Saturday, January 31, 2015

Building Capacity

Building Capacity
Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
February 1, 2015; 4 Epiphany, Year B
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary


Mark 1:21-28 – Jesus and his disciples went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching -- with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
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I want you to imagine two different days.

The first day: You've had a nagging cold for a while. It's affecting your energy and your sleep. You've been feeling crummy. You've self-soothed with chips and junk food; haven't felt like exercising or walking; haven't prayed or meditated. You wake up in the morning feeling tired. Your stopped-up nose interfered with sleep. It's raining; cold; temperatures in the thirties. You go down to the kitchen and have one of those cranky conversations with whoever you live with; the kind of thing that just gets your goat and starts the day off bad. You look at your calendar as you head out the door. Too much squeezed into too little time. And the people you are scheduled to see are less than favorites. You drag yourself to the car and start driving, and you hear a little thump. It gets a little louder. Thump, thump, thump. You can feel it in your steering wheel, and now you know – you've got a tire going flat. Aggh. I can't believe it. Not today! I just can't take it.

Another day: It's been a good week. You are feeling good. You've done your exercise or walking. You've been praying or meditating, practicing your rule of life. You went to bed last night on time without over-indulging in food or drink, so you wake up refreshed after a long deep sleep. It's sunny and 68 degrees outside. In the kitchen you have a cheery conversation that makes you feel grateful to have such a loved one in your life. You look at your calendar as you head out the door, and it looks like a promising day. Not too much scheduled but enough to keep it interesting. Some of the people you are supposed to see are either favorites or people you think you might like to get to know better. You get in the car and enjoy the sky and trees as you drive down the street. You stop at a red light. Bam! You've been hit from behind and the backend is crunched. You check yourself. I'm okay. You look in the mirror. The other driver signals "Okay! Not hurt." You look at the damage and think, It's only metal and plastic. Nobody's hurt. Everything is fixable. I can handle this. [i]

There is a relationship between our capacity to bear a difficult experience and the intensity of an experience. Usually a flat tire is not as intense a problem as a take-it-to-the-shop rear-end collision, is it? But when our capacity for bearing up is low, even a small set-back can undo us.

You might think of trauma as a ratio—the difference between our capacity to handle pain as it happens and the intensity of the pain. One way of reducing our misery is to increase our capacity.

In the Capernaum synagogue, Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, "Be silent, and come out of him!" The people exclaimed, "What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."

How do we command the unclean spirits in our lives? How do we endure the troubles and traumas that create pain and suffering for us?

When we are threatened our animal instincts tell us to fight, freeze or fly. Our culture tells us to ignore our pain, or suppress it, or numb ourselves. Just get over it. Put your past behind you. Move on already. Take a pill or fill a glass; that'll ease the pain. You've got a computer and a TV—go shopping. Entertain yourself; escape. Even good things when used to excess can numb us and help us avoid problems—compulsive exercising, losing yourself in work, otherwise constructive hobbies like reading or craft work can become hiding places when taken to excess. We have myriad ways to avoid our pain.

Research on the human mind tells us something else. Because of the way humans are wired, if we allow ourselves to move more directly through the experience of distress, we will experience less distress for a shorter time. It really does work to face the unclean spirits, up close and personal.

I remember a one-page handout in my seminary pastoral care class. It showed all of the possible coping mechanisms that people employ in the face of the death of a loved one. Each of the options was pictured as a different path along the way. Ignore it. Get mad. Get busy. Put a bright light on it. Withdraw. Find a new person to replace the old one. There are lots of options.

Regardless of how we choose to cope, the path toward acceptance and incorporation of a loss into the creation of a new and whole reality must inevitably move through the felt experience of helplessness. You have to face the demon—I am helpless to change the reality of this loss.

If we are able to move more directly into the helplessness, into the experience of distress, we seem to experience less distress for a shorter time. We overcome the demons.

Prayer—especially contemplative prayer and mindfulness—is a form of exercise in the facing of our demons. In a prayer practice, we can avoid our tendency toward avoidance. In prayer we can simply be with the everyday pain and turbulence of our lives. In prayerful awareness, we simply allow our afflictive emotions and thoughts to rise up out of our depths, we let go of judgment and let them be, without reaction or attachment. We don't add to them with commentary or old tapes. We simply let them be. We allow the energy of our emotions and thoughts to rise and fall, like waves exhausting themselves on the shore. Ever-so-gently we return to our sacred center, over and over.

Prayer builds capacity. If I can sit day-by-day with the energy of my afflictive thoughts—a fear, a disappointment, an anger, a frustration—letting them be without needing to do anything about them—I find space between the distress and my experience of distress. I become less reactive, less controlling. Capacity for frustration and loss grows. With practice, I find more space between my self and my experiences. My self is encased in a reality greater than my experience.

Last week I tried to preach Paul's theology in one sermon. If you weren't here, pick up a copy or watch it on our website. Paul's life-changing experience was his realization that when he was most messed up, an enemy to God, God accepted him anyway and gave him a job. He didn't have to do anything to earn God's loving acceptance. God's loving acceptance was a gift. A free gift.

From that point on, Paul gave up on himself—his life as a self-improvement project—and he experienced himself as living "in Christ." From that sacred center—in Christ—he found great capacity, not only to put up with Corinthians arguing over meat sacrificed to idols, but also with beatings, imprisonments, and shipwrecks. Within the loving acceptance of Christ, he was bulletproof. He could face anything, including his own death.

Practice facing your hurts, fears and sadness, gently letting them be without the need to do anything about them or to add any commentary. Be centered in your body; be centered in your union with God in Christ. Let yourself be loved, infinitely. And look without judgment into whatever bedevils your life. Let it be.

We all experience loss. Eventually we will all lose everything – youth, strength, health, relationships, life itself. Practice now letting it all be, and maybe your capacity will grow like Paul's, who could say in truth, I don't care whether I live or die. If I die, I will die into Christ. But if I live, I might be more helpful to you. So, he says, I'm glad to go on living.

"What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."

[i] The story and some major points are adapted from Dr. Ronald Siegel, The Science of Mindfulness, lecture 17, Overcoming Traumas Large and Small, from the Great Courses.

_______________________

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
More sermon texts are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Click the “Video Online” button to watch full services and sermons live-streamed or archived.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Paul -- In One Sermon

Paul – In One Sermon
Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
January 25, 2015; Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Galatians 1:11-24 – I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.


You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.
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What a lovely convergence. Today is the Sunday of the Annual Meeting of St. Paul's Church, and it is also the date on the church calendar for the annual observance of the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. He is our patron. And I want to try to summarize his gospel in one sermon. Impossible, yes; but great fun to try.

Saul (his Hebrew name) was a good, observant Jew, righteous under the law. From the perspective of his tradition, he was not a sinner, he was righteous. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.

But Saul was miserable. His project of self-perfection made him angry and self-absorbed. It required his constant, total attention. He was full of anxious internal dialogue. How am I doing? Am I observing every commandment? He could never relax, and somehow he felt impotent, helpless before the expectations of perfection, even as he was succeeding at following the law. It made him angry. He was angry at God, the divine threat holding all of these commandments over his head. He also projected his anger toward other people, the ones he could see who were demonstrably in the wrong – those followers of Jesus. He would either fix them or kill them. Religious extremists with absolute certainties are sometimes that way.

In this stewing, self-righteous state, Saul traveled on the road to Damascus determined to arrest "those people." Then something happened. Saul was given a revelation. He realized that he was absolutely wrong. The futility of it all hit him. He experienced the risen Christ, and he was transformed. He became Paul. God commissioned him to go to the Gentiles, the non-Jewish world, and Paul spent the rest of his life living out what he experienced in that moment.

What did he experience? Acceptance. Acquittal. The sheer gift of God's loving acceptance when he was God's enemy. God's loving acceptance gave him freedom and peace and true purpose. Here's how he reflected on it later.

In Christ, God enters fully into our humanity. In Christ, God comes in weakness and humility. And humanity crucifies him. Our complete failure is exposed. The religious failure of the Jews; the political failure of the Romans; the death-dealing powers and principalities that are the structures of human society. It is all sin; all human life is under the power of sin. Sin crucifies the Lord and Author of life. And everyone is complicit.

But in the resurrection, God defeats the powers and principalities. God deals with sin in a final and decisive victory. God initiates the New Creation. God gives new life to all humanity.

God does it all. In the resurrection, God takes all our failure and turns it into love. God says to Paul – the angry, self-righteous perfectionist, "I love you. I accept you. You don't have to earn your place. You are already accepted. You are already acquitted. It's a gift. You don't have to do anything but receive the gift of life. Trust me."

That gift came to Paul while he was in a state of full rebellion – he knew he didn't earn it. Paul realized that if God gives him that gift, in his ungodly state, then it is a universal gift for all people in their ungodly states. We are all a mess. So God rescues everyone with the gift of universal acceptance. God justifies the ungodly.

Paul realized that sin for him was the total life-project of his trying earning his place in the sun. To earn his status before God and before humanity. Living like that is a condition of perpetual anxiety – wondering what other people think about me; pressured to achieve, to accomplish, to please others, and especially, to earn our own self-acceptance – we are tyrannical taskmasters toward ourselves. Paul realized, Give up the project. You've already crossed the finish line. God loves us, accepts us, forgives us, and gives us new life all as a gift.

We now live in a new world, a new creation. No more do we live in a world where people fail, are forgiven, and start over, just trying harder. That's death! Did you hear that? No more do we live in a world where people fail, are forgiven, and start over, just trying harder.

In the new creation, you simply accept your life as a gift from God, nothing more need be earned. Faith is the quality of standing in this acceptance with constant confidence: God has given me my life as sheer gift.

It takes some courage to stand in that place. The culture is broken. The culture will tell you that you have to earn your place. Most of that stuff that we've been proud of, everything we've grasped to ourselves, we have to be willing to throw away. It's all garbage, Paul says. Your accomplishments, your resume, your reputation, your status. It means nothing.

For Paul, it's an either/or world. We either live in the Culture of Sin, where everyone competes for their place; or the Culture of Grace, where everyone is unconditionally accepted and free.

In the New Creation, the Culture of Grace, all the old boundaries are wiped out. All the ways we divide humanity are eliminated. We are all one. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, Christian or non-Christian; there is no longer male or female, gay or straight; there is no longer slave or free, wealthy or poor, educated or non-educated, left or right, Democrat or Republican, American or foreigner, powerful or weak. Paul insists:  We are all one. In Paul's church, women served as leaders. Biblical writers of a later generation were threatened by that and tried to edit his teaching. Paul authorized women to lead prayer, to host the church in their homes, and to share his apostolic authority.

Yet Paul insists, we are perfected not in our strengths, but in our weakness, when we let ourselves be dependent upon Christ.

Standing simply in grace, accepting the perfect love of God in Christ, we are free. We are free for love. Since we need nothing, we can live generously. When you know you've got it all, it's easy to be generous, he says.

Standing simply in grace, we can unanxiously reach out in love to care for the needs of others. After all, we're all one. No one stands in a place of privilege. We are all in need of God's grace and God freely gives divine, loving acceptance to all.

Whenever we know ourselves to be fully accepted, we can be at peace. And we can be peaceful with others.

Perfect security. Paul knew himself to be bulletproof. What could anyone do to him, thanks to the surpassing grace of God in Christ. So, whenever he suffered, he rejoiced. And Paul suffered. When suffering happened, he simply connected his suffering to the suffering of Christ and felt himself privileged to share some of the cross that always leads to resurrection. That's confidence.

Paul is the picture of a transformed person. Transformed from an anxious controller, trying to make himself and everyone else right, to a joyful, confident person at peace with himself, open and available to the Spirit working through him reaching out in love to share the grace of being whole, accepted, and loved.

He says that what was given him is God's free gift to every human. God's free gift to you. Just be who you are. It's all gift. It's all grace.
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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
More sermon texts are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Click the “Video Online” button to watch full services and sermons live-streamed or archived.

Saturday, January 03, 2015

New Year's Resolutions for Magi

New Year's Resolutions for Magi

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
January 4, 2015; 2 Christmas, Year B
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Matthew 2:1-12 – In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
`And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
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I find this story about the visit of the wise men so compelling. The contrasts are so vivid. Exotic foreigners come to the humble manger where a Jewish peasant is born. These travelers represent different cultures, different races, different languages, different religions, all gathered in harmony at the stable where Jesus is born. What a beautiful symbol of interreligious harmony, pluralism, and the respect and acceptance that nurtures relationships between human beings who appear to be very different from one another.

The scripture says that the visitors "knelt down and paid homage." They offered a liturgical act with meaning. An act of respect and honor. They gave gifts – made a sacrifice, if you will. Then they left and went home, back to their own familiar traditions and culture, to their own religion and practice. Yet both the magi and the holy family seem touched positively by their communion with each other.

Today we live in a wonderful age that is also a terrible age. Ours is an age when some religious extremists will condemn and even kill anyone who is not one of them. But it is also an age where great-hearted people from around the world can meet in interreligious dialogue to share their wisdom and practice and to learn from each other.

One of my mentors Fr. Thomas Keating has helped foster thirty years of Interreligious Dialogue from his monastery in Snowmass, CO, inviting deep practitioners from many traditions to share their wisdom. They have found important points of agreement among the world's religious and spiritual traditions:  They recognize that the various religions all bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, the ground of infinite potentiality and actuality which cannot be limited by name or concept. They agree that faith is opening, accepting, and responding to Ultimate Reality; that faith precedes every belief system. They affirm that the potential for wholeness is present in every human being and may be experienced not only through religious practice, but also through nature, art, human relationships, and service to others. And they note that disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life, but spiritual attainment is not the result of our efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality. Magi – wise men and women – visiting together in our age.

In the spirit of the magi, as we begin this new year, I would like to invite you to take a journey on your pilgrimage of faith. Consider adopting a disciplined practice, a spiritual practice that will deepen your life and bring you closer to your union with the divine and with creation. Something that will help you become a person of wisdom.

My first suggestion for a new year's spiritual resolution would be for you to commit to participating in the Eucharist weekly. Early Christians were willingly martyred for the sake of joining together as the Body of Christ, hearing the scriptures, praying together, and being fed with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation. I'm moved by the story of a young Christian named Felix. In the year 304 he stood before a torture rack where he watched the deaths of his father and a friend, their bodies torn apart by barbed hooks. The authorities then turned to young Felix and asked if he were one of the assembly. His response: As if a Christian could exist without the Eucharist, or the Eucharist be celebrated without a Christian! Don't you know that a Christian is constituted by the Eucharist, and the Eucharist by a Christian? Neither avails without the other. We celebrated our assembly right gloriously. We always convene at the Eucharist for the reading of the Lord's Scriptures. Those were his final words.

"A Christian is constituted by the Eucharist and the Eucharist by a Christian." If you are not present, our Eucharist is not quite complete. We need you here. Let your weekly Eucharist become as habitual and life-giving as eating is for you. And if you are ill, join us online through our LiveStreaming from our web page.

If you make one spiritual resolution for this new year, resolve to attend weekly Eucharist and the great Holy Week services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil.

For a bit more spiritual nourishment this year, you might adopt a daily practice if you do not have one. Give yourself the gift of time for daily prayer, daily reading, or some form of regular mindfulness.

The Church's tradition of the Prayer Book office of Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer is a beautiful way to join with millions of others around the world, being formed and informed by a systematic reading of the scripture and by the regular prayers of the church. In your Epistle bulletin insert we always print the Prayer Book's list of the upcoming week's scripture readings for the Daily Office. Some people use the online service from missionstclare.com or the new Episcopal Prayer Book app on their phone or tablet to read Morning or Evening Prayer. Our associate priest Lora Walsh sends an email reflection on the daily readings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It's fun to see how her thoughts might complement yours as you share the reading of the same scriptures. Sign up for our "Morning Reflection" emails.

I've written some thorough instructions about how to pray the Daily Office in my little pamphlet on prayer; it's available in the office. That booklet also offers an assortment of traditional ways to practice prayer, including traditions for meditating with scripture, simple forms of conversational prayer, praying in nature, and various contemplative traditions like breath prayer and Centering Prayer. Pick up a copy. Try some prayer practices and choose one that fits your needs. And feel free to visit with one of your priests about these things.

Whenever I think of the visit of the magi to the holy family, my mind also moves toward similar visitations among spiritual seekers in our day.

As the world's religions and spiritual traditions speak with each other, one of the spiritual practices that we find we all share is a discipline with various names. In Catholic spirituality it is sometimes called "recollection;" more commonly in English it called "mindfulness."

To practice mindfulness is to cultivate your awareness of present experience with acceptance. The nineteenth century French Jesuit spiritual director Jean Pierre de Caussade called it the "sacrament of the present moment" and "abandonment to divine providence." In our day there is a great deal of secular research about mindfulness as an antidote to the stresses and pathologies of our age.

So I would offer one more new year's suggestion. Practice mindfulness. Practice living in the present moment with full awareness and acceptance. In our Christian tradition mindfulness can be strengthened when we engage in meditative or contemplative disciplines like Centering Prayer or Breath Prayer.

In mindfulness practice, we take some time apart to use some discipline of focus to help us detach from the thoughts and feelings that tend to capture our moment-by-moment consciousness. In mindfulness practice, we let go of our attachment to the impulses and the mind chatter that tends to push us reactively from one compulsive thought to another. There is space between the compulsive thoughts that would drive you to mindless reaction. In mindfulness practice, you simply choose not to react. You just stay with the impulse to react and watch it come and go like an ocean wave.

The practice that I learned offers a teaching called the Four R's as ways of coping with afflictive emotions and thoughts. Resist no thought. Retain no thought. React emotionally to no thought. Return ever-so-gently to your mindful focus. When you practice living with your present experience with that kind of acceptance, you find that the practice flows into the rest of your life. You can become less reactive; there is space between impulse and reaction; you can live more in the present.

It's my hunch that these magi were people of mindfulness. People who could patiently watch the heavens for signs and were free enough to follow the heavenly guidance of the moment. They diligently traveled great distances guided by their simple focus on the star. They brought their gifts to pay homage to a child of a distant culture and different religion. And they returned blessed and enlightened, continuing along their pilgrimage of openness and awareness.

Our life in the present moment has an infinite, heavenly quality. Let your focus be here and now, in open awareness with relaxed acceptance. And then move securely, enveloped in the divine love that moves the heavens and the stars. God still needs people of wisdom. Why shouldn't that be our purpose and calling in our day.
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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
More sermon texts are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Click the “Video Online” button to watch full services and sermons live-streamed or archived.