All posts by Miranda Hassett

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Sermon, July 23

LORD, you have searched me out and known me; * you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways.

Indeed, there is not a word on my lips,  but you, O LORD, know it altogether.

You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, “I am running away.” “If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”

Where can I go then from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny, “I will become a fish in a trout stream, and I will swim away from you.” “If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother, “I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

If I climb up to heaven, you are there. If I make the grave my bed, you are there also….

Margaret Wise Brown published The Runaway Bunny in 1942. How many people here heard that book in their childhood, or read it to kids in their family? …

How many of you really love it? ….

How many of you find it deeply unsettling? …

I haven’t been able to discover, with some casual poking around, whether Brown was intentionally riffing on Psalm 139 or not.  (If you’d like to look at the Prayer book version of the Psalm, instead of the verse setting we sang, it’s on page 794.)

Regardless of whether Brown intended it or not, the parallel is there. Not just the superficial similarity of content – but Brown nails the emotional ambivalence of being loved so relentlessly. There’s just no other word for it. Relentless.

Some people who find the book – and the Psalm – unsettling do so because it’s grounded in parent images, and their experience of parenting has not been so great. Maybe they were parented by someone whose love was conditional, intermittent, or who didn’t have a lot of capacity for love at all,  in which case these images of relentless love may simply feel unrealistic at a deep level. Maybe they were parented by someone whose love was controlling or manipulative, in which case these images of relentless love might feel realistic in the worst possible way.

People whose experiences of human parenting have been deeply flawed or damaging may find more solace and hope in other ways to imagine God, of which there are many.

But God as the persistent Mama Bunny is emotionally ambivalent even for people like me, who have been loved well by their parents and first family . Accept the premise that the Parent in storybook and psalm is a good parent, who knows and loves the child deeply and desires the child’s wellbeing. This is still a complicated little story.

The child – the bunny and the Psalmist – wants to run away. Seeks distance, space, freedom, autonomy. And the Parent – God, our Mama Bunny – says, Fine. Run. Go where you need to go, do what you need to do. But I’ll be there when you stop running.

The line between reassurance and threat is – very unclear. Our prayer book Psalter renders verse 4 of the Psalm this way: “You press upon me behind and before.” That verb in Hebrew is “besiege.”  Like someone surrounding a city to conquer it.  You besiege me on all sides, God.  No wonder the Psalmist goes on to say, How can I run away from you? Where can I go to escape this Presence, this scrutiny? …

I know that feeling, the hot prickly tight feeling of the push-pull between attachment and autonomy.  I think everyone who’s been either a child or a parent knows that feeling. The feeling when you run to your room and slam the door, and sit in there alternately hating your parents and hoping they’ll come check on you. The feeling when your child runs to their room and slams the door, and you stand there letting your blood pressure come down, remembering to breathe, remembering that the reason that little monster can make you so angry is because you love them so freaking much, and eventually, once you can trust yourself, once you’ve found one true, kind thing to say, you go knock on their door, and ask if you can come in.

It’s hard to know someone that well, as well as you know your child. Your parent. Your spouse. Your sibling or best friend.  It hurts to know and love someone deeply, and see them struggling – dealing with hardship, or making lousy choices. It hurts to know someone so well that you understand exactly why something is so hard for her, exactly why he’s making that particular lousy choice. And yet your love and your understanding can’t always save or spare them. The poignancy, the pathos of those moments, when we’re swamped with pity and fear and even anger for someone we love so much, and cannot save from themselves – that poignancy and pathos is one of our purest glimpses into the heart of God. Who knows each of us that well. Who loves each of us that much.

Being deeply known and deeply loved is a huge blessing, compared to any alternative. But it can feel stifling or overwhelming at times. That’s simply a human truth – and the source of the impulse to escape, in both storybook and psalm. And yet even in the frustration, the door slamming, the running away, there is deep trust. That’s why we can afford to struggle, to push away, to shout anger and defiance. Because we know that parent, that friend, will still love us afterwards.  We know there is something unbreakable there. Something steadfast. Something, yes, relentless.

Bunny and Psalmist both come to some resolution. The Psalmist lands at awe and gratitude, towards a God who knew him even when he was being formed in the womb, who numbered his days before his life began. The bunny ends at resignation, at acceptance: Aw, shucks. The dialogue between mother and child seems to defuse whatever conflict sparked the child’s initial desire to run away. Mother and child are reconciled, and carrots are shared, because the mother’s love was bigger than the child’s anger.

This morning we will baptize baby B, naming her as a member of God’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, and affirming her as a child of God. B is blessed with a human family that loves her deeply, with parents and brothers and a sister who will always have her back, who will honor her growth and need for self-determination, even as they continue hold her in safety and steadfast love. I hope the church will be another such family for her, and for all the children growing up among us.

But human families and human love are finite and imperfect. Sometimes parents aren’t equipped to love the way a child needs. Sometimes children run farther than a parent can reach.  Sometimes a person goes through a season in life in which it feels like there’s no person that can give them that fierce, trustworthy, unbreakable love we all need. But there is a Love that we will never wear out, never outrun, never outlive. There is a Love that will be the wind that blows us where we need to go, the tree that we fly home to. There’s a Love that is beside us in our darkest nights, That goes before us even into the depths of the grave. That is the Love in whose name we name B today, the Love that will encompass her growing, seeking, and striving,  all the days of her life.

Current Events, Sermons

Sermon, Sept. 3

This passage from Exodus makes me laugh every time I read it. Listen, and pay attention to the pronouns:

Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.  Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

Did you catch that? God says, I have heard the cries of my people; I know their sufferings; I am going to save them and bring them to a new land; I’m sending YOU.

And Moses says what I think any of us would say: Waitaminnit here. WHO AM I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? Who am I to headline God’s saving work?

Moses is a fascinating character. He’s bi-cultural, like many immigrants and children of immigrants. He is a Hebrew by birth, one of God’s people Israel, and he was in touch with his birth family as he grew up. But he was raised in Pharaoh’s palace, as an adopted son of the princess of Egypt. He can fit in, in both Egyptian and Israelite society – but doesn’t fit perfectly in either. So on the one hand, Moses is a great candidate to send to Pharaoh to demand freedom for the people Israel. He knows Pharaoh. He speaks the language. But on the other hand, he’s a TERRIBLE candidate. The reason Moses is wandering around in the wilderness, looking after his father-in-law’s sheep, is that he’s a fugitive. One day, back in Egypt, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. And he killed the Egyptian, and buried him in the sand. He thought he’d gotten away with it, but the very next day he tried to break up a fight between two other Hebrews, and one of them said, “What are you going to do, murder me like you murdered that Egyptian?” So Moses knew he wasn’t safe. And he fled to the land of Midian, where he met a nice young woman, and settled down to help out with the family herds.  So you can see why marching right into Pharaoh’s palace sounds insane to Moses: as far as he knows, he’s wanted for murder in Egypt.

But God is not interested in Moses’ excuses. God says, Go. And tell them I AM sent you.

Moses’ situation reminds me of another Hebrew, another Jew, who got close to the seat of power, much later in the history of God’s people Israel: Queen Esther. Esther was a young Jewish woman living with her uncle in Persia, during the time of exile.  She is chosen to become queen, wife of the Persian king Ahasuerus, because of her beauty. She hides her Jewish identity, because people looked down on the Jews. But then an advisor to the King convinces him to murder all the Jews in his kingdom. Esther has to speak up, but she’s terrified – this isn’t a friendly marriage; she can’t even approach the king unless he asks for her, and to speak against his will could get her executed.  But her uncle says, Esther, if you can’t do something, who can? Perhaps you have been raised to this high station for just such a time as this.

Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh? …

Perhaps you have been placed where you are for just such a time as this…

And then there’s the dialogue between Peter and Jesus, in today’s Gospel.  “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me…” Biblical interpreter Matthew Swanson reminds us not to be too quick to take the cross as a metaphor. Crucifixion was real, brutal, and ever-present reality, in first-century Judea.  It was what happened to people who got crosswise – so to speak – of Roman interests. People who spoke out against the empty cruelty of Roman colonial rule – against the shallow, hollow religion of the great Temple, in its collusion with Herodian greed and Roman rule – against the stark, shattering poverty in which so many lived, under the harsh burden of taxation imposed jointly by the local king and the Roman governor – people who raised their voices about any and all of that, were headed towards a nasty end.

Peter wants to believe that Jesus is special, that Jesus is exempt from all that.

But Jesus says, NO.  This is the human lot. This is what I signed up for.  Pushing back against the forces that cause human suffering involves us in human suffering.

People wonder, sometimes, why Jesus is so harsh with Peter here –  Get behind me, Satan! Back off! I wonder if it’s because in Peter’s words, Jesus truly hears the Devil tempting him: Surely you can avoid this brutal end. Surely you can preach and heal and feed and serve without ending up… there. You’re special. Why should you have to suffer? Jesus responds sharply because that voice – that voice could get to him.  In one recent translation, Jesus tells Peter, “You are a stone that could make me stumble.”

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it…

Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?

Perhaps you have been placed where you are for just such a time as this…

There’s something these three stories – Moses, Esther, Jesus – have in common: lots of suffering. In Moses’ time, the Hebrews were dealing with bitter oppression by a government that feared and hated them.  In Esther’s time, a minority that had been living in peace as part of society was now being targeted for elimination.  In Jesus’ time, everyone but the wealthiest few were struggling – poor and sick, with no one to speak for them.

We can relate. Many of us feel like the suffering and struggle around us is so intense right now.  Immigrant families live with feeling unwelcome, unwanted, and many live with the constant terror of their families being torn apart by deportation.  The floods in Texas that have taken everything from so many. GLBTQ+ folks faced another assault on their humanity and worth this week, from conservative evangelical leaders. People of color, and those of us who simply believe that diversity makes us stronger, are witnessing with dread the increased assertiveness of white supremacist groups and leaders.

It’s overwhelming. Moses was overwhelmed, Esther was overwhelmed. Peter was overwhelmed. Even Jesus seemed at least whelmed. I am sure as heck overwhelmed. Sometimes.

But there’s another thing these three stories have in common. They’re all moments when in the depths of suffering and struggle, God’s purposes are accomplished. These aren’t just stories of survival. They are stories of transformation, liberation, and triumph. Moses, with God’s help, frees the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Esther, with God’s help, asks the King for mercy for her people, and the King hears her. Jesus… dies on the cross that Peter hoped he could avoid. But the grave cannot hold him. He rises again, and shows us, once and for all, that right, temporarily defeated, is still stronger than evil triumphant.

Moses, Esther, Jesus and Peter – they all lived in terrible times. And they all became part of God’s redeeming work, in those terrible times.

Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?

Perhaps you have been placed where you are for just such a time as this.

What moves Moses from his fear and inadequacy?  What gets him to march into Pharaoh’s palace, into the lion’s mouth, and say, “I AM sent me”? It’s hard to say No to God, sure. But I think Moses says Yes because God invites him into hope.

Hope. It’s so different from optimism, the assumption that things will probably be fine, whether I do anything or not.  It’s different from the kind of naive privilege that says, People like me usually come out OK, so the situation can’t be that bad. Hope means that you believe some kind of good outcome is possible, and you’re going to orient your life and work and prayers towards that good. Hope means looking at our holy stories, our family stories, these and so many others, about times when things were really bad, and yet, and yet, some kind of good emerged. God’s purposes were accomplished.

Moses said Yes, even though he was afraid, because he had hope. He wanted what God wanted. Esther said Yes, even though she was afraid, because she had hope. She wanted what God wanted.  Jesus said yes, even though he was afraid, because he had hope. He wanted what God wanted.

Hope isn’t weak or fluffy. Hope can be solid like a rock or fierce like a flame. When the worst happens, Hope says, Oh yeah? The story isn’t over yet. Hope gets in its kayak to rescue neighbors and opens its mattress store to house the displaced and makes tacos to feed the recovery workers.  Hope tells us that the stories of our times can be more than just stories of survival – although survival matters! – but we dare to hope for more: for stories of transformation, liberation, and triumph.

Know your hopes, friends. Name them and feed them. Help them grow. Introduce them to your friends. As your hope gets stronger, you may find that one day your hope starts tugging on the leash, taking you somewhere you hadn’t expected to go. Don’t be shy. Go. And when you get where your hope is leading you, tell them, I AM sent me.

Big Questions, Current Events, Sermons, Spiritual Practices

Sermon, August 13

Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tsar meod, gesher tsar meod, gesher tsar meod, Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tsar meod, gesher tsar meod. Ve ha-ikar, ha-ikar lo lifachad, lo lifachad klal. Ve ha-ikar, ha-ikar lo lifachad klal. 

The words are Hebrew, and they mean: The whole world is a very narrow bridge, But the most important thing is not to be afraid. The whole world – kol ha-olam – is a very narrow bridge, gesher tsar meod. But the most important thing is not to be afraid.

I learned this song in 1995, during the five weeks or so that I spent in Jerusalem. It was supposed to be the beginning of my junior year abroad, But a horrific bus bombing and an escalation in violence, in the long, costly war between Israel and Palestine, changed all that. Along with many students in the same program, I ended up going home; I spent my junior year in Canterbury, England, instead. But between the bombing and getting on the plane back to Indiana, I had a week-plus of living with fear, with an intimacy and intensity that was new to me. That’s probably why this song stuck – I needed it, badly. Those simple words became an anchor for me, in the storm of fear in which I found myself – along with Psalm 107, which I discovered in the little student edition of the Book of Common Prayer that my chaplain had given me before I left: Their hearts melted because of their peril, they were at their wits’ end. Then God stilled the storm to a whisper… and brought them to the harbor they were bound for.

The whole world is a very narrow bridge, but the most important thing is not to be afraid.

The disciples saw Jesus walking towards them across the water, and they thought he was a ghost; they cried out in fear. But Jesus said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Then Peter said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you across the water.” And Jesus said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, and started walking towards Jesus, across the water. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened. And beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Preachers often use this story to preach about faith. But I think this tiny, important story is just as much about fear. In our translation, Jesus says that Peter “doubted.” That word suggests that Peter’s faith was faltering. Yet Peter cries out to Jesus for help as he sinks. The Greek word translated as “doubt” here is pretty interesting. It doesn’t mean questioning something you believe. The word, distazo, literally means something like being of two minds, being conflicted, wavering. What’s happening inside of Peter in this moment isn’t that his faith in Jesus is faltering; it’s that something else creeps in alongside his faith, and wreaks havoc on his balance and direction. Peter notices the strong wind, and he becomes afraid. Fear comes alongside his eagerness, his sense of hopeful purpose. He wavers; he begins to sink.

Take heart, says Jesus. The words “Take heart” appear five times in the Bible. “Take courage” appears 21 times, and “Be courageous” 12 times. Do not be afraid, says Jesus. “Do not be afraid” appears in the Bible 67 times. “Have no fear” appears another 11 times. That’s 116 exhortations to resist fear – and that’s only the ones that are easy to find in a text search.

The Bible treats fear as a spiritual challenge – one of the biggest spiritual challenges. God knows – and the ancient authors who recorded the holy stories of God’s people, knew – that fear shakes us, weakens us, holds us back, Turns us against one another. Fear corrodes our ideals, our convictions, our hopes.

What does it feel like in your body, when you’re afraid? Think about it for a minute; remember. I don’t know if it feels the same for everybody, though the biological processes are basically the same. Do you hear a kind of rushing in your ears? Does your gut clench? Does your heart race?

Scientists tell us that the fear response, what happens in our bodies when we feel threatened, is a deep-seated adaptive response. Something that helped our ancient ancestors survive, long before we first stood up on two legs. The fear response pushes us towards one of three actions: Fight, flight, or freeze.

Fight: That’s clear enough. That means our little primordial mammal-selves Are going to fight that predator tooth and claw. What does that look like in “civilized” society? When someone raises an idea that threatens our worldview, or a concern that challenges our plan, we respond with anger. We attack. We try to drive away the inconvenient truth or the challenging idea, by hurting or intimidating or silencing the person who’s raising it. I’ve done this. So have you.

Flight: That’s clear enough too. That means our little primordial mammal-self RUNS AWAY. Maybe we can outrun the predator, escape the danger. In our lives, that looks like getting out of a situation when it starts to feel challenging or threatening. Walk back that thing you said, and apologize; you meant it, but you’re not prepared to deal with the reaction. Decide not to put yourself forward for that opportunity, because you probably don’t have the right qualifications. Don’t buy that swimsuit; Good Lord, what if someone takes your photo and puts it on the Internet, and people laugh at you? I experience the Flight reaction in one very specific way: when situations become a certain kind of stressful, a child’s voice – presumably mine – in the back of my head says, clear as day, “I want to go home.” What does the Flight response feel like inside of you? You’ve done this, too.

And then there’s Freeze – that means our little primordial mammal-self goes totally still: maybe the predator won’t see me, will walk on by. You’ve seen rabbits and squirrels do this. In our modern, civilized lives, that looks like: not rocking the boat. Keeping quiet when your boss makes a racist joke. Sticking with the job you hate because who knows if you could find something else. Holding your truth locked up inside you because the people closest to you might hurt you if they knew. Don’t try that hard thing, that big daring thing, because failure would be worse than not trying. Wouldn’t it? Just… hold still and keep quiet, and maybe everything will be OK. I’ve done this, and so have you.

Fight, flight, or freeze – that’s what happens inside us, when we’re afraid. What happens among us, when we’re afraid? … Leaders discovered a long, long time ago that fear is an outstanding tool for managing and manipulating large groups of people. It’s easy to scare people, and hard to un-scare them. Our brains are lousy at probability: we will readily believe that a certain risk is orders of magnitude greater than it actually is, and we’ll allow that sense of danger to shape our worldview and drive our behavior. And once we’re afraid, as a society, we’ll tolerate all kinds of things if they give us the illusion of greater safety. The limiting of our freedoms and privacies. The demonization of people in a group that’s seen as a threat. The proliferation of weapons in our homes and neighborhoods, which, the data say quite clearly, makes us less safe, not more.

The French philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle wrote and spoke extensively about all this, in her book, “In Praise of Risk,” and elsewhere. She said, Risk is part of life. Danger, loss, hardship, challenge: it’s all just a given. It will come to you, and to those you love. Certainly you can make better choices – fasten your seat belt, take your medication – but human life will never be safe. In a 2015 interview, she said that the idea of “absolute security” is a fantasy – and not an innocent fantasy: one that’s often used as a political weapon of control. And it can become a feedback cycle: the visible apparatus of security, like armed guards on street corners, can feed public fear and thus make us even more subject to manipulation through the promise of security. She said, ”To imagine an enemy ready to attack… induces a state of paralysis, a feeling of helplessness.” There’s that “freeze” response…

Dufourmantelle argued, instead, for accepting risk as part of the human condition. The human response to risk can be noble, beautiful. She told the interviewer, “When there really is a danger that must be faced in order to survive, as for example during the Blitz in London, there is a strong incentive for action, dedication, and surpassing oneself.”

I’d never heard of Anne Dufourmantelle until her name cropped up in the news a couple of weeks ago. She’d been swimming at a beach in France, when the ocean currents suddenly intensified and became dangerous. When the alert went out, she saw two children nearby, and instead of heading directly for shore, she set out to try and rescue them. The children were saved, but Dufourmantelle drowned. Living what she professed. Rising to the risk before her.

Is that supposed to be an encouraging story? I hear you asking. She wound up dead. But imagine how it could easily have ended: She saved herself, and the children were lost. Is one’s own death the worst possible outcome in every situation? What would Jesus do?

Kol ha-olam…. The whole world is a very narrow bridge…

As I look back on it, It occurs to me that those weeks in Israel, when I was 20, may have been the crucible in which one of my fundamental spiritual practices was formed: the practice of resisting fear. Because I spent a couple of weeks living in terror, and I hated how it felt. I hated being so preoccupied with my basic physical safety. It was hard to think about anything else, to enjoy, to learn. I hated how selfish it made me. I hated how it made me afraid of people.

Sometime along the road of recovering from that dark chapter, I decided I didn’t want to be ruled by fear, ever again. It wasn’t until this week that it dawned on me to think of that as a spiritual practice. But it is; it really is. I practice it imperfectly, to be sure. But I try to live as a follower of a God who says, Fear not. Take courage.

Resisting fear doesn’t mean being naive or blindly optimistic, or pretending everything is going to be OK. Scripture and God and the saints nowhere claim that being beloved of God means nothing bad will ever happen. Instead, they insist that none of those dangers can touch your fundamental life in God. It’s hard to say it better than Paul does in our recent text from the letter to the Romans: “Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, illness, poverty, danger, violence? No! I am convinced that neither death nor life, angels nor rulers, things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So if security is a dangerous illusion, what are the alternatives to fear? Well, I can name a few, from my own practice. Maybe you have others; I’d love to hear about them. These are some of ways I manage myself, when I start to feel the urge to fight, or freeze, or flee. When I start to get distazo, when fear creeps in alongside my faith, my sense of hopeful purpose.

One alternative to fear is curiosity – approaching the things that scare us with curiosity and wonder. Charles Lafond has written a lot about fear as a spiritual challenge, in general and particularly in our relationship with money. He wrote this, last year: “Choosing curiosity over fear takes no small amount of courage.  There is so much to fear. There are the many diagnoses, the possibility of plague, not getting my way in everything, the teetering economy, not getting my way in everything (it deserves saying twice), the Presidential Election, tooth decay, a melting ice cap, and my inability to smell bad salmon… But curiosity is so much more gentle than fear. It winks, for one thing.  And it seduces, which is pleasant. And curiosity is the gift that keeps on giving, making life a treasure hunt if we let it.”

Another alternative to fear is compassion. Madison is seeing almost-unprecedented levels of gun violence right now. There have been ten homicides so far this year. One of the neighborhoods affected is not far from my home; kids who are living with occasional gunfire on their street go to school with my daughter. As a concerned citizen, I could react to this in a couple of ways. I could get scared, for myself and my family, despite the vanishingly small likelihood that this violence will touch us directly. Or I could be dismayed and grieved for those affected by this violence – including the perpetrators, who surely would rather have a safer and better path in life. It’s really hard to be both compassionate towards those affected, and afraid for myself, at the same time. We’re not cut out for that. I have to choose – and I’ve chosen.

Another alternative to fear is courage. I think of both curiosity and compassion as ways to sneak around behind the fear and find a different way of engaging the situation. But courage means facing the fear head-on. Looking it right in the face. Getting to know it. Befriending it, even. How do you take courage? For me the process goes something like this. I think about the risks, as calmly as I can. What’s the worst that could happen – and how likely is it, really? I think about the resources I bring to the situation. When making that inventory, remember, always, to count the basic things that nurture and sustain you: song and prayer, fresh fruit and evening skies, the love of friends, family, pets, whatever it might be for you. And I think about the hopes or possibilities that brought me to the point where I’m facing this fear. What’s important enough to make me undertake something hard and scary? If it’s really important – and especially if I feel God calling me towards it – well, then, forward.

I am not a master at the art of resisting fear. I’ve been practicing for a while, but only haphazardly. I would love to hear about your techniques. But I know it’s an important spiritual discipline for me – and I wonder if it might be for all of us, in this moment in the life of the world, when so much fear is circling among us.

Take courage. Don’t be afraid. God is here. Jesus and God and saints and prophets and angels say it, over and over and over again. Could it be part of the message we’re entrusted with, too? Words we’re given for the welfare and hope of our neighbors?

The whole world is a very narrow bridge, but the most important thing is not to be afraid… Take heart.

Sources:

On Anne Dufourmantelle: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40703606

Charles Lafond on curiosity: http://thedailysip.org/2016/08/18/668/

Rev. Jonathan Grieser’s recent reflection on gun violence in Madison: https://gracerector.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/murder-city-madison/

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Sermon, July 23

BunnyWind

LORD, you have searched me out and known me;  you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways.

Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O LORD, know it altogether.

You press upon me behind and before  and lay your hand upon me.

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, “I am running away.” “If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”

Where can I go then from your Spirit? where can I flee from your presence?

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny, “I will become a fish in a trout stream, and I will swim away from you.” “If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother, “I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

If I climb up to heaven, you are there.  If I make the grave my bed, you are there also….

“If you become a fisherman,” said the little bunny, “I will become a rock on the mountain, high above you.” “If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,” said his mother, “I will be a mountain climber, and I will climb to where you are.”

Margaret Wise Brown published The Runaway Bunny in 1942. How many people here heard that book in their childhood, or read it to kids in their family? …  How many of you really love it? …. How many of you find it deeply unsettling? …

I haven’t been able to discover, with some casual poking around, whether Brown was intentionally riffing on Psalm 139 or not.  (If you’d like to look at the Prayer book version of the Psalm, instead of the verse setting we sang, it’s on page 794.)  Regardless of whether Brown intended it or not, the parallel is there.  Not just the superficial similarity of content – but Brown nails the emotional ambivalence of being loved so relentlessly.  There’s just no other word for it. Relentless.

Some people who find the book – and the Psalm – unsettling do so because it’s grounded in parent images, and their experience of parenting has not been so great.  Maybe they were parented by someone whose love was conditional, intermittent, or who didn’t have a lot of capacity for love at all,  in which case these images of relentless love may simply feel unrealistic at a deep level.  Maybe they were parented by someone whose love was controlling or manipulative, in which case these images of relentless love might feel realistic in the worst possible way. People whose experiences of human parenting have been deeply flawed or damaging may find more solace and hope in other ways to imagine God, of which there are many.

But God as the persistent Mama Bunny is emotionally ambivalent even for people like me, who have been loved well by their parents and first family. Accept the premise that the Parent in storybook and psalm is a good parent, who knows and loves the child deeply and desires the child’s wellbeing.  This is still a complicated little story.

The child – the bunny and the Psalmist – wants to run away. Seeks distance, space, freedom, autonomy. And the Parent – God, our Mama Bunny – says, Fine. Run. Go where you need to go, do what you need to do. But I’ll be there when you stop running.

The line between reassurance and threat is – very unclear.  Our prayer book Psalter renders verse 4 of the Psalm this way: “You press upon me behind and before.” That verb in Hebrew is “besiege.”  Like someone surrounding a city to conquer it.  You besiege me on all sides, God. No wonder the Psalmist goes on to say, How can I run away from you? Where can I go to escape this Presence, this scrutiny? …

I know that feeling, the hot prickly tight feeling of the push-pull between attachment and autonomy.  I think everyone who’s been either a child or a parent knows that feeling. The feeling when you run to your room and slam the door, and sit in there alternately hating your parents and hoping they’ll come check on you. The feeling when your child runs to their room and slams the door, and you stand there letting your blood pressure come down, remembering to breathe, remembering that the reason that little monster can make you so angry is because you love them so freaking much. And eventually, once you can trust yourself, once you’ve found one true, kind thing to say, you go knock on their door, and ask if you can come in.

It’s hard to know someone that well, as well as you know your child. Your parent. Your spouse. Your sibling or best friend. It hurts to know and love someone deeply, and see them struggling – dealing with hardship, or making lousy choices.

It hurts to know someone so well that you understand exactly why something is so hard for her, exactly why he’s making that particular lousy choice. And yet your love and your understanding can’t always save or spare them. The poignancy, the pathos of those moments, when we’re swamped with pity and fear and even anger for someone we love so much, and cannot save from themselves – that poignancy and pathos is one of our purest glimpses into the heart of God. Who knows each of us that well. Who loves each of us that much.

Being deeply known and deeply loved is a huge blessing, compared to any alternative.  But it can feel stifling or overwhelming at times. That’s simply a human truth –  and the source of the impulse to escape, in both storybook and psalm. And yet even in the frustration, the door slamming, the running away,  there is deep trust. That’s why we can afford to struggle, to push away, to shout anger and defiance. Because we know that parent, that friend, will still love us afterwards.  We know there is something unbreakable there. Something steadfast. Something, yes, relentless.

Bunny and Psalmist both come to some resolution. The Psalmist lands at awe and gratitude, towards a God who knew him even when he was being formed in the womb, who numbered his days before his life began. The bunny ends at resignation, at acceptance: Aw, shucks. The dialogue between mother and child seems to defuse whatever conflict sparked the child’s initial desire to run away. Mother and child are reconciled, and carrots are shared, because the mother’s love was bigger than the child’s anger.

This morning we will baptize baby B, naming her as a member of God’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, and affirming her as a child of God. B is blessed with a human family that loves her deeply, with parents and brothers and a sister who will always have her back, who will honor her growth and need for self-determination, even as they continue hold her in safety and steadfast love. I hope the church will be another such family for her, and for all the children growing up among us.

But human families and human love are finite and imperfect. Sometimes parents aren’t equipped to love the way a child needs. Sometimes children run farther than a parent can reach.  Sometimes a person goes through a season in life in which it feels like there’s no person that can give them that fierce, trustworthy, unbreakable love we all need.

But there is a Love that we will never wear out, never outrun, never outlive. There is a Love that will be the wind that blows us where we need to go, the tree that we fly home to. There’s a Love that is beside us in our darkest nights, that goes before us even into the depths of the grave. That is the Love in whose name we name B today, the Love that will encompass her growing, seeking, and striving, all the days of her life.

Sermons, Stories

Sermon, July 9

Children’s sermon

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Who knows what a yoke is? … [show pictures] Something an animal wears when it’s working, pulling or carrying a heavy load. It’s not fun. It’s hard and uncomfortable.

So why is Jesus talking about yokes? Well, he’s not talking about yokes LITERALLY, he’s talking about yokes FIGURATIVELY.

Jesus was one of the Jewish people, God’s first people, the people Israel. The Jewish people and their faith had existed for a couple of thousand years already by the time Jesus was born. Their holy book was the first part of our holy book: the Torah, the five books of the Law, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And in those books there were 613 commandments: Laws or rules God gave God’s people about how they should live. You know some of those laws as the Ten Best Ways. But there were lots of others too!  They covered things like special holy festivals, foods they shouldn’t eat, how they should treat the land, business deals, and keeping the day of rest to honor God.

613 is a lot of laws. And by Jesus’ time, there were many religious teachers who had studied the Torah deeply, and decided which part of the Law was the most important. Those teachers, called rabbis, would tell their followers, THIS is the way to follow our faith, THESE are the most important practices. And it would be different – different rabbis would put importance on different practices, because of how they understood God and the Torah.  And people called that the rabbi’s “yoke.” The rabbi’s teaching about how people should live in God’s ways, which of those 613 laws they should focus on – that was the rabbi’s “yoke,” the burden of faithfulness they put on their followers.

Now, Jesus was God’s Son, but he was also a rabbi – a person who knows the Scriptures deeply and teaches people how to follow them. Once someone came to Jesus to ask him which commandments he thinks are most important. He’s treating Jesus like a rabbi; he’s basically asking him, Rabbi, what is your yoke? And Jesus says, Love God with your whole self, and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.

That’s Jesus’s yoke. That’s the heart of the law, for Jesus and those who want to follow him. The Sabbath and particular foods and so on aren’t a big deal. This is the heart of it all: Love God, love your neighbor. So this is Jesus’ yoke, his teaching as a rabbi.  When he says, Come to me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light, THIS is what he means. He means, If you take me as your rabbi and follow me, this is what I ask you to: Love God, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Now, is it EASY to love God and love your neighbor, all the time? With your whole heart? (No!….) So why would Jesus say, My yoke is easy and my burden is light? Well, I think one thing he means is, it’s SIMPLE. Jesus’ yoke is not complicated. Other rabbis might have given their followers much more complicated, difficult sets of rules to follow. With Jesus’ yoke, you have to think about it and live it out every day; but it’s not hard to remember that we’re supposed to love God and love other people. So it is simple. 

For another thing, “easy” might not be the right word. Remember Jesus didn’t speak English. He spoke Aramaic, and this part of the Bible was first written down in Greek, and then it was translated into English. So “easy” might really not be the right word. I looked up the Greek word a little bit to see what it means. And it doesn’t mean “easy” like, oh, it’s a snap. Like “Easy as falling of a log.” The Greek word – chrestos – means something more like, appropriate, manageable. Something it’s reasonable to ask you to do. It also means helpful and kind. I like the idea that Jesus is asking us to live in a way that is helpful and kind.

So we could hear Jesus saying, My yoke, my way following God, is manageable, and helpful, and kind. It’s not supposed to be impossible. It’s supposed to be something you can remember easily and carry in your heart, and try to follow, day by day.

Grownups’ Sermon

Now, I’d like to say a few words about our Genesis story.

Our lectionary readings this summer take us through the great stories of Genesis, the beginning of God’s covenant with humanity. Last Sunday, with our 4th of July readings, we skipped an important chapter: the binding of Isaac.

When I said I didn’t want to write a sermon on vacation, I DEFINITELY didn’t want to write a sermon on one of the harder stories in the Old Testament. – at least one of the hardest ones the lectionary gives us! …  But instead of taking opportunity to ignore it, I’m going back to it, a little bit, today.

I know the story of the Binding of Isaac is a least favorite for some of you, and I don’t blame you; it’s an awful story. Why would God promise Abraham and Sarah a son, fulfill their deep and lifelong hopes with a baby, and then order Abraham to kill the child to prove his devotion to God? The fact that God, at the last possible moment, stops Abraham and tells him to sacrifice a ram instead, doesn’t fix the story at all. It just makes God seem manipulative and capricious.

I’ve spent some time digging into how people of faith, both Christians and Jews, have made sense of this difficult story over the ages. And while I don’t think there’s any way to tie a pretty bow on it, I do have a few thoughts.

I think one of the big challenges in our engagement with this text is that there is a huge gulf between our cultural and religious world, and the world of the text’s original audience. I believe that one of the core issues being worked out here is that the religion of Israel, the religion of Yahweh, did NOT demand child-sacrifice.

Some of the religions practiced by neighboring peoples DID sacrifice children, so this was a really important line to draw, early in the story of Yahweh’s covenant relationship with Abraham and his descendants. And as you can imagine, that was a BIG deal for the Israelites. To them, this story said, This God DOES NOT want you to kill your children. To US, this story says, God might play weird head games with you about killing your children! So we are just a long way from the people who needed this story. I don’t know what to do about that, besides remind us about it.

Another thing I think is important to say about this text – and about other stories from Scripture in which awful things happen – is that the text does not think this is OK. That’s why I don’t want to try to talk you out of your revulsion: the AUTHOR of the text wants you to be revolted. I am certain of that. Because the story emphasizes how much Abraham loves his son; and because of the moment in the story when little Isaac looks up at his father and asks, “Father, where is the ram for the sacrifice?” If a modern author wrote that scene, we would understand that they were trying to elicit our gut response to the complete terrible wrongness of what is happening here. So is the author of this text.  I am sure of it. 

And I’d say that the same applies to a lot of the more cruel and horrific stories in the Hebrew Bible. The voice of the author doesn’t think those things are OK. Again, if we read a modern novel about the horrors of World War II, we know that the fact that the author describes those events doesn’t mean they approve of them. But when we read about dismemberments and mass executions in the Bible, we think, Oh, because it’s in the Bible, that must mean it’s OK with God and with the people who wrote about it.

I don’t know how much of that is because the lectionary gives us the Biblical text in little choppy pieces that make it hard to understand what’s really going on, and how much of it is because of our modernist bias that makes it hard for us to recognize that the people who compiled and edited the Hebrew Scriptures were actually pretty damn astute. But next time you read the Binding of Isaac or another awful story from Scripture, try reading it from the assumption that the person who wrote it down also thought it was horrible, and see where that leads you.

Which brings me to the final thing I want to say: The Binding of Isaac is part of a longer arc of story, and much of its meaning is tied up in those longer narrative arcs. There’s a narrative context that sets up this story: Abraham and Sarah are elderly and childless; they long for a son; God promises a son, if they will trust God and enter a new covenant; there’s the whole Hagar and Ishmael story; and so on. And the narrative continues beyond the binding of Isaac. The lesson we have today, about Rebecca, is in many ways the resolution of Isaac’s story.

Isaac walks away from Mount Moriah, from the Binding story, with his relationship with his father broken. The text of Genesis 22 has Abraham leave the mountain alone. It doesn’t say what Isaac did, but he’s not there. And just a couple of verses after the end of the Binding story, Sarah, Isaac’s mother, dies. Jewish interpreters of scripture have long assumed that Sarah died because she heard what her husband, Abraham, had done.

Whether her death was immediate or not, the text DOES imply that Abraham was not living with Sarah when she died. Abraham comes from somewhere else to mourn her, and to negotiate buying a piece of land to bury her. (Read the bargaining scene in chapter 23 sometime, it’s amazing.)

So the Binding of Isaac shattered this family. Abraham’s relationships with both wife and son were broken, because God asked him to do something unthinkable, and he said yes. At the beginning of chapter 24, anticipating death,  Abraham makes one last bid to provide for – or control? – his estranged son. He makes his servant promise to go find Isaac a wife from his homeland, from among his kin. Even in that scene, Isaac isn’t there. Abraham is doing this for him – or to him? – in his absence.  Imagine a father who did something so awful that his son left home! Moved out, cut off communications! And now on his deathbed that father wants to make sure his son marries the right kind of girl? How welcome do you think that would be?

And yet, and yet – God uses it for good. Abraham’s servant takes his task very seriously. Arriving outside the town of Nahor, he makes his camels kneel down near the well.  He knows that women and young girls will come out to get water in the evening, and he prays: Lord God, let the girl who offers to give me water, and to water my camels – let that girl be the girl you have chosen for Isaac.  And it happens – just so.

Rebecca is young, and lovely, and is distant kin to Abraham. She’s the kind of girl who would get water for a stranger’s camels. And she’s kind of girl who would say Yes to a husband, sight unseen, because it seems to be God’s will … or maybe because she’s desperately bored of her hometown and ready for a change. The text implies, I think, that she was not displeased with her husband when she met him – “Who is that man over there?…” And Isaac loves her, and finds comfort in his wife and his marriage. If a friend told you, ‘My new wife really fills the hole in my life that my mother left,’ you might worry about that a little bit – but you’d also understand. Isaac was alone, and grieving. With no one to care for him, or for him to care for. Rebecca does fill that hole. His marriage, his family, comfort him, and give him a fresh start, after the brokenness of his family of origin.

These chapters of Genesis show us broken relationships in a family; grief at the loss of a parent;  solace and hope in a new relationship. Father Tom gave us a image last week: God’s story; my story; one story. It puts me in mind of my favorite saying about reading: We read to know that we are not alone. Books can tell us that other people have shared our experiences. And when we find our experiences echoed in Scripture, we know that our experiences aren’t just part of other human stories; they’re part of God’s story. That’s why even in the darkest or saddest stories of Scripture, we may find a glimmer of grace.

Finances

Midyear financial report

St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church Mid-Year Financial Report

Based on January through June finances 

Overview

The parish’s finances are healthy and most lines in our budget are on target for this point in the year, with only minor exceptions.

Income 

Income is up and ahead of budget by about $9,000. The areas reflecting this increase are Feast Day Income (offerings given at Easter and Christmas, which are over budget by $1,235) and Rent Income from groups and events that use our main buildings occasionally. That budget line is currently $375 over the anticipated annual budget. The Pledge Income is ahead of budget, reflecting strong giving into the summer. This line usually ends the year close to budget, which means people tend to give what they said they would give; thank you!

Expenses

Overall, most expense lines are on target or only slightly above or below their midyear budgeted amount.

Many costs can be managed to be with budget at year end but are not distributed evenly during the year. Some budget lines that reflect this are Formation, Other Ministries, Building Repairs and Maintenance, the Rector’s expenses lines, and Administration. All seem to be on track or manageable to end the year close to budget. Fellowship/Kitchen may exceed its budget as we continue to do more, particularly extending our formation programs. Office Supplies may end the year over budget.  The Rector’s Continuing Education line is also over budget for the year, but no additional expenditures are anticipated.

Some overages, such as Outreach giving, the Rector’s Health & Disability premiums, and lay staff salaries, are simply an artifact of when payments or grants are made relative to the calendar, and will resolve by the end of the year.

Altar and worship expenses are under budget. This may be partially due to the investment in communion wine that we made last year, which means we will not have to re-order this year. The Event Fund, a new line last year, is below budget, but is used more heavily in the second half of the year for Evening Bible Camp and the Craft-In in November.

Any expense lines which do end the year in deficit (i.e. over the annual budget amount) will likely be covered by enough other accounts finishing under budget. In addition, the Balance Sheet shows that there are funds (Retained Earnings) from previous years’ budgets that can be used to cover small deficits in current Net Income.

In summary, if our giving and spending continue on track, we expect to end this fiscal year on a sound footing, thanks to your generosity and faithfulness.

Designated Funds

St. Dunstan’s maintains many “Designated Funds” which do not show on an income and expense report. These are investments and gifts given for specific purposes.

We have investments with the Diocesan Trustees of Funds and Endowments. The current balance there is $196,693, divided into two designated funds. One of these is the fund that generates the income for our outreach grant program. The other is an unrestricted investment. We have used these funds to make outreach grants and to fund the preparations for a capital campaign. In practice, we have often used our cash flow to temporarily cover these expenditures without having to withdraw funds from these investments, leaving as much there as possible earning dividends.

These funds represent money that St. Dunstan’s uses in its various ministries beyond the day to day operating of the parish. Some of the funds you may be familiar with which are outside our operating budget are the Middleton Outreach Ministry, the Middleton Outreach Pantry, memorial funds for individuals and general memorials, the Discretionary Fund, and part of our rent income is designated for capital expenses for our facilities. There are others: the organ fund, music contributions, birthday offerings, the Haiti project, the United Thank Offering and most recently our very successful Diaper Drive. So far this year $26,402 in contributions have been made to all our assorted designated funds. All of these funds are listed on our balance sheet and a full report is given to the vestry at least every quarter.

Copies of our detailed finances are available for review by members of the parish at any time. Ask one of our Co-Treasurers, Val McAuliffe and Sue Lloyd; Rev. Miranda; or contact the church office.

Announcements

Announcements, August 10

THIS WEEKEND…

The Book of Jonah, Sunday August 13, 9 am: Jonah: three parts burlesque, one part parable-with-teeth. Many approaches to the book that are productive; we’ll watch how God-talk and Divine patience/humility intersect. Read the book ahead of time; it’s only four chapters long, and will take you twenty minutes. Fr. Tom McAlpine will facilitate.

School Supplies for Middleton Outreach Ministry: Deadline, Sunday, August 13! Although we still have plenty of summer left to enjoy, the ads are encouraging us to think about “Back to School!” And, that means it is time to think about school supply donations for the MOM Backpack program. You are always so generous with your contributions, giving students the chance to have the needed items to succeed in school! Please check the Gathering Space for the collection box and lists of most needed items. THANK YOU!!!

Youth Group T-Shirts Available: Our Middle School Youth Group is about to start their third season! If you’d like to show your support for the group, we have a limited number of T-shirts available, for a suggested donation of $5. The logo is inspired by the game Betrayal at the House on the Hill, a favorite of the group. Donations can be made by cash, check with “Youth T” on the memo line, or a General Donation with a memo at donate.stdunstans.com.

Sponsor a Bible for our Sunday School Students! This year we’d like to offer our 3rd through 5th grade Sunday school students their own study Bibles to keep in the classroom and use this year and beyond. As the class explores our focus texts from the lectionary, they can look them up in their own Bible, underline or write notes in the margins, and start to feel like the Bible is theirs to study, grapple with, and love. We ask a $25 donation to be a Bible Sponsor. You may write a dedication in the Bible you sponsor, if you wish! We hope to buy 10 Bibles, to be ready for current and future students. You can make your gift online at donate.stdunstans.com or by cash or check with “Student Bible” on the memo line or envelope. Thanks for supporting our young disciples!

Altar Flowers: fall dates available! Honor a loved one or a special event with altar flowers. Reserve your special date by writing your dedication on the sign-up sheet. Suggested donation is $35. Write “flowers” on the memo line of your check or on envelope containing cash, or donate online at donate.stdunstans.com.

THE WEEK AHEAD & BEYOND…

Vestry Meeting, Wednesday, August 16, 6:45pm: The Vestry is the elected leadership body of our parish. Any members are welcome to attend our meetings, to observe or raise questions or ideas.

Guest Preacher, Sunday, August 20: The Rev. Jonathan Melton: Next Sunday, Father Jonathan Melton will celebrate and preach at both the 8am and 10am services. Jonathan is the chaplain at St. Francis House Episcopal Campus Ministry at UW-Madison, just a couple of miles east on University Avenue, and a friend of the parish and many of its members.

Rector’s Discretionary Fund Offering, Sunday, August 20: Half the cash in our collection plate, and any designated checks, will go towards the Rector’s Discretionary Fund this day and on every third Sunday. This fund is a way to quietly help people with direct financial needs, in the parish and the wider community. Please give generously.

Evening Eucharist, Sunday, August 20, 6pm: Join us for a simple service as the week begins. All are welcome.

Outreach Meeting, Saturday, August 26, 8-10am: All are welcome to join our conversations about how St. Dunstan’s can best serve the world with our resources and our hands. We begin with an optional potluck breakfast at 8am.

Men’s Book Club, Saturday, August 26, 10am: The book is A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door. He is a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars, caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell. A fun read and well written.

Grace Shelter Dinner, Sunday, August 27, 7pm: Every fourth Sunday, a loyal group of St. Dunstan’s folk provides dinner for residents at the Grace Church shelter, and breakfast the next morning. See the signup sheet in the Gathering Area.

Camp-Out Night at St. Dunstan’s, Friday, September 1, 5:30pm: For those who have been meaning to camp out all summer – or want to give it a try in an easy setting (with flush toilets available!) – or who camp all the time and can share tips with the rest of us! We’ll share a simple potluck supper (hot dogs and marshmallows, etc., provided), fellowship around the fire pit, singing, and Compline prayers at dusk. You can spend the night, or just come for the evening and then go home to your nice warm bed. Friends welcome!

Game Night at St. Dunstan’s, Friday, September 8, 6pm: Join us for an evening of games for all ages. Friends, partners, kids – all welcome. Bring a snack to share, or come as you are!

Sunday School starts again, Sunday, September 10, 10am:  Our Sunday school classes meet on the second and third Sunday of every month, during the first part of the 10am service. We have three classes this year. Our class for 3 year olds through kindergarteners uses the ‘Godly Play’ approach, sharing and reflecting on the central stories of our faith.  Our classes for 1st through 2rd graders, and for 3rd through 5th graders, use a curriculum based on the Sunday lectionary, the same Bible lessons we hear in the liturgy that day. They explore those lessons through discussion, art, drama, Lego, and other projects. All kids are welcome to participate!

Lammastide Festival of Bread, Sunday, September 10: Lammastide is an ancient harvest festival that became a church festival in our mother church, the Church of England. It’s an opportunity to offer the fruits of the growing season thankfully to God. The word means “loaf mass” – it was originally held at the time of year when the first grain ripened enough to be made into fresh loaves of bread. We will celebrate the end of summer together with a Lammastide procession and blessing, and a festive bread-themed Coffee Hour after the 10am service. Bring a loaf of bread – any kind! – or something beautiful from your garden or the farmer’s market: vegetables, fruit, flowers. We will offer our harvest gifts during worship; you can reclaim your produce afterwards.

Big Questions, Current Events, Hospitality, Spiritual Practices

Our Immigrant Stories

As immigration has become a major topic in our national conversation, we as Christians are mindful that our holy book commands us to be kind to the stranger residing among us. You shall love the stranger living among you, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt, says Leviticus 19 – one of many places where mercy towards the outsider is mentioned.  Our Scriptures and our God call us to treat immigrants with kindness and respect – remembering that we or our ancestors were once immigrants seeking a new home. To help us understand the lives, needs, and fears of our immigrant neighbors, some members of St. Dunstan’s have been sharing their own “how I got here” stories.

Julie

My immigrant story really is my grandmother’s story. I never knew her, because she died in the mid-1930s, when my father was a teenager. But I spent most Wednesday afternoons after school with my great-aunt Frances, her sister, and she loved to talk about my grandmother to me.

My paternal grandparents emigrated from one of many German enclaves in Romania in the first decade of the 20th century, before World War I. Their entire village and the extended families of both my grandmother and grandfather immigrated to the United States together. My grandfather was possessed of a simple ambition: to own his own land, for back in Romania he never would have been allowed to do so, as he was only a peasant.

After a few years of working hard in America, he achieved his dream and bought his own dairy farm. Many members of their families and fellow villagers settled in the same area, about 60 miles north of Detroit, Michigan. My grandparents had four children, two born in Romania and two, including my dad, born in this country. They were contented on the farm. My grandfather planted roses around the house and by the barnyard fence for my grandmother, roses that still bloom by our horse paddock gate here in Wisconsin. He made the old farmhouse as pretty as possible for her, too, with wallpaper and paint and a marble-topped table in the parlor. He was one of the first farmers in the area to install an indoor bathroom in their house. All this and more to make my grandmother happy.

And she was, I think, mostly contented. But she dreaded going into town. Back then, people disliked and looked down on immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, especially if they were Catholic. When she went into town with her children, people were unfriendly, some even going so far as to cross the street to avoid the newcomers. “Why do they hate us so?” she used to ask her sister, my great-aunt Frances, tears pouring down her face. All the older German women who knew her used to tell me after mass each Sunday that she was the sweetest, gentlest soul they ever knew, and perhaps this is the reason she never grew accustomed to the prejudice she faced. One day, she laid her head down on the table at breakfast and said, “I’m so tired,” and died.

My great-aunt Frances always maintained to me that my grandma died of a broken heart, that she wore herself out pining for something that would never be given to her, no matter how spruce her home and farm, no matter how white and starched the immaculate lace dresses she put on her three young girls for town visits. She craved respect and friendship from the people among whom she settled, and she never got that. Of course, who knows whether that unrequited dream contributed to her death? But I’m certain that she felt the sadness my great aunt told me about, for they were very close.

This seems a sad story, doesn’t it? But its ending is not sad, I hope. Before I share the end of the story, though, let me first share a few facts. My German grandparents came here during a period when this country, according to the Pew Research Center, had a very high percentage of foreign-born residents. And it’s predicted that we may break the record for that percentage within the next few years. Many things about immigration have changed since my grandparents came over from eastern Europe. Here are just a few: there are now more immigrants who are Hispanic, though that also will change in the future, Pew Research analysts predict; there are more refugees in the world than at any other time in the last seventy years except right at the end of World War II; and there are many foreign-born residents here without legal authorization who have not been able to, and will not be able to, secure that authorization. One can gain legal permission to remain here through work, family ties, or for humanitarian reasons, but those exceptions don’t apply to many of the undocumented immigrants in our country. There is, at this point, no line for a large percentage of the undocumented immigrants in this country to go stand at the end of, so that they can secure permission to stay here.

It’s true that as a society today, we don’t always agree about how to address the challenges of today’s undocumented immigrants and others who arrive in our country. But I think some things about immigrants, authorized or otherwise, remain the same as when my family emigrated here. People still want to feel welcomed to our country, and accepted. And other people still feel threatened by people with a different culture and a different language, perhaps fearful that the way of life that is theirs will change.

As for my grandmother, I believe she would be happy to see that her family has thrived in America, that all her grandchildren have college degrees while many have obtained advanced professional degrees. My grandparents valued education, as well as hard work, music, and beauty. Naturally, my grandfather, being German, also valued a bottle of good beer! We feel part of the life of this country. It took about two generations for the German Catholic community from Romania to fully integrate into the small town where I grew up, but it did. Even though we are no longer strangers to this country, however, I don’t forget my grandmother’s pain. I remember Barbara Loeffler’s story.

I think about her path as a stranger to this country, and I think about my path to this church of St. Dunstan’s. My journey, nowhere near as difficult as hers, was made easy by so many people here. And I thank you all for that, and for listening to my grandmother’s story.

Nana

We were born in South Africa. At the time we emigrated in 1985 we had lived most of our lives there. This was where we grew up, were educated, had our family and worked for more than a decade. Peter grew up Methodist, I was Anglican and after our marriage, we worshipped in both communions. South Africa was also where our parents and siblings lived. Why, then, did we leave?

South Africa was an apartheid society, with power and wealth in the hands of whites (who were less than 20% of the population). As we grew up, resistance to the status quo by the subservient black population led to draconian laws that limited where black people could live, who they could marry, what jobs they could hold, and what consequences they faced if they transgressed. To manage this, the apartheid government ramped up security forces – both police and the military. After high school, all white males were conscripted for at least two years: their primary purpose was to maintain the status quo. States of emergency that suspended normal civil liberties were imposed. The polarization between white and black increased to the point that mediation efforts appeared to be withering, and outright civil war seemed a distinct possibility. Small wonder, then, that in spite of our deep roots, we decided South Africa was not a country where we wanted to spend the rest of our lives.

The next question was: Where should we go? Since both of our ancestral families were from the UK, and that is where we both went for postgraduate study and where we met, this might have seemed an obvious choice.  But 2½ years in Vancouver, Canada where Peter had a post-doctoral fellowship and I did my master’s, changed our minds: we’d have happily stayed. There were personal reasons – we look back on that time as an extended honeymoon, we made life-long friends and Fraser, our son, was born there, I completed my master’s and Peter found new professional directions. But there were no jobs. After 6 years back in South Africa, a sabbatical gave us the opportunity to spend more than a year in Ithaca, NY. This was highly influential for both of us in our professional development. Once again, we’d have happily stayed. Two in-depth, decidedly positive North American experiences convinced us that this is where we could happily live. It took, however, another 5 years back in South Africa before contacts initiated in Ithaca bore fruit with a faculty position at the UW-Madison.

We are conscious that we have been extraordinarily privileged in our lives. Our decision to leave was not forced on us by deprivation, persecution, or civil war. As white English-speaking South Africans, we had access to excellent schools that opened doors to university education in South Africa and to study-abroad opportunities after graduation. These gave us a perspective on other parts of the world beyond the borders of South Africa. Our decision to come here was also a choice that we could pursue on our terms, and do so in an orderly manner: we received a job offer at the UW-Madison where they held the position open for more than a year until our green cards were issued. To get established here we were indebted with the support we received from many quarters: professional, social and spiritual.

These two questions – Why leave? and Where to go? – faced many of our own ancestors, as they do for the vast number of migrants and refugees we see in the world today. Shortly after we were married we met an Indian physicist in Canada. He told us he was a citizen of the world, and he had a newsletter to promote this concept. We signed on, and that is what we are today: citizens of the world.

Sermons

Readings from American History, July 2

Abigail Adams, writing to her husband, Founding Father John Adams, 1776:

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation. That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute; but such of you as wish to be happy [should] willingly give up the harsh title of ‘master’ for the more tender and endearing one of ‘friend.’ Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and commit indignity with impunity? Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the (servants) of your sex; regard us then as being placed by Providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.”

Chief Seattle, in response to a government official’s offer to purchase the remaining Seattle land, 1845:

Our good father in Washington–for I presume he is now our father as well as yours–our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. Then in reality he will be our father and we his children. But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people [grow] stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man’s God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness?

Sojourner Truth, 1851:

That little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

African-American orator Frederick Douglass, 1852:

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the clay, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act that day. …  I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary!  Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not be me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This fourth of July is yours, not mine.  You may rejoice, I must mourn.

Women’s rights activist Amelia Bloomer, 1854:

We see no reason why it should be considered disreputable for a woman to be usefully employed… [Women] eat, they drink, they sleep, they dress, they dance and at last die, without having accomplished the great purposes of their creation. Can woman be content with this aimless, frivolous life?…While all other things both animals and vegetable perform their allotted parts in the universe of being, shall woman, a being created in God’s own image, endowed with reason and intellect, capable of the highest attainments and destined to an immortal existence, alone be an idler, a drone, and pervert the noble faculties of her being from the great purposes for which they were given? It will not always be thus; the public mind is undergoing a rapid change in its opinion of woman and is beginning to regard her sphere, rights and duties in altogether a different light from that which she has been viewed in the past ages. Woman herself is doing much to rend asunder the dark veil of error and prejudice which has so long blinded the world in regard to her true position; and we feel assured that, when a more thorough education is given to her and she is recognized as an intelligent being capable of self-government, and in all rights, responsibilities and duties man’s equal, we shall have a generation of women who will blush over the ignorance and folly of the present day.

President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, 1865:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Cuban activist and writer Jose Marti, Our America, 1891:

One must have faith in the best in men and distrust the worst. One must allow the best to be shown so that it reveals and prevails over the worst. Nations should have a pillory for whoever stirs up useless hate, and another for whoever fails to tell them the truth in time.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Martin Luther King, Jr., from his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, 1963:

I have not said to my people: “Get rid of your discontent.” Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.” And John Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.” And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .” So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?

Sermons, Stories

Sermon, June 25

Preached by the Rev. Thomas McAlpine, a priest associate at St. Dunstan’s. 

Sam Kamaleson, a pastor from the Indian subcontinent with whom I worked at World Vision, used to talk about God’s story (one hand) and my story (the other hand) becoming one story (fingers interlaced). Much easier said than done; today’s lessons give us an opportunity to think about it.

God’s story. Two weeks ago (Trinity Sunday) our first lesson was the creation story, seven days of God declaring this is good, that is good, the whole thing very good. It’s a very different perspective than the Babylonian (creation itself and humans in particular formed from the corpses of defeated gods of chaos) or the Greek (only a second-rate deity would be fool enough to deal with matter). No: creation is good, the material world is good.

We can pick up the story in Eucharistic Prayer C (BCP 370): “From the primal elements you brought forth the human race, and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. You made us the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another.”

We should be, I think, surprised that the prayer doesn’t continue with “And so You pulled the plug on the whole thing” or “And so You decided to hang out with the dolphins for the next few thousand years.” Surprisingly, God calls Abraham and Sarah to be the beginning of a pilot project aimed at what the Jews call tikkun olam, repairing the world. God comes to Abraham and Sarah: what might we do together? God’s story + their story becoming one story. That’s the story contained in the Old Testament, the story rebooted when God takes on human flesh in Jesus, the story we enter with our baptism.

It’s probably fair to say that from Sarah’s perspective the project didn’t start out well. She had not borne Abraham an heir, to the point that, bowing to custom, she presented Abraham with her Egyptian slave Hagar so that she might produce an heir by proxy. Hagar conceived, and, understandably, passed up no chance to remind everyone that she was the birth mother of Abraham’s heir. So Sarah had an enemy, and there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. (I’m not sure ‘enemy’ is quite the right word. I’m using it broadly, to include, for example, the people whose posts we hide—or unfriend—on Facebook.) Until, finally, God promised her a son (last week’s reading), and delivered on that promise (just before this week’s reading). Now Sarah can do something about her enemy. Foreshadowing the treatment her people will receive from the Egyptians some generations later, she demands that Abraham expel Hagar and Ishmael. And Abraham does so—only after receiving God’s promise to look after Hagar and Ishmael.

And in the story we’ve just heard God keeps that promise to Hagar, preserving Ishmael’s imperiled life as God will preserve Isaac’s imperiled life in the next story. “Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him fast with your hand; for I will make him a great nation.”

The Jews, descended from Isaac, and the Arabs, descended from Ishmael, already in the OT are often at odds. And here Sarah’s God is providing a well for Ishmael. The Jews have a legend about that: “the angels appeared against Ishmael before God. They said, ‘Wilt Thou cause a well of water to spring up for him whose descendants will let Thy children of Israel perish with thirst?’ And God: “well, yes.”

God’s story + my story = one story. For Sarah in this episode, not so much, because she’s hit one of the really difficult bits: that someone is my enemy doesn’t mean they’re God’s enemy, that God listens to me when I pray Ps 86 (today’s psalm) and listens to my enemy when they pray Ps 86.

This is a difficult enough bit that the OT keeps coming back to it. Here are a couple more stories.

Some generations later Moses has led Israel out of Egypt, and Joshua has just brought the people across the Jordan to take possession of the promised land. Reading from the fifth chapter of Joshua:

Once when Joshua was by Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you one of us, or one of our adversaries?” He replied, “Neither; but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” (Jos 5:13-14 NRS)

“Are you one of us, or one of our adversaries?” “Neither.”

Some centuries later the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Aram (modern Syria) are at war. In a legend from that period, the king of Aram learns that his recent raids have been unsuccessful because the prophet Elisha has been warning the Israelite king about them. He sends out a large force to surround Elisha’s city and capture Elisha. Elisha sees the force, and asks God to blind the soldiers. God does so, and Elisha leads them to the Israelite capital. At this point the Israelite king enters. Reading from the sixth chapter of 2 Kings:

When the king of Israel saw them he said to Elisha, “Father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?” He answered, “No! Did you capture with your sword and your bow those whom you want to kill? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink; and let them go to their master.” So he prepared for them a great feast; after they ate and drank, he sent them on their way, and they went to their master. And the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel. (2Ki 6:21-23 NRS)

So when Jesus talks about loving one’s enemies as an integral part of what God’s kingdom is about, this isn’t new. Jesus is simply reporting how he’s observed the Father acting “for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous”—not to mention Hagar, the reply to Joshua, Elisha’s treatment of the Aramean raiders.

So when Jesus sends his disciples out to announce this kingdom, he understandably anticipates opposition, because everyone knows that right-thinking people try to help their friends and hurt their enemies. Right-thinking people will take Barabbas over Jesus any day.

“But this love of enemies business can’t be that important to God. If it were, God would impose it.” But that takes us back to the creation story. God thinks that human freedom is good. God thinks that the church’s freedom is good. So God does what God can do, like the woman in one of Jesus’ parables, putting leaven in the dough in the hope of the whole thing rising. God continues to stretch out the now nail-pierced hand to us: how can we make My story and your story one story?

God’s story; my story; one story. There are many ways that invitation will come to us in the coming week. Some of them may have to do with how we choose to respond to our enemies. May our choices bring God joy.