I realize I have not posted to this blog for nearly two years. While I served as the Interim Dean at Grace Cathedral in Topeka, Kansas, my sermons were posted on their website. I stopped posting here. I retired the end of in August 2019. I am still making fibre art, doing appreciative consulting work, facilitating groups, teaching, and learning more about technology. This is the first new post.
I will also continue to post on this blog. You will find meditations, poetry, fibre art, appreciative words and, what I trust will be gentle suggestions for turning from fear to love, sadness to joy, and being more and more the people God created us to be at our best.
We stand in a pandemic. Many have already fallen.
My science and doctor friends are the prophets who look back at the past to think about the future and the outcomes we will see if we continue in the direction we have been traveling. We have largely ignored their warning signs of overpopulation, overuse of the land, racism, newly-developing and increasing illnesses and conditions, and other such signs. We have failed to celebrate and care for the earth and its many gifts. From this, Good Lord, deliver us!
My primary mentor in ordained ministry is The Rev Dr Rob Voyle of Clergy Leadership Institute. I learned Appreciate Inquiry from Rob and it is the most important thing I did in continuing education. I continue to live appreciatively in my ordained ministry and my daily life. One of the most satisfying and energizing things about Transition/Interim Ministry is seeing congregations and individuals thrive and grow closer to God even after I have moved on to another position. I measure the success of a ministry by what happens after I leave. I am deeply thankful for those moments.
Recently a parish Rob served did an extremely helpful rewrite of 1Corinthians 12:1-14. I hardly ever post on Facebook, but will be posting it there, or you can read it on Rob Voyle’s Facebook page. I recommend reading it because it is one of many such helpful and healing things practicing Appreciative Inquiry brings forth in congregations and individuals.
I am convinced Jesus was the first teacher and practitioner of Appreciative Inquiry. Remember how he said, “You have heard it said...but I say to you,“1 and then filled in the rest of his sentence with what the reign of God looks like, sounds like, feels like, smells like, tastes like, and acts like. In this current time when we cannot touch physically the people we love, we must imitate Christ Jesus, even on Zoom, Facebook, and FaceTime and the many other iterations available. Choose the way of love, the way of God, the joy of Christ Jesus, because it is a choice. Once you have chosen, may it be known and loved by others so that through you God’s love is known.
Tall order? Yes! God deals in both minutiae and giants. God invites us to be partners in enlarging and demonstrating the love created in us from our beginning.
Blessings - Nic
1 As found in the Gospel of Matthew and implied in other biblical passages. Go on a romp through the Gospels and see what you find that is appreciative!
28 May 2020
24 October 2018
Sermon Mark 10:35-45 21 October 2018 Proper 24 Year B
“You don’t
know what you’re asking.” That’s what Jesus says to the disciples this morning.
He says it to James and John when they ask to sit at Jesus’ right hand and left
hand when he comes into his glory. And when they ask, Jesus must be thinking
something like this. “You don’t know what you’re asking. You have no idea. I’ve
been talking but you haven’t been listening. I’ve been teaching but you haven’t
been learning. I’ve been walking a road that leads to death and you keep
missing the road signs. Do you still not get
what my kind of greatness means?”
James
and John say they want to be great.
But learning how to be great in Jesus’ world is a completely different kind of
greatness. Jesus teaches us
· Being great depends on God
alone
· Being great means we are
God’s companions to the least and the lost
· Being great means freely give
our wealth back to God because we know it came from God and belongs to God
· Being great means becoming
the person God created us to be from our beginning
And here’s the part of Jesus’ greatness we really don’t like:
· Being great means suffering
“Can you
drink the cup I will drink?” Jesus asks. And like a couple of enthusiastic team
members who aren’t really listening to the coach, James and John say, “Sure we
can! We’re ready. Bring it on!”
Have we
said the same thing? If we were baptized as adults, or confirmed at what we
call “the age of reason?” Did we really know what we were promising? Did anyone
warn us what being great for Jesus means? Maybe. But we probably didn’t really
hear it.
Jesus has
taught us these last weeks that who we are and what we do as followers, as
disciples, is an inverted and upside down view of the greatness the world
dangles in front of us each day. Are we listening?
Jesus
teaches us to say no to greatness that corrupts so we can say a deeper yes to his greatness. Are we listening?
I
think I can hear some brains buzzing. Some of the buzzing might be a low hum
like mine is from time to time: Being great like that doesn’t interest me. That
kind of greatness gets you nothing. I need power to get along in this world. I need
to be strong, not weak. And furthermore, what was that about suffering? I
thought following Jesus meant comfort, warmth, having all my problems miraculously
taken away, and being happy all the time. You know, basking in the warmth of
Jesus; being loved.
It’s
pretty clear to me the two disciples in today’s Gospel, James and John, want
that kind of Jesus. And they want the greatness they think he’s offering. They
want to sit on Jesus’ right hand and at his left hand when he comes into his
glory. James and John want Jesus’ greatness because they have either forgotten
or chosen to ignore what Jesus has been teaching them.
Do you
remember who really gets to be on the
left and right hands of Jesus? Two bandits. Captured and found guilty. Two
weakling criminals not smart enough to escape the law. They were the ones on Jesus’ right and left hands when he died. Not
the disciples who ran away when things got tough and they were in danger of
losing their own lives. Not Peter who denied Jesus three times. Not even the women
at the foot of the cross. Nope. Two thieves. Two deadbeats who’d led lives of
crime and made others suffer. And the greatness they received was to be hung on
a cross on either side of the suffering savior. This is being great?
Yes,
this is Jesus’ greatness. If we
really thought about it, most of us would say no Jesus’ greatness. The cup of
Jesus’ greatness is the willingness to suffer by saying no to the world to say a
deeper yes to Him. Yes to the one holy and gracious being who lived among us as
human flesh, the one who gives us the only greatness worth having.
When we
claim the power of Jesus we claim the power of a Lord who gave his life as a
ransom for many. He gave his all, every bit of himself from first to last. He
gave up all so we might have all.
This
is the power that, if we are willing to claim it, is God’s to give and ours to
give away. It is the power to retitle what we own as God’s, not ours. It is the
power to give so our doors can be opened to an even wider world. It is the
power to give so the mystery and majesty of our worship and the tenderness of
prayer and the strength of wisdom can be shared with those who need it most. It
is the power to sing so others hear us and are drawn by beauty into beauty even
if we don’t think we can sing. It is
the power to give so children may learn and grow and fall in love with Jesus.
And it is the power to follow our Lord wherever he leads.
Can
we drink the cup Jesus offers? Can we be baptized with his baptism? Can we
embrace his greatness?
It
comes at a price, you know. We count the cost and are not sure we can pay up.
That great preacher William Willimon tells a story about the baptism of a young
Chinese man.[1]
Willimon took photographs after the baptism, remarking cheerfully to the young
man that he could share those photos with his family. Later the college
chaplain drew him aside and told him how embarrassing that had been. Willimon was
puzzled until the chaplain told him once the young man became a Christian his
family would disown him. His home government would cut off his scholarship for
college in the United States. He would become wanted if he went home. An enemy.
He had become one of those dangerous Christians. He was now a subversive
because he was willing to drink from the cup of Jesus Christ. He was dangerous
because his allegiance had changed. Our allegiance has changed.
You know
as well as I do that what Jesus says is true. Those whom we recognize as our
rulers of the world lord it over us, and the great ones are tyrants over us. And
yet Jesus calls us together into his greatness with these words: “But it is not
so among you; whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of
Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for
many.”[2] If
we want to truly be the right and left hands of Jesus, we too will become a ransom
for many. This is the greatness of Jesus Christ. AMEN.
The
Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2018
Sermon
Sermon Mark 10:2-16 7 October 2018 Proper 22 Year B
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The Gospel today is not about
you. And it’s not about me either. Nothing personal, folks, but wait…yes it is
personal, but it’s personal in a way quite different from the way you may be thinking.
What the Gospel of Mark has Jesus
saying today sounds darn personal. How can we help but take this Gospel both
literally and personally? We’ve heard the divorce statistics. We may even be a statistic
ourselves. Those same statistics tell us more than half the adults here have been
divorced at least once. We may have friends who are divorced. Our grown
children may be divorced. Our parents may be divorced. Or more simply, we know
someone who is divorced, is going through a divorce, or contemplating a
divorce. Many of us hear this passage and sit there hurt, or angry, or ashamed.
If not on our own behalf, on behalf of someone we know. Doesn’t Jesus
understand what we went through? Doesn’t he understand what our parents,
children, or friends went through?
Yes, Jesus does understand, but
Jesus isn’t talking about divorce and you. And he isn’t talking about divorce
and me either. And he isn’t talking about divorce and your family or friends.
He’s talking about vulnerability and
the law.
The question the Pharisees ask is
a question about law. The question is
global. The answer Jesus gives is personal. It’s personal because Jesus makes
the answer an opportunity to teach us how to live with one another in
community.
Look at the context here. How
does this passage begin? “Some Pharisees came, and to test him (Jesus) they
asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to
divorce his wife?’”[1]
It’s about the law, folks. Jesus
isn’t having a nice chat about whether or not someone should get divorced. He’s
being asked to play judge and jury about the legality of divorce. He’s not
being asked a personal question about whether someone should or should not get
divorced.
In Jesus’ time there were varying
opinions on the legal aspects of divorce. And it wasn’t about whether or not
divorce was legal; everyone pretty much accepted that it was legal. It was
about under what terms the divorce
could take place.
In his usual way, Jesus changes
the emphasis. He takes a question about legality and turns the emphasis to
relationships instead. That’s why Jesus talks about Genesis as he focuses on
the question. He’s reminding us of God’s original intent for us, which is to be
blessed by our relationships.
The other thing Jesus is telling
us is that this is about our communities, the places in which we live and
worship. This is personal too. Jesus uses the Pharisees’ question to point
toward the purpose of the law. The
purpose of the law, in fact all law in its original intent, is to protect those
most vulnerable.
In Jesus’ time, when a woman was
divorced, her living status changed. Without a husband, or a male relative to
protect her and house her, she was poverty-stricken. She lost her standing in
society. Her good reputation was gone. Jesus is asking how men of his time
could treat divorce like a convenience because it made those who were
vulnerable even more vulnerable.
Until now the whole conversation
has been about divorce. But at the end of the Gospel reading the subject gets
changed to those even more vulnerable than women: children. Jesus’ action and
words form another comment about vulnerability.
Once again, Jesus looks for and
blesses the most vulnerable: the children. He blesses those with no protection.
Just like women in his time, children were a commodity to be used, bought,
sold, worn out, and cast off.
And so, in the end, what we have
here this morning really is good news. The good news is that the community of
Jesus is a place you can come when you are most vulnerable, most broken, and
most in need of blessing. You and I have a place here because no matter how
imperfect, or inadequate, or incomplete we think we are, this is the place to
be. And it’s the place to bring your friends, no matter how imperfect, or
inadequate, or incomplete they think they are.
St. John Chrysostom has something
to say about this kind of vulnerability and the welcome of the church. It is
this: “Enter into the Church…for there is a hospital for sinners and not a court of law.[2] ” AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2018
[1]
Mark 10:2 (NRSV) Italics mine.
[2]
Exact source unknown, but from a series of sermons by St. John Chrysostom on
parables in the Gospel of Luke. Italics mine. This particular saying was in
reference to Luke 10:25-37 (Parable of the Good Samaritan).
06 October 2018
Sermon Mark 9:38-50 30 September 2018 Proper 21 Year B
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Jesus is king
of a lot of things and to a lot of people. In this morning’s lesson he is
certainly the king of hyperbole, or exaggeration. Hung by a millstone around your
neck and thrown into the sea! Cut off your hand if it causes you to stumble1
Cut off your foot because it’s better to go lame than to get thrown into hell!
Tear out your eye! Unfortunately through the centuries a person here or there
has taken Jesus’ exaggeration literally and done one of those bodily harming
things to him or herself.
Perhaps as a reaction to that kind of
biblical literalism, a few years ago I spotted a rather lengthy headline. “The
danger of ‘spiritual, but not religious.’”[1]
The description of the article said, “More and more people are rejecting formal
religion for a hodge-podge approach to spirituality that stresses positive
feelings. Alan Miller (the author of the article), argues that such an attitude
is a cop out that avoids having to deal with important questions.”[2]
I think it’s a temptation in today’s
pluralistic, multi-religious, grab-all-you-can-get world to scoff at the writer
of the article and even to accuse him of perhaps bigotry to other religions. Or,
to think he has an inflexible attitude about his own religion being the best. Whatever
his variety of religion is was not made entirely clear in the article. But that
in itself is an easy out and precisely what he is claiming in his article. The
prevailing sense of “bits and pieces” religion leaves much to be desired
precisely because it neither asks nor answers the hard questions and gives us
no tools for doing either.
Now do I like
the hard questions? No, no, and no! And I’ll bet you don’t either. For one
thing, they’re just…well, too hard. The Gospel is hard and confusing. And for another thing it’s got a multitude
of hard questions going on in this one short section of about a dozen or so
verses this morning.
One of those
hard questions is why we get so exercised about people running off and doing
their own thing instead of doing it our way. After all, the unnamed
caster-out-of-demons in the Gospel could be seen to support precisely what Alan
Miller complained about in his article. He complained about a scatter-shot
approach to religious belief that results in casting out demons but has little
depth or purpose other than for people to feel good about themselves.
When you look
more closely at our biblical story today however, you see this is not the case.
The difference here is outcome, outcome in both action and result. The writer
of John’s Gospel may have been more upset that the person casting out demons
was successful because the disciples willingly admit they themselves were unsuccessful.
How does that look to others seeing this new religion?
What this makes
me think about is how these same successful or unsuccessful actions are present
in the church today. One of the primary ways it shows up is in leadership. Leadership
from everyone, not just from the stated leaders.
Most of us think we would never sink
to using that time-honored phrase, “We’ve always done it this way.” Nor would
we be so rude as to say, “We’ve never
done it that way.” Episcopalians are
far too polite to say such things.
We might not actually say it, but our
actions in response to the “prophesying” of a new member, a younger member, a
child, a newly-on-the-scene clergy person, or even a first time guest can mean
the difference between the recognition and honor of new ideas and new spirit.
It can mean the dead end of failing to recognize the action of someone because
it isn’t our usual way.
There is also a
way to refrain from disturbing the status quo by simply not supporting or
encouraging something by what we do. We may not openly discourage whatever it
is, but we fail to actively support it. Ideas, programs, new classes, ways of
tackling administrative bottlenecks, all rise up and then sink back into the
mud if they remain unsupported by action.
Remember those times in scripture
when Jesus asks someone before healing them, “Do you really want to be healed?”
Or asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” Wise of Jesus to ask.
What a pity we often support and
encourage someone with a new idea or way of doing something and then gradually
withdraw our support through our busyness or our lack of presence. We show our
inability to decide we really want to be healed from the old unsuccessful way
to be free to improve or begin a new way. No wonder people with new ideas and
energy often just drift away.
We would never
be a stumbling block to one of these little ones who want so deeply to believe
in Jesus. We would offer them that cup of water. We would offer them that cup
that overflows and blesses. We would watch and admire and support their casting
out of metaphorical demons in our midst. We would support, encourage, and take
action to keep their new ideas alive and thriving.
We would
preserve ourselves for the future by being salty, by retaining the flavor and
goodness of all the meals we’ve had in the past. And, we would taste and see
that the new dishes offered by the new prophets among us are salted with support,
encouragement, and action. This moves us into a salty, well-flavored future
preserved by the new seasoning that keeps us fresh and open to Jesus in our
midst. AMEN.
The
Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2018
[1] http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/29/my-take-im-spiritual-not-religious-is-a-cop-out/?hpt=hp_c1 Accessed 30 September 2012
[2] Ibid.
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