Preached at Grace Cathedral Auguust 4, 2009.

Today we remember three artists whose paintings “helped the peoples of their age understand the full suffering and glory of your incarnate Son.” They painted a human face on Christ, one their contemporaries could recognize.

All three of these men lived in during the mid 1550s, when the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation swept across Northern Europe. Paintings of Jesus by these three men are a dramatic change from the older styles.

These new works seem to be “paintings that preach Christ.” Lucas Cranach the Elder’s painting that stands over the altar at the St. Peter and Paul Church in Weimar, Germany is marked by radiance and realism.

Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar, Alsace puts a human face on the Crucifixion of our Lord.

Albrecht Duerer's Lamentation for Christ

Albrecht Durer’s Lamentation for Christ, a painting showing Jesus being taken down from the cross, makes clear with chilling realism that this Messiah is truly dead. Each of these artists painted a human Jesus, one which their contemporaries could recognize.

Looking at images of Jesus though the time makes this much clear: through the ages, many people think Jesus looks very much like them.

Think about it: in icons from the Greek Orthodox Church, doesn’t Jesus look just a little … Greek?

In altar panels from medieval Italian churches, doesn’t Jesus look just a little … Italian?

Remember The Head of Christ by Chicago illustrator Warren Sallman – the one that has sold more than 500 million copies – and ask yourself if Jesus doesn’t look just a little like a white Anglo-Saxon protestant who grew up in Chicago?

Back in 2002 British scientists, assisted by Israeli archaeologists, used modern forensic science to envision the dace of Jesus. At least their image looked like a Palestinian Jesus and not a blond, blue eyed Jesus.

We can never know what Jesus really looked like. Some would say all we have to do to see Jesus is to look at the stained glass in this great cathedral. But I say we must look elsewhere. Some would say we can see Jesus in icons that have been venerated for centuries. But I say we must look elsewhere. Some would say we can see Jesus in paintings by great artists. But I say we must look elsewhere.

I see Jesus in the face of another person: perhaps a woman picking up food for her family at the church or a husband holding the hand of his dying wife or a person surprised by an act of kindness from a passing stranger. That’s where I see Jesus.

Typically this is where I would tell a story from parish life or my work as a hospital chaplain to bring these words to life. Today is different.

Yesterday I was driving down the Peninsula to pick up a prayer blanket from the quilters of the Church of the Epiphany and deliver it to a woman who is fighting for her life in an intensive care unit.

I was stopped waiting for a light to change, glad for the breeze flowing through my open windows – I haven’t had air conditioning in that car since I started seminary- when a little red Subaru pulled up in the next lane. I was sitting there contemplating my place in the universe when the driver of the little red Subaru yelled out “Go Giants!”

I almost jumped out of my seat. I looked over and the other driver explained “I’m going to the game today!” He had a smile on his face that reminded me of a boy who has just been given the puppy he always wanted.

I’m not much of a sports fan – I barely know who the Giants are – but I had to say something. So I said: “You’re going to the Giants game.”

“Yes!” he said. “This morning I was in South Tahoe and now I’m here and going to the game!”

“You drove all the way from South Tahoe to go to the Giants Game – you are a big fan of the Giants,” I said.

“Well the Giants and the Cardinals,” he replied. “My Dad pitched for the Cardinals in the 60s, but then he quit and went to business school.” His obvious lack of enthusiasm for business school said a lot.

“That happens to a lot of good people,” I ventured. “But it is a great day for a Giants game.”

“Yeah: I am!” The radiant smile returned.

The light changed, and as he drove away I said “Go Giants!” – and that is undoubtedly why the Giants ended their five-game losing streak yesterday with an 8-1 victory over the Arizonian Diamondbacks. Whoever they are.

What strikes me is that, while stopped at an intersection for a few short minutes, I heard another person speak his truth, and his joy. For that short time the barriers that keep us from sharing what is really important in our lives disappeared and we had real conversation, conversation about something that animates part of another man’s life.

The radiance in his face illuminated a side of Jesus I don’t often see as a hospital chaplain. For no one calls the chaplain to rejoice when a baby is born healthy, we are only called to help cope with tragedy.

It is easy for a preacher to say: go look for Jesus in the hungry or the sick or the poor. God is bigger than that: God is bigger than suffering. God takes delight in God’s creation. God enjoys our company. It is harder to say: rejoice with someone who is radiant with happiness. It is difficult to preach that you can bump into God while being filled with joy.

Today we will share a meal at this table and then head out to do the work God has given us to do. May we be open to both the suffering and joy of our brothers and sisters as we live our lives looking to see Jesus in the faces and lives of others. Perhaps this is exactly what the artists we remember did when they painted a human face on Christ, one their contemporaries could recognize. May we do as well in our time and place.

Let the people say Amen.

And “Go Giants!”

An albumen silver print from approximately 1870 by Randall Studios

Today’s scriptures speak of Wisdom as a woman and that “in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets.” I like that: “friends of God, and prophets.”

Our psalm continues this theme of wisdom and prophecy, assuring us “The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.”

And in today’s Epistle we are called to “serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received,” reminding us both wisdom and prophecy are God’s gifts.

In our Gospel, Jesus says to the wise, the prophets: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

What is going on here? A whole lot of wisdom in the form of four women who lived as “friends of God, and prophets.” Today the Episcopal Church honors ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, AMELIA BLOOMER, HARRIET ROSS TUBMAN and SOJOURNER TRUTH. These four American women were pioneers in the struggle for black emancipation and for women’s votes. We recall them today because on June 20^th in 1848, the landmark Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York concluded.  

Sojourner Truth was an ex-slave; a fiery abolitionist; and an eloquent advocate of women’s equality. She was also a riveting speaker. Even today she stands as a national symbol for strong black women, no: for all strong women. I had only a passing acquaintance with Sojourner Truth until I began to study for this homily. I thought of her as an abolitionist. But her most enduring speech marks Sojourner Truth as an outstanding leader in the fight for women’s equality. Here’s how that speech happened, more or less.

Several male ministers attending the Seneca Falls Conference were speaking at length of their belief that man was superior to women. One claimed “superior intellect” while another went on about the “manhood of Christ.” Then one of the men made the mistake of describing the “sin of our first mother.” Suddenly, Sojourner Truth rose from her seat in the corner of the church. Other women whispered that Sojourner Truth should not be allowed to speak lest their convention be cast as an Abolitionist meeting. But they were ignored.

Slowly Sojourner Truth walked to the podium and took off her bonnet. Standing six feet tall, she literally towered over the assembly. As best as I can tell, this is what she said:

“Well, children, where there is so much racket, there must be something out of kilter, I think between the Negroes of the South and the women of the North – all talking about rights – the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this talking about?”

Sojourner pointed to one of the ministers.

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody helps me any best place. And ain’t I a woman?”

Sojourner raised herself to her full height.

“Look at me! Look at my arm.” She bared her right arm and flexed her powerful muscles. “I have plowed, I have planted and I have gathered into barns. And no man could head me. And ain’t I a woman?”

“I could work as much, and eat as much as man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman?

“I have borne children and seen most of them sold into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me. And ain’t I a woman?”

By now women were cheering.

Sojourner pointed to another minister.

“He talks about this thing in the head. What’s that they call it?”

“Intellect,” whispered a woman nearby.

“That’s it, honey. What’s intellect got to do with women’s rights or black folks’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?”

Sojourner pointed to the man who spoke of the supposed “sin of our first mother.”

“That little man in black there! He says women can’t have as much rights as men. ‘Cause Christ wasn’t a woman.”

She stood with outstretched arms and eyes of fire.

“Where did your Christ come from?”

“Where did your Christ come from?” she thundered again. “From God and a Woman! Man had nothing to do with him!”

Now the entire church reverberated by the deafening applause.

“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, then these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right-side up again. And now that they are asking to do it the men better let them.”

I was born more than a century after Sojourner Truth first gave this sermon, one now known for the undeniable assertion wrapped up in her question: And ain’t I a woman? In the ‘60s and ‘70’s, there were many times when Sojourner Truth’s question was as relevant as it was back in 1848. Here’s what’s amazing: her undeniable assertion argues eloquently for the equality of all of Gods children. In it she reminds us there are no second class citizens in the Kingdom of God, that God does not make mistakes. So let us be renewed here today to live as “friends of God, and prophets.” Remember Jesus promises:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Let each of us have the wisdom to search, ask and knock so the God’s kingdom is opened to all who have eyes to see, ears to hear and heats to love.

Let us pray:

O God, whose Spirit guides us into all truth and makes us free: Strengthen and sustain us as you did your servants Elizabeth, Amelia, Harriet, and Sojourner. Give us vision and courage to stand against oppression and injustice and all that works against the glorious liberty to which you call all your children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Let God’s people say: Amen!

Rev. Dennis Michno's author of "A Priest's Handbook"

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, July 05, 2011

[Episcopal News Service – Duluth, Minnesota] If the Holy Eucharist is a meal that gives participants a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, then it might seem appropriate that the inspiration for the format of the Rev. Dennis Michno’s ubiquitous “A Priest’s Handbook” was the work of a famous cook.
“Do you know what my model was for the way it’s written?” Michno asked rhetorically during a recent interview in his home here. “Julia Child.”

“You knew what you had and you went first to the index and you found all the places that was, and then you carefully follow every instruction and it comes out right,” Michno said of Child’s famous manuals of French cooking.

The New York Times said of Child in its 2004 obituary that she insisted “competent home cooks, if they followed instructions, would find even complicated French dishes within their grasp.”

“A Priest’s Handbook,” in print since 1983, is one of a small group of liturgical manuals, among the others are “Prayer Book Rubrics Expanded” and the more-recent “Celebrating the Eucharist,” and is arguably one of the more definitive efforts. The book explains the use of vestments, the liturgical colors, altar preparation, as well as gestures and movements during the various services. It also explores prayer and liturgical options for the Holy Eucharist, Holy Week, Baptism and other events in the church year. The Daily Offices and use of the lectionary also are covered.

The third and most recent edition has sold nearly 13,000 copies since publication in 1998 and continues to sell 700-800 copies a year. The previous edition sold nearly 6,500 copies between 1983 and 1997. Church Publishing Inc. does not have sales records for the first edition.

It is likely that a copy of “A Priest’s Handbook” resides in the sacristies or offices of most Episcopal Church congregations. And, especially, for annual or rarely done liturgies, the question of “what does Michno say?” often precedes a search for and consultation with the manual.

The book is “not more than an arm’s length away” for many priests and lay people who help plan and execute liturgies, the Rev. D. Jay Koyle, president of the Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Music and congregational development officer for the Diocese of Algoma in the Anglican Church of Canada, acknowledged in an interview.

“Michno seems to have a whole lot of things in one pretty compact book and was one of the first” to produce something this comprehensive, he said. “So I think that’s why it’s been an important book for a lot of people.”

“I think a lot of people – when it comes to ceremonies of the Eucharist per se – either have other resources they go to, or should go to,” Koyle said, noting that “a lot of people don’t think through these things.” However, Michno’s handbook “is still widely used by people, whether they cling to it because they don’t feel comfortable in what they’re doing and they’re new to things or … just as a reminder sometimes of these things that just come up occasionally [and they are wondering] what’s the best way to go about doing something.”

How often, for instance, does a priest get asked to commemorate the anniversary of a marriage liturgically, Koyle asked, yet Michno provides a format for doing just that.

Michno, 64 and now retired due to multiple sclerosis, wrote the nearly 30-year-old book in the wake of the introduction of the Episcopal Church’s 1979 Book of Common Prayer, which was revolutionary for priests and lay people. He had previously written the popular “A Manual for Acolytes.”

His liturgical background includes having taken “every course I could come across in liturgy” while doing his undergraduate work at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and continuing that study while at the General Theological Seminary in New York.

The Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, the then-bishop of the Diocese of New York, where Michno was serving, asked him to visit parishes in the diocese to help “smooth out” the transition from the 1928 prayer book to the 1979 edition that many Episcopalians still refer to as “new.”

Among the major parts of the 1979 revolution was one in the prayer book itself — the shift to Eucharist as the principal act of worship on Sundays (previously Eucharist was usually celebrated once a month or once a quarter) — and one prompted by the liturgical-renewal movement happening at the same time — and a decision by many congregreations and their leaders to move altars away from the wall so that the bishop or priest celebrating Eucharist faced the congregation.

The movement to Eucharist each Sunday was “the big win” in the 1979 revision, Michno said, calling the shift in the celebrant’s orientation at the altar as the “big change.”

The Rev. Louis Weil, emeritus liturgy professor at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, told ENS via e-mail that “we had to think through what gestures are appropriate with a different starting point: we had to begin within the rite and ask how the gestures we might or might not use embodied in what the text was saying.”

“Many laity were accustomed to seeing the priest go through quite a number of gestures (e.g. various signs of the cross, etc.) and many got the idea that these were all ‘essential,’” he added.

The same might be said for priests and while some liturgists debate some of Michno’s answers, he said that many priests in those years “were really confused as to what to do and I thought I could make their lives easier.”

Officials at Morehouse Publishing, now a part of the Episcopal Church-affiliated Church Publishing, suggested that Michno ought to follow his acolytes manual with one for priests and the project began, he said. Once a manuscript was done, it had to be indexed, which was a major task, given his model of the precision of those in a Julia Child cookbook. He noted that the index in the third edition is slightly less precise than the first two editions. It took a year to proof and correct the first edition, Michno recalled.

Liturgy done well and with precision is important, he said. “Precision is important because without careful practiced motion it becomes that word ‘chaos’ and chaos is the biggest fear … for all liturgists so a book like mine is meant to avoid chaos,” he said.

In the end, Koyle said, “some people would find him a little too prescriptive” in some areas but, he added, when confronted with a unfamiliar liturgical situation “he’s the first place a lot of people turn because he gives clear directions, he gives illustrations for things, he lays out what you need to do to prepare for things.”

And, if Julia Child was his model, Koyle said, it’s an apt one because as with any cookbook, “if you’re a really good cook, you can play with it. You know what you’re doing. If you’re not, you don’t have to panic. It’s all right there step by step.”

And, Child, for whom Michno once cooked a dinner that included Peking Duck, was “delighted,” he said, when he sent her a copy of the first version of the book.

“She said in a note to me that she had fun reading through the table of contents and making sure that she could go some place and find the instructions.”

– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service.

He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.

You may have heard of Uganda’s drive to demonize homosexuals, of their faith-based belief that being gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender is a sin and a crime, a crime punishable by death. This view is based on the way they read the Bible, a way that allows them to honors God with their lips while they hold their hearts far from God. Their way replace God’s commandment that we love each other with a human tradition of hatred.

A central tenet of Christianity – and Judaism – is that we should treat others as we would have them treat us. This is our “Golden Rule,” the one set out by Jesus which is the Gospel bedrock of our faith. .I doubt that any Ugandan wants to be treated the way Uganda treats LGBT people.

Despite God’s clear commandment in  the Golden Rule, Ugandan Anglicans have long been at the forefront of anti-LGBT efforts including  a recent effort to punish homosexuals with the death penalty. This infamous proposal, which is still pending before lawmakers, grew out of efforts by American evangelical groups to open an African front in their war against “the gays.” Backed by far right groups, these self-proclaimed evangelists have help focus hatred on “the gays.” Inevitably violent words led to violent acts, the most recent of which was the death of David Kato, the most prominent gay man in Uganda. Of course the police, before they had even completed their investigation, announced Kato’s killing was the result of robbery and had absolutely nothing to do with Kato’s leadership of Uganda’s small LGBT community.

Last Friday, Rachel Maddow updated this story, connecting the dots to make clear the links between American Evangelical Christians and the abuse of Ugandan LGBT people. Perhaps the most distressing segment of her report was video of Kato’s funeral. Kato was an Anglican, but the Ugandan Anglican sent neither bishop nor priest nor deacon to read his funeral rites from the Book of Common Prayer. Instead, they sent a Lay Reader to conduct the service. The Lay Reader began to make inappropriate remarks condemning homosexuality, turning an opportunity for pastoral healing and reconciliation into one of the most outrageous in memory of hatred masquerading as Gospel. The funeral was turning into an anti-gay rally as Kato’s friends confronted the errant lay reader. Police spirited the lay reader away and the locals refused to bury Kato. And then a miracle happened, one I saw right there on Rachel Maddow.

Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, who the Uganda church claims to have excommunicated for his support of LGBT people, stepped forward to complete the service. Kato’s friends and family carried the coffin to the grave where Bishop Christopher spoke these words:

“You may be different from me. I am straight. I am no LGBT but I know people that are LGBT and I respect them for what they are. And I believe that they are going to heaven, they are going to heaven…If you are a believer, don’t be discouraged, please don’t be discouraged. God created you. God is on your side.”

Today’s Gospel speaks to a people who know oppression at the hands of those who elevate human traditions above God’s fundamental demand of us: that we love each other as sisters and brothers. Right there on Rachel Maddow, Bishop Christopher said brought the Golden Rule to life with the words “God created you. God is on your side.”

Bishop Christopher (center) at a Bible Study Class during the 2088 Lambeth Conference. Oasis California helped bring pilgrims to Canterbury during Lambeth and assisted in development of these bible study sessions.

As President of Oasis California I have met Bishop Christopher several times when we worked with Bishop Marc Andrus and Integrity to raise money for Integrity Uganda. Bishop Christopher and I  were worth both pilgrims in Canterbury during the 2008 Lambeth Conference. There I saw firsthand the Ugandan Anglican Church’s determination to shame and stifle Bishop Christopher. These church leaders have taken away Bishop Christoper’s authority to celebrate mass, stolen his pension and driven away many of his friends. They even claim to have excommunicated Bishop Christopher. But our God – the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Jesus and Mary Magdalene – our God will not be bound by the limitations of the human heart. AS we saw on Rachel Maddow, God has not excommunicated Bishop Christopher, instead God continues to make use of this gentle man.

God’s love for us is unbounded, and some of that love broke out into the word at David Kato’s funeral through the ministry of Bishop Christopher. And God’s love for us showed through the video, right there on Rachel Maddow.

Sometimes the love of God isn’t what we expect. Sometimes the love of God shows up in unexpected places, places like the Rachel Maddow show or a dusty graveyard outside Kampala. Sometimes God’s love is reflected in a man like Bishop Christopher, resplendent in purple robes and diminutive in size, who unexpectedly steps forwards to heal the afflicted and tell the destitute that truly God is on their side.

And because of that – because God cannot be confined to our ideas of what God should be or look like or how God should act – each of us has the capacity – no opportunity – to bring God’s grace into the world, to heal those who hurt, to give hope to the hopeless, to comfort the grieving and tell the destitute that truly God is on their side. This is what it means for us to be “living members of the Body of your Son” Jesus Christ. This is what it means for us to follow Christ.

Let us pray. Perfect Light of revelation, as you shone in the life of Jesus, whose epiphany we celebrate, so shine in us and through us, that we may become beacons of truth and compassion, enlightening all creation with deeds of justice and mercy and illuminating a way to you.

Let the people say: Amen.

_______________________________________________

Preached by the Rev. Thomas C. Jackson San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral Feb. 8, 2011

Bishop Christopher’s ministry can be supported by donations to Integrity Uganda which may be made online @  http://www.iintegrityusa.org/ and directed to The Hopkins Fund.

Media reports of Bishop Christopher’s work include:

• Expelled Ugandan Bishop Ministers to LGBT
• The Dignity of Every Human Being
• Prophetic Conversations: Bishop Christopher Senyonjo Comes to DC
• VIDEO: Bishop Christopher Senyonjo does God’s work helping LGBT people in Uganda
• Human-Rights Champion Bishop Christopher Senyonjo of Uganda
• Help Welcome Bishop Christopher Senyonjo of Integrity Uganda to the Bay Area
• Bishop Christopher Senyonjo of Uganda threatened after Archbishop Orombi accepts and then prohibits gay debate in Church
• Ugandan newspaper targets gays and Bishop Christopher Senyonjo

At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’ So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.

The Rev. Sam Shoemaker (1893 - 1963)

Grover Cleveland was president in the year Sam Shoemaker was born, John F. Kennedy was in the White House during the year when he died. Shoemaker, the Episcopal priest we honor a feast day today, was lived through a tempestuous time that included two world wars, remaking of America into a modern industrial society, and the arrival of innovations ranging from motion pictures to electrical lighting, air travel and atomic bombs. He also lived through the arrival – and departure – of Prohibition.

This last item – Prohibition – is important because it points us to Shoemakers most influential accomplishment. Shoemaker was a gifted preacher; but we do not remember him today solely for his sermons. He was a prolific author, completing some 30 book; but we do not mark his life for any book he authored. Rather we remember Sam Shoemaker for his contribution to one big book, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1955, AA Founder Bill Wilson, referred to Sam Shoemaker as a co-founder of AA.

“It was from Sam Shoemaker, that we absorbed most of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, steps that express the heart of AA’s way of life. Dr. Silkworth gave us the needed knowledge of our illness, but Sam Shoemaker had given us the concrete knowledge of what we could do about it, he passed on the spiritual keys by which we were liberated. The early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgement of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Group and directly from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America, and from nowhere else.”

The first AA meeting gathered in Akron, Ohio in 1935. Today thousands of AA meetings are held each week around the world. Some are held as a community service in Episcopal Churches.

The 12-Step program created by Alcoholics Anonymous is now in use by groups helping people with abdications ranging from drugs and overeating to gambling. All of these programs reflect Shoemaker’s contribution: the ideas of self-examination, acknowledgement of defects, restitution and working with others. Through them Sam Shoemaker has touched – and helped – more people than we can imagine.

Shoemaker also said “Prayer may not change things for you, but it for sure changes you for things.” His focus was on equipping us to, with God’s help, change ourselves so we could live a healthy life.
Today we rush from task to task, perused by ringing cell phones and e-mail. We make mistakes, we are imperfect, we hurt people. Too often we do not know how to set things right. Shoemaker’s four steps can point us toward God’s healing grace. Beginning with self-examination we learn more about who we are. By acknowledging our faults we recognize where we need to grow. Shoemaker’s call for restitution provides us with a way to make things right. And his demand we work with others in this process helps keep us honest. Prayer, Shoemaker suggests, is one way we can realign ourselves to God, right relationships and the world.

Shoemakers steps can also serve as a way for our church to take stock of where we are, see what needs to be fixed, make things right and move on together. We will never get things completely right. But that is not the point. We are not supposed to get things completely right. Instead we are on a pilgrimage with God and our trip is our purpose.

Let us pray:  Holy Father, may we along our way find our steps enlightened by the work of Sam Shoemaker. Guide us to self awareness and right relationship with you, your creation and all of our brothers and sisters. Send down you Holy Spirit so we may find our path alongside you on this great pilgrimage of life. And in the end, bring us to be with you for all eternity.

Let the people say: AMEN

Preached by the Rev. Thomas C. Jackson in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral  Jan. 31, 2011.

We remember Aelred principally for his teachings on friendship, teachings that showed us how “we, clasping each the other’s hand, may share the joy of friendship, human and divine,” and draw many to God’s community of love.”

On this St. Aelred’s Day, I wonder how are we can minster to each other in the good saint’s ‘community of love’ here in the Bay Area? I wonder if, since Aelred is the patron of Integrity, we can focus on how we draw LGBT into God’s “community of love.” We’ve done a great deal already: for 30 years our diocese has had an LGBT ministry. What began with the parsonage in the Castro has continued with Oasis California. Many of yesterday’s demands for inclusion of LGBT people in our church are today’s reality. You might think we could disband Oasis California and celebrate a job well done.

We could, but Prop 8 passed, shattering the myth we have fully accepted LGBT people. We could, but transgender people today face as much fear and hate as gay people did 30 years ago. We could, but the suicide rate among young gay men is unacceptably high. We could, but just this week a televangelist gained a moment of fame by claiming the recent series of dead birds falling from the sky are really God’s punishment of America for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Here’s a reality check: when meeting with LGBT students and the Episcopal-Lutheran Chaplain at UC Davis, one of the students said: “It is harder for me to come out as a Christian to my gay friends than it is for me to come out as gay to my Christian Friends.”

So on this St. Aelred’s Day, I wonder if it is time to refocus our work and Oasis California. I wonder if it is time to examine how we minister to the LGBT people. I wonder if we could help Integrity serve as the activist organization and build our new ministry on how we minister to LGBT people as full members of our “community of love?” Our next challenge is reworking how we minister to those we now welcome to our church.

We can work to answer questions like:

• Are our Sunday schools, youth groups and church affiliated schools safe places of LGBT youth?
• Are church affiliated senior care facilities accepting places for LGBT seniors to live?
• Are our college and university chaplaincies receiving all the support they need to oppose bias against LGBT students and staff?
• What kind of pastoral care is appropriate for same gender couples – if in fact their needs are in any way different from those of a straight couple?
• Do we offer parents the resources and counsel they need if their child is LGBT?

These are but a few of the questions Oasis California could explore if we refocus on ministry that creates a “community of love” within this region.
St. Aelred writes of how the gift of Christian friendship can lead us in the way of holiness. Based on his teaching, we can now see the church as a “community of love” open to all the baptized. And we can work to find how to better minister to LGBT people within our “community of love.”

May we have the courage to hold each other’s hands; the joy of love given and returned; and the grace to form a beloved community that stands as a shining city upon the hill to give hope to all who see. And may many be drawn together in Aelred’s community of love.

May the people say Amen.

Preached by Oasis California President the Rev. Thomas C. Jackson On St. Aelred’s Day, Jan. 12, 2011 in Grace Cathedral

Where can I get an icon of St. Aelred?

Robert Lentz has created an excellent icon of St. Aelred that is available from Trinity Stores on a wide variety of media.Today we honor St. Aelred, a medieval English monk who now serves as the patron saint of Integrity, the preeminent LGBT organization in the Episcopal Church. Since I serve as president of Oasis, our diocesan LGBT ministry, it seems providential for me to be here today.

We remember Aelred principally for his teachings on friendship, teachings that showed us how “we, clasping each the other’s hand, may share the joy of friendship, human and divine,” and draw many to God’s community of love.”

On this St. Aelred’s Day, I wonder how are we can minster to each other in the good saint’s ‘community of love’ here in the Bay Area? I wonder if, since Aelred is the patron of Integrity, we can focus on how we draw LGBT into God’s “community of love.” We’ve done a great deal already: for 30 years our diocese has had an LGBT ministry. What began with the parsonage in the Castro has continued with Oasis California. Many of yesterday’s demands for inclusion of LGBT people in our church are today’s reality. You might think we could disband Oasis California and celebrate a job well done.

We could, but Prop 8 passed, shattering the myth we have fully accepted LGBT people. We could, but transgender people today face as much fear and hate as gay people did 30 years ago. We could, but the suicide rate among young gay men is unacceptably high. We could, but just this week a televangelist gained a moment of fame by claiming the recent series of dead birds falling from the sky are really God’s punishment of America for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Here’s a reality check: when meeting with LGBT students and the Episcopal-Lutheran Chaplain at UC Davis, one of the students said: “It is harder for me to come out as a Christian to my gay friends than it is for me to come out as gay to my Christian Friends.”

So on this St. Aelred’s Day, I wonder if it is time to refocus our work and Oasis California. I wonder if it is time to examine how we minister to the LGBT people. I wonder if we could help Integrity serve as the activist organization and build our new ministry on how we minister to LGBT people as full members of our “community of love?” Our next challenge is reworking how we minister to those we now welcome to our church.

We can work to answer questions like:

• Are our Sunday schools, youth groups and church affiliated schools safe places of LGBT youth?
• Are church affiliated senior care facilities accepting places for LGBT seniors to live?
• Are our college and university chaplaincies receiving all the support they need to oppose bias against LGBT students and staff?
• What kind of pastoral care is appropriate for same gender couples – if in fact their needs are in any way different from those of a straight couple?
• Do we offer parents the resources and counsel they need if their child is LGBT?

These are but a few of the questions Oasis California could explore if we refocus on ministry that creates a “community of love” within this region.
St. Aelred writes of how the gift of Christian friendship can lead us in the way of holiness. Based on his teaching, we can now see the church as a “community of love” open to all the baptized. And we can work to find how to better minister to LGBT people within our “community of love.”

May we have the courage to hold each other’s hands; the joy of love given and returned; and the grace to form a beloved community that stands as a shining city upon the hill to give hope to all who see. And may many be drawn together in Aelred’s community of love.

May the people say Amen.

Preached by Oasis California President the Rev. Thomas C. Jackson On St. Aelred’s Day, Jan. 12, 2011 in Grace Cathedral

Where can I get an icon of St. Aelred?

Robert Lentz has created an excellent icon of St. Aelred that is available from Trinity Stores on a wide variety of media.

Gandolfi, Gaetano, 1734-1802, presents this visision of one of dreams when Joseph was visited by an angel.

Today’s scriptures center on a theme of revelation and wisdom that leads to coming home to God.

In our reading from Jewish scripture, we hear the prophet Jeremiah speak of a time when God redeems the people of Israel, turning their “mourning into joy” and “their mourning into joy.”

Our Psalm continues the homecoming theme. “My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord,” the psalmist writes. “For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.”

In Ephesians, the author – probably not St. Paul – prays we will receive “a spirit of wisdom and revelation” as we come to know God, as we grow closer to God, as we come home to God. But how can we develop “a spirit of wisdom and revelation?”

Today’s Gospel doesn’t seem to be much help in answering that question.

Matthew reports the Lord appeared to Joseph and warned Joseph to flee with his family to Egypt. “This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son,’” Matthew explains. Next God tells Joseph to move his family back to Israel. “There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean,’” Matthew explains.

In each of these cases, Matthew uses quotations from Jewish scripture to answer a question he finds in the story. Sometimes the question asks “Is this really in accordance with God’s promises?” other times it asks “Why did this happen?” Some scholars call this kind of proof texting “formula quotations.” They set the stage for Matthean Midrash, or Matthew’s way of interpreting and explaining Christian tradition in his time and place.

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He, Qi. Flight into Egypt, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=46097 [retrieved January 5, 2011

We do not know much about the author of the Gospel. In fact we do not know his name or even if this text is the work of one author. We call him – or them- Matthew simply for our own convenience.

Scholars say he/they worked from Mark’s Gospel, adding material from at least one other source. They think his community was persecuted by both Gentiles and Jews, people who were not convinced that Jesus was anyone special.

Now it is easier to understand Matthew’s central point: Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. His text today forms a kind of midrash, a particularly Jewish way of interpreting scripture. Midrash is a way of interpreting biblical stories that goes beyond a simple reading of the text to fill in gaps and answer questions that are important in the author’s time and place.

Sometimes a Midrash involves telling a story and then concluding that the moral of the story proves (or is reflected in) a point drawn from scripture. Matthew tells two stories, stories missing form Mark but perhaps found in his other sources, and utilizes “formula quotations” to drive home his point: Jesus is the Messiah.

Reading today’s scriptures, I was struck by the prayer in Ephesians that each of us will develop “a spirit of wisdom and revelation” as we come to know God. Perhaps like Matthew I can make a Midrash on this search for “a spirit of wisdom and revelation.”

That reminds me of a story. After graduating from seminary, I spent a year as a chaplain-in-training in the Clinical Pastoral Education program of Stanford Hospital. I had just finished a particularly long and difficult day. Although I should have been out at 5 P.M., it was closer to 8 when I finally went through the double doors near the Emergency Department, walked past the ambulances lined up in the driveway and headed toward the garage for the drive back to Alameda. It was one of those warm summer nights when you’re glad to have air conditioning in the car. I could just see the parking garage in the distance when a voice called out from the darkness.

“Excuse me, do you work here?”

I stopped, peered into the gloom and said: “Yes, I do. How can I help you?” Slowly a well dressed man emerged from the night.

“I’ve just arrived and I am looking for my son and his wife who are in the hospital,” the man said. He was carrying a garment bag in one hand.

I thought: this won’t take long. I thought: I’ll just help him find the right room number and walk him to the right elevator. I thought: I’ll be on the road in five minutes tops. I was wrong.

“I’ll be glad to help you find you son and his wife. Do you know what unit they are in?”

The man signed. “It’s not my son or his wife. My grandchild died here today and I am coming to say goodbye.” His words hung for a moment in the still night air.

“Perhaps if you called you son on his cell he could tell you where we can find your grandchild,” I said. “Then I’ll be glad to walk you to her room.” He made the call and told me the number of a room in the children’s hospital.

“Oh, you don’t have to walk me to the room,” he said.

“Yes I do: I’m a chaplain here,” I said.

“I worked as a hospital intern  before I got my own church. Seems providential we met like this,” he replied.

We walked past the silent ambulances; through the double doors and past the hall leading to the Emergency Department. We talked a bit as we went through the now empty cafeteria where chairs were stacked atop tables waiting for the cleaning crew to scrub and polish the floor. He said: “Her little heart just wasn’t strong enough to hold out until a transplant came along.”

We talked as we emerged from the caf and started down the hospital’s long main corridor: past units C-1; D-1; E-1; F-1 and into the children’s hospital. As we waited for the elevator he said: “What do I tell my son? He’ll have so many questions.” The elevator’s prompt arrival made his a rhetorical question.

We walked into the unit and I introduced him to the nurse who had last cared for his grandchild. The nurse ushered the grandfather into the room where the child lay. A moment later, two women, friends of the family who had been sitting with the little girl, hurried out of the room.

I did not want to intrude on the grandfather but I also did not want to leave him without saying goodbye. I did not know what to do so I just stood there. A moment later the grandfather opened the door and motioned for me to enter.

I walked in and found a beautiful young girl, covered by her favorite blanket. She is beautiful, she looks as though she has fallen asleep, resting with a single red rose beside her. I am overwhelmed with a feeling of loss and tranquility.

“She is beautiful,” I said.

“She fought hard … poor child … she just wasn’t strong enough…” His voice breaks and he asks “Chaplain: will you pray for her?”

I pray, he said Amen, we turn to each other and embrace.

Each year, my ex-wife hosts a special Polish Christmas Eve dinner at which she sets hay on the table to remind us of Christ’s humble birth and she sets an extra place for the “unexpected guest.”

I’ve always been touched by this reminder as we celebrate the birth of a child who arrived as an “uninvited guest,” was born in a stable, and is our savior, Christ the Lord.

That night the grieving grandfather was my “uninvited guest,” the one who arrives unexpectedly but brings blessings beyond all expectations. And in that room I was his “uninvited guest,” bringing a measure of care to ease his blinding pain.

That night, as I was walking home, I realized as Jacob said in Genesis: God was in this place and I, I did not know it. Like Jacob, I felt: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

This is as close as I have come to finding a way toward having “a spirit of wisdom and revelation.” It is as close as I have come to the gate of the psalmist’s “courts of the Lord.” This is as close as I have to a homecoming with God along my pilgrimage through lonely hospital hallways and crowded city streets; though quiet contemplation and boisterous community life. Each of us has our own pilgrimage, our own path toward having “a spirit of wisdom and revelation.” Along the way, our challenge is to remain open to the possibility of meeting God at any time.

Let us pray:

Light of life, you came in flesh, born into human pain and joy, and gave us power to be your children. Grant us faith, O Christ, to see your presence among us, so that all of creation may sing new songs of gladness and walk in the way of peace. Help us to live in “a spirit of wisdom and revelation” so that we may do the work you have given us to do.
Let the people say: Amen.

Preached by the Rev. Thomas C. Jackson

Art:

Baptism of Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=47779 [retrieved January 5, 2011].

We had moved from Vermont to Baltimore and then Bel Air, a rural farming community 45 minutes north of the City. As we watched the television news each night my family began to learn about race in America. The death of Jonathan Myrick Daniels brought the conflict uncomfortably close to us.

You see, Daniels was born in Keene, New Hampshire, not far from the town my mother’s family helped found long before 1776.  He had gone to graduate school at Harvard, he could have been the boy who grew up next door and made good. Today we commemorate his life.

Here’s what our church’s Standing Committeee on Liturgy and Music  says about Daniels in their the Holy Women, Holy Men blog:

Attracted to medicine, the ordained ministry, law and writing, he found himself close to a loss of faith when his search was resolved by a profound conversion on Easter Day 1962 at the Church of the Advent in Boston. Jonathan then entered the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In March 1965, the televised appeal of Martin Luther King, Jr. to come to Selma to secure for all citizens the right to vote drew Jonathan to a time and place where the nation’s racism and the Episcopal Church’s share in that inheritance were exposed.

He returned to seminary and asked leave to work in Selma where he would be sponsored by the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity. Conviction of his calling was deepened at Evening Prayer during the singing of the Magnificat: “ ‘He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.’ I knew that I must go to Selma. The Virgin’s song was to grow more and more dear to me in the weeks ahead.”

Jailed on August 14 for joining a picket line, Jonathan and his companions were unexpectedly released. Aware that they were in danger, four of them walked to a small store. As sixteen-year-old Ruby Sales reached the top step of the entrance, a man with a gun appeared, cursing her. Jonathan pulled her to one side to shield her from the unexpected threats. As a result, he was killed by a blast from the 12-gauge gun.

The letters and papers Jonathan left bear eloquent witness to the profound effect Selma had upon him. He writes, “The doctrine of the creeds, the enacted faith of the sacraments, were the essential preconditions of the experience itself. The faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown … I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection … with them, the black men and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout … We are indelibly and unspeakably one.”

Collect of the Day

O God of justice and compassion, you put down the proud and mighty from their place, and lift up the poor and the afflicted: We give you thanks for your faithful witness Jonathan Myrick Daniels, who, in the midst of injustice and violence, risked and gave his life for another; and we pray that we, following his example, may make no peace with oppression; through Jesus Christ the just one, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

• 5:00pm: Gather for rally at Harvey Milk Plaza, Castro St. & Market St. The Rev. Tom Jackson, President of Oasis, the LGBT Ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of California is scheduled to speak.
• 6:00pm: Begin March to Civic Center
• 6:15pm: Stop at the LGBT Center (1800 Market St. & Octavia St.) for a few speeches
• 6:45pm: Arrive at Civic Center; Main rally begins. The Rt. Rev. Marc Andrus, Bishop of California is scheduled to speak

2. Attend the Aug. 10 Interfaith Prayer Service

• When: Tuesday Aug. 10, 2010 from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm
• Where: Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, 290 Dolores Street (corner of 16th Street), San Francisco
• What: A Taizé-inspired service featuring music, speakers, and prayer time. To empower the community, and center us individually, for the work that’s ahead.
• Who: Progressive people of faith, and the moveable middle.

These events are brought to us by the Coalition of Welcoming Congregations (CWC) brings together religious leaders, LGBT people of faith and their allies from a wide range of religious traditions in the Bay Area to form a progressive voice on matters relating to sexuality and religion.  As a coalition we demonstrate how churches, synagogues, mosques, and other communities of faith can work together to strengthen legal protections for LGBT people and their family members and provide a religious rationale for supporting civil marriage for lesbian and gay people.

The CWC and the  Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry are partnered with the statewide organization  California Faith for Equality and have prepared and  attached to this message talking points you can use to speak to anyone who wants to know a spiritually-based progressive response to the verdict, as well as a sample “Letter to the Editor” you can use. These talking points and the letter are designed to be a guide or a tool, so feel free to modify the language that best fits your voice and tradition. There are many resources available online, such as  Torah Queeries,  Institute for Welcoming Resources, and others that can be used in sermons and readings—a few of these are listed below to get you started:

• CLGS Media/Resource Library
• Jewish Mosaic’s on line resource library
• Institute for Judaism and Sexual Orientation virtual library
• Institute for Welcoming Resources

You can download:

• Interfaith Service Flyer – Print some copies and distribute them around your neighborhood so folks will join us Aug. 10!
• Talking Points Perry v Schwarzenegger – use them to answer questions about the court’s ruling!
• Letter to the Editor Perry v Schwarzenegger – revise to make it your own and send it in or post it online!