We didn't listen

We didn't listen when they told us how bad it could be. Maybe because it was too hard to believe it could really happen to us ... to those we know ... to those we love. They warned us what would happen if we didn't social distance, wear our masks, "flatten the curve." They told us hundreds of thousands could die, that hospitals could be overwhelmed, that critically ill patients could be denied treatment and that life-as-we-knew-it would become more and more a distant memory. And we didn't listen. And we didn't wear our masks and we didn't stay in our bubbles and we traveled to see family and we met up with friends and now here we are: and what they told us could happen is happening across our nation in general and here in Los Angeles in particular. And it is terrifying and it is heartbreaking and it didn't have to be this way. 

We didn't listen when they told us how bad it could be. Maybe because it too hard to believe it could really happen here ... in this nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal. They warned us what would happen if we kept enabling a leader who flouted the rule of law, courted dictators and oligarchs and fomented sedition and rampant corruption. And yet it just kept happening. And those with the power to make a difference didn't listen, dismissing fears of coups and the dismantling of democracy as hyperbole and partisan hysteria and now here we are: on a day we couldn't have imagined where an armed mob has invaded our Capitol, terrorized our Congressional leadership and ground the certification of a free and fair election to a halt. And it is terrifying and heartbreaking and it didn't have to be this way.

We are fighting two viruses in this nation: the COVID19 coronavirus and the Trumpian White supremacy virus. And if we don't start listening -- if we don't heed the warnings -- if we don't come together across our differences and unite in the effort to eradicate them from our nation and figure out a way to move forward -- then the worst that can happen will happen again, and again and again ... and we cannot let that happen. History has its eyes on us. La lucha continua.

A Giant Goes Home to Jesus: George Regas, 1930-2021

We know that there are giants amongst us -- giants of justice who live larger, dream bigger, risk greater and change more than the rest of us who stand on their shoulders. And we lost one of those giants today when the Reverend Canon Dr. George F. Regas went home to Jesus. In words I heard George say in more funerals than I can count: "Oh, lucky heaven."

George was 90 years old and had been in failing health and so his death this morning with his beloved Mary Regas at his side was not a surprise to those who know and love him. We are grateful for a peaceful passing -- and we trust the great resurrection promise that in death life is changed, not ended -- and yet it is still a special kind of grief and shock when one of our giants leave us. 

And George Regas was a giant of justice. His life was an incarnation of the words of former Presiding Bishop John Hines who proclaimed that "justice is the corporate face of God's love." In his words and in his actions; in his teaching and in his preaching ... oh, especially in his preaching ... George Regas did what prophets are supposed to do: he comforted the afflicted and he afflicted the comfortable as he made that face of God's love accessible to absolutely everybody -- sometimes much to the consternation of the institutional church.

He was in the forefront of the struggle for the ordination of women in the 1970's. He was in the vortex of the AIDS crisis in the 1980's. He broke liturgical ground that helped pave the way for equal marriage by blessing same-sex unions in the 1990's. His interfaith relationships were as legendary as his credentials in the Civil Rights movement and his unwavering commitment to preach peace -- even in times of war, election cycles be damned -- made for a rocky patch with the IRS and All Saints Church in 2004. 

Nevertheless, he persisted. And we are in no small part the parish we are, the diocese we are and the Episcopal Church we are because of his willingness to live larger, dream bigger, risk greater and change more than the rest of us who stand on their shoulders. 

"Whoever you are and wherever you find yourself on the journey of faith you are welcome here to receive the bread and wine made holy." George's words of invitation to the communion table are words that have become a mantra for All Saints Church in Pasadena -- words that have inarguably changed countless thousands of lives ... both here in Pasadena and beyond ... making the corporate face of God's love avaialable to absolutely everyone. 

In the days and weeks ahead there will be many tributes, remembrances and opportunities to honor George and his legacy and I look forward to those. But right now -- in this moment -- as we pause to mark the passing of a giant who lived among us, my prayer is that we can be given the grace to remember George in his full humanity as a brother, mentor, teacher, preacher and friend -- and to celebrate the difference he made in our lives by continuing to do our part in the work of being the change we want to see in our beautiful and broken world. 

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Here's a photo tribute to George for his 90th Birthday: October 2020

Of Light, Love & Miracles: An Evensong Meditation

 

Tonight we light the fourth and final candle on our Advent wreath and Love joins Hope, Peace and Joy in the iconic circle awaiting the arrival of the fifth candle we will light on Christmas; the Christ Candle in the center of the wreath -- the light of God’s love, justice, and compassion incarnate for us as Christians in a baby in a manger.

It is a ritual we repeat every year. As Christina Honchell wrote in an Advent meditation many years ago: 

“The beauty of the liturgical year is that we get a chance to re-do, to think, to worship in a new way each year, as we spiral toward the coming of God’s dream realized on earth. We go around the liturgical circle, and we start and end in a new place every time.”

And when I read those words this year, I thought that there might quite possibly never have been a year in my sixty-six-so-far that they rang more true.

To think and to worship in new ways are hallmarks of the global pandemic which continues to challenge our human family exacting a tragic toll in the numbers of precious souls lost and in lives turned upside down.

Nevertheless, we persist.

And to Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels, that very persistence – that very willingness to try new things – are in and of themselves miracles. 

“What is a miracle?” he writes in his Chanukah message this year. “Most of us see the miracle of Chanukah as the menorah burning for eight days. Instead, we might back up a few steps to the moment the Maccabees decided to light the menorah even though it was clear there wasn’t enough oil. They had no idea a miracle might occur, but they lit it nonetheless.

The decision to try something without knowing the outcome is the miracle. It is the miracle of life itself and the miracle of human civilization. It is scientists who ultimately developed the vaccines that will now save our lives who had no guarantee their work would succeed. It is every medical professional who comes to the aid of a COVID patient, treating them the very best they know, without any inkling of whether the patient will heal.”

The weeks and months since the shutdowns began in March have been full of decisions to try something new without knowing the outcome.

Building online communities on Zoom comes to mind -- and figuring out how to adapt ancient worship practices to 21^st century pandemic realities are but the tip of the iceberg.

Nevertheless, we persist

As we gather tonight for this “virtual Evensong” we may be separated by the miles between us but we are bound together by the love that unites us -- gathered together through the miracle of technology to try something new as we go around the liturgical circle again: a circle represented for us tonight in this wreath with lights of hope, peace, joy and love and prepare to hear again the stories that tell us of the mystical longing of the creature for the creator – the finite for the infinite – the human for the divine – all wrapped up in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

In the words from one of our Eucharistic prayers: “in miracle and mystery Jesus was born, as we are born, and lived as we might live” -- the miracle of a God who loved us enough to become one of us in order to show us how love one another; the mystery of the indestructible power of God’s inexhaustible love.

The light incarnate in the baby we await in these waning days of Advent -- and alive in the Jesus we follow into the New Year -- is the light as old as the prophecy from Isaiah and the call to God’s covenant people to be a light to the nations to open the eyes of the blind to free captives from prison, and those who sit in darkness from the dungeon.

And it is the light as new as the miracle of new vaccines to end the scourge of the virus that plagues us; of new visions for global cooperation and collaboration; of new hopes for our nation to live into its pledge of liberty and justice for all.

We are on the cusp of the Winter Solstice turning the corner toward more rather than less light; longer rather than shorter days; more rather than less hope for our beautiful and broken world as we work together to overcome the divisions that polarize us; the virus that infects us; the challenges that face us.

As we journey together toward that corner, we travel with the Spirit our brother Bishop Steven Charleston describes as “the ageless power of love.”

Into the darkness quickly, 
skating the cold air like ice,
seeking the lost and lonely,
the ones who are hanging on,
the ones who are feeling afraid,
the keepers of sad memories,
to each of them comes the Spirit,
gliding on the cold air like ice,
bringing a blessing to each and every one,
healing and mercy for the broken hearted,
strengthening for tired souls,
lifting up neglected lives,
making the dark corners bright,
comes the Spirit, the ageless power of love,
the force of love, breaking through gently
to free every human being
who feels the weight of this season,
setting them at liberty,
restoring each one to hope and wholeness,
into the darkness quickly,
skating the cold air like ice,
comes the Spirit,
to light a candle in every window,
every window of the world.

May we be agents of that Spirit as we work together to be the Body of Christ – to be the miracle of those who try new things without knowing the outcome – to be the change we want to see in the world – until that kindom come on earth is not just a prayer we pray but a reality we live -- until finally the candle of love shines in every window of the world. Amen.

Morning Prayer - November 6, 2020

This morning it was my turn to lead Morning Prayer for our diocesan staff cohort. And on this morning -- one we hope is near the end of the middle of the longest election cycle in the history of voting -- I won the Lectionary Lottery with propers celebrating William Temple.

So we began with this Collect:

O God of light and love, who illumined your Church through the witness of your servant William Temple: Inspire us, we pray, by his teaching and example, that we may rejoice with courage, confidence, and faith in the Word made flesh, and may be led to establish that city which has justice for its foundation and love for its law; through Jesus Christ, the light of the world, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

And read this lesson from Exodus (22:21–27) appointed for the day:

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans.

If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbour’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbour’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbour cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.

And then we reflected on what it is to build a city with justice for its foundation and love for its law.

And what it means to be part of a human family where wronging and oppressing resident aliens is as tragically old as our most ancient scriptural texts and where economic exploitation of the poor is not something that just got invented by a particular president or party.

And we pondered what it means to be part of that arc of history that bends toward God's justice -- especially in moments when the forces working to bend it the other way are active, energized and palpable. 

And then we turned to Bishop Steven Charleston for a Word -- and as usual, he came through:

Show me what I can do to help, Spirit,

show me what I can do.

You know me.

You know my strengths and my weaknesses.

You know my heart and my mind.

You know my story.

Come into my life as it is, Spirit,

come in and show me where

I can use my talents to make a difference.

There is so much to be done,

so much healing, so much rebuilding,

so many challenges for so many people.

I don’t want to stand on the sidelines.

I want to do something positive.

I want to do my share.

So show me where I can help,

whether it is deeper into commitments

I have already made,

or working for change in ways I never expected.

You are calling us to a new beginning

after this election.

You are giving us the ability to become

something better than we have been.

Let me be part of that with you, Spirit.

Show me what I can do to help.

Wishing you stength for the journey, hope for the future and safety in the struggle -- this morning and in all the days ahead. La lucha continua.

Cleaning Up the Mess on All Saints Day

Since the calendar gave us an “extra hour” on this All Saints Day morning I’ve been using it to reflect on how much this election cycle/pandemic time has been like unto moving a rock and exposing all the creepy crawlies under it. You can put the rock back — but they are still there and you can’t unsee them. 

And if our metaphorical rock is our American Exceptionalism, then everything we - particularly we White people - hadn’t seen because it was hidden under that myth has — over these last four years in general and last few months in particular — been incontrovertibly exposed. And it’s now up to us to clean it up ... which is - to put it mildly - a daunting task. 

But taking the long view, it is the task the human race has been set to from its most ancient days.
This president did not invent corruption, economic exploitation, the othering of immigrants, or any of the other ways we grieve the heart of God. The prophets railed against all of those. The psalms lamented them. And Jesus turned over tables and got himself killed trying to clean up the mess under the rock by the same evil energy that yesterday tried to run a bus off the highway because it represented those telling the truth about the mess that needs cleaned up in our nation. 

So yes, it sucks. And yes, it’s hard. And scary and anxiety producing and disheartening and exhausting.
Nevertheless on today of all days — on this All Saints Day — take heart in the truth that we are in good company as we come together to do the work we have been given to do - standing on the shoulders of generations who have gone before us as we strive to love God, to love neighbor and to clean up the mess. An inch at a time.

And yes, I’m preaching to the preacher. 

Happy All Saints Day, friends.
Be Safe. Be Kind. Wear Your Mask. And Vote.

Again with The Coming Out Story

Yes, I came out in the National Cathedral on the 4th of July in 1996. It's a story I've told many times ... but since it's the only one I have and it's National Coming Out Day 2020, here it is again.

On July 4, 1996 at noon eastern time I was in the choir at the National Cathedral. While crowds of tourists milled about the nave of the cathedral and others gathered outside or headed toward the Mall for the fireworks festivities scheduled later it the day or lined up to see the opening-that-day film “Independence Day” (remember that one?) a remnant of us gathered in the cathedral choir for a festival celebration of the Feast of American Independence, BCP style.

The music was glorious, the lessons inspiring and the privilege of receiving Holy Communion at the altar in this amazing “house of prayer for all people” as we celebrated the birth of a nation dedicated to “liberty and justice for all” was an amazing gift I will always remember.

Oh … and I came out.

In the cathedral. On the Fourth of July. In the middle of festival Eucharist I had the great “aha” moment – the epiphany – the “I-shoulda-had-a-V8” realization that the God who had “fearfully and wonderfully” made me had made me gay. And called me to priesthood. And told me “now, go back and be the priest I called you to be.”

That’s my coming out story. I’ve told it many times before but on this “Coming Out Day” it seemed worth telling again. It seemed worth reminding myself – and anybody else who wants to listen in – that I did not come out from the fringes of anything but from what former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold famously called "the diverse center."

I came out in the context of a spiritual journey that began with my baptism at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Los Angeles in 1954 (go ahead and do the math!) and continued through Junior Choir, confirmation class, Altar Guilds and Vacation Bible Schools, ECW Boards, teas and luncheons, Diocesan Conventions, vestries and parish day school boards and finally seminary, ordination and parish ministry.

My coming out had nothing to do with a political act. It had nothing to do with a genital act. It had to do with recognizing that I could not be fully present at altar if I was not fully present in myself – and it had to do with being raised in a church where +John Hines taught me that “justice is the corporate face of God’s love,” +Ed Browning told me that in the Episcopal Church there would be no outcasts and the consecration of +Barbara Harris incarnated for me the hope that this church was actually willing to live into its high calling to live out a radically inclusive gospel.

So Happy “Coming Out Day” to me – and to the scores of LGBTQ Episcopalians like me. Are we a challenge to the wider church? I hope so. And I hope we continue to be. I hope that our voices of faith and witness will continue to preach, to protest and to prophesy – that we will stand in the temple and tell the Good News of God in Christ Jesus made present in our lives, our vocations and our relationships. That we will preach that Good News in and out of season.

And here's to our core American values of liberty and justice for all and to everyone committed to our core Episcopal values of respecting the dignity of every human being. Not because we’re politically correct but because we’re gospel obedient -- and because we're going to do whatever we can to offer a rebuttal to the rabid rhetoric of the religious right who have taken the Good News of God’s inclusive love and distorted it into a weapon of mass discrimination. Of humiliation. Of homophobia.

Because the stakes are too high. Because the damage to precious souls is too costly. And because the truth that there are people of faith who proclaim justice and compassion — not judgment and condemnation — is too important not to step up and speak out. As Harvey Milk said “You must come out ... and once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions.” And for me as a Christian, those lies and distortions include hijacking my faith and turning it into weapon to wound God’s beloved LGBTQ children.

So Come Out, Come Out wherever you are. Come Out as proud LGBTQ members of the rainbow tribe. And if you happen to be the Christian variety, then Come Out as a Christian, too. Break down some myths. Destroy some lies and distortions. And if we do it long enough and loud enough and together enough eventually we will be done. And October 11th will roll around and nobody will need to Come Out because there won’t be any closets left.

And wouldn’t that be fabulous?

The Words of the Prophets: A Sermon for Saint Francis Day 2020

On this Feast Day of Saint Francis in the year of our Lord 2020, as we gather once more to discern how we can be instruments of peace in a world where peace seems more elusive with every Breaking News alert, let’s begin with these words from the Gospel According to Simon & Garfunkel:

And the people bowed and prayed
to the neon god they made
and the sign flashed out it’s warning
in the words that it was forming
and the sign said the words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
and tenement halls
and whispered in the sound of silence.

The words of the prophets.

Twenty-seven years ago this fall I was a first-year seminarian – and the first class I was enrolled in was Hebrew Scriptures 101 taught by the inimitable James Sanders and the first book we were assigned was “The Prophets” by Rabbi Abraham Heschel. And it was from Rabbi Heschel … via Jim Sanders … that I learned that the prophet’s job description has two parts: to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted.

And in our lessons appointed for this Feast of Saint Francis, that job description is embodied in sharp relief.

Woe to the ruler who builds a house without integrity and its upper rooms with injustice, enslaving the citizenry, not paying for their labor! Woe!

and

Come to me, all you who labor and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Here you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

The prophet has a both/and job description because we live in a both/and world – and yet we live in a moment when our discourse is dominated by those insisting on simplistic either/or solutions to the complex both/and challenges that face us –

a time where the polarization that divides us is as pandemic as the coronavirus that infects us – a time when science is argued to be antithetical to faith and a time when wearing a mask to prevent the spread of a deadly disease has been polarized into a partisan political statement.

And it is in just such a time as this that we turn to the words of the prophets which can serve as antibodies to the pandemic of polarization by living into the both/and call to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted.

It was into that both/and world that Francis was born in the 13th century and it was a both/and life he lived – a life reflected in the prayer famously attributed to him … a prayer we will pray later together in this liturgy … a prayer that many of us know by heart. A prayer that begins: Lord, make us instruments of your peace.

Make us people who work to end violence in all its forms and who pray for both victim and perpetrator as we seek healing and wholeness for absolutely every member of the human family.

Make us people who afflict those who are so comfortable in their unexamined white privilege that they are blind to the systemic racism that surrounds us and make us people who amplify the voices of those who have endured generations of oppression, marginalization and discrimination.

Make us people who learn from climate scientists what we must do to be stewards of this fragile earth, our island home and make us people who reject the false narrative that we must choose between science and faith

Make us people who lift up absolutely every single individual infected by COVID19 – let those with ears to hear, listen -- and make us people who speak up to end the politicization of public health policies.

Make us a people who claim your resurrection promise, and give us that peace that passes understanding - trusting that nothing can separate us or those we love from your love; love that is stronger than death.

And make us people who remember that we are not the first generation to have faced these challenges that plague our communities, our nation, and our world.

A personal story in point:

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, I had a relative who made a boat ton of money, squirreled it away in offshore bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, got caught by the IRS and got out of the country in literally the dead of night the day before the Feds showed up. He lived the rest of his life as an ex-pat in a country without an extradition treaty.

And the response of the rest of that branch of the family was "Good on you, old chap! Way to take care of Numero Uno!"

I tell this story not to throw shade on a now departed former family member nor on his family. I tell this story to illustrate that there are indeed those among us who live and move and have their being in a worldview where looking out for "number one" is the highest priority, where anyone who does anything else is a sucker and a loser and where if greed and graft are part of the equation then that's just the price of doing business.

And I tell this story partly as a reality check. A reminder that the "Numero Uno" folks didn't just materialize because of one political campaign or election cycle but have always been among us.

They are part of our history in this nation, part of our big fat human family album and part of our scriptural record.

They are who the prophets railed against, who Jesus tossed tables in the temple to protest against and who inspired our forbearers to throw the tea in the Boston Harbor and imagine a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we're all created equal.

And we who follow in their footsteps haven't come this far on the journey toward that more perfect union – toward that kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven – to let those who would dismantle it win now.

So as challenging as it might be to do so this morning -- and I know it's challenging to me -- take heart. 

Remember that greed and graft and corruption have always been with us: but so have truth and beauty; grace and compassion.

Remember that the power behind us is greater than the challenge ahead of us – and that we stand on the shoulders of the likes of John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg … who stood on the shoulders of prophets like Jeremiah and saints like Francis before them … all of whom have paved the way for us that we might continue that work for those who come after us.

I close this morning with words from a latter-day prophet – Bishop Steven Charleston: bishop, pastor, preacher, and poet … and elder of the Choctaw Nation.

They are words of a prophet that deserve to written on subway walls and tenement halls; to be whispered into the sound of silence and – on this Feast Day of Saint Francis in the year of our Lord 2020 – to be boldly proclaimed into the pandemic of polarization:

People of faith, be alert, be awake, be active: for now is the time to live the peace we preach. The high tide of turmoil around us has not yet been reached. Fear and ignorance are out searching for an opening in hearts wherever they can find them. Anger comes as quickly as if people were a box of matches looking for a way to be lit.

In this volatile atmosphere let us be a calm voice of reason. Let us speak with courtesy to all whom we encounter. Let us embody the civility we seek to inspire in others. Even if we think we are only whispering into the wind, our presence will be felt.

The people around us are being driven by forces that want a reaction from them.

Let us want something else: let us want their shared humanity, their common sense, their mutual hope for a better day.

As hard as it may be, speak peace into the storm, knowing that with each word you say you help to calm the soul of a troubled nation.

And now, my brothers and sisters and gender fluid siblings, may the one who has given us the will to do these things give us the grace and power and stamina to faithfully accomplish them.

Thanks be to God.
Alleluia.
Amen.

Sermon preached by the Reverend Canon Susan Russell on October 4, 2020 at All Saints Church in Pasadena at the 11:15 a.m. Zoom Service.