Ash Wednesday, 2017

In his autobiographical work, Word from Wormingford, a Parish Year, Ronald Blythe, an English poet and writer, comments on the quiet that people admire whenever they arrive in his part of Suffolk, England.

‘“How quiet it is!” say visitors to the old farm in the fold of land. They mean that I cannot hear the traffic, not that I am deaf to what is going on. How could I be these news-infested days?  It was ever so, but in other circumstances. Bunyan from his cell heard a trumpeter blare curfew as the (River) Ouse bridge was closed (it would sound for Mr-Valiant-for-Truth on the other side); Julian from her cell heard the continuous rumble of the world as it entered Norwich via the Wensum. Just how much one should know by way of the News, or how little, is a religious question. A friend has just given his television set to a surprised caller. Is he a candidate for the (liturgical) calendar or for the (mental health) social services? He has turned the newscasters out, lock, stock and goodbye smiles, and is master of his own house. We should try it. It is a lay form of Trappism.’

I am not an enthusiast of Lenten abstention. My preference is to add something that enriches the day – like hand-written notes to people I have lost touch with, or even with whom I may have to make amends. However, I could do with spending more time with people like Mr. Blythe. Some people have shared that they are forgoing Facebook for the next forty days. I might need to pay it more attention. All of us probably echo the sentiments of “Noises off,” as Blythe also calls his lay form of Trappism, the monastic order which values silence and yet gave us the prolific writings of Thomas Merton.

It feels like a bad idea to switch off the news at a time when we, like John Bunyan, are in our day being challenged to be “Valiant-for-Truth.” And yet would we not benefit from creating the space for the gift of silence through which God chiefly speaks? During the Revival 2017, we have added a couple of “prayer stations,” along with those for renewing baptismal vows, or prayers for healing and discernment. One is a table stocked with journals to write in and a few aides for reflection and even conversation. The other is “prayer for a closer walk with God” which has given rise to as much engaging spiritual conversation as it has prayer.

We need periods of “Noises off” to regroup, to hear the sounds in silence that we have lost touch with, to listen to our own inner voices to which God also speaks. Remember that it was not in the wind or the earthquake that Elijah heard the Lord, but in the still small voice. In her sermon at a recent Revival, Kathleen Milligan reminded us of Abraham Lincoln’s words to General Grant at the end of the Civil War, when addressing the approach needed in dealing with those who were defeated. He said “let them up gently.” God desires to let us up gently from being beaten down by the busyness and frantic and yes, news-filled, character of our lives. That takes time, and quiet, and a willingness to be present. Lent is not a religious version of New Year resolutions. Its goal is too precious to be left in our hands. It is for the renewing of our minds and hearts, the rekindling of our love for God, neighbor and the joy and hope of this remarkable life, and the recharging of our world by that same love, joy and hope.

Have a holy and blessed Lent. See you, Brother and Sister Valiant-for Truth, when the trumpet of Risen Glory calls, forty days from now, on the other side.

In the peace and love of Christ,
+Alan

The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, Bishop of Iowa

From the Bishop

“It has been a crazy week in politics. And you were probably hoping for, or even expecting, an article here that would finally be a break from all the political talk.” This is a statement to members of the United Church of Christ from their Iowa judicatory office and you know that after this opening there comes a huge “nevertheless…” “The Gospel,” the letter goes on to say,  “is political.”

I would add that it becomes even more so when it is the treatment of people that is at stake –  for who they are rather than for what they have done. As our lectionary begins to sweep us deep into the heart of Jesus’ understanding of God and God’s people, and how we are to be together – in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount –  I urge you to resist the temptation to separate your experience in worship from the images being provoked by the stage being set by the new political agenda. Think through the implication of Jesus’ words about treatment of the ‘other,’ especially those considered to be enemy. Realize that he took the concept and made it the theme of his own Inaugural address. The congregation in Nazareth spoken of in Luke chapter 4, were riled by Jesus’ implying that Gentiles were also agents of divine blessing –  that “the other” was as much at the center of God’s loving vision as God’s own chosen.

We are in the end chosen or blessed to be a blessing as the song goes. We are chosen to share the honor with all made in the image of God. And that has profound impact on the shaping of how our nations live in the family of nations.

I still remember the amazing celebration of the turn of the Millennium as captured on TV, beginning with the quiet pushing of a boat carrying a father and his child symbolizing the ongoing future of humanity off a small South Pacific island. It was a simple ceremony. It was followed by the fireworks and exuberance of larger cities like Sydney, Moscow, Cape Town, Paris, London. By the time we reached the United States we had pretty well covered the range of human racial and ethnic expression. And there – in the diversity of our population – all peoples, tribes and nations were celebrating together in a kind of “reprise” of what we had just seen. This is our gift, and it is our joy. It has been built out of human actions both cruelly dark and courageously good.

At the recent inauguration, God was cited upfront and central, as a chief endorser of America First. And who has the ear of God? And represents God’s voice? Jesus, the Incarnate Word, appeared before the disciples in the upper room. He paid the ultimate price of proclaiming a Kingdom bigger than his contemporary society could stomach; and he overcame death at its own game. Having paid the ultimate price what else could anyone or thing throw at Him? And so the road of a new, fuller humanity, later signified in the outpouring of the Spirit who gave tongues for all nations to understand the Gospel, lay open before us. Just before that day of the Spirit’s coming, John wrote:  “Jesus (The Risen Lord) breathed upon them (in that upper room) and said: ’receive the Spirit. Whosoever’s sins you remit (release, forgive), remit, and whosever’s sins you retain, retain’.”

It’s not usual that we consider what it means to be “retaining sins,” but we may well be moving into such an era. “The Gospel is political.” Jesus breathes His power upon us and in so doing passes on responsibility to love God with all your heart, mind and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. This is the Church’s task and executive order. In John’s Gospel chapter 12, verses 27, Jesus says “Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say – “Father, save me from this hour?” No, it is for this reason I have come to this hour. Father glorify your name.”

As the people of St Luke’s Cedar Falls are reminded and asked each Sunday: “where, this week, did you act in love; where did you show courage and where did you encounter Jesus unexpectedly?”

In the peace and love of Christ,

+Alan

The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, Bishop of Iowa

Epiphany 2017

Dear colleagues in leadership,

It is a custom in the Diocese to send out a summary letter at the beginning of the year highlighting upcoming events and dates to be noted and circled throughout 2017.

This year we do so under the banner focus of being “In mission with Christ through each and all.”  I want us to take deliberate time to look at the gift of our calling as people baptized into the body of Christ, and energized by the Spirit of God. We will gather on a Friday or Saturday night in a more informal way to offer our praise to God, listen to the Word both preached and shared in personal testimony from our peers, and seek to recommit ourselves to the life God calls us to live in service and love.

To this end I am suspending my regular visitation rotation and replacing it with twenty weekend gatherings under the banner of Revival 2017. Through the twenty gatherings we will cover each congregation. I hope by now that you have seen where I have invited your congregation to attend and that you are marking the date on your calendar.

We have begun forty days of prayer for Revival 2017, which begins in Durant, and Davenport. We also hope that you will be encouraged to spread the news about the meeting to your ecumenical friends, as well as those who have little connection with Church.

When the diocesan staff met on retreat last month, we developed a mission statement that said that we aimed this year to address the changes in our culture that are impacting the Church as a whole. We felt that there were three areas in which we needed to concentrate, along with support of the Revival 2017. The first is to help deepen and broaden the relationships that we have as Episcopalians across the state. This is about contact and communication as well as partnering and networking.  Preparations for the Revival 2017 give us such opportunities and so do the plans for Summer retreat in June, and the invitation to send a congregational team to Baptismal Living Day on April 1, at Fort Dodge.

The youth always lead the way in developing such relationships through the consistent schedule of New Beginnings and Happening as well as the various coming together to ski or for summer camp or Convention Conference. This year Senior High students will have the chance to attend Episcopal Youth Event – EYE – which is a time when thousands of Episcopalian youth come together.

The second way of addressing the challenges of our culture’s changes is to develop our confidence as leaders, and to build leadership among us, non-ordained and ordained. In May we will hold a Preachers’ workshop with help from the Episcopal Preaching Foundation.  EPF are also running our clergy retreat this year on the topic of preaching. As clergy we are privileged to have a listening audience each week, and how important it is to become better preachers with some professional development.

Leadership development is going to be an on ongoing emphasis in these next few years. We have held a feasibility study around being able to raise funds for Growing Iowa Leaders: Engaging All Disciples or GILEAD.

The Board has appointed a Task Force to begin looking into the creating of a capital campaign built on your feedback.  While the campaign promises to produce resources that will greatly assist us in bringing excellent leadership to the grass roots level of every congregation of any size, we are not waiting to launch new ideas and conversations.  Look out this year for programs coming from the Older Adult Ministry Development Team, as well as from those who attended the church-wide Conference called Evangelism Matters. The Board on their retreat live-streamed into the Conference from their retreat center in Newton. Another new project to watch for is the “postage stamp prairie” movement launched by the new Creation Stewards led by Cathleen Bascom.

This too is an important time to keep up our concern for racial reconciliation.  I would draw your attention to a Conference sponsored by The Episcopal Church on April 20-22 in Chicago entitled “The Unholy Trinity: the Intersection of Racism, Poverty, and Gun Violence.”  On the local level Meg Wagner and Susanne Watson-Epting are following up on the Indaba conversation from Convention on racial reconciliation and reparation with possible presentations at the Summer Ministries Retreat in June 23-25. This also extends the work begun through participants of the Trinity Institute 2016 conversations.

All of this will be aided by a third focus which is technology.  It is still too dangerous for me to begin tweeting, but I have a lot to learn about deploying cyber opportunities for the sake of the Gospel and for enhancing our diocesan wide sense of common mission.  It is my hope that we will have a diocesan wide communications network connecting every congregation by the end of 2017, and that we will learn together how to bring the good news onto the places where people are actually listening and watching – that is in social media.  Many of our ordination postulants and candidates are being formed through what is called low residency programs – through which they receive most classes online, and attend in person only two weeks twice a year. A similar methodology is possible for ministry development for licensed leaders within congregations. It is never too late to reinvent oneself.

It is a risky world in which we live these days, and so why should we not take risks to improve our own relationship with God, and with each other; and to take the time to become more equipped messengers for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Culture’s changes threaten to drown out our voices for justice, safety, compassion, equity and peace. All of these things are fruits of following Jesus. It is welcoming one another as God has welcomed us.

In October 2017 at Diocesan Convention we will have an opportunity to share our stories of where Revival 2017 has impacted us. Canon Stephanie Spellers of the Presiding Bishop’s staff will be with us to receive them, and as Missioner for Evangelism and Reconciliation, she will encourage us to go farther, I am sure. We will also be able to tell the tales of where our blue stones of baptismal promises took us since we last met; and where God’s reviving Spirit urges us to go next.

It is never too late to reinvent a Diocese. And that is what I truly believe we are being asked to do.

In the love and peace of Christ,

+Alan

The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, Bishop of Iowa

Remembering Barbara Schlachter

For Barbara Schlachter, 2/22/2016 Bishop Alan Scarfe

Please repeat after me: “We Are Easter People” and “Alleluia is our Song.” So, who are we? And what is our song? Amen. Please be seated. 

Among the many remembrances that have poured in to honor Barbara, this proclamation we have just shared from one of her sermons had had a profound impact on one person – even thirty years later. 

I dared to begin writing this sermon immediately on hearing of Barbara’s death. I did not have any readings, or the reminiscences of the family and friends for that matter, and when the readings were passed on I admit to a little disappointment. I was sure she would have had us twisting in the wind with a few soul challenging lessons. – a Gospel with the women around Jesus up front and center stage, the first witnesses of the resurrection and clearly the original Apostles of the Church; or Jesus wondering if when He returns will He find faith on earth; or something juicy from Micah or Isaiah 58. 

Then I thought a little more and began to understand. We normally let Romans 8 and John 14 fix our gaze on our eternal destiny. They bring hope to us in the face of death. “Not even life nor death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus,” or “ Be not afraid – in my Father’s House there are many mansion, I go to prepare a place for you”. 

Did Barbara need such assurance? Or did she believe we needed such assurance? Is that the woman who decided to spend the last ounce of energy in her body to surround herself with the liveliest Irish music in town and be there to experience it live and alive? Of course not. So turn the lessons around to focus in on us as living servants of God and you get a very different picture.

These are not lessons about her death but about her life. They are the why of her very being, the impetus and motivation for her passions and goals. Because she was so convinced that Nothing could separate her from the love of God in Christ Jesus and that for her Jesus was the way the truth and the life, she was free to become the extraordinary woman we celebrate today. 

“We are – Easter People. And Alleluia is our Song.” This is a declaration of the living, and it is why she could wait until social security kicked in and then go and get arrested before the White House! 

Mel told me last night of how he had been in the pew during their days at White Plains, listening to the preacher, and beginning to get quite moved by what was being said. He was inspired, he realized, and then said to himself “that’s my wife up there!” He asked me: “do you know what it is like to be inspired by your wife?”  I said, “Of course.”

Mel and Barbara met as undergraduate seniors at an Urbanization Conference in Chicago. Ohio and Nebraska came together over a bottle of vodka and we all know what happened after that. They began a conversation that went on for more than 48 years. Of course, Barbara dictated the direction – getting Mel a summer job as a bell hop at a resort near her home in Ohio so that they could spend the next summer together. Within a year they were married, in 1968. Mel moved to New York where Barbara was already a theological student at Union Theological Seminary. To everything there is a time including two forces for justice and peace becoming one during one of the most turbulent years in contemporary American history. Barbara’s action of going to Seminary was in itself an act of faith, as was her joining the Episcopal Church – a church in which ordination of women seemed far from the horizon. No one reckoned on the energy and focus of Barbara. 

“I am not afraid to die,” she told me earlier last week. “Just not ready to say goodbye.” One trip home later and one exuberant evening with the Gaelic Storm and somehow she must have found that additional strength to do the hardest act any of us have to do – just as she had found the strength throughout her life for so many things and for so many of us. My personal message of thanks to her was for her never giving up on encouraging my ability to stand firm on those things that matter for the finest possible outcomes for the human race, and for the fragile earth – our common home. 

Barbara was formidable – well beyond her physical frame. To everything there is a time, and her time was to be on history’s front line in the great fight for women to become priests. Being among those five deacons in New York who were refused progress to the priesthood, and who turned up on the day that their male counterparts were being ordained priest, to claim that they too were ready and felt the call of God and thus they presented themselves to the Bishop who could only say how his hands were tied. She strategized by getting Bishops’ wives to put pressure on their husbands to rethink their position with regard to women priests. Yes there is such a thing as ecclesiastical pillow talk, and we can only wonder what their threats were. Barbara worked during the 1976 General Convention for the formal regularization of her eleven sisters in Christ who had pushed the envelope further by being ordained without official sanction in Philadelphia in 1974; and alongside the achievement of the 1976 General Conventions’ approval of women priests, she became one of those first to be officially ordained on January 20^th, 1977 as soon as the canons came into effect. Yes, to everything there is a time, and Barbara made sure she was in the center of that time as a time to plant and a time to tear down, a time to push and a time to affirm, a time to let God’s will be done, not only for The Episcopal Church but within the Church Catholic. 

Pioneers have to be strong, and they have to have a tough edge to them. Barbara as a priest would never stop promoting the status and dignity of women, and understanding that to be the uplifting of the dignity of the whole human race. When forming a women’s group at the parish level at Christ Church Cedar Rapids, it had of course to be entitled “Women of Excellence.” There was no hint of elitism in this title, but a pure and unadulterated declaration of aspiration – offered to all and in all humility by a grace filled life that knew nothing could ever separate from the love of God in Christ Jesus. 

A married priest couple is still a difficult combination for Bishops. Think however how rare it was in the late 1970s and 1980s. Bishops were in fact too scared to hire them fearing that the stress of two priests in one house would break up the marriage. In their own turn Barbara and Mel became gatherers in support of similar couples as more women became ordained. Their professional life was hardly settled. I must say that I tried chronologically to follow the pair of them during those days in New York – now one was working for the church, and now the other. One was a teacher as the other one served and then the other counseled or became a chaplain. I even tried to map it out on one of Lauren’s graph papers but it didn’t work. See me afterwards if you are interested further! It really didn’t settle down until they became co-rectors in New York and Ohio. 

As an early pioneer Barbara became a token woman on Executive Council and she served on the Church Deployment Board. She chaired NECCA, the shop steward of the Episcopal Clergy.  She never stopped working for the advancement of women clergy. She served on the Committee for the Status of Women and in 2006 celebrating the thirty years of ordained women she took on the task of developing a timeline which would go around the church where we Bishops would be meeting to elect the new Presiding Bishop and which would include among the finalists the first woman Bishop. 

Let Barbara’s own words describe her emotion at the announcement that in fact our new Presiding Bishop would be a woman.

“When George Werner, President of the House of deputies, alluded to John Coburn’s way of handling the controversial vote thirty years before. I still didn’t get it. Okay, let’s have silent prayer and then be quiet out of respect. But when he said “The next presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is the Rt Rev Kath…” I made a sound that sounded like a strangled breath, and around me there was a sucking sound as the Holy Spirit filled our lungs and our minds with this news. And then I sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. I realized I had underestimated God and Her plans for the Church, and I realized that Katharine was a new type of woman leader. Pat Merchant made an eloquent statement in the House of Deputies and I realized that neither she nor I nor the other women who had been part of things so long ago could have been elected to such a position. We bore the pain and the scars in our bones. We had a cellular memory of discrimination and suffering that made us like Moses. We had been the ones to lead the victory through the Red Sea and to lead this new people in the wilderness, but we could not take them to the Promised Land. We were on the mountain watching Joshua lead them on the rest of the way. This brilliant and competent woman, who had been ordained less than half the time we had, carried no such memories, she would be able to do the work of the next phase.”

She mentions how Mark Andrus rushed over to place Katharine’s name on the timeline – I have to say that I was right behind him.  

Barbara felt a great honor to be asked to preach at the ordination of the first women priests in Swaziland. One of the messages arriving for today comes from the first female Bishop of the Anglican Church in Africa, Ellinah Wamukoya and those priests – Orma and Nancy – to whom Barbara preached that day. As she preached she was connecting the movement of the Spirit in apostolic fashion from one side of the globe to the other. For let there be no mistake, she was an apostle, and as such a Bishop’s priest – keeping us on the straight and narrow which of course often meant urging us to support those who were not straight and ever leading us to broaden our minds and hearts and in understanding the wide demands of God’s mission. She saw potential within our limitations, and prayed for our better selves to hurry up and develop. 

In Swaziland, as we came out of a ramshackle hut which was an orphans’ schoolroom in Mpaka Valley, she whispered to me – “Well, I think Christ Church, Cedar Rapids has found its new calling.” In 2011 I dedicated a new sanctuary there along with a couple of new school buildings under the name of Christ Church – I think the only Christ Church in the Diocese of Swaziland. Cedar Rapids has been the center of our companion diocese relationship with Swaziland ever since, helped of course by people like Melody, Paula, and Cheryl, but there was a time to whisper, and out of Barbara’s whisper new things were born.

Before her illness arose, she was busy promoting our other companionship with Brechin, bringing its center among the Episcopalians of Iowa City and Coralville. This year we will see young people from each diocese gather in pilgrimage in Dundee as we seek to build relationships and leadership into the future generations. 

That such a generation will have a planet on which to do all that brings me back to her final yearning – to groan with Mother Earth for the children of God to be revealed – children of God who care for our common home; children of God who are learning to walk gently on this earth and who notice with what and whom they are connected; children of God for whom it matters with what quality and attention we live and with what quality and attention we treat others. 

Who of us are ready to be converted in our retirement years to a wholly new cause? Barbara let the Spirit do just that. To everything there is a time – except a time to rest, though to be fair she was unapologetic in saying that she was going to enjoy spending time seeing her grandchildren and being that one and only Grannie, along with her new call as one of the 100 grannies for a livable future. Her rest was to enjoy loving and celebrating those dear to her. 

Finally I go back to where I began. No one takes a dying person on a jail break out of hospital to celebrate a 70^th birthday – but Barbara’s family did for Mel’s 70^th. Nor do they follow it up with a night on the town at the Gaelic Storm concert – but the Schlachters do. And you got the idea that chief ring leader was Barbara herself. That says everything you need to know about the love and strength of Barbara’s family. 

There however was one thing that was still separating her from the love of God as she came home that final time – a chocolate milk shake! And so with that goal achieved nothing else was standing in her way to be able to say goodbye; and leave us without any doubt whatsoever that we have lives to live – lives buoyed by the love of God in Christ Jesus, lives centered on Jesus as our way, truth and life, and lives which are invited to recognize our time for everything under heaven, our historical moment, our time to advance the revolution of the One Holy Trinity, as Barbara has in her time. Thanks be to God. 

Sermon at visitation to St Luke’s Cedar Falls, Iowa, 17 May 2015

I would hope that all of you who are coming for confirmation and reception, along with the rest of us who will renew our baptismal vows with you, know that you are carried by someone in their prayers. That is one of the greatest gifts of the Church to their Bishops. Can you imagine the jobs we would do, if you didn’t pray? 

Pastor Evans, the Methodist pastor of my youth, prayed for us all as young people.He upheld us to God asking one fundamental question: “Lord, what will this one do?” A strong sense of call and the faithfulness to be true to it were the two things that he desired for us before God. 

For St. Paul and his Ephesian brothers and sisters, it was enlightenment that the apostle prayed for most of all: “that your eyes might be opened.” He prayed that they may be given a spirit of wisdom to know the hope to which they were called — the riches of their inheritance in Christ and to know and release the greatness of God’s power through their lives. Paul linked that force with the same power by which the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead. It was resurrection power. 

Of course, we have no idea how to understand such power. And yet for Paul it was an essential gift to be asked from God for the people of God. The Christian business is all about life changing business. 

These past few years we have been invited to think in fresh ways about the Kingdom of God. As the Church declines in apparent attractiveness, we must ask where to turn in response as a Church? To understand the Scriptures, there is a need for both our eyes and our hearts to be opened. These are times to look at Jesus and His mission in new ways and to see things we have overlooked or been too preoccupied to notice or realize that we need.

And yet, precisely because we know the fuller story of Jesus than was known to the first disciples who were living in it, we cannot underplay their faithful willingness to hear the call and obey the words of Jesus — especially when he told them to “wait.”

It would have been enough for them to get used to the comings and goings of the Risen Christ for those forty days after the resurrection. 

Luke tells us that Jesus rehearsed with them the story of God’s revelation and way of salvation for humanity. He taught them to open their minds and hearts to understand the way that Moses, the prophets and even the Psalmists, all of which pointed to the coming of Jesus. 

“This Jesus,” Peter would grow bold to say “God appointed to bring forgiveness to the people.” 

They were beginning to make the connection of famous and familiar passages in the story of Moses. For example, in the wilderness when He lifted up the image of a snake on a pole to draw away all the sickness inflicted by snake poison upon the rebellious Israelites, they heard differently the phrase: “When the Son of Man is lifted up, he will draw all people to himself.”

Or when they heard the passages from Isaiah about the Suffering Servant, by whose stripes we are healed, or the one born to a Virgin, or being called the Prince of Peace, the Counselor, the Mighty God – they made a different linking. They made the connection when the Psalmist referenced the God called upon in agony of abandonment or forsakenness. 

Jesus was helping link the dots and help them see that “Yes, the Messiah had to suffer.” God had to become one with human suffering – to release us, as one with us, from the ultimate power such suffering and even death could hold on us.

It would have been enough to get used to this new arrangement with the Risen Christ, but by then He left them for good with the work half finished, or perhaps barely begun. “Be My Witnesses” was His command, adding, “but wait for power before you start.”

How long do we wait? How will we know the power has come? Will we recognize it? What if we miss it? What if we are supposed to do something else while we wait and we get confused? 

We know they waited, but it could not have been easy. These are questions we all might have asked. And they are questions we do ask in our own hesitation to discern and pursue the will of God.

I am fascinated by the 10 days that passed from Ascension to the Day of Pentecost. There was no physical presence of Jesus and no spiritual presence either. Just memories, emotions, trust and the resolve to be obedient.     

Compare the anxiety of our own Church decision, our need for clarity, to see what you are getting at. We want to know exactly what we are getting ourselves into before we commit or consider a decision. 

One final time Jesus says  “Trust Me.” And one final time the disciples said “We will.” 

So came the rushing of the wind and the fiery illumination. They were blown beyond themselves and given voices to speak their witness. Things fell into place as Jesus had promised and the Church, as we share in it, was born. 

In reality the disciples discovered that they could not have possibly anticipated the extent of what it meant to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. It literally took some so out of themselves that they were able to face their own deaths in being Jesus’ witnesses. 

Perhaps we fell a long way away from such a happening. Have we do domesticated our relationship with God through our system of thinking, cross referencing and calculating expectations that we have left ourselves too anxious to be in control that we limit the Spirit? Scripture says that she can indeed be quenched. 

Like Paul, I want us to have our eyes enlightened — to know the rich inheritance of a life buoyed up by God’s call of hope and by an awareness directed by the Holy Spirit’s power. It is a link up with a life that issues into ages to come.  

So, what will God do with this one? Whatever it is, it will be about witnessing to love, forgiveness and the transforming power of what happens in society when the Spirit of Jesus is released. You, God and the community work out the details. Wait when you have to wait, and pray as you wait. However, once the Power is engaged, don’t expect time to catch your breath and be ready to be thrilled, enthralled by what God will do with you, His very own — “His One.”     

                -Amen

(Readings: Ascension Day – Acts 1: 1-11; Ephesians 1: 15-23; Luke 24: 44-53)

Pastoral message to the congregations of Iowa

Dearly Beloved in Christ,

I know you join with me in expressing shock, sorrow and outrage at the recent shootings in Charleston, South Carolina. Many of us are gathering from across the Diocese prepared for a weekend of engagement with the inspiring aspects of being followers of Jesus Christ through the offerings of our Ministries Retreat, and we find ourselves confronted by the harsh reality of our society's alienation for which Jesus came as God's agent of reconciliation. When we awoke yesterday morning to the news of this act of senseless violence and of outrageous racial hatred which killed nine people in the very place that was their sanctuary, Emanuel African American Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, we may have asked how are we to respond? There are opportunities beyond stunned passivity and a sense of despair.

As a mark of mourning and in prayerful solidarity with the families and community members of the victims, we are invited to ring the bells of our churches at noon today for ten minutes - nine for the victims and one for the soul of the young man whose own mental state drove him to such hatred. The Bishop of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, the Right Reverend Charles von Rosenburg, also asks us to join with many across the country in reciting the Prayer of St Francis:

"Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; the be understood and to understand; to be loved than to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life".  

This is also a time for people to come together and so please consider gathering at St Paul's AME Church on 1201 Day Street in Des Moines from noon to one o'clock for a time of prayer and mourning; or Bethel AME at 7.30 pm for community worship on 1528 University Avenue, or at an Interfaith Shabbat Service from 6-7pm at Temple B'Nai Jeshurun on Grand and 51st street. We at Grinnell College will seek to make our own action of solidarity and prayer.

Remember too that the people of Waterloo are still undertaking their Jericho Walk each Sunday at 7:30pm to mark and reclaim as sacred their own streets and locations of gun violence that has taken a number of their children.

Longer term, we need also to recognize and intensify the serious task of conversation about what constitutes truly sensible gun laws that promote greater human safety, as well as the very serious question of our racial tension. How high must the mountain of senseless acts rise before we stop letting fear and money talk? One young man I met at the Jericho Walk said that there was no such thing as common sense when it comes to the possession of guns. When I raised the issue of tapping into people's self-interest, he said "there was no self- interest apart from money. That's what talks."

With the Psalmist we ask: "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I have perplexity in my mind and grief in my heart, day after day? How long shall my enemies triumph over me?" And we seek his courageous answer: "But I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help."

  

+Alan Scarfe, Bishop of Iowa

Sermon at St Paul’s, Council Bluffs—22 March 2015

As a young man I was fascinated with Christian biographies. I remember the story of Jim Elliot, a missionary to Ecuador. His biography was called Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot and was written by his wife Elisabeth because Jim had died—killed by the very people to whom he had gone to preach the good news of Jesus Christ.

Jim lived by the principle, “No one is a fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” This did not mean that he looked for the ultimate sacrifice that he ended up paying, but that in his desire to proclaim Christ he was prepared for any consequence. I don’t believe a generation has ever passed without some members of the Christian Church experiencing this same fate. We are called to witness to people about One whose promises we desire, and whose commands we love to keep, no matter what the cost. And we are invited to know God even as we know ourselves and those closest to us.

Inner knowledge and a yielded disposition is what God offers and expects. The collect for today captures it all, especially as we ask God to “bring into order the unruly wills and affection of sinners.”  Now the word “sinners” is a loaded term. We might feel a little better accepting the term—people who have a tendency to (m)uck things up—as an adaptation of the description of the human condition from Francis Spufford’s book Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense which am using on my teaching series this year. 

In whatever way we can relate to the idea of our inadequate and faulty nature, I invite us to get there, and not play games with ourselves. Recognize our part in human messiness and failure so that we have some substance or weight in the request that God bring order to our unruly wills and affections. Only discipline and a yielded spirit can actually bring about the strength of a Jim Elliot. And it is okay actually to ask God to bring the order about!

A number of years ago I coached track-and-field and cross-country running. Over a gradual period of time we started to bring order to some pretty unruly wills and affections in beginner athletes. When a new recruit sat on the corner of the street believing that after one mile she could not possibly run another step, that was not the time to tell her that by next month she will probably be running five miles! The athlete’s will was so unruly and her affection so turned in on herself and her discomfort that she would have quit on the spot. Yet, what joy it was to see her running several months later at distances and speeds she would never have thought possible.

You wait those several months until perhaps you find yourself once more sitting by your athlete, eating an ice cream cone—a fitting end to a ten miler—all inner turmoil intact and under control and a sense of self-confidence that seemed to have come from nowhere.

We all begin such endeavors somehow. The coach begins where the athlete is at and trusts the training process. At the early stage it is only the coach who can see the future and how the finished product will look. And because it is strong and beautiful—full of self-possession and toughness of will—we keep on.

We know the outcome. It is gaining what you can never lose, and to get there we take our athlete along a path of losing what she cannot keep—her life of ease, no pain, comfort-zone only. With God the stakes are much higher but the process is the same.

The Hebrews author speaks of Jesus as having learned obedience from the things he suffered. In fact, his very suffering was his obedience as He did the will of His Father. When the Greeks wanted to meet him, He knew that He could meet them only one way—by dying like a grain of wheat that falls to the ground,  changes nature, and is raised into something new as the grain transforms into wheat. In Jesus’ case that someone new would be able to place His Spirit into His followers and through them enter into the Greek world and into the whole world.

When seeking His son’s obedience, God knew what the outcome would be. God could see the shining light of resurrected love and joy on the faces of those who would believe and feel their sins forgiven; and their unruly wills and affections ordered for the sake of pure joy.  

Jesus faced the ultimate test because of all the smaller tests in which he had been made ready to put his life in his Father’s hands. He yielded many, many times and found joy and assurance in that. And so he could yield that final time upon the Cross.

God’s goal is not our martyrdom, but it is to have our lives be witnesses to His love and purpose for human beings. God’s goal is to have our lives in His hands, our vision to be shaped by His promises and hopes, and our hearts growing and reflecting His love for all. So where do we begin?

First, we begin by being persuaded of these things—that by ourselves we are unruly, disordered, willful, a mess-up. Second, we accept that by knowing that what God asks of us, He has already performed in Jesus Christ. Jesus had to yield to God to bring order. Third, we acknowledge that God sees the belovedness we will become, long before we can see it in ourselves. And that belovedness is about knowing God as we know ourselves. God knows the ultimate outcome and calls it joy.

So how do we begin? We begin by paying attention and yielding ourselves up to create the time to pray, study, worship—all of which becomes purposeful and intentional. And we find that we make that first step in everything we do to be the question, Lord what would you have me do even before we let each day, each phase of our life, unfold?

Jesus simply said, “Father glorify your Name.” And He heard the reply, “I have already and will glorify it.” As it is with the Master, so it will be with the follower. You are no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

                                                                                                                                                                  Amen