Our Home is in God - a sermon for May 13, 2012

A Sermon for the 6^th Sunday of Pascha (RCL B) 5-13-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17

Themes:         Mothers’ Day, home, the motherhood of Jesus

Title:              Our Home is in God

My dear friends in Christ: what do you think of when you consider the word “home”?

This one word, with all the multitude of mental associations connected with it – this one word is one of the most profound and deepest in the English language.

Home. What comes to your mind? What do you consider to be your home?

Hopefully, God willing, you have mostly positive memories and happy feelings when you consider home. For many of us, there are some painful memories mixed in there as well.

But no matter what comes to your mind when you think of home, this morning we need to consider this fact, this basic reality, of our lives as human beings: Our only true and lasting home is in God.

Today is Mothers’ Day, of course, and this naturally brings up ideas of home. For nearly all human beings throughout history, it has been our mothers who have maintained the family home.

Traditionally, men have been the ones to go out and bring back the provisions needed for the home, while the women maintain the home itself. This arrangement is changing rapidly in today’s era of gender equality, of course, but this is the tradition that has been in place for thousands of years.

In the minds of most of us, our mother and our home are inextricably linked.

This is good and normal and understandable, but I believe that God wants us to develop a new association in our minds between these words: home and God.

In our reading from the First Letter of St. John, we heard this today: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child” (1 John 5:1).

I wish this were always true: if you love the parent, then you automatically love the children as well.

In my experience, that’s not always the case. I can think of many times when trying to visit with friends, or being in a Bible study group with fellow church members, and their child is acting like a ridiculous maniac, out of control and not allowing us adults to have the good conversation that seems so rare as adults and which we’re really into at the moment…

Love for the ornery child is not the primary thing in my heart at that moment, do you know what I mean?

But of course, this scripture is referring to the relationship within the Holy Trinity, between the first and second persons of the Trinity. Everyone who loves God the parent loves Jesus the child as well.

On May 8, Tuesday of this past week, the Church remembered once again the profound insights and spiritual visions which were given to the woman known as Lady Julian of Norwich. Her feast day always falls near to Mothers’ Day here in America, and that to me is a gift of wonderful serendipity.

For one of Lady Julian’s most moving insights is that, as a balance to the emphasis upon the fatherhood of God, in our Lord Jesus Christ we find all of the qualities of motherhood.  

Every May I return to drink from this deep spring of wisdom and every May I am awed and refreshed by what this woman experienced in God.

Listen to a few of Lady Julian’s remarkable words:

“So Jesus Christ, who opposes good to evil, is our true Mother.

As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother.

All the lovely works and all the sweet loving offices of beloved motherhood are appropriated to [Christ]. [A] mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does [so], with the blessed sacrament.

This fair and lovely word ‘mother’ is so sweet and so kind in itself that it cannot truly be said of anyone or to anyone except of [Christ] and to [Christ] who is the true Mother of life”

(Showings – Long Text, Chapters 59 & 60).  

How many of you have ever thought of Jesus as our heavenly mother? The one who gives us spiritual birth, and the one who feeds and nurtures our souls, the one to whom we can always run for comfort and help and protection.

In fact, it is Lady Julian’s assertion that Jesus is our only true Mother, because all the goodness of motherhood comes from him.  

This is the point where we are challenged by God’s vision for our lives.

You see, it is easy to become overly attached to material things. We are creatures of flesh and blood, with mothers and homes and the family dining room table and memories of the holidays.

All of this is good; the stuff of life is very good. But we cling to it at our own peril.

These things can also become a hindrance to our growth in Christ, a block to our ability to bear fruit in Christ, to love as he commands.

All of us know that change is the one constant of human life. Nothing on earth stays the same.

Matter and energy are in constant motion and we are part of this movement.

And in the midst of experiencing all of this change and flux, it is normal and ordinary for people to grasp for something that stays the same, something that is solid and immovable.

That is a perfectly normal human tendency. The problem is that we try to hold on to things that are also changing, also in motion. We might try to save the family home, or some photographs from our childhood. We might not be able to imagine life without our mother, or our spouse, or our friends.

Whatever the particulars might be for you, you know what I mean about clinging to things, and about resisting and fearing the change, which we all know is inevitable!

And this is why, if we are to be spiritual healthy and centered, then we must come to know – in the very depth of our being – that our only true and lasting home is in God.

Can you say that with confidence, my friends, about yourself? That you know where your only true and lasting home is, and that you know it is only in God. Can you say that about yourself?

Thankfully, we have many good and faithful guides in learning how to find our home in God.

Please turn to the back of your bulletin, and there you will find A Litany To Honor Women of God.

Let us read through this Litany together now. We will begin it together.

A LITANY TO HONOR WOMEN OF GOD

Adapted from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

People:  We walk in the company of women who have gone before, mothers of the faith both named and unnamed,

Leader: testifying with ferocity and faith to the Spirit of wisdom and healing. They are judges, prophets, martyrs, warriors, lovers, poets and saints, who are near to us in the company of the blessed.

We walk in the company of Deborah,

Who judged the Israelites with authority and strength.

We walk in the company of Esther,

Who used her position as queen to ensure the welfare of her people.

We walk in the company of you whose names have been lost or silenced,

Who kept and cradled the wisdom of the ages.

We walk in the company of the woman with the flow of blood,

Who audaciously sought her healing and release from Christ.

We walk in the company of Mary Magdalene,

Who wept at the empty tomb until the Risen Lord appeared.

We walk in the company of Phoebe,

Who led an early church within the empire of Rome.

We walk in the company of Perpetua of Carthage,

Whose witness in the third century led to her martyrdom.

We walk in the company of Christina the Astonishing,

Who resisted death with persistence and wonder.

We walk in the company of Lady Julian of Norwich,

Who wed imagination and theology, proclaiming that “all shall be well.”

We walk in the company of Sojourner Truth,

Who stood against oppression, righteously declaring in 1852 “ain’t I a woman!”

We walk in the company of Alice Walker,

Who named the lavender hue of womanly strength.

We walk in the company of you our mothers in the faith,

Who teach us to resist evil with boldness, to lead with wisdom, and to heal the world. Amen.

Thanks be to God that we walk today in this great cloud of witnesses, all of these faithful women who have given us an example of loving one another as Christ loves us; and who have taught us that our only true and lasting home is in God.

Consider this, my friends and give thanks. Every good thing which you have experienced through your earthly mother and in your earthly home comes from Christ who is himself the source of all goodness, and who will be our home – our dwelling place – for evermore. Amen.  

Such Good Things

YOUTH SERMON for 6 Pascha C RCL 5/9/2010, offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:10,22-22:5; John 14:23-29

Good morning kids! Do you know what happened on July 20, 1969? Here’s a clue: this event did not take place on the planet earth.

On July 20, 1969, the lunar module of the Apollo 11 mission landed on the surface of the moon and for the first time, a human being walked on the surface of the moon. Do you know his name – the name of the first to do this? Neil Armstrong. Did you also know that Neil Armstrong is a Christian?

And check this out – did you know that Neil Armstrong brought Holy Communion with him to the moon? Yes, as Armstrong got ready to leave the lunar module and to take his first step, “one giant leap for mankind”, he and Buzz Aldrin stopped to share Holy Communion together. The very first liquid ever poured by humans on the moon, and the first food ever eaten there was the wine and bread of Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

There is something so incredibly powerful about this gift of Jesus that it touches people at the deepest spot. That's because this gift of Holy Communion is all about love.

We just heard Jesus say that “those who love me will keep my word.” That means that if we love Jesus, if we are thankful for what he has done for us, then we will follow his instructions.

I bet you know already how that works. If you really like your teacher, if your teacher is good to you and fair and kind, then you will probably do what the teachers asks of you.

But if your teacher is mean, maybe calls you names, or embarrasses you in front of the whole class, then you won’t love that teacher, and I imagine that you’ll not want to do what that teachers asks. But if you like your teacher, you follow her instructions. That’s one of the main ways that you show her that you like her, right? By following what she says.

This is how it is with Jesus. If we love Jesus, then one of the main ways that we show this is by following his instructions, right?

Well, at the Last Supper, on the last night with his friends, Jesus gave us two main instructions. Do you know what they are? We heard about one just last week.

“Love one another,” he told us.

AND, he told us to share communion together to remember him. He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Today we have a few young people who are celebrating their First Holy Communion. They are making a promise that they will do this in remembrance of Jesus – that they will be faithful in receiving Holy Communion as a way of showing their love to Jesus. They will keep his word.

But today is also something else, right? (Something that many men fear and dread!) Yes, today is Mother’s Day. So today, we celebrate Communion as the way that Jesus feeds us spiritually as his family, AND we celebrate that person in our family who most often feeds us physically!

650 years ago, there was a great woman in England who loved Jesus greatly and who wrote about him in amazing ways. We call her Dame Julian of Norwich, and she wrote this:

“A mother can give her child to [drink from] her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and [he] does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the Blessed Sacrament, which is the precious food of true life.” A mother can feed her child right from her own body and give her infant child everything needed to grow and to be healthy. And so it is with Jesus. He feeds us with his own body so that we can grow and be healthy.

She also wrote this: “This fair lovely word ‘mother’ is so sweet and so kind in itself that it cannot truly be said of anyone or to anyone except of [Jesus] and to [Jesus], who is the true Mother of life and of all things. To the property of motherhood belong nature, love, wisdom and knowledge, and this is God.”

(60th Chapter, Long Text, Revelations).

Do you know that your mothers love you and would do anything to protect you, to make sure that you are healthy, to help you to grow up to be smart and strong?

This is how it is with the Lord Jesus also. Jesus loves you even more than your mothers ever could! And what has he given to us to make sure that we grow up healthy and smart and strong? He has given us the Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament.

It looks like simple bread and wine, and it may not taste very good to you. But that doesn’t matter. Because this bread and wine is the food of new and unending life, the nourishment of our true heavenly Mother. This food is what our souls need to live.

Thanks be to God for this great gift! Amen.

A Blessing for our First Holy Communion Candidates

Let us ask for God’s blessing upon these young people.

May God the Father, who made you and gives you this special day to celebrate his love, smile upon you and shelter you in the shadow of his wings. AMEN.

May Jesus, who invites you to share his life in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, grace you with his lasting presence. AMEN.

May the Holy Spirit, who teaches you everything you need to know to truly live, fill your hearts with abiding joy. AMEN.

And  for all of us gathered here today: may the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be among us all of us and remain with us forever. AMEN.

Make It Bear More Fruit

Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Pascha / Easter (RCL - B)
Offered by Nathan Ferrell at HS, Bellmawr & St. Luke’s, Westville

Texts: Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:25-31; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

In the mountains of North Carolina, the McGee’s lived a simple and humble life, but one that was filled with lots of joy and love. These folks are my wife’s grandparents and if you’ve heard me talk, then you likely know that they have been very important people in her life. One summer in college, she went to live with them in order to learn a bit of their wisdom.

Erin recalls one day early on in that summer when she was out in the massive garden that old Reverend McGee planted and tended. She was out to help Grandpa with his weeding. Now, Erin grew up in the city, and so she was not too familiar with gardens. Grandpa McGee was the Master Gardener, and he took great pride in his amazing vegetables. And so you can imagine how quite frustrated he was when he found out that Erin, who thought that she was being helpful and pulling out weeds, instead actually had spent the day pulling up all of his newly sprouted bean plants!

Trust me: it’s best to let the Master Gardener handle the garden, and it’s best for those who don’t know what their doing to just stay out of the way!

Our Lord Jesus reminds us today that God is the Master Gardener, and God has a plan for shaping our lives so that they can become beautiful, lush gardens that produce bumper crops of fruits and vegetables that can be shared with family and friends and neighbors all around.

But, in order for these gardens to be fruitful, they have to be weeded! In order for the grapevines to produce more grapes, they have to be pruned.

Who likes the idea of being pruned? I mean, really! Do any of us really welcome change in ourselves?
In the Greek, the word translated here as pruning has the same meaning as cleansing.
Kathairo – to prune, to cleanse, to make clean.

Jesus teaches us that God intends to do this in our lives: “[My Father] removes – literally, carries away – every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that [does bear] fruit he prunes – he cleanses – to make it bear more fruit” (John 15:2).

Can you see the plan? If you bear fruit now – if you are open now to the Holy Spirit - then God’s plan and intention is to change your life so that every year you bear more and more fruit.

But what really does it mean to “bear more fruit”? It means that my actions – and your actions – become increasingly more and more in line with the actions of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It means that we become his disciples, his students who are learning from him how this life is meant to be lived.
As our Epistle reading stated so clearly today: “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” So that we might through him, in him, for him, with him.

“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples” (John 15:8).
You see, we all imitate someone else. Each one of us is a disciple of at least one other person. We all learn how to live from others.

We need to be careful about who we emulate. This is why I cannot simply agree with others when they say that all religions are basically the same and they teach the same things. Are they really? Do they really teach the same things?

Muhammed is claimed to be the prophet of God. His followers claim that he is the final and most perfect of all of the prophets. And yet, Muhammed was a wealthy slave owner.
Muhammed violently attacked and killed those who opposed his teaching.
In contrast, our Lord Jesus Christ was a common, humble man who never displayed violence against anyone. And when he was attacked and opposed, he responded with love and compassion and was willing to sacrifice himself rather than to attack.
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter…”

What kind of fruit would you expect to see in the lives of those who follow these two very different men?
In the real world that you and I live in, choosing which one of these men to follow has an enormous impact upon our lives.
It is our choice to make. God has given us a mind and we are to use it. We must be careful in our choice of who to imitate. It truly can be the difference of life and death.

On this past Friday, the Church celebrated and remembered the Feast Day of blessed Dame Julian of Norwich. Some of you may know her story. Others of you may have heard of her amazing visions, the most famous of which is the vision of the hazelnut lying in her hand.
This nut symbolized the world resting in the loving hand of God. Small and fragile though the world is – small and insignificant our lives may be – yet God created us in love, sustains us even now in love, and is redeeming and cleansing our lives now in love.

After this vision, Dame Julian wrote down a remarkable prayer which summarizes her vision of God’s redeeming love:

"God, of your goodness, give me yourself, for you are enough for me, and I can
ask for nothing which is less which can pay you full worship. And if I ask
for anything which is less, always I am in want; but only in you do I have
everything.”

Only in you, Lord, do I have everything. For God is love, and that is enough for me.

-Someone very wise once said that “faith is the direction your feet start movin’ in when you know that you are loved.”
-God is love, and God has loved us with an amazing, everlasting love. When we truly can embrace that love and carry it in our hearts – in the center of our being – all the time, then our feet start moving. Then we begin to love others as we have been loved. “We love because God first loved us.”

The invitation to each one of you here today is to make yourself at home in the love of Christ. There is no better place for your heart to dwell. And, my friends, don’t fight with the pruner. Don’t argue with the Master Gardener. Let God cut out of you every little hint of bitterness or anger or greed or jealousy. Every hint of that spirit that grabs and takes, and let that be replaced with the open hand that receives, that receives every good thing as a gift from our loving Father who surrounds us at all times.

This is true and abundant life. This is the fruit of love. Amen.


Blessing of Mothers for Mother's Day

Father, we give you thanks for the many gifts you have given us;
the gift of life, the gift of those who love us.
We thank you today for the gift of our mothers and grandmothers.
We give thanks for our Mothers and Grandmothers who have diedand for the unique way they have revealed for us your love.
We ask that you Bless them and keep them in your careuntil the time comes for us to join them in the heavens.

We ask your Blessing upon the Mothers and Grandmothers who are unable to be with us here today.May they know how much we love and care for them.
We pray for birth mothers who have loved their children so much they have shared the gift of their child with those who could better care for them and their needs, and give them a secure home.

And we pray for adoptive mothers, that they may always know their special role of being a true mother, a revelation of God's love for their children.

We ask your blessing upon Mothers who have lost childrenthrough miscarriage, stillbirth, crib death, accident and tragedy, that theymay know your continuing strength and courage.

We ask your blessing too, upon those who would very muchlike to be mothers but who are having trouble having a child.
And we ask your Blessing especially upon the Mothers and Grandmothers standing before us here +. Give them the strength to live the faithful and loving lives you call them to live.
Protect and guide them. Keep them in your care.

We ask this Blessing in the name of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ. AMEN.