A Positively Poetic Priest

I have had a reputation in my life for not sleeping. As a small child, I didn't sleep through the night and frequently kept my parents awake. As a kid at camp, not being a good sleeper, everyone thought that I just didn't sleep. Even through college and seminary, my friends joked that I must not be human because they had never seen me sleep. I have a hard time sleeping through noise, and people make a lot of noise. My husband continues this line of joking still today though he has managed to catch me asleep, though not often, because he falls asleep faster than I do and he can sleep through almost anything. In the Gospel passage this morning, we hear another parable from Jesus. And this one leaves us with a lot more questions instead of answers. In the stories and teachings before this parable in the arc of story from Matthew Jesus is on this theme of staying awake. Of course, we get to the parable of the bridesmaids and see all of them promptly fall asleep. Thankfully, I don...

I brought a special box with me today! Although, y'all have already heard Jesus' parable and I don't know... its not an easy parable to take out of the box. (though this parable is bursting out of this box...) In case you need to hear this up front, this sermon is not about answers. It is about questions. Here it comes. This box is the color of gold. Parables are even more valuable than gold. This box also looks like a present. Parables are presents. They were given to us before we were born and they are ours, even if we don't know what they mean. This box looks old. Parables are old. This box is closed. Parables sometimes seem closed to us. We need to keep coming back to them to see if they will open. Let's look inside. We have a king,  (crown) we have invitations (invitation card) we have a wedding banquet, (plastic food) we have servants/slaves (towel) we have people (wooden people figures) we have wedding clothes (wedding clothes) we have a man with no wedding c...

  Do you want a salad or roasted vegetables? For some of us this might be an easy decision. For others, it might be more difficult. When I was a child and I couldn't make this kind of decision, my father would figuratively put one in his left hand and one in his right hand without telling me which was in each hand. Then I was to choose a hand, right or left? I was supposed to go with whichever of the choices in the hand I chose But most of the time, in that second after he told me which I had to go with I realized either that I was happy with the choice or sad that I didn't get the other and knew which I really wanted. In this case, usually the salad. You never knew which vegetables were going to be in 'roasted vegetables.' A salad is usually more predictable. This way of choosing is a decision making game and one that I occasionally still use to help make simple and fairly unimportant decisions. But what about when the decisions are much bigger much harder? In the Unde...

From Johnny Appleseed, "Oh, and every seed I sow, Will grow into a tree. And someday there'll be apples there, For everyone in the world to share. Oh, the Lord is good to me, Oh, the Lord is good to me, And so I thank the Lord, For giving me the things I need; The sun and the rain and the apple seed. The Lord is good to me." Franklin lies on the wandering path of the American legend Johnny Appleseed, otherwise known as John Chapman, born in Massachusetts in the late 1700's. He kept journals as he walked across Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, and Illinois. He planted apple cider orchards (not the juicy apples we normally eat). But the apple cider was helpful for the settlers who followed him later in order to have something to drink instead of unsanitary water. Even during his lifetime, legends began to spring up about this interesting and pioneering man. In every regard, Johnny Appleseed was a carefree and generous sower. He planted in places where there w...

"So they [Mary Magdalene and the other Mary] left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples." (Matthew 28:1-10) The first Easter Sunday was not the glorious celebration we are used to having. The first Easter Sunday was a few women and men who were absolutely confused, frightened, and a little bit hopeful. The first Easter Sunday dawned sad and grief stricken by the early disciples. Their teacher and loving friend was dead and they were afraid and didn't know what to do. But the women did what women always do, they took care of the business at hand. They went to Jesus' tomb to prepare his body for proper burial. Only, he wasn't there, which was outright confusing and frightening all on its own, not to mention the earthquake and the angel speaking to them. I think it is helpful to remember the real Easter morning story this year. We are not in a place to be able to celebrate wholeheartedly. We cannot laugh off the care...

    Today would be a perfect day to continue the St. John's and Grace Lent series: Lent is Not Rocket Science with another familiar and yet confusing scientific principle, Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory is an interdisciplinary theory, which means it applies to almost every known realm of study. The Chaos Theory is usually summarized like this: "When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future." Underneath the summary is mathematics which show that even chaos has patterns and interconnectedness which cannot be seen. It is Chaos Theory which makes so much of good science fiction writing possible. We can write about a future which COULD happen, but that doesn't mean it necessarily will.      However, on the surface, even Chaos Theory looks like it's name: chaotic. And if there is one thing we feel from today's Passion Gospel it usually can be classified in the same realm: chaos, confusion, turmoil...

Look up! (point up) My number one pet peeve about action and horror movies is that when people go into a room,  concerned about the enemy jumping them,  they never look up. And so many times that is where the people are hiding, on the ceiling or up above the door or whatever.  We don't look up.  I've heard that Bishop Sean, when he was here,  never noticed that the ceiling in the priest's office is sparkly. Apparently, he never looked up. When you go outside at night, do you ever look up  and stay a moment in awe and wonder.  Stars by day and stars by night,  God provides us light. Beyond our physical world,  Even in the darkness of our own minds,  we have a tendency to look down. I see this psycho-somatically,  when people are upset and troubled,  they are always looking down.  At the ground.  While there are plenty of marvelous things on the ground, that's not u...

When I was at Clergy Conference this past week, Archdeacon Gail Winslow was talking about a week-long fast he did years ago with Father Adam Trambley. I have read about people doing week long fasts, typically with week long silent retreats, it seems like a bit crazy.  To not eat or talk for a whole week? One on its own seems bad enough. But Archdeacon Gail said that it wasn't too bad, eventually your body moves past the hunger pains and into detoxification mode. The problem then, he said, is that you stink. All the gunk your body has stored up inside of you gets thrown out and he said he felt like he needed to shower every couple of hours. I myself have never fasted that long. I did the 30-hour famine as a teenager. One year for Lent, I fasted on Wednesday and Fridays. But the idea of a week long fast and cleaning out the body is interesting. We do tend to store up, both inside of us and around us, junk we think we need or wish we could us...

"The wisdom in a teacup abounds,  all you have to do is hold each cup with mindfulness." I read this saying in a British novel once, and it comes back to me occasionally. It reminds me of those Zen master stories where someone comes seeking wisdom from a Zen master and starts rattling on about everything they have tried or learned  and what troubles they are seeing in the world, all while the master pours tea. As they ramble on, the master continues pouring tea,  overflowing the cup and letting it go on the ground. Obviously the point is sometimes we are too full  to be able to be filled with wisdom. I thought of this again when I was reading through the lessons for today. In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians he writes, ( 2 Cor. 6:10 NRSV) "We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;  as unknown, and yet are well known;  as dying, and see-- we are alive;  as punished, and yet not killed;  as ...