Reflections on visitation to the Cathedral Church of St Paul, Des Moines—25 May 2014

This was a rescheduled visitation—brought forward by five months to accommodate the fact that the Dean of the Cathedral, Cathleen Bascom, was leaving her position on June 1. The celebration for her time with the Cathedral congregation was planned for that date, and so it was appropriate to undergo a formal “leave-taking” liturgy as part of my visit. I was also honored to make Cathleen an Honorary Canon of the Cathedral, which took her by surprise and moved her to tears. I chose also to make my sermon a reference to this occasion and the lectionary readings were amazingly fitting.  My focus, though, was on the unexpected journey God takes us on, and I was drawn once again to Paul’s story whose processes have tweaked my imagination in recent months. I adapted Peter’s words, “Always be ready to give an account to the hope that is within you,” to apply to a community which will be asked precisely what they stand for by prospective candidates for Dean in the near future.

I think the Cathedral is “in process” on a strong forward-looking platform for mission and ministry. Its three-fold vision of serving City, Diocese and Congregation provides as good a framework as any into the future, and its recent launching of Good Shepherd groups, informal fellowship gatherings based on interests and geography, is a sign of a community which will be inviting someone to “come and join us” rather than hanging back to depend on new leadership in that go, stop, restart pattern that often dictates clergy leadership searches and somehow negates the reality that the constant of congregational life is the ongoing ministry of the congregation itself.

Music and liturgy remain powerful attractions of the Cathedral. The chapter has a strategic plan to work with over the next few years. A diverse group of young adults are finding their spiritual homes there, including the two young women I confirmed. They have been friends from their early years in Ankeny where they attended an evangelical and conservative congregation. One began life as an Episcopalian and so this has been a coming home experience for her. It was as they searched for a place where their Christian commitment would not be questioned as they raised their own questions, that they found St Paul’s. I believe the Saturday evening service was helpful in that introduction.

The cloister concept for organizing ministry was another innovation of the Dean. These are not fixed in stone but carry flexibility in their creation according to the perceived needs of the community. One such new cloister includes within its purview the building of that sector of the vision which involves the Diocese as a whole. We have made a lot of progress in this regard in recent years, but we have not moved along very far from those early days of the Bishop election when I was asked, “What is the purpose of a cathedral?” and, “What are my expectations of a Cathedral?” My answer then and now was and is, “What are yours?” It is a question we are living into, and is an important one in the conversations to come with new Dean candidates.  Pastoral concerns have essentially guided previous searches. I feel that the healthier environment of the cathedral today affords us a broader and freer inquiry.  One of the reasons for the hope that is within us today is the years of hard work on building trust and loving relationships especially between clergy and leadership that has marked Cathleen’s time. I am grateful for that, and was glad to spend my visitation time in celebration for it.

Sermon at Cathedral Church of St Paul, Des Moines—25 May 2014

Easter6: Acts 17: 22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14: 15-21 

Have this mind in you, which was in Cathleen Bascom, who though being Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral did not think it something to hold onto, but emptied herself and took upon herself the form of a writing graduate fellow, and a companion wife. Through which she could become a servant of this fragile planet, our island home, and a partner with her husband Tim for the wider church. Thus God (I believe) will greatly use her and give her a name known in far-flung places for making us aware of our responsibility as stewards of this life and creation; and for the acknowledging of our primary significant relationships.

We live with a God who cannot be tied down to the limits of our own understanding of how things should be. Nor can we ever fully predict our next steps when we give ourselves to God’s purposes. It is how the Reign of God is built.

The Apostle Paul probably never saw himself crossing the seas and walking among the strange statues and temples of Greece’s Athens. Certainly a few years earlier he would have never foreseen himself preaching about the man Jesus whom he had considered at one time to be a blasphemer. This same Jesus he was now declaring amidst the skeptics of Athens as risen from the dead.

I suspect that Paul—the Jewish savant, the Pharisee of Pharisees—may have dreamed of engaging with the finest Greek Philosophers. He could, after all, quote their poets, and thought he had a good enough angle on their virtues yet limitations of their religiosity. He could have held his own in debate like our own Murphy Burke. But here he was, finally at that pinnacle of academic esteem, but no longer on his own terms, but on the terms given to him by God.

“This man Jesus, God raised from the dead.” His message was without precedence and it was without logic. It was crazy talk to such a sophisticated crowd, and if you read on you find out that they laughed him out of town. This was one of the most extensive narratives of Paul the evangelist at action with a new people (those without a Hebraic foundation) and he failed miserably.

Paul emptied himself of his own message—one that could have been crafted of his own cleverness and imagination—and he refused to hold on to his reputation—even to himself—as a teacher and a potentially world-renowned philosopher, and took upon himself the form of a messenger of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (He became, by the way, the most famous theologian in history). I am sure he suffered because of his stance—humiliation certainly, rejection and scorn (which could only have hurt his self esteem) and eventually he endured physical threats and injury. We know he ultimately lost his freedom and his life.

And all of this was for a message that did not stand up to reason, that did not come from his cleverness. Later he would see in this, God with us, reconciling the world unto God’s self.

We are all invited to walk down this path as followers of Jesus Christ. We are all invited to become messengers of a Gospel that scandalizes and brings scorn. Soon I will pray for confirmands to be strengthened for the service God has for them. The key word is God, and it is implied in that very prayer that they are willing to look for and be open to that work—to discern the avenue of service and to empty themselves to make room for it. We all have to decide how to find the energy and the time and space to bring God’s purposes into our lives, and to let our lives assume their form.

Yesterday we lay to rest the ashes of a beloved priest of this Diocese and the Diocese of NW Texas. Bob Hedges was the founding vicar of St Timothy’s WestDes Moines—there from 1956 -1981. And from where was he sent forth to West Des Moines? That’s right—from his curacy at the then parish of St Paul’s Des Moines! So let Jonathan know what you expect of your curates! Twenty-five years planting a church in Waukee when he is finished here!

Time and time again—by family members, by friends, it was said of Fr Bob that he didn’t know how to retire. And so at 88 years of age, he succumbed to cancer, but never gave up his calling as a priest. We never do, nor do we cease from being servants of Jesus Christ whether ordained or non-ordained. Fr Bob’s church in Texas went over to the breakaway Episcopalians, but that never stopped him from continuing to meet with the leaders he had known. He was an active reconciler his entire life. He followed the message of Jesus that, “I and the Father are one, and so are you.” Or in today’s Gospel, “On that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me and I in you. Those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Paul did not have his own message. He preached what he was given—what was revealed to him. Fr Bob did the same, and so it is for us all.

There really is never any retirement from this nor any resignation. There are just different places to bring the message and different methods in different contexts. This is true not only for us as individuals, but also as communities. And this is a challenge for you as the people of the Cathedral Church of St Paul in your search for a new Dean.  For over the next few months, you are going to be visited by a number of potential candidates who are going to ask you point-blank about your message to this world. Peter the Apostle in his epistle, which also makes up today’s readings, puts it this way: “Always be ready to give an account for the hope that is within you.” What is the hope you are offering the world, and what is it based on?

Peter’s focus is on a hope that is surrounded by difficulties. The early church had none of the comforts and protection that we receive. There was no Church pension in those days. The good news they proclaimed was for a people who lived in dark times. And it has to be said this good news of light is intended to shine more brightly in such places. It turns error into truth, sin into righteousness and even death into life. And as such, this very characteristic of the good news allows us to become people of risk and of courage. We can leave the safety of following a God we make sure we know or think we know—and even dare to imagine we control—to following a God who keeps revealing new things about Himself as we go along. Now don’t get me wrong—God gives us the freedom to limit God as we put our own needs first, and often we get what we ask for when we don’t make room for what God reveals to us. But our real foundation for hope comes from having the boldness to follow God as openly as possible.

Jesus says that it is love that makes such boldness possible. Love is the driving force of our entire mission. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever. You know Him because He abides in you and He will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned.”

As one commentator puts it, “Orphans are bereft of their natural supporter. That is how the disciples would feel when Jesus was no longer with them in the form to which they had grown accustomed. But they need not feel that way. He would come back to them.”

No—not in the form to which they had grown accustomed; but yes—to that form which they would come to describe as the Holy Spirit; a form which we, centuries later, would equally be able to discern and describe.

The truth is that we all come and go, attached to those forms to which we have grown accustomed. But how does the Church remain? How does it continue to give an account of the hope that is within it? It does so, and we do so, through the abiding presence of the Spirit of God—Jesus and God in an unaccustomed form. The Spirit pours the love of God into our hearts, and that connects the people of God—connects us—to that hope and truth down the ages. Can we make room for the life and message and purpose God has for us? Can we grow beyond the form to which we have grown accustomed? To that same Spirit who now resides within you all, I entrust you and I invite you to entrust yourselves.

                                                                                                                                                                                  Amen

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Reflections on visitations to St Matthew’s Iowa Falls and Trinity Emmetsburg—18 May 2014

The winter storms on March 2^nd set up the need for double duty on Sunday, May 18^th, as I set off early to Iowa Falls and later that afternoon to Emmetsburg. They are hardly neighbors, but given my schedule has me traveling east through the summer, I did not want to delay the people of Emmetsburg too long. They were excited about their two candidates for reception and confirmation, and it seemed important to honor their preparation and readiness.

It was an easy seventy-five minute drive to St Matthew’s Iowa Falls for a pre-worship breakfast and conversation. Their Senior Warden, Larry Meyer, had prepared quite a list of topics for discussion, and the congregation had actually responded to my own set of questions that I sent out at the beginning of the year. These became good talking points. St Matthew’s is beautifully set just off the bridge as you enter Iowa Falls on US 65. When the bridge was restored a couple of years ago, the church was given an opportunity to rework its small outside space, and put in a columbarium and small garden. I remember sharing in that decision one visitation when they were in the middle of choosing from a series of options.

The congregation has been led by a series of strong Senior Wardens over the years. They have also benefitted from Episcopalian families that have come to work in the community college. These have come and gone with their positions, but there has always seemed a steady flow. Of particular note has been their ability to draw brilliant organists, including world-traveling recitalists. Their current organist is no exception. He composed a centenary hymn for the parish in honor of this past year of 100 years celebration. The parish holds recitals for the community, and each Advent features a lessons and carols service, which, up to a couple of years ago, was led by members of the Choir of the Cathedral Church of St Paul. These are exceptional high points for the parish, but they do not mask the concerns of the parish for their future.

Preserving a critical mass within an aging congregation was their primary issue for discussion. The church has a couple of families with growing children, but most of the population is older, and energy levels are not what they used to be. They work well as a team and are very appreciative of the leadership provided by clergy members Elliott Blackburn and Warren Frelund, who both travel from Mason City. Warren has introduced the course “Wading in the Waters” during Lent. And more broadly in the community he is developing a ministry project focusing on older adults. This is part of his connection with the Older Adult ministriesof The Episcopal Church where he serves on the Standing Commission on Lifelong Learning.

The congregation questioned the suitability of their Chapter placement. They are in the Northwest Chapter, which seems to be centered too far west for them to participate well. As older folk, they find that driving distances become increasingly important. They wondered about a more north-central configuration that might benefit Mason City, as well as Charles City and Iowa Falls. These are the three congregations that work together through shared clergy at the moment, with Netha Brada, formerly of Iowa Falls, supplying as a priest to Charles City. The congregation wants to share in diocesan affairs, and see a more appropriately located Chapter as one way to do this better. They are actually asking for clearer lines of accountability to the Diocese, and wish that we had not removed the distinctions between parishes and missions. They see some sense in what they called “the discipline of mission congregations.” At least it meant that someone was paying attention to them, and it would lessen the sense of being on their own with diminishing energy. It was a lively and creative discussion. They have been paying attention to the conversation about smaller congregations that had been going on. On another note, I realized as I turned around after processing into the church that St Matthew’s is the church where my miter catches all the dangling light switches as I come up the aisle, and I leave them swinging from side to side throughout the opening hymn.

The drive to Trinity Emmetsburg took about two hours. It took me on roads and through towns I don’t normally see. I always find myself wondering about our mission fields, and how easy it seems to start a house church in those places where our Episcopal members drive distances to church. All you need is a prayer book, a rhythm of communal prayer time and the readiness to converse over scripture and our daily lives. Throw in monthly pilgrimages to the “big church” (which might be St Matthews or Trinity) for Eucharist and we may have a mission strategy.   

The people of Trinity Emmetsburg had also agreed to meet over what was, by this time, afternoon tea. The candidates for confirmation and reception told their stories to the excitement of the congregation, and I was able to affirm how much the faithful members of Trinity had prayed and waited for their coming. These were two people who really felt that God had brought them to Trinity—one as a young adult who had once considered a call to priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church, and the second as the wife of a new Baptist pastor in town who has been drawn to the Episcopal Church as a place from which to serve God in the community. The congregation was also welcoming home a couple who left several years ago and was now returning in their retirement. They left one month before I became bishop.

Somehow, our conversation came around to issues of prison reform. On the corner of a table in the fellowship hall was a pile of new clothes that were intended for inmates at the Fort Dodge jail.  The congregation had begun working with the Damascus Road prison ministry from Fort Dodge on providing clothes for prisoners to wear as they come out of prison and re-enter society. The people have been collecting clothes for a year without a single recipient, but suddenly they have three people being released this month. We talked about the difficulty of re-entry for many inmates, and I shared the prayer for prisoners and correctional facility workers in the Prayer Book. I invited them to prepare something to share at Convention as we focus on prison ministry as part of the Matthew 25 theme.  

At five o’clock we went to worship, led by the local brass band called “Biblical Brass.” As I drove home I thought about the possibility of a Ministry Development Team at Trinity. With the new members and returnees, along with the faithful members who have held things together down the years, perhaps this could consolidate their ministry potential and future. The link with the prison in Fort Dodge is no coincidence. Peg Jackson, their priest in residence, has supplied regularly for the past six years, making the weekly drive through all weathers from Fort Dodge. When God called her to the priesthood after retirement, she promised ten years of active service. As she reaches that priesthood anniversary at the end of the year, she feels it is time to hand over to someone else. Her contribution has been priceless, and it is a big part of what has drawn this new life to the congregation.

Congratulations to Chris Grethen (received) & Laurie Schmidt (confirmed). 
Photo by Melanie Flynn.

Sermon at St Matthew’s, Iowa Falls and Trinity, Emmetsburg—18 May 2014

Easter 5:  Acts 7: 55-60; 1 Peter 2: 2-10; John 14:1-14 

Before us today, we have a surprising story, an uplifting acclamation of human purpose and two questions that disappointed Jesus.

Fitting together all three lectionary readings is not always an easy thing to do, but today I want to try and I hope my logic doesn’t overly confuse or mislead you. I admit to being surprised by coming across the passage in Acts this week. I was prepared for the continuation of witness to the Risen Christ, as we have been hearing in the various sermons presented in the readings from Acts of the Apostles. Instead we are faced with the death of Stephen without any reference to his preaching content which, of course, included mention of Jesus’s resurrection.

Stephen was a deacon and an evangelist. He was also the first Christian martyr, and as such we recognize him the very day after Christmas in the Church’s calendar. Barely has the choir of angels stopped ringing in our ears, or the sight of the baby Jesus in the manger—meek and mild—faded from our sight than we are reminded of the cost of following this child. Stephen the martyr marks the day after Christmas. It surprises me then, and the story of his death as told today surprises me now.

I am ready for more testimony from Acts of the Risen Lord, but I am not ready to see the cost of following Him. Stephen was killed for his words; there is no doubt about that. It makes me wonder how many of my words uttered in public even cause a ripple of public reaction. There is quite a gap between that faith of old and how we experience and are able to express it today in our comfort and ease. Not so everywhere of course, as we remember the young woman threatened withexecution for her faith in Nigeria this very day, and of course of the circumstances in which the Risen Christ is proclaimed in our companion Diocese of Nzara where only a couple of years ago parishes had to be abandoned because of the violent threat of neighboring warlords.

The witness of Stephen, however, implicates all of us for even as the crowds rush in to stone him, he looks to heaven and prays “Father, forgive them.” This is a disposition we can all aspire to. But how was he able to turn from any sense of fear and look to heaven for forgiveness? He could do it because he let his life become a spiritual house, if we are to turn and use the words of Peter in our epistle today, and thus being able to link our first two readings.

Stephen let himself become a living stone and as such to be built into a spiritual house or a sacred living temple. In these days of digital computerization we can more than imagine Peter’s illustration. Just think of your computer imaging stones being picked up out of the earth, getting cleaned up, shaped and polished in to shiny gems, then lifted into place into a structure which, as it is built, becomes an awesome temple—a holy place. Each stone found its place and its purpose within the whole. Peter calls them living stone—because God builds God’s temple with living beings, the likes of you and me, shaped and fitted through our baptisms to take our place as a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Where did Stephen find the courage to forgive? Through his readiness to be shaped by the gracious love of God in Jesus Christ.

So imagine stones that come alive and move into place until their faithfulness to God’s purpose helps them create an awesome temple—a place where people come into touch with the holy, and all that holiness offers: forgiveness of sins, restoration of relationships both with God and with fellow human beings, meaning and revitalization in life, confidence and compassion to care for this world and those within it, a people who were once strangers now becoming a people of God.

The keywords in all of this for me are almost passed over as we read it without much notice, and they are “let yourself.” There is nothing automatic in this process of being living stones that God uses to bring God’s holiness into the world. “Let yourself” is the invitation. Stephen let himself be a mouthpiece of God’s witness; and so he found his place in that foundation of the Church which we call the apostles, prophets and martyrs. And the strength he found to do that came from the very One whom he served and of whom he witnessed.

He discovered what Jesus sought to drum home to his disciples in those days captured by John before His death and resurrection. “Truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact will do greater works than these.” And so we arrive at the Gospel passage for today.

Jesus promises to continue His work but He will be doing it through us—the living stones. He will continue to ask and receive from the father that same ability and capability that He enjoyed during His lifetime and makes that accessible to us who live in His Name and through the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is why in a few minutes I pray over those of you being confirmed or reaffirming your vows that the Spirit strengthen you to do what God is calling you to do—and to confirm you in God’s service.

Ministry is always Jesus continuing to work—only through us as His living stones who make up the people of God—and as a holy presence in humanity. These are not easy words or concepts to accept or to understand. In fact, we are more aware of our capacity to mess things up than we are confident about claiming our inherited purpose and power in Christ.

And yet even that cannot stop us from offering ourselves to let God build His holy place through us. For, ultimately, it is God who inspires and enables us to be who God calls us to be. Therefore “let yourselves be built.”   

Finally, we come to the two questions that disappointed Jesus. Thomas wondered about Jesus’s statement about the way and wondered where he was going. Philip questioned Jesus about his reference to the Father and asked to be introduced. Jesus’s disappointment was that they were both looking for answers that lie outside of their relationship with Him. His responses—I am the Way the truth and the life,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” indicated that their future identity was to be in their relationship to Him. He was to be their on-going way forward and their source of revelation or knowing. They had not connected with what he would soon define as “Abide in me and I abide in you,” in John chapter 15. In other words, it is together as one that the Kingdom gets built. It is together as one in Christ that we see the Way unfolding before us and get to know the truth about life and enjoy life. It is together as one in Christ that we come to know the nature and character of God whom Jesus calls Father. So Stephen turned to heaven itself as his enemies rushed in violent outrage upon him and united with Jesus could declare “Father, forgive them,” echoing Jesus’s own words and action upon the cross.

The bottom line is that we are not the ones in charge of all these things. We are simply asked to “let ourselves be built.”

Will you then give God the time and space to make of you a holy people—a people who bring God into the heart of things—both within and beyond these church walls and this religious organization? It is the way Jesus continues His work; you are the way Jesus continues His work—as His living stones, His royal priesthood, His holy nation. So let yourselves be.

                                                                                                                                                                  Amen