Proper 10 b Adoption July 12, 2009 by Howard Anderson I have been adopted at least five times. I was adopted as an infant by my parents. It was always kind of strange to be the noisy little dark haired guy among my tall, blonde, quite Swedish American cousins. I was adopted, as today s letter to the Ephesians reminds us, in baptism as Christ s own forever, and I am one of the lucky people whose relationship with the Church has been primarily positive. I was adopted into the Episcopal Church in confirmation when I was an adult. And I LOVE being an Episcopalian! I was adopted into a loving Hawaiian Ohana, or family, the Kealohas, and adopted into the Standing Rock Lakota Sioux tribe in a hunka, or making of relatives ceremony. Elmer Running was doing the very formal and solemn ceremony on a summer day in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the most holy ground for Lakota people. Friends and relatives were gathered around me, and four eagles came at the beginning of the ceremony and circled majestically above us. The ceremony was in the musical Lakota language, but when the name was given, Oziya Chikala (Little Warrior) an eagle feather is to be tied in the hair of the person receiving the name. Elmer grinned, and said in English as he looked at my bald head, Does anyone have any duct tape? Jesus tells the disciples to allow themselves to be adopted, to be taken in as they spread the Good News across the Mediterranean world. Stick with the ones who have welcomed you. Become family. I have been taken in by you, Dear Ones. It has been 11 months since I became your rector, and I feel adopted yet again, by this family called the Parish of St. Matthew. And I thank you for the warmth and depth of that welcome. I am beginning to look out at you from here and knowing your stories, love you as only a family member can love. As a priest friend of mine says, You look out at them and know their names, and know their dog s names. Being adopted by the church family in baptism also has with it, the command of Jesus to go two by two out into the world to serve in his name. It was Jewish tradition, and simple common sense to go out two by two as you traveled the dusty and often dangerous roads of Judea. Two needed to be sent because in the First Century Jewish courts and business world, any promise or commitment needed to be heard by at least two people. So if someone was going to join Jesus Movement, two people needed to witness their commitment. They were a flawed bunch, those who were sent out two by two. They are just like us. But Jesus also told the disciples to carry a staff, a symbol of authority, and then very clearly says you have the authority that God has given me! In the Episcopal Church we are clear that the way one becomes a minister, and inherits the authority Christ granted the disciples is NOT through ordination, but through Baptism. Each one of us, lay or ordained, has been marked as Christ s own forever in baptism, the DOING of ministry, is a part of our vocation. I tell our staff, both lay and clergy, that if we are always involved in the actual DOING of ministry, rather then equipping the parish members to do the ministries to which God is calling them, we are failing. The clergy and paid staff of a parish are to recruit, call forth, equip and support the ministry of the parish members. There are only a couple of things priests do that lay
people do not do. We celebrate the Eucharist and Baptism, and we bless. The truth is, in emergencies, any of us can do a baptism, so the clergy, rather than being the ones doing all the ministry, are the ones who should be helping each of you to find what God is calling you to be and do. Each one of us is called. No one is exempt. The Outline of the Faith in the back of the Prayerbook calls each one of us to worship, work, pray and give for the spread of the Kingdom. That is the same job description that Jesus gave these first 12 he sent out into the world to spread the Good News. We are the disciples of Jesus now, and we have the same job description. In order for you, the ministers of the Church, to carry out your ministries, sometimes we clergy need to give up control. We have to trust that you, the people of God, the Body of Christ on earth, have been, as Jesus repeatedly says, given all the authority and the gifts you need to carry out any ministry God needs you to carry out. Frankly, we clergy need to be vulnerable. We have to admit that we are not good at everything. Almost everything I do, I realize, could be done better by a dozen or more of you. Administrative tasks? Many of you could do the administration of this place with your eyes closed. Speaking and preaching? Many of you are more articulate and have God given gifts of speaking-to juries, to people to whom you are selling a product, that far surpass what we clergy can do. Personally, I have been given the gift of humility! The last full sentence my mother said before she lost her speech ability to Alzheimer s Disease was about my wearing a clerical collar. She looked at me and grinned, and reached up and put her finger on my collar, and in halting words said Cuts off circulation to the brain! Betsy just told me a story about a little girl who asked about the clerical collar and her priest patiently explained it to her. When the explanation was done the little girl asked, does it also keep away ticks and fleas for six months? A number of us have been at the General Convention of our Church this week. I was quoted in the national press a few years ago as saying the General Convention is one part parliament, one part middle eastern bazaar and one part our big fat Anglican wedding. It is held every three years and is the legislative body that sets the rules, makes any changes in the Prayerbook, and determines what the mission of our national church is to be. But to me, it is like a family reunion. I have been at every convention since 1976, and it was hard to walk a block in the Anaheim convention hall without seeing two or three friends. The church in its fullness can be seen there. Just ask anyone of us who was there what a wonderful experience it was. It s not too late. It goes on until Thursday. This very morning 12,000 Episcopalians form all over the world are celebrating Eucharist together, and being sent, in Christ s name, out into to the world to serve. There are bishops from around the world. There are dioceses from 10 other countries in the Americas and even Europe who are a part of our Episcopal Church. There are ministries of every kind, to almost every part of the world-to children, to those in recovery from addiction, to people with HIV/AIDS, to the military personnel you name any need, there is a ministry to address it.
St. Matthew s had a booth to highlight four of our outreach partners which we thought could benefit from national and exposure. I was so proud of our parish. It was, I think, the only parish in the entire Episcopal Church which had a booth. And looking at it, you could hardly see any sign that St. Matthew s was the sponsor. We focused the booth upon the powerful ministries of four ministries we support. This is as it should be! To give because Christ calls us to serve, and not to need to get credit. We highlighted the Episcopal Urban Internship Program that the Jubilee Consortium, a group of inner city Los Angeles parishes carry on to train priests and lay people how to minister in these often challenging settings. We help pay for an intern each year. We support Prism- a ministry to the Twin Tours jails in downtown LA. We are the biggest supporters of this vital ministry, and maybe Christ is calling you to be a part of it as a chaplain. Just ask Dede Vlietstra what a powerful thing it is to fulfill Christ s call to visit those who are in prison. Another we highlighted was GAIA-the Global Aids Interfaith Alliance. Our parish has been a prime mover in helping the orphans of those who have died from AIDS in the overlooked African nation of Malawi. That small country loses 80,000 people a year to AIDS, leaving thousands of orphans. We are helping to address their needs. The leadership of GAIA is, in Christ s name, asking us to help the least of these, the AIDS orphans, and perhaps you are being called to a pilgrimage to Malawi in the next few years to see the need first hand? Just ask Jocelyn Cortese about how compelling the work of GAIA is for her. Dorcas House is a ministry in Tijuana, just across the border. It works with children of those in prison in that huge, troubled city. Their faces will haunt you. Maybe you are being sent by Christ to help these children. Just ask any number of people who have actually been to Dorcas House how powerfully Christ is working through that agency to serve the little ones who Christ has entrusted to us. Our Belize ministry was also highlighted, and a number of people from Belize, including the Archbishop of Central America, came by to thank us for our work there. Serving the children of Holy Cross Anglican School and their families and community is a powerful way we can respond to being sent by Jesus into the world, two by two. Dear Ones, Jesus Christ is still sending us out into the broken world to be to this world, his hands and feet and eyes and ears. We are called to give and not to count the cost because Christ did not count the cost of sacrificing his life for us. We are to be attuned to the world s needs and to serve them. Don t worry about your experience or skills. Just as Jesus conveyed his authority to the first disciples, you too, have been given that authority in baptism to serve the world. We are in God s hands, so all will be well when we take the risk of serving in Christ s name. This day, I call each of us to being to think about what Christ is calling us to do and to be. Christ is calling us to even bigger and more challenging ministry stay tuned listen.
Please do listen with the ears of your heart. Chant with me. CHANT- Listen listen wait in silence listening, for the one from who all blessing flows. Amos 7:7-15 This is what the Lord God showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said, "See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword." Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, `Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.'" And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom." Then Amos answered Amaziah, "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, `Go, prophesy to my people Israel.' Ephesians 1:1-14 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his
will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory. Mark 6: 7-13 Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.