Light in the Darkness

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Peter De Franco on
November 30, 2008, The First Sunday of Advent

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Advent. Does anyone know what the word advent means? The word advent comes from two Latin words that mean coming toward. I wonder what is coming toward us? Or who is coming toward us? Christmas is coming toward us. Jesus is coming toward us. For some of us, Santa Claus is coming toward us.
Do any of you remember from today’s gospel what Jesus said is coming? Let me remind you of what Jesus said is coming:
Jesus said that something terrible is coming. Listen to Jesus’ words: “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.” (Mark 13: 24-25) What does that sound like to you? It sounds like I don’t want to be around to see that happen.
What would that mean if the sun is darkened and the moon does not shine and the stars fall out of the sky? It would be pretty dark when that happens. We would all be living in shadows. We would all be in the dark. How would that make you feel? I think that I would be afraid. I would be scared.
What happens when everything is dark? What do you need? You need light. You need something to shine in the darkness. You need a light.
I think that Jesus is not only telling us that something terrible is going to happen. But Jesus is also telling us that something wonderful is going to happen. Jesus tells us that when terrible things happen, that kind of world has to end. Jesus is telling us that a world where people do bad things to other people has to end. Jesus is telling us that a world where people do not have enough clothes to wear, enough food to eat, enough space to live has to come to an end. So when Jesus talks about the sky becoming dark, it is only part of the story. Jesus is talking about a world where bad things happen. That bad world has to come to end.
Jesus is also saying that he will come to make everything better. Jesus called himself the light. But Jesus is also talking about the dawning of a new light to replace the darkness. This are the words from the Gospel: “Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. (Mark 13: 35-36)
Do you notice the references to time in the Gospel and how time progresses from evening to midnight, to cockcrow to dawn. Jesus is advising us that we need to keep alert. To pay attention, that we might see when the light dawns and perhaps even more than see.
I want to share a story with you about the battle between darkness and light, a story that played itself out only a few blocks from us. Last Sunday, as the congregation from the 10:15 service were going into coffee hour, a tragedy played itself out at St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox church on Third Street. You know the story of how an angry husband traveled from California to New Jersey to take his wife, the wife he brutalized and beat for years, back with him to California. We all know how that story played itself out in the Narthex of the church, how the husband came into the Narthex, demanded that his wife return with him, how a young man intervened along with the woman’s cousin. Shots rang out in the church, leaving the wife dead, the young man mortally wounded and the cousin still is in a coma on life support in St. Joseph’s Hospital.
On Thanksgiving night, I spent evening at St. Thomas Church along with other clergy, members of the family of Dennis John and the many people who were touched by his short life. Again on Friday night, I sat in the pew, praying for Dennis and his family, for his congregation, and listening to the words of friends, of priests who knew him, of members of his congregation. They spoke of his outgoing character, his profound love for people, his deep caring for others.
When I was asked to speak, I did not have a prepared text and these words of the Gospel came to my mind: Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friend. Jesus spoke of those words to describe how he would lay down his life for us. But countless Christians after Jesus have laid down their lives for others. Dennis did what Jesus did. In the midst of that dark hour, Dennis’ sacrifice was a shining light.
Priests came from all over the country. From India came a bishop who is the equivalent of our presiding bishop to lead the prayers and to comfort Dennis’ family and the congregation. Now I am not asking you to become a martyr. Only God can give us that grace. Seeing his mother crying without comfort let me ask God not only for her comfort but that other mothers be spared similar sorrow. Let us pray that none of us are called to that role.
But when a martyr arises in our community, we should recognize that what the world sees as darkness, we Christians see as the dawning light. What the world sees as loss, we see as gain. For the weakness of our human condition, God transforms into God’s own strength. The tragedy of human loss, God transforms by the power of the resurrection into new life. We are all called to be a light in the darkness. Not as dramatically as Dennis in his sacrificial death. But in smaller, humbler, hidden ways.
Perhaps by giving a Christmas gift to a stranger, providing food for someone who is hungry, showing love and affection for someone who is forgotten, you become a light in someone’s darkness. Make your heart a shining light that when you find darkness, the light of Jesus may shine through you.

An Incomplete Sermon on Stewardship

If you were to put an anxiety thermometer in the mouth of our society, you would see the mercury explode the thermometer and bounce in bubbles on the floor. Unless we exert extraordinary concern, each of us can become infected with the collective unease our society is feeling over the ups and down turns of the stock market, fears over the possibility of yet another buyout by the federal government of first insurance companies, then banks and now perhaps the auto industry.
If you think that today’s stock market is a gamble perhaps you did not pay careful attention to today’s Gospel story. The parable of the talents comes close to high rolling with mutual funds.
But for us to understand the high risks of the story, lets start by converting the biblical money into dollars.
When the Gospel talks about talents, a talent is not a good trait you have, a talent is a sum of money. A talent is worth about 6,000 denarii. A denarius is a day’s wage. How much do you make in a day? If you make $80, then one talent is $420,000. Two talents is $840,000. Five talents is $2,100,000.
If you make $160 a day then we are looking at $840,000, $1,680,000, and $4,200,000. I think we are now in the league with Warren Buffit and Bill Gates.
The investors in the Gospel story take the money they receive and the first two double it.
The third one sits on it and does nothing. What is this money that Jesus is talking about? Let’s face it, Jesus is talking not about small amounts of money, he is talking about excessive money. Money that we might imagine a Wall Street Stock Broker makes. Money being given to the CEO of a major corporation. Money that a Mafia godfather collects.
What is this excessive money in God’s eyes? When God invests in the world, God throws out money in abundance. God flings the money at us. God’s mercy overflows. God’s love is endless.
God wants to invest lavishly, loving without restraint, showing mercy without limit.
The parable invites us to be lavish spenders, unrestrained givers, limitless hosts. God does not hide God’s money under a mattress. God invests it in the world.
You know that today is the day we are going to look at our parish’s money, where it comes from and where it goes. I guess that when I was talking about lavish spenders, unrestrained givers, limitless hosts you might have begun to wonder if that is the way the Vestry spends your money or perhaps worse, how the Vestry expects you to make your financial commitment to the church. If our congregation included Warren Buffit and Bill Gates, I would hope that they would exercise some excess in giving. I don’t know about you but I am no Warren Buffit or Bill Gates. So let’s take a look at this budget and see where the money comes from and where it goes.
Most of the money we receive comes from you. The members of the parish contribute $104,000. Our next biggest source of income comes from donations from the various groups who use our property. You can see that in our budget, on line 24, we are not taking any money out of our endowment. That means that we have a balanced budget.
Let’s now take a look at where our money goes. We give money back. On line 29, you see that we give $7,567 to the Diocese and $630 to Episcopal Relief and Development which supports a variety of charities throughout the world.
We clergy are a large expense: on line 47 you see that we account for 45.6 % of our expenses.
Our buildings make up a good deal of our expenses. Starting at line 62, you will see the cost of our utilities, maintenance and insurance comes to 40,900.
Beginning on line 70, you will see the cost of our office supplies on l77 the total is 17, 300.
Our education costs start on line 78 and with Sunday School, the youth program, and other expenses, we come, on line 87 to $6,500.
Those of you who have been members of the parish for a while know that for many years we have been taking money out of our endowment to balance our budget. When that money was taken out of the endowment, it was called a loan.
On line 96 you can see the repayment of that loan back to the endowment.

I think when it comes to the expenses of the church we are not practicing today’s gospel message of liberality. We really try to keep our expenses in check. In a letter I wrote to you, I invited you to consider your own situations from the perspective of abundance. I invited you to consider that God has provided enough for you to do what you need to do for yourself, your family and your community. I invited you to consider your priorities and work to arrange your priorities so you would be able to support yourself, your family and your community and your church.
I know that we are entering into a difficult economic time. When considering your pledge, I ask you to try to at least sustain the level of giving you presently make.
At this point in the sermon, I think that I am on National Public Radio or Channel 13, doing a fall campaign. So bear with me as I make this pitch. If each of us sustains that level of giving, we could easily make our budgeted amount of $100,000. If you have not pledged before, I invite you to consider making this your first year. If you have pledged before I would ask you to consider moving your pledge to a new amount.
All of us have found a home at St. Peter’s Church. Together, we make this place the inviting community it is. Together, we make possible the ministry by which we serve the broader community.
Remember the God who has so lavished you with love, and be generous in your own giving.
Now I bet you think the sermon ends there.
It only begins. I invite you during coffee hour to talk with someone about your experience of giving.
Not about how much you give. Not about how much you plan to give. But what it means for you to contribute to St. Peter’s Church. Tell someone why you do it. Tell them what you get out of it. Tell them how it changes your relationship with God. So you see, the sermon is not ending, it is only beginning. Amen.

Forming Character

Most of us live with laws. In this area of Clifton, we put the garbage out on Monday and Thursday nights. If you want the garbage collected you have to obey that law. Driving down the street, we come to a traffic light, or a stop sign or a yield sign. For the common good, we obey these laws so that we, or the other driver, does not slam into another car. Every April 15, we have to meet the deadline for filing our taxes. Now while here in New Jersey we always hear of government officials not obeying that law, most of us dutifully file our taxes and most of us comply with the laws that regulate those taxes. If you are a young person living at home, you know full well how your parents regulate your lives with rules to be followed. How many of us have heard or how many of us have said: If you live under my roof you live by my rules.
We all live according to rules, some of those rules are imposed on us by the government, some are accepted as rules for polite society, some regulate our private lives at home. Yet most of these laws do not impact our relationship with God.
It was not so for Jesus and the Jews of his day. Any observant Jew in Jesus’ day would observe 613 laws. The same is true for most observant Jews today: If you want to be a true Jew you must observe the Law, all 613 commandments. Read through the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and you will see laws covering every possible situation in the ancient world. These rules established a system of justice and equality, sometimes to an exacting degree. The law ranked high among the Jews, not only as a way to establish their society, but foremost as the revelation from God and the means of keeping the covenant they made with God.
In today’s gospel, when the lawyer comes to Jesus and asks him what is the greatest law, Jesus knows that the lawyer is setting a trap for Jesus. Everyone knew that the correct answer would have been: all 613 laws are important and all are to be observed.
Now this Lawyer would have known that Jesus failed to observe some of those 613 laws. He broke the law when he worked on the Sabbath by healing the sick. He broke the law when he associated with sinners and those who did not observe the Law. He broke the law when he and his disciples did not follow ritual laws about bathing, hand washing and eating particular foods. If Jesus does not praise all 613 laws, he is breaking down respect for the entire law. If he does endorse all of those 613 laws, he condemns himself and discredits his ministry.
Notice what Jesus does: He turns the question on its head.
He establishes as the highest law the commandment which every Jew would have said every day from Deuteronomy 6: 4-5: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Therefore you shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your mind.” Then he adds to it a small verse from Leviticus, 19; 18: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. He shifts the argument away from the law to the heart. Jesus does not deny the value of the law, for he quotes the law in his answer. But he makes observance of the Law subservient to the movement of the heart.
For all of us here today, if we are the ones who impose the laws or the ones who observe the laws, or if we are both, I would ask you how do the laws you impose foster the development of love? If we think about the purpose of the laws we impose on our children, or the laws our parents imposed on us, those laws are intended to develop good habits, patterns of healthy behavior that become second nature to us. We do not usually hear much talk about character development, but I think that many of us would agree that laws are in place so that we can develop those habits which we believe to be the mark of a responsible and healthy individual and a person who has developed those habits we call a person of character.
Jesus lays out for us two important areas of character development: love of God and love of our neighbor. I would summarize those gifts as worship and service. Notice how Jesus frames our worship and love of God as engaging our not only our hearts and our souls but our minds as well. We Episcopalians do not shy away from engaging the hard questions and we do not give out predetermined answers to the questions. Episcopalians wrestle with the hard questions about the faith and we form our own answers to the questions. It is not always easy living under a big tent where the answers to the questions are all slightly different.
But we agree on the boundaries to the questions. We call those boundaries the Baptismal Covenant. We agree to a minimum of beliefs which are summarized in the Creed. We also agree to a standard of behavior, we commit ourselves to worship and to respect for others.
As we look at the way we carry out our baptismal covenant, today’s Gospel challenges us to look at our motive for doing what we do. Are we engaged with God and with one another because of love? Are we working with each other because of love? When we come together for worship, do we go from this place with our hearts expanded? When we gather during this week to work on the Rummage Sale, when we cook a meal to share with others, when we prepare a lesson for Sunday School, when we bake for coffee hour, when we sing in the choir, are we doing these things to grow in love? For all of us love because we have been loved, loved with a passionate love by this God who has taken on our flesh, lived our life, suffered our death and in the power of his resurrection opens to us possibilities we have not even imagined.

The Spiritual Gift of Water

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Peter De Franco
At St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton NJ

Today we heard in the first lesson the story of the parting of the Reed Sea. That story brings a variety of characters. Whom would you say are some of those characters?
(Moses, Pharaoh, the Chosen People, the Egyptian Army) One character we tend to forget, and it’s the character whose name appears in the title of the story: The Reed Sea.
Bodies of water play major roles in many stories in the Bible. When you open the first pages of Genesis, in the second verse, you cannot move deep into the chapter one before encountering the primeval waters over which hovers God’s Spirit. When you come to chapter 2 and the description of the Garden of Paradise, four great rivers water the garden home of Adam and Eve. Only a few chapters later, Genesis tells you yet another story of water, when God destroys the earth and rescues Noah, his family and the sets of animals.
We hear stories of wells of water. You will recall how Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac and Rebecca is discovered at a well. Moses finds his wife when she and her sisters draw near to a well in an oasis to water their sheep. Jesus also meets a woman at a well in Samaria. wonder if God is telling us that if you want to meet the love of your life you should go to the local watering hole. But let’s get back to Exodus.
Moses and Aaron changed the waters of the River Nile into blood. Moses gives water to the Chosen People out of a rock in the desert. Joshua leads the people through the waters of the Jordan River. That Jordan River witnesses the cleansing of Naaman the leper. Later, John the Baptizer will baptize people in that river Jordan and the disciples of Jesus will continue that water bath as they also baptize.
Not only in today’s story but throughout the bible, water is a significant character in many stories. Water brings life to people, it nourishes crops, it provides for cleansing.
Water also brings death. Its destructive forces overwhelms people. Just recall the fate of the Egyptian army in today’s story about the Reed Sea. All of them are drowned in the waters. Noah’s flood makes us think of the December 26, 2004 Tsunami that struck in the Indian Ocean. We have only to consider Hurricane Ike and the water destruction along the Texas coast line.
Water is both beautiful and terrible, a source of life and death.
We all live close to some body of water. What is the body of water closest to your home? What is your relationship to that water? How many of us know what is happening in Weasel Brook? What are the issues around the Passaic River as it moves through Clifton? What do you know about Barber’s Pond in Garrett Mountain, or the New Street Reservoir, or the Great Notch Reservoir? Does anyone know where Highland Lake is? When was the last time you visited the Paterson Falls?
Or the Dundee lake and dam in Garfield?
We are all surrounded by water. Much of that water is in danger. The Passaic River is slowly being restored after once being called the most polluted river in the country.
The water that surrounds us on all sides forms part of the great mystery of water about which we read in the bible.
While we considered it as a character in many stories from the Bible, water is also a character in our lives. I wonder what would happen if we make the water near us a part of our lives?
I wonder what would happen if we began to relate to the water around us in a more conscious way? Would we take time to find a favorite spot on the water and watch the water flow at different times of the day? In the dance of the soft morning sun, in the strength of the afternoon’s light, in the beauty of the sunset, in the gentle moon light? Would we weep when we saw the water polluted? Would we cry when we saw bottles and other debris floating down the water? Would we be concerned when we knew about the chemical pollutants that infect the waterbeds and aquatic life in the water?
Water is not just out there. We are water. Do you realize that we about 50 or 60% water? If you understood that you are about half water how would you relate the rest of the water that surrounds you? Would you begin to see that the water that surrounds you and the water that is you are but one?
Would you begin to see that the water that surrounds you, the water that is you is part of that original sacred water, that original holy water, over which the Holy Spirit hovered and sanctified? Would you begin to see that the sacred water in which you lived in your mother’s uterus is part of the sacred water in which you received the new life of baptism? Would you see that our most important sacramental actions involve water, bread and wine? Would you begin to see that you are part of one sacred pool of water that flows through the earth as its life blood, spreading the holy life of God through the planet, through your body, through your soul?
As we consider the water of the Reed Sea, I invite you to consider the sacredness of water in your life. To open your heart to the mystery of water that surrounds you. To feel the beauty of water that is you. To sense that you are one with the water of the world, one with the sacred flow of water from the heart of our God. When you come into the church, touch the water not only to remind yourself of your baptism but of the mystery of water in God’s creation. Of the mystery of water that is God. Of the mystery of water that is you.

Transitions in Leadership

A Sermon preached by the Rev. Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, NJ
November 9, 2008

In any society the transition of leaders brings no small amount of worry. In today’s first reading, we heard about the end of the rule of Joshua. This reading follows on what, if it were not for All Saints’ Sunday, we would have heard last week: the transition from Moses to Joshua. When Joshua began to lead the people, Israel entered a significant new era. The generation of slaves who escaped from Egypt under Moses had died. The bible says that because the slave generation rebelled against Moses and God they could not be enter the land of promise. I read biblical commentators who state that a generation of slaves could not inherit freedom. That slave generation needed to die off and a new generation, a generation of free persons, a generation which did not experience slavery in Egypt, would inherit the land of Israel. Joshua brought the free generation across the river Jordan into the land God promised to Abraham. Just as the generation of slaves crossed through the Reed Sea, the freed children of slaves crossed the Jordan River into the land of promise.
When Joshua crossed into Canaan, all hell broke loose.
He unleashed a wave of terror on the inhabitants of Canaan, killing kings, decimating armies, destroying the entire populations of cities. We are spared those chapters of the book of Joshua which detail the war of conquest by which the Jews overtook the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. Today’s reading brings us to the completion of the conquest. Today we hear Joshua speaking to the nation of Israel at another historical crossroad. Joshua is about to die. He is asking Israel not to backslide and betray the God who brought them into the land of promise. The people stand at this historic moment and promise that they would be faithful. They promised fidelity and then the tribes slip into the greatest period of anarchy among the Jews.
For four hundred years, the Jews existed as a loose confederation of tribes and they were constantly attached by one of their enemies or another. That generation did not live up to the challenges of freedom. It would take 400 years until Samuel was called as a prophet in Israel and he would anoint as King first Saul and then David, the greatest of the kings of Israel.
The Sunday readings do not always present a parallel between the situation of the bible story and the times in which we live. The story from Joshua is one of transition. We as a nation are in a similar situation of transition.
No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, you must admit that we have witnessed a most historical week in our national history. We elected the first African American President in our history. If any of you stayed up on Tuesday night, you saw tears streaming down the faces of so many people as they heard the CNN and NBC declare at 11:01 that Barack Obama was elected president. General Colin Powell, in an interview following the election, said that he was profoundly moved, moved to tears, at the news of the election of President Elect Obama. Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee all cried at the news of the election results.
I was a high school student in Paterson when Dr. Martin Luther King visited the city only a few months before his assassination. Many of us remember Dr. King. We remember the struggle for civil rights which Dr. King lead. Who among us could have imagined we would have lived to see the day an African American would become president. No wonder tears flowed on that night.
I do not want to celebrate the triumph of one candidate over another. I think something profound is happening in our country,
Something profoundly religious is happening. Just think back with me over the past two years since the candidates began the road to the White House. Think back with me, not on the bickering and the political antagonisms. Think back on the language the candidates used. Were you startled, as I was amazed, by the religious language which the candidates used.
Both candidates used the word change in looking at the past few years in our country. We have a religious word for change.
We call it conversion. In religious terms, both candidates were saying that the United States needed a conversion.
Then other words crept into the political discourse. Words like hope and humility and healing and cooperation.
I do not think that any one person can change our country. I doubt if any of us think that we have elected the messiah. But like the Jews of old, we too stand at a crossroads.
Many of you know Maya Angelou. Some would consider her the premier African American writer. When she was interviewed by CNN about Barack Obama’s election as President she remarked: “With this, the country is finally able to see through complexion and see community.”
Together let us pray that God is using the election of Barack Obama to heal our nation of the sin of racism that has divided us for centuries and is uniting us as a community.
Together let us pray that God is healing our nation in the sight of the other nations of the world so that we can assume our place, not as the political or economic or military leader of the world but as the moral leader of the world.
Together let us pray that God is healing our nation of the uncontrollable greed that has undermined our economy and brought our nation to the brink of disaster.
Together let us pray that the Spirit of God will so blow over this country with a purifying fire to cleanse us of all that has defiled us and bring us today, like the people of Israel of old, into that land of promise, rich with promise for all people.
We stand at a crossroads, as did the people did in the days of Joshua. Let us be attentive to the ways God is looking to heal us, bring us together, lead us forward, forward into a land of promise.

The Cross and New Life

A Sermon preached by
the Rev. Peter De Franco
at
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
August 31, 2008

Last week, we heard the story of Peter identifying Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus thought that God gave Peter a unique insight into Jesus and his mission. Jesus was so impressed with Peter’s understanding that he called Peter the Rock on which Jesus would build his church. Peter must have thought himself very special.
I have some Spanish friends and they gave me a word to describe Peter: Especial. It means someone who thinks of himself as better than others, as velvet compared to cotton, a Don Perignon champagne to Boon Wine, a Lamborghini rather than a banged up Impala. People who feel themselves to be Especial usually have a bit of an inflated ego. And that was Peter.
After all, Jesus singled him out from all the apostles and let him know that he saw things that they did not understand. Since Peter recognized that Jesus was unique, Peter must have felt that he needed to protect Jesus. He must have felt, as any friend would feel, that he had to protect Jesus from harm, shelter him from danger, shield him from disaster. We all would feel the same. None of us would want any disaster to fall on our best friend. If Peter was anything to Jesus, Peter was his dear friend.
Just after Jesus called Peter the rock on which Jesus would build the church, Jesus then goes on to tell the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Peter hears those words and goes into protective mode. Just imagine Peter as a huge Israeli shepherd; Peter would not allow anyone to touch his Jesus. Suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests, being killed, and that nonsense about rising on the third day – Peter would have none of that for his Jesus. We all would have felt the same. We all would have tried to protect Jesus. All of us except for Jesus.
Just as quickly as Jesus inflated Peter’s balloon, so Jesus did not fail to pop that balloon. “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Satan – that is what Jesus called Peter. The Rock becomes the demon. The most important becomes the least important. Apostle Especial becomes first class devil.
If the rest of the disciples do not understand what Jesus is saying, Jesus spells it out for them in no uncertain terms: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Those are very hard words. But let’s just look at the week that has passed. I am sure you read the newspaper articles about two young boys, athletes both, who died tragically while preparing for the football season. On Thursday, we received the tragic news that Fred Richter, a beloved parishioner of many years, died suddenly and his funeral was on Friday. Another member of the parish buried her aunt. Another member of the church underwent major surgery. We could go through a litany of woes that we are all carrying, problems with children, spouses, finances, work and health. Just because it is summer does not mean that problems take a vacation.
As we gather on this the last Sunday of the summer, we find that Jesus is talking to us about a cross. Perhaps this is God’s offer at making sense of the crosses that come our way. To be a follower of Jesus involves us in a process of death and resurrection.
Now I don’t want you to imagine that I am endorsing a Christianity that is all about suffering. Let’s thanks God that Jesus suffered once for us all and we do not have to repeat that cycle of suffering. I think its bad theology to imagine that we have a God who delights in disrupting our lives with anguish, pain and suffering. God does not send pain into our lives to crush us, to punish us, to get back for those offenses we committed at one time or another.
But Jesus knows that suffering is part of all our lives. When Jesus invites us to take up our crosses, Jesus is asking us to enter into the life process where we let go and surrender the old patterns of life that new forms of life might begin.
There is a tendency in all of us, when we listen to these passages about death and resurrection, that we stop at the death part and don’t move on to the life part. We get stuck. Jesus is addressing that pattern of getting stuck.
In today’s Gospel, Peter got stuck. When Jesus told the disciples about the process of death leading to life, Peter could only hear the death part and not engage the life part. For that reason, Jesus calls Peter Satan since the Rock was caught and could not imagine how life could come from death. But God could imagine that process. God could think of a way to get beyond death and make the way of the cross a way of life and peace.
I invite you this day to find those places in your heart where you are suffering, where you feel the pain of the cross, and ask yourself what you need to surrender of your old life to allow space for new life. I invite you to look into your soul, to find those places where you feel the weight of the cross, and ask yourself what you need to surrender in order for resurrection to happen. For in this holy process of life and death, we are not in it alone. God is the one who is drawing new life out of the old. God is inviting you to leave behind the old patterns and enter into the new life God is preparing for you. God is the one who is inviting us to leave behind the womb of our old lives to enter into the new birth of a life we cannot imagine.

Let us pray.
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Hunger for Heaven

A Sermon Preached by the Rev’d Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on August 3, 2008

Nothing about the history of Sara Miles would have brought her to the place where she is today. An avowed atheist who was raised by atheist parents, A radical reporter on the staff of the left wing publication, Mother Jones. A journalist who covered the 1980’s war in Nicaragua. A sometimes cook in New York restaurants. A Mother of one. A wife of another woman. She is the last person you would have expected to walk into a church. But stranger things have happened.
When Sara Miles walked in St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, little did she anticipate it would be the day of her conversion? Why did she do it? This is what she said: “I was curious. You know, I'm a reporter, and it's a big, beautiful, wooden-shingled building. And it has this gorgeous mosaic icon outside and a sign that says, "All That Is Prays to You." You walk inside and you are struck by this huge mural of dancing saints, only the saints are people like Malcolm X and Cesar Chavez. It's very surprising.”
Sara Miles walked into St. Gregory of Nyssa Church and heard the invitation to receive communion: “Jesus welcomes everyone to his table and so we offer everyone, without exception, the bread and wine, which are Christ’s body and blood.” Deacons and priests came into a congregation standing around a circular altar giving to all a piece of bread broken from a loaf. They passed around chalices with wine. Sara describes her experience in these words: “A woman put a piece of fresh bread in my hand and gave me a goblet of some rather nasty, sweet wine. And I ate the bread and was completely thunderstruck by what I felt happening to me. So I stood there crying, completely unsure of what was happening to me. I thought I’ve got to get out of the church as quickly as I could before some strange, creepy Christian would try to chat with me. And I came back the next week because I was hungry, and kept coming back and kept coming back to take that bread.’
Completely Thunderstruck by what was happening. Now how many of us are thunderstruck when we receive communion?
Here is another way she describes communion: "It was pretty good bread, a nice whole-wheat bread. The other was that God was alive and in my mouth. It was bread, and it was God."
But that was only the beginning. She came back, week after week, drawn to satisfy a hunger that she had long known but could never find the food to fill her. Sara knew that the invitation to receive the body and blood of Christ echoed the radical welcome Jesus gave to all whom he invited to share his table.
We heard that invitation which Jesus extended to 5,000 men. I wonder why Matthew did not include the women and children. To all of them, to girls and boys, women and men, anyone who could eat food, Jesus and the apostles spread out, like those priests and deacons spreading out through the church, giving to one and all a lunch of bread and fish. It was a bountiful meal. There was so much food that they put together doggie bags, twelve baskets of leftover food.
Let’s recall that the gospels speak in symbolic language and when they talk about 12 baskets of extra food, they mean food to feed the 12 tribes of Israel, all of God’s people have enough to bring home. Sara knew something of that generosity of Jesus. She knew that hunger not only touches the heart, as it touched her. Hunger cripples the body.
San Francisco is close to the bountiful fields of northern California. People in the city began to organize food pantries where the bounty of the fields would be sold to food pantries. Sara had the bright idea of starting up a pantry.
St. Gregory’s church does not have a parish hall. The church is a double room. One room has chairs that are set up to face one another. The other room has only one piece of furniture in it: an altar. Sara asked to set up the food pantry in the church, with tables surrounding the altar. Food would be brought in every Friday morning. Volunteers would set out the food on tables surrounding the altar. Melons, fruit, tomatoes, lettuce, rice, beans, boxes of cereal, pasta. People would come with their bags and slowly enter into the church. Candles would be burning in front of icons. Flowers decorate the church. Five tons of food would be handed out to 450 people. They do that every Friday.
The Food Pantry at St. Gregory’s Church was only the start. When you do God’s work, God sees that the work will spread. Money started to come into her pantry and she gave the money to other places to start pantries. Only one church joined her effort. But parents in schools, people in the projects, volunteers started to come from all different places to find food. It all sounds a lot like us.
I invite you this day to come to this table that Jesus sets for us, come with your hunger, come with your heart desiring to be filled. Perhaps this day you too can say with Sara: God was alive and in my mouth. It was bread, and it was God."