Dive for our keyboards or fall to our knees?

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Sometimes this week, I've felt like the only person who hasn't issued an missive or tweeted or posted a Facebook opinion about the death of Osama bin Laden.

It's certainly not for lack of opportunity or invitation or even time.

Like a lot of people, I first found out about it on Facebook when a whole bunch of status updates started announcing it. So I climbed into bed and turned on CNN and watched it all unfold.

And then it began. The tidal wave of reaction ... and reaction to the reaction ... and so on and so on. There were the people celebrating his death ... and there were the people chastising the celebrating ... and people chastising the chastisers ... and theologians or all stripes weighing in with incredible certainty in their tones ... and people saying exactly what this meant to the ridiculously named "war on terror" and what it meant for Obama's presidency ... and so on and so on and so on.  Twitter reported that "more than 4,000 tweets per second were being sent at the beginning and end of Obama's speech."

The next morning, the Gen X clergy listerv I'm on had lots of reaction along this line. The one I was waiting for and that particularly stuck with me was my friend Vicki's ... because not only is Vicki a fairly conservative Republican (different from me!) but, more to the point, her fiancee was on the Pan Am jet that was brought down by terrorists over Lockerbie. What I got from her message made a lot of sense to me -- "don't tell people what they *should* be feeling or how they *should* be reacting."

I began to read the missives that started being issued by my fellow cathedral deans. And I began to feel like,  as the new Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, I should write something myself. But I couldn't. Well, that's not right. I could have. But it just didn't feel right. And part of it was not only that I didn't have a pat and easily tweetable response, but every time I thought of trying to write something I would wonder "how is this not just adding to the noise?" And the certainty of everyone's statements was making me feel really uncomfortable and yet I felt this pressure to weigh in ... a pressure that I pretty much have resisted.

So five days later, I'm just beginning to pray and sort through where I am on bin Laden's death. And it's not full of certainty. And it's not simple and easy to tweet.

I am sad.

I am sad at any death. I am sad when violence is seen as an appropriate solution. I am sad at the brokenness and sin that leads to people like bin Laden doing the things they do and that lead us to using violence against him. I am sad that the people who are his victims in some ways have wounds reopened by this. I am sad that this is leading to a new round of American exceptionalism. I am sad at the resurgence of blood-lust that events like this send into the streets, calling us not up to the better angels of our human nature but to our baser, animal instincts. I am sad that flashpoint events like this draw us like moth to flame to expressions of easy, cheap patriotism that not only avoid but incriminate any who try to take an honest look at the real reasons why others in the world might look at us with fear and loathing. I am sad wondering what my friend Mohammed in Iraq is thinking of us right now and if his own loathing of America is being stoked even further.

I am empathetic.

I am empathetic for the people who have suffered much at bin Laden's hands and the joy and relief they feel. I feel for the people who have been hit hard by any number of other things -- the economy, racial discrimination, etc. -- who are using this as an opportunity to have some kind of celebration about something, to "feel good again." I have empathy and intellectual respect for the pragmatists who state with certainty that just as Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right to work for Hitler's death, there is justice and even greater good in murder sometimes. I see what they are saying and understand why they might feel as they do ... even if I don't believe or feel the same way myself.

I am relieved and hopeful.

I am relieved that what seemed like an interminable manhunt for him can finally end. I am hopeful that the President will take this opportunity to draw down our military presence in Afghanistan. I am hopeful that we can use this to move past the 9/11 mentality that has turned all Muslims into suspects and enemies in the eyes of many. I am hopeful that Jon Stewart is right that this, combined with the relatively peaceful revolutions in places like Egypt, will signal that groups like Al Qaeda are done and that the new voice of change in the Arab world is the voices of the young people in the streets calling for democracy.

I am resigned and cynical.

I am hearing the words of Gandhi that "an eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind" and that this will just be one more chapter in the seemingly endless cycle of violence. I am readying myself for disappointment that the President's real instinct for peace will be shouted out by the tremendous monetary interests invested in war that he believes he needs to please to get re-elected. I am doubtful of our own ability to learn from history and not continually repeat it.

And no, I'm not trying to be politic and give everyone something to agree with me on. I am genuinely all these things and probably many more. Even though it is not good messaging or marketing or what some people would view as "strong leadership," I am genuinely filled with conflicting emotions and it seems best just to be honest about that. If it matters to you at all where I am with all this, well, this is where I am right now. I don't know where I will be tomorrow or next week or next month. But in the eyes of the world, I don't think that matters ... because we will have moved on to the next shiny thing. And people will be reacting to it ... and reacting to the reactions ... and so on ... and so on.

So more than anything, I am wondering what has become of reflection instead of reaction. As someone who wants to proclaim the Gospel, do I have to conform to the speed-of-light pace of Facebook, Twitter and CNN? Do I have to come up with a 140-character or less opinion that I can broadcast immediately while we still have people's attention? Is that just part of being a dean ... or a priest ... or a Christian ... today?

Maybe it is. But I don't think so. Maybe the witness we have every time a major event happens isn't diving to our keyboards but falling to our knees. Maybe it isn't just being the faith-based version of the reactive cable news pundits but inviting people to join us in a place where we can "be still and know that God is God." Where we remember that "God's ways are not our ways and God's thoughts our thoughts." Where with Elijah, we realize we don't find God in the whirlwind and the fire and the noise but in the "sound of sheer silence."

I think about our life together at Christ Church Cathedral. We are a diverse group of diverse opinions and backgrounds and experiences. I get challenged by different views pretty much daily and I'm pretty much at my worst when I react immediately to them. But I find when I turn them over in my heart and mind. When I take them to God in prayer. When I probe deeper in conversation. When I reach for a wisdom that is greater than our own and look for God in that "sound of sheer silence" ... I begin to change. I begin to let God change me through you. I begin to become something different. And I think that something different is more like the Body of Christ.

There are some things -- many things -- I have no problem giving an instant reaction to, for good or for ill. I don't need to stop and think about whether women being used in prostitution is bad or whether a lunatic planning to burn a Koran is something that should be condemned. But often .. even most of the time ... the world is more complex and interesting and nuanced than that. And that's where the world really needs to stop and turn away from the whirlwind, flame and noise and listen for the still, small voice of the divine. And that's where I pray we can take the time to fall to our knees, listen deeply, love deeply, and reach for the wisdom to channel it.

in Christ's love,

Mike+

"The Peace of Christ be always with you." -- a sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, May 1, 2011

The peace of Christ be always with you.

And also with you.

“The peace of Christ be always with you.”

And also with you.

“The peace of Christ be always with you.”

And also with you.

It's pretty much a reflex, isn't it. An automatic response. I think it's just human nature. Part of how we're wired. We can take the most profound things and through sheer repetition, turn them into just this reflex response.

When we leave the house each morning:

"Love you."

 "Love you, too!"

And we don't even think about how much it means until that spouse or partner is gone or the child has grown and has moved away.

“Take care of yourself”

"You, too."

It’s just a throwaway line until someone we love is in an accident or is diagnosed with cancer ... And then we realize how much we really mean it. You are precious and fragile. Take care of yourself. Please!

And then there’s this one: The peace of Christ be always with you.

And also with you.

It’s easy for it to turn into the churchy version of the captain turning off the fasten seatbelt sign. Bing. You are now free to move about the church - until we begin our final descent into the Eucharist.

Except ... somehow not here. Here at Christ Chirch Cathedral we have an instinctual sense that this isn’t some throwaway line. There is an energy and urgency and a joy to the peace here. And that’s how it should be. Because the peace is not just a halftime whistle. This morning we hear Jesus say, “Peace be with you.” three times. And it's not just his way of saying, "Hey ... Whassup?" He’s letting the disciples and us know what kind of community we are supposed to be with one another.

You see, the word for peace here is the Greek word eirene. Eirene is better translated as harmony. And it’s not just just an absence of conflict but something incredibly active. You gotta work for it. Like singers in a choir who have to listen deeply to each other so their different voices can blend into beauty, the peace of Christ happens when we listen and work together to create something far more beautiful than we could on our own or just with voices in our own range.

The peace of Christ isn’t just passively tolerating each other in that false virtue of “you can be who you are … over there … and I can be who I am … over here … and we’ll just stay out of each other’s way.” No, it’s when we actively seek out those who are most different from us, those whom we have the most conflict with, and get right in each other’s faces and say “I am not letting you go. Because God has put something in you that I need to be whole. And God has put something in me that you need to be whole.”

The peace of Christ is hard. It’s hard because it goes against this deep instinct we have to avoid conflict by gravitating just toward people who are like us. After all, it’s so much easier that way. We imagine everyone can be happy and nobody gets hurt and God knows it’s nowhere near as messy when we all basically agree and nobody makes anyone else too uncomfortable. And certainly in a world where we all have enough challenges without seeking out new ones, that kind of thinking and living can be really, really tempting.

But that kind of peace, the kind that is just a segregated absence of conflict is not the peace of Christ but a false peace. And we have seen what it does.

It is the same false peace that led to nearly a century of Jim Crow and so-called “separate but equal” laws in this country. That led to the formation of churches like All Saints in North St. Louis when people of color came to churches like Christ Church Cathedral and were told, “wouldn’t you be more comfortable over at your own church over there.” When it was never the comfort of the black people that was the issue. It is the quest for the same false peace that gay and lesbian people still hear in many other churches of “you’d probably be happier at the Cathedral or Trinity.” It is the quest for the same false peace that leads us in our worst moments to throw nasty looks at the two-year old who is who is just being a fidgety two year old in worship or to sigh and shift away from the person who has spent the night on the street. This makes me uncomfortable, so it's best for everyone if we just keep our distance from each other.

But that peace is not the peace of Christ. And we know it. We know it because almost all of us have chosen every Sunday to drive past churches that are closer and more homogenous that this one to come to a place where we really are a glorious mixed bag of different ages, races, tastes, classes, sexual orientations. You name it, we’ve got it, we ARE it! But yet even though we have chosen to be here, we are still so subject to the temptation to reach for the false peace. To even in this diverse community gravitate toward just being with a subset that is most like us. To segregate into interest groups and to lobby against one another to get the ministry or the liturgy that most suits us.

And left to ourselves, I wouldn’t expect anything different. It’s human nature. But as I’ve said so many times before, Jesus meets and loves us as we are, but Jesus never leaves us the way we are. Jesus didn’t go into that locked room where the disciples were huddled together in their little like-minded subset and say, “It’s OK, I love you. You can just stay here and I’ll drop in and visit once a week.” No, he said, “peace be with you. As the father has sent me, so I send you.” Go out into the world that is different and challenging and risky, and seek out the gift that otherness has for you and give the gift your otherness has for them. Create the harmony that only comes when very different voices are blended together.

I am convinced that is Christ’s dream for us as his beloved community. It is the peace of Christ. And it is exquisite harmony that comes from the hard work of loving, listening and being deeply engaged with one another. It is coming together in all our blessed difference to embrace the holy habits that shape us as Christians – the habits of prayer, worship, study, service and stewardship. It is coming together in all our blessed difference to lay down our lives and agendas for one another and for the world.

It is why we have a group now working on tracing our history with race at Christ Church Cathedral. It is why we have an oral history project group forming to learn to capture and tell the stories and history of the diverse peoples of this Cathedral. And it is a big part of why, three weeks ago, I announced that I was seriously considering consolidating our Sunday morning from three services to two, and indeed starting on Pentecost, June 12, that is what we are going to do.

I had someone say to me, “I just don’t see what problem you are trying to solve with this!” And if you feel that way, I really get it. Because on one level, everything might seem just fine the way it is. There are ways that our current Sunday structure keeps us in peace, blissfully separate but equal, able to spread out and choose not to be as challenged or shaped by each other’s “otherness.”

But it in the end that is a false peace that is not worthy of us. In the end, that is a song that will fall far short of the harmony we are capable of singing. And so the past three weeks I have tried to model what I believe Christ calls us all to do. I have listened deeply to you. I have prayed A LOT. And I have set a course that I believe is the best for embracing not the peace of the absence of conflict but the Peace of Christ. To come together and most fully become the diverse and challenging and beloved community that Christ dreams for us

Starting June 12, at 8 o’clock, there will be a Rite I, said service in Bofinger Chapel. At 10 o’clock, there will be a Rite II, choral Eucharist in the Nave, with a separate liturgy of the Word offered in the chapel for children with everyone back together for the Eucharist. And beginning the fall, in between the two, from 9 – 9:45, there will be opportunities for all of us of all ages to participate in Christian education.

For those of you who have been with us the past two summers this will be very familiar and thats no accident. We've discovered that coming together like this works. Its just that when fall comes, this year, we're going to keep on doing it.

But there will be some new things. The 8 o’clock service is being moved because what we are doing in worship is coming together as a community. And where we are a community of 25, we can come together better in a space that seats 40-50 rather than one that seats 350-400. If that service outgrows the chapel and gets to the point where we are regularly reaching 80% capacity, we’ll move it back to a space that fits it better.

You spoke with a loud voice that you far preferred a later start time than I had proposed … with Christian education in between the two services. That’s great, and I’m happy to make that shift. But coming together not just for worship but for Christian education – for learning about our faith, learning about how we can support each other in those holy habits of prayer, worship, study, service and stewardship. That’s not some optional extra but a huge part of us learning how to live our faith … how coming here on Sunday becomes not just a quick hit of prayer and worship but an ongoing experience that changes who we are.

Amy, our Sunday School teachers and Nancy Kinney and the Adult formation committee are committed to providing excellent chances to come together learn from one another and grow in our faith. With this new structure for Sundays there should be no barriers for anyone participating. And it's important for us to. And so I look forward to seeing you there.

Finally, the Chapter and many of you spoke loudly about three things to do with our new principal service, which will be at 10 am.

1) That the liturgical style and music build on the strength of our wonderful music program.
2) That we be open to a greater diversity in music that reflects the diversity of this community.
3) That we more greatly embrace the presence of children and youth in church, including additional "Rules of Respect" for how children should be welcomed.

I loved hearing this from you because not only are these things possible and exciting, they are about just this kind of coming together Jesus challenges us to embrace when he stands among us and says “Peace be with you!” How can we take our diverse strengths and talents and let God use us and them to create expressions of deep beauty.

I am entrusting Amy to work with Pat Partridge and others to craft a liturgy that embraces all of this. Not some lowest common denominator worship that tries to please everyone and ends up muting our best gifts but an expression of worship that helps us look deeply and fully at one another – particularly at those of us who are most challenging to each other – and to offer the best of that to God.

Be not afraid! We’re going to have fun figuring this out. And we’re going to learn from each other and we’re going to learn about one another. And yeah, it’s going to be messy at times, and yeah, there is going to be conflict. But that’s OK. Because there is no conflict we can’t love each other through, no height of harmony we cannot attain if we remember to keep coming together each week and seeking out those whose otherness is our greatest gift.

If we remember to keep doing what we do best … looking each other in the eyes and joyfully embracing each other with the words that are among Christ’s greatest gifts to us.

The peace of Christ be always with you.

"Something touched me deep inside..." -- a sermon for Lent 5A

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(Played over the speakers from Don McLean’s version)

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance.
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for awhile
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

(The congregation sings along together)

So bye, bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry
And them good ole’ boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing “This’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die.”

In the name of the three that I admire most: The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost – Amen.

Jesus wept.

For some of us, that’s not as easy as it sounds.

One of the common strands that binds White America together, is that we are absolutely awful at weeping. I don’t know why that is, but it is. Maybe it’s something handed down from our ancestors … people like my British grandparents. When my uncle Jack’s plane was shot down and he was killed in World War II, they did the British thing. They quietly shut the door of his bedroom and just didn’t speak of it. And Jack’s grave went unvisited until my father made his own solitary trek there 50 years later.

And really, it is a White America phenomenon. Broadly speaking – and of course there are exceptions – this isn’t a malady that effects Black America. I don’t know if that’s because those of us who are black have had so much more to grieve about as a people, so much more raw pain that there doesn’t seem to be much point in holding it back. Or maybe there’s a piece of ancestral legacy, too.

But America’s black roots give us a whole musical tradition of deep pain -- the blues. John Lee Hooker. Elmore James. Bessie Smith. I think that’s where the phrase “they could really wail!” must come from, because that’s what the blues does … it reaches deep into the heart of pain and just lets it pour on out. Wails like a mother after her child. And just like the brightness of Easter has everything to do with the darkness of Good Friday. Gospel music draws its glorious power not from some naïve and Pollyanna hope, but from truly singing the blues, truly walking through that valley of the shadow of death and there finding God is there to comfort.

When John’s Gospel tells us “Jesus wept,” White America gets uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that the largely white scholars who gave us the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible softened the language to “Jesus began to weep.” Like somehow he just started but don’t worry, he didn’t really cry. White America hears “Jesus wept” and gets nervous. That doesn’t sound like a strong leader. That doesn’t sound like something I’d be comfortable doing in front of a big group of people.

Black America hears “Jesus wept” and says, “Yep … that sounds about right to me.”

I think that’s why Don McLean’s American Pie has such a special and lasting place in White America. In many ways, it is White America’s national song of lament.
A lament sung by a people who confuse stoicism and silence with strength.

A lament sung by a people who tend to cry and tremble only when we’re alone and when no one else can see. Who instead just smile and turn away.

American Pie is a lament not so much for Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and the plane crash that took their lives, but a lament for the death of what seemed like a golden age of simplicity and innocence … at least for those of us who didn’t have to worry about being on the wrong side of the Jim Crow South.

And of course, we as the Episcopal Church have been shaped by that dominant White America culture. I was taught in seminary that funerals are supposed to be services of the resurrection … and that my job as a priest was to put on a white stole and talk about Easter, never mind if we hadn’t given ourselves a chance to really be in Good Friday … I guess that’s something we’re supposed to do somewhere else. At home. By ourselves. In private.

And yet … Jesus wept. Think about that for a second. It’s not that Jesus, of all people, is afraid of death or is somehow robbed of his faith in the face of death. I mean, he’s just finished saying “I am the resurrection and the life.” Saying “Hey, I wrote the book of love and I have faith in God above!” And yet with bad news on the doorstep, he couldn’t take one more step. Something touches him deep inside and he weeps for his friend who has died. He allows himself to be in that place of grief, to sing the blues, deeply, publicly … so much so that even the first reaction of the Jewish authorities who were reaching the crescendo of their persecution of him was to be moved themselves and say, “Wow. See how he loved him!”

John’s Gospel tells us “Jesus wept.” Perhaps the most powerful two words in scripture. But most of my experience of us doing the same thing in the church is when people come up to me and either apologize for their tears

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to cry”

or talk about how grateful they are that they didn’t, like they dodged some terrible bullet.

“Wow. That almost had me in tears there for a second.”

Man, that’s like us saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry something happened here that actually moved me ... that actually put me in touch with my pain in a way that has some integrity. Oh, I'm so sorry that something real happened here. In us. In me."

We’ve gotta get over that!

The story of the raising of Lazarus is a story of great hope, but the hope has its roots not in Jesus’ cry of “Lazarus, come out!” but in the tears he shed as he cried before that tomb. A Jesus who weeps is a Jesus who stands among us and tells us that weeping isn’t a sign of weakness or lack of faith. That weeping is about being deeply human and about being deeply moved by the genuinely hard and even tragic things that happen to all of us in life. About letting something touch us deep inside on those days when it feels like the music has died.

Someone once said that the difference between false faith and true faith is that false faith says, ‘Do not worry; that which you fear will not happen to you,’ and true faith says, ‘Do not fear, that which you fear may well happen to you, but it is nothing to fear.”

A Jesus who weeps tells us that life in Christ is not about a stiff upper lip and fearfully closing the door on those things that seem unbearably painful. On the contrary, life in Christ is about weeping openly and together in our grief, resisting the temptation to lash out at each other from it. Opting instead to carry each other through it. It’s about weeping long and hard and together when we need to, but it is not about weeping forever. Because even as we weep, it’s about trusting in a Christ who even as he weeps with us has the power to call life out of death and unbind what is bound.

Yes, as our funeral liturgy says, we are people of the resurrection. But that cannot happen unless we also embrace being people of the crucifixion. To name that which is dying and which has died. What or who has died for you? What or who is dying in your life right now? We need name those things not just in the silence of our hearts or alone in our room but together. To shed tears not just alone but together and to hold onto each other through the darkest of nights. But then, even as we still weep, to join with Jesus in singing a different end to the song than what the world would have us sing.

To respond when people hear us singing the blues that we actually do have some happy news, and not just smile and turn away. To invite people into this sacred store where we’ve heard the music years before and say yes, the music will still play.

And when in the streets the children scream, the lovers cry and the poets dream, we will proclaim another word has been spoken. That the church bells have not been broken. And that the three that we admire most … the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost … have not caught the last train for the coast, because this music has not died.

And because of that we -- black, white, comfortable with grief, uncomfortable with grief – all of us can weep and not be afraid. We can trust that no matter how dry the levee seems, there will never ever be a day the songs we sing in this place fade away. And we can trust that when the time comes, knowing it is never the end, we can stand with Jesus and sing, not without pain, but without fear and with great hope: “This’ll be the day that I die.”

AMEN.

Coming together on Sunday morning at Christ Church Cathedral

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The Very Rev. Mike Kinman delivered these remarks to all three services on Sunday, April 10.

I want to take just a minute or so to keep you informed of some changes I am looking at in our Sunday morning structure and what the next steps are in that process.

Ever since I arrived as your provost, I have been trying to make our worship life together the best it can be to praise God with excellence, to be inviting to people of all generations, and to promote the life and growth of this Cathedral community. We’ve tried several different things and we have learned from all of them. Over the past several months, it’s become more and more clear to me that the best way to get to that place of excellence, accessibility for all generations and growth, is to consolidate our Sunday morning schedule. So I am in a process of consulting with and listening to a broad range of people as I consider doing just that.

Right now, we are a community of 250 or so people on a Sunday spread across three services in a space that seats 350-400. That scatteredness not only encourages division in the congregation, it actually impedes the growth of any one service.

It also ignores the fact that one of our greatest strengths as a Cathedral community is just that – this Cathedral community. We are a church that LOVES being together. You’ve just seen it. In our liturgy, the moment of highest energy is the Peace -- we literally launch out of our chairs to embrace each other! We flock to opportunities to be together. We are at our best and strongest when we are gathered in one place as one Body. This has been borne out the past two summers when we have gone to one primary service – and we felt the energy of having the church full and everyone together.

We are the Cathedral of the Diocese of Missouri, which means we must set the standard for excellence in worship for all ages and people. As your dean, it is my job to set the structures for doing that, and as Vicar it is Amy’s job to fashion that liturgy. Those jobs are sacred trusts … which means that you can trust us only to make the decisions we believe are best for the life of this Cathedral and you can also trust us to listen deeply to you in that process. And that is what we have been and will continue to be doing.

Over the past several months, I have engaged in a consultative process with Amy, Pat Partridge, the Executive Committee of Chapter and others in the congregation. Out of that process, I am right now persuaded that what is best for us as a congregation is to have two services on Sunday mornings. The first, an early, more meditative Rite I service in Bofinger Chapel, where the space will better suit the size of the congregation. The primary service a Rite II choral Eucharist much like the principal service we have had in the summers, but with a separate liturgy of the word for children and youth, with all of us together for the celebration of the Eucharist.

The next step in this process will be a conversation at this Thursday night’s Chapter meeting where I will listen to the voices of your elected representatives. I have not made any concrete decision yet and I am still listening, thinking and praying … particularly in terms of what time is best for this main liturgy not just to promote its growth but to promote the growth of our Sunday School and adult Christian formation programs.

I am happy to meet with any of you face to face to talk about this and I will be available after the service today. Please do not email me or Facebook message me or leave blog comments with your opinions about this.  Liturgical changes are exciting and also deeply effect the life of a community. And I think we’ve all experienced that email is a not the best medium for anything with deep emotional content.

My plan is to announce my decision on Sunday, May 1, and to have any change go into effect on Pentecost Sunday, June 12. Finally, I ask your prayers as I make this decision and ask us all to approach this with the spirit of grace and adventure I have seen so often in our time together. Thank you.

Mike+

"Get up, and do not be afraid." -- A sermon for the Last Sunday after Epiphany

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, March 6, 2011

About 25 years ago, when I was growing up in Tucson, there was a girl named Jeanne. Jeanne stole my heart in that way that can only happen when you’re 15 or 16 years old. That way that turns your stomach into a butterfly sanctuary. Maybe it was because she was just so adorable standing as she did just a shade under five feet tall. Or maybe it was her flaming red hair or her devilish smile. Or maybe it was the way she could tease me and make me feel good about myself at the same time. There’s probably no use trying to figure it out. I mean, I was 15, so how much logic could be involved, right?

It was clear pretty quickly that Jeanne and I weren’t going to end up together … at least not in the romantic way I wanted. She had a string of other crushes and it was clear pretty quickly I had taken up permanent residence in that dreaded “friend” category. But she was so kind and so sincere that something rare and special happened. My crush turned into deep affection and that affection turned into friendship. And so when I went off to Mizzou and she went off to Arizona State, we kept in touch – which in the days before Facebook, texting and free long distance meant actual handwritten letters and the occasional very expensive phone call.

Jeanne and I shared everything. I shared my freshman year homesickness and my joy at having a great roommate and finding a wonderful church in Columbia. She told me about her battles with her parents and this cute guy she liked who was a cook at the restaurant where she was waitressing.

This long distance friendship continued through college. She even came out to visit me once, and I always tried to see her when I was home. Then one day in our junior year a particularly long letter came. After a page or so of small talk and teasing me about my life among the cows in Missouri, she told me I needed to sit down because she had some news to share. Jeanne was pregnant.

I scanned the rest of the letter as I picked up the phone. Jeanne answered and the tears began. She said loved the father and she was going to keep the baby, but she wasn’t even 21 yet. And most of all she was terrified to tell her dad.

Jeanne’s father was imposing. Not because he towered over you – he was only a little taller than Jeanne. But he was rock solid and a commanding presence that probably stemmed from his time in army during the Korean War. He was the kind of man you called sir without thinking because part of you was afraid of what happened if you didn’t. He was stern and strict and when you saw the twinkle in his eye you realized you had had to work to earn it. Mostly, he loved his daughters with the ferocity of God in the Old Testament. With the kind of love that would utterly destroy their enemies, but would also demand obedience and loyalty.

Jeanne adored her father. And more than anything else, more than the prospect of being a teenage mom, or trying to finish school and carry a child, she was terrified of sharing this news with him. She was afraid of what he would do. She was afraid of what it would do to their relationship. She was afraid she wouldn’t be his little girl anymore.

So Jeanne did what most people would do. She put it off as long as possible. She wasn’t going to be showing for awhile, so she told herself she could wait for just the right moment. Only a few weeks later she began to have some abdominal pain and her roommate took her to the hospital and in a fit of worry, called her parents.

Jeanne ended up being fine and was furious at her roommate, but she also knew the moment had come. So as she walked into the emergency room waiting room where her parents were standing, she screwed up her courage, took a deep breath, walked up to her father and said the words she had been dreading to say.

Dad, I’m pregnant.

Jeanne’s father paused for a second, stone-faced, as the words sunk in. Jeanne wanted to melt into the floor. She was paralyzed by fear. What words were about to come thundering down on her head? Or worse, would he say nothing and turn away. His pause was only a second, but to her it felt like hours.

What broke it first was not his booming voice or him turning on his heel but almost imperceptibly, and perhaps only visible to a beloved daughter the twinkle in his eye. The look of love. Then this man who had ordered men into battle and who had ruled his family like a platoon opened his arms and said to his little girl: “Give me a hug.” And he reached out and touched her. And Jeanne knew that there was nothing to fear. That even though the road ahead would be hard, that the life she had planned for herself was never going to happen the way she had thought, that even though she had no idea how to be a mother, unmarried at age 20. As she felt her father’s arms close around her, she knew that whatever the road ahead held she could do it because she was not alone.

It’s the Sunday before Lent again … and for reasons that have never been really clear to me, just like every year, this year once again, we hear the Gospel story of the Transfiguration.

We need to remember that Matthew is written for a Jewish audience so we need to put those ears on when we hear it. And there are lots of parallels Matthew’s listeners would have heard to the Old Testament reading for this Sunday, which is Moses receiving the 10 commandments. In both cases, the power of God is revealed after six days, which like creation, gives what happens the sense of consummation or completion. In both cases this revelation of God comes on a mountain top and out of a cloud – because you aren’t able to look God in the face and live. In both cases, what happens defines the relationship God will have with the people. But there the similarities end.

In the Exodus story, the takeaway for Moses and the people of Israel is a set of rules for the community – the 10 commandments. God’s message to the people is “Follow me by following the rules. If you follow the rules, and do what I say, we’re OK and good things will happen. If you don’t follow the rules and don’t do what I say, not only will bad things happen, you’re going to be on your own when they do.”

But something different happens on this mountain in Matthew’s Gospel. There’s a shift in God’s relationship with the people. Before, God’s power was to be cowered from, and fear was actually a part of faithfulness. Before, God’s presence was housed in a place – the temple – and part of faithfulness was building and tending to that Temple. Before, God’s presence was mediated through kings and rules. And part of faithfulness was following the law and listening to the prophets knowing that if you did you would be right with God.

And Peter knows this. That’s why Peter is being faithful when Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus and he says “let us build three dwellings … one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” That’s what you do with God. You build God a house. You follow God’s rules. And above all, you never look God in the face, you never touch God, you always fear God … lest ... ye ... die.

But God is doing something different in Jesus. Peter is expecting more rules, but what he gets is something entirely unexpected. Something as unexpected to him as when Jesus said that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. What Peter, James and John get isn’t more rules but a relationship.

When Moses came down the mountain, he had a set of rules for the community. When Jesus and his disciples came down the mountain, they had a person ... Jesus. God's message in Exodus was "follow me by following these commandments." God's message here is "This is my Son, the Beloved ... listen to HIM." God’s call to them and to us is not just to follow rules, but to be in relationship with Jesus. To believe in and follow the Beloved and thus to become the Beloved. This is Jesus "who came not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them."

Matthew tells us that when Peter, James and John heard the voice of God “they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.” They knew they were sinners. They knew how many of the rules they had broken. They knew the power of God to devastate or abandon them. And they were terrified, and who wouldn’t be?

I wonder how long the disciples stayed cowering in fear? It was probably only a moment but I’m sure it seemed like hours. It must have seemed like hours before Jesus did what God never does … reached out his arms and touched them, and with a twinkle in his eye said “Get up and don’t be afraid.” Said, it’s OK … Give me a hug.

We usually think of this event as the transfiguration because of Jesus shiny new white outfit. But what was really transfigured. What was really changed forever was Jesus relationship with his disciples and his disciples’ lives. When they came down the mountain, they began the road toward Jerusalem – toward that suffering and death. But they knew then they could walk that road, no matter what it had in store for them, because they could feel Jesus’ arms around them and they knew they would not be walking it alone. They knew that their relationship with God had moved beyond just following the family rules to sharing a life … and that because they were in it together even the powers of death could not prevail against them.

What happened on that mountain, what happened in that waiting room and what God longs to give us is the transfiguring power of love. It’s a power that certainly can be expressed in faithfulness to boundaries and rules but can never be contained by them. It is the power of grace that overcomes fear. The power of standing with and embracing in the midst of pain that doesn’t make life easier or the pain magically go away but opens up possibilities of new life coming from it. And whether in the form of a father embracing his little girl or a savior touching a cowering disciple, or a hug at the peace or a phone call just to check in, it the power to change lives and transform worlds.

The road from that mountain led to the cross, but it did not end there. And even though Peter denied Jesus three times and the disciples fled in fear from Calvary, the transfiguring power of love was so strong they were all back together again to hear the resurrected Christ say “and remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

The road from that waiting room was bumpy, too. Jeanne had a little girl, Nicole, who I’m proud to call her my goddaughter. Nicole’s father ended up becoming a cocaine addict and Jeanne was left as a single mom … but never alone. She had as doting a grandfather as ever walked the earth keeping mother and daughter under his watchful eye. Jeanne finished her degree at ASU, and today is married with three other children. Nicole turned 21 last October, graduated college and works at a library in Phoenix. And if you ask Jeanne how she did it, she’ll think of her parents, her husband, her friends, and her kids she’ll say simply one word: Love.

As we head down the mountain into Lent, down the road that leads to the cross and beyond, this year think of Lent not in terms of giving up or taking on, but touching and being touched. Of embracing and not fearing. Of walking together not tackling alone.

As we head down this mountain into Lent, what road are you on? What rules have you broken? Whom have you disappointed? Of what or whom are you afraid? Where do you long for the touch of Christ but fear to share that truth of your life that gives Jesus the opening to reach out to you? Who in your life needs that twinkle in your eye, that touch of your hand … those calm, loving words of “get up and do not be afraid.”

AMEN.

"Being a Baker" -- Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

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Preached by the Rev. Francis X. Walter at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, February 13, 2011

One of the people who formed my life in Christ was Father Michael Scott. I met this spare, gentle, Anglican Priest in 1958, at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. I was 25 years old.

Father Scott was then exercising his ministry in the territory of Southwest Africa---at that time under the punishing rule of the racist Union of South Africa.
Michael Scott was a principal actor in the liberation of Southwest Africa which became the independent nation of Namibia.

Please bear with me: Just a bit more background on Namibia.

After World War One the Treaty of Versailles parcelled out chunks of Africa to the Allies. Great Britain got the former German colony of Southwest Africa. The Brits entrusted it to their colony, the Union of South Africa, which shared a border with it.

Under the Treaty, South Africa was to develop the territory and lead it to independence. South Africa proceeded to plunder its resources and inflict great suffering on its native population. Recourse under international law lay with the United Nations, but South Africa would not allow any subjects of Southwest Africa to leave the Territory to lobby the United Nations.

Michael Scott, as a white subject of Great Britain, living in the Territory, was free to come and go. Which he began to do, petitioning the UN for redress and gaining allies in Great Britain and America.

I met him while he was at the UN because General Seminary, where I was in residence, gave him free room and board.

At this time our government only allowed him to go back and forth on designated streets. He was considered a threat to the United States because he and his father had both served London East End poor parishes and supported the labor organizing efforts of their parishioners.
(Pause)
His slot car paths were laid out by the McCarran/Walter Act of 1952, which rewrote immigration codes and made it possible--I’d say--to label most anybody a security risk.

I was drawn to Father Scott because I needed advice and support, for I was to return to Alabama to confront a segregated diocese of segregated churches under the domination of sly or blinded white men.

During one of our talks Fr. Scott asked me if I would be a gofer for him at the UN when he had to be out of the country. WOULD I! With my UN pass I sat in on committee meetings, and-- to me--most fun of all sat alone in the bowels of the UN Building transcribing material from vinyl 16 1/2 rpm records the size of giant pizzas.

In addition, my name appeared on the invite list of various groups
working for racial and social justice. So I met the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, Langston Hughes, Allen Crite, Carl and Ann Braden. And even heard Miriam Makeba sing right after she was slipped into the country from South Africa.
(Pause)
Me, a Mobile boy! Eating high on the hog.
Thanks be to God who saved me from being a total social justice groupie.
(Pause)
As St. Paul told us, it is God who gives growth, not identifying with luminaries. So I never said, “I belong to Father Scott, or Paul, or Apollos.”
(Pause)
In 1958, Fr. Scott gave me a copy of his autobiography, "A Time to Speak", inscribing it:
“With gratitude and all best wishes for your work in Alabama.”
He told me a story--stories teach, stories form us.
Once in South Africa in a small Boer settlement--late in the evening--he was visiting in the home of a farmer. A farmer with fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes. The farmer could not see black people as truly human.

Fr. Scott struggled to respond; as he hesitated he saw on the wall a picture of Jesus--Jesus with fair skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. What he felt was compassion for the man. No arguments, no anger, no contention. But how difficult it is to see others as unenlightened opponents, not enemies, and find a measure of compassion, not a need to attack.
I thank you God for that story. But how difficult it is to see Jesus in our opponents and feel a measure of compassion, instead of seeing enemies and feelng all-consuming hatred.

Under the line “Best Wishes for your work in Alabama, he copied two lines from T. S. Eliot’s poem, “East Coker:”
“For us there is only the trying.
The rest is not our business.” (Pause)
That complements a quote from Dietrick Boehoeffer hanging by our bedroom door:
“The figure of the crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard.’
(Pause)
Now, those two ideas will take you a long way! Food for wayfarers walking with Christ. (Pause)

All this about Fr. Scott prepares you, I hope, to appreciate a paragraph from "A time to Speak". He is recalling his early work as a Vicar in London’s East End.
“Gradually I was becoming aware that over and above the recognized denominations of Christianity and apart from the innumerable little sects into which Christendom had become divided, there were two kinds of Christianity: There was the religion which was the divine sanction of the status quo, and there was the religion which was the divine instrument of change. No doubt all the truth was not to be found in either exclusively. There was the conception of the salt as the preservative of all that had been accomplished by the human spirit in the past and which also gave it savour, and there was also the idea of the leaven which slowly, imperceptibly, but dramatically, transformed the whole lump. Some of the great persecutions of the Christian era were no doubt due to the deep resentment and resistance of the lump to the process of being leavened and its seeking blindly and ruthlessly to extirpate the cause of change at whatever cost to itself.”
(Pause)

What images!
The preserving, flavor giving Salt. Ours to apply to all that is holy from ages past, and all in the present worth keeping.

And then the Lump. The Lump comes across like a Disney cartoon character: writhing, struggling to expel from itself the transforming yeast. Hating the change going on inside it.

I love Scott’s words about that oppositional lump: BLINDLY, RUTHLESSLY. “At whatever cost to ITSELF.” Fighting the change that will make it a delicious loaf of bread so that maybe, maybe, even someone new, needy and innocent of Jesus Christ, will come in off the street for a taste and stay to feast.

Here we are: salt in one hand, packet of live yeast in the other: (pause)
WHICH to apply, when? How much?

I don’t have to spend time suggesting how to apply salt. The Episcopal Church has got that aced--Give us a ten-year-old tradition, and we’ll salt it down, the more irrelevant the better. Pink candle the third Sunday in Advent? What’s that mean? I don’t know! Let’s make up a tradition! Salt that sucker down! Church supply houses glad to oblige!

But as to bubbly, fermenting yeast? When to add? How much? How to get it in the lump; the lump just sitting there oblivious to the injustice, cruelty and irrelevance it fosters by its inertia.

First, let’s be clear as to where yeast can go. Three places:
1. Into us as individuals--we can grow in Christ by adding yeast to ourselves.
2. Into small to middling groups, like this Cathedral family. Stirred in by its own members--as I know you do.
3. Into great movements of social justice, set to move a nation, the world.
Always these three, never just one or two.
(Pause)
The Gospel reading today is about things not to do. But it has advice all the same for yeast bringers. (From now on let’s call them/us “bakers.”)
Bakers looking to add some yeast should look first into their own hearts before messing with a lump. What motivates us? Are our aims as pure as we can make them? Murder has a forerunner in the heart says the Lord: anger; killing has origins: name calling.

Are rage and dehumanizing our opponents infecting our yeast? Jesus says, “If so, take action:” He uses some semitic hyperbole to say it: If a hand or eye needs to go--CUT IT OFF. In English we can more politely say, “If there are occasions that make you murderous, avoid them.” (Pause)

Bakers won’t find much help from the Deuteronomy Lesson for dealing with tangled social issues.

The children of Israel are at the Jordan River; crossing water is always a decisive act. Moses offers an uncomplicated choice: life and prosperity or death and adversity. The writers of Deuteronomy around 600 BC were given to stark contrasts: It’s black or white, pure or impure, all good or all bad.
(Well, as a culture we’re doing it today. Just look at what some of our politicians say.)

This passage has been beloved of revivalist preachers for over 200 years. They still think there is a big market today for turning hard drinkin’, two
timin’, godless, gamblin’ men into tee-totalling, God fearin’ family men.” Maybe. But I bet most of us in here are baptised, trying, some just a little, some a lot, to follow the Christ who has brought us thus far. So our situation is not black or white, death or life when it comes to the uses of salt and yeast. When it comes to the root causes of social injustice, our social and private demons are not all bad and our angels, social and private, are not all good. It was ever thus. That is why we must pray before we bake and look to the Holy Spirit in the murk of real life.
There is no end of lumps to infuse: racism, violence against minorities, mountain top removal, lack of health care, addiction, exploitation of illegal immigrants, homelessness, on and on.
(pause)
And over all our efforts to leaven and produce fresh bread hangs the pall of never enough and always the reality of the tragic.

Because our efforts to leaven the lump will never in this world completely succeed, never be fully satisfying, never win the praise of everyone.
We can only look beyond at “The pioneer of our faith,” as the writer of Hebrews puts it, the One who stands complete in eternity.

We can only look to Jesus--the Risen One living in us and to His coming kingdom. And work in hope to approximate that Glory. We have to be like the Lord of love. He’s in us. Why? So we can grow into his likeness. To make a sacramental gesture toward justice, truth, peace and mercy--until Kingdom Come and God is All in All.


“For us there is only the trying-
The rest is not our business."

2011 Annual Meeting Address

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, January 23, 2011

The annual meeting of the 192nd year of Christ Church Cathedral is now called to order.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.

Sometimes the lectionary just gives us a gift. I didn’t look at what the Gospel text was for today when I set this as the date for the annual meeting, but I can’t imagine a more perfect text for us as we look at the present and future of Christ Church Cathedral.

You see, five key things happen in this Gospel reading, and they correspond to five key points of our life together here at Christ Church Cathedral.

Now, to set the scene, Jesus has just come out of his temptation in the desert and bested the devil himself. And so when we hear the very next words, “When Jesus heard that John had been arrested,” we’ve gotta be thinking, Man, Herod is going to get it. Jesus is going to just open up a can on him. And then we get the rest of the sentence, and this is the first key point of this gospel reading.

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he … withdrew to Galilee?

That's right. Confronted with a world that was hostile to the truth he brought and embodied, Jesus didn’t go on the offensive, he didn’t try to overthrow the government or change the world, he withdrew to the outlands. To create the beloved community that was literally Christ centered and Christ sent. That’s the first key point of this Gospel reading.

Second, Jesus didn’t just go anywhere … he withdrew to a land of diverse people – Galilee of the Gentiles; Galilee of the Nations: a community of diversity.

Now, diversity is an opportunity for all sorts of things – good and bad. In fact, if history has told us anything it’s that diversity plus scarcity equals war. So Jesus going into and gathering a diverse community is risky. Only Jesus doesn’t bring scarcity. Jesus brings abundance. Jesus brings the great light that shines in the darkness. Jesus brings the kingdom of heaven, the promise of our own belovedness by God. You can’t get any better than that.

And so we come to the third point. Jesus comes in the midst of this diverse community and invites them to be bound together by a common action – turning away from all the other things they had centered their life on and turning toward the presence of God in him. It is that conscious choice that will literally bind the nations together.

Fourth, Jesus, one by one, begins to assemble this beloved community. But look at how he calls them. In his call of Peter and Andrew, Jesus does two things. First he sees them as they are but also as what he knows they can become. And the two are related. Jesus doesn’t say, “you out there fishing, follow me and I will make you astrophysicists” No, he says, “Fishers, follow me and I will make you fishers of people – I will take this life you know, this person you already are and show you what it can be in ways you probably never even imagined!” It’s an incredible invitation, but as we see its one that also involves incredible dedication and incredible sacrifice.

Finally, the fifth key point. Matthew says that Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Jesus withdrawing to build this beloved community was not a separatist movement. This is a community that is both Christ centered and Christ sent. So even as he is gathering people around himself, they are all out in the world teaching and proclaiming and healing. Showing the world with both word and action that there is a great light that shines in the darkness, a light that can heal every sickness and every disease.

So five key points of this Gospel reading:

1) Jesus withdraws to build the beloved community, a community that is Christ centered and Christ sent.

2) This new community was one of great and intentional diversity – something that is a challenge and an opportunity.

3) What bound this diverse community together was the light of Christ, a light so strong that this broad diversity of people could stand together in turning away from the other things they had followed and follow Jesus instead.

4) This commitment involved conversion. Jesus meets and accepts people as they are but mostly holds out a vision of what they are capable of becoming. And this commitment involves sacrifice and leaving behind old ways to become something new.

5) Being this beloved community was not just being Christ centered but Christ sent. It was an active life of teaching, proclaiming and healing out in the world.

Beloved, this is our story. We can see Christ Church Cathedral alive in every word.

First, we are building the beloved community. A community that is Christ centered and Christ sent. I talked last year about building a foundation. About building deep so we could build tall. That is work that has begun but is not nearly finished. We have been through a lot, and we are coming together in some incredible ways.

We saw it in the wonderful work of the Pope Bequest team that you will hear reported on later this morning. I can’t recall ever seeing a group of people so completely set aside their own agendas and work for the good of the church like this body. There has been a dramatic shift in our Chapter meetings over the past two years as that body has begun to speak the truth to one another in love in wonderful ways, really pray together, really listen to one another. Chapter meetings are open, you should come check one out sometime. After a tumultuous era, we’ve begun the process of treating each other more gently and with greater respect and in a bit, we're going to reaffirm those Rules for Respect we adopted whe I arrived here.. We have begun to talk openly about our finances and have greater transparency in the deliberations and actions of the Cathedral leadership. There has been a slow building and rebuilding of trust in this congregation.

This is work that will not be accomplished in one year or two but is ongoing work that will build on itself year after year. But we’re making a great start. And you all should be proud of yourselves. In fact, I want you to give yourself a hand in celebration for the incredible work you all have done these past two years.

Second, like Galilee of the Nations, this community is one of great and intentional diversity. Most everyone I talk with here when you ask them what they love most about Christ Church Cathedral one of the first things they say is the diversity they see when they look around this room. And that is a joy. But we must remember that diversity is only the raw materials for the kingdom of heaven, not the kingdom itself. We are a diverse people, and in our recent history we have seen that diversity at its best and at its worst. We have seen ourselves band together in joy and turn against each other in anger. For us, grasping the opportunity of diversity means starting with naming and wrestling with our own histories. For example,

*For most of this past decade we have prided ourselves on being an Oasis congregation, intentionally welcoming to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. But what does that mean for us today? Is it just a label? How does this effect who we are?

*We are a congregation founded by slaveowners, yet with a rich history of participating in the civil rights movement and with a vibrant African American and African population today. But are those of us who are of color allowed truly to effect and define the culture and community of Christ Church Cathedral? How does our mixed history with race live on in our life together today?

*We are a Cathedral that for the decade of the 1980s was the seat of a bishop who was an active alcoholic, and alcohol is a big part of our culture both here and throughout this brewery town. How did that effect us then and how are the systems of addiction a part of our present?

We are a wonderfully diverse congregation. All the raw materials are here. But for us to become the beloved community we need first to look deeply into each other, and listen deeply to each other. We need to name and cast out some demons while at the same time name and rejoice in the many angels in our past and present. And the time to do that has arrived. We’re strong enough to look honestly at our past and our present and listen to where God is calling us through it into a future of health and wholeness.

Third, like the beloved community Jesus built in Galilee, what has, is and more and more will bind this beloved community together is the light of Christ.

That light has shined in this community for almost two centuries. We have a strong and wonderful history of powerful liturgy with transcendent music in a glorious space that has inspired and fueled ministries of deep compassion, particularly among those least privileged and most despised in the world. That is what has gotten us this far. What will carry us where we need to go is a renewed commitment to centering everything we are and do in Christ. A renewed commitment to individual and corporate spiritual practice. – to weekly commitment to attend worship and a daily commitment to prayer and study of scripture.

There are no shortcuts here. We will come together and thrive as a Cathedral if Christ is at the center. And the only way to put Christ at the center is through that daily and weekly gift of our time and attention. The Back to Basics classes that we have started are the how-to lynchpin of this effort. In Basic Bible, which begins this Wednesday (and we’ve got 20 people signed up already and there’s still room for more), in Basic Bible we’ll be not just learning about what scripture is but how to craft a discipline of sitting with scripture and instead of us interpreting it letting scripture interpret us. In Basic Christianity, we’ll be learning about how to embrace a God’s eye view of the world. And in Basic Discipleship, we’ll be looking at how we support each other over the long haul of becoming changed people by walking this path together.

At last week’s forum for the candidates for Chapter, Laura Lambrix asked an excellent question. “When new people come into our Cathedral, what will we ask them to do?” And the candidates had a series of really good answers about newcomer incorporation. As I was leaving the room, I went up to Laura and said, “there’s a two word answer to your question, “When new people come here, what will we ask them to do?” And those two words are “follow Jesus.”

There are no shortcuts here. If the house we build is centered in Christ then nothing will be able to prevail against it. But if it is built on our own agendas or reactions against the workings of the world – our own versions of Herod arresting John – than it won’t take much more than a stiff breeze to topple it down.

Which leads us to the fourth key point. Being a Christ centered community means conversion. Part of our commitment to inclusion is affirming that Jesus meets us and loves us wherever we are. and that is so true. But the other half of that truth is that Jesus isnt content to leave us as we are. Our discipleship means being honest about who we are but also willing to sacrifice much for what we are to become.

First of all, what we are now. And this may be the most difficult truth for us to hear.

We are called a Cathedral, our building is a Cathedral building, but we are not a Cathedral.

A Cathedral is a large and vibrant community that is a center of the light of Christ not just for itself but for the wider church and for the whole city and region. We can point back to times in our history when this was a Cathedral but today we are not a Cathedral. Frankly, we are not even close to being a Cathedral. What we are is a midsized parish with a huge, old, beautiful building and a bishop’s chair.

Now I don’t say that to make us feel bad or unworthy. Being a midsized parish with a beautiful old building isn’t a bad thing to be. But what we need to do is be honest with ourselves about what we are and what we aren’t right now … and ask ourselves “is this who Jesus is calling us to be?”

Remember, what we know from the Gospel is that Jesus meets us as who we are but isnt content to leave us that way. And so just as firmly as I believe that we are not a Cathedral right now and that Christ meets us and loves us as who we are right now, I deeply believe that our calling and destiny is to be a Cathedral once more. That like his words to Peter and Andrew, Jesus is saying “Follow me, and I will make you a Cathedral.” Not by a return to the days of old but by leading us on an adventure into an exciting but as yet unknown future.

And what we learn from that Gospel is that it will be a process that will take time, will take sacrifice and will take casting away things of the past to embrace things of the future. Last year, we celebrated with our Canon Pastor and Liturgist her call to be rector of St. Barnabas in Florissant. And then instead of filling a previous position, we called something new – a Vicar. A Vicar is a priest who has primary authority over the congregation so that the Dean can concentrate on leading the work of being a Cathedral – of being that center of the light of Christ for the wider church and the world.

I called a Vicar – and an absolutely extraordinary one at that, in Amy Cortright – not because we are a Cathedral now but because the only way to become one is to begin to structure ourselves as one. Because even those things that we love that have gotten us where we are today may not be what we need to get us where we need to go. And that is one of the biggest questions before us, starting with our decision on a new dean. Not how much do we love what has gotten us this far, but who and what will get us where Christ would have us go.

In the next six weeks, our Vicar and your Chapter will be introducing you to a new way we will be structuring ourselves in terms of the committees and ministries of the congregation. We will be taking a hard and fresh look at our worship life and our financial life. We will be setting aside some old ways and living into some new ways. In all things we will be looking at what excellence means. Both in terms of what is sustainable excellence now and how we are moving toward becoming an excellent Cathedral in the future.

And just as it was for those first disciples and all disciples since, it will take sacrifice. Right now we are facing a $50,000 shortfall in what was pledged in 2010 and what was given. We are facing a $70,000 gap in what we were expecting in pledges for 2011 and what we got. I don’t know what that is about, but I do know that it’s not acceptable. There are no shortcuts here. Cathedrals do not just happen. This one will be built not just in our commitment to worship, prayer and study but in our commitment to giving. In our making supporting Christ’s work in this community as much of a financial priority for each of us as any other area of our lives.

Finally, being this beloved community means not just being Christ-centered but Christ sent. Just as Jesus and those first disciples didn’t sit on their hands and navel-gaze, neither can we. In addition to our commitment to the spiritual practices of worship, prayer and study we must commit to the spiritual practices of proclaiming and serving. Let me ask you... Do you love this community? Do you love Christ Church Cathedral? Do you love the life of Christ you have met in this place and with these people as much as I do? (I can’t hear you!) Then tell people about it. Invite people into it!

Do you believe that you are beloved by God? Do you believe that that love is not just for you but for a deeply broken world? Then keep getting out and keep loving that world. You can do it as many already do through portals we offer here at Christ Church Cathedral. You can do it through volunteering with the Saturday breakfast program or Episcopal City Mission or our relationship with Lui in Sudan. But service doesn’t have to have the Good Episcopalian Stamp of Approval on it to count. Volunteer at the International Institute or for the United Way or at Centenary United Methodist’s Bridge Program or at St. John’s Episcopal Church’s Peace Meal program. Right now, I’m not so interested in us having a brochure full of Christ Church Cathedral programs that we can point to with pride as I am having each and every one of us engaged in some service, maybe just one day or one morning or one afternoon a month, serving somewhere as a loving response to a God who loves us without bounds.

We’re coming to the end of our second year together. For me it has been an amazing and life-changing walk. Both God and you have taught me much. And in the next several months we will decide whether this provost period should change into a relationship as dean. We will be deciding if this is the right match not so much for what we’ve done already but for path Christ lays out before us. As I do my part of that discernment, I’ve realized the most important thing is for me to continue to be as clear as possible about what I see God’s call to us is and the tasks before us are. And from that we’ll figure out if we’re meant to walk together some more.

I hope you’ve always experienced me as someone who has been loving, honest and straightforward with you. Anything less is not worthy of us as the Body of Christ. I hope in this report you have heard me clearly that the road ahead of us is incredibly challenging, because it is. I also hope in this report you have heard that looking around at how far we have come so far and where we are headed I am filled with incredible hope and hope you are, too. But most of all I hope this morning you have heard that the commitment on which all of this depends is our commitment to be centered in Christ and sent by Christ. To believe we are the beloved community. That every one of you is beloved by God and given the joyful opportunity to love those whom God loves, both in here and out there. And to trust that if we put our trust in Christ there is no darkness that can overcome us, no story that cannot be told, no wound that cannot be healed and no joy that cannot be reached.

AMEN