Sermon from Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church 9/3/17

Sermon for Grace and St Stephen's 9/4/17

Confession: I never tell people how long it has been since I pastored a church. I actually won't even calculate it in my mind. It's easy enough, my oldest was nearly 2 and now he is nearly 6, but before I do that simple math I change the subject. You see I don't care to admit how long I have been “out of it” because I feel like every passing year outside the weekly pulpit, every new layer of dust collected on my alb and the boxes in our basement labeled “Jen's office stuff” makes me feel one year less important. I'm not saying that's right or the way it should be but it's the way it is. I'm one year further from using my official title and it feels like I have less standing among clergy (although they do not act that way) like I'm less up on what's happening in the world of ecclesial and theological happenings. When clergy friends are relating stories of struggle and triumph my relatable stories are further and further away and I feel less and less “in the trenches.”

It's an ego thing. I remember (some years ago) when I was making the decision about leaving my job and I made this very vulnerable and raw confession to my husband … the kind of confession you only make to a very close friend or spouse … and now hundreds of you. I said “what if my ego can't take it?” I never thought of myself as particularly ego driven but what if not seeing my name on a pay check or church sign or my ideas written into monthly newsletter articles or having a list of people wanting appointments with me … what if it's an absence … an abyss too strongly felt and my ego crumbles?

In spite of my concerns and hesitations, the call I was feeling at that time for a change gave me the courage to jump into that abyss … that unknown world. And here I am (some years later). Now when the opening hymn begins you will not find me at the end of the procession wearing sacredly sewn vestments with a divinely inspired sermon in my hand but rather picking up crushed gold fish crackers, whispering warnings to my 3 and 5 year old, wiping remnants of their blueberry oatmeal off my clothes I did not have time to iron . . . and as the processional cross approaches tapping them to get their attention and remind them to bow for the cross. It is certainly a different view of things and a different type of trenches I find myself in.

The Gospel reading today got me thinking about this … this jump into the abyss. The giving up of my dream job, my title, my long held identity, my status, my role, my sense of self. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

I remember studying this passage in depth when I was in seminary. These words are found not just in Matthew but in Mark and Luke as well. We studied it in the context of what the original audience was experiencing which was severe persecution. This added weight to the words. Particularly in Mark's Gospel it is understood with urgency and quite literally rather than metaphorically. If you want to follow me you will actually have to pick up your cross and lose your life. At the time I remember thinking that other interpretations seemed weak in comparison. As if over time this passage had become lightened, watered down, particularly the phrase “my cross to bear.” Like the person who always gets left to fold the folding chairs after the meeting describing it as “their cross to bear” or if you are the only one in the family with ugly toenails and you decide it is your “cross to bear.” It's become a saying that people use and I remember feeling at the time I studied this that all of that internalizing and attributing to metaphor and explaining away took away from the tremendous weight of this charge. People were actually risking their lives to follow Christ, actually bearing crosses. Any other way of looking at it seemed like a cop out.

But now as I look at this (some years later) and I read that line “let them deny themselves” and understand it in terms of this context, it does not feel light, it does not feel like a cop out, it does not feel weak. It feels like a challenge, a serious charge, a legitimate way of understanding the road to discipleship, what it means to follow Christ, what it means to experience the power of the risen Lord. Denying self for the sake of following a suffering servant. Setting aside the things we hold onto to make us feel important and instead serving Christ. This ego stuff is hard.

In so many ways and times and places life challenges our egos, our sense of importance, our way of attaching meaning to our lives. Years ago I was contemplating how I would feel important without a job and today I'm contemplating how I will feel important as my youngest starts preschool and my other son kindergarten. Saying goodbye to the baby days, the days when a being is completely 100 percent dependent on you brings relief but also a shift in role. A change in the way one sees themselves.

And while my opening story made the role of clergy sound very important and noble and rewarding, it hasn't been so long that I forget the other side. I have an actual story of something that happened to me during ministry that I think illustrates what I mean by “the other side.” One day I was sitting in my office doing some work at my desk and in walked a chihuahua. I was surprised to see an unattended dog as my office was not near an outside door and so I did as any polite person might and said “hello.” The dog stood there and barked at me pretty loudly for a while. Then it stopped … pooped on my carpeted office floor and walked out. You may think I was surprised or horrified or startled but instead my first thought was “that's about right.” It seemed on par with what I had been experiencing with office visits at the time.

Whatever our role or occupation or place in life we have all had those moments in life when we feel the weight, fear and insecurity that can come from denying ourselves. Faith …. following … requires some ego work. The ability to let go of self, to shed the walls, the stories we have told ourselves, the protections in place and believe that even without all of that we can be loved, we can be accepted we can have meaning … it's not easy.

This summer I decided to dive into some Paul Tillich and I read “The Courage to Be.” In this book he looks at the paradoxes of existence. He explores what it means to exist and “be” in a world where we are surrounded by what he would call “non-being.” In other words, how do we get through life with joy, hope and courage when we are surrounded by the reality that we are mortal, we are finite, we are temporary. Death, disease, despair is all around us. Meaninglessness, hopelessness can feel so big and so strong that it could swallow us up. How do we keep going, day after day with this weight? With fear? With doubts? With pain? He talks about the ability to accept that we are accepted even when we don't deserve it. He talks about the courage to ask the questions, explore the abyss, express the doubt -and how that can be essential to deepening one's faith. He talks about looking into the face of meaninglessness and finding that there is in fact something greater, something beyond it.

I understood it as a way of letting go of the desire to understand everything, to control everything, and instead embracing all that life has to offer- trusting and knowing that God is there … God is here. That God is greater than us, present with us and when we can move past the fear and embrace the mystery then we can have the courage to move forward, the courage to be, the courage to live with faith. We can accept that there is existence beyond just our self and we are a part of it, part of this greater being, this eternal changelessness.

I see it as an act of self-denial. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” We have to be willing to lose, to fall into the abyss, to shatter the walls we put up and the self importance we create to find life in Christ. To let go of our fear of meaninglessness in order to find meaning.

And I don't think that I nailed it when I walked away from my career. I think it is something we do again and again and again. And we come every Sunday and confess that we have failed and give our souls sustenance so we can keep at it. The world just keeps challenging our ego. Opposing views, criticisms, hurtful words, despair, suffering, sadness. They come at us and Jesus keeps calling us to deny ourselves and follow him. To humble ourselves and embrace something bigger.

I'm thinking back to something I said at the beginning of this sermon. When I was talking about the opening hymn and my place in (or actually not in) the procession. When I am trying to get myself into an internal place of worship and worried about the kids behaving. When I am trying to find my place in the bulletin and hold the page on the hymnal and remember what verse we are on while one kid is asking for his Pokemon book and the other needs his snack because I told him he had to wait until worship started and the opening procession is as long as he can wait. When I want to take in the beauty of the music and the meaning of the words I am singing and the majesty of this space but I just remembered that the water bottle I brought leaks.

And standing above the pews and the people and the vestments is the cross. And it comes to where we are … calling … beckoning. And I tap my kids on the shoulder and remind them to bow before the cross. Maybe that is the most important and best thing I can do. Recognize my frailty, my dependency and nod a “yes” to Christ's renewed request to follow him … and for these four years I have been in the pews with them and however many more are to come … teaching my children to do the same.