to choose our future in a way that will impact us forever.

Do I take the job?

Will you marry me?

Follow Jesus … or just keep fishing?

Philip was from Bethsaida, a small city on the sea of Galilee. Tradition holds like so many of Jesus’ other disciples he was a fisherman. We can imagine he made a good living, had fishermen friends like Andrew and Peter. Life might not have been great but it probably wasn’t bad.

Then along came Jesus. And Jesus said, “Follow me.” And Philip had a choice.

Follow Jesus … or just keep fishing.

This is the annual meeting of Christ Church Cathedral. And part of the reason we have this is that Christ Church Cathedral is a nonprofit organization — boy ain’t that the truth — and every nonprofit has to have an annual meeting and election of board officers and other business conducted.

The church as an institution functions in that not-for-profit world. It’s a world of bylaws and audits, of best business practices and tax exemptions. And these are all important things and they provide a structure for our continuing existence. But they should never be confused with the reason for that existence.

We are not just another nonprofit. We are the Church. We are the body of Christ. And that means we do things differently. We have a different call. And if we are following that call, sometimes people will look at us and think we’re kind of crazy.

We are the Church. The Body of Christ. We are Philip and Nathanael. And that means we have a choice:

Follow Jesus … or just keep fishing.

Following Jesus is the hardest and most wonderful thing we will ever do. That’s why we are never followers of Jesus by ourselves. That’s why as soon as Philip said yes to Jesus, the first thing he did was to go get Nathanael. Because following Jesus is too hard to do alone and it is too wonderful to keep to ourselves.

Following Jesus is hard, and following Jesus is messy. And what we learn from our Gospel this morning is that following Jesus requires three things from us:

It requires looking each other in the eye.

Jesus saw Nathanael. Nathanael saw Jesus.

It requires having the real conversation.

Jesus spoke his truth about and to Nathanael. Nathanael spoke his truth about and to Jesus.

It requires making a choice – a choice to follow Jesus and not to just keep fishing.

We're in a really messy time here at Christ Church Cathedral, and I am so deeply grateful for it. Because this messiness comes out of our looking each other in the eye and having the real conversation. This messiness comes out of our deepest desire to follow Jesus and not to just keep fishing.

For this past year we have been trying to live into a mission statement that says “We seek a deeper relationship with God and each other in Jesus Christ.”

When we are bold enough to say “we seek a deeper relationship with God and each other in Jesus Christ.” When we are bold enough to choose to follow Jesus and not to just keep fishing, we should tremble. We should tremble in anticipation of the wonder. And we should tremble in anticipation of the mess. And we have had plenty of cause to tremble this year, and we have plenty of cause to tremble right now. And all I can say is thank God. Because it means we are looking each other in the eye. It means we are having the real conversation. And it means that we are at least trying faithfully to follow Jesus and not to just keep fishing.

By now, I hope you have heard about our financial situation. Last Thursday, Chapter approved a budget with a $51,000 deficit for 2015. And that deficit is after we accounted for the income from Lafayette Preparatory Academy. That deficit is after we committed to use the last of the money designated for program and staff from the Pope Bequest. And it was not a conversation where your chapter agreed on what the most faithful thing was to do. It was a group of faithful people who had some differing opinions about what faithful looked like. And again to that, I say “Thank God.”

Now this deficit is not new. We have been running deficits for the past decade and much longer than that. And this year we looked each other in the eye, and we had the real conversation. And we are still having it.

The real conversation is naming that the congregation of Christ Church Cathedral will never be able to sustain these buildings by ourselves. The real conversation is naming that wonderful things are happening here, that we are growing in new faces and vitality and impact in the community, and also that some people have left and some are unhappy with how things are changing. The real conversation is naming that even the wonderful combination of living our mission and getting income from Lafayette Preparatory Academy is not even a short-term answer to our financial situation.

I wrote you a week ago quoting my friend Bishop Greg Rickel when he said “Never let an economic crisis go to waste.” The real conversation we are having right now is that this economic crisis is not new, but what is new is we will seize the moment and not waste it. What is new is that we will look each other in the eye, we will have the real conversation and we will claim this moment as an opportunity to follow Jesus and not to just keep fishing.

And so, this week at the unanimous request of Chapter, your incoming senior warden Lorraine Kee and I sat down with Bishop Smith and Canon to the Ordinary Dan Smith and began a process of exploration of how we might work together to while keeping this space as our worship home, liberate us as a congregation from the burden of caring for these grand old buildings. And at the same time explore how these buildings might be an opportunity to do what Cathedrals do … to be a catalyst for mission that involves not just ourselves but the diocese, downtown and the entire St. Louis region. To explore how we can bring everyone together in a vision for our buildings and create something here that all will support because it is for the good not just of one congregation but for the common good of all.

How can we use this moment to follow Jesus and not to just keep fishing.

It is a process that will take several years, and the Bishop is absolutely supportive of it. It will take lots of looking one another in the eye and having the real conversation — not just in this congregation but in the diocese and throughout St. Louis. And in the meantime, we will have lots of real conversations. Real conversations like the ones we just had around our tables about where we see God moving in unexpected ways and what things just aren’t working and helpful for us anymore. Real conversations about the loss we are experiencing and how that feels to us. Real conversations like the one we will have at Chapter next month about how we can faithfully deal with the deficit budget we have passed and best use the resources dedicated to the Gospel mission of Christ Church Cathedral to follow Jesus while this whole exploration process is going on.

And because real conversations are hard and we don’t have a lot of practice in having them well, we’re bringing in a wonderful teacher, the Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, to spend an afternoon with us on Saturday, Feb. 28 to give us some skills in how to look each other in the eye and have these fierce conversations well. There is information about this in your packet and I hope you will make every effort to be here.

I have never and I will never be anything but honest with you. And so I need to stand here and tell you that there are no guarantees any of this exploration will succeed in securing our financial future. And frankly, that’s a big clue that we’re being faithful. Because following Jesus is never about security in anything but the security of his love for us. That we know we will never lose. But as for the rest, all we have to do is look at our history from Jerusalem to Selma and even into today to know that sometimes the end of our faithfulness is death. Philip ended up martyred, crucified upside down. Dr. King ended up slain by an assassin’s bullet. But we remember them not as failures because they died but as saints because of how they lived.

Because they made the choice to follow Jesus … and not to just keep fishing.

Our job is not to survive. Our job is to be faithful. If survival happens, it happens. Our call is to follow Jesus. To live extraordinary lives. To seek a deeper relationship with God and each other in Jesus Christ. To celebrate the sacraments faithfully. Proclaim the Gospel boldly. Embrace diversity joyfully and serve all passionately as a Cathedral.

That is what we have done this past year and what we will do this year and in years to come. Because we are Christ Church Cathedral. We are not people of fear. We are not people of conventional wisdom. We are not people resigned to the way things always have been.

We will look each other in the eye. We will have the real conversation. We will choose to follow Jesus and not to just keep fishing.

And we will do it not just in here but we are going to do it out in the world. We are at an incredible moment in history. We all know it. And it is happening right here in St. Louis. The call of Jesus is challenging us in this hour and is asking us to stand up and be counted. To stand up and raise our voice. To stand up especially as some are telling us to sit down.

At this moment in history, Jesus is challenging us to stop just fishing and follow him into the midst of all the systems that keep people in poverty and homelessness and dependence on emergency services. To follow Jesus and to stand up and say no more.

At this moment in history, Jesus is challenging us to stop just fishing and follow him into the streets where women who have been abused since they were little girls are bought and sold and into every corner of our society where women are objectified and commodified. To follow Jesus and to stand up and say no more.

At this moment in history, Jesus is challenging us to stop just fishing and follow him into the courtrooms and leasing offices and places of employment where gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender images of God are treated as less than that image just because how they were created makes some people uncomfortable. To follow Jesus and to stand up and say no more.

And yes, at this moment in history, Jesus is challenging us to stop just fishing and follow him into the streets of Ferguson and all over this city with the young nonviolent leaders this new civil rights movement is raising up, to follow him into the boardrooms and into the schools and everywhere that microaggressions happen and decisions are made that intentionally or not say that black lives matter less or not at all. To follow Jesus and to stand up and say no more.

The disciples had a choice. Were they going to answer the call of Jesus? Or were they going to just keep fishing. The easy choice is to just keep fishing. It’s good work. It keeps you alive. It’s not risky. And no one is going to criticize you because you really haven’t stepped out and done anything. The easy choice is to just keep fishing. Because it’s conventional wisdom. It’s what everyone does.

The hard choice is to say “We’re going to follow Jesus.” The hard choice is to stop fishing and follow -- not knowing where Jesus is going to lead. But history is not written, the world is not changed, and liberation and salvation do not come to those who just keep fishing.

Life is about choices. Most of them we don’t notice. We make them without thinking. And then there are choices that mean everything. Crossroads where we are asked to choose our future in a way that will impact us forever.

We are at that crossroads now. And we are standing up. Because we are Christ Church Cathedral. We are not people of fear. We are not people of conventional wisdom. We are not people resigned to the way things always have been.

We are Christ Church Cathedral. And we are Christians. We are disciples of Jesus Christ. And we have made our choice.

We choose to look each other in the eye.

We choose to have the real conversation.

We choose to follow Jesus and not to just keep fishing.

Amen.