Last Sermon
Today is mostly a day about remembering, but I did want to offer a
little bit of reflection on the Scriptures, a little bit of a
homily. My memory in this department is of teaching the lesson on
Abraham to little children in a Godly Play class only 2 weeks
ago. It was an uncomfortable moment – telling the story of
Abraham being tested by God, being asked to sacrifice his only son, and
the child of his old age, Isaac. Talk about a shocker – we just
heard of Isaac’s birth announcement by the 3 messengers of God, and how
it made the air ring with Sarah’s laughter. Now Abraham is about to
kill him.
Telling this story to children is even more shocking. There is no
getting around it, no softening of it in Godly Play. As I laid
down a bundle of wood and a bowl of fire to light it, a knife to cut
the throat of the victim and a piece of rope to tie him with, I could
hardly believe what I was doing. The faces of the chidren were
very serious, so were their mom’s faces.
When it came time for the wondering questions I asked, as I often ask,
“I wonder which part of this story you liked the best.” Hands
shot up! “I liked the part where God said to Abraham, ‘you don’t have
to do this thing.’” Me too! What a relief when the ram
appears and Abraham is told to use the ram for the sacrifice.
The story has come down to us as a very shocking story of obedience to
God and how it requires very real sacrifice of what we hold dear.
Abraham was prepared to do it, and he didn’t know why or where or how
this story would end, he was just prepared to obey the command.
Moving into a terrifying wilderness of not-knowing, God reveals to him
another plan. There is a next step for him to take, and he does
not have to literally sacrifice the life of his son. It is his
own attachment that is sacrificed, but not the literal life of his son.
Phew! Thank God!
From the side of our limited understanding, obedience always looks like
a huge sacrifice to us, it looks like death to the ego, and in some
ways it is. That is why I’ve always had such a hard time with
it. I’ve got a big ego and I don’t want to give up thinking that
I have control over my life. But, of course I don’t. And
the more I acknowledge the truth, that this life has to be given over
to God, the more I discover that God has a far larger vision and sees
that there are ways of sacrificing my attachments without actually
sacrificing children. That great big ego is actually tiny and
can’t see very far at all. It can’t see beyond its literal
distortions of things, and to it, obedience seems a menace, rather than
salvation.
And so it is. I discover it again and again. What I thought I
would do does not work, and instead, I find myself asked to do things I
didn’t want to do at all. And why, I have no idea. But the
task is not to think that I have things figured out, no, the task is to
surrender again and again to God’s bigger vision, and just keep on
showing up.
So I find myself in that situation now. I wasn’t sure why it was
time to leave here, except that everything is going so well here that I
just don’t think I’m needed here in the same way that I am needed
somewhere else. In the meantime, however, I was too grieved by
the loss to think of opening myself up for a new deployment, so once
again, I made my own plans. The truth is, I’ve looked over the
landscape and I see plenty of churches that list “vacant” where the
name of a priest should be, plenty of them in Oklahoma and Arkansas,
plenty all over. That’s not right. I know that I need to remain
open to serve as needed, so I am. I don’t know how long I’ll actually
get to teach English and spend more time with the children. I’ll
get a little bit of a break from running a church anyway, which is
right for me. I need some time to grieve leaving here – this has
been a very good place for me to be. So I’ll take whatever time
God gives me to do something else, and then I’ll take the next step,
the next unknown and mysterious step, when it emerges.
And I’ll count on God to show me where and when and how this big ego needs to sacrifice some of its illusions once again.
Amen.
Remembering –
I served as
a supply priest at St. James just after Kay Ashby had left. In June of 1999,
when I filled in here, I was serving as chaplain at St. Martin’s University
Center in Fayetteville and on the staff at St. Paul’s. I really enjoyed being here, and I was asked
to do a local wedding that July (for Reba Potee’s beautiful daughter), and to
visit some of the sick (Bill Tefft, Tommy Thomas, Lorna Gifford) later in the
summer, and some of the members of the congregation even came down to
Fayetteville that summer to services at St. Martin’s and to visit with me there
about various spiritual issues. To me it became very clear that members of the
congregation were calling me to come here as vicar, and I thought I could do
some good service here. So I contacted the bishop’s office and asked to be
considered as a candidate. I wrote a proposal for what I thought would be good
directions to work in here. Once I got a green light from Dan McKee, the canon
to the ordinary, I sent my proposal to the Vestry.
That
proposal included two main areas for growth: growth in the ministries of all
the baptized to serve the congregation and the larger community and evangelism through
classes, workshops. and perhaps some new worship services. The proposal also
included several ideas for maintaining and enhancing the fine ministries
already in place here, especially the beautiful worship on Sunday mornings and
the outreach at the Lane House. When I finally got the chance to present the
proposal to the Vestry, they decided that we seemed a good match, and I got my
chance to get to work. I came here to work part-time, despite the many projects
I had in my mind, and I continued to work part-time as chaplain at the
University as well.
All of this
negotiating took time, and I was impatient, so it seemed a long time to me. I
did not actually officially start working here as vicar until December 1, 1999.
So, to say that I’ve been here as vicar 9 years is stretching it – it has been
8 years and 7 months actually. But in my mind and heart I knew I was being
called here in June of 1999, and I started to move my life in this direction 9
years ago with clear intent.
Everything
I’ve done here has been challenging: At that first wedding service in July 1999
I used the Book of Common Prayer service (because it is simply the truest
wedding service I know) but had to alter wording to avoid offending the groom.
I love that BCP service, and one of the things I’m very attached to is all the
ceremony, the taking of the hands, the binding of the hands in the stole. So I
was really hoping they would not take offense at these aspects of the ceremony
and I was carefully describing the service to them. “Cool!” said the groom.
“That’s just like in the movie Braveheart!” I’ve never looked at the wedding
service the same since.
And talk about
a challenge – nagivating these county roads with that little Honda accord! I remember
those first pastoral visits – finding Bill Tefft’s house was a real challenge,
and it made me doubt whether I was really called to come here, driving down
that rutted dirt road forever, not knowing where the heck I was. And when neighbors showed up at City Hall to
complain about the Lane House during a Planning Commission meeting (and I put
my foot right in my mouth and on television too – and of course got quoted in
the paper, ugh!) I really wondered. But I listened and realized I needed to go
door to door in the neighborhood and just listen to the complaints. And then we
invited the neighbors in and we all listened together. It was a beautiful
example of what a church can and should (and did) do in the midst of seemingly
intractable conflict – open the doors wider and invite the critics in, and then
just listen with open ears and open hearts. God will show us what to do if we
just open ourselves up to not thinking we already know better.
And that is what I have enjoyed the
most here – the constant challenges, the constant surprises, the continual call
to have to listen more deeply for what God is saying, and give up my cherished
opinions and ideas.
My children
have grown up here. Brendan nick-named St. James’ “the eating church” early on,
in contrast to St. Martin’s “the popcorn church”, because of the fabulous
pot-luck dinners which were a once-a-month regular event on Sundays for a while
there. And that came after the generous breakfasts that Laura Barker and the
Breakfast Club cook each Sunday. Food was never in short supply at St. James’,
and Brendan could tell that from the beginning. This is a generous and
hospitable community.
For a
number of years I relied on that hospitality as I commuted from Fayetteville. I
slept in people’s guest rooms, and also on the floor of the church (I used to
keep camping equipment in the trunk of my car). And then, it became home. Now
it is really home, home not just to me, but to my children as well. It is hard
to leave. I will miss the daily routines that revolve around the church – I
will miss Sunday mornings here, and I’ll miss Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. and
Thursday mornings as well. I’ll miss sneaking into my office in the middle of
the night when I can’t sleep. I’ll miss unlocking the quiet church to pray on
those same sleepless nights. And most of all, I’ll miss not seeing all of you
here. I will see you other places and in other contexts. So that is great! But
I’ll still miss not seeing you here.
Thank you
for letting me serve here. It has been a joy, a challenge, and a very
interesting dance. I am grateful for all of it, from the bottom of my heart.
So now I
need to say farewell to you as the vicar so that we can say hello in other
ways. And I’m following the guidelines the Episcopal Church has laid out for
departures such as this.
Let’s look together in the bulletin and complete this ceremony.
Thank you.
The Rev. Edie Bird
June 29, 2008
Return to St. James' Home
Page 6.08