Sometimes sermons are like children and end up having annoying minds of their own

I love the preaching part of my job description, and one of the advantages to being on a multi-clergy staff is time to really think, pray, reflect and "cook" a sermon because there's lots of lectionary lead time. Which ... you would think ... would mean there would be nothing left to do the Saturday before the Sunday you preach since you've had all that time to prepare.

Not!

What I find ... over and over again and am finding as-a-case-in-point this week ... is that like best laid plans, best laid sermons can rise up and change their minds about what they want to say and where they want to go in a very inconvenient way. And so today ... which is a BEAUTIFUL day in the neighborhood ... with the temperature where it belongs (in the 70's) and the rain back where it belongs (somewhere else) ... I'm on the porch on Saturday morning with the laptop trying to figure out where we're going to end up with this one before 7:30 tomorrow morning.

Did I mention I love the preaching part of my job description?

Let's Focus on ALL Families!!

So today it was an early morning "call" ... 6:30 a.m. in Arcadia to show up and challenge the Mayor of Arcadia's ill-advised choice to spend thousands of dollars of public funds to bring in a "Focus on the Family" speaker for his Community Breakfast. (Honestly, what was he thinking???)

The chants ranged from "2-4-6-8: Separate Church and State" to "Focus on ALL Families" ... and it felt good to show up and speak out against an organization that focuses on SOME families and discriminates against others. Like mine.

Anyway, here are some photos from the morning. Now back to my regularly scheduled life.

Really????

This one is making the rounds on Facebook:

So, let me get this straight...Kelsey Grammer can end a 15 year marriage over the phone, Larry King can be on divorce #9, Britney Spears had a 55 hour marriage, Jesse James and Tiger Woods, while married, were having sex with EVERYONE. Yet, the idea of same-sex marriage is going to destroy the institution of marriage? Really?

Blast from the Past: A Blog from 2001

I'm supposed to be working on my sermon for Sunday ... and I am. I was looking for a quote I was trying to remember and came across this old blog ... back in the "Every Voice Network" days. A little blast from the past. And now back to the Transfiguration.

The Church of Tomorrow: A Traditionalist's Perspective
by the Rev. Susan Russell

In a recent meeting with our diocesan "clergy dialogue group" we fell to discussing the current state of affairs in the Episcopal Church. "The problem," said one of my self-described "conservative" clergy colleagues "is that the radical conservatives have left … but the radical liberals are still here." "Well there you go!" I said. "Since historically Anglicans don’t leave, I guess that makes us the traditionalists!"

He did not find it a compelling argument.

Yet I am a traditionalist – and so I have great confidence in the history of this church and great faith in its future. I claim the tradition of a biblical faith in the God who does the unexpected ... calls the unworthy ... offers the unimaginable. The promise of descendants more numerable than the stars to Abraham and Sarah comes to mind. So does asking Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt ... along with a baby in a manger and an empty tomb.

Ours is a tradition of belonging to this God who seems always to be doing the unexpected ... and yet how often we dare to presume that we know God's mind ... can speak for God ... can understand all of God's ways. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." [Isaiah 55:8]

And yet in the days since September 11th the newspapers and airwaves ... and my email "inbox" ... have been full of those who dogmatically insist they know God's ways and want to explain them to me. Those who believe they have a corner on "the truth" and want to either convince us of it or kill us over it. "Neither are your ways my ways" says God ... and yet, created in God's image, we yearn for the day when our ways become God's ways – or at least more like them!

What gets in the way of our becoming more fully the people of God we are called to be? How can the Church of Tomorrow achieve that goal?

I am increasingly convinced that our own tolerance for the intolerant has become our Achilles heel. I believe we must be about the work of building bridges of collaboration between peace seeking people of all denominations, faiths and cultures as we work together to eradicate the scourge of rabid fundamentalism and sectarianism which infects all our traditions at some level. As people of faith we must cease to tolerate those who insist on divine authorization for a demonic agenda – must refuse to allow the reactionary elements of our communities claim for themselves the platform of orthodoxy … of traditionalism ... as an excuse for perpetrating evil.

Imagine if moderate Jews, Christians and Muslims combined in one united, world-wide front to put into practice the basic tenets of their faith ... and combined as well to silence the polemic voices of division and exclusion from the religious radicals who dwell on the fringes of their respective faiths. "Waging Reconciliation" is what our Presiding Bishop has called it. Osama bin Laden wouldn't have a chance. Neither would Jerry Falwell.

The report from the 2020 Task Force asked this question: "Could it be that God is in the process of preparing the Episcopal Church to play a significant role in a moment such as this?" I believe that’s precisely what this God-whose-ways-are-not-our-ways has been doing. I believe the hard work of reconciliation that has been going on within this church has been preparing us to take that work outside this church.

No, God is not finished with us yet. We did not wait until we had vanquished the sin of racism before we reached out and participated in ending the injustice of apartheid. Just so, there is work for us to do as people of reconciliation in this present time of trial in the global community – even as we continue to walk in love with those with whom we disagree in our own church.

For even in these most uncertain of times we dwell in the certainty that we belong to a God whose very nature is love ... and who will lead us, if we will follow, to places we may have never imagined we would go. May God give us the grace to imagine the Church of Tomorrow as a force for making manifest God’s reconciling love to all people. And may God give us as well the grace to accomplish it.

Got my sign ready for the protest tomorrow morning!

If you're in the area and want to stop by, check us out in Arcadia tomorrow and help us express our displeasure to the Mayor of Arcadia that in these times of economic challenge he would spend thousands of dollars of public money to bring in a speaker for his "Community Breakfast" from "Focus on the Family"... an organiztion RENOWNED for focusing on SOME families and discriminating against others.

From the media release:

Divisive Rhetoric by “Focus on the Family” Group Draws Protest by LGBT Community, Families and Supporters at Mayor’s Breakfast

At issue: Separation of Church and State, Misuse of City Funds to Promote Culture of Intolerance That Excludes And Harms Gay And Lesbian Families.

What: LGBT community members, families and supporters will gather for a protest the use of city funds to promote discrimination. They will form a “human billboard” as the community attendees arrive to hear a Vice President of Focus on the Family speak at the Arcadia Mayor’s Community Breakfast. The Mayor’s choice of keynote speaker, brought on taxpayer dollars, is unacceptable because Focus on the Family continues to promote a culture of intolerance that excludes and harms gay and lesbian families.

By supporting legislation and campaigns that deny equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, opposing anti-bullying efforts in our schools, and promoting psychological “lesbian and gay conversion” programs, “Focus on the Family” has actively pursued a political agenda that actually hurts families. It is unacceptable that a public official, Arcadia Mayor Amundson, is using public funds to promote a group that harms families and encourages division in the community.

Where: Friday, March 4, 2011, 6:30 am – 8 am, (Mayor’s Community Breakfast starts at 7:30 am)
Arcadia Community Center, 365 Campus Drive, Arcadia, CA 91007

Who: On-site interviews with:
 Spokesperson: Rev. Dr. Jonipher Kwong, Director, API Equality-LA,
ordained Unitarian Universalist and Metropolitan Community Church Minister.
 Eric Nakano, gay man and evangelical Christian whose father worked for Focus on the Family
 Representatives from Arcadia High School. Gay and Straight Alliance (GSA)
 Representatives from Parents and Families of Lesbian and Gays (PFLAG)
 Clergy, LGBT community members, activists, supporters and children

Why: “Throughout California, and throughout the country, the LGBT community and its supporters are working to create a world in which all families are respected and embraced. Time after time, Focus on the Family has made destructive and bigoted statements that are far from supportive of families. By using religion to vilify a particular segment of society, Focus on the Family is destroying the fabric of this country. Why are tax dollars being used to support such messaging?” Robin McGehee, Director and Co-founder and Director of GetEQUAL, a national LGBT civil rights group.

California Attorney General Steps Up on Prop 8

California Attorney General Kamala Harris today responded to Eric Holder's February 23rd assertion that the administration now considers any government discrimination based on sexual orientation to be constitutionally suspect.

"While it lacks the force of law, Attorney General Holder's reasoned analysis is entitled to consideration," Harris told the appeals court. Every day that Prop. 8 remains in effect, she said, "justice has been denied" -- invoking the famous statement from Martin Luther King, Jr. that "justice delayed is justice denied."

"For 846 days Proposition 8 has denied equality under law to gay and lesbian couples," Harris told the court. "Each and every one of those days, same-sex couples have been denied their right to convene loved ones and friends to celebrate marriages sanctioned and protected by California law."



Read more here ...
Los Angeles Times
SF Gate

RIP Peter Gomes

We have lost one of our finest preachers, theologians, and advocates. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. And may light perpetual shine upon them.

From today's NYTimes:

The Rev. Peter J. Gomes, a Harvard minister, theologian and author who announced that he was gay a generation ago and became one of America’s most prominent spiritual voices against intolerance, died on Monday in Boston. He was 68. His death, which was first reported by The Harvard Crimson, was confirmed by Emily Lemiska, a spokeswoman at Massachusetts General Hospital, where Mr. Gomes had recently been treated. He lived in Cambridge and Plymouth, Mass. Learn more here.

And from an interview by then Dean of Grace Cathedral, Alan Jones: