Speaking in NYC with Geshe Roach and Lama Christie

 In a couple of weeks I will be in NYC with Geshe Roach and Lama Christie.  Here’s the poster.

Sermon: Mary Magdeline and Resurrection, Easter 2008

Click HERE for an MP3 recording of the Easter sermon.

Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”

Watch this amazing lecture

http://justonespark.blogspot.com/2008/02/randy-pausch-reprising-his-last-lecture.html

The Nicene Creed

I’ve often had people tell me of their discomfort with aspects of the Creed.  What a creative way of exploring this dissonance as a community! (From Episcopal Life)

 Great Idea:  Creedal gymnastics teach about community

[Episcopal Life] The Rev. Tom Woodward of Santa Fe, New Mexico, once devised a startling way to show a congregation its belief, unbelief and the value of community. He calls it “an experience with the Nicene Creed.” After explaining that they would be reading through the creed phrase by phrase, Woodward would give the charge:“When the phrase is something you understand on one level or another, and believe, stand up or remain standing. When the phrase is something that makes no sense to you, or is something you do not believe, sit down or remain sitting.”The resulting dance, he says, appeared to be something akin “to a rebellious exercise class,” with folks popping up, sitting down and squirming to watch their neighbors as they stood and sat and stood again.

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Easter Letter

“Do you believe in infant baptism?”  This is the opening question in one of my favorite stupid jokes.  The joke, which I’m sure is only funny to church people, hinges on the fact that Christians argue over the appropriateness of infants being baptized.  Infants, after all, are incapable of making a mature commitment of faith.  Is baptism the beginning of a spiritual journey or a response to a spiritual awakening?  In an attempt to draw someone into the debate, one person asks, “Do you believe in infant baptism?”  The response, and the punch line of the joke is, “Believe in it?  I’ve seen it!!”

For some reason this jokes comes to mind whenever I think of Easter.  On Easter we celebrate the resurrection.  Do I believe in resurrection?  Yes, I do.  Not just because my religion teaches me that Jesus rose from death three days after being crucified.  I believe in resurrection because I’ve seen it.  I have seen, time and again, life springing from what seemed like death.  I have personally experienced times of darkness and tragedy that lead to new and richer life.     

Because of the faithfulness of resurrection experiences I believe that God is in the business of resurrection.  You might say that resurrection is woven into the fabric of creation.  Or perhaps that resurrection is part of the blueprint that God uses to create the world and create our lives.  I believe the resurrection of Jesus on that first Easter morning was a focused manifestation of a deeper reality: God brings life out of death.

Easter teaches us that death never has the last word.  Life always follows death.   So as angels often proclaim, “Do not be afraid!”  We get to experience resurrection in our own lives.  We are also invited to be agents of resurrection in the lives of others.

The services during Holy Week and Easter are intended to help us enter more fully into the mysterious reality of resurrection.  I hope you can join us in these services and that through them, you will not only believe in resurrection but you will see resurrection.  

Core Values: Openness, Christ-centerdness & Integrity

“Think of a time when you felt most alive in your faith.  Tell me a story of that time.”  That was how the vestry retreat began.  We shared touching, significant stories from our lives.  And the moments that brought us alive in faith were present again.  It was a lovely way to get to know one another.  It was also a lovely way for us to focus on the love of God that is our driving force and our purpose as a vestry.   We moved from our heads to our hearts.

Think of a time when you felt most alive in your faith.  What was it about that experience that continues to shape you even now?  How does that experience influence what you value about Trinity Cathedral?  The vestry moved from their personal stories to looking at our lives corporately.  They were able to articulate three core values that seem central to our lives together. 

The first is Christ-centeredness.  We experience and share the love of Christ deeply and passionately.  Through the sacraments, prayer, study, serving others, having fun together and in many other ways, Christ’s love comes alive.  This love is not a private possession.  In Jesus, God’s love was embodied and poured out to bring everybody to new and abundant life.  As a Christ-centered community, we too embody God’s love so that all people can be brought more alive.   

The second value is openness.  Christ’s love moves us to be open to all kinds of people and ways of seeing the world.  So much of our world is focused on that which divides people: nationality, race, religion, sexual-orientation, etc.  At Trinity, we believe that all people are created in God’s image and as such, we are all beloved by God and welcome in the church.  We also believe that we don’t have a corner on the truth, so we need other perspectives to help us understand the richness of God’s creation. 

Integrity, the third value, doesn’t simply mean to be honest or ethical.  It means to be the same on the inside as one is on the outside, to lack hypocrisy.  If one is Christ-centered, one is Christ-centered through-and-through.  The same is true about being open.  We don’t just pretend to be Christ-centered or open, we are that way to the core of our being.  In our world where so much is a façade, it is a blessing to find a community that prizes integrity.

For several months prior to the retreat we had been reflecting on our core values.  But at this retreat, something was different.  We started with how our own lives had been transformed and we were able to articulate three simple, yet beautiful values:  Christ-centeredness, openness and integrity.  I don’t have the space to reflect in detail on the remainder of the vestry retreat in this Cross article, but it was filled with excitement and energy as we looked to our future and at what might be possible as we share Christ’s love with others.   

Sermon: God and Suffering, Palm/Passion Sunday, 2008

Click HERE for an MP3 audio recording.

If the sermon gets transcribed, I’ll post the text.

Sermon: Man Born Blind, Lent 4, 2008

Click HERE for an MP3 audio recording.

If the sermon gets transcribed I’ll post the text.