"Meeting in Rumi's field" -- a sermon for the third Sunday of Lent

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, March 23, 2014

Come Holy Spirit, and kindle in us the fire of your love.
Take our minds and think through them.
Take our lips and speak through them.
Take our souls, and set them on fire.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

Those words were written by Rumi, a 13th century Sufi poet. Listen to them again:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

Part of the honor of priesthood is meeting people in fields. Sometimes the field is my office. Sometimes it’s a coffeehouse. Sometimes it’s a hospital room.

It happens in moments of crisis, and more often than not, the crisis involves relationship. A spouse. A partner. A friend. A lover.

A child. A parent.

A boss. An employee. A coworker.

A fellow parishioner.

Something in the relationship is causing pain. Pain deep enough that it can no longer be ignored. Often ignoring the pain, avoiding the conflict behind the pain, is what has caused it to get to this crisis point in the first place.

Of course, these conversations are not limited to priests. You have them, too. You have them with friends, family, and others who decide to trust you and whom you decide to trust enough to let into the pain. You know these conversations. They are holy ground. They are holy ground because they are places where we get real with one another.

And real is the promised land. Real is where the healing happens. Real happens in that place beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing. Real happens in Rumi’s field.

I have found the most powerful question to ask in these holy conversations is:

What is your truth?

Your truth is precisely that. Your truth. It is what you know to be true for you. Your truth is who you are out in Rumi’s field. It is not arguable in terms of right or wrong. It just is.

Your truth is not about the suspected motives of others. It is not “she is trying to undermine me.” But rather “When she does this, I feel undermined.”

Your truth is not about causation. It is not “He is making me angry.” but simply “I am angry.”

Do you notice the difference? The first – “she is trying to undermine me” … “ he is making me angry” – can be argued. You can already hear her saying “No, I’m not trying to undermine you!” or him saying “I’m not the one making you angry.”

But when you go to Rumi’s field. When you go to that place beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing and clearly state just what is:

“I feel undermined.”

“I am angry.”

There can be no argument.

Nobody can tell you “No you don’t! You don’t feel angry!” It is your truth. Your understanding of your truth may – and hopefully will – evolve. You may realize there is something underneath your anger. That maybe you’re really not so much angry as afraid. But in that moment, you feel angry – and no one can argue that you don’t. It’s your truth.

Close your eyes and try this for a moment. Think of a relationship in your life that needs healing. Now picture yourself with that person in Rumi’s field. What is your truth in that relationship? What is the first sentence that starts with “I” that you would use that cannot be argued but that just is your truth?

What would you say to that person in Rumi’s field? Let me give you a minute to ponder that.

(silence)

Does anyone want to share their truth? You don’t have to share who the relationship is with. Just what your truth is. Here, I’ll start. In the relationship I’m thinking of, part of my truth is:

I am afraid for you.

Notice I didn’t say “You are making me afraid.” But “I am afraid for you.”

Does anyone else want to share their one sentence of truth?

I love you. I feel manipulated. I feel used.

Our truth is precious because it is raw and honest and unarguable. Because of that, our truth can be our greatest strength, but it also makes us incredibly vulnerable. The people who shared right now, who shared that piece of their truth, showed incredible courage.

When you think of your relationship that needs healing, and think of your truth, and think of what it would be like to share your truth with that person … what do you think it would be like to do that? Anyone?

Freeing. Scary.

It would probably be all these things and more. But even then the work of healing is only just beginning. Because in addition to sharing your truth, you have a question to ask.

Rumi doesn’t say, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
I will drag you there and make you listen to me.”

No, he says: “I’ll meet you there.”

And so in addition to sharing your truth, you must also ask the question of the other:

“What is your truth?”

Healing happens when we meet in that field not just to speak plainly in sharing our truth but in listening just as deeply in hearing the other’s truth. The truth we share and the truth we hear might be liberating, it might be terrifying, it might be devastating. But it will be real. And once we meet in that field of truth beyond right and wrong, healing can begin.

Because there is one more thing about Rumi’s field. It is not just any field. It is the desert field where Jesus lives. And it is a field with a deep and everflowing well. A well of living water that leads to life that is eternal in its depth.

In this morning’s Gospel, we hear a remarkable conversation. A conversation that takes place in Rumi’s field. The two participants are Jesus and a Samaritan woman … two people who are divided so much by race and gender that the world has decreed they should have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

And yet instead of having nothing to do with each other, they decide to have everything to do with each other. What we notice first about this conversation is how brutally honest it is. Jesus and the Samaritan woman passionately interrogate one another – not the interrogation of trying to prove the other wrong but the passionate searching of wanting to know the other as much and even more as they want to be known themselves. They speak plainly and listen deeply. Even though their cultures say they should not even be speaking to one another, they felt compelled to listen to each other, to speak truth to each other, to know each other.

And how does the woman know that Jesus is who he says he is? How does she know he is the Christ? Not just because he shared that truth with her, but because Jesus heard and was able to reflect back her truth.

She says: “He told me everything I have ever done.” The proof to her that this was the Christ? He knows me. He knows my truth. And because of that she was able to know his truth. She was able to know Christ.

We have talked this Lent about meeting together in the desert as a place of healing. The first Sunday of Lent, we heard the story of Jesus’ temptations and experienced the desert as a place where we become aware of our deepest needs, wounds and vulnerabilities. A place where we know we need God.

Last week, Amy walked us through the story of Nicodemus and we heard how God’s healing doesn’t restore us to what we were before but transforms us into something new and different. It requires change. We are never the same after God touches us.

This Sunday, the rubber hits the road. Healing happens in the very real and vulnerable places of relationship, of conversations where we share our truths. Healing happens one conversation at a time. The anticipation of those conversations can be so anxiety provoking that we can put them off forever, but we can have the courage of the Samaritan woman because we have something in common with her. And that is we do not enter into the conversation alone.

When we meet in Rumi’s field. When we have the real conversation. When we share our truth and invite each other’s truth. Jesus is there.

In that incredibly vulnerable space of sharing our truth and listening deeply to the truth of the other, Jesus is there. Jesus who himself is the truth and the life. And he is there offering healing. Healing that leads to eternal life. Not in a chronological sense of never dying but in a far more powerful sense. Life that is eternal in depth. Life of knowing fully and being fully known. Life that allows our relationships to be characterized by love and truth.

And Jesus even goes so far as to call this relationship worship.

The hour is coming, and is now here, Jesus says, when the true worshipers will worship the Father how? In spirit and truth. Literally in breath and in truth. You have heard me say countless times that the heart of all we do is the Eucharist. Laying our lives on the table with Christ and watching new life emerge. That is true worship.

That is meeting in Rumi’s field. It is laying the truth of our lives on the table with one another and inviting Christ into it to change us both, to change us all into something new. To take what was broken and make it whole. To speak our truth plainly and to listen to the other’s truth deeply and together to ask Christ to lead us in loving into something new.

Worship is not just what we do in here. Worship is what we do one conversation at a time. Not winning an argument but sharing ourselves and receiving one another in breath and in truth. Speaking plainly and listening deeply. Inviting Christ the healer to take our truths and heal the divisions between us, divisions as deep as Jew and Samaritan and more.

The desert of Lent. The table of Eucharist. The coffee shop booth. The kitchen table. The lovers’ bed.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, these are the fields. And Jesus is there waiting. Waiting for us to offer ourselves in spirit and in truth. Waiting with healing waters that will never run dry.

Let’s meet each other there.

AMEN

"Come. See. Hold. Live." -- A sermon for the sixth Sunday after Epiphany

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, February 16, 2014

“But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

Are you nervous yet? Because Jesus brought his fastball this morning.

If you call your brother or sister a fool, you’re going to hell.

If you look at a woman with lust, you’re committing adultery

If you get divorced or marry a divorced woman, you’re committing adultery.

And don’t even think about swearing an oath!

What happened? Wasn’t Jesus just saying “You are the light of the world!” Wasn’t he just telling us “Blessed are the meek?” What is going on here? And how can this be good news for us?

How can this be good news for us when some of us are divorced? And some of us have married people who are divorced.

How can this be good news for us when every single one of us has called someone an idiot -- many of us while driving here this morning ... and every single one of us has sworn “I promise” and probably pretty close to every single one of us – giving a hall pass to our youngest members – have looked on another person with lust?

Well, I’ll tell you how. This is good news because Jesus isn’t Santa Claus. He’s not making a list of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. This morning, Jesus is giving us a framework for living in community. He’s showing us what it means to live as the beloved community of Christ. And it’s about four things:

Come together
See each other fully
Hold on to each other tightly
Live together with integrity

Let me say those again, ‘cause they’re important:

Come together
See each other fully
Hold onto each other tightly
Live together with integrity.

First, come together. Jesus says:

“When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”

That’s come together. Everything Jesus is saying in this Gospel reading is not about individual behavior but about how we live together as his Body. The Sermon on the Mount is preached in plural. And that means we are the Body of Christ first and individuals second. And it is all of our responsibility to make sure we are reconciled as a body. It is all of our responsibility to make sure we come together as one.

Did you catch what Jesus is doing here? He’s not saying “if you have a problem with someone” … he’s saying “if you know someone has a problem with you.” We need each to be so aware of the whole community that we know when someone has something against us, and then we don’t wait for them to come to us, we take it on ourselves to begin that process of making peace.

Everything we do, we do together. Before we do anything else, we come together.

And when we come together, we see each other fully.

Jesus says “everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The sin of lust is not sexual attraction. Sexual attraction is not a sin. In fact, sexual attraction is really, really awesome! I don’t think many of us would be here without it! Sexual attraction and attractiveness is natural and wonderful -- but it is only a piece of who we are. The sin of lust is looking at someone solely for how they can gratify us. It is the sin of not seeing each other fully.

Now lust has been around for a long time. It was obviously a deal in Jesus’ time and really, way before that. We know it's at least as far back as David and Bathsheba, and I don't think he was breaking any new ground, either! But today, we have turned it into a foundation of our global economy. And I’m not just talking about the extreme examples – buying and selling women in prostitution and the multibillion dollar pornography industry. It’s so much bigger than that. Every time we turn on a TV or see a rack of magazines or log online we are being sold the lie that women are objects for sexual gratification. We are being told that it’s OK to see another human being as an object. To look at someone only in terms of what they can do for us.

And that’s the sin. It’s the sin because in Christ, we see the full person. If we see someone who is beautiful and whom we’re attracted to, that’s fantastic, that’s wonderful! But we never stop there. We appreciate the beauty and enjoy the attraction but never forget that there is so much deeper beauty and so much deeper joy in seeing the whole person – body, mind, and spirit. We never forget that each person is the image of God and sacred, and so each person must be respected and cherished and never, ever used.

When we come together in Christ, we are not blind to our sexuality, we celebrate it as a gift. But we celebrate it as a gift of giving, not taking. Of loving, not using. We see the full person. And we let ourselves fully be seen.

And then we hold onto each other tightly.

The scriptures on divorce are some of the hardest for us to hear because pretty much all of us have experienced divorce either personally or in our families or friends. And both church and society have bad records with divorce – the church for condemning it too broadly and society for allowing it too freely.

Marriage - and when I say marriage, I mean both  same- and different-sexed holy unions. Marriage is a sacrament that signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his church. It is a relationship of intimate, self-giving love that is always life-giving and is never life-taking. And when marriage stops being that. When for any number of reasons it becomes toxic … not just inconvenient or annoying or boring … but toxic, where it no longer is a relationship of life-giving love but has become damaging or even deadly, then divorce may absolutely be the right decision because if the sacrament is already dead then divorce is just calling the patient.

Jesus’ ethic of divorce was extreme because in his day a woman who was divorced was cast away with no means of support. And in Christian community we don’t do that. We don’t cast one another aside. In Christian community we come together, we see each other fully and we hold onto each other tightly.

Jesus’ teaching on divorce is not just about two persons’ marriage but about how we live together as a community. We are in it together for the long haul. Yes, if a relationship becomes toxic and death-producing, someone may need to leave. But we don’t turn tail at first sign of trouble … or because it’s gotten boring … or because we are having a fight … or because maybe someone better comes along. As Christian community we come together, we see each other fully and we hold onto each other tightly.

Finally, we live together with integrity.

Jesus says: “Do not swear at all … Let your word be `Yes, Yes' or `No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one.”

If we live together with integrity, we never need to say “I promise” because our word is always good. Our word is always enough. When we say “I promise” it really calls into question all the other times we say something and don’t say “I promise.” As a community of truth-tellers. As people who come together, who see each other and allow each other to be seen fully and who hold onto each other tightly, we mean what we say and we say what we mean and with God’s help we walk our talk.

So we never have to guess what someone is really thinking or what ulterior motive might be driving them. As Christian community, what you see is what you get. As Christian community, we live together with integrity.

Come together.
See each other fully.
Hold onto each other tightly.
Live together with integrity.

Is there a better recipe for an extraordinary life? Could there possibly be a more wonderful and transformational way to live? Where we all deal with conflict lovingly and celebrate each other for who we are as images of God and stick together through thick and thin and know our word is as good or better than gold?

That is the beloved community of Christ. That is who we are. It is how we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. It is the powerful meekness that will inherit the earth. And it is not just good news, it is the best of news.

Come together.
See each other fully
Hold on to each other tightly
Live together with integrity

Be the people of God. Amen.

"You ARE Salt. You ARE Light" -- a sermon for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany

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Preached by Diocesan Youth Missioner Elle Dowd at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, February 9, 2014

Grace and peace are yours from the Triune God, the source of all power and light. Amen.

Our Gospel reading this morning comes from Matthew chapter 5, part of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. So as you’re participating in worship today, you’re actually hearing TWO sermons. And I’ll still get you outta here on time.  So yes, today’s sermon is about… a sermon.

Probably the most well-known part of the Sermon on the Mount actually happens a few verses before our reading for today, when Jesus addresses the crowd with a series of blessings known as the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit….blessed are those who mourn…blessed are the meek…blessed are the merciful...blessed are the peacemakers.”

Our reading begins right where the Beatitudes leave off. Jesus continues to address the crowd saying,

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. In the same way let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

It’s a scandalous statement Jesus is making here, really. Because the people that followed Jesus around, the people Jesus spent his time with, and the people that he would be addressing here included characters such as uneducated, and maybe unwashed fisherman. A tax collector, a former employee of The hated Empire. A few women who wouldn’t learn their place. Outliers and outcasts. Stubborn, messy, cranky people. People with egos. People with pasts. People…like us.

And Jesus looks out at his horde of broken, beloved people and says, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You.”

Jesus doesn’t guilt us with, “You should be the salt of the earth. You ought to be the light of the world. “ No, Jesus tells us, “You ARE the light of the world.” Not “once you get your act together.” Not “once you figure things out.” Right now, as you are, YOU ARE salt. You ARE light.

The metaphor that Jesus uses of salt and light are two ordinary, earthly things. Yet these small, every day things have the extraordinary power to be able to break into, invade, and completely change their environments. Salt is one of those basic things we keep in the hearth of our homes, on our kitchen tables. But salt has the power to preserve and keep food, to completely change the flavor of our meals. Light has the power to illuminates things. Light casts out darkness and fear. These small, ordinary things have the power to change our lives, to make them more beautiful. To bring zest and flavor and sparkle and twinkle to a weary, worn out, world.

God loves to meet us here, in these small things. Things that are woven into the fabric of our lives. Things like water, and wine and bread, and salt and light. Our God of the common things, who works in these common elements, shows us that we need to look for and listen to those simple things in ourselves and in others.

So when Jesus is saying, “You are salt. You are light.” he isn’t giving us some rule about what we should aspire to be. He is reminding us of who we already are. He is affirming our deepest and truest identity; someone made in the image of God, the source of light and beauty and power. And God continues to remind us of this every day in the Word and in the Sacraments. You might notice that when Dean Kinman gives the invitation to Eucharist, he often quotes St. Augustine saying, “Be what you see. Receive who you are.” These ordinary things that serve as an extraordinary eminder of who we already are.

When Jesus affirms our identity to us, saying, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” He’s also saying, “God is with you. God is for you.” and even more than that, Jesus is saying, “God is COUNTING on you.” God has a plan to change the world, and its you. You are the salt. You are the light. YOU are the one who is going to change the world.

God is trusting us as co-creators of a Kingdom Come on Earth as it is in Heaven.

I can only speak for myself, but that’s just about the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard. I’m the plan?! Me? I spend most of my time feeling like a complete imposter. I’m more than a little bit sure that I am not up for that task. I spend a lot of my energy running from this identity.

There’s a poem written by Marianne Williamson, that was made popular when Nelson Mandela quoted it. It says, “It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

And even scarier sometimes than the idea that God is counting on us, is looking to the person next to us and realizing, despite all of their flaws, “God is counting on THEM?” Because you know what that means, right? If God is counting on me, and God is counting on you, and God is counting on all of us….then we have to learn to work together. We have to be vulnerable. We have to listen to one another. We have to give up some control.

It can be particularly hard to see God’s plan, to see that light shining in other people, when those other people don’t look like us. If they don’t dress the way we do. If they are from a different part of town. If their skin is a different shade. If they are in a different part of life than we are. We’ve have made huge mistakes, historically as a church, by discounting and discrediting the way that God is already at work in all of us. In marginalized people, in people of color, in the LGBT community, and in our youth. We have put bushel baskets over lamps, refusing to let their lights shine, because we refused to see the work that God was doing. And we’ve suffered for those mistakes. Not only because we have hurt people whom God calls precious, but because we are missing out on the amazing gifts that those people bring in building the Kingdom of God. God working through common elements is a humbling reminder: If God can come incarnate as a crying brown baby in an occupied land, if God can work through the every day building blocks of water and wine and bread, then God can certainly use me and my neighbor.

And so here we are, a fragmented and failed people and Jesus says to us, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are my plan bring Heaven to earth.”

The Good News here is that its not as if God doesn’t know what God’s doing. It’s not that God doesn’t truly see us and the messes that we’ve made. No. God made us and God knows us. God sees us in all of our frailty and says, “YES. THESE are the people for the job. Because these are MY people.”

Jesus reminds us in scripture today that he’s not really up to anything new. When Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish but to fulfill” Jesus reminds us that using common, messy things, has always been the way that God works. We are reminded of the Moses, a murderer with a speech impediment, who was the bearer of the Law. We’re reminded of the Prophets, people of common birth who railed against the establishment and lived on the fringe. Jesus is reminding us that coming to ordinary, problem-riddled people and through ordinary, everyday things is something that has been part of God’s plan all along. This isn’t new. This is the way God operates.

And if God operates this way, in the small things, then so can we. As Desmond Tutu said, “Do a little bit of good wherever you are. Its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” When we do simple, radical acts like loving God, loving ourselves, and loving our neighbor, we start to invade a dark and flavorless world and inject it with an infectious and unstoppable force that fills the whole earth with radiant, never-ending light.

So may you be empowered to love the God who has already extravagantly loved you. May you believe this truth: that you are worthy and powerful beyond measure because you are claimed as such by the one who made you. And may you have the eyes see God at work in your neighbor, so that together, our light will shine so brilliantly, that all who see it will give glory to our Father in Heaven.

Amen.

Bishop's Visitation Sermon

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Preached by the Rt. Rev. George Wayne Smith at the 10 am service at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, January 26, 2014

Jesus says in that gospel reading, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. That has a nice churchy sound to it. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.

Friends, he is telling us that we have to change, for the sake of God’s eternal changelessness.

I have been around long enough to know my own heart and to recognize human nature for what it is: to know that change is hard. And change is likely to be resisted, sabotaged, and denied every which way. And I have been around long enough to know that it is not less so in the church; if anything it is more so. And yet I know in my own heart, and in human nature, and even is the church that there is a restlessness, an often unnamed yearning, calling us into something deeper, something more.

Just to name one tiny piece of that yearning: The consumerism, the materialism of our culture is usually an attempt to fill in the hole in the middle of human life. It never works. We cannot pour enough consumer goods into that hole to fill it up

The only cure for that pain of restlessness is the resting-place to be found in God’s own life.

The desire for such a place, in our over-adrenalized, over-caffeinated, hurry-up, double-click culture is profound.

The answer for what ails folks in this spiritually hungry world is not more caffeine, more places to double-click, or a faster internet connection.

We have got to change. This basic datum of conversion holds for personal lives, and it holds for life together.

William Alexander Percy wrote that familiar hymn about those fisherfolk whom Jesus called. It is incomplete to describe Andrew and the rest as “contented peaceful fishermen,” “just off the hills of brown” and “such happy, simple fisherfolk, before the Lord came down.”

These were hard working people, you had better believe it, but archeology has helped us realize they were, first of all, entrepreneurs running a micro-enterprise.

If you worked hard, you could get rich. And some Galilean fishers did.

The market for fish was phenomenal. They could not catch enough fresh-water fish to meet the demands.

All around the Sea of Galilee were fish processing plants, at places like Bethsaida and Magdala. And we are not talking Mrs. Paul’s. We are talking about factories that turned raw freshwater fish into gourmet delicacies.

Galilee cured those fish every which way imaginable. Oil cured. Pickled. Sun-dried. Fresh salted. Dry salted. The latter was a favorite snack food of the time. Fish so tasty and interesting and salty that people craved them. From Damascus to Jerusalem, people paid good money for this foodstuff. You could become well-off, working the fishery trade in Galilee. Every house excavated in Capernaum has been found full of coins, tucked into nooks and crannies, spaces between stones. A house remembered having belonged to Simon Peter, remembered by believers since the second century, was full of coins. A good living was there to be had by all.

And passing along the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw Simon and Andrew, Simon’s brother. They were casting their nets into the Sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said to them, Come follow me, and I will turn you into fishers of people. Immediately, they dropped their nets and followed.

My question is: What if they hadn’t? What they had been so captivated by the inertia of doing the familiar and the comfortable, and what they liked? Which, by the way, was a good and honorable thing, their work of fishing. The issue was not (and is not) always one of leaving behind something evil.

The issue was (and often is) that of leaving something good, for the sake of something better.

When they dropped their nets that day, they dropped good money and they dropped interesting work. They didn’t wait until they knew everything they needed to know. Mark’s gospel, more so than Matthew’s, has a breathless immediacy about it. They followed first; they asked questions along the way; they never got all of them answered. They learned about a new life that was so salty, so tasty, so full of flavor, that you wouldn’t want to live without it.

They followed their restlessness into a life with Jesus.

If they had not dropped their nets that day, you can bet there would not be a Christ Church Cathedral. Peter and Andrew and the Zebedee boys would have faded into the history of so many successful but now forgotten Galilean fishers. But they dropped the net.

There is nothing scarier than net-dropping. Stop doing what you’ve been doing? And know how to do? Now both Peter and Andrew eventually got killed, because they decided to drop their nets that day in Galilee. But friends, it was something worth dying for.

Jesus call to repentance is a great big project that happens to get personal and to get local. It has a cost. God is Christ Jesus is transforming—changing—an entire universe. But God’s project of transformation includes you, and it includes this Cathedral and this Diocese.

The first words of Good News that Jesus speaks in Matthew’s gospel are about repentance. The Good News is about radical change. I love what Stanley Hauerwas says about this point. He says that contrary to a popular saying, God does not accept me as I am, that in fact, he does not want God to do so. For him to remain the same broken human being as he is now for all eternity would be in fact be hell.

Stanley Hauerwas doesn’t want God to accept him as he is; he wants God to meet him where he is and to transform him.

Change is a necessary part of the gospel. Necessary for the Diocese of Missouri. Necessary for the Cathedral. We must leave behind the bad, and sometimes we must leave behind the good. For something better. Necessary for every one of us, you and me.

Drop nets? Or not. Follow Jesus? Or not. Change? Or die. Or die anyway, but find in the process something so salty, so yeasty, so savory and interesting that it is, like the Kingdom of God, worth dying for. Amen.

"The difference between Jesus and Jedi Mind Trick" - a sermon for the third Sunday of Epiphany

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at the 8 am service at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, January 26, 2014

And Jesus said, “Follow me.” And immediately they followed him.

Whenever I hear this story, what always jumps into my mind is Jedi mind trick. You remember, that scene in Star Wars where Obi Wan Kenobi is being questioned by the imperial stormtroopers, and he just looks into their eyes and waves his hands and says “These are not the droids you’re looking for” and the stormtroopers do exactly what Obi-wan wants - they follow him – they parrot those lines back to him and let them go on their way.

And when Luke incredulously asks how he did that, Obi Wan smiles and says “the force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded.”

The scene is at once comic and profound. And it begs the question – why do people follow.?Why did those disciples follow Jesus? Why do we follow Jesus? And, if we are to be Jesus in the world, why should people join and follow us?

Is it just Jedi mind trick? Some mass delusion that has perpetuated for nearly two millennia? Or is it something more?

Following Jesus is an invitation into a life that confounds conventional wisdom. We heard Paul say it this morning in his letter to the Corinthians:

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

Following Jesus is a path of giving up ourselves. In baptism, we die to an old way of life and turn to a new way of life in Christ – a way of giving up ourselves for the love of God and for the sake of the world God loves so much. A way of being focused on the needs of others more than the needs of ourselves. A way that lets our conviction that we are loved beyond bounds be a launching pad for us to live and love without fear, trusting that God and God’s love will follow us wherever we go.

In a world where insurance is multi-trillion dollar industry, this kind of radical trust, this message about the cross, certainly can seem like foolishness – so much so that we as the Church have too often shrunk back and softened the Gospel message, made it safe and more sensible … and robbed it of the power of God. We have too often become just one more nonprofit asking people to add us to their end of the year giving list, instead of being Jesus, inviting them to drop everything and follow. Taking seriously the words of the baptismal service and inviting one another to “put your whole trust in Christ’s grace and love.”

Last week, we sat in this space and wore nametags that said “Jesus” as a reminder that we are called to be Jesus out in the world. We are Jesus’ eyes and ears, hands and feet. We are Jesus’ voice saying “follow me.” And unless we are, with our lives living the radical and compelling way of the cross, we are giving people no reason to drop their nets and leave their boats and join us on this incredible journey. Unless we are really out there being Jesus, we are depending on our own charisma and Jedi mind trick … and there is a real question as to what we are inviting people into anyway, and what we are doing here ourselves.

A few years ago, Gallup took a poll and asked people to identify a leader and list words that best describe what this person contributes to their life. In essence the question was “Why do we follow?” The four most common words were:

Trust
Compassion
Stability
Hope

This is how we are wired as human beings. How Jesus got those fishermen to follow him was not Jedi mind trick it was somehow communicating to them that as the living presence of God on earth, he was the living, breathing incarnation of all these things.

That he was trustworthy – that his words and actions would always line up because his words were not just words but indeed he was the Word that existed before time. That he was and that he would help them become people of honesty, integrity and respect.

That he would have compassion on them and would lead them into deep compassion for others, curing every disease and every sickness among the people, that he would love them without end and lead them into being that love for others.

That in him they would find the stability that comes from the certainty of God’s love and presence – that they could leave everything that had given them stability before because they could now always find that in him – lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

And finally, hope – that Jesus could give their lives deep meaning and direction. That this way of the cross, as strange and scary as it seemed, would lead them into lives that were more beautiful and meaningful than they could possibly imagine.

Trust.
Compassion.
Stability.
Hope.

Something about Jesus on that seashore communicated those things so powerfully that Peter and Andrew and James and John – fishermen poor and rich – together left everything and followed him. And the movement of the Christ was born.

We are Jesus eyes and ears, hands and feet. We are Jesus’ voice saying “follow me.” And unless we are, with our lives living the radical and compelling way of the cross, we are giving people no reason to drop their nets and leave their boats and join us on this incredible journey

Later this morning, we are going to baptize Wayne Crum into Christ’s body, the Church and we are going to commission Cathy Johnston as a deacon for this congregation. When we reaffirm our baptismal covenant with Wayne, we are answering once again Jesus’ call to follow me. When we commission Cathy, we are asking her to join us in going out into the world in spreading that call far and wide.

And if we truly are to be Jesus in the world. If we truly are not just going to try to get people to “go to church” but to join this Jesus movement, to be part of this transformative Body of Christ remaking the world, then it’s not about learning Jedi mind trick. It’s about in our lives out there being so compelling that people cannot help but want to follow us as Jesus. It is about being beacons of trust, compassion, stability and hope. It is about living our faith in Jesus out loud so that people will drop what they are doing and join us on the way to the cross, tossing aside concern for self in favor of concern for other, and joining with us and the heavenly chorus praising God for a love that never ends. Amen.

"Hello, My Name is Jesus:" -- The Dean's Address to the Annual Meeting of Christ Church Cathedral

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The address preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at the Christ Church Cathedral Annual Meeting Eucharist on Sunday, January 19, 2014

Come Holy Spirit, and kindle in us the fire of your love.

Take our minds and think through them.
Take our lips and speak through them.
Take our souls, and set them on fire.
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We don’t usually sit like this in church. We usually sit like we do in a classroom or a movie theater – two places where we aren’t supposed to be talking to the person next to us, and so in church we usually don’t. But we’re not sitting like that today (the Cathedral is set up with chairs around tables), so we’re doing some things differently. This morning, maybe we’re more aware of who is sitting around us because we have had a chance to look one another in the eye.

So, you might have done this already, but I invite you to turn to the people on your left and on your right and shake their hands, and look each other in the eye and say, “Hello, my name is … “and share your name.

Names are powerful. Names define who we are. Each one of us was named by our parents – and every name has a story. For some of us ,our parents simply liked the sound, or maybe we were named after a significant person or family member. I even know a child whose name is the national park where she was conceived on a camping trip!

Perhaps the most moving moment in all of scripture is in the Gospel of John when Mary Magdalene stands at the empty tomb talking in panic to a man she believes to be the gardener asking where they have taken her beloved Jesus. And the man says her name: “Mary” – and immediately she knows it is Jesus. Jesus is who calls us by name. Jesus is who knows who we really are.

But Jesus is more than the one who knows us and loves us without bounds. Jesus is the one who sends us out into the world to know and love the world in his name. Jesus is not just who we follow. In the Eucharist, when we do what we will do here in just a few minutes … when we take our prayers and hopes and sorrows and dreams and gifts and lay them on the table with Christ and then receive new life in return, Jesus … the Body of Christ … is who we become. Jesus is whose name we bear.

“Be what you see … receive who you are” is what I say every Sunday. It is St. Augustine reminding us that Jesus is not just “up there” (in the air) or “up there” (on the cross), but right here (point to each person).

For the past 18, days your email box has been gifted each day with a glimpse of life at Christ Church Cathedral from the past year. 2013 was an amazing year for the Body of Christ at Christ Church Cathedral. We worshipped God with joy and beauty, we brought people from all over downtown together for conversations about hunger and homelessness. We brought hundreds of people into this space to sing blues at the foot of the cross on Good Friday and to launch Magdalene St. Louis. We heard powerful speakers and preachers, baptized and confirmed people young and old in the faith, celebrated our diversity with an amazing photo exhibit and a Pride Festival Eucharist.

We read the Bible together, launched a fantastic 20s and 30s ministry, and heard glorious music offered to God each Sunday and many other times throughout the week and year. We opened our doors to Lafayette Preparatory Academy and a partnership that is providing fantastic public elementary education to 74 children each day, and we bid farewell to some dear, dear friends as they joined the heavenly chorus.

And in 2013, we claimed a mission together. A mission that defines for us what being the Body of Christ at Christ Church Cathedral means for us.

We seek a deeper relationship with God and each other

in Jesus Christ through:

Celebrating the sacraments faithfully

Proclaiming the Gospel boldly

Embracing diversity joyfully

Serving all passionately

as a Cathedral.

As we’ve said so many times before, the core of our mission is that verb “seek” – we seek a deeper relationship with God and each other in Jesus Christ. We seek to do what happens in the Eucharist – to receive and become the Body of Christ. In the words of our Eucharistic prayer, that Christ may dwell in us and we in Christ.

And we do this by doing what we do in here – celebrating the sacraments faithfully. But so much of how we do this doesn’t just happen in here. Proclaiming the Gospel boldly. Embracing diversity joyfully. Serving all passionately. As a Cathedral. That happens out there.

In our Chapter meetings in 2013, we began a practice of inviting guests in from our downtown community to talk with us for 10 minutes or so and to give us a view of Christ Church Cathedral “as others see us.” And consistently a message we heard is “Christ Church Cathedral is wonderful. You have a beautiful space and you are doing fantastic things, and people are starting to notice … but still so many people have no idea you are here.”

And so in those Chapter meetings, which we moved from the Guernsey Room right here to the sanctuary so we can do what we are doing this morning – realize that there is no division between our worship and our work and so we can be reminded by the cross that everything we do is about Jesus – in those Chapter meetings we have started talking about “turning the Cathedral inside out.” How can we take the beauty and power that is so evident when we are in this space … an turn it outward. How can we be what God proclaimed to Isaiah, what we just discussed in our table groups “given as a light to the nations.”

In this week’s Gnaw on This Gospel email, I wrote about the story we hear in this morning’s Gospel. We see John hanging out with two of his disciples and he sees Jesus walk by and he points him out: "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" And how that's what we get to do -- we get to point out Jesus to a world who doesn't know him.

And then I asked the question: So how do we spot Jesus? How do we know when the "Lamb of God" has come into view?

We know when we see people following the commandments Jesus gave us.

When we see someone touching someone on the margins with compassion.

When we see someone surrendering power for the common good.

When we see someone giving God the glory instead of grasping onto it for themselves.

When we see someone emptying themselves with joy for the love of the world.

But there’s a second part to that. When we do these things ourselves. When we celebrate the sacraments faithfully and proclaim the Gospel boldly and embrace diversity joyfully and serve all passionately, people look at us and see Jesus. When we do those things, we are being what we see and receiving who we are. When we do those things, our presence no longer goes unnoticed

But it is not just our presence as Christ Church Cathedral or our presence individually with the names we were given at birth.

Because when we do those things, we take on a new name. In the life of the world out there we bear and become Jesus the Christ. And that is our mission this year and into the future as we turn this Cathedral inside out. To not just draw people into this space – though we will certainly continue to do that – but to go into the world, into the places we live every day, and be Jesus. Celebrating, proclaiming, embracing and serving.

This is not some new idea. Nearly 500 years ago, the Spanish mystic St. Teresa of Avila sung these words:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
Christ's compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless now.

We are Jesus.

On your tables you’ll see an envelope and inside it are some name tags – ones that say “Hello my name is…” Pass those around your table. Now, I invite each of you to take one of those and grab a pen and write one name on that.

Write Jesus.

Now put it on.

Now turn to the person to your right and your left and introduce yourself again to one another, only this time say what’s on the nametag. Say, “Hello, my name is Jesus.”

Now let’s say it all together “Hello, My Name Is Jesus!”

Again, louder, and with joy:

Hello, My Name Is Jesus.

I know it might feel silly, or it might make you feel uncomfortable, but in wearing that nametag, each of us and all of us are making a profound statement. We aren’t giving up our own names. We still have them and Jesus still calls us by those names and loves us without bounds. But in claiming the name of Jesus, each one of us and all of us are claiming a joy of bringing Jesus and his love to the world.

How do we do this? Well, you already have at least one or two ideas of how you do this from your table conversations. Ways each of you can live out our Cathedral mission. Gifts each of you have for mission and ministry and maybe an inkling of how God is inviting you to use them both in this place and out there in the world.

Again, this is nothing new. We are standing in the footsteps of the first Christians to whom Paul said, “You are ambassadors of Christ, since God is making God’s appeal through us.” Ambassadors speak with the authority of the one whom they represent. Being an ambassador of Christ means with every word and action we say to the world “Hello, my name is Jesus.”

The days of Christ Church Cathedral being the best kept secret in St. Louis are over. Because from this day forward we are sent as a light to the nations. We are Christ Church Cathedral. And we seek a deeper relationship with God in Jesus Christ through:
Celebrating the sacraments faithfully,
Proclaiming the Gospel boldly
Embracing diversity joyfully
Serving all passionately
as a Cathedral.

We are Christ Church Cathedral. And individually and together, in the Eucharist we become what we see and we receive who we are.

We are Christ Church Cathedral, gathered in Jesus name and sent out into the world to love and serve the Lord.

We are Christ Church Cathedral, and when people see us walk by, when people see us celebrate, proclaim, embrace and serve, they will know that we are Christ Church Cathedral. And that our name is Jesus. Amen.

"Not to wish upon a star, but to follow one" -- a sermon for the Second Sunday of Christmas

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A sermon preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, January 5, 2014

Sing with me, because I know you know this…

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

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We’re coming up on 75 years since the first time the lights dimmed in a movie house and Jiminy Cricket sang those words. 75 years since we saw Geppetto make a wish upon a star, that his marionette, Pinocchio, could become real.

Of course, if we remember the rest of the story, we remember it took a lot more than wishing to make it so. For Pinocchio to become a real boy, he had to be brave, truthful and unselfish and tell right from wrong by listening to his conscience.

When Geppetto awoke, Pinocchio looked like a real boy, but he wasn’t one yet. He had to learn what it was to be real through some pretty horrifying trial and error involving child trafficking and a carnivorous whale. Ultimately, he only became real when he gave his life up for the one who had given him life in the first place, Geppetto.

When the movie opened, Jiminy Cricket made it sound so easy.

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

But we know – and, in fact Pinocchio discovered, too – the truth is not so easy. And yet it is no less wondrous. In fact, even more so.

This morning, we hear the story of another star. And far below on the earth, three rulers of their age saw it, but they did not just make a wish upon it, hoping their dreams would come true. They followed that star. They followed it for a thousand miles and more over dangerous terrain. They followed that star to the house under which it stopped and then knelt down and worshipped a child, offering him gifts of incredible riches … gold, frankincense and myrrh.

When we look at the story of the Magi through 21st century eyes, it can seem as fanciful as Pinocchio. Stars can no more move and rest over one specific house than a marionette can come to life and a cricket can sing. But stories do not need to be factual to be true.

The Magi saw something extraordinary. They saw the presence of God breaking into the world in a new way. And they knew that as much as they already had – wealth, power, everything the world valued -- it was nothing compared with the chance that star offered to them. A chance to, in the words of the collect we prayed this morning “share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, Jesus Christ.”

Or, in the words of Pinocchio, to become real. To become the fullest of what humanity can be.

That’s what Jesus shows us. Jesus shows us God’s dreams for all of us. Jesus shows us what it is to be truly, really human. And it is not about striving after thrones and crowns, wealth and power. Those are the ways of Herod. It is about giving those things away in love.

The God whom they found under that star is a God who came into the world as one of its most vulnerable citizens and invites us to join him in that vulnerability. To take all that we have and all that we are and lay it down in love for the life of the world.

Like Pinocchio, it isn’t just about wishing but ultimately about giving our lives away. But unlike Pinocchio, this isn’t just about following our internal compass of a conscience and being brave, truthful and unselfish. It isn’t about those things any more than it is about just wishing on that star and hoping our hearts desires will come to us. It is about what we will promise in a just a few minutes, when little Palmer Bettis Runnels is presented for baptism.

It’s about Jesus, and it’s about some promises. Promises that are to us what the Magi laying those gifts before the child were to them.

We’re going to ask Palmer three questions … and because she is too young to answer for herself, her parents and godparents are going to answer for her:

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?
Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?

And the answer each time is I do. I do. I do.

This is what being fully human is. It is doing what God did in Jesus. Putting our whole selves in Christ’s hands the way God put the divine self in our hands in that little child. Putting our whole trust in Christ’s grace and love. Laying all that we are and all that we have at Christ’s feet and saying, with the same intensity that we do in the marriage service “with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you.”

Lore has it those kings were rulers of great power, with nations at their command. But in laying their gifts at Jesus’ feet they were subordinating that citizenship to a greater one … that of being God’s people on earth. Of sharing the divine life of the one who humbled himself to share our humanity.

And that is what we do, too. Because we see something extraordinary, too. In this world, even in this place, Christ is still being born. God is breaking into the world in a new way. And as much as we already have –wealth, power, everything the world values – it is nothing compared with the chance this star offers us. A chance to share in the life of the divine. A chance to be freed from a life of fear and other people’s expectations and to live boldly and love without counting the cost.

A chance to be freed to be a real person – not defined primarily as a St. Louisian or an American or even as a Citizen of Facebook but as part of Christ, God freely given out of love for the life of the world.

And there’s one more way this isn’t like Pinocchio. We don’t do it by ourselves. Because there’s one more promise coming up, and it’s one for all of us.

In a few minutes, I will turn to all of us gathered here and ask “Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support this person in her life in Christ.” And we will answer with a volume so loud it will rattle the rafters:

We will!

We will shout those words because this life in Christ is too challenging and too wonderful to do by ourselves. And so we do it together. When we are tempted to hoard our gifts and power for ourselves, we are here to remind one another that isn’t who we are … that being real is about giving our lives away.

We will shout these words because being formed as Christians is not just the job of parents or Sunday School teachers but of all of us. All of us take on the responsibility of forming our children as followers of Jesus and when we do, we find that they are some of our best teachers, too.

We will shout these words because this life is our hearts’ desire. It really is. Because this life in Christ is a life where we continually know that we are deeply beloved and delighted in by God, where we are free to live boldly and love extravagantly in return. And where we never need to fear anything not because nothing bad will ever happen but because when those bad things do happen, we know that God will never leave us and we will never leave one another.

Most of us grew up listening to Jiminy Cricket sing, and most of us have probably at one time or another wished upon a star. And maybe those wishes have come true, and maybe they haven’t.

But today, we come together not to wish upon a star, but to follow one. And it truly does make no difference who you are. Because when we follow the star that leads to the house where the child is. And when together we lay our gifts before him and put our whole trust in Jesus’ grace and love, our lives will become more real and we will become more deeply human than we can possibly imagine.

And everything our heart desires will come to us. Amen.